Creative & Targeted Marketing
THE WHOLE POINT OF CREATIVE & TARGETED MARKETING
The whole point of creative and targeted marketing strategies is to help you get customers, reward their patronage, and promote your goals, your interests, and your business. In other words, if you don't have a targeted marketing program with some kind of strategy, you're not going to be as successful in whatever it is you're trying to do.
This blog will be dedicated to helping people develop these strategies, to understanding how the buying process works, and using their promotional superpowers for good, and not evil.
Lee Reedy
Media Strategist
Express ProMotifs, Inc.
http://promotifs.com
posted by Lee Reedy @ 07:36
9 comments
9 Comments:
Here's a general question for anyone reading this blog. When you decide to use advertising media (promotional products and advertising specialties like pens, t-shirts, mugs, and pens) how do you know it is successful?
Lee Reedy
Express ProMotifs, Inc.
http:\\promotifs.com
Measure the results, of course! But how do you do it?
Here are three keys to ensuring your ad specialties gain notice and pay for themselves.
1. Spend a lot of time on the message. Fact is, your message is your most valuable asset. It's what the customer is going to think about you and more importantly, it is what you want the customer to remember .
2. Choose the vehicle carefully for the message you're using. A promotional product is just a pen or just a mug or just a t-shirt if your message does not provide a mental "hook" to cement it to your customer's mind. Fact is, this is where the most people fail--they choose the vehicle first and then try to fit their name, address, and phone number on it. Where's the strategy in that?
3. Target the right people for the message and vehicle you're using. In a way, this analysis has to come first--you need to know who you're talking to before you can really tailor the message and select the right advertising media. For example, if you're interested in reaching professional women in the 18-35 age group, do you really think a ball cap with your message is going to get worn long enough and often enough for top-of-mind awareness?
Message
Vehicle
People
The Most Valuable Players in your business marketing game plan.
Lee Reedy
Express ProMotifs, Inc.
http:\\promotifs.com
Charles de Gaulle said, "We may go to the moon, but that's not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us."
Often, when I am asked about promotional products or ad specialties, my client has a specific price for the object of their desire in mind. It's too easy to forget that you're not just buying trinkets or cheap plastic stuff, but a marketing program that produces results. Unless you're truly vain, nobody buys stuff with their name on it just for having it. Nor just to give it away with no hope at all of it getting the recipient to contact you when they want/need your service or product. Yet somehow, that is exactly what people try to do when they decide they like a novelty.
A lady I know has a new kennel she just opened. She originally called me wanting to get dog bone shaped carabiners with her name on it. Having found the item on the Internet, she wanted to see if I could match the price and if so, she'd give me the business. I couldn't match the price, and frankly, I won't even try these days. Why? Because I am not in the business of selling "stuff" -- I am in the business of devising and implementing creative marketing strategies using whatever media is appropriate to the task. So, I provide marketing effectiveness. Recently, I called her to follow up on her efforts.
She's getting good results from signs posted in the surrounding community, but she doesn't really know how good. I decided to offer her a free program to demonstrate what I do and why she should use my services. Tomorrow, I'll talk specifically about the idea and how to implement it.
Lee Reedy
Express ProMotifs, Inc.
http:\\promotifs.com
How exciting are your dreams? Most people don't aim too high and miss, they aim too low and hit.
Fact is, this lady was smart to put out the signs and she went further by gathering up some glass mugs shaped like a boot (the kennel's theme is as a "dude ranch" for dogs), slapped a logo sticker on them, filled each with treats and had them for purchase. While they are popular, she didn't think through the promotion and priced them way too low to continue doing it because of two issues.
1. She didn't think of it as a promotion and wanted to get all her investment out of each sale. Nothing wrong with that, but the whole point is to promote the business, not sell novelty treats. It would be better to take a little loss now and have a constant reminder of your business in their home--how much is that advertising really worth?
2. She tried to go cheap and got the mugs from a dollar store or a discount market. The one thing you can be sure of is that if a dollar store has it in stock this week, next week it will be gone and you may not see it again there for months, if ever again.
So, while she does not fail to see the value in having her business name on the mug, she under-values it a great deal more than she should.
Here's what I suggested; if you think it's a good idea for your own business, go ahead and use it. Just let me know by posting here or sending me an email that you did and what your results were, okay?
Meet with local grocery store managers and offer a cents off coupon with two sides. One side is an immediate savings of 20 cents off any dog related product, the other side is $5 off the dog's first night at the kennel. As part of the redemption policy, ask the customer to provide their name, phone number, and email address and include a brief statement saying you will be contacting them to ask permission to send them a newsletter and other discounts.
Naturally, there are a hundred variations of how to do it, but the point was that I offered this to her for FREE. All that I asked was that if she did it, and it worked, she'd allow me to run her next promotion. Of course, the work that goes into the idea is substantial and the reason why I gave her the idea is that I know she is not likely going to act on it.
So, when I follow up, she will understand that my prices are worth it, and most importantly, I am not just selling "stuff."
Got a promotional challenge? Contact me and let's see if I can help you. I'll give you the same deal I gave her--a FREE promotion complete with implementation instructions and measurable results (I'll discuss how to measure the kennel promotion in my next post.) All you have to do is implement it and if it works, all I ask is that you allow me to run your next promotion.
Lee Reedy
Express ProMotifs, Inc.
http:\\promotifs.com
You don't need to accept life the way it comes to you. Instead, you can use the power of goal-setting to design your life so it comes to you the way you would like to get it. -- Unknown.
Media Strategies are exactly for that purpose--to design your business so customers and clients come to you just the way you want to get them. Yes, I am talking about targeting your audience, the very people most in need of your services, and forget the rest.
Most advertising today is about "reach." And this is where most small businesses fail to get it. Large businesses advertise on radio, TV, billboards, etc., but that is truly some big bucks and they're trying to reach everyone with a pulse. When you're considering your media selection, you must focus on your target audience because you're paying for those eyeballs. And for the small business owner, the large mass media selections are too expensive and the results take time. You can't run just one expensive ad and get enough of a response to make it worthwhile or cost effective. In other words, what is the point of a lake that is a mile wide and only an inch deep?
So media selection for a promotion is crucial to its success. But how do you come up with what you need to run a successful campaign? Anyone can say, "I need pens and hats," but that's ineffective if you target the wrong people, or send the right people the wrong message. So you need an integrated solution, but again, how do you do it? Well, I'm going to begin showing you in my next post.
Lee Reedy
Express ProMotifs, Inc.
http:\\promotifs.com
Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.
The first step in deciding how to market your business is to ask yourself a ton of questions, even obvious ones. Who is your market? Who needs or uses your product or service? What are they doing when they are most in need of your product? These and many more are just the beginning to defining your perfect customer. Go ahead, profile them.
The profile needs to be as detailed as possible, because it will sometimes give you insight into how to reach that person. Remember when I talked about the MVPs of marketing? Well, the People come first in your analysis, NOT the Message or the Vehicle. So take the time to profile your perfect customer.
Lee Reedy
Express ProMotifs, Inc.
http:\\promotifs.com
Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
-- Sophia Loren (1934- ) Italian Actress
I met a wonderful woman today. She is a realtor, a loan officer, and a notary in Southern California. As we talked about her business, I was reminded that most of us are too timid to dare work on our business rather than in our business.
We agreed this is mostly a sense of laziness we all suffer from--working on your business is hard work and let's face it, sometimes we do not really like what we discover. So, like you, I need to redouble my efforts to work on my business and not just in it. Onward!
Have you profiled your perfect customer yet? Ask yourself, what does this person eat? Where do they live? What is their home life like? And hundreds of more questions as if you were catching up on the life of a long lost childhood friend.
Now take a look at your profile and ask yourself, what does this person do or think that you can focus on to get their attention. You see, one problem today is information overload. So we filter almost automatically. We don't open every email, we skip obvious sales pitches in the mail, and we barely even look at the ads in a newspaper. (Try reading all the ads in the newspaper without reading the articles and you'll see how much you've been filtering!) So, how can we target your perfect client?
Well, you start by positioning yourself in front of them when they are most in need of your services. For example, where is the perfect customer for an electrician when that customer is most in need of the electrician's services? There might be a lot of places, but the most common might be standing in front of the circuit breaker box ... in the dark!
So now we ask ourselves, what can we do for or supply to this potential customer that they can use as a memory jogger to call our electrician rather than any other? How about a glow in the dark sticker right on the circuit breaker box? How about a little emergency flashlight (the new kind that doesn't need batteries) fixed just to the right of the panel with double-sided tape? Let your mind run wild because if you can think it, someone can ink it!
To sum up, after you profile your perfect client, you think about targets of opportunity when they will most need your services and brainstorm ideas about reaching them at that moment.
Lee Reedy
Express ProMotifs, Inc.
http:\\promotifs.com
Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as you go along.
-- Samuel Butler
Developing a marketing strategy and learning to use promotional products is much the same way. So it helps to have some rules to guide our decision processes under the overarching question, "What is our purpose?"
1. What is the purpose of your promotion? Is it to create awareness, or to get potential customers to try your product/service? Is it to reward patronage? Whatever the purpose of your promotion, it must match the audience.
2. Specifically, who is the target of your promotion and what is the desired impact of it? Defining your target profile in as much detail as possible will help you know when that person is going to be most in need of your product or service. More importantly, it allows you to be choosey about whom you spend hard earned advertising dollars on. Think about this ... when you advertise in a broad media like radio or TV, the vast majority of your advertising dollar is paying for eyes and/or ears that have no interest in you or your product and never will. But with a promotional product and a solid strategy, you can achieve higher sales conversion rates by targeting only those who may have an interest in your product or service.
3. What exactly do you want to say? As much as you love the logo you selected (or designed,) it is not enough to just slap it onto something, give it away, and expect that to work. Fact is, that's about ego more than it is about advertising. Now, putting your logo onto things is not bad, it's just not enough. You have to create a mental hook that will allow the person to not only remember you, but what it is you want them to do. For example, I have pens I hand out occasionally that simply have my business name and phone number. But I never give it to someone without explaining this concept and closing the pitch with, "Here's to hoping we can ink a deal together." About half of the time, clients will use that specific pen to sign an order with me.
4. As in real estate, it's about location, location, location! Where do you think your client is most likely to be when he or she is most in need of your product or service? How can you get in front of your customer at that exact moment? I met a guy at a home show--he had a booth, some small signs, and a bowl of M&Ms. The candy was almost like a magnet, it drew people to him. That, my friends is a promotional product with a strategy!
He owns a small windshield repair business here in Colorado Springs called Bob's Windshield Repair. As I was standing there talking to Bob, I was analyzing his needs. Since he already had someone he was working with, I made him this simple offer. I would give him one of my best ideas while I was standing there and he could use his regular person to set it up. There was only one condition--if it worked, he would place his next order with me. I then offered that he should put his business name, phone number, and a small catch phrase on a static cling window sticker (the kind they use when you have your oil changed) and put that in the windshield of every car he serviced. His results were amazing--his repeat business and his referral business shot up. Now that is being in the right location!
5. How will you get your name into their hands? I touched on this in the previous point--a strategy is not just what to say or when to say it, but how you will distribute the items you select, who will you give them to, and how will they receive it? Consider this carefully because the impression you're making is lasting, even if they have known you for a long time. Remember the MVPs of marketing--you cannot short change this step!
6. When should you get started? Seems odd to have this as a step, doesn't it? Fact is, we all put off things we do not perceive as critical to our success. And yet, if we have done our homework, we should have reasonable assurances the promotion will work. And when that is the case, shouldn't we be excited at the possibilty of more business? More productivity? A safer work environment? Huh? Yes, even a safety program is a type of promotion--not the kind that generates more business, but the kind that saves you money in the long run. Many people think safety is just common sense, but we are all human and prone to making errors because we forget how dangerous some things can be. A well designed safety program increases awareness and prevents costly accidents. If you don't have a safety program at work, when do you think it would be wise to implement one? NOW, of course!
Whew! Well that about sums it up for today. I'll be speaking at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow to the Colorado Springs Business Owners group at the Olive Branch restaurant at 23 South Tejon in Colorado Springs. Media Strategies and how to develop your own promotional program is the subject. Wish me luck!
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