Marketing Speaker, Jim Ackerman says… Don’t be such a STIFF!
When it comes to your marketing, advertising, and even face-to-face selling, you’re probably too stiff. You’re probably afraid to shake things up and knock prospects out of their comfort zone a bit.
Ironically, this may be costing you sales in a face-to-face selling situation; it may be costing you prospects through your advertising.
Try using the technique of the Pattern Interrupt to shock people out of their sleepy-eyed, ho-hum, day-to-day doldrums and get them to pay close attention to you, your message, and your offer.
Check out this video to see what I mean…
Now, once you get them in the door and shock them into giving you their full attention, it’s time to MAXIMIZE your sales results. The normal approach is to ask a few qualifying questions, guess what the prospect would like and offer it to her.
May I suggest an alternative?
Instead of guessing and presenting your best-guess offer, present three offers… Go from best, to better, to good. (It’s important not to do it the other way around, as you can see in this video…
You see, if you can snap people out of their “stinkin thinkin” and provide them great options, you not only increase the number of transactions you’ll get, but you also increase the amount you make on the average transaction.
And the best part is, your clients will love you for it, and you’ll have a lot more fun. Nothing STIFF about that!
Now, if you haven’t subscribed to my 2 YouTube channels, it’s time you did. Click on the links below…
MARKETING TIP O’THE DAY - This one is for may marketing tips. Normally 2-4 minutes long.
Up & ADD ‘em… Advice from Marketing Speaker, Jim Ackerman…
In a recent post I talked about coming to grips with the fact that most often, you’re acquiring customers at a LOSS.
Well, it doesn’t have to be all that bad. Take a look at this video, where I explain that Up-selling & Add-on selling can mitigate that loss — maybe even turn it into a gain…
A couple of additional points…
First, I really didn’t mean to say getting the earrings FREE was a companion offer. Getting the earrings at a discount when you buy the bracelet is what I meant to say.
Now, remember that companion offers aren’t the only things you can add-on. And there is no rule that says you can only make one add-on offer.
SEASONAL offers make sense in some businesses. I saw a little sandwich sign sitting in the isle of a grocery store saying, Flu Shots At The Pharmacy, $20.
That was in the Fall. In the Spring they ran allergy shots.
Your seasonal offers could be holiday seasons, hunting seasons, football seasons, bridal seasons, whatever.
AT LARGE offers could be located anywhere around the store if you’re a retailer, or come out of nowhere if you’re any kind of business. You just mention them…
“Because you’ve made this purchase today, Mr. Jones, you have qualified for a special offer on (fill in the blank).”
Finally, let’s not forget the CHECK-OUT offer. In the store they may suggest batteries when you’re at the counter. Certainly you can come up with something to offer at check-out.
Now here’s the thing. Have 3 add-on offers ready to go. Offer the first and get a decision. Regardless of whether you get a yes or no, offer the 2nd and get a decision. And once again, regardless of the answer, go ahead and offer the third.
“Wait a minute, Jim, people will get turned off. They’ll say I’m a pushy salesman!”
No, they won’t… if you do it right. Pushiness is not what you do, it’s how you do it. There is an elegant way to do this a crass way. Think it through in advance. Think like a customer. Then craft a script and process that will leave the customer feeling like you have actually served him or her at the highest possible level for making these offer.
Before a close, a word about UP-SELLING.
Do it!
Start out by selling the dream… give them a vision to shoot for. Let the client have a glimpse of what’s possible. You might be surprised that some will actually say yes. The first time that happens, you’ll wonder how many similar sales you’ve missed because you robbed the client of even the opportunity to look at something better than what they thought they wanted.
And in addition, when you sell the dream, they’re highly likely to spend at a little higher level — due to the principle of contrast — than they would if you never showed them the possibilities.
Marketing Speaker Jim Ackerman says, “Watch Out for Discounting Dangers…”
Discounting can be dangerous… if you don’t do it right. For example, if you offer 10% off, it costs you the full 10%.
Value adding could be a far more compelling offer because…
1. You still get the same amount of revenue
2. Since your cost of goods is typically around half of retail value, you can build a more compelling offer for the same out-of-pocket cost. (Add 20% in value for the same 10% out-of-pocket
3. Customers usually like value-added MORE than mere discounts.
Check out my latest video for the details…
With that in mind, remember, that if your offers aren’t good, your ads won’t work. To make a better offer costs you more money up front, but it may also bring in exponentially higher results. And when you’re focused on the Lifetime Profit Value of a customer as opposed to the transactional value, that can be an excellent trade off.
The ONLY trade-off, in fact, because if your ads don’t work, you don’t have customers to make into lifetime profit streams.
Marketing Speaker says, “You Want ‘Em to Take Action Now? Limit Their Ability to Take Action Later”
For the most part, we spend a lot of time in marketing, telling people all the good things about our product, and making sweet, compelling offers to get them to buy. But sometimes limiting their ability to do just that — BUY — is the best thing to get them to do so, NOW, rather than later or never. Take a look at this video and see what I mean…
So, next time you’re scratching your head, trying to come up with an offer that will get immediate action, take away their ability to take delayed action and just see what happens. You could create a feeding frenzy!
Success,
Jim
P.S. Subscribe to both of my YouTube Channels… and
2 Vital Insights on “Risk Reversal” From Marketing Speaker, Jim Ackerman…
I have made hundreds of thousands of dollars for myself, very much on the strength of one of the most unique GUARANTEES ever devised — my 400% ROI Guarantee, associated with my Principle-Centered Marketing Coaching Program.
This Guarantee “reverses the risk.” In other words, it puts the onus on ME to perform as promised, as opposed to putting my clients in the position of “buyer beware.”
More important than my success is the experience of dozens of my clients who have adopted their own versions of unique and powerful, risk-reversing Guarantees, that lower the barriers of entry and resistance for their prospects, more easily turning them into clients.
Here, in these 2 videos, enjoy a brief overview of this principle of “risk reversal,” and how you can use it in your enterprise…
Part 1: Craft a Compelling, Performance-specific GUARANTEE
Part 2: Once You’ve Got a Great Guarantee… MARKETING It!
Put these principles to work in your business and you’ll not only give your prospects a compelling reason to buy, you’ll give them a reason to pay MORE for what you offer than what they can get it for from the competition.
Finally, on my 2 YouTube channels, you can get a regular diet of profit-proven, cash-generating marketing tips, instruction and insights. Why not subscribe to both channels…
Marketing Speaker, Jim Ackerman Claims Snail Mail Beats Email 6 Ways to Sunday
If you’ve shifted to email as your primary marketing medium; indeed, if you’ve switched to almost any form of electronic marketing as your primary marketing channel in your brick and mortar business, you are almost certainly costing yourself thousands.
Here’s the facts…
Email simply doesn’t get opened. I just doesn’t. People who give us permission to email them —
or even ASK us to email them — don’t open our emails. At least nowhere near at the rate they open snail mail.
Yes, you can send an almost unlimited number of emails, virtually for FREE, and at that rate, if you send enough of them, you can generate some sales, even at their pathetic open rates. But beware the motivations of the email buyer. You may get the same number of sales, but will they be for as much, will the new customer convert to a long-term client, and won’t you have spent as much in time, energy, and yes, even money, to get these few, lower volume, less loyal sales?
In addition to the “spam effect,” which causes us not to open email, even when it’s not spam, there is also the inherent difficulty of getting people to open a document with just a few characters of introduction in a “subject line.” Are you that good a headline writer? Humbly, I must say I think I’m a great headline writer, and I’m a long way from consistently cracking the code on this one.
And since the headline is the ad for the ad, if you can’t get people to open your email from your mini-headline subject line, it ain’t gonna get opened at all.
Contrast both of these inherent weaknesses of email with good old fashioned snail mail.
While we largely ignore most of what we get in our email inbox, everybody goes to the mailbox once a day to see what they got. I even have six and eight year-old grandkids that ask me if they got any mail today.
And while little or no formal “sorting” takes place in the email world, every piece of mail that comes into your home commands at least a glance from at least one person in the house. That means somebody looks at and evaluates the relevancy to them of each piece of snail mail. And they decide whether the piece goes into the “must open” or “maybe open” pile. Whichever pile you make, at least you got your shot. Not so with email.
And with snail mail, you’re not limited to a few characters, blandly presented just like every single other piece of mail in your inbox. No limitations on size, font, style length or materials. Each piece of snail mail looks different. Email can’t match that.
With snail mail, you can use color, illustrations or photography, size, shape, dimension and bulk to get your piece opened. What do you think your odds are with that kind of creative flexibility, compared to that dull, boring, email offering?
Not saying email doesn’t have it’s strengths. Economy of delivery is certainly one. And if you can get your package open, you can do some cool stuff with it that’s tougher to do with snail mail. Add video or audio, for example. These things CAN be done with snail mail, but it’s not inexpensive.
Still, for all that, snail mail has a tactile advantage that 2-dimensional email will never have. You can touch, heft, examine, mull, if you will, with snail mail. No matter how compelling the video, it is stuck in the 2-dimensional plain, behind (on) a screen; untouchable.
Now, I understand the expense arguments. I understand that when you’re looking at sending almost unlimited emails for $15 a month, and a single snail mail envelop can cost you 89¢ or more, the temptation is to forget the snail and stick with the e.
And I’m not saying you should abandon email. You shouldn’t.
But snail mail remains a proven winner for business — small business, in particular — and the costs of acquiring transactions through the mail remain very competitive indeed.
So, here are some tips for lowering the cost of acquisition of a transaction, using snail mail.
· Don’t use a #10 envelope. That’s the standard size of “business” mail and open rates will go down.
· Do use “announcement size” envelopes and greeting card-size envelopes. Doing so could increase your open rates by a factor of 10 or more, which, with a good offer, could dramatically decrease your cost of acquisition.
· Do use email and telemarketing as a follow-up, to increase open and response rates. People need to be told what to do, more than once.
· Do focus on your existing customer lists and specific segments of it for specific offers. This is part of the “small ball” approach we talked about in a recent column.
· Use multiple offers to multiple mini-segments of your list, running concurrently. You can send a promotion to one segment of your list, and another promo to another segment, based on your knowledge of what they have, what they like, etc. You could mail to as few as a couple dozen or to as many as a few hundred.
· When you find something that works, keep using it. Don’t make the mistake of doing something successfully and then asking yourself, “what do I do now?” Do the same thing again… and again… and again.
· Test small and scale up when you achieve success. If something works on a small scale it will likely work on a larger one, and perhaps on the largest one.
· Keep tweaking and testing to “genetically engineer” your marketing for ever-increasing success.
These aren’t the only things you can do, but they’re a great start. As you experiment and refine, I’m guessing your shift back to snail mail will put a nice stamp on your success.
THE END
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Ackerman is a Salt Lake City-based Marketing Speaker, Marketing Coach, author and ad writer. For Jim’s speaking services go to www.marketingspeakerjimackerman.com Subscribe to his VLOGS at www.YouTube.com/MarketingSpeakerJimA, where you get a video marketing tip o’the day, and at www.YouTube.com/GoodBadnUglyAds, where Jim does a weekly ad critique and let’s you do the same.
Time For Small Ball… Says Marketing Speaker, Jim Ackerman
In my last column I talked about the power of relationships in marketing. I want to take that a bit further this time, in this light…
It’s no secret the world of marketing has literally been turned upside down with the advent of the iPhone (smart phones), the iPad (tablets) and online and mobile media in general.
But in the end, it’s not the technology, but the way it has allowed society to return to its roots — without even realizing it — that has revolutionized the world of marketing and advertising.
The result of the technology is the “social media.” And while I have decried the expected longevity of online societies like Facebook and Twitter as viable marketing channels in the long run, specifically because there is no barrier to entry — everybody can get in for FREE — they have created societies that return us, in some sense, to the ways societies worked in yesteryear.
Maybe you’d have to be as old as me to remember this, but it used to be that people knew their neighbors. It used to be they knew most, if not all their neighbors. They went for walks, they sat on the porch or on the stoops. They got into conversations with each other. And it didn’t end there. They played penuckle together, had back yard picnics and barbecues, went to church together. They socialized.
Enter the television, commutes to work, two-income households, crime, fear, excessive government intrusion into our lives “to keep us safe,” and we saw an erosion of the societal rituals and norms that had sustained civilization for generations.
The result was a society that increasingly “holed up” at home, in front of the tube. Shoot, we even stopped talking to each other in our families.
And the early electronic and digital technologies exacerbated the situation. Transistor radios, then personal cassette players, then iPods (mp3 players). We got more and more separated; isolated.
Things began to swing back ironically enough, with the introduction of the Internet. Yes, now we were even more tied to that computer, but with email, then chat, we were able to connect with others, anywhere and anytime, so easily, that we began to do it again.
The communication is different, to be sure. Not as intimate in many ways; lacking a certain depth, perhaps, but it is taking place again.
Enter the mobile media. Texting, Facebook, Twitter and their ilk. The online hook-ups have us back on the figurative stoops, sharing our experiences one with another. We’re slowly getting used to “the neighborhood” again, even if that neighborhood literally spans the globe.
As in days of old, if you screw up in business with a customer today, the whole world is going to hear about it in minutes. It won’t take months, weeks or days. My son, Dave, did a controversial YouTube video a few weeks ago and within 6 days, over 636,000 people had not only heard about it, but actually saw it.
So the collective appetite for relationship has been re-whetted. But still, there appears to be a longing for more; a longing for a greater than digital connection.
And this is where marketing “small ball” has an opportunity.
Big ball — tall ball, if you will — was the old foundation of mass marketing. Advertise on radio, TV, in the newspaper, in the yellow pages, and people will come. True once, much tougher anymore.
The numbers, as we’ve discussed in this column in the past, simply are no longer there.
But the people are. The population is still growing, so they’re around somewhere. Just not in one place anymore…
Well, that’s not exactly true. Fact is they ARE in one place. Your place. Your customers have gathered in one place and it’s your customer database.
By now, you see where I’m going. Whether they know each other or not, your clients, customers or patients — every single one of them — have at least one thing in common… YOU. They all know you and you know them.
A neighborhood is born!
Now it’s your job to pull that neighborhood together. Here are some ways to do it…
1. Do a newsletter. It can be delivered electronically, if you want, but make sure it contains lots of acknowledgement of specific individuals in your “neighborhood.” Welcome newcomers to your business or practice. Thank referrers for their referrals and name who they referred, and how you rewarded the referrer. Make offers. Tell case histories. Include testimonials.
2. Use the telephone. Ashley Green Miller of Green’s Jewelers in Roxboro, NC was chatting with another jeweler about the perils of unmoved inventory. The other jeweler indicated he was going to do a mass ad campaign to get the product turned. Ashley said, “why don’t you just call your best clients and offer it to them?”
Indeed, why not? Don’t the people in your “neighborhood,” your circle of influence; the ones who have already shown you the most loyalty, deserve the best you have to offer, before the inventory gets picked over by bargain-hunters you may never even have met?
And if you have employees you’re paying during slow times, just to be there, the phone is a great way to make them more productive. Trust me, your clients won’t be offended, they’ll be thrilled!
3. Use email, but more importantly, use SNAIL MAIL. Open rates for email are below 10%, often even with people who have said they want to hear from us. Most snail mail gets looked at, and at least opened. Especially among people we know and like, and especially when the mailing doesn’t look like advertising.
Use an announcement sized envelope. Hand address it. Use a first-class stamp. Sure it’ll be more expensive per unit, but I’m betting your cost per lead and cost per sale drop like a rock. (Again, you have dormant employees. Have them stuff and address. After all, you’re playing small ball here. You’re not mailing to 10,000. You’re mailing to 500. Maybe less. That’s what small ball is all about.
4. Integrate. Use all three systems; snail mail, email, the phone. Bill Warren, another Jeweler client of mine does exactly that. He has response rates to his promotions that range from a low of around 6% to highs above 30%. What would happen to your bottom line if you were able to get response rates like that.
Want to find out? Play small ball this spring and watch your sales go big.
THE END
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Ackerman is a Salt Lake City-based Marketing Speaker, Marketing Coach, author and ad writer. For Jim’s speaking services go to www.marketingspeakerjimackerman.com Subscribe to his VLOGS at www.YouTube.com/MarketingSpeakerJimA, where you get a video marketing tip o’the day, and at www.YouTube.com/GoodBadnUglyAds, where Jim does a weekly ad critique and let’s you do the same.
Marketing Speaker, Jim Ackerman says… “Great Minds Act Alike… And so do non-great minds”
I’m on an airplane returning from an engagement in Orlando, where I addressed the members of the Independent Jewelers Organization. And while they are all independent, they have two things in common. They’re all jewelers, and they all ACT alike.
And in this case that’s good.
As one of the nation’s top Marketing Speakers, I address groups all over North America, and I have noticed a very interesting phenomenon…
All groups act alike.
Every group takes on a personality of its own. And I have to say, seldom is this fact remarkable.
But the IJO crowd is different. The IJO members are a serious group of professionals who are dedicated to growing their individual businesses. They are individually open to, and actively seeking, better answers and better solutions to better their enterprises. And they are collectively finding those answers.
IJO only accepts one member in any given geographic area. This encourages the members to be willing to share their successes, because they don’t fear competitive “poaching.”
How did I get the gig? One of my very best and most successful clients, Ashley Miller, the owner of Green’s Jewelers in Roxoboro, NC, referred me to the group with a strong recommendation, because Ashley grew her business, well over 30% in the first year she worked with me and increased by double-digits again the second year. (Her Valentines sales were up 25% alone this year.) So Ashley wanted to share me with her colleagues. You don’t see that in other groups all that much.
What is even more impressive about IJO members is their propensity to take immediate action.
I’m a good speaker and my addresses are generally well received, by all kinds of audiences. But while every group has its go-getters who embrace and act, what impresses me about the IJO crowd is the shear volume of go-getters.
Within minutes of the conclusion of my first session, all the promotional materials I had brought for all my sessions were almost instantly snatched up. I was deluged by people asking for appointments, more information, and how to directly and immediately benefit from what I had to offer.
Don’t misunderstand. Of course this is flattering to a speaker, but I’m not blowing my horn here, I’m blowing theirs.
Most groups are far more timid. Most groups actually fear following through. I’m not sure whether it’s fear of being “sold” something, or fear of not being able to succeed. But it is fear, and it’s often almost palpable. It’s ironic that they join these various groups, ostensibly to improve their business acumen, but balk at going all the way to actually do it, especially in the most vital area of their business for their long-term success… marketing.
Why this phenomenon of homogeny in groups? Is it simply that birds of a feather flock together? Well, perhaps to a degree.
But I believe that it’s more than that.
I believe that every group is a reflection of its leadership. From a group as small as a couple or family to our national society at large.
And I believe this all happens quite naturally and automatically, regardless of whether the members of the group even think they’re a member of the group or are consciously aware that they are.
For example, do we think of ourselves as part of a collective? Well, on some level. We claim to be “Americans,” for example. But do we realize that we “Americans all act alike?” Don’t believe me? Ask the French. And we all know all the French act alike.
You see, we’re trained by our leadership to believe, think, talk and act certain ways.
For example, perhaps Bill Clinton’s biggest (notice I did not say greatest) legacy to the country — and I have to say congress and his party were complicit in this — is that he made it okay for all of us to cheat on our spouses and lie about it.
I’m dead serious about this. Bill Clinton got caught with his pants down — literally — and we as a society, through our press, congress and political process, decided to look the other way and say, no big deal.
Since then we have had all kinds of scandals, some with consequences, some without, but generally it appears we’ve all said, no big deal.
But what is the marketing lesson for all of this?
You have a group that is affiliated with you. They’re your customers. And for the most part, they all act alike. You’re the leader of this group. They act, toward you, the way you’ve taught them to act.
Are they always asking for discounts? You taught them that. They don’t do that with other merchants, because when they’re doing business with another, they’re part of that group, and the other merchants have taught them not to ask for discounts.
Do they buy from you frequently enough or not? Whichever it is, you’ve programmed them to act that way.
Do they trust you? Do they always have to “think about it?” Is each transaction large enough, and do they say yes when you ask them to add something on, in their own best interest? Whatever your answers to these questions, you’ve taught them to act that way.
Now, if you like the answers to all those questions, this principle is a powerful advantage for you. If you don’t like the answers, you’ve got a problem. Because once a group develops a personality, it’s tough to change it. Like steering an aircraft carrier, group behavior doesn’t turn on a dime. It takes time.
But the good news is, the ship can be steered.
You start by reprogramming yourself; the way you talk to your group, the frequency with which you interact with them, the stories you tell them, the examples you hold up, the messages of expectation you send. In short, the relationship you develop with them.
It will take time, but through a dedicated, consistent effort, you can have the IJO of clientele. A group that will enthusiastically embrace and endorse you; a group that will trust you and buy from you; a group that will love you and each other. And you, and each member of your group, will prosper together.
THE END
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Ackerman is a Salt Lake City-based Marketing Speaker, Marketing Coach, author and ad writer. For Jim’s speaking services go to www.marketingspeakerjimackerman.com Subscribe to his VLOGS at www.YouTube.com/MarketingSpeakerJimA, where you get a video marketing tip o’the day, and at www.YouTube.com/GoodBadnUglyAds, where Jim does a weekly ad critique and let’s you do the same.
Marketing Speaker Jim Ackerman Warns of the Danger of the Big Idea…
I know everyone is looking for the “Big Idea.” But big ideas can be dangerous, especially in the world of marketing and advertising.
If that sounds like the opposite of what you’d expect, here’s the problem…
Marketing and advertising are the glamor sides of every business. It’s the fun stuff, and it’s the most important stuff.
The great industrialist, Peter Drucker said – and I’m paraphrasing here, “There are only two legitimate functions of business… Marketing and innovation. The rest is expense.”
Well, if you believe Drucker — and who doesn’t — then if you’re an accountant, an attorney, an executive assistant, a middle manager, a production line person, the janitor, and all too often the President or CEO, you’re part of the expense structure. And what fun is that?
It’s the marketers that make the world go ’round. Sales, marketing and advertising. That’s where the action is. And everybody wants in on the action, right?
Now, in order to get the marketing stuff done and done well, the boss hires ad agencies, or in-house marketing people or freelancers from top designers to foreigners on e-lance at two bucks an hour.
A good start. These people are hired because of their expertise in this tricky field of marketing. They’re hired because they’ve made a study of it. It’s their life’s work. They have education and they have experience. And that is specifically why they’re hired.
They’re expected to come up with brilliance and they feel the pressure to do so. And sometimes they actually deliver.
But then what happens?
Incredulously, the very people who hired them in the first place, specifically because the hiree is supposedly smarter about these things than the hirer, feel compelled to seek all kinds of opinions about the work of the expert.
So they “show the work around,” to virtually everybody in the building. The accountants and lawyers, the clericals and managers, even the line workers and the janitors in many cases.
Don’t you find it unnerving that the boss wouldn’t trust these people to do this work, but he turns to them to critique it?
When you go to the doctor and he gives you a treatment plan, do you say, “Gee Doc, sounds p-e-r-r-e-t-t-y good. Tell you what. Let me run it by my secretary and some of my line people and see what they have to say.”
Yet this is precisely what happens in the world of advertising.
And what do you get when you do this? A plethora of “big ideas”… and an array of small ones as well.
The little ones look like this…
“I think you should change the word STAT in the headline. I don’t think our market will relate to that.”
“The picture doesn’t do anything for me. How ’bout we use an older couple looking like they’re enjoying life.”
“I would never respond to an offer like that.”
“It’s too edgy. We’re likely to turn our audience off.”
“It would be funnier if we…”
You know you’ve got a “big idea”, though, when they start out with the words, “Y’know what we oughta do is…”
Here’s the truth when it comes to the people who create advertising and marketing programs for a living… at least the good ones…
Every single word that has gone into your ad – every graphic, visual, or auditory element – has been thought through and calculated to bring the greatest possible response.
They’ve almost always considered just about every one of the ideas you and your non-marketing wannabes are spouting off like the creative geniuses they’re not. Those ideas were tossed for a reason.
People who tell you they wouldn’t respond to “something like that” almost always have and almost always will. The only market research that really means anything is the “wallet test.” Which marketing will actually get somebody to pull out their wallet and buy? And the only way to discover that is to take it to market and sell it.
The reason your creative people even allow these kind of pass-it-around shenanigans is that they’re not arrogant enough — translated, secure enough in their own skin — to believe they’ve got the only answers of even the best ones. But odds are frankly through the roof, that they actually do.
These exercises are maddenly frustrating to the creatives. Maybe that’s why they’re seen as hyper-sensitive eccentrics most of the time. It certainly is professionally discouraging to them. Bad for their attitude. Bad for their work. Bad for what you get out of them.
Still, occasionally, somebody comes up with an idea that really is an improvement, so we all keep doing the dance. That is the nature of ideas.
Just remember that, these true improvements are very rare indeed. And in fact, most of the “improvements” that get deployed actually make the effort less effective, not more.
There can be an exception to the rule. When you go to get your “second opinions,” why not pay another professional to critique the work. Keep an agency, a copywriter, a marketing consultant on retainer, whose sole job is to look at the lead agency’s work. A second pair of genuinely expert eyes could be just the ticket to make real improvements that could send response rates through the roof.
“Too expensive, Jim”
Really? If you’ve been reading this column for any length of time, you know that a 2-word change in a headline could account for as much as a 1,000% increase in results. Given that understanding, doesn’t a little extra investment in the message make a lot of sense? It could make a lot of dollars.
Whether you take that step or not, here’s one thing I recommend in all cases: You hire these people for their expertise. When it comes to changing their work in favor of any less-expert opinion, it’s dangerous not to give your creatives the benefit of the doubt.
If you can’t do that, then at least test their version against the amateur-revised versions, head-to-head in the marketplace.
If you still don’t trust their instincts and training, fire them, and get people who you can trust.
THE END
EDITOR’S NOTE: Salt Lake City-based Jim Ackerman is one of the nation’s top Marketing Speakers. He’s a Marketing Coach, author and ad writer. For Jim’s speaking services go to www.marketingspeakerjimackerman.com Subscribe to his VLOGS at www.YouTube.com/MarketingSpeakerJimA, where you get a video marketing tip o’the day, and at www.YouTube.com/GoodBadnUglyAds, where Jim does a weekly ad critique and let’s you do the same.
Marketing Speaker, Jim Ackerman Reveals the Demonstrable Power of Relationships
I have, over the last several years, had the opportunity to work with a number of businesses, all in the same industry. The same segment of the retail industry, as a matter of fact.
Some of these retailers I worked with concurrently; others consecutively. And the experiences have led me to one inescapable, fully documentable conclusion…
If you’re not cultivating strong relationships with your clientele,
you are leaving thousands – even tens of thousands of dollars – on the table,
and risking the prosperity, and probably the survival, of your enterprise.
Here is the uncontestable truth… Good marketing is exponentially better when you have strong customer relationships.
In fact, BAD marketing is exponentially better when you have strong customer relationships, it’s just harder to tell.
Case in point. I worked with a half dozen jewelers in North Carolina. I recommended each do very similar, private sale promotions. And when I say very similar, I’m not kidding. The invitations were almost identical in many ways. The heading at the top of the page was the same. Much of the copy of the letter was the same.
Really, the only difference from one to the next was the specific, price and item offers contained. But while the merchandise being highlighted was different, the relative values were very similar. Deep discounts, a wide variety, multiple price points.
Now it needs to be said that all of these promotions were successful beyond what these merchants had been used to. Response rates varied between 6.5% — which anyone with experience will acknowledge is two or three times “normal” — and a whopping, through-the-roof 40%.
And here’s the thing… In the three lower-performing shops, the rates were all in the 6.5 to 8 percent range. But the three higher-performing shops got dramatically better results – 16.75%, 20%, 40%.
What caused such a magnificent difference? I contend it was relationship. Quality of customer relationship is a predictor of marketing effectiveness.
The better the relationship going in, the greater the response rate will be to any promotional effort.
In the case of the top-performing retailers, each had strong, established relationships with the clients they were inviting to participate in the event. When the invitations arrived, the clients didn’t see them as a cheap ploy to get them back in the store. In fact, they felt honored just to be invited to such an exclusive event.
In each of the three lesser-performing retailers, they had previously admitted to me that they once had good customer relationships, but they had let that slip over the recent several years.
Not only, therefore, did the relationship-based merchants realize a better response rate, but they also closed more sales for more money per sale.
The tale of the tape bears out my main premise. All marketing works better if it is backed up by a strong client relationship that has been pre-established.
Now lest you think this applies only to retail jewelers, I assure you, it applies across the board. I’ve seen the same phenomenon in manufacturing operations, wholesalers, service companies and professionals.
The question then becomes, how do you establish and maintain those relationships. There are a number of ways…
- Say thank you for the business. And not just at check-out. Send a thank you note.
- Render extra-mile service at every opportunity. And remind the client that you have done so, and what the value of that extra service is, when appropriate
- Educate clients about your products, services, company and industry, on a regular basis. Easily done now-days through an email or e-zine. But if you want to get a little more elaborate, open a YouTube channel and do it through video.
But here’s the single, most important thing you can do to cultivate a rock-solid relationship with your already existing customers or clients…
Sell them something else…
That’s right. Keep selling to them.
If you fail to continue to SELL to your customers, they’ll fail to continue to BE your customers.
Selling to them is a demonstration that you care about them. Selling to them is how you tell them you want to bring additional value into their lives. Solving their problems through your products and services is the glue that binds them to you; that makes them value YOU.
I endorse those thank you notes… and the best of my clients include a bounceback coupon on his thank you notes, to encourage buyers to come back for more.
Birthday and anniversary offers, private sales, several other promotions during the course of each year. Depending on the nature of your business, don’t let more than a quarter go by without some kind of solicitation. In most situations monthly offers are appropriate. In some cases, more.
“But Jim, I have 18 stores across 5 states! How can I possibly build relationships with all those customers?”
I’m tempted to say, “I don’t know. You figure it out.”
But I won’t. Instead, I’ll point to Nordstroms. Their salespeople are encouraged to develop relationships with customers. They’re trained on how to do it and how to make salesmanship and exceptional customers service blend into one. Which they should be anyway.
If Nordstroms can do it, so can you. It will take training. It will take a consistent and concerted efforted… It will take time.
But the time will pass anyway. The question is, are you using the time to improve your relationships – and therefore your marketing – or are you frittering it away.
One more thing… if you want client relationships set in granite, ask them for and get from them, referrals. Once they refer a friend, you’ve got ‘em for good, and you’ll be theirs.
Success,
Jim
P.S. If you want to get a program in place that enables you to consistently market to your existing clients, and consistently express your appreciation to them. I recommend SendOutCards. In fact, I so believe in their service, they have been made Preferred Vendors in The Marketing Wizards Alliance, which allows me to rebate to you, 25% of their initial set-up charges. Contact me for more details at mail@ascendmarketing.com. Subject Line: SOC Info.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Ackerman is a Salt Lake City-based Marketing Speaker, Marketing Coach, author and ad writer. For Jim’s speaking services go to www.marketingspeakerjimackerman.com Subscribe to his VLOGS at www.YouTube.com/MarketingSpeakerJimA, where you get a video marketing tip o’the day, and at www.YouTube.com/GoodBadnUglyAds, where Jim does a weekly ad critique and let’s you do the same.
