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FAQS ARE AN AMAZING TOOL: PART TWO

November 20, 2013 by Scott Flood

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.

FAQS ARE AN AMAZING TOOL: PART ONE

November 13, 2013 by Scott Flood

I’m not sure who first created a frequently asked questions document or page, but I hope I get the opportunity to thank her someday. (And yes, I’m pretty confident that it was a “her,” given the innate male reluctance to pose questions.)

For marketers and other communicators, the FAQ is one of the most powerful tools you can use. It can strengthen your sales efforts, overcome resistance, minimize misunderstandings, and boost customer satisfaction.

SUCCESS STORY: GET TO THE BRIGHTPOINT

November 7, 2013 by Scott Flood

Some companies’ missions are easy to define. Pizza Hut sells pizzas. General Motors wants you to buy a car. And Southwest Airlines flies people here and there. But what do you do if your company’s mission and capabilities aren’t so easy to define? What do you do when most people see you as a wholesaler and warehouse when you’re actually a sophisticated strategic partner?

That was the challenge facing Brightpoint. Although the company was well-known for being the world’s largest mobile device distributor (if you’ve have a cell phone in the past decade, they probably touched it somewhere along the way), their capabilities went far beyond shipping products in a timely fashion. They wanted a quick, simple way to summarize all their capabilities and the strategic role they could play for other companies for trade shows and presentations.

AUTOMATIC RESPONSES AREN’T ALWAYS SOUND

October 30, 2013 by Scott Flood

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.

SUCCESS STORY: ANGELIC APPROACH

October 16, 2013 by Scott Flood

How do you explain complicated planned giving strategies to ordinary people who don’t have a wealth of financial knowledge? That was the heart of the challenge facing the Catholic Community Foundation, the planned-giving arm of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

The CCF manages endowments funds for parishes, charities, and other organizations with the Archdiocese, and its messages needed to compete for attention among the many appeals local Catholics received from those groups. Complicating the issue was the fact that planned giving strategies such as charitable remainder trusts and charitable lead trusts tend to be complex financial vehicles that senior citizens and others with money to give might find confusing or intimidating.

LEGIBILITY FIRST, THEN BEAUTY

October 9, 2013 by Scott Flood

Two new retail businesses opened up just down the street. I passed them for a couple weeks with no clue as to what they offered. Then my curiosity got the better of me, so I walked over to see. One’s a hair salon and the other is a photographer.

Their signs are absolutely beautiful — and completely unreadable from more than ten feet away. That might be okay if their businesses were located on a quaint street in a tourist town, where visitors ambled back and forth at a slow pace. But they’re on a busy U.S. highway where the traffic often blows by at 40 mph.

SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FOOT WITH A PIZZA WHEEL

October 2, 2013 by Scott Flood

Sometimes, companies are so focused on addressing a perceived shortfall or problem that they miss more important messages, or even send the wrong message to their stakeholders.

The newest commercial for Domino’s Pizza floored me because it’s a perfect example. Domino’s has been running a series of spots in which they admit that they haven’t been perfect in the past, but golly, they’re working on getting better. Most of the spots have been okay.

SUCCESS STORY: COMMUNITY SCAVENGER HUNT

September 25, 2013 by Scott Flood

Our Community Bank has been serving Owen County and the surrounding area for more than a century. But in these days of megabanks and cross-county competitors, consumers may be less likely to choose a truly local bank. After all, it’s tough to for a smaller bank to catch their attention.

To reinforce the message that OCB has been an important part of the community for such a long time, and that they understand the needs of community residents better than anyone else, we developed an advertising campaign that featured local landmarks. While those landmarks may not have been tourist attractions, they were the source of community pride — such as the bulldog statue outside Patricksburg Elementary School or the giant chicken that once decorated a Spencer eatery.

USE SINGLE OR DOUBLE QUOTES?

September 18, 2013 by Scott Flood

I don’t know whether to blame the Internet for something I’ve been seeing more of lately: the use of single quotation marks (‘) where double quotes (“) should be used.

Many issues related to punctuation are a matter of style, syntax, or personal preference. But the rules on quotation marks are pretty clear-cut.