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Tag: Marketing

  • Do Your Clients Know You, or Just What You’ve Reminded Them Of Recently?

    Do Your Clients Know You, or Just What You’ve Reminded Them Of Recently?

    Service businesses are funny things sometimes. Clients tend to pigeonhole your service firm based on what service you first performed for them. They rarely actually read the literature you leave behind, especially if it’s a referral, and they usually don’t go back and search it when another type of job arises, no matter how closely related to the first. So your first impression, your first engagement and your referrals tend to shape your brand for you in the customer’s mind, unless you steer it, expand it and broaden it on an almost continual basis.

    It’s an easy trap to fall into, especially for smaller firms, who may appear more limited than they are. I’m no exception to this unfortunately, although I try and avoid it if I can. I have one customer who only thinks of me in connection with trade show displays, because that was the first part of a multi-faceted strategy we recommended for them when entering into a new vertical market. Not that she doesn’t KNOW we offer a full range of marketing services, from strategic planning out to campaign execution and executive guidance, it’s just that I don’t reside in that part of her brain and I’m not connected to her other needs in a way that immediately comes to mind when they arise – I have to make a concerted effort to “remind” her that we are a full-service firm, so that we get connected in that way.

    How many of your customers or internal clients only think of you when they need or have a question about a very narrow range of elements, the one you did for them last, or first? It’s something you might want to explore, and you can test it pretty easily: Call them up and ask “Do you know that we also offer . . .” and see what the response is. Call under the auspices of keeping in touch, a good thing regardless, but hunt for that specific piece of data during the conversation. You might be surprised by the result.

    It may seem strange, but that’s just how the brain works – humans learned to survive by recognizing and remembering patterns, and noticing anything that breaks the pattern, like sensing movement in the brush created by a prey animal. Once a pattern is established, ala your firm performing a certain service, that pattern is retained and it’s difficult to change that perception.

    Here’s the fix: broaden your marketing efforts. Don’t go against brand, in fact if you’re a multi-service firm, this will strengthen that tenet of your brand. But highlight a different angle, a different aspect or subgroup of your offerings in a series of marketing launches – it’s like baiting a fishing line with different baits at different parts of the line – you increase the odds of catching something from the same pond. Even if you think you only offer one thing, and one of your brand characteristics is that you do one thing and do it the best of anyone, there are still different angles and facets of that “one thing” that you can use to “bait the hook” with. Try it, see if you don’t get the phone ringing with new business from old clients who “Didn’t know you offered that”.

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  • Old-School Marketing Can Still Be Effective – If the Math Is Right . . .

    Old-School Marketing Can Still Be Effective – If the Math Is Right . . .

    I just received a living anachronism in my mailbox today – a local vendor card deck.

    This format used to be much more popular, and was often used for B-to-B lead generation 20-40 years ago. If you’re younger and aren’t familiar with these, they are a package of roughly 3″x5″ lightweight cards, printed front and back, packaged up in shrink wrap like a candy bar, with one card acting as the “host” or sponsor and carrying the address block. Each card is a two-sided ad for a different local business, often themed around a group of industries or services pitched to a specific target group. For instance, if I were a deck publisher, and I was creating a deck to send to a list of recently changed addresses, I would likely target new movers by including paid ad cards from a roofer, a cleaning service, a painting company, a landscaper, paving contractor, pool company, lawn service, gutter sales and cleaning, chimney sweeps and other services that people moving into a new home or a new neighborhood might need.

    This one appeared to be pitched not to new movers, but homeowners in general, as it is addressed to me or “Current Occupant” and contained cards from a fence contractor, a counter top company, a landscaper, a pool company, and several others surrounding home ownership and renovation.

    I picked out maybe three vendors that were relevant to my life and my needs, and pitched the rest. The Host card offered a packaged up bundle of prizes by combining offers from three of the vendors, including a restaurant, a pool builder and an interior design firm. The offer isn’t very explicit, but the slug line offers FREE dinner for two, and drives you to a website that will inevitably explain how these three go together to help me win a free dinner for two at the restaurant.

    This format has lost popularity over the years, but at one time was quite lucrative. I know of direct mail publishers who churned out an industry-specific B-to-B deck every quarter, and went on vacation for two months until the next one needed to be put together. Once the ads are sold on a long-term one- or two-year contract, it’s just assemble, print, package, mail. Pretty simple, but the list maintenance was pretty high, in order to keep response levels up and advertisers happy and coming back, and the level of detail to get a larger deck produced correctly is pretty high – it’s like printing a magazine with no editorial and no binding.

    With the advent of local look-up directories on the Internet, such decks as the one in my hand are anachronistic at best, but they must pull and make economic sense to the advertiser, or they wouldn’t exist. Kudos to the publisher for making the math work for them and for keeping this format alive.

    If you’ve seen something in your mailbox that was unexpected, let us know, we’d love to hear about it . . .

    Don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

  • Think Twice Before You Hit Send

    Think Twice Before You Hit Send

    Everyone makes mistakes – I don’t care who you are in life, you’ve made a mistake or two along the way, it virtually unavoidable. In fact, making mistakes is often the hall mark of successful individuals – you learn more from making mistakes than from succeeding the first time out. The real trick is not only to learn from them, but also to avoid making them in future. Making the same mistake multiple times shows a lack of self-understanding, wondering why things go wrong as a result is the definition of insanity!

    One mistake I see many younger business associates make is to put something in writing and deliver it to a recipient before reading it and considering the impact on the recipient later. In the old days, if you had an unfortunate experience or got caught in some less than optimal circumstance, you could fire off a letter to the one who initiated this slight, real or imagined. This involved sitting down, composing the thought. Then you had to find a piece of paper, an envelope, a stamp, and physically write the vehement tract in longhand, place it an envelope, seal it, stamp it, and post it. All this took time – time to consider, reconsider, and with that many steps, many chances to halt the process, and reduce or avoid the impending damage altogether. It took effort to vent on paper, and usually only the intended recipient got to see the result.

    Today, with the advent of e-mail, the opportunity for electronic lunacy looms large. Many people spend entire days tucked safely behind a computer terminal, reading, texting, tweeting, e-mailing, posting on social media sites – communicating to be sure, but communicating what? It’s now much easier to fire off a venomous missive at the drop of a hat, with no real editor involved, either internal or external. A few keystrokes, a few clicks of the mouse, and off it goes, wounding and excoriating all in it’s path. And, in true millennial fashion, once its out there, it stays there. It resides on at least two server drives, yours and theirs, as well as all the one’s in between, and can easily be forwarded, used as defacto evidence, either for the authorities or in an internal investigation. And, it carries with it an IP address that leads right back to you – no such thing as an anonymous e-mail hate letter.

    Even routine business correspondence sent to the wrong place or copied to the wrong address can cause trouble. A quick note to a co-worker about what a jerk the boss was in today’s meeting (a bad idea to begin with, never commit such things in writing, it will always be read by the wrong person eventually)can easily end up in the wrong hands with a simple click that’s a bit quick, thanks to automatic address lists, group e-mail, and a host of other technological corner-cutting to make our electronic lives even quicker and easier.

    To avoid all of this, there are three simple rules:

    1. Read all e-mail at least twice before sending, starting with the subject line, word by word, slowly and carefully.
    2. If you wouldn’t say something to a person’s face, don’t write it in an e-mail, tweet, Facebook post or IM.
    3. Check all e-mail addresses carefully, and verify before hitting “send”

    Take a moment, think about what you’re writing, think about the impact it can have on other’s, and ask yourself what you would do and how you would feel if you received this message in your in-box. If there’s any way your message could be taken the wrong way, misconstrued, misinterpreted or taken the wrong way, edit, edit, edit. It’s free, it’s fast, and can save you hours of grief and tons of trouble later. 30 seconds of review now can save hours of explanation and hard feelings later, not a great bargain if you ignore it.

    Read before you hit send – the office life you save could be your own . . .!

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    Also, don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

  • The Devil’s In The Details

    The Devil’s In The Details

    Sometimes it’s the little things that make a difference in the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. I’m not talking about typos, color shifts, production problems etc. Those can be controlled and at some point there are enough eyes on the material that they will likely be found and corrected before too much damage is done, at least in the old days, before instant campaigns online became possible.

    Today it’s a little different, in that with speed comes a greater margin for error, often born of impatience. Get it out there, get it out there, no matter what the cost in accuracy or efficacy. The number of eyes on the materials has been greatly reduced, as the influence and assistance of outside vendors, editors, production artists, printers, mail shop workers, shippers, packagers, truck drivers, etc have been greatly reduced or eliminated. You can now “do it all yourself” and when the mistakes surface, you have only yourself to blame.

    The little things I’m talking about are those small details in the offer, those small production details like proportion and size relationships, and typography, and color selection, and all the other little elements that make up a successful mail campaign. Promo codes that work, addresses that are postal validated or permit numbers that are correct, phone numbers and web addresses that are accurate and that function correctly. And more importantly, concepts that actually sell the right product! You might think I’m exaggerating or embellishing for effect, but I kid you not, I’ve seen marketing pieces that appear to sell the wrong product. I mean wrong compared to the intent of the sponsoring organization. If you are a large manufacturer, and your product contains a licensed product or another branded ingredient under an specific arrangement, (like Laundry detergent with Fabreeze), you can stop reading here. That’s not what I mean.

    I’m talking about when the marketing team gets so involved in the details required to produce the piece, nobody has taken a step back and asked the critical question “What are we selling here?” Those little elements I mentioned above can indeed have a huge impact on the outcome of the campaign (think what could happen if you’ve got 4-5 sponsors or tests and each has a different promo code, and somehow the codes get shifted mid-way or they all lead the same place and don’t differentiate – your metrics are shot, you have no idea how to assign revenue, and your test is inconclusive and invalid – not a good day to be working in the marketing department). But if your focus of the campaign is off, you’ve fundamentally misdirected the audience’s attention, diluted the impact of your campaign, and wasted potentially a lot of money. When reading the copy, those first clues that the focus has shifted will likely emerge. If you get to the end of reading the raw copy, no images, no production, just words on paper, and you don’t feel motivated to find out how to get ahold of that product, start over.

    Laser-like focus is required for maximum results. Each word, phrase, image, element or choice should be selected and added because it enhances the power of the message, clarifies the intent of the piece, or aids functionality for the end-user to facilitate a sale. Editing is a subtractive technology. Good editors take the mass of information presented in the first or second draft, and selectively remove anything that doesn’t force the sale forward. What’s left should be crystal clear, high-impact, high-return marketing madness that drives sales through the roof.

    Once that’s achieved, test it, and mail, mail, mail!If you’ve thought it all through thoroughly, tracked all the leads, attended to every detail, checked every phone number, web address, promo code and list parameter, success is inevitable.

    The Devil’s in the details, so bold marketers, go forth and dance with the devil, knowing that solid preparation, pin-point focus, and data-driven logic are the weapons that help you control the dance!

    Write in your biggest snafu due to missing a small detail, we’d all love to hear about it and commiserate with you – hopefully it was long enough ago that you can now share a good laugh with all of us.

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

  • Change Is Good

    Change Is Good

    Change is generally good, for a majority of the people, a majority of the time. However fear of the unknown often retards the advance of change, and after a few surprises, it’s easy to become change-averse and fearful of the outcome of any change in our lives.

    Many people have experienced a change in the last couple of years that can be the most disruptive of nearly all events in our lives – the loss of a job. This has been ranked up there with a death in the family in terms of negative feelings, depressive influence and life interruption. Those who’s livelihoods and lifestyle was most dependant upon that weekly income are those most profoundly affected, and those who were the least prepared, i.e. having no savings or cushion, were the one’s that felt the pinch most severely.

    Those that embraced the change, reassessed their situation in a realistic, fearless way, were able to use their strengths, and send their lives in a new, positive direction. Many started their own businesses, gaining control over their income, their lives and their schedule. Some found new careers through retraining, additional education or volunteering through other organizations that lead to a new position. Change managed and channeled is change for the better, activity takes away the fear and returns you to a position of control.

    In business, change has to be carefully managed through frequent, relevant communication, strong leadership, and transparent planning. The less employees fear, the more likely they are to embrace the new order and get with the program in a positive way.

    The economy has forced changes on virtually every business out there, and some have managed those changes with the least damage to employees and their bottom line, and come out stronger at the other end as a result. Other have employed a more drastic slash-and-burn tactics, and are now hunting for talent, hurting for cash, and have lost market share to their competitors who were ready to gear up for growth.

    Marketing is often the promoter and enactor, a catalyst for change – how our company looks to the world affects how we work internally, which drives process change. New marketing programs bring changes in business processes, like customer service, order fulfillment, purchasing, invoicing, vendor selection, even physical plant management and HR. That kind of broad ranging change can bring some heat to the marketing department, but if managed correctly, can lead to a stronger, more visible, more progressive company in the long-run.

    Communicate often, make it relevant, tell workers what’s going to be coming down the pike, give them time to process and absorb it, react to it, vent about it, and accept and embrace it – once people get comfortable with the new order, they’ll wonder how they did things any other way . . .

    Tell us your most fear inducing change story, and let us know how it turned out in the long run, what your company did badly, what it did well to manage the change. We’d love to hear from you . . .

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