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  • Innovation – Courage or Survival Technique?

    Innovation – Courage or Survival Technique?

    Modern corporations that want to grow and prosper must innovate to survive and differentiate themselves from the competition. Simple statement, not so simple to do.

    Does your firm innovate? Are you a leader, first or second in market share in your vertical or industry? If so, you are likely an innovator in your arena. If not, you are likely a follower, and destined as such to toil away to maintain the status quo, fighting to find and keep customers, build sales, create and use buzz and maintain your brand.

    Innovation comes in a variety of forms, some in internal structure, some in product, some in technique or offering. And it doesn’t have to be something complicated. Sometimes the simplest thing is innovative. Just because it hasn’t been done that way, doesn’t mean it can’t be, its just that it seems so obvious, you think someone else must have thought of it before. Not always true!

    Like most things, especially marketing, it all starts with research. Figure out what others are doing, and improve upon it. Find out what the audience wants, and give it to them. Find out what causes your customer’s pain, and alleviate it.

    Sometimes the research can be done within your own company. Talk to customer service, talk to reception, watch how customers react to things, listen to their grievances, hear their stories, see how they behave wit respect to your product, or organization. They can tell you things about your company you might not know . . .

    Innovation can create challenges. That’s the point. You need an internal champion to shepherd the change created by the innovative approach throughout the company, to nurture it, to answer questions, to guide it’s development, to protect it from the nay-sayers. It can start at the top with a visionary leader, it needs buy-in from the top, and must have universal buy-in up and down the chain to succeed quickly and completely. Once that universal acceptance and understanding is firmly rooted, you’ll notice that champions appear, and the organization as a whole starts to embrace and live the story of the new offering – transparency becomes apparent.

    Once you’ve gone through this learning curve so you know the steps to innovation, you can apply them over and over again, creating an environment of innovation, keeping your company ahead of the competition, permanently!

    Innovate, differentiate, dominate! Sounds like a plan to me . . .

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  • Guest blogger Adam Schectman of Eye Catching Creative on Branding

    Guest blogger Adam Schectman of Eye Catching Creative on Branding

    Branding is one of our mainstay services – it touches and influences every engagement we have to one degree or another. We focus on it so you don’t have to. I caught this article by fellow SMEI veteran Adam Schechtman, and though rather than restate it, I’d simply repost it and give him the credit he so richly deserves! Way to go Adam, nice take on one of our favorite subjects.

    Guest Blogger: Adam Schechtman, VP of Business Development  and Marketing, Eye Catching Creative

    To brand or not to brand? That is the question so many small and mid-sized businesses tend to overlook in the early phases of their development. The problem is there’s a tendency to keep shuffling this linchpin of marketing success to the dark corners of the priority list. Then one day, we read an article or hear someone talking about a competitor and cringe in uneasiness because they did something we didn’t…built a solid brand.

    Like marketing in general, branding is easy to lose focus on, especially when we have experienced some degree of success. If you agree that today’s markets have changed and the way businesses DO business has changed, then it’s time to recalibrate some of your own marketing efforts. That means its back to basics! Like the “butterfly effect,” small improvements in your branding strategy can have a tremendous impact on growth over time.

    We know from marketing 101 that your brand is your identity. Beyond the visual or physical makeup… name, logo, advertising, a brand is quite simply the psychological impact you have on customers. Branding is so important because people buy emotionally and then logic steps in to support their buying decision. Your brand is essentially a part of the ongoing relationship you have with customers. It is a compilation of messages that differentiate (or don’t differentiate) your business, product or service from everyone else who plays in the same space as you do. Take a second look at the competition of today. If someone stands out, why do they stand out? Who doesn’t stand out? Which category does your company fall into and who might be able to help you to improve on that position?

    From your email address to your website, to how the phone is answered to the relevance of your marketing materials, your brand must be professional, consistent and CURRENT. What the company stands for and what you’re offering should be different and clear. When is the last time you really dissected how you are perceived in the market and what your market position truly is? One easy way is to run a survey using existing customers or even some customers that you lost. Resources like SurveyMonkey.com are fantastic, free, e-survey questionnaire tools that are easy to use and easy on the budget. So let me ask you… what perception do your customers have of your business? What does your presence in the market “feel” like to customers and professional peers (aka competitors) and more importantly… are you being felt?

    Adam Schechtman is an entrepreneur and co-owner of Eye Catching Creative, providing virtual, on-call design, advertising and marketing solutions to budget-conscious small and mid-sized businesses. With more than 15 years in marketing, business development and sales, he is also the former owner of Achieve Senior Home Care and former co-owner/franchiser of Advance Realty Solutions. Adam holds an MBA in marketing from Johns Hopkins University. Visit www.eyecatchingcreative.com for more information.

    Get the feel right the first time – we can help you with your branding research to give you the insights to get it right the first time! If you liked this, be sure to subscribe to this blog above.

  • Spring Tradeshow Season is Here – Are You Prepared?

    Spring Tradeshow Season is Here – Are You Prepared?

    In many business verticals, Spring/Summer is trade show season. If your marketing plan includes trade shows for your vertical or peripheral industries, and your booth selections and floor plans are set, now you’re facing the task of pulling together a strategy, designing and fabricating a display of some sort, creating collateral and sales support materials, and training staff to get the biggest bang for your trade show buck.

     

    That last piece of the puzzle, staff training, may be the most overlooked and the most mission critical to achieving your goals for each show.

     

    Firms we’ve worked with treated staff training for trade shows as an after-thought, making seemingly random staff selections, and handing them a brochure and saying “learn this” – not a good idea. Some firms who hire spokesmodels do this, but their goal is different and the model’s role is different than a staff person.

     

    If you’re going to spend many thousands of dollars leasing floor space, designing and fabricating a custom display, paying staff T&E to go to a show and work, feeding them, housing them, and paying expenses for them to entertain clients and potential clients, the people you send ought to at least be proficient enough to maximize the opportunity. Sending the mailroom manager, the receptionist, and two PR people because they are young, unattached, unconstrained and attractive will come back to haunt you when the results for the year’s sales come in. You’ll have a much harder time justifying your budget for trade shows if you don’t show good results. Sending the whole sales team may backfire as well, without at least a few technical people there to answer some of the tougher questions, and some senior management to run the show and meet with those key clients as a show of respect for their past and future business.

     

    Proper selection of a good mix of professionals to man the booth is only part of the equation. Making sure they are all on the same page, with the same message and a similar approach, pushing the same products in the same way, speaking knowledgeably about your products or services, is critical to a good show result. They should all be taught how to use their booth time productively, to make the most of the opportunity, how to engage prospects, how to qualify them, how to screen them, how to steer them to the correct individual internally, how to appear and how to behave when they are “on stage” in the booth.

     

    The other key element of trade show success is the follow-up. Studies by CEIR have shown that nearly 80% of all leads gathered at a trade show are NEVER followed-up. You paid for them, why not use them? When you calculate your cost of acquisition at that trade show for new customers, you’ll realize what a gold mine they can be, if you’ve done your homework and set up a system to make sure the leads generated get followed properly.

     

    Some companies do this extremely well, and they usually let technology do the work for them. I know of several companies that go to shows with a complete set of pre-written e-mail follow-up letters, divided into different levels of interest, different product interests or whatever their scheme supports. As soon as a lead is logged, either from a business card or through the badge reader system, an e-mail is issued to follow up, send links to the company website, impart additional information, give out coupons, keys to prizes, whatever. Sales people have the opportunity to add personal notes to these, to add specific answers to technical questions. Sometimes these systems are extremely fast – I’ve received e-mails on my smart phone within minutes of leaving the booth!

     

    Whatever system you employ, make sure the staff is trained to use it, and that they use it often. And remember, it’s not usually about quantity, it’s about quality. If there are lots of leads, but the resulting sales after diligent follow-up are low, maybe that’s not the best venue, and it should be reconsidered carefully for next year’s plan. On the other hand, if you only get five leads, but they all convert, your cost of acquisition will be very high!

     

    Trade shows are a lot of work, use a lot of resources, and can be an extremely effective tool for generating new leads and new customers, for polishing your brand within the industry, for launching a new product, or for doing product research. But without a properly trained staff, good follow-up mechanisms, and a solid integration plan, all those dollars and hours are for naught. Good luck!

     

    If you liked what you read here, and found it valuable and would like to read more,  pick up a copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

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  • What Salespeople Want Prospects and Clients To Know

    What Salespeople Want Prospects and Clients To Know

    (An open letter from Salespeople the world over to clients and prospects)

     

    Dear Prospect,

    As an ethical, professional, courteous sales person, there are some things I repeatedly encounter when interacting with clients and prospects that cause me some concern, and I think with a little education we can clear them up and interact on a more effective and profitable basis.

    1) I’m not trying to trick you, steal from you, or talk you into something that you don’t want or need. I’m a professional, and as such, know that it’s much more productive and profitable for me to keep long-term clients than it is to turn and burn a host of one-time victims. I thrive on repeat business, and the last thing I want to do is pull a fast one on you or take advantage of you.

    2) The more you tell me, the better I can help you achieve your goals. You wouldn’t lie to or withhold information from your attorney, and you shouldn’t be lying to or holding out on your accountant, so why do you feel you need to be guarded in your conversations with me? Are you afraid if I learn something I’ll use it to talk you into buying more? I’d rather solve your complete problem right the first time, so you’ll refer me to your friends.

    3) I talk to people all day long for a living, often about problems similar to yours. I might have picked up a thing or two from those conversations, and that makes my knowledge more complete and recent than yours is likely to be. That knowledge deserves some respect.

    4) Just because you think you can’t afford what I have to offer at the moment, doesn’t mean it’s a waste of my time to get to know you and your challenges. Take the meeting anyway, you might be surprised at what you learn, and at how I can help you no matter what your budget. Maybe not right this second, but at some point along the way.

    5) The more you trust me, and the better and reciprocal our relationship becomes, the more value you derive from it. Salespeople are out on the streets all day learning and solving problems in creative ways. I know things that might be of help, at no cost to you, if you just give me a try. The risk is really minimal, and the return can be tremendous.

    6) I have an ethical obligation to keep your private and corporate information to myself. I also have an ulterior motive to do so. I won’t last long if I go around blabbing client info to other clients, will I? I’m a professional, in it for the long haul, and keeping quiet serves any number of purposes.

    7) You won’t hurt my feelings by calling and telling me you bought from someone else. As a professional with some experience, I’ve developed a pretty thick skin, so don’t worry about my reaction, I can assure you it will be professional and appropriate. Please have the courtesy to return follow-up calls, don’t just let them go to voicemail and ignore them, hoping I’ll get the message – it’s rude and counterproductive.

    8) We can all use a hand once in a while. If I’ve done a great job, tell me so, and then tell two colleagues who can also buy from us as well. That’s the real currency salespeople live off of, referrals. It takes thirty seconds, is painless and free, and would really make my world better.

    9) The reverse is also true: if I screw up, please tell me quickly so we can fix the problem, get a solution worked out, patch things up and move on. Don’t let those issues fester and then just stop returning calls for no apparent reason – it’s not healthy.

    10) I’m just as anxious to solve your problem as you are to get it solved. The sooner we stop dancing and start producing, the faster we’ll both get where we’re going. I’ll be happy to answer any questions for your superiors, cover your behind, make it right, do whatever is required to protect our relationship, so stop worrying about it and start fixing it sooner rather than later.

    Hope you find this helpful in our interactions in the future. I think you’ll find if you keep these things in mind, you’ll get more of what you want, at lower cost, faster, and with greater enthusiasm all around. Be the hero of your own situation, and help me help you!

    Sincerely,

     

    Joe Salesperson

     

    If you found this enlightening and valuable in your business pursuits, be sure to sign up to receive this blog in your inbox regularly. And don’t forget to pick up a copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

  • Planning Tools You SHOULDN’T Use

    Planning Tools You SHOULDN’T Use

    Hopefully, if you’re a corporate marketer, brand manager, Marketing Director or Manager, you and your organization have a marketing plan that is reviewed every 4 months and updated, adjusted, reworked to maximize return on investment and protection and polish of the brand.

    If you don’t, you’d better get one.

    Most folks work toward having that plan include several different ways to measure their progress or success, often on a monthly or quarterly basis. Good for them. Not everything is directly measurable, but there are some indirect measurements you can use to gauge your effectiveness. Use them. Always.

    For those of you forming a plan, here’s a few common things that marketers face when crafting a plan internally. Picture the planning meeting, and get a good bead on the personnel included in that meeting. These are things you shouldn’t succumb to from those in that meeting:

    5) “We did it last year and it worked.” Marketers are supposed to be innovative, progressive, forward-thinking. Before you even get to the “and it worked” part, you should have a response ready that shoots this down. If you’re not moving forward you’re going backwards. Its a new year, use it.

    4) “Our competitors did it last year, and it worked.” See above, plus how do you know if it worked? Unless you have espionage reports from inside the competing firm, you’re guessing. Plus, if you’ve stooped to the level of stealing from your competitor, why bother planning at all, just steal theirs.

    3) “We don’t need new research, we know our customers.” Contrary to popular belief, your “gut” is not a primary research method, and won’t yield adequate or accurate data on your customers unless you have only one – you. Field intelligence is invaluable in helping to shape perceptions generated by research data, but if you use it as the basis of your planning, you’re missing a large part of your potential customer base. Why guess, when you can KNOW.

    2) “Customer Service only deals with whiners, we don’t need to include their data in the plan.” CSRs and receptionists who answer the phone are a major source of information on your brand perception and characteristics. They are also key sources of information on the clarity, transparency and effectiveness of your sales promotion efforts. When the complaint call volume rises, it does so for a reason. Find out why, and fix it. Then take the list of those affected, and send them something nice, and ask them to tell their friends how nice you’ve been. Converting complainers to evangelists is a very effective way of expanding your reach and polishing your brand. Listen to the CSR traffic and respond quickly, include that metric in your plan.

    1) “We don’t have results yet, but it looks like it’s working.” Some initiatives take longer than others to bear fruit. Unless you’re a start-up, you have at least some transactional data to work from, and can project results from that to gauge effectiveness of your previous efforts. If you really can’t get a bead on the impact of a campaign, don’t build your new initiatives based on that one – you could end up throwing good money after bad. Your plan needs to be broad spectrum enough and flexible enough to work around such issues without affecting the whole program.

    Now that you’ve killed off all the bad ideas in the meeting, you can entertain the new, innovative and intriguing ones that you’ve forced everyone to come up with by taking away their crutches.

    If you liked the thoughts presented here, find the best tools for marketing planning in my book, “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

     

  • Face-To-Face Works Best

    Face-To-Face Works Best

    If you’re a small business owner or manager, you’ve probably been focused on new customer acquisition for the last year or so, just trying to survive. You’ve probably tried and tested numerous methods of “getting the word out” in your local business community, using supposedly “tried and true” methods, like publication advertising, fliers in public places, trade shows, maybe e-mail campaigns, social media promotions, maybe some direct mail, coupon packs, maybe even radio or other types of mass media. If you’re like most we’ve worked with in this situation, the results from these efforts were mixed at best.

    What most of these types of promotions lack is brand recognition in the local community, and lack of focus, both geographically or psychographically, being off message or appearing in the wrong place to the wrong audience.

    Even in this day and age of technology and social networking, the most effective method we’ve found to initiate and foster working, professional relationships is fact-to-face networking. More information about you and your business, your integrity, your honestly, your competence and capability can be transmitted in a fifteen minute conversation at a business mixer than in a YouTube video, a Facebook profile, a LinkedIn resume, a brochure or direct mailer.

    Professional business networking is a conversation with a point. I’m not talking about those business card pass out fests, where you’re only goal is to gab and grab as many cards as you can and get out. I’m talking about educational, informative, honest conversations in a low-pressure, conducive environment, where real professionals can find out about each others’ businesses, get a sense of their goals, approach and vision, where you can gauge their position in the professional landscape, maybe meet some of their colleagues, watch how the interact with others.

    It’s an art form, and resembles dating in many ways. You’re looking for common ground, common experiences, common approaches or beliefs, that you can use to base an ongoing relationship upon. You’re looking for people to whom you’d trust your business, one you’ve worked hard to build, and you want to be careful with that particular property.

    Of course, there are limitations – you can only be in so many places at once, and you can only meet so many people in a given hour. But it’s not quantity you’re focused on here, it’s quality. There are some numbers involved, but they are less daunting than you might believe. For example, if you go to four events a month, one a week on average, you can probably meet 15-20 people a month. Of those, maybe 50% are worth keeping in touch with or fostering, for various reasons (competitor, never any need for your business, not senior enough to be decision maker yet, etc.). That’s 120 new people a year, each of whom represents a business, a circle of friends, associates, colleagues, family, neighbors and other relatives, who probably total approximately 50. That’s 6000 connections a year, every year, who now have access to you, if you’ve made the right impression on each of the initial contacts – meaning you haven’t talked their ear off, wasted their time, have expressed a sincere interest in their business, asked meaningful questions, haven’t said anything offensive, etc.

    If half of those connections actually investigate further, and elect to do business with you, that’s 3000 new customers a year. With an average order of $50, that’s $150,000 a year off single-transaction new business alone, let alone referrals, repeat business, upsell, and a host of other interactions. All for having a drink and a chat once a week. Not too shabby.

    Face-to-face interactions allow you to be you, and represent your business in a way that no other media or method allows. Making the connections is only half the battle, following up and nurturing those relationships, keeping them fresh and active is another story altogether.

    Go forth and network, and you don’t even need an Internet connection! Don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

  • Who Do You Seek Advice From?

    Who Do You Seek Advice From?

    Before all you English majors go off on me, I know the title is making use of poor grammar -but “From Whom Do You Seek Advice?” doesn’t really “sing” when used as a headline. Nuff’ said.

    The real question is, how do you select, solicit and filter advice on the topics in your life and work that matter? Most folks have an informal network of influencers and advisers, people they turn to when they have a question, want to validate a choice or point of view. Some have a small circle, some have a very large network of various family members with a range of levels of expertise. Sometimes its just that you want to hear another opinion, from someone who thinks like you do, who will dilute and sugar-coat their stance and feed your own back to you, just as a feel good.

    But sometimes, picking the right expert really matters. Sometimes its a case of hiring a professional who you happen to know under other circumstances. Selecting a realtor, picking a doctor or dentist, finding a tax preparer or accountant, an attorney for non-criminal work. Most of those selections are based on referrals or references from our known network of advisers. Sometimes the professional themselves is part of the network! But how do you really make the choice? Is it emotional, is it pragmatic, is it price sensitive, is it strictly relationship based?

    Studies have shown that reaching those influencers is the most powerful way to prompt word-of-mouth transference of brand and product information. But how do you find them and reach them? Most of the advisers who are non-family are close friends from various stages of our lives. College roommates, fraternity brothers or sorority sisters, high school buddies, team members from sports activities, vendors of various services we use routinely – familiar faces. To find these people and gather them as a list for someone else is virtually impossible – until now. Social media does exactly that and more. Those influencers and advisers are now called “friends”.

    That’s the real power of social media – reaching the influencers of your target audience. If you wanted to build the killer marketing app, it would be one that selects all the Facebook pages from people that fall into your target demographic based on data presented on the pages, and selects the five most prolific friend commentators that appear next to a question mark. You’ve asked the audience for help with a question, and those top advisers answer it. Select them and market to them socially, and they will bleed that influence into the key purchaser. We can only dream . . . so far.

    For now, we’ll have to settle for joining the online conversation in a corporate but personal way, and hope that those influencers see us, hear us, and most importantly, believe us, so that they pass along the attributes we offer to their list of “friends”.

    Keep at it, the tech geniuses will eventually create the key that unlocks the real monetary power of social media, and when they do, look out . . .

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  • Be An Agent For Change

    Be An Agent For Change

    At it’s root, marketing is about change. Changing perceptions, changing appearance, changing buying behavior. But if marketers are to conquer the C-level chambers and earn a real seat at the management table, they have to be an agent for change in the business. Simply executing within the frame isn’t good enough any longer.

    It’s up to us as marketers to lead the charge into the future, to examine and adjust business models, to question the status quo and come up with workable solutions, without reservations, obstacles, roadblocks, and excuses. Lots of platitudes surround this type of behavior, but the ones that i prefer are “Better to ask forgiveness than permission” and “If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward, there is no standing still”. Food for thought . . .

    CMOs have it within their power to revolutionize their businesses, they just have to give themselves permission to do it. Use the powerful imagination you were blessed with and put it in gear to create the next step in the logical growth path of your business, or better yet, leapfrog the next step and go ahead by two! The competition will never catch up!

    Change effected is usually change managed. Making changes for change’s sake is a short-lived phenomenon, one that shakes things up, but doesn’t move the needle for long. To affect long-lasting change, the path must be plotted before it can be blazed. Note the spelling, Plotted, not Plodded. You don’t have to take a year to plan the next two – change can be made quickly and still be lasting. Better to try five or six different things now than plan one thing perfectly.

    Go forth bravely, boldly, and be a change agent – you’ll be surprised what just the change in mindset will bring . . .!

    For more on becoming an agent of change, subscribe to my blog above, or follow me on Twitter @docpoulos – let me know what you think! and don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

  • 10 Things Marketers Can Do To Help Them Succeed In 2014

    10 Things Marketers Can Do To Help Them Succeed In 2014

    As the year 2014 hits the mid-point, I wanted to give readers some forward thinking, rather than reviewing the past year’s events – we all know what happened, and we can’t change it anyway. So, here’s a few basic things to keep in mind as you move forward through the new year:

    10) A “Market” Never Bought Anything – people buy things and services and ideas. When you think about or talk about your “Target Market” keep in mind that a market is actually a group of people, with ideas, moods and feelings of their own. If you can conjure up a visual image of a representative of that group, it can help focus your ideas and your copy.

    9) It’s The List, Stupid! All the creative design, top quality printing, conscientious mail services or hot offer in your direct marketing fails miserably in the wake of a bad list. Do your homework, check all the possible angles, find lists that make sense, that are fresh and accurate, and that have a recognizable reason to buy your product.

    8) Sheep Get Slaughtered, eventually. If you’re trying a new technique, a new media, a new idea or trend that’s being touted as the next big thing, ask yourself “How does this help me reach my stated goals, and how will I measure its impact?” If you can’t answer those honestly, you really don’t have a good reason for doing whatever it is. Just because a competitor is doing it, or “everyone’s” doing it, doesn’t make it right for you.

    7) Be True To Your Brand. Period. When you get ready to launch a new campaign, or start a new service, dust off your brand characteristics inventory (you have one of those, right?) and review those traits, and see how well your new idea matches up or illustrates those attributes. If you miss more than 25% of them, rethink the idea. You’ll do more damage putting out off-brand stuff than you can make up in incoming revenue or awareness.

    6) Test, Test, Test – You can’t do enough research, you can’t know enough about your customers, but their buying behavior in a real situation tells the strongest tale. Test as many variables in your mail campaign as you can, and trust the response data. When it comes time to review your results, the data will back you up a lot better than your “gut”.

    5) The Harder You Work, The Luckier You’ll Get – Ideas are like those tempera paints you used in grade school – the more you throw at the wall, the more color you get to stick. Keep churning out ideas and executing them as best you can with your time constraints and budget – if you throw out ten ideas and three of them bomb, that means the other seven were good enough and made up for the three duds. You win.

    4) Strive for “Works Well With Others” comments – the more people you involve and get ideas from, the better those ideas will become. It spreads the workload, spreads the blame, and takes advantage of cooperative vibe that really generates the good stuff. Don’t try to be Superman and do it all yourself.

    3) Lead By Example – Show buyers why you have great products or a superior service, don’t tell them. Don’t talk about features, illustrate benefits. Demonstrate, don’t describe – you’ll be surprised how much more powerful your approach becomes.

    2) Good Enough In the Mail is Better than Perfect On the Drawing Board – You can massage copy all day long, try different shades of blue until you’re blue in the face, but it’s not making you any money if its not in the mail. That doesn’t mean hurry through it, it just means don’t worry it to death.

    1) Trust The Data, Listen to Your Gut, Value Others’ Ideas – It all comes down to pushing more work out the door and having it be productive, effective and impactful. Don’t let ego make you an impediment to your own success. Keep fueling the idea machine with every resource you have, and you’ll succeed in spite of yourself!

    Now, go forth and market effectively in the balance of 2014!

    If you found the above list valuable, you can have this type of information delivered right to your inbox weekly, just subscribe to this blog above. And don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes” 

     

  • Integration and Personalization Keys to Success

    Integration and Personalization Keys to Success

    Every marketer is trained from the beginning of their career to attempt to get the most value from their marketing dollars – everyone knows that they’re scarce enough without wasting them! Usually that means running leaner, tightening expenses, negotiating fees, cutting costs, avoiding waste. These measures assume that there is nothing you aren’t doing to boost performance, increase awareness or response, extend reach or build frequency, expose the brand more widely or selectively. One of the most effective strategies we’ve seen pay off is media integration to drive support of the central message.

    As it turns out, American audiences like a choice. Who knew . . .? But good direct marketers know that if you offer a prospect too many choices, they may make none at all. No joy there. But if you offer them a choice and they don’t know you’ve done it, everybody wins. That’s what media integration is all about, creating those choices in the background. And, as an added bonus, which choice the buyer makes tells you something about them, absolutely FREE!

    Picture a barstool (don’t lie, we KNOW you’ve seen them). They have three or four legs and a seat, or platform. The level of effectiveness of that device degrades in direct proportion to the number of legs – start removing legs and the stool gets less stable to the point where it won’t stand alone, or even becomes dangerous. You can sit on a one-legged stool, but it’s not for the feint of heart! On the other hand, a five or six-legged stool can become unwieldy or unstable too – keeping all those legs the same length and flat is a challenge, or at best the extras are redundant and wasteful.

    What do barstools have to do with marketing? An integrated campaign to build awareness or drive enrollment or response can have several types of media integrated, each adding to the stability, and the effectiveness of the campaign, each message supporting the other media and the offer platform, like the legs of the stool.

    Say you were promoting a conference. You have a great list of prospective attendees, responsive, accepting of the brand, happy evangelists for your organization. You have good, extensive file info in each record, including phone number, mailing address, e-mail address, some transactional info and more. You’ve got a terrific speaker line-up, a highly relevant topic, a great location. Sounds like you’ve got a good shot at success, but here’s how to maximize the number of bodies in those seminar seats – tell the prospect about the conference in multiple ways using different media.

    You could mail to them, and the mailing could include a PURL that leads to a personalized landing page that showed their participation with your organization in the past year (or what they missed, in the case of a newbie). You could also send them a personalized e-mail with a slightly different PURL link embedded in it, that drives them to another page that shows their best choice in hotels or dinner location. You could also launch a robo-call or volunteer phone bank call a few days before the conference, directing them to the registration site for a last minute discount on airfare from a consolidator/partner. The e-mail also has a phone number included for audio registration, the e-mail has a reply feature for questions, the phone call lists an e-mail address as well as the web registration site address, and the registration page has a phone number for inquiries. You’ve now come at the prospect from three different directions, sent essentially the same message (attend this great conference) but shown them different facets of the conference, shown the benefits in the outgoing vehicles, and given them a choice as to how to respond to you (mail, reply e-mail, web registration, return phone call). Plus, the way they choose to respond or register tells you what mode of communication is the most convenient or effective for them, information you can use to reach them more effectively next time – FREE!

    Those three directions are the legs of the stool – each media supports the message platform, and feeds the other media: web, e-mail, voice, print mail. This sort of campaign might make it tougher to discern just exactly what is driving response, but as long as the response is strong and the meeting is full, the job is done, and most of these are trackable now so that dilemma isn’t as problematic as it once was.

    You can drive response to one media or another, but giving the prospective attendee a choice as to how they want to respond increases your odds of a response almost exponentially. Personalizing each medium makes each more effective than the generic version, further strengthening the campaign. By adding to your integration scheme with low-cost supports, (e-mail, and volunteer phone calls) you’ve maximized your resources and gotten the most bang for your buck, in some cases doubling or tripling your effectiveness, without doubling the cost.

    Check the campaigns you have running and see if they could benefit from an integrated approach. It may be a little more work, even if you re-purpose elements like graphics, copy, forms, e-mail templates etc. but the results are definitely worth it.

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