Are you targeting a specific audience in your marketing campaigns?

An interesting postcard showed up in my mailbox this week from a gym in my area. The headline and photos on the postcard advertised the gym’s child care facility where members can drop off their kids while they workout. Sounds like a great amenity that many people would want to take advantage of! There is just one problem- I don’t have any children. This postcard has no relevance to me as the receiver, so my first instinct is to throw the postcard in the trash.

With the exception of the kid friendly focus, the gym actually had a really great marketing piece. The postcard had wonderful graphic design and was aesthetically pleasing, it had a unique offer to use a temporary pass to visit the gym with no membership obligation, and it had a call to action that I needed to call a toll-free number to obtain my complimentary visitors pass.

The problem with this mailer is that it did not reach its intended target audience of a gym seeker with children. After further examination, I also noticed that the postcard was addressed to “current resident” which tells me that this gym has no clue who I am and is probably mailing to every address in my area.

The underlying issue is that this gym did not do their research. Without good data, and a good list, your great offer/messaging/design will fall on deaf ears. Even a really bad marketing piece sent to the right target market can earn results, but a great marketing piece sent to the wrong target market will earn no results.

Identify Your Target Audience

Identifying your target market is easy. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Who buys from you?
• What do they buy?
• When do they buy?
• Where are they located?
• What are their buying habits?
• What are your customer demographics? Consider age, gender, lifestyle, family, residency, income level, etc.

Cookie Cutter Marketing Doesn’t Work

Don’t try to generalize you marketing to fit all of these demographics or assume that one type of marketing strategy will work for everyone (like the gym postcard). You need to market to all of these audiences differently as every audience has different needs and preferences.

Bianca Te Rito, contributing author for She Takes on the World, said it best when she blogged that, “It is a big mistake in online personal branding (or any branding for that matter) to try to be all things to all people.  If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one”.

I agree with Te Rito that we cannot try to approach all audiences in the same. My experience confirms that many people try to create cookie cutter marketing strategies that can apply to everyone, but this just simply will not work.

Instead of sending everyone in the area a postcard advertising their child care services, this gym could have greatly benefited from three distinct mini campaigns.

One could have targeted parents of young children with the messaging and imagery that was in the original postcard.

Another could target young adults with photos of young, good looking, fit individuals and the gym’s state of the art equipment.

Another could have targeted active seniors by showing images of the diverse ages present at the gym and perhaps advertise senior friendly group fitness classes.

Cost

The first reaction I get when I suggest three mini campaigns to my clients is that it must be more expensive to do three mini campaigns than one campaign, but this is not necessarily true. It costs just as much to mail 3,000 of the child care post cards as it would to mail 1,000 child care, 1,000 young adult, and 1,000 senior target postcards. If you have customer data on file, and you probably do, than you might not need to buy multiple mailing lists. If the only design variations in your postcards are images and a headlines then the graphic design charges for three postcards will not be that much more than the one.

Target audience and good data are key a successful marketing campaign. Don’t just spray and pray for success. Having a clear marketing strategy target towards a specific audience will increase response rates exponentially.

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com

–So you have an amazing website-what do you want your visitors to do once they get there?

Are you funneling your website traffic into valuable sales leads?

Should your visitors know exactly what to do when they get to your site? In a perfect world yes, but they will be depending on your clues and navigation to guide them there.

Driving general traffic to your company website is great for brand awareness and conveying information. In his ebook, Seth Godin’s Incomplete Guide to Building a Web Site that Works, marketing guru Seth Godin states that the goal of a website goes further than brand awareness and its main purpose is to “turn a stranger into a friend, and a friend into a customer.” The trick is to figure out how to convert those visitors into sales leads. Not everyone will purchase your product online or pick up the phone and solicit your service, so you need to find an effective way to capture information from visitors for future marketing efforts.

Capturing information usually starts with obtaining the visitor’s email address to add to your email marketing campaign. Email addresses are typically the easiest information to get because it results in the least intrusive marketing efforts. However, in some instances it might be necessary for you to obtain a mailing address or phone number-but you might have to work a little harder to get it.

To get your visitors to turn over their valuable contact information you need to optimize your website to capture this information.

Use a call to action

Tell the visitor what you want them to do. Prompt their participation by letting them know what types of interaction you offer. Subscribe to us, share this, get our e-newsletter, etc.

Be sure the call to action is easy to find

Most sites feature their subscribe buttons and share buttons at the top right corner of the website. Internet surfers are accustom to finding this type of content here so make it easy for them to find by featuring your call to action in this area.

Screen shot from PIPtampa.com

I would also suggest that you duplicate this on every page so that if the viewer navigates away from the home page, and we hope they do, they can still find the call to action no matter what page they are on. We utilize this technique on our own corporate site to encourage visitors to subscribe, follow us, request a quote, and more. Check it out at www.piptampa.com.

Encourage sharing

Make your website visitors your extended marketing arm by making it easy for them to share, like, or tweet you webpage. Rather than going through the hassle of copying and pasting the link into their newsfeed, they can participate with a few simple clicks. Making these sharing tools readily available also encourages visitors to share when they might not have considered it on their own without your suggestion. This technique may not provide you with an email address but you can track these social media interactions in order to locate leads for social media marketing. See how Business Networking Life utilizes a social media sharing contest to incentivize sharing and capture leads.

Social media share buttons.

Add value

Be creative with your offer. Everyone these days seems to be offering an e-newsletter, so think outside the box. Offer a creative or valuable incentive for people to surrender their precious contact information. Notice that Busniss Networking Life offers a weekly email update for networking events rather than asking viewers to join an email list.

Subscribe box from BusinessNetworkingLife.com

Consider required vs. optional fields

The attention span of a website visitor is short to say the least. The best way to capture the necessary information you need with an opportunity to gather more information is to utilize opt-ins that offer required and optional fields. This way you get the information that you need such as email address and name, but give the options for visitors to provide more. Make sure you only require a limited amount of information to satisfy visitors who don’t want to offer as much.

Example of an opt-in box with optional and required fields.

Utilizing required and optional opt-ins also gives you the ability to use check boxes to request even more detailed information that the visitor might be interested in. In this case, what region the visitor is from. This gives you the ability to segment your data and get even more specific lists.

These are just a few general practice tips that will hopefully encourage your visitors to opt-in and share their contact information. I would suggest that you test one or more of these options on your own website and compare your opt-in conversions to your website’s analytics to measure your conversion rates.

You are certainly not limited to these suggestions as many sites utilize creative tactics to capture visitor information. Does your website have a different conversion tool that I haven’t listed here? Or have you visited a website recently that did a good job of encouraging you to supply your contact information? Please let us know!

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com

Add marketing mantras to your daily business routine.

Every business has a set of strategies that they follow in order to be successful. There are standards in place in order to be sure that you meet all of your quotas, goals, standards, expectations, etc.

Do you apply these same strategies to your marketing efforts? If not, you definitely should.

Marketing is a key part of your business’s success. You need to market your business in order to create brand awareness, cross-sell/upsell, retain customers, reactivate dormant customers, generate new leads, and measure business performance. It is important that you address your marketing needs when addressing your business objectives. To help you get started I have provided a few of my own personal marketing mantras:

• I will create and update a calendar to specifically manage my marketing objectives.

• I will be in constant (meaningful) contact with my customers (more on this subject can be found here).

• I will utilize integrated marketing systems to market my business (more on this subject can be found here).

• I will update my website regularly with fresh content.

• I will use opt-ins and subscriptions to build my list online.

• I will have a gratitude strategy in place for customers who purchase.

• I will actively seek out new sales leads.

• I will keep my mailing list up to date and reach out to them regularly.

• I will participate in at least one networking event each month.

• I will analyze my marketing performance and measure my response rates (more on this subject can be found here).

• I will follow up on sales leads.

• I will utilize social media marketing.

• I will post to social media sites at least once a day with meaningful content.

• I will utilize free local search engine marketing.

• I will ask for customer testimonials.

• I will ask for referrals or run a referral campaign.

• I will utilize incentives to increase participation from my audience on offers that I make (more on this subject can be found here).

• I will respond to all interactions from my audience (social media, voice mails, emails, etc).

• I will be open minded to new marketing techniques.

Many of these mantras are very involved processes requiring different mediums, applications, and strategies. All of these mantras can be satisfied with aggressive marketing via print, internet, and social media-and all of them can be integrated to create a super marketing force to help you grow your business.

These are a few of my personal favorites that I try to abide by regularly, but you don’t need to limit yourself to these. Any action that you take to create brand awareness, cross-sell/upsell, retain customers, reactivate dormant customers, generate new leads, or measure business performance is considered marketing your business. If you are already fulfilling some of these mantras then bravo! If you are not, I would consider trying a new marketing avenue that you haven’t explored before.

What are your marketing mantras? Do you have any that I haven’t listed above? Please share.

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com

The Latest Mobile Marketing Application

Today, your customers and prospects are becoming more mobile and depending on their smart phone devices more and more as sources of information. Utilizing a QR Code in your marketing materials will give you an opportunity to reach out to your mobile customers and prospects in a new and efficient way!

What is a QR Code?

A QR Codes is a two dimensional bar code that can be printed on any marketing materials to link printed materials to mobile and Internet marketing efforts. QR Codes can be easily programmed to communicate several types of information. After the receiver scans the QR Code with their smart phone, the bar code will automatically prompt the user‘s phone to launch a website, play a video, automatically enter contact information into contact list, send an email, send a text message, or make a phone call. QR Codes are completely customizable and the possibilities are truly endless. Most importantly, they are trackable and we are able to see how many individuals scanned a specific QR Code and when. This trackability makes QR Codes a valuable (and affordable) response tracking mechanism for all marketing materials.

How does it work?

1. Use a smart phone with Internet access.
2. Download a free bar code reader app (see bottom of article for app suggestions).
3. Scan or take a picture of the QR Code with the reader app.
4. Phone will automatically launch the code’s message or feature.

How to use a QR Code

What can QR Codes do for you?

QR Codes are basically an image, just like any other graphic, and can be placed on any and all marketing materials such as: business cards, fliers, brochures, promotional items, t-shirts, car wraps, signs, posters, direct mail, print ads, and more! They can be used alone to drive traffic to a website or along with a personalized URL or coupon offer to increase response rates. They allow you to:

• Increase response rates (almost anyone who knows about this technology finds it difficult to resist scanning the bar codes).
• Measure the effectiveness of your campaign; different QR Codes can be generated for each individual project and tracked.
• Integrate print, mobile, and Internet marketing with three “touch points” in one printed item.
• Plus, you will be on the cutting edge of a marketing strategy that is still relatively new in the United States.

More Information:

For more information use your smart phone to scan the QR Code at the top of the page (if you need to download an app see the suggestions at the end of this article). If you do not have a smart phone but are still interested in learning more, just click on the QR Code at the top of the page.

Go ahead, give it a try!

QR Code Reader Suggestions

(all apps are free and linked to the image, just click the logo)

iTunes App Store (our favorite is i-nigma)

Proper email etiquette can work wonders...

Email marketing is a fast growing trend. It is quick, easy, and generates a substantial response rate when utilized properly. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing produced the absolute highest response rate for users seeking to generate leads.

While many marketers are jumping on the email blast band wagon, some still opt for a plain old fashioned email written personally. The latter can be just as effective as a professionally written and flashy email blast, if you mind your email etiquette.

I received two emails this week that caught my attention for two drastically different reasons. The first was from a job applicant who was submitting a resume. Although my company has no job openings right now, I opened the attachment because his email was so well written. The applicant had perfect grammar, spelling, addressed me personally, and took the time to do some research on my company. As I read the email, I felt as if this job seeker knew me, my business, and what I was looking for in an employee. Unfortunately, I do not have a position to offer him but you can bet I am keeping his resume.

The second email was forwarded to me by a friend and actually was a marketing email from a competitor of mine. I have never seen a more unprofessional email. The email had purple font, grammar mistakes, spelling issues, illegal use of ellipsis, capitalization mistakes, random poetry-like indentations all over the place, and exclamation point abuse. My first impression was that I would never do business with this person.

Good email etiquette can be very handy in trying to get your message across. I’m not suggesting that you need to write like Mark Twain but a few tips can help:

• Use a subject line that is interesting and pertinent. You reader should be enticed to open it.
• Use a professional font, color, and signature. Anything too cute will be seen as unprofessional.
• Personalize the email, especially if you want to get the reader’s attention. If you can’t afford expensive email blast services then send the same email to all of your contacts but perhaps personalize the opening sentence.
• Use proper grammar. You don’t need to sound like and English professor, just utilize simple rules you learned in grammar school. Mistakes are fine (no one is perfect) but avoid obvious mistakes such as punctuation or capitalization.
• When in doubt-Google your question. A useful grammar sight can be found at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
• Spell check is your friend, but do not rely on it to catch misused words or grammatical errors. For example, if you are trying to say “whether or not” and you spell it “weather” the spell check will over look it and your receiver will think you want to discuss the recent cold front.
• Reread your email for mistakes. I can’t stress this enough!
• Do your homework. Find out about the company and include some of that information in your email. Looking at your target’s website is a great way to learn their mission statement or business objectives and incorporate some of those key words into your email. The receiver will unwittingly get a sense that you mesh with their company.

Remember, this email could be your first and last communication with a prospect. Emails are easy to ignore and easier to delete, so make your email worthwhile and professional.

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com

Timing is everything...especially when your marketing is involved!

Timing is everything, and sometimes a successful campaign can be completely dependent on when it is distributed. Be sure that your marketing is time effective if it corresponds with a particular holiday or season. If you have a marketing campaign that is relevant year round, even better.

Bakeries that are busiest in the spring would have more success marketing in the late winter or early spring when customers are preparing for events. Likewise, advertising clothing a school supplies during the late summer will be well received by parents who are anticipating sending their children back to school.

Recently while driving in my car I heard a radio jingle that included a Christmas song. The advertisement caught my attention because it was the middle of August, so I listened. Turns out the advertisement had nothing to do with the holidays but it stood out. That advertisement would not have caught my attention if I heard it in December on a radio saturated with holiday songs and advertisements.

Frequency is one of the most overlooked aspects of marketing. For a marketing piece to be effective it must have several touch points or follow-ups. I often hear customers who say they have had absolutely no response on their annual post card campaign. I am never surprised by this statement.

As a consumer, ask yourself if you remember something you got in the mail six months ago, six weeks ago, or even yesterday…chances are you don’t. It only makes sense that the more often you contact a buyer, the more likely they will be to remember you and show interest in your product or service.

Try doubling or tripling your marketing frequency. Instead of yearly mailers, consider mailing quarterly. Now before you cringe at how much it would cost to quadruple your mailings consider this: 4,000 post cards mailed once a year will cost nearly the same amount as mailing 1,000 mailers four times a year. Qualify the leads ahead of time and increase frequency; chances are you will get a better response.

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com

Frustrated by your marketing?

I can’t generate new leads! My customers have left me for my competitor! They are not buying enough! I can’t seem to gain market share! They are not responding to my mailers! That postcard is too expensive! –My marketing isn’t working!

Everywhere I turn these days it seems that everyone is questioning their marketing. Although there is no sure fire formula that will bring success, there are ways to improve your marketing, enhance your response rates, and see a better return on your investment.

The next few blogs are intended to analyze your marketing efforts and will be presented in six short segments where we will discuss:
•    Message and Copy
•    Frequency and Timing
•    Creative and Branding
•    Call-to-Action and Incentive
•    Target Audience and Data
•    Response Mechanisms

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com

Your marketing persistence will pay off!

A surprise phone call today from a prospect got me thinking that consistent marketing is the most effective marketing. After several months and many attempts to contact this particular prospect, they finally called me to set an appointment. Sure it was a very long sales cycle, but the fact is that they finally had a need for my service and they knew exactly who to call.

This is because I partake in consistent marketing efforts. My customers receive marketing collateral from me in the form of packages, emails, direct mail, personalized letters, phone calls, and I pop in regularly with sales materials. I continue to keep my brand at the forefront of their minds with a consistent marketing message.

The fact is that your customers and prospects are being bombarded by thousands of marketing messages every day. The questions you must ask yourself are this: Do your prospects know who you are? Do they know what you sell? Do they know how to find you when they have a need for your product or service? Why should they choose you over your competition?

• Effective marketing will generate leads for you.
• Consistent messaging can get your point across.
• Branding will ensure corporate identity and build awareness about your brand.
• Consistent messaging will get your point across.
• Repetition of these key items will ensure that this message is heard!

Keep marketing, stay persistent, have a clear message, brand yourself consistently, and it will eventually pay off.

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com

Ask the right questions to uncover your marketing objectives...

Analyzing marketing performance is a key part of your marketing efforts. Tracking the responses to a campaign and analyzing its performance by utilizing valuable campaign data will drive better results.
How is the campaign performing? What is your return on investment? How much is your cost per lead? Is the campaign generating any new sales?

These questions can be overwhelming, but here are a few questions to ask yourself in order to diagnose the results of your current marketing efforts and identify areas that need improvement:

• What marketing initiatives have generated the most leads over the past few years?
• What is your conversion rate for leads to customers?
• What is the average length of a sales cycle? How are you trying to shorten this?
• Who is your target audience? Has this changed due to current economic conditions, pricing, or competition?
• How do you differ from your competitors? How do you communicate this to your customers?
• How do you grow the sales of your current customer base?
• How effective are your customer retention campaigns?
• What are the major forces driving change in your industry? How are you coping with this?
• What are the opportunities for growing your business in the future?

Asking yourself these simple questions will help you to uncover your business and marketing objectives. This exercise will allow you to figure out what is or isn’t working, what has worked in the past, and where you would like to be in the future. These questions will allow you to identify positive and negative trends in your marketing efforts, which is the key to successful marketing performance.

Keep in mind that not all feedback will be positive feedback, but it will be useful information in analyzing your marketing performance. For example, perhaps you launch a great new campaign with direct mail pieces and receive little or no response. First reaction might be to give up on direct mail because it will never work. After careful analysis you might come to realize that maybe the message or copy wasn’t conveying your company’s message. Or perhaps your mail list needs to be cleaned up or your offer didn’t resonate with the recipient.

Marketing campaigns are made up of multiple components that all need to come together in the right way in order to be effective. If you analyze and receive negative feedback…GREAT! At least it is feedback and it’s a step in the right direction to proactively managing your marketing campaigns to be as effective as they can be.

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com

Cut through the clutter and get your customer's attention!

Keeping in touch with your customers regularly is a vital part of growing your business. How meaningful is the contact you typically have with them?

Regularly blasting your customer or prospect with spam emails promoting yourself, your business, or your special this month is not meaningful-in fact, it can be downright annoying. In an over populated marketing environment we must try to cut through the clutter and stand out with constant meaningful contact.
What do I mean by meaningful contact? Content that is meaningful to your customer not just bombarding them with self promotion…but it is possible to do both.

After you put together what you feel is a brilliant marketing campaign there is still the possibility that the phone won’t ring. It is said that it takes anywhere from 7-10 touch points to reel a prospect in, so it is important that you keep your brand in front of your prospect without overloading them with spam and junk mail-this is where constant meaningful contact comes into play.

Hand written notes or letters are a personalized touch that your customers will appreciate. Hand written notes are a lost art that will set you apart from your competition. They can be utilized as a short thank you note or a card to check in on them from time to time.

Hand written notes and letters take up some time, especially if you are trying to reach a large number of customers at a time. This is when variable print is most effective. Imbedding customer variables in the content of your direct mailer, letter, or email will feel less like a mass marketing piece and can give a more meaningful appeal. Variables can include the customer’s name, company name, images, or even a product or service that you think they might be specifically interested in.

If you are looking to really make a long lasting impression, take the time to get to know your customers and send them things they may be interested in. Send them newspaper clippings or email them a link to an online publication that is highlighting their specific industry or hobby. Include a personalized note or email message just to tell them you saw this and thought of them.

I myself send out monthly newsletters to my customers. This newsletter is not filled with self promoting information but rather useful business and marketing tips that could benefit every business or industry. It is another way for us to get face time with our customer but it is also filled with valuable content that they can enjoy and utilize.

Think of ways to promote your business in a way that will appeal to your customers. Your marketing should be useful to your customer and not seem like blind advertising. Think outside the box and personalize the message to suit the needs of your target market. When in doubt think to yourself: “If someone sent this to me, would I care enough to read it?”

Amanda Moore

www.piptampa.com