When I bought my car, it came with a trial subscription to satellite radio. Neat product, but I don’t drive enough to justify the alternative to my trusty iPod.
As my trial nears the end, I’m getting letters from SiriusXM, letting me know that the trial is ending and offering subscriptions. I remembered the annual cost being around $200, so when the latest letter included the annual option with a price of $159.39, I thought that wasn’t too bad, and considered subscribing.
In my last post, I mentioned the amazing power of frequently asked question pages or documents. As I noted, these simple, easy-to-create tools can strengthen your sales efforts, overcome resistance, minimize misunderstandings, and boost customer satisfaction.
However, FAQs won’t do any of those things effectively unless they’re completely candid and honest. An FAQ isn’t the place to duck tough subjects or hide behind weasel wording. That’s because your customers and prospects are much better at spotting that kind of stuff than you realize.
I’ve railed before about automated email marketing campaigns that lack common sense. For example, when I buy products from a particular office supply store, it tries to resell me the identical product a couple months later with the message that it’s time to refill my order. No, I don’t need another shredder, thanks.
Just as annoying are the companies that send emails asking you to complete reviews of your recent purchases. A case in point was the email I received today from a major hardware retailer. While working on a home repair a few days ago, I needed to replace some rusty bolts, washers, and nuts, so I stopped in and bought a few new ones. I swiped my customer loyalty card when I made the purchase.
B2B companies want to be noticed, and they need to remembered, so that when a company needs their services, they’ll call. But how do you do that in today’s noisy, fast-changing marketplace?
Russell Martin & Associates is one of the IT industry’s most-loved training firms. Instead of delivering the standard, dull training presentations, they’ve developed an intimate understanding of how people learn, and they apply it to helping project managers and others in the IT world improve their efficiency, quality, and workflow (among other things).
As search engines have become the fastest and easiest way to gather information, many companies have invested a fortune in trying to be one of the first listings searchers see. Research supports the concept, noting that people are far more likely to click on listings near the top left-hand portion of the screen, which just happens to be where most search engines display them.
With that boom in search engines has come a boomlet of search-engine optimization (SEO) consultants. These IT wizards study how the search engines work and then retool websites to make them more attractive. Instead of focusing on the humans who read the information on the sites, they target the crawlers and spiders that lay the groundwork for search engines.
One of the most sensible strategies used by direct marketers is what’s known as a split A/B test. A split test offers a way to compare two different messages, or two different offers, and to determine which will produce a greater rate of return.
Suppose you’re thinking of sending an offer to a list of 100,000 prospects. You aren’t sure whether those prospects would prefer a discount or some kind of bonus offer in return for their business. So what you do is take a small percentage of that list… say 5 percent… and divide that portion in half.
If you’re not a history buff, you may not be familiar with the Maginot Line. After being battered by Germany during the First World War, and nervous about a second invasion, France decided to protect itself by building an amazing “wall” of defensive artillery along the Franco-German border. They put all their faith in this technological marvel, knowing that Germany could not plow through it. And the Germans couldn’t, so they simply went around it on their trip to Paris during WWII.
Many marketers approach media the same way. They decide to place all their eggs in that proverbial basket, which can be effective as long as the basket isn’t flawed or dropped. Facing higher postage costs and the many advantages of email and other newer marketing options, many marketers raced away from direct mail.
In the old days, before marketers began to mistake technology for knowledge and sophistication, most companies relied on a variety of tried-and-true tactics to make the most of their marketing budgets. One of the most effective tools they used was called the split test.
Essentially, what they would do is make two different offers to two identical groups. Suppose they had a mailing list with 50,000 names. They would take 1000 names from that list, divide them into two groups, and send them offers that differed in content or approach.
After my recent post about the value of direct mail, I happened upon an interesting statistic. The Direct Marketing Association released new research that said 95 percent of nonprofit organizations use direct mail.
Why is that so significant? Most nonprofits operate on razor-thin budgets. They don’t have money to waste. So they have to be very careful about how they invest what they do have. And the fact that 95 percent of them continue to use direct mail as a channel suggests that it continues to carry its own weight.
… is one of the oldest in the book. I’ve always been a fan of direct mail (the targeted kind, not the mass junk mail version). And my clients will tell you that I’m quick to recommend it in this age of tweets and suites. In fact, I’ve told audiences that direct mail may even be more effective today, simply because so few companies are using it.
But don’t take my word for it. Lois Geller has been one of the doyennes of direct marketing for decades, and in a recent blog for Forbes, she shares her thoughts on why direct mail continues to outpull most other marketing channels.