BE CAREFUL WHO you Listen to!! They May Not Get It!

The delay in posting has been the result of putting a proposal together for a major contract. The buying influence at our prospect has repeatedly admonished us to "bring our 'A-game', we are up against the best!"

Part of my task was to research the competition. What I found was very interesting.

Here I am researching companies that claim to be the biggest, the best and the most advanced in one to one marketing, and in each case, "one to one" was simple personalization. This is even more interesting when you consider that the recipients comprise several distinct segments, all of whom would benefit from a tailored message, and the "sender", whose bio was required, was different in each mailing. These mailings are to retirees; a very diverse group ranging in age from 55 to 85. A 55 year old individual has a completely different view of someone who is 85. This needs to be leveraged. But here are these giants of the industry, providing personalization.

The moral of the story is this: you may think you are talking to an expert in one-to-one marketing, but y0u may not be. Don't let them tell you that one-to-one is cost prohibitive. It's not. Of course, there are instances when it isn't appropriate and you certainly should use it just because you can. See my post on the Relevancy Continuum for how I feel about this.

To quote (well maybe paraphrase) Zig Ziglar: "To sell to John Brown, put yourself in John Brown's shoes." If your message would be more effective utilizing relevant communications, use relevant communications.

Any thots?

TRACK EVERYTHING!! The Key to Long-term Success.

Marketing communications generally serve four purposes: they

• sell something;
• ask for something;
• provide information;
• build brand.

Strategic Relevancy Marketing creates a fifth purpose: to gather information. In the absence of ample data about your recipient, you can use Relevancy Marketing to gather it.

There is a sage piece of sales advice I always tried to follow when I was in sales; "ABC; Always be closing." In marketing communications you should be prepared to always be testing. Track everything, and track it on the recipient level as well as the project level. Tracking on the recipient level provides information about the recipient. Of course, this will only work if you are communicating in a campaign, not a one-off basis. What is the recipient responding to? Is it a postcard or a newsletter? Is it an offer for an up sell, or something new? Are they asking for free information, and what is it about?

You have to create your communications with asking these things in mind. If, you send out a newsletter, some of the primary articles may require going to your website for more information. And if you do that, you probably want to require a password (specific to the recipient) to get it. You could also do this with a microsite and email delivery of the content. If you are communicating with a smaller group, you may want them to call, then, write down who called and what they wanted. Track everything.

After a few months of communicating and tracking, you will begin to have data that is very useful. Some recipients may not respond at all, downgrade them to a quarterly postcard just to stay in touch (or drop them altogether). Those recipients that respond the most frequently, get more specific offers, and may telephone follow-up. You have their attention, and more importantly, they trust you, you have credibility with them. You might even have enough information to do a kind of RFM analysis (recency, frequency, monetary).

So whatever you do, always be testing. And, always be gathering info. TRACK EVERYTHING!

Sell MORE!! Use Relevance.

Creating relevance for the recipient of your marketing communications requires good data. I'm stating the obvious. Relevance takes the form of images, text, layouts, etc. But really, there is another form of relevance involved.

Relevance should also take the form of the offer. While we can use relevance to create interest and credibility, when we are selling something, we use relevance to offer a product or service that has value to the recipient. In other words, while it is possible to sell ice cubes to Eskimos, wouldn't you rather sell them blankets or boots. You can sell your ice cubes to your recipients in Arizona. (There is less sales resistance, lowering costs, and more demand, meaning you can improve profitability.) Relevance allows you message to do this. And, if you couple your data with variable data publishing and digital printing technologies, you can change your message and your offer on the fly.

At this point, you can use the same "mailing" to up sell, cross-sell or simply sell to prospects. There are efficiencies to be had by marketing this way. More importantly, by fine-tuning the customer/prospect mix of your "mailing", you can achieve your optimum balance between customer retention and customer acquisition.

Just remember, as you begin to homogenize your data, that data is the hinge-pin of Relevancy Marketing. If you are not prepared to engage in the kind of marketing I outlined above, you may be in the future, so keep your data pure. This can pay huge dividends.

The Platinum Rule

Many people is small business operate according to the Golden Rule; they treat every customer according to the way they want to be treated. Relevancy Marketing empowers an organization to operate according to the Platinum Rule: "Treat every customer according to the way they want to be treated."

In the past, I worked for a business that was big into CRM. It was a sales and service company serving the business community. A hand-written thank you card went out after every sale. The new owner visited every customer at least once a year. They stayed up day after day to bake cookies at Christmas and the 4th of July that were expensively packaged and then hand delivered. A follow up call was made after every service call. And some customers though it was great! Some laughed at it, though. And some distrusted it! This was clearly a case of operating by the Golden Rule instead of the Platinum Rule.

Virtually all CRM programs can accommodate collecting the information required to operate your business by the Platinum Rule. Surveying your client base will give you virtually all the information you need to understand how the individual wants to be treated. Or, if you operate in a business to business environment, how the client company wants to be treated.

Though the Platinum Rule is focused on the CRM or customer retention side of Relevancy Marketing, it can easily be employed in a customer acquisition mode as well. By consolidating the responses of your current clients, you can develop a fairly accurate picture of how most of your customers want to be treated. Could this be the Silver Rule: "Treat my prospects according to the way the majority of my customers want to be treated."

You may find that knowing how your customers want to be treated can revolutionize the way your company presents itself to the world. You might want to ditch the automated attendant. You might want to invest in a more useful website. You will likely decide to change the frequency and format of your marketing communications.

direct+marketing marketing one+to+one+marketing relevancy+marketing customer+acquisition customer+retention