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Entries categorized as ‘Branding’

Can You Create Delighted Customers With Just One Voice Mail?

October 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment

customer services representativeCan “being human” actually differentiate your business and  actually endear your customer to you?  Zane Safrit, the author of today’s guest post, gives a resounding “Yes!”  Check out his experience and see how you can tweak your customer interactions for the better.

Barb called me last week.  I was on the phone, so she left me a voice mail.  I started to smile almost from the start of her message.   Her voice was personal and conversational;  like a neighbor across the fence back when we had neighbors we knew and fences that kept us friends.  If she worked from a script it was a script she wrote. She got right to the point of her call: had I received her company’s mater ials.  She commented on Iowa; that she had a connection with Iowa and maybe we’d get to meet in person sometime. That told me she had prepared for the call by reviewing my profile.  She understood that there was a person behind that account number in their records.

I kept smiling as I listened. My wife asked “Who’s that?” I asked her to wait. I wanted to hear the whole message.  The next thing I knew,  I was laughing.  Her voice mail made laugh. Why? I was so happy to hear such a warm, personal and very professional voice mail.  ”Yes,”  I thought.  ”It is possible!”   Everything she said communicated not only her warmth but her confidence, and commitment, to her role and her company.  Barb and her message reinforced in a real and meaningful way the principles of her company.

Barb works for Kevin Eikenberry and the Kevin Eikenberry Group.  Her call in some respects was the standard follow-up call for a new customer.  I say ‘standard’ because good companies make this a standard practice.  But Barb and The Kevin Eikenberry Group transformed this standard tactic into something memorable.  I saved the voice mail.  It became something to celebrate.

How did they do that?  And more importantly, how can your company create this same kind of delight and enthusiasm with your customers?

It starts clarity.  Kevin is clear in creating and communicating his purpose with The Kevin Eikenberry Group.   That clarity makes it easier to hire people whose skills and talents, passions and strengths, align together.

Then the secret ingredient of great leadership is added: Trust.   Barb trusts that Kevin can honor his commitments. Kevin trusts Barb can honor her commitment.  Barb trusts herself.  She trusts what she says about her company. That’s why she can speak in her own words.  And maybe Kevin trusts Barb to add what only Barb can add; her great personality.

The Kevin Eikenberry Group is in the business of Leadership coaching.  And that might make you think that thsis type of phone experience is something they specialize in and that it’s just for those “fluffy” kinds of companies.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Leadership coaching is not a commoditized industry. Even if it were, The Kevin Eikenberry Group would stand out. They would remain a standout in their customer’s minds with the personal attention of Barb.

But what about your industry? How do you differentiate yourself from the hordes of competitors driving your industry into commodity-hell?  Consider what Kevin did.  He created a meaningful purpose, he communicated it clearly and consistently.  He hired ‘Barb’.  Barb provides the finishing touch, the personal touch that delivers customer evangelists who spend an afternoon crafting a blog post that celebrates their company and her voice mail.

About the author: Zane Safrit’s passion is small business and the operations excellence required to deliver a product that creates word-of-mouth, customer referrals and instills pride in those whose passion created it. He previously served as CEO of a small business. Zane’s blog can be found at Zane Safrit.

Categories: Branding

Cross Media Marketing is a Great Way to Get Customer Information

October 23, 2009 · 3 Comments

iStock_000003739214XSmallHave you ever considered using direct mail as a way of gathering demographic and psychographic information?  If not, then this is your opportunity to really get some bang for your marketing budget dollar.

With the advent of on-demand printing and publishing, we’ve been able to literally convert mass-marketing to a more personal one-to-one experience.  All it takes is a list, a database and some creativity and for a relatively small budget, you will be on your way to:

1. Getting more information about your list (email address, buying preferences, job title)

2. Learning  how to better communicate with your list (how would you like to be contacted?)

3. Drive list members to your website

4. Present them with a specific offer

5. Invite them to an event

6. Register for a conference or event, including break-out sessions, etc.

All of this can be yours by exploring “cross-media marketing.”  Don’t worry, this isn’t anything radically new.  What’s new is our ability to create a three-dimensional, relationship-building experience with our target audience by creating a single “themed” campaigned aimed at leading our list to water and then making them drink.

How Cross Media Works

A Cross Media campaign is powered by a database engine that will collect all kinds of information for you. First off, it will tell you who responded, and who didn’t. It will also track exactly how far each respondent goes into the pURL, and it will collect all of their responses to the questions you ask them on the pURL.

The database engine can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be, collecting information and using that information to trigger
subsequent events.

Cross Media campaigns utilize a variety of means of reaching your list members, and allow you to further qualify your list, and gain more information about its particular members. Your purpose is to learn as much as you can about your individual list members so that you can communicate with them on a meaningful and relevant level. This is the essence of 1:1marketing.

How to Start Your Own Cross Media Campaign

To run an effective Cross-Media Marketing campaign you will need three solid, experienced team-members.  First, you’ll need a marketing or product manager who knows your company, its strategy which information to collect and what you’re going to do with it.

Next you’ll need the one-two punch of a creative agency that has the capability and blend of solid creative ideas and design coupled with a technical team that can translate that creativity onto the web.

Finally, you will need a strong technical component to create this powerful list database that will be your money machine.  This technical team will be working closely with the design agency and if you find a design agency that has such a team – you are in luck.

What a Cross Media Marketing Campaign Looks Like

  1. Set an objective. For example, you have a list of 100,000 people that you want to whittle down to just your ideal customers.  Your budget has been cut, postage has gone up and you can’t afford to be mailing stuff that’s getting thrown away.
  2. Get your list. Let’s say our list has only addresses and no names.  To get to our ideal customer, it would help to have some names and some basic information that would qualify them for our offering.
  3. Send a simple mailing with a pURL (personalized URL). Since we have addresses and we want more information, we send a simple postcard to the address and since we don’t have a name the pURL is actually a “code.”
  4. The postcard is written to appeal to our ideal customer. The customer receives the postcard and goes to the web site. Once there, they have the opportunity to receive a “gift” in exchange for some more information; contact name, e-mail, and perhaps an answer to a question.  Don’t over-task the recipient, there will be opportunities for more touches later on.

At this point you have reduced the size of your list significantly and identified those people who have the most interest in your offer.  In addition to that, you’ve opened up a line of communication where you can ask them questions and they will answer in exchange for more goodies.

How to Get Started

Here are some resources to check out:

There are still wonderful opportunities to connect with your ideal customer without breaking the bank.  Consider a cross-media marketing campaign in your marketing plan this year.

About the Author: Ivana Taylor is CEO of Third Force, a strategic firm that helps small businesses get and keep their ideal customer.  She’s the co-author of the book “Excel for Marketing Managers” and proprietor ofDIYMarketers, a site for in-house marketers.  Her blog is Strategy Stew.

Categories: Branding · Newsletter · customer research · marketing strategy
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The Looking Zone

October 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

iStock_000000138631XSmallToday’s guest post is by Maria Duron, the chief buzz officer, coach and speaker with buzz2bucks.com.

Research numbers give us so much rich information providing insights and basics on clients and contacts.  I’ve always been a fan of market research from my days as a market researcher in the media industry. Understanding “the who” and “the what” is so fascinating! And, the benefits garnered from that research are not  just limited to large companies.

How can small companies and solo professionals make the most of research data?  The demographics provides us some of the basics of who a client is yet even more interesting is the psychographics – the “why” behind what they do.

Whether you’re connecting for work or for your own business, there are people who are beneficial for you to connect with.  I always recommend that you deepen your connection with those who already know you – those who you already have some degree of “know, like and trust”.

These are your current customers or contacts.  After all if they did business with you or connected with you, you’ve established some level of “know, like and trust”.  It’s a much higher starting point then starting from nothing.

Further, spend some time really understanding who you would like to connect with that would be an asset in your goals.  For example, identify who would be a great connection for you.  Who would make a decision or be involved in a major project, position or department you’re interested in. Or, who would take you further connecting with leaders in your industry?

Most important is finding people prior to the time that they’re in the “looking zone”.  This applies to employees and entrepreneurs alike.  For entrepreneurs, what does your ideal customer “look like” before they’re in the looking zone?  If you’re a realtor, before someone has an interest in selling their home, what do they look like?  Maybe they just found out they were pregnant and are now thinking their current place is too small; maybe their child just graduated and are off to college and now their home is too big; or maybe they just were divorced and realizing they want to start fresh or find a new place.   It’s important to connect with people prior to them looking.  When people are approached to connect when they are in need of something, they are leery of the intention for the connection.  They wonder, is it genuine?  That’s why the connection and the relationship must develop prior to the need. Thus, you are seeking to develop your connections prior to the looking zone.

To maximize this connection, when your connections are in the “looking zone” – where is it they spend time with others just like them?  For example, in keeping with our realtor situation and targeting someone who is going to have a baby and wants to sell their current home, let’s say before they’re in the “looking zone” they might look like parents with younger kids already, or they might have been married a couple of years and are thinking of starting a family.  So, where do they hang out with a great number of others like them?  It could be at a doctor’s office, Lamaze class, elementary school or day care or even a kindermusik class.

Now, take one step back from that and ask yourself, “where are they spending times before they’re in the looking zone?”  This is a vital question to ask because everyone wants to make contact with your prime customer when they’re in the looking zone. Everyone wants to talk, meet or sell them what they need.  Yet, if you have a relationship already established with them prior to their need; if you have developed some “know, like and trust”; if they’ve had chance to sample your character and competence, then when the needs arises and you are visible and credible to them, they will call on you.

About the Author: Maria Duron is author of the book “Mouth to Mouth Marketing” and the eBook “Social I.R.A.” She’s been quoted as a marketing and word of mouth expert by Entrepreneur Magazine and contributes to several publications and is the creator of #brandchat, a weekly twitter conversation about all aspects of branding. She broadcasts weekly as the business coach with CBS7. Duron will speak at the 2009 Massachusetts Conference for Women.

Categories: Branding · Newsletter · customer research
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How to Uncover Your Company’s Competitive Advantage

September 18, 2009 · Leave a Comment

iStock_000005051077XSmallToday’s guest post is by Ivana Taylor, President of Third Force Marketing a boutique strategic marketing firm that helps companies become the obvious choice for their ideal customer.  She runs DIYMarketers.com a how-to resource for marketers.  Her blog is called Strategy Stew.

Do you know why your customers choose you?  You might think that you do, but chances are you would be wrong.  Janie L. Smith, author of “Creating Competitive Advantage” discovered that only two CEOs out of the thousand that she asked could clearly articulate a competitive advantage.  This is a critical point because understanding why your customers choose you can mean the difference between getting or losing the sale.

What’s Competitive Advantage?

A solid competitive advantage has four attributes:

  1. Must be objective.  This means that it’s a statement of fact; 3 locations, open 24 hours, etc.  If you think about it, it’s kind of like a “feature” of your business.
  2. Must be quantitative. Specify how much, how many of anything you’ve got as a feature.  In the example above we made some specifics here are a few more: each service representative has at least 20 hours of training (specify what kind), your pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less or it’s free.
  3. Not claimed by any other competitor.  This is where it gets tricky,  your competitive advantage could truly be something that no one else is doing OR it can be something that they are not claiming – or focusing on.  This gives you a lot of creativity.
  4. No cliche. Stay away from empty phrases like “your solution provider.”

Now that you know what constitutes competitive advantage, it’s time to start a list of what you think your company’s competitive advantages.  To get your brain bubbling, take a moment and list as many “factual features” of your business.  Aim for a list of 49!

  • How would you respond to your customer when they ask “Why should I buy from you?”
  • What’s most important to your customer when they are buying what you are selling?
  • What features of your business give the customer what’s most important to them?
  • In what ways does your business deliver what’s most important to your customer?

But getting a list of what you think your company’s competitive advantages are is only half the battle.  A competitive advantage will only get you chosen if it’s an advantage your customer cares about.  In other words, the things that differentiate you and set you apart have to matter to your customer otherwise – you won’t get the sale.

The best way to be sure that the competitive advantage that you’re going to use in your marketing strategy is viable is to test it with your customers.  A great approach is to hire a third party to run a blind research study which asks customers to rate what attributes are important to them and how well a variety of “brands” perform against those attributes.

It just so happens that QuestionPro has an advanced question in that exact format.  It’s called a “Side-by-Side Matrix” question and you’ll find it by adding a new question and clicking on “Advanced Question” type.  The side-by-side matrix question is already pre-formated to measure how important an attribute is to your customer and how satisfied they are with that attribute.

Have you used this type of question to uncover your company’s competitive advantage?  What did you learn and how did you implemented it?

Categories: Branding · Newsletter

Search Marketing Partnership Promise: You’ll Create Breakthrough Results for Your Business.

September 11, 2009 · 1 Comment

iStock_000007719390XSmallAre you leaving sales on the table?

People are increasingly looking for products and services online. In fact, many consumers think that a search engine IS the Internet, which isn’t surprising, since 14.8 billion searches were performed in the US alone in April 2009.

Each time one of those searches is performed in a major search engine, there are two possible outcomes:

  1. The searcher finds you or
  2. The searcher finds your competitor

I know which one I want to happen – how about you?

Today, SEO is a basic part of doing business online –  and, given what we’ve just discussed about the power of search engines, you can see why. Now let’s set some agreements in this partnership.

What is important for websites now?

It’s all about visibility and how to be found. Search engines control national and global marketing access, and your products and services are mainly exposed by your websites. If you aren’t on the first few pages – then no one will find you.

Bottom line: how often does your website enable a profitable interaction for your business?

We’re talking about macro conversions (the reason we have a website):

  1. Lead generation – a prospect raises his or her hand and asks to talk with you. This applies to you if you are a service business, or if your sale is complex or at a price point where it won’t happen without a micro conversation first.
  2. Sale – This applies to you if you are an ecommerce website and prospects enter their credit card number on the site to make a purchase. Your end goal is a sale.
  3. Education – This applies to you if you are a non-profit or not-for-profit and exist to educate and inform.

You know your website is working for you when one or more of these take place:

  1. More traffic
  2. Higher conversion rates
  3. Money being made or
  4. Money being saved

The benefits of a search engine-friendly website – why we’re taking this on.

When we talk about the search engines, we mean Google, Yahoo!, Ask and Bing, primarily. There are thousands more, but these are the big players that have market share worth pursuing.

A search engine friendly site:

  1. Drives targeted traffic to your site
  2. Prequalifies potential customers
  3. Boosts conversions / sales
  4. Is a low cost marketing tool
  5. Is your best sales rep
  6. Builds your brand

Next month, we’ll share the top 3 search marketing secrets!

This month’s opportunities:

Knowledge is power – this month, you’ll be filling any gaps in your basic search marketing understanding.

  1. Read through the Search Marketing Terms Glossary
  2. A few quick reads:
    1. What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Opimization (SEO) and What Can It Do For You?
    2. Why do you need SEO?
    3. How do you make SEO work for you?
  3. Read current search engine optimization stats
  4. Key difference between a B2B and B2C marketing for search
  5. Read the free white paper on usability and design from a search marketing perspective. You can get this singing up for our FREE monthly email newsletter at http://www.TheSearchGuru.com (right hand column).
  6. Register for Google Analytics if you haven’t yet: http://www.google.com/analytics/
  7. Register for Google Webmaster Tools http://www.thesearchguru.com/google-webmaster-tools.asp if you haven’t yet.
  8. Can’t wait until the next post for the 3 secrets? Read those here: The three secret steps to dominating in Google
  9. Bonus: read past blog posts: http://www.thesearchguru.com/blog/ and back issues of the newsletter here: http://www.thesearchguru.com/email-archive.asp to learn more.
  10. Burning question or comment? Email me at Results@TheSearchGuru.com.

Today’s guest post is by Leslie Carruthers.  Leslie is President of  The Search Guru, a best practices full services Search Marketing firm creating breakthrough results for their clients since 2004. Leslie can be reached at 440-306-2418 or Results@TheSearchGuru.com.

Categories: Branding · marketing strategy

7 Ways to Be Great At Social Media

August 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

iStock_000002807197XSmallIf you’ve ever wondered how you’re going to build your brand using social media, then pay attention to our our guest columnist today.  Staci J. Shelton is a social media expert and blogger who specializes in building and maximizing online relationships.

There is a great benefit to being active as a business in Social Media.  As a business, there are amazing opportunities to create a Global Network and control more of your marketing activity, and for a great deal less than traditional marketing and PR.

Social Media is a great place to engage, promote your brand and even build relationships. But the “hows” of engagement can be a little sticky. There are a lot of people talking, but what makes a brand great is getting people to listen.  There is a difference between just being on Social Media and being great at Social Media.  Here are some tips to help you move along from just being part of the chatter and being part of the conversation.

  • Be Relevant- You’re a Brand

There are lots of applications on Facebook and Twitter.  No matter how much you’re tempted, you are not allowed to poke, prod, give gifts there, if you’re interacting as a brand or trying to build a brand image.  If you give gifts of any kind, be sure that they tie into an overall promotional strategy.

Consider your content before you post.  Does what you’re saying fit into your overall brand strategy?  Be sure that grammar and spelling are correct.  You want to be taken seriously.  Provide great content.  Talk about what you “are” about.  If you are a business related to green living, talk, blog and post strategies on that initiative.  There is no substitute for great content.

  • Be Creative

Creativity gets attention.  Be creative in your word usage be a good copywriter.  There’s a great difference between saying:  “Getting ready to survey our customers to find out what is important to them” and “Want to be in charge of our company for the day?  Give us your feedback and tell us what we need to be doing!!!” Use creative contests and give-aways to encourage people to interact with and even promote for your brand.

  • Be Consistent

If you’re married or in a relationship, you would never go a day without talking to each other at all (hopefully).  Remember, that followers and friends of your brand are real people.  Build great relationships by showing up consistently.  If you blog, post regularly.  Post statuses daily or a few times during the day. Whatever you do, don’t start to engage then walk away from the relationship.

  • Be Brief

Although we need to be consistent, we don’t want to overwhelm our readers.  Make posts and updates brief and easy to digest.  If you’re on Facebook, update sparingly.  Some companies and people update every hour on the hour, which burns people out, or worse, causes them to tune out.

If you like talking a lot or have lots of links/content to share – Twitter is your playground.  It’s a great place to talk, engage and share information quickly without overwhelming people.  But still be sure not to over post.

In most cases, even outside of Twitter, keep it to 140 characters or less.  If you have a lot more to say, place the content in a note, not a status update.

  • Be Engaging

Talk with people.  Listen and comment on content other people post.  Show interest in what people are talking about and join the conversation.  Nothing makes brands shine more than listening and interacting in meaningful ways with customers.  By watching your friends and followers, you find out what is important to them, which gives you a great opportunity to do market research of some sort.

  • Be Meaningful

Once you’ve engaged and listened, you’re now in a great position to meet the needs of your friends and fans.  Post things that are of value or interest to your readers.  Create and or tweak products to meet the needs that you’ve discovered.

  • Be Polite

It can be tempting in Social Media to feel like you know people much better than you do.  While it is very possible to learn about people, get to know their personalities, likes and dislikes, until you’ve met, you don’t truly know them.  Move into relationships using good etiquette.  Talk to people publicly in the stream when the information is relevant, supports your overall brand or is applicable to more than one person.  When your content, conversations or questions are not relevant to the entire community or if information you want to applies only to one person, consider a direct message, e-mail, phone call or in person conversation.  Don’t ask overly personal questions.

Using these simple but effective ways to engage, interact and promote on Social Media, you’ll not only be GREAT, you’ll be FABULOUS!

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Categories: Branding · Newsletter · Social Media
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What Ben and Jerry’s Can Teach Professional Marketers About Branding

August 21, 2009 · Leave a Comment

ben and jerrys

If there’s one thing you can say about the “Ben and Jerry’s” brand, it’s that it has personality.  I spent a day last week touring their Waterbury, Vermont factory and just watching their employees interact with the customers.  I did this because I wanted to get a sense of what I could learn about the company by simply observing and listening in to the conversations and watching the interactions of everyone there.

In the interest of full disclosure, you need to know that I was actually vacationing in Vermont and that I couldn’t bring myself to leave the state without feeding a few of my secret addictions; ice cream, factory tours and watching people.

I came away from this experience with a few insights you might enjoy:

  1. An authentic brand can make up for lack of “brilliance.” Sometimes it can be hard to justify “brand building” research or strategies to management because it isn’t as easy to quantify brand equity as it is to quantify revenue and profitability.  Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield proved that building an authentic brand infused with personality can create profits even if you’re not a great business person.  In the early days they actually closed the store and put a sign up that said “We’re closed because we’re trying to figure out what’s going on.”   If you’re working on developing your brand, think about doing internal research first.  Start with basic cultural observation and notice what your organization does naturally.  Are you naturally neat-freaks, detail oriented,  fun loving?  Note all of your observations or invite a third party to live in your company for a while and see what they say.  Now test those observations internally and see what comes out of it.  Your brand cannot be authentic if it doesn’t come from what you already do.
  2. If it’s not fun why do it. Ben and Jerry may not have been “professional marketers,” but they understood a clear secret to a successful and authentic brand was to have fun.  Every element of their brand is infused with fun; the names of the ice creams are fun, the facility is painted in fun colors, the employees are having fun.  Fun is an integral ingredient to any successful brand.  Of course “fun” doesn’t look the same for every company out there.  What does “fun” look like for you and your customers?  Don’t think that because you’re in a technical or manufacturing organization that “fun” can’t be an element of your business.  Remember, machines don’t make buying decisions, people make decisions.  People would rather do business with a company that’s fun to work with.  In what ways can you make your interactions with customer fun?  In what ways can the ordering process be fun?  In what ways can you make problem solving and brainstorming customer solutions fun?  Look for interesting ways to bring fun into all of your processes.
  3. Don’t lie down, do something! Perhaps the best insight I got out of the Ben and Jerry’s experience was how important it is to take action and do something.  How many times have we looked at our customer satisfaction scores and felt completely powerless to do something differently or to make a change in a product or process?  The key to building your brand is to take action.  Don’t look at your data as a grade or evalutation.  Data is data.  We are the ones who make it mean something.  So make it mean “opportunity.”  Instead of interpreting results as “good or bad” analyze your results from the perspective of a detective.  Look for areas of competitive advantage.

Building a solid profitable brand is not hard work.  It can actually be a tremendous amount of fun.  But for some reason, many businesses have decided that fun isn’t allowed to be part of the equation, that fun is a waste of money.  The truth is that creating a brand that is a function of quantitative data and internal navel-gazing is the biggest waste of time and marketing dollars.  Being something that you’re not is an expensive marketing proposition.  It takes more money to constantly communicate and create messages and train people to say things that don’t come naturally.  With the increased use of social media and transparency no brand can afford to be fake.

So the next time you’re struggling with brand building activities, run to your local supermarket, grab a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in your favorite flavor,  share it with a few collegues and think about one thing you can do to have fun with your brand — then DO IT.

Categories: Branding · marketing strategy