Marketing Maestro

First some exciting news...

A few months back I attended a DMIX event.  I am happy to report I am now a full member of this exclusive group after being nominated by one of the existing members.  If you are going to be in NYC on the day of an event and would like to attend as my guest let me know and I will see what I can do.

Today's DMIX speaker was Andy Goldberg, President and CEO Publishers Clearing House (PCH).  He discussed how PCH updated their business by using personalization and relevant messages to communicate with their customers. They are much more then just a sweepstakes and magazine company.  I was amazed at all the different products and services they offer and how they now use the available technology to communicate more effectively with their customers.  By using purchase and response history they are able to segment their customers and deliver relevant offers yielding greater ROI then a one size fits all message.

The take away for me was that if PCH can do this with their wide array of products and millions of customers then any business can.   In my opinion if the message isn't relevant you are wasting a resource.

So the next time you are about to email, call or mail your customers ask yourself is my message relevant? Can I make this communication more personal?

What other businesses do a good job with relevant marketing?

If you are marketing a product or service I hope you are measuring the results.  If not, you are missing the boat (more clichés for Cybelle) and you will never know if what you are doing is making a difference in your business. The goal of marketing should be to move the sales needle (or build up a database marketing effort for long term sales) if you can't quantify the results of your efforts then put the money in the bank and earn the interest.   If you don't measure you won't be able to test one idea against another or take calculated risks to try new ideas.  At the end of the day you need to be able to say that your efforts generated 'X' times more money then it cost to produce.  Hunches will only last so long.  So if you are guessing at your results, now is the time to figure out a way to quantify and measure your efforts.

Measuring also allows you to constantly improve.  Just the other day I was describing an effort we ran that produced a 15% lift in our results and another test that produced a 7% increase in conversions.  Did those marketing programs work?  Are we constantly looking to improve and refine our campaigns?  Of course, but without calculating the effect of our marketing I could have guessed they worked but I wouldn't be able to tell you by how much or the ROI for the effort.

At the end of the day you need to be able to say you helped move the needle whatever that needle might be.

• Do your marketing efforts move the sales needle? 
• Not sure what you should calculate? Leave a comment and I will try to help you out.
• Let me know if you currently quantify and evaluate your results (don't worry if you are not, you are here to learn how and what to measure).

Now where is that calculator I was using...

All marketers know that the word free is a powerful selling tool.  But did you know that Trump University has a few free courses to help new businesses get started.  The end goal in giving away free info is to show a user lots of value and then they will hopefully decide there is value in purchasing another course.  Trump University gets to qualify a potential customer and build our database and the user gets a lot of free and useful information.  Everyone wins.

Here are the three courses we offer for free:

How to Write a Business Plan

Find Start Up Funding

How to Start a Business on a Shoestring Budget

I get a lot of sales calls.  It always amazes me when the sales person forgets all their manners and just talks over you, ignores your time constraints and then drops the ball on the follow-up.  Just the other day a media sales rep had me on the phone (I couldn't get a word in so I could end the call...) finally he asked when he could follow up to get my decision.  I said 10 days.  Would you believe he then asked if he could call sooner?  To make matters worse he then called twice the next day to 'check in'.

Few things annoy me more then being asked a question just to have the answer ignored.  Think about how annoying those calls to your credit card company are when you type in your account number and then when you finally get someone on the phone, the first thing you are asked for is your account number.

If you are selling to someone (online, in person, over the phone) and ask them a question make sure you use that information. If you are not going to use information don't ask for it.  If you are able to use the information to customize your communication or create a relevant offer then ask away. If not, keep it simple.

When you are thinking about what data to collect keep in mind testing variations.  Do you get better results with less info or more? Can you ask the same question in two different ways and get different results?

Here are some questions to ask yourself before asking your customers alot of questions:

• Do you need that extra question or want it for the future? 
• How will I use this info to make my customer's experience better?
• Can I get this information from another source?
• Do we ask the same question in another way somewhere else in the sales cycle?
• Is the question clear?  Does it solve the problem we need to answer?
• Are your questions leading to the answers you want or do they get you the info you need?

What works for your business?  Let me know and please enter your account number so we can pull up your account...