4 Lessons Big Direct Marketers Can Learn from Small Mailers
The marketing budget for a local, service-based business is a tiny fraction of what a global company spends on marketing. Yet small marketers with limited resources sometimes outshine the big guys when it comes to marketing effectiveness, especially in direct mail.Here’s how a regional painting business in Cleveland, Ohio nailed a prospect direct mail campaign with a simple postcard, while Dell, a huge business-to-business marketer, committed several cardinal sins of direct marketing in a B2B direct mail promotion -- plus four lessons for your smart marketing strategy.
Can Your Marketing Campaign Pass the “Huh?” Test?
A marketer has a few seconds at best to engage the audience in an ad or marketing message. But many marketers forget this simple fact when they develop marketing campaigns using elaborate or confusing creative concepts. When the audience’s reaction to an ad is “Huh?” instead of “Wow!,” it’s a painful waste of marketing resources. Here are three examples of advertising and marketing campaigns that fail the “Huh?” test – and three tips to avoid making mistakes like this in your smart marketing strategy.
New Prospect, Bad Client? 7 Red Flags for Marketing Agencies
Every advertising and marketing agency is in a constant search for new business. But as a marketing agency president, I’ve learned the hard way that not all prospects should become clients.Even if you're a marketing agency looking to grow, sometimes it's smarter to walk away from prospective new business than enter into a bad relationship. How do you know when to stay or go?Here are 7 warning signs that a new prospect could become a bad client for your marketing agency.
#FAIL: The 11 Most Overused Creative Themes in Marketing
A fresh creative concept is crucial for effective advertising and a smart marketing strategy.But too many advertising and marketing campaigns recycle the same, tired creative themes and copy phrases over and over and over.This is more than annoying. It’s a guaranteed audience turn-off and a misuse of the marketer’s resources. Here’s the 2011 edition of my annual list of the most overused creative themes in marketing. How many do you recognize?
40 Questions for a Smarter Marketing Strategy
Are you getting a good return on your investment in marketing? Could it be better?One way to find out is to conduct a top-to-bottom review of your entire marketing plan to determine what’s working and what isn’t. This process is sometimes called a marketing audit. I’m often asked to guide audits as an independent marketing consultant and I recently shared advice on how to do an audit effectively.What specific factors should you assess in a marketing audit? Here are 40 questions I recommend for evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing and developing a smarter marketing strategy.
The 7 Most Important Things to Do with a Sales Lead
Business-to-business (B2B) marketers often use such tactics as direct marketing, e-marketing, advertising, trade shows, and web marketing to generate sales leads.But a smart lead generation marketing strategy goes well beyond the creation of the marketing campaign.If your goal is to build a relationship with a business prospect, increase your sales conversion rate, and maximize the value of your sales resources, you need a careful plan for what happens after the lead comes in.Here are the seven steps you should take with a marketing-generated sales lead to achieve success.
Talkin' About My Generation? Using Cultural References in Marketing
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” I heard a marketing consultant say in a recent meeting.I knew he was quoting the scene from The Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal that the Wizard is just an ordinary man. But judging by the puzzled looks on their faces, the twenty-somethings in the meeting had no idea what he was talking about.Situations like this don’t just make you feel your age. They painfully illustrate the fact that cultural points of reference are constantly shifting and big gaps can exist between generations.If you’re marketing to a specific generation and using cultural references in your marketing campaign, your message will miss the mark if you don't get it exactly right.Here’s advice for how to use cultural references effectively in your smart marketing strategy.
What Makes Bad Advertising So Bad? It’s Not Believable
When an advertising campaign is so bad it makes you groan out loud, there’s usually a simple reason: It’s not believable.The worst offenders are campaigns that attempt to portray real-life situations. The dialogue often is so forced or the setup so phony that your only reaction is to roll your eyes and think, “Yeah, right.” lack of believability in advertising is more than annoying. It’s a waste of the marketer’s money.Here are two ways to achieve believability in your advertising and two examples of smart marketers, including one in Northeast Ohio, who are doing it right.
Want Better Marketing Results? Audit Your Marketing Strategy
What’s the best way to maximize the return on your marketing investment? Take a step back from your day-to-day marketing projects and conduct a marketing audit.A marketing audit is a top-to-bottom assessment of your entire marketing program, from branding to tactics. The beginning of a new year or the start of a new budget period is an ideal time to do it.How do you conduct a marketing audit? And how can an audit help you develop a smart marketing strategy? Here are some answers.
10 Marketing Questions to Ask Before Changing Your Company Name
Are you thinking about renaming your company? A new name can help your customers, prospects, and competitors see you in a new light. It also can help you make a splash in the marketplace and get media attention. But changing your company name is a major undertaking that requires substantial marketing resources. Before you take the plunge, you must be sure you have the right name and a smart marketing strategy to deploy it. Here are 10 strategic marketing questions to ask yourself when selecting a new name for your company.
7 Things Every Marketer Should Know About Their Best Customers
Are you hard at work on next year’s marketing strategy? If so, there’s a critical first step you should take for a more effective marketing plan: A thorough assessment of your best customers. If your company is like most, you have a core group of customers that drive a large percentage of your sales. Here are seven things you should know about your best customers in order to develop a smart marketing strategy.
How Bad Direct Mail Can Sink a Customer Win-Back Strategy
Verizon says they want me back. But based on the direct mail package they just sent me, I don’t think they mean it. Reactivating lapsed customers is an important marketing strategy for every business. It’s easier to reengage a former customer than create a new one. If you’re using direct marketing to win former customers back, however, you’d better do it right. Here’s how a major marketer blew a customer win-back opportunity with poor direct mail, and five lessons for more effective win-back direct marketing.
Secrets of the Mailroom Trash Can: 3 Lessons for B2B Marketing
There’s a giant trash can in the mailroom of my office building in Cleveland, Ohio. Every day, it fills up with discarded business mail. Sometimes I peek in the can to see what my fellow tenants have thrown out, and it’s quite revealing. Here’s what I’ve observed as a casual mailroom trash inspector, and three valuable lessons from this experience for business-to-business marketers who want to develop a smart marketing strategy.
7 Simple Principles of a Successful B2B Marketing Strategy
Business-to-business marketing doesn’t have to be complicated or elaborate to be effective. In fact, the most successful B2B marketing is often based on a simple strategy: Deliver clear, relevant messages consistently well over time to carefully selected prospects. Here are seven principles of a simple but smart B2B marketing strategy.
Turn Leads into Sales with a Smart Marketing Strategy
The phones are ringing, web traffic is up, and the sales manager is telling everyone you’re a marketing genius. Your business-to-business lead generation campaign is a success! But before you break out the bubbly, remember that getting prospects to express interest in a product or service can be the easy part of business-to-business marketing. Converting those leads to sales is often a lengthy and complex process. Here's how to build a smart marketing strategy that engages B-to-B prospects and gets them to say "yes."
10 Tried-and-True Principles of Creative Direct Marketing
Is direct marketing part of your smart marketing strategy? Here are 10 tried-and-true principles for developing a high-impact creative approach for your next direct marketing campaign.
Take Your Tired, Poor Advertising Phrases -- and Ditch Them
Great copy is essential for an effective advertising campaign and a smart marketing strategy, but too many copywriters use the same tired phrases again and again in headlines and campaign themes. This is a giant waste of the marketer’s money. Here are seven advertising phrases we’ve seen used a hundred times and hope to never see again -- and why you should expect better from your marketing agency.
When Bad Marketing Happens to Good Customers
Loyal customers are a marketer’s best source of new sales and referrals. That’s why smart marketers treat their best customers like gold, and why earning customer loyalty is the goal of every smart marketing strategy. Except at Toyota. Their recent direct mail campaign to a loyal Toyota customer broke many of the rules of effective direct marketing and harmed a 25-year customer relationship. Here's why this campaign failed and what Toyota should have done instead.
Turning Your Brand Name into a Verb: Why it Rarely Works
Is it true that the more you know, the more you Kohl’s? Is taking stock in the long term Vanguarding? And will you Bing it if you’re searching for something online? Kohl’s Department Stores, Vanguard Investments, and Microsoft are the latest marketers to try to turn a company brand or product name into a verb. It’s an old marketing strategy, but it rarely works. Here’s why.
Is It Time to Tune-Up Your Company’s Logo?
Your company's logo is the most visible element of your brand identity. But if your logo is more than five years old – or if there’s been a significant change in your mission, core services, customer base, or marketing strategy since your logo was developed – your logo may be due for a tune-up. Here’s how to evaluate and update your company logo to support a smart branding strategy.