davidpoulos.com

Category: Leadership

Keep Your Audience Close . . .

As a marketer, I have a certain level of curiosity about my client’s customers, and how to reach them effectively, how to reach their emotions, to shift their perceptions, to alter their behavior in a way that helps them make the decision to buy, to join, to attend, to engage in some way. That curiosity is at the heart of all of our engagements, and as a research-based marketing strategy purveyor, we get to indulge that curiosity on behalf of clients every day, and after some discussion realized that we were all grateful for that.

Knowing your audience thoroughly and as completely as you can is what makes for marketing success. It allows you to speak directly to them in your copy, it allows you to offer them products and services and opportunities that you KNOW they will appreciate and will feel entitled to obtain. Knowing what they like, when they are likely to like or need what you offer, knowing what stage of life they are currently inhabiting, and being able to predict how they will react to a given opportunity allows you to present thing you have to offer in a way that other retailers and marketers can’t touch. Good research will allow you to do that, no matter what you’re selling.

Many of our engagements involve outreach in the form of direct mail, which allows clients to reach a wide audience with customized offers or pricing or product choices created specifically for that individual or group of individuals, with remarkable success. Mail may seem antiquated in an era of high-speed social media, e-mail marketing, wireless mobile this and that, but really marketing is not about tools, its about connecting with the potential buyer in a way that influences them. It’s about influencing them to consider your products and services for purchase. Purchases make companies money, period. So really, all the online communities, all the digital social interaction, all the sharing of consumer information really doesn’t make anyone any money until someone actually buys something.

What it can do is help you know your audience better. All the data served up voluntarily on a daily basis can help you frame a profile of your audience that’s more true to life than what magazines they read or what type of car they drive, and certainly provide more recent information. The combination of social media data and transactional data from retailers can be an unbeatable combination for marketers hoping to know their audience better. The data is available, now you have to figure out how to actualize it, to monetize it, to turn data into dollars.

The more you know about that target segment and the individuals contained within it, the better you can offer them goods and services they will find appealing. If it’s appealing, they will find a reason to buy it. The simple formula goes: data > knowledge > strategic appeal > purchase > data . . . in a big circle. It’s a good formula to keep in mind, and it feeds into the whole idea of creating a community. What makes a community, in marketing parlance, is that you have a group of individuals who have a reason in common to repeatedly participate in a certain activity, be it buying, or discussing, or learning about or something involving what you have to offer. The “in common” part makes it efficient to reach them and binds them together. The “repeatedly” part is what connects you to the data acquisition formula, and what gives marketers the “in” to offer them things they find appealing over and over again.

The real moral of the story is that the better you know your audience, the better you can serve them and the better your marketing will be to them, which in turn adds to your ability to serve them. Go forth and gather data . . . you’ll be glad you indulged your curiosity!

If you found this information valuable, and would like to read more, be sure and pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Guide”. . .

October 13, 2014
Rebranding Your Organization – Change Management At Its Finest

Imagine your future: Your brand identity has been in place unchanged since the organization was founded in the 50s; the marketplace has shifted; your brand characteristics are diffuse and have drifted and meandered virtually unguided for decades; your organization offers different benefits than it used to, because that’s what the membership has dictated; and the membership base has shifted away from the traditional manufacturers and service suppliers to a full range of peripheral industries around a few core large members. It’s time to rebrand! Now what?

Rebranding can offer your organization many things, almost all of them good. But to take advantage of them, you have to actively and proactively manage the change process. To do that, it all starts with research, planning, education and communication within your organization, almost all of it between your marketing department and the executive staff.

Start at the Top

Getting good data is key to making good decisions – that’s an axiom that few can argue with, but that very few organizations take to heart when making strategic decisions. Rebranding is a very strategic decision, so in order to do it with the greatest positive impact, some critical research is in order. A good, old-fashioned SWOT analysis will lead you down the right road in almost all instances if done honestly and thoroughly, with a little imagination thrown in.

Knowing your members’ needs, desires and concerns is also critical – it’s their club after all, and without them there is no need to have a brand at all! If you have a stranglehold on what role your organization plays in their personal or professional lives, you’re a good way toward the goal of crafting an effective new brand around that group of members.

Knowing where your organization stands in the competitive spectrum in their professional lives, and what goods and services they turn to you for, puts you even further down the right road. Ask the tough questions – if you can use a rebranding to jettison unsuccessful programs because your research shows that no one uses that program or doesn’t think of you as offering that, you form a tighter brand identity, and create an opportunity to offer something similar but better later.

The last piece of research should be to hunt for similar or related brands in your own and other related industries. If the one you want to use is taken, you need to know that before you get too far down the path, to avoid infringement of trademark problems later.

Create a Plan

Rebranding is an organization-wide event and it touches everyone in the organization to one degree or another. Some elements will take longer to prepare than others, so your action priorities should be ordered upon implementation times and logistic concerns, so that all the pieces come together at a specific point in time at the end. You’ll want to launch the new brand in a short, intense period of activity, to discourage backsliding and create impact. Some groups have tried to sneak the new brand in under the radar, with no fanfare or celebration. Those types of soft launches usually take longer to enter and become retained in the public consciousness among your audience, and ultimately cost your organization time, money and credibility.

Knowing your members’ needs, desires and concerns is also

critical – it’s their club after all, and without them there is no

need to have a brand at all!

Derive a set of newly-generated brand characteristics from your member research, and task your marketing department to create a summary statement describing the new brand in those terms. Use that statement to graphically craft a representation of its meaning and create the new brand. If done properly, it will carry all the critical information and translate those characteristics into an image that communicates them clearly. Your plan should map out these steps and give a rationale for each of them that makes concrete sense to the internal audience. That plan is the basis for your communication both internally and externally.

TEST, Test, Test

Most organizations don’t get it right on the first try. And most don’t know they’ve got it wrong until it’s too late, because they don’t test. Internal and external reviews, focus groups and first-hand interviews will give you tremendous insight as to the accuracy of the image in projecting your brand’s characteristics, and will give you insight as to the level and speed of acceptance you can expect among your target audience. If you meet with resistance, or it’s not memorable or not accurate, you can waste precious resources trying to correct it later. Research is relatively cheap insurance against launching a poorly-crafted new brand. Done correctly, it can give you the confidence to launch the new brand with pride and have it met with predictable success. This type of research has some nuances to it, and many organizations don’t have the specialized knowledge and skill sets on staff to do it justice. For them it makes good financial sense to hire out to the experts for this portion. Most cities have a selection of reliable research firms that would be happy to help you launch your new brand correctly.

Communicate, Early and Often

Once you have what you feel is the definitive brand identity nailed down, a little preliminary education is in order. The mantra that good public speakers and presenters follow will work well here as well: “Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell them what you said.” That first step, the advance alert is important, so that there is some warning, and the launch isn’t completely cold. It lets the audience know that there’s a change coming and they can brace for it. It gives you a chance to set the stage, set expectations and show a little of your rationale behind the change, show the advantages it offers and show the benefits of the change in a positive light. The better you prepare the audience, the faster your adoption curve will evolve, and the higher your acceptance level will be – and that saves you time and money. The more easily they accept the new identity, the less time and money you have to spend to convince them.

“Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell them

what you said.”

Repetition and consistency are two great keys to success. The more places they audience sees that new brand, and the more consistent that presentation is, the higher your acceptance will be. The repetition is largely a budgetary issue, but operations needs to get in on the game here too. As part of your planning, you should have conducted a brand inventory, showing each and every instance where your brand appears and in what context. Pull out that inventory and review it now, so you can order the list of changes in priority order.

The highest time priority should be awarded to the most visible instances, the places with the highest volume and widest impact. Letterheads, envelopes, business cards, forms, newsletters and other items that number in the tens of thousands used per year, and distributed in large numbers on a regular basis should come first, as those will give you the highest penetration for the dollar. Items like shipping crate stencils, and the sign on the building can come a bit later. Fax cover sheets, e-mail signatures, and meeting signs are often overlooked initially, but those are fairly high-priority items. Brochures, membership kits and the like, while produced in high numbers, aren’t distributed in high numbers, and have relatively low impact initially. Websites, blogs etc. change instantly (virtually) and should be high on the list as they are often the destination for many of your other marketing efforts. Take the ego out of your decision-making and use impact sphere to guide your priority decisions.

Out With The Bad, In With The Good

One of the resistance points you’ll likely encounter is the so-called “waste” that goes along with a rebranding. Backsliding and phasing in the new brand as supplies run low or out will slow adoption and give mixed impressions to the audience. Make a clean break, and dump everything that carries the old brand – don’t use it. Part of your planning and communication process should have been to influence decisions by those who resupply the organization, to help minimize waste. In the long term, getting rid of the 22 leftover tradeshow tchotchkeys with the old brand on them isn’t really a waste if it prevents an diluted message from being transmitted to your audience. Dump it all!

“. . . items that number in the tens of thousands used per year,

and distributed in large numbers on a regular basis should

comefirst, as those will give you the highest penetration for the

dollar.”

Timing Is Key

The decision on the timing of the new launch will differ from group to group, but one tried-and-true solution is to use the Annual Convention or other major meeting as a platform to launch the new brand. This type of timing gives you more bang for your marketing buck, and allows you to reach a greater percentage of your intended audience at once, in a controlled environment over a limited time span. It forces you to hit deadlines, to create a definitive point of impact and allows you to create the kind of repetition and consistency required to make this effort work.

Do The Paperwork

Don’t forget to record the date of first use for your new brand, you’ll need it for your new trademark application, which of course you’ve been preparing all along the way, to protect your new brand. File the initial paperwork as soon as the first use and three subsequent public uses can be shown. Launching at the Annual Meeting makes that easy, as the initial and other uses are all virtually concurrent, and you can show the quantities distributed and the reach of the new mark very easily.

Rebranding is a challenging process, but one that can drive all sorts of positive change throughout your organization. Handled thoroughly and thoughtfully, it can pay significant benefits in both the long and short term.

October 8, 2014
Do’s and Don’ts for Your Trade Show

Revisited due to popular demand – FOX news on Tradeshows, with some input from me . . .

By Cindy Vanegas Published April 23, 2012 FOXBusiness

Many business owners who eagerly pay big bucks to exhibit at industry trade shows often end up disappointed when it comes down to calculating the return on investment. Small business owners can minimize their investment or maximize their exposure through some simple marketing and partnership techniques that will help them get the most bang for their buck.

Position Position Position: On the trade show floor, booth placement is king. “Know where the prime spots for booths are when you make selections,” advised Eddie Lange, vice president of Exhibit Experts. Lange advised business owners to look for the direction of the traffic flow, the location of the main doors and the area where there will be food and drinks. He also warned entrepreneurs: avoid “dead-end aisles and large columns where people will have to go out of their way to find you.”

Partner-Up: If a business owner can’t afford a whole booth, try sharing. Some trade show organizers allow businesses to split space, allowing entrepreneurs to derive the benefits without incurring all of the costs. A careful read through of the contract will alert entrepreneurs to ‘subletting’ restrictions. Dave Poulos, founder of marketing company Granite Partners and former marketing director at a trade show production company, recommended business owners look for exhibitors whose product is complementary to theirs. “For example, a printer manufacturer could partner with a paper manufacturer. For every printer sold, the paper manufacturer could throw in some paper, and both business owners could share booth space and leads,” said Poulos.

Establish an Expertise: Often times, trade shows not only offer entrepreneurs booth space to promote their wares, but they also provide on-site educational opportunities. Business owners who develop a good relationship with show and seminar organizers should consider suggesting topics where they can serve as speakers and promote their expertise. This year Green Festival, showing in NYC, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles, invited people to apply to speak at the events by submitting a topic proposal.

SPONSOR SOMETHING: From a cocktail hour to chair massages or a popcorn station, giving attendees a treat for free is a sure fire way for business owners to ensure they will be remembered. Some trade shows restrict sponsorships, offering them only to exhibitors. Others are more flexible, especially if it is coming down to show time and they are strapped for cash. Poulos of Granite Partners recommended entrepreneurs work with vendors and trade show organizer to see where sponsorship opportunities lie, since often these deals can be worked out individually.

Read more: http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/entrepreneurs/2012/04/23/do-and-donts-for-your-trade-show/#ixzz1t4vzblSL

October 2, 2014
Building Your Team – Looking for Folks Who Aren’t You

There comes a time in most working professionals life when they are tasked with something significant and asked to create or build a team to tackle it. For some of us, this can resemble the team-picking exercise we all got through on the school yard for kickball – with predictable results: poor cohesiveness, bad management skills applied inexpertly, a lack of motivation and poor morale. In short, the project sometimes gets done, usually by the strongest or most domineering two or three, leaving the rest feeling disenfranchised or segregated, negated or worse, and a less than optimal project outcome as well. This is not a recipe for greatness.

Those who take a more strategic approach sometimes fare better, but not always. Those who look good on paper, and have incredible skill sets and diligence to spare, may not work well with others, may not mesh with the overall “gears” of the group, may not parse out their skills in a way that the team appreciates. The results are similar to the above, but with bigger egos.

Really good teams at their root have a level of respect for the challenge . . .

A recent view of the movie “Moneyball” reveals that business is not the only discipline where emotionally selecting co-workers can have negative consequences, but that even things that look good on paper may not work well in real life. It also illuminates the fact that there is a hidden “something” that all winning teams have that all the statistical analysis, investigative scouting, referral burnishing or other team-selection method will not reveal. There’s a certain “chemistry” among winning teams that is difficult to duplicate, harder to engineer or manufacture.

One way to set the stage for this “Chemistry” is to find individuals with complimentary skills, and personalities, and just enough commonality to let each be comfortable. Six big ego type A personalities banging around in there is likely to be a disaster, just as five or six introspective, analytical introverts. But two or three of each, with a couple of “neutrals” to referee and act as the voice of reason, and things start to look more productive. Sometimes pushing everyone outside their comfort zone has positive results, because the “adversity” acts like a bonding catalyst, sets up an “Us vs Them” mentality that motivates, coalesces, and helps the normally divergent skills and personalities converge to solve the challenge at hand, just to prove they can.

Really good teams at their root have a level of respect for the challenge and for each of the members that keeps things moving forward and fosters trust. The more difficult the challenge, and the more exclusive the team, the better this works. Setting the stage for this starts with the team’s nominal leader, showing an even-handed, rational and realistic approach to how they handle the others.

Team-building has to be looked at from many different angles and good ones are effective on several levels. A group of professionals who respect each other and each others’ talents and skills, and who also spend off time as friends, is a rare combination but can be a very effective one. There’s a certain element of vulnerability that helps cement things a bit more closely when you’ve seen the other team members let their hair down a bit and you do the same, put yourself out there a bit and show another side of yourself – let them in, and have them let each other in, and that’s where the “magic” seems to start.

. . . the “adversity” acts like a bonding catalyst, sets up an “Us vs Them” mentality that motivates, coalesces, and helps the normally divergent skills and personalities converge . . .

If you found this interesting and valuable, and would like to read more, subscribe to this blog above and more like this will be delivered to your inbox weekly – and don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

September 26, 2014
Just Like Rodney, Marketers Get No Respect . . .

I’ve been reading and absorbing a lot of chatter about the level of respect marketing professionals get (or don’t get) in companies across the nation. There is some debate as to how to justify and validate the need for such positions as CMO, Marketing Director and Marketing Manager – debates that tend to ignore the elephant in the room. The bottom line in most of these discussions is that if nothing is bought or sold, then there really is no “business”, and that without the skill of folks internally in a marketing capacity, regardless of title, no one would be aware that the potential for commerce with your business exists, and therefore no transactions could occur. So based on that logic, without marketing, there is no business. Yet, there is an ongoing debate as to why such people are needed, and what their value to the organization might be.

Why is this?

Is it because the rank and file are jealous that the marketing people seem to have all the fun – planning and attending big events, creating collateral, going on photo shoots, speaking with media editors and television stations, creating commercials, and the like?

Is it because other employees think they could do the marketers job, it doesn’t look too hard and they have fun, so why can’t I contribute to that?

Is it because with so many marketers out there, there must be a reason everybody picks that, it must be easy?

Is it because they have a larger budget to work with, and sometimes a larger staff over which to divide the work?

I’ve heard all of these postulated in one form or another, and many others as well. I’ve sat in meetings where senior executives questioned the efficacy of the entire marketing department’s efforts in the face of 10-20% business growth directly tied to specific campaigns! When the economy slows, such complaints often rise in volume and stridency. Apparently a rising tide floats all boats, but when the waters recede, the marketers that made the boat and kept it afloat are no longer effective . . .

As marketers, it is our job to facilitate contact and commerce from without the company by working from within the company. There needs to be a belief that an investment in marketing activity drives commerce far in excess of it’s cost, and that beyond that, criticism of the mechanisms employed and the means brought to bear are so much sturm and drang from naysayers. If a culture of marketing is formed and supported at the top of the organization, and communication of those efforts within the organization is fast, accurate and appropriate, that culture will flourish and all members of the company will prosper.

So, how do we spread the word of such simplicity, and earn the respect we deserve as facilitators of transactional commerce?

1) Do the job well, and get results that can be measured and proven.

2) Stop worrying about who gets credit, or blame, and focus on results.

3) Closely tie effort to results, and promote those results in reasonable, detached fashion – leave the ego out, and just state the facts without the superlatives.

4) Drive the volume of effort upward – not all ideas are good ones, and not all executions are perfect. But the more you attempt, the more likely one will be a success.

5) Innovate new ways of thinking and doing that drive success. Open your mind to input from unusual quarters, and give it it’s due diligence. You never know where the next great idea will come from.

6) Show that the work you perform every day has value to the entire company, that everybody wins when marketing is effective.

When sales slow down and the economy contracts, many companies go into “emergency” mode, cutting costs, laying off workers, creating an environment of fear and uncertainty, and delaying or outright removing opportunities for innovation – exactly the wrong reaction in a crisis. Many companies have been operating this way since mid-2008, and after six years the fear has turned to something else, killing creativity, halting innovation, and limiting possibilities for success.

This presents an excellent opportunity for the marketing department to shine! Teach the others how to do more with less – we do it every day! Show others how to think and work your way out of a problem – we do it hourly! Tell others how to prime your thinking to view situations rationally with an eye toward exploitable opportunity – we do that constantly!

Give away the benefits of your talents as a marketer, and the respect you deserve will return to you ten-fold – that’s a heck of an ROI in anyone’s book.

September 18, 2014
E-Mail: B-to-B Marketing’s Secret Weapon

We use e-mail for a number of purposes, both for our own marketing efforts and on behalf of clients or as part of their plans for growth and retention. I’ve always thought it was a very flexible, very effective medium when used properly. Unfortunately, some among the marketing community have overused, abused and hijacked this wondrously inexpensive way of reaching out to customers, prospects and others in a personal, accountable way, and given it a bad rap, not to mention fatiguing the general public somewhat, and cutting open rates.

A good copywriter, with a good list and reasonable data skills can make tremendous in-roads using e-mail in several ways.

Outreach

Creating a small community of purchasers or converting good warm leads into sales is what makes e-mail shine. It’s personal, it’s flexible, it can carry text, graphics, imagery, color palette, brand, everything you need to reach out to your audience, qualify the top responders, and keep providing them reasons to buy. It’s also fast, and fairly innocuous – if you receive one and it’s not for you, simply delete it – no waste, no environmental impact, no anger necessary. It’s also fast! You can get an e-mail campaign planned out, written, tested, set up, and sent out in a matter of a few hours at fastest, maybe a day or two if you have more elements to put together.

Customer Relationship Building

Now that you’ve created your own little “community” of customers, extending, building and broadening that relationship is a task that e-mail does very well, and most of it can be automated. Small shops, service-sellers and sole proprietors can keep in touch, spread the good word and keep customers up to date on changes, new offerings, schedule changes and availability changes, discounts, and a host of other semi-transactional communications with customers, keeping your brand top-of-mind, upselling, cross-selling, incentivising referrals and keeping your relationship alive and active, which directly contributes to the top-line, and moves the bottom line in a positive direction. What’s not to like? These types of activities used to take hundreds of hours a year, and the scope and frequency was limited. Now, not only can these messages be automated to be triggered in response to a contact, a purchase, a query, whatever, but they can also be tracked, quantified, monitored, measured, and the data can be sliced and diced any number of ways, letting you constantly test, tighten and improve your outreach and customer contact far above and beyond what used to be possible.

Prospecting

For those folks who’ve never heard of you, imagine their surprise when they hear from you not once, not twice, but weekly for a couple of months, each time refining and improving the relevance of the message until curiosity gets the better of them and they open and read your mail – score! Cost? No more than a phone call with a bad script, and more effective then you can imagine. According to Marketing Sherpa, 85% of CEOs have an expectation that e-mail will increase lead conversion/sales revenue, when only 65% of them put those goals as a high priority. In nearly every category, and there were 10 in total, e-mail beat expectation of CEO’s in terms of meeting business goals for which it was used. I can’t think of any other medium that can boast that kind of success rate and still stay under the radar!

Used thoughtfully, correctly, and politely, e-mail can carry the day for marketers, both b-to-b and consumer, at a lower cost per customer acquisition than almost anything else other than social media, and is more accountable and more directed that even the most powerful platform out there. Let’s hope the mis-users have moved on to something else and e-mail can return to business of business as we move forward in the new economy. Now, if we could just find a better launch pad than Outlook . . .

If you found this valuable, you can have more of this type of information delivered to your inbox weekly, simply subscribe to this blog above, and don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

September 11, 2014
“Relevance” The Only Buzz-word Still Relevant

Recently we were conducting some research for an association client, consisting of some preliminary phone group conversations with some of the Association’s volunteer leadership. The group had been furnished with some thought-provoking questions prior to the call, to sort of prime the pump so to speak, and they were very forthcoming and vocal on the call. Their answers and level of discussion revealed their passion not only for their industry and chosen profession, but for their association and their desire to see it grow and serve the needs of the industry.

As the call progressed, as in most such conference calls, several of the 8 or so voices started to monopolize the conversation, but as they were providing some solid insights, I let the discussion roll on in this fashion for a few moments. All of a sudden, one of the participants, who we hadn’t heard from for more than a couple of monosyllabic agreements since the beginning of the call piped up with a long, eloquent, involved response to a piece of the discussion – the questions had gotten around to something RELEVANT to her, and she jumped in immediately to contribute.

As I thought back on the call later in going over my notes, I noticed something in the transcripts. These leading members of this group had used the word “relevant” in their discussion of their wants and needs regarding the association no less than 20 times in a 90 minute call! Clearly, they were calling for the association to pay attention to them and to offer something they found valuable, that they could use to improve their work, status or professionalism. In reviewing our earlier work with other organizations, it became clear that many of them have a sector of their constituency that gets short shrift in the overall scheme of things. In our experience, the cry for relevancy becomes louder the more homogeneous your group becomes, and the minority becomes smaller as a part of the whole.

For organizations serving a diverse population, the need to take into account multiple points of view, diverse needs, forces them to think more broadly, to offer benefits that fit a wide range of sub-sector’s needs. When the group becomes more homogeneous and a small group stands off to the side, it becomes less and less cost-efficient to serve them with their own set of benefits and offers, to serve them in a way they are used to being served. This type of behavior is often a precursor to an association splitting into smaller, splinter groups, each with diverging needs and desires and expectations.

In short, the benefits offered the majority have failed to continue to be relevant to the minority group. Chances are, the main group’s marketing efforts reflect this, and if not corrected they will start to see participation, purchase response, renewal rates, and all the other touchpoints they measure decline for this one small group. This lack of relevance can drive the entire organization into a negative spiral if not caught early and rectified.

So how do you fix the lack of relevance? In a word, research. Most organizations will tell you that “they know their members very well”. It has been our experience that the more they say they know their members, the more they live by that assumption, and the less they really know the membership’s needs, wants and preferences. This particular blindness seems to afflict trade groups more so than membership societies, but it applies to both.

If you want to know what your members really think of you, and your products and services, ASK THEM! You’d be surprised how readily they will offer their opinions, how honest they will be under the right circumstances, and often how simple their needs are to meet. Once their inputs are incorporated into the organizations behavior, the association will start to experience much higher total lifetime values across the overall membership, much better renewal rates, much less cost to keep members, much less spent on recruitment marketing, and that effect trickles down through almost all aspects of your organization, creating much better fiscal health and well-being throughout.

Organizations that regularly and routinely poll their memberships, that ask intelligent, probing questions, in order to spot shifts in perceptions, identify under-served areas, failing programs, and budding successes, will predictably do much better then those who feel that surveys and other research are “invasive” or “irritating” to the members, and only survey them once every couple of years with the same routine and detached questions. Get to know your membership segments for real, reliably and recently, and use the knowledge to shape your education programs, to craft your conference offerings, to guide your tradeshow approaches and themes, to guide your publications’ editorial calendars, to adjust your website, to shift your media selection for outreach, and you’ll be amazed how much more “relevant” you are to the membership – even the smallest segment you have!

If you found this post insightful or helpful, and you’d like to read more, subscribe to this blog above – and don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

September 9, 2014
Get Top Results When You Crank Up the “Direct” in Your Direct Mail

By its very nature, direct mail promotions are designed to be one-to-one communication vehicles. As marketers, we are all aware of this in the back of our minds, but in practice, sometimes the “direct” portion drops off the map, and we end up producing unplaced promotional brand ads in an envelope. If you want o see the best returns possible from your direct mail program, make sure the “Direct” angle gets full attention.

There are several ways to rev up the “you” in your programs. The most effective one starts with the concept of the mailing itself. As you envision the final mailing, conceptualize your offer, the list, the copy platform, the thematic graphics and other elements, get a good fix on your target audience for this particular mailing.

The “It” Person

Now take this to the next level, and picture in your mind a specific individual who fits the descriptors and parameters of your typical customer in your target market. Ask some key questions about your mailing with regard to this person: 1) Would this mailing appeal to this person? 2) Is the offer suitable for them and their needs? 3) Would this copy and these graphics attract their attention and resonate with them in an emotional way? 4) Is there enough reason for them to respond, to pay, to write a check and send it in?

If the answer to any of those questions is no for that mythical person in your head, then adjust, correct, edit and revamp until the answer is yes to all of them.

Copy is King

Many of these personal elements start with the copy. Often, the offer is what it is, and either can only be changed minimally to match the audience or is inviolate based on the time and resources available. If you’re in that box, then the solution is to start with the copy.

The word “You” is extremely powerful – indeed, you can’t write a true direct mail piece without it. If your copy speaks directly to that person in your mind, you are by fiat having that one-to-one conversation, and must use “You” to address that person directly, in first person voice. In today’s highly digital climate, the use of a person’s name in the copy is almost passé, but you would be surprised how little it actually gets used, aside from personalized laser letters. For postcards, fixed multi-page packages, and other formats, digital technology allows for the use of the recipient’s name and other information in repeated appropriate fashion, to juice up your message and really push the audience’s emotional buttons. This will drive your point home almost as powerfully as the word FREE in the offer, and will draw in the reader and involve them in your description and your message.

Good copy for direct mail should tell a story. Listing benefits, describing features has its place, but the meat of the piece is a message directly specifically at the reader like there is no one else around, and it’s just the two of you having a short conversation. The story should be illustrative, persuasive, cohesive, and have a point. No matter how long it is, (and there are endless debates about copy length – see Hershel Gordon Lewis for details on both sides) you should make a point, explain why your point is the best, make your point again, and get out after asking for the order.

Let the Data Be Your Guide

To be able to write persuasive, effective copy, to concoct an effective working offer, you have to really know the audience. You can get to know the audience, but to do that, some research is in order. Carefully select your list to be as homogeneous as possible, to select as many similarities as you can to define the audience as finely as you can. That list if selects is the basis for your research. In order to get to know those people (and a market never bought anything, people buy products), you have to have an actual conversation with a few of them, to pick up the subtleties, the similarities and the things that really push their buttons emotionally that get them going, that get them excited.

To help visualize the audience better, pretend to have a conversation with someone representative of the target group, and ask yourself these questions:

1) How does this person speak, what word choices do they make?

2) How do they synthesize the information you are presenting? Do they parrot it back to you verbatim, or do they absorb, summarize and paraphrase your concepts?

3) Do they pick up and use any jargon you use related to the product?

4) Does the product seem to be something they need, or just want?

5) Do they seem to understand the product you are offering or are they just being polite?

These ideas should give you plenty of ammunition with which to shoot down your current work and start from scratch, to really personalize your direct mail and make them truly “Direct” to the audience. Apply these techniques to your last project, recreate it with the new approach, and A/B test it against your control – you will be surprised at the results.

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September 2, 2014
Engaging Customers – Modern Thought on Reaching the Current Consumer

Recent economic indicators describe a consumer climate that is different than virtually any in recent history, and consumer product and service businesses are having a tough time closing sales and encouraging sales traffic, both brick-and-mortar and online. This enforced stinginess on the part of consumers is wide-spread but not universal. Some products fly off the shelves and some companies are wildly profitable, while the majority seem to be pushing a rock uphill.

Consumers are caught in a vicious cycle economically, have been since 2008. Profit is down on a per unit basis, write-downs and charge offs notwithstanding. Employment is down from knee-jerk reactive cost-cutting measures trying to stem the tide of red ink, the unemployed numbering in the many hundreds of thousands, and the underemployed doubling that. Equities in general have been stumbling along the bottom of the trough for the last two years, with a 3% growth number putting them back at break-even since before the crash. Spending is down, savings are flat, foreclosures are restarting their relentless march, debt is way too high, both consumer and governmental, and consumers are cautiously nervous.

For retailers, this is the perfect storm of nightmares. Consumers are too scared to make those bigger purchases due to income uncertainty. Retailers won’t or can’t hire due to low margin, and can’t add jobs, reducing the unemployment numbers. Investors get lousy returns, and therefore can’t invest in riskier companies, so they can’t expand and add jobs. Consumers who have jobs are unsure they will keep them, but are doing the work of three and trying to keep their own head above water, cutting back on discretionary purchases. So, as a marketer, how do you break through the fear and engage consumers? In a word, “Trust”.

If you scan the list of most profitable or growing consumer product corporations*1, you’ll notice that they don’t have a common theme in terms of product offering, or price point or position in the marketplace, although they all tend to be number 1-4 in their category. The common thread among them won’t likely jump out at you from the list itself, but if you dig a little deeper, the theme becomes clear. These growing, smart, stable companies have been conservative in their growth plans, aggressive in defense and development of their brand, and firm believers in keeping their brand promise, leading to outstanding customer loyalty. They make products that people want and need no matter what their economic circumstances, and maintain loyalty through consistent quality assurance, product development speed and flexibility. In short, they give their customers what they want, and have done so long enough and consistently enough to have garnered long-term customer loyalty, and more importantly, trust.

1 List compiled by Seeking Alpha, copyright 2010

As marketers, we can’t often affect many of the attributes listed above that these firms have in common, but the few that we can, need to be the very best expression of the brand promise to establish that trust. We can’t affect QA directly, for instance, but we can certainly pitch the promotions to the correct consumer level and keep public perception on the right aspects of the product if QA is spotty or suspect. Product development is sometimes seen as Indian territory for the marketing department, but in these high-profit companies, our studies show that marketers are deeply involved in not only accumulating consumer data to feed product development, but provide assistance and expertise on consumer preferences, brand extension and alignment, and even assessing product features and elements, to be sure they meet consumer preference and demand. Perhaps this characteristic above all others may be the critical element in the continuing romance between these companies and their customers. In almost every case, companies that get the marketing staff involved early in the development process and have a defined process for creating, developing and launching new products are more nimble, responsive and profitable than those who simply launch and market products after the fact.

That’s great for companies that create a range of new products regularly or update their flagship product routinely. But what about some of those firms who have been riding the same product year after year? How do they engage their customers and engender such loyalty to the brand?

Many established and older brands that have let research and development languish, either through lack of resources or short-sighted thinking, find that they need to create or establish a new angle, a new application, a new extension of the existing product to create interest from new customers and renew interest from existing customers. Clorox might be an example of this, especially 10-15 years ago. Household bleach is a staple, has few innovations or moving parts, and aside from updating the package, and not much of that, it is basically unchanged since the 50s. Recently, they have innovated within the category, created new applications for the product and formed partnerships with other products to bundle or reinforce their products. Adding their product to other cleaning products gets the brand into households that might not welcome them otherwise, and sets or reinforces the expectation that bleach is an enhancer of cleanliness. Making the product “portable” in the form of a stain removing stick was a recent innovation that was launched in response to consumers’ increased mobility and need for instant gratification. Yet despite it’s age, Clorox continues to move off the shelves in predictable and growing fashion and avoid becoming a commodity, despite strong shots from competitors, generic versions manufactured overseas, and reduced profitability from price increases on raw materials and distribution challenges. A marketing team that can come up with a new angle for a 50+ year old product is a strong, flexible one indeed. What has kept them going is strong customer loyalty, and trust in the quality and integrity of the product to perform as advertised day in and day out over many years.

But engaging customers doesn’t always mean product innovation, or even marketing innovation. Sometimes it has more to do with taking the appropriate approach based on customer’s expectations.

One of the companies on this list, Harley Davidson, is a champion at delivering it’s message in the most appropriate medium for it’s audience’s digestion. But that hasn’t kept them from being innovative in order to engage the customer. Over a century old, Harley’s target customer is also getting older, and that demographic is populated by notoriously slow adopters of new technology. Harley does much of it’s marketing through the dealer channel and through event and sponsorship presence.

They host rallies, rides, and other gatherings of product users through an extensive network of dealers and repair facilities coast-to-coast, and know their customer well. They have a huge array of licensed products and aggressively protect their brand in each of these arrangements, selecting only the highest quality materials, workmanship and designs to put their name on. This is one of the most traditional marketing models out there, and it still works very well. You would not expect them to have a huge online presence or use internet resources extensively to reach a 50+ age audience. Yet they have taken advantage of the social media phenomenon to help spread their message via word of mouth among their vast network of customers, creating Twitter accounts, a strong presence on Facebook with nearly 2 million friends. Other efforts include each dealer’s own FB page and own website, all of which have access to the manufacturer’s site, news, product info, dealer locator and more, plus license holder sites. All of this is used to promote new products, showcase product innovation, and get customer feedback, monitoring the electronic conversation and reacting quickly to customer input, engendering even greater loyalty and trust. It’s the message, not the medium that counts.

Engaging customers also has to do with relevance. Being relevant to your customers may seem like everyone’s goal, and indeed it might be, but these profitable companies seem to have it innately present in their corporate DNA. These companies constantly seek ways to enrich their customers’ lives, and find new ways to be part of them. Coach, Inc., might be a good example of this. The luxury brand has innovated a number of approaches to meeting the needs of its niche market’s need for upscale handbags and accessories, leveraging their brand strength over a series of related products. If you purchase a Coach bag, with its famous lifetime warrantee, and it’s likely you’ll be informed about other Coach accessories, and often buy them, with the assurance that each product, either direct manufacture or licensed, will be made with the same level of care and quality, and at the same price point in the market. If you are a Coach-level consumer, you make it your business to show it, by buying the branded products that prove it. This elite, exclusive approach works very well for them, as it ramps up the relevance in their customer’s lives.

As marketers, we have a huge volume of information and research data available to us regarding consumer trends, preferences, and behavior. It is up to us to responsibly use this data on OUR customers, to craft innovative, trustworthy, relevant outreach messaging to engage our customers to create brand trust, and drive sales and profits to where they need to be. Most of that trust and relevancy comes from the correct and appropriate use of that data to craft messaging that resonates with the target consumer. Transparency, honesty, relevance and trustworthiness are key to achieving these goals, and you can see the results of such activity reflected in the marketplace and the bottom line.

This article can be downloaded in PDF form as a white paper.

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August 22, 2014
Brand Effectiveness Key to Membership Growth, Part II

Here’s part II of yesterday’s post . . .

Brand Effectiveness Key to Membership Growth – Part 2

In Part One, we discussed using in-depth member survey work to boost the visibility, awareness and effectiveness of your organization’s brand, and how it can directly impact your ability to recruit and retain members. If your organization isn’t the first thing member prospects think of when they turn to industry issues, there’s work to be done.

Your survey may provide mixed results that don’t show a clear direction. Often this is an indication that there is a disconnect between the brand you put out to the external world, and the one you use to craft the questions! That alone tells you something, and a series of follow-up interviews with the same basic set of queries to the external and internal groups should help clear up the discrepancy.

Other sources of data can help you check your brand effectiveness as well. Interviews with those alternate stake holders should be couched slightly differently, and can use more “insider jargon” in the questions, as their awareness starts off at a higher level. They can give you a median read, between the internal and the external, and this can often help you reconcile the disparate results mentioned above.

Take Stock

An inventory can be helpful in analyzing your brand’s effectiveness. Simply create a list of all the places where your brand appears, in what context, what medium, attached to what product, message or outreach vehicle, and see if they seem to have an obvious pattern, if they are aligned. Often pulling samples from the archives and lining them all up together can be very enlightening. You may be unaware of a brand shift that may have occurred over time, small miscues that send a less the consolidated message to the recipient. One example of this is when an outsource vendor or contractor uses your brand in their program, and it doesn’t match your normal set of brand characteristics. If you are seen as a very sophisticated, august and professionally ethical branded organization, and an outsider puts your logo as a sponsor on a ticket giveaway coupon for a concert, that would be a brand slip or miscue. If several of these items have crept into your inventory, it may be time to put some tighter controls on the use of your brand, and provide some increased education within the organization about the importance of protecting the brand and how to use it properly.

Top of Mind

Keeping memorability high is another positive effect of a well –aligned and effective brand. If your brand is consistent with individual experience, that experience will be more memorable. L.L. Bean shows a great example of this. Their “Return any time, no questions asked” return policy has been with them since virtually the beginning of the company. They were so confident in the quality of their products, they couldn’t dream of anyone sending them back, and thus the perceived risk of such a policy was low. That policy became part of their brand, and is now a deeply embedded positive characteristic, so much so that there was near revolt when a senior staffer proposed eliminating it to help save money. As it turns out, their return rate is notably lower than their competitors, and the savings realized would have been more than offset by the damage to their brand as a trusted, honorable retailer of fine outdoor merchandise. As a result, when you get an L. L. Bean catalog in the mail, you instantly put in the back of your mind that the purchase from there is of lower risk, and therefore a greater possibility, as a result of that policy. That gives them a competitive advantage, and keeps their customer retention high and their loyalty even higher, due to the memorability of that policy.

Brands Aren’t Built In A Day

If you’ve launched a new product, are a new organization or subgroup within a larger organization, you know the difficulty of setting the stage for a lasting brand. It takes many, many customer touches to build a brand effectively, and with non-profit, member driven organizations, the rate of touch is often affected by budgetary constraints. That puts the building process on the slow track, as the mailings, e-mails, directories, guides, meetings and other activities slowly mount up in the member’s mind. Each piece of the building process must be consistent, and have relevance and meaning for the recipient, or you undo much of the positive work up until then. Be patient. It can take years for an organization to reach a highly memorable, effective state with its brand, and many a good program has been discontinued by impatient senior staffers with a more cautious eye on the bottom line than knowledge of the branding process and its benefits.

If your brand message aligns with expectations, your touch rate is predictable and rising, and your organization has shown relevance for the audience it wishes to serve, you’re on your way to a highly effective brand.

If you’re concerned about your brand’s health, effectiveness or strength, and would like to take advantage of our expertise on these topics, be sure and subscribe to this blog, and pick up a copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

August 13, 2014