Direct Mail Is Alive and Well, Thank You

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Marketing fads come and go. Marketers today have a bewildering array of choices never seen before. Consequently, busy business owners don’t always know who to listen to in order to find what is working most effectively right now. Everyone can claim their systems and tools are the secret to a never-ending stream of prospects and customers.

Is Direct Mail Worth Exploring For Your Business?

Have you noticed that many of the Internet companies (like Google, among others) have been increasingly turning to direct mail to advertise their services? The reason is that old school direct mail worked long before the Internet and has been working for smart marketing in businesses all along. It just happened not to be the flavor of the day, thereby not getting much attention.

Now that the furor and publicity surrounding the “free” aspect of social media marketing has settled into the reality that free doesn’t necessarily equal real customers, smart marketers are looking for real campaigns that result in real customers.

Living Together in Harmony

Leveraging one proven marketing channel is great, but taking advantage of two or more is better. As effective as one channel may be, you limit the potential impact when using a single platform. With an integrated marketing strategy, you position yourself to maximize the real potential of your campaign.

The truth is that direct mail can still deliver real results when done correctly. In fact, direct mail works even better when coupled with email marketing and Internet marketing. When coupled with other channels, direct mail has the capacity to be even more targeted, personalized, and effective than when any of these channels are implemented alone.

To make this work and deliver results, it’s very important that the messaging and branding be consistent across all the channels you use. The logo, tag line, messaging, design, and colors used in one campaign should be reinforced across all media to generate stronger results and a more powerful impression. Consistency allows each campaign to feed off the other and deliver a bigger bang for the investment.

This is how big brands are able to leverage the power of multimedia messaging. Today, with the availability of affordable, short-run digital printing, you don’t need a large budget. It’s realistic and available for businesses of all sizes.

An example of a campaign that works extremely well is a new customer campaign. Nothing shows appreciation like a nicely designed, professional-looking direct mail piece delivered to your new customer soon after they become a client. People know that an email costs nothing to send but that a direct mail piece has a real cost.

Now you can follow that up with some informative emails to educate your new customer about how you can help them solve their problems. In the emails and direct mail pieces, ask your new customer to also connect with your brand on social media. Now you can further develop a bond with your new customer by sharing your values and core messages across all media.

Marketing success is about momentum. An integrated, multidimensional campaign, implemented consistently throughout the year, keeps the marketing ball rolling forward. This allows your business to be fresh on prospects’ minds when they’re ready to buy. The more consistent your brand, marketing message, and integrated approach, the better your results will be.

Your customers consume information in different ways. You can’t guess or assume one is better than another. Showing up in the physical mailbox, in their email inbox, and on the web assures that your brand is leaving no stone unturned. Having an integrated marketing strategy assures your business will be seen and heard. If just showing up is half the battle, then implementing this multidimensional approach is your call to action to make yourself ready for new customers on the business battlefield.

5 Words That Can Change Your Business

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140259547Behind the scenes of your business, you make products or deliver services. But on the front lines, where interactions with customers occur, you have to deliver more than that in order to have a dynamically growing company. You must deliver a promise and hope.

The promise revolves around the benefits your actual products and services deliver. The hope is what can set your business apart from all the other companies that promise to deliver the same things you do.

People want to believe in your company and what you can deliver, but many have become jaded due to the culture of over-promising and under-delivering that is all too common in the marketplace. To get past this wall of skepticism, you have to deliver more.

Companies like Coca-Cola, Apple, Starbucks, and Disney World took off when they figured out they were selling much more than a soft drink, computer, coffee, and theme park rides. These businesses understood that in order to stand apart from their competitors, they had to tell their brand stories in a way that resonates with customers.

Coca-Cola sells refreshment, happiness, and harmony. Apple sells a delightful user experience to consumers in a hip, cool way. Starbucks sells the “third place experience” — a place to get away outside our home and business. Disney World sells memories that last a lifetime.

The common theme among the great brands of the world is that they have found a way to transcend beyond their products by asking this simple, yet powerful five-word question:

What are we really selling?

People aren’t really interested in what you sell, but they may be very interested in the benefits you can deliver. These benefits in turn must be told in a way that attracts and connects with your target audience.

How You Can Apply This in Your Business?

You’re probably thinking to yourself that this may do wonders for big brands, but how does it apply to my small business?

  • Take a step back from the day-to-day operations of the business, and think about what you’re really selling. Railroad companies thought they were in the rail business, when they were really in the transportation business. Think about the larger implications around the results you deliver to your customers.
  • Next think about this question: What do my customers really want from our products and services? Ask your best customers why they really do business with you. Look for common themes in the answers.
  • The final step is to take the concepts you’ve arrived at and focus on what would move your best prospects to buy what you sell. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask some friends and associates if your idea would move them to act. Then test your ideas by presenting them in your ad copy in print, on the web, and in all your other marketing channels. Test until you find the winners. The sales result will show which one is the winner.

Take these five words: “What are we really selling?” Print them out and put them in a prominent place you can see every day. Your answer to the question will form the core around which your business and your marketing should revolve. Answer this five-word question in a way that exceeds the experiences your target market is seeking, and you’ll see your business grow like magic.

5 Keys to Getting Past the Gatekeeper

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In business, the term “gatekeeper” refers to the person who has the authority to control access to the decision maker in the company. The gatekeeper guards and monitors traffic to the person in charge. In most companies, getting an appointment with the decision maker requires getting past the gatekeeper.

Selling to the decision maker requires learning the art and skill of gracefully getting past the gatekeeper. Here are five keys to help you get started:

Key #1: Speak with authority.
Whether you’re the CEO of your company or not, you need to speak with confidence. You want to be perceived as a person of authority making the call. Speak with authority, assurance, and self-confidence. Gatekeepers are trained to keep salespeople out but are much more likely to let an authority figure through.

Key #2: The gatekeeper is your friend.
The gatekeeper can be your ally if you treat them with the utmost respect and courtesy. Remember that they have a job to do and that they may even have the power to make decisions on whether or not to buy. It’s vital to recognize from your first contact that dealing with a gatekeeper can be a make or break proposition.

Key #3: Ask for help.
Everyone likes to feel useful and helpful. People like to help others, but few like to help a salesman. Put yourself in the position of a person needing help instead of a pushy salesperson. You can quickly disarm a gatekeeper by asking questions to help both of you. You want to speak with the correct person, and they don’t want anyone wasting the time of the person they are protecting.

You can accomplish this by asking a simple question right at the beginning. For example, “I provide (your services) and believe that (decision maker’s name) is the person that I should be speaking with. Is that correct?”

By asking for help in this way, you have gotten to the point quickly and have empowered the gatekeeper to either begin the conversation by asking you to set an appointment or by directing you to the right person.

Key #4: Referrals are a big help.
Obviously, having a name to use as a referral to the decision maker can help pave the way in getting past the gatekeeper. Another, less used referral method occurs when you make an initial call to a company and someone informs you that you should be speaking with someone else (and gives you that person’s name). Using the name of the person you spoke with as a point of reference when calling the person they referred you to can help to break the ice and move you past the gatekeeper.

Key #5: Make it fun.
Very few people will admit that they actually enjoy making a cold call. You can help take the drudgery out of it by setting goals for yourself and building momentum from there. Begin by setting up a variety success metrics, such as finding the right decision maker’s name, determining the best times to call, leaving your name and number for a call back, and making a small connection or bonding with the gatekeeper. Success can mean more than getting through to the decision maker and setting up an appointment. Celebrate the smaller victories along the way.

There’s truth in the adage that cold calling is a numbers game. The more calls you can make, the more chances you’ll have of getting appointments and closing sales. Likewise, the more positive contacts you can make with a gatekeeper, the better your odds of turning that person into an ally who will let you through to the decision maker you’re hoping to reach.

Are You a High-Margin Business?

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Achieving profit is the real goal of being in business. Profits are what allows a business to invest and grow. Some businesses have higher profit margins than others. That can be due to the type of industry, the competitive landscape, and economic conditions.

There’s often a direct correlation between the margins a business can charge and the amount of pain their products and services help to ease in the minds of the customers who buy them. Increasing this real and perceived value will directly impact profit margins.

Most businesses have a mixture of customers. To become a high-margin business, your goal must be to move the needle from lower-value customers to higher-value ones. The first step is to identify the types of customers your business attracts and pursues. Here are a few general characteristics to consider.

Low-Value Clients:

  • A large number are required in order to sustain profitability
  • Typically cause the most headaches
  • Want you to lower your prices
  • Make you feel like a commodity
  • Position you as the lower-value provider
  • Can and will leave you for a lower price at any time

High-Value Clients:

  • Provide greater profitability, so fewer are needed to help you reach your financial goals
  • Generate higher value with fewer headache
  • Help position you as an authority and valuable partner vendor
  • Give you higher credibility in the eyes of your other prospects

So how can you increase your perceived value?

  • Educate – Sell by teaching and sharing your expertise. Nothing is more powerful in positioning you as a business that is worthy of higher fees than actually showing how your products and services solve problems for your customers.
  • Show Results – Include testimonials and success stories from your past customers to help prospects understand what kind of real-world value you provide. Third-party validation works much better and is more believable than the same information stated as your own.
  • Offer a Powerful Guarantee – Guarantees not only help remove some of the doubts your prospects may have but also show that you believe in your products and services enough to stand behind them. Strong guarantees and warranties allow you to justify charging higher margins.
  • Get Endorsed – When possible, get an endorsement from a well-respected and known personality who can verify the quality and value you bring to the table. Your prospects will know that such a person would not vouch for a shoddy business or service. This increases the perceived value of your business in their eyes.
  • Promote – Promote your awards, achievements, membership associations, charitable contributions, and any other resources that will speak to your involvement in the community and the values you bring. Each of these builds further trust in the eyes of your audience. Each bit of added trust allows you to charge higher fees and margins in your business.

By increasing both the real value for your customers and the perceived value seen by your prospects, you will be able to increase your profit margins. Lots of companies can solve problems for their customers. Those that are able to tell the story of what, how, and why they solved those problems — and to do so in a way that resonates with prospects — are the ones that achieve higher margins.

Your Unique Selling Proposition

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What’s a unique selling proposition (USP)? First the <em>Wikipedia</em> explanation:

<blockquote>”The unique selling proposition (a.k.a. unique selling point, or USP) is a marketing concept that was first proposed as a theory to understand a pattern among successful advertising campaigns of the early 1940s. It states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer and that this convinced those buyers to switch brands. The term was invented by Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Company. Today the term is used in other fields or just casually to refer to any aspect of an object that differentiates it from similar objects.”</blockquote>

A strong USP can mean the difference between being “just another company” and one that’s unique and memorable in the minds of customers and prospects. To do this, a USP must accomplish three things.

<ol><li>Each USP must make a strong appeal to the target audience. Not just words, not just product puffery, and not just window advertising. It must say to each reader: “Buy this product, try this service, and you will get this specific benefit.”</li>

<li>The benefit must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. In other words, it must be unique.</li>

<li>The proposition must be strong enough that it can attract new customers to your product or service on its own.</li></ol>

Here are some USPs you might recognize:

<ul><li>Nike: “Just Do It!”</li>

<li>Apple: “Think Different.”</li>
<li>Miller Brewing: “Tastes Great, Less Filling”</li>
<li>KFC: “Finger Lickin’ Good”</li>
<li>Subway: “Eat Fresh.”</li>
<li>Energizer: “It Keeps Going, and Going and Going…”</li>
<li>Head & Shoulders: “You get rid of dandruff.”</li>
<li>Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free.”</li>
<li>FedEx: “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”</li>
<li>M&M’s: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”</li>
<li>Metropolitan Life: “Get Met. It Pays.”</li>
<li>Southwest Airlines: “We are the low-fare airline.”</li>
<li>Walmart: “Always Low Prices. Always.”</li></ul>

Your USP is your unique answer to these questions:
<ul><li>Why should I listen to you?</li>
<li>Why should I do business with you instead of anybody and everybody else?</li>
<li>Why should I do something instead of nothing?</li>
<li>What can your product do for me that no other product can do?</li>
<li>What will you guarantee me that nobody else will?</li></ul>

There are two types of USPs: explicit and implicit.

<strong>Explicit USP</strong>
<ul><li>The message you lead with</li>
<li>Clearly stated in your marketing materials</li>
<li>Involves promises & guarantees</li>
<li>Aimed at new customers or first-time buyers of a particular product or service</li></ul>

<strong>Implicit USP</strong>
<ul><li>What customers love most about you</li>
<li>Things that keep existing customers coming back to you</li>
<li>May get mentioned by customers in testimonials & word-of-mouth referrals</li>
<li>You may go for years and never state it publicly: “We operate with absolute integrity.”</li></ul>

Whether you have a new business or an existing one that needs a stronger USP, here are some ideas to help you come up with a USP that translates to a benefit the customer wants. A strong USP can have some or many of these characteristics.

<ul><li>Faster service</li>
<li>More personal service</li>
<li>Services above and beyond the basics</li>
<li>Guaranteed on-time completion</li>
<li>Guaranteed delivery</li>
<li>Guaranteed friendliness</li>
<li>Guaranteed live phone support</li>
<li>Better prices</li>
<li>Exclusivity (“Ours is the only package that includes ‘x.'”)</li>
<li>Superior quality</li>
<li>Convenience</li>
<li>A better promise or guarantee of results</li></ul>

Your USP should be unique, useful, simple, and memorable. A well-thought-out USP can help you position your company in a powerful and strategic way. It’s never too late to strengthen your USP. Start today.

9 Marketing Lessons to Grow Your Business In Any Economy

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Let’s get right to the lessons:

  1. Follow up.
  2. Follow up.
  3. Follow up.
  4. Follow up.
  5. Follow up.
  6. Follow up.
  7. Follow up.
  8. Follow up.
  9. Follow up.

Studies of sales practices continue to show that most salespeople don’t follow up more than one or two times after making a presentation or giving a quote.

Marketing is no different.

Most businesses will attempt to deliver one or two marketing messages and rarely follow up afterward. Unfortunately, one or two delivered messages will rarely produce tangible results.

We live in a world where people are bombarded by marketing and sales messages every day. So it’s unrealistic to expect one message — no matter how creative the graphics or how great the sales copy — will make it through that clutter.

Our logical minds would tell us that if our target audience wants the product or service we’re selling, they’ll take us up on the first offer we provide. But that’s not how it works in real life.

The reality is that most people’s busy, scattered lives often get in the way of acting on an offer, even if they had every intention of doing so. Whether we like it or not, the rules of the game have changed. For better or worse is debatable.

So what’s the solution?

Follow up. How many times? Start with two or three, and build from there.

Customers don’t always go for the lowest price. They buy from whoever they perceive will provide the best option. Businesses that communicate their value proposition regularly capture most of the attention and position themselves as the most obvious choice. By doing so, they make the buying decision easier.

Can you follow up without being a pest or nuisance?

The best salespeople aren’t pushy, but they are persistent. They present their case by providing valuable information so the prospect makes the best decision. That’s how your messages should be presented — useful information without the hype.

To get your messages read by your best prospects and your cherished customers, you must deliver them consistently and across several marketing channels. For most businesses, a combination of print, email, social, and web-based messages works effectively.

So what makes an effective follow-up marketing plan? Start by creating a compelling message that would have value for your audience. Spread that message across the most effective marketing channels for your business. Do it consistently. Rinse and repeat.

Following up on your marketing messages will make you stand out the same way as the salesperson who doesn’t give up after one presentation or quote. In the end, you’ll become the most logical choice when your prospect is ready to make their purchasing decision.

Please Don’t Ignore Me

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The bulk of marketing budgets is often reserved for acquiring new customers. Much energy, time, and money is spent pursuing prospects that have a marginally small chance of ever becoming a customer. There’s a flaw with this strategy.

The simplest and most effective way to boost your bottom line profits is to remember who brought you where you are today: your existing customers. If you aren’t consistently advertising and staying in touch with current and past clients, you’re missing out on the best way to continually grow your business.

For every month that goes by without making contact with your past and existing customer base, you’ll lose up to ten percent of the clients you’ve worked so hard to acquire. Retaining clients is therefore an extremely important business growth strategy.

Selling your services to new customers means earning their trust. It takes hard work to build this trust. When a prospect becomes a customer, you have only begun to earn their trust. You cannot expect to maintain that trust without consistent, frequent contact that adds some value for the customer.

One of the best ways to maintain and build that trust is to communicate regularly via a newsletter. An effective newsletter has a mix of about 80% infotainment (fun and informative content that may not have anything to do with your particular industry) and 20% information about your business or industry.

The recent trend of companies switching to all digital email newsletters is now reversing with the realization that actually getting the emails opened and read is far more difficult than many were led to believe. Also many survey respondents favor a printed newsletter that they can hold versus one more email that clutters their already overfilled inbox.

Sure, email newsletters are inexpensive and require no postage, but there is a cost involved when the recipients never see or open the messages. By contrast, a printed newsletter is still one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways to stay in front of your customers without overtly selling them.

The Lifetime Value of a Client

Perhaps one of the reasons past clients are ignored is because some business owners don’t really know the lifetime value of a client. An existing client who is treated right, is not ignored, and is communicated with on a regular basis will not only return to do more business themselves but will also refer your company to those around them. Therefore the actual lifetime value is often five, ten, twenty (or even more) times the value of an initial sale.

That’s the power of relationship marketing and the reason why your existing customers should get the bulk of your marketing budget. If you treat your existing customers well and communicate with them on a regular basis, you may not need to chase as many prospects as you have in the past.

To learn more about defining and understanding your lifetime customer value, please visit: http://hbsp.harvard.edu/multimedia/flashtools/cltv/ (requires Flash).

Please Don’t Buy!

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One of the most important steps you have to take in order to attract ideal customers and grow your business is to actually know who those ideal customers are. That’s the first step that many understand. But there’s another, less understood and talked about step you should also consider, and it begins with a question:

What kind of customer should you repel?

That’s right. You need to figure out what types of customers you don’t want to attract and do business with. As counterintuitive as that sounds, it can be just as important as knowing who you want to attract.

The 80/20 rule tells us that in most businesses, 20% of the customers provide 80% of the profits. Knowing who you want to attract can help you greatly improve the odds of increasing the ratio.

At the same time, most businesses also have to deal with a percentage of customers who create the most headaches while providing little profit for the business. Knowing who you want to repel should help reduce the impact this group will have on you.

Knowing the types of customers you want to repel will have many side benefits besides simply increasing the bottom line. It will improve employee morale since coworkers will not have to deal with as many problem-causing customers each day. It will also allow you to spend more energy and resources on the customers who actually provide the most value and profits for your company.

Go through your existing customer list. Pick out the customers that provide the most headaches and the least profit for your company. Figuring out how to repel this type of customer could be as simple as raising prices enough to either make them not want to do business with you or, at the very least, make the pain of dealing with them more profitable and bearable.

The benefits of knowing what types of customers you don’t want can prove to be nearly as important as knowing who you would like as a client.

Give Prospective Customers a Plan of Action

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One of the greatest mistakes marketers make is to assume that interested prospects will automatically know which steps to take next when they receive a marketing piece in the mail, via email, or from a salesperson. Without a clear plan of action, many of your prospects will simply discard your marketing piece and move on to a different company…most likely your competitor.

Too many people assume that once a prospect shows interest, the next step is to close the sale. But rather than rushing to that conclusion, perhaps the best thing to do is to field any questions the prospect might have. Once your prospects are more informed, they will be able to make an educated decision about pursuing your products and services.

With that in mind, here are some phrases (and related information) you should include in your marketing materials to let prospects know you are there to help, not just make a buck:

  • Stop in and see our products! Include an address, business hours, and directions for reaching your building. Make sure you include a Google map on your website or landing page, as well.
  • Call and ask for more information! Include a phone number, contact name, extension number (where applicable), and hours. If you have an after-hours phone number, include that, too.
  • Call to set up an appointment! Again, provide all of the pertinent details, including the best time to reach you.
  • Send us an email to request more information! For email and web-based communications, provide a link to a simple contact form where prospects can enter their details and receive confirmation that their request went through. On print pieces, include an email address, and consider adding a QR code that links directly to a contact form on your website.
  • Visit our website for more information! Make sure you provide your full website address. Again, consider a QR code that links to your homepage or (better yet) to a landing page designed specifically for the promotion you’re running, with additional details about your products, services, and any current specials you have available. An FAQ page is also helpful here, and don’t forget to include full contact details so the prospect can easily reach you with questions.

Making yourself available to answer questions and provide your prospects with more information will make a positive impression and help boost sales.

An Unconventional Way to Add Value for Your Customers

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While no business wants to lose its customers to the competition, you may be surprised how the opposite can occur when you focus less on keeping your customers away from your competition and focus more instead on adding value and truly helping your customers find what they want.

Strange as it sounds, there may be times when referring a customer to your competition might be warranted. Here are four examples:

  • If you’re out of stock on an item that your customer wants immediately, suggest alternative places where they can find it. You may consider enticing customers to wait for your business by offering an exclusive discount when the item is back in stock, but allow them to make their own choices.
  • Refer customers to another business if you believe that company is better suited to serve the customer’s specific needs. It’s important to ask questions to ensure you understand customer expectations and decide if your business is the best fit for your customer.
  • For comparison shoppers, offer a chart that highlights the differences between your products and competing products. Be sure to include your strengths, as well as your competitor’s strengths. This is a great opportunity to promote higher-quality components or value-added services, such as a longer warranty, locally owned roots, lifetime tech support, or even bundled services at a discounted price. Informed customers make faster choices and are happier with their decisions.
  • Lastly, if you have a very difficult customer that proves to be more of a burden to your business than an asset, it may be time to let your competitor swoop them up.

By referring a customer in need to a competing business, you not only show confidence in your product and your business, but you also show honesty, integrity, and a willingness to put the customer’s needs ahead of your own. Customers will appreciate your effort and seek out your valued opinion on other issues as well.