Have some heart!
A local restaurant just opened a new location…and wants to expand it’s customer base. Well, now is not the time for marketing-speak. The owner obviously has a passion for his business and is telling it like it is! So, be human with your customers. They understand passion and it will probably add to their experience.
Differing opinions exist as to how effective social media can be for growing your business. It’s a great tool, but I think due diligence and true cost-of-effort accountability are of utmost priority…otherwise you are wasting your time.
That being said, the tide just might be turning. Adam Bain, Twitter’s Chief Revenue Officer, provided the following:
Twitter helped Super 8 sell 1 million sneak peek tickets, and opening weekend box office exceeded projections by more than 50 percent.
Another example of advertising success on Twitter, was with fashion line Burberry, who launched a fashion show on Twitter and saw 14 percent higher engagement, and saw a 10X lift in brand mentions.
Bain told the audience today that engagements on Twitter ads are defining by clicks on links and retweets.
But here’s the rub…in terms of Burberry, can they quantify the clicks to sales? I don’t know. You’ll have to decide if they (or you) will get their money’s worth.
Now I don’t know how they quantified their success for Super 8, was it truly tied to twitter? Anyway, the prospect that Super 8 sold over a million movie tickets could be a gold mine for other companies that can leverage the same type of campaign.
The formerly lowly Buffalo Bills pulled off a great win. As soon as the game was final, I received the following email.
A happy fan that’s still celebrating the latest win…they probably did receive some orders with this email.
Now, is your audience always so obvious? The Disney Channel knows to target the moms (and not just the kids):
Oh, and Disney Junior is replacing SOAPNet.
It doesn’t matter if it’s football or educational tv, you have to know your true audience…
It’s a classic commercial gimmick – the roller coaster running through a giant pile (can you call it a pile?) of shaving cream.
When they described (and SHOWED) their product out of the normal context, you are compelled to look past it’s ‘commodity’ nature and think about the benefits…
Gillette Foamy may not have been thick and foamy enough to stop a roller coaster, but it sure was an effective illustration. How do you compel prospects to give you a second look?
One of the biggest levers to increasing profits is through effective and systematic follow-up with EXISTING customers.
So, how do you follow-up?
1. Capture their contact info. How many established businesses do you interact with daily that don’t have your email or mailing address? Just start asking for contact information! (I use aweber to send email my customers.)
2. Provide value. It’s sales 101, but it works. Does your product have a new use? Does it solve a previously overlooked problem? Do you have industry insight? There are so many ways to interact – and don’t think it just has to be product or service specific. I get funny anecdotes from my insurance guy…and I’d notice if they stopped coming.
3. Keep on doing it. It’s easy to get complacent, but power through it. If they don’t recognize you, you aren’t communicating frequently enough. Bonus-they are more likely to unsubscribe from not enough communication, than from too much communication.
3.5 Stick to a schedule. I can schedule emails to go out when I want them – so sometimes I’ll write them well in advance. But they follow a schedule that I’ve created.
Someone else is talking to your customers!
In just one example, Merchant Services / Credit Card Payment providers are talking to clients that are similar to mine. You see this with referrals all of the time, for example when a dentist recommends a trusted orthodontist or a realtor recommends a contractor.
I teach (and practice) finding non-competing businesses that you can align with–to benefit everyone involved. In fact, I offer free (and immediately actionable) marketing consultations with their clients because it drives everyone’s revenue up. And when I help those businesses, it gives me an opportunity to meet new clients…
So who is talking to your customers?
It’s a classic mantra – continue the conversation that is already going in your customer’s head.
Make the message relevant...
In this case, Brookstone is responding to Hurricane Irene’s imminent landfall. They’ve made their products relevant to current events, aligned with current timelines (shipping is free for the next 4 days) and stoked a bit of human emotion…
Brookstone’s email blast is a prime example of how we use current events as part of our message to our customers–you’re just continuing the conversation in their head.
Active marketing should be the lifeblood of your business, but it deserves re-evaluating as part of your entry/exit strategy.
Don’t stop marketing. Sellers tend to wind down their marketing effort as they start shopping their business around. That’s a critical mistake that leaves money on the table for all involved.
Clean up your client list. The more you can segment your client list, the better. Can you identify repeat buyers? Infrequent buyers?
Move those clients to your email list. It’s not enough to have a list, but do you have a good way to contact them?
Drip-feed messaging until your clients ask you to stop (or until they die). If you keep the communication lines open you can keep the sales coming.
Best way to implement…
An email autoresponder (aka pre-written email campaign) is one of the least expensive ways to create a long lasting, niche marketing system to both attract new clients and re-engage existing clients. You can set up a month’s or a year’s worth of personalized messages that will be automatically delivered to clients without any manual intervention on your part.
Here’s what you’ll need:
An autoresponder account. This provides a way to capture users to your email list and a way to distribute messages.
7-10 quality messages. Most businesses have plenty of content – what can you transform into succinct messages?
Sales copy interwoven through your communications. Don’t try to sell in every message-it has to accompany quality content.
I learned sales in spite of a career in web design. I had to leave the ‘profession’ to understand what web design should really focus on…
I was a web-designer/user-experience designer/jack-of-all-trades that lived and breathed design in a previous life. I could give you many reasons why you should use one button layout vs. another, or why your navigation bar should be on the left/right/top/etc. I could concoct the most subtle gradients that would make your logo sparkle…yada, yada, yada.
The only problem was that I was NEVER taught to sell for my client. Had I been focused on really getting the visitor to sign up as a prospect or drive them to the ‘buy’ button I would have been far more effective. But, that also went against some of ‘our’ best practices…go figure. I had to come to terms with the fact that a truly effective (and profitable) website just might be the ugliest damn thing on the web…
So my $.02, don’t get so caught up in the ‘design’, just make sure that it contributes to the bottom line.
My friend Rishi, a big-shot E-commerce expert, sent me on a curious internet treasure hunt. Literally. He started poking at Overstock.com’s use of sponsored product links. You see Overstock carries over 2 million different products through their online store, but they also offer links out to competing products. It’s definitely counter-intuitive. They build up traffic and visitor affinity only to send it elsewhere. Is there another income stream there?
This is an imperfect analysis across their revenue streams, but it does look at some of the components involved.
1. They are in the business first to sell tangible, shippable products-at a great discount. They’ve built a name as the internet’s outlet mall.
2. They make sponsored listings available – aka Google Adsense. Again, that means they are turning traffic away. But, if someone does follow the link they generate income on that click.
3. They’ve added tabs for Real Estate, Autos, and Auctions. These are third-party sites, presumably providing referral fees. Again, they’re sending away traffic, but generating income on that click.
4. They spend substantial money on advertising. Paid advertising can be highly targeted, but doesn’t necessarily account for intent-to-buy. What do they do with the visitor that doesn’t buy? They get an option to click a link to affiliate products-that also represents income.
5. They sell annual memberships. Basically, they eat the shipping fees if you pay to opt-in to an email alert. Again, brilliant. Customers are paying for the email that Overstock sends through a natural e-mail marketing strategy.
There is definitely enough movement of product AND visitor traffic to warrant using sponsored links across their site. Essentially, they are playing the arbitrage game. They pay for traffic (or use established free traffic) and sell it on non-performing buyers for the margin.
What does this mean for the average business owner? First, not all of your prospects are customers. Can you capture enough of their intent to refer them elsewhere? For a profit? I’m making a jump, but sometimes selling leads can be just as profitable as selling tangible products.
