March 2009

4 ways a white paper helps you sell

Dear GetMoreCustomers reader:

What's a white paper--and why should you care? Good question. You're out there trying to run your business, and in the current economic climate that may be a more-than-usually challenging job. So who has time to develop another marketing tool?

There are several reasons smart companies are making the time. But first, let's define our terms.

What's a white paper?
The term white paper means a 6 to 12-page (can be 50 pages or more) professional write-up that explains objectively a possible solution to one of an executive's specific pressing business problems. It can also be called a special report or other name. Here's how it might work:

• If you're a software company executive whose prospects need to track orders or coordinate resources, you could offer a white paper explaining how a new software solution has been proven to reduce lost orders and save money by optimizing trucks, pallets, drivers, and other resources.
• If you're a private equity investment executive, you might offer a white paper that details steps to help people understand how to tell a smart investment from a poor one.
• If you're a staffing company executive, you could educate your prospects about the complexities of making smart hires, explaining aspects of a familiar process that are not well understood by most people.

In other words, you don't give your process or your tools away. Instead, you explain what the needs are, talk about where trends are heading, and hint at solutions (that you can, of course, provide).

Why should you care?
White papers offer a powerful but subtle way to position your company as the expert in a particular arena. A prospect who has engaged enough to ask for your information is a prospect who is genuinely concerned about the problem you're addressing and who already feels a certain level of trust with you. 0

1. White papers generate interest. They offer education and information that addresses a particularly challenging point in the reader's business situation.
2. White papers are no-pressure. The format says we're-sharing-useful-material-here-not trying to sell you.
3. White papers have credibility. Information is backed up by third-party, objective research. You're not making claims in a vacuum. You offer proven sources as the basis of your assertions.
4. White papers build relationships. They offer an invaluable opportunity to speak in your company's True Voice and show customers you care about their problems.

But when do you sell?
Of course, you need to make sure you follow up with those who download or receive your white paper. That's part of the marketing that helps make it effective. But if you turn the initial follow-up into a hard-sell situation, you risk turning the prospect off--and ensuring they will be unlikely to trust your future offers of information.

However, if the customer is ready to buy when you follow up, you're in a strong position to make the sale right then. And if the customer is only in the early stages of research, you've initiated a relationship in which you'll likely be welcome to stay in touch with occasional value-add offerings. That's how you make sure yours is the company that comes to mind when the customer has more questions or is ready to move forward.

With your white paper you're reinforcing your expertise and getting your company name and logo in front of the customer in a no-pressure, trusting, learning situation--a great place to be in today's high-speed, short-attention-span, what's-next? marketing environment.

Sincerely,
Barbara

P.S. If you'd like to learn how a white paper/special report might be a good tool for your company--and get a coupon for $50--call or email me. Chicago 773.292.3294. Cleveland 216.472.8502. barbara@reallygoodfreelancewriter.com.

* Good on your next project of $150 or more

November 2008

What's new in marketing--and 7 things you can't forget

"There's nothing new under the sun." We've all heard this quote—perhaps uttered by a cynic about some new idea. Attributed to Ambrose Bierce, here's the full original:

"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don't know." - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1842 - 1914)

Obviously, he wasn't implying that our creative efforts are doomed. But even as new technologies seem to be constantly surprising us - and demanding complex new ways of measuring ROI - that saying remains true in business. As long as human beings think and make decisions the same ways they always have, the fundamentals of marketing and advertising remain the same, no matter what forms you use to serve them up.

There are certainly a few new twists in targeting, though.

One of the unique issues facing American marketers today is shifting demographics. As technology and the Internet expand our ability to target ever-narrower audience segments, we need to research these segments carefully. For some industries, that might mean ferreting out demographics like marital status. Fifty-one percent of women in America today are single-a dramatic change in 30 years in the landscape of our society. Singles tend to view the world a bit differently than married people, and marketers who want their business will do well to take that into consideration when crafting their messages.**

Racial identity is another arena that complicates U.S. marketing today. Reaching audiences with a different language besides English means paying attention not just to language but also to cultural norms. And it's not always easy to get the demographic facts. One study indicates that in North Carolina, 118,000 new-birth mothers in 2002 recorded their children's race in 600 different ways. The National Center for Health Statistics collapsed all those into 10 standard race categories, e.g., by reclassifying "other" as "white." The reality is that ethnic and racial diversity continues to grow in the U.S. And while the day may come when racial identity will no longer be a major way of segmenting audiences, as of today it is still a meaningful demographic-and a sound basis for creative segmenting.

Green thinking offers another opportunity to target companies and individuals with the environmentally-conscious mindset-and the number of those companies is growing. Mega-giant General Electric recently won an award for its green-marketing campaign.

Even while this goes on, the basic elements of marketing and advertising have always been the same: words, images, and sounds. Some of the most effective message-carriers today have evolved over the last 10 years: web content, online articles, e-newsletters, and blogs.

New formats such as video and mobile marketing are growing as vehicles for your marketing messages, especially to younger folks. Your goal remains the same: create customers and retain their business over time. And the objectives you must achieve in order to meet that goal haven't changed:

1. Capture your reader's/listener's/viewer's attention.
2. Describe a solution to something important to them.
3. Create trust-and convince them of the value of your solution.
4. Support your position with client testimonials and/or celebrity endorsements (Michael Jordan/NIKE). Riskier but effective if well done, brand yourself with a quirky character (GEICO's Brit-humor-inspired gecko).
5. Provide an incentive and a deadline to take action.
6. Give prompt, courteous service.
7. Keep in touch with value-add content.

So yes, you have new vehicles and new ways of segmenting your audiences. But the basics remain the same: creative words and images that express your True Voice and meet your marketing objectives in fresh and powerful ways.

Sincerely,
Barbara

P.S. Blogging continues to grow as an effective tool for connecting with prospects and clients. If you’re interested in starting one, email or call me for a free consultation on how it might work for your company. Cleveland office: 216.472.8502. Chicago office: 773.292.3294.

By the way, don't forget to vote!

** All single people--male and female--tend to have less conservative views. Interestingly, 60% of America’s 93 million unmarried people support Barack Obama according to a Gallup poll. Here's more on the subject of singlism by Psychology Today writer Bella DePaulo, PhD.

January/February 2008

Are you your own CMO? Top 3 mistakes CMOs make

Dear GetMoreCustomers reader:

Even high-priced marketing execs can get derailed when it comes to finding time to learn new things. For small to medium-size enterprises, where you're usually your own Chief Marketing Officer, you're even more likely to face that dilemma.

All marketing officers operate in the shadow both of quarterly numbers and of the bucking economy--which makes for neither a stable nor an easy job. Not surprisingly, caution and conservatism tend to rule when so much is in turmoil around you. The three biggest *mistakes CMOs are making today:

1. Spending only 6% of their budget on the Internet, when audiences are spending 14% of their time (as much as on television viewing) on the Internet.


2. Failing to understand--and take advantage of--the greater accountability of Internet advertising... Close to 75% trackability for the web versus 25% for, say, television.


3. Not realizing how incredibly targeted their advertising can be on the web. For example, an advertiser for ski vacations can display ads when the customer is searching for ski vacations, reading an article about ski vacations, browsing a website on ski equipment or watching an online video on improving your skiing skills.

The Internet has had a profound influence on all media--and on how we much we use and trust each of those channels. Reports say about half of CMOs on the job today have a good command of promotional possibilities with the Internet, and the other half don't. And then there are the rest, who have neither an executive marketing officer nor the resources to do all that research, strategizing, and testing..

It's becoming ever clearer that personalizing your advertising and promotions is powerful. But how to get there is another story. Never has such a vast learning curve been required for so many, just to do business effectively in our world today.

Don't feel you're alone. I'm pleased to say I am partnering with a couple of agencies that specialize in interactive marketing approaches that deliver measurable ROI. Give me a call and let's talk about where you're thinking about moving ahead.

Barbara

P.S. If you have questions about how serious interactive Internet marketing can deliver measurable results for your business, call me at 773.292.3294 or 216.472.8502.

* Statistics from a report from Knowledge@Wharton.

October/November 2007

In-house email list messy? Shape it up - Bonus: Why CEOs blog for business

Dear GetMoreCustomers reader:

Are you sending your precious email messages to a bunch of people who couldn't care less? If you want to get more out of your email marketing, and make your clickthrough statistics more meaningingful, follow these suggestions to clean out the "dead" names from your in-house list.

1. Check recipients for addresses with low activity. For some marketers, that might mean no clicks in a month; others might view a once-in-a-year response as good news. You decide. Use your email service provider's stats to judge what's average, high or low.
2. Send a simple "reactivate yourself" message. Ask them, "If you'd like to continue receiving our mailings, click here." That click verifies their address and confirms their continuing interest. It's perfectly fair to entice them by making the click go to a special offer or to a form where you ask for a little more information. Hey, if they got this far, they'll probably share more about themselves--and you can never know too much about your prospects and customers!
3. While you're looking at the names in this group, analyze the data to see if they have any characteristics in common. For example, are some of them several years old? Did you get certain names from the same source? Did they sign up because of a special offer? If you see any patterns, think of ways to re-connect that make use of that information.
4. Next, decide if you want to treat low responders differently from those who seem totally unresponsive. And remember, it's not always easy to tell how exactly how many were opened, because many of today's email programs don't display images--meaning you can't know for sure if the email's actually been read. That's why this re-connecting process makes sense.
   Do you want to try a quick one-shot message? You can always come right out and ask low and non-responders if they still want to receive messages--and if they don't respond, drop them from your list. If you want to try a little harder, experiment--try sending messages more or less often, or send a series of special messages, and so on. If you have specific information (those common characteristics we talked about), send a message that's personalized along those lines. Consider waking them up with a special offer--say, a free value-add report or a big discount on their next purchase.
5. Keep watching. If they respond to one thing, be creative about the next messages you send. Don't consider them "won back" until you see the kind of results you want.
6. If nothing is working, drop them from your list. Focus your creativity and resources on subscribers who want to hear from you.
7. Think about why these went bad. Maybe the way you collected those names wasn't strong--e.g., collecting business cards without connecting personally. If it's longer-term subscribers you're losing, consider developing a strategy to engage differently with them as the relationship matures.
8. Always keep finding new ways to add more active recipients to your list.

Automation can only take you so far--you've got to think strategically and treat your prospects as living, breathing individuals. E-marketing is as demanding as any other type of direct mail--and gives you more painfully immediate ROI feedback. Yes, all this takes time. But, like cleaning off your desk so you can work more efficiently, cleaning up your email list will make you feel better about all the work you're putting into it.

Bonus: Why CEOs blog for business
I was invited to Cleveland recently to do a presentation on blogging for business. A crowd of techno folks from the Greater Cleveland PC Users group gathered to hear why blogs are good for SEO (search engine optimization--otherwise known as getting found favorably by Google). I gave them tips on how to find inspiration for what to write and how to write in a way that readers would find attractive and worthwhile.

Several folks walked out saying they felt much more confident about starting their own blogs. One attendee--a physician who's been in managed care for 20 years--even emailed me the next day to say that, after having felt stalled for months, he actually got it started that night. If you'd like to see the presentation slides, visit "5 Reasons Why Blogging Is Good for Your Business." And if you want more inspiration, check out some of these CEO blogs:

• General Motors, Bill Lutz, CEO - www.fastlane.gmblogs.com
• JetBlue Airways, David Neeleman, CEO - http://www.jetblue.com/about/ourcompany/flightlog
• Whole Foods Mkt., John Mackey, CEO - www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jm/
• Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Paul Levy, CEO - http://runningahospital.blogspot.com
• Marriott Intl., Bill Marriott, CEO - www.blogs.marriott.com

By the way, have a beautiful Thanksgiving. Best wishes to you and yours.

Sincerely,
Barbara

P.S. Still debating about a company blog? Check out Blog for Business:

• Blogging about personal technology?
• Ad revenues dropping like rocks for newspapers
• Sort through the small-biz-info jungle

Give me a call if you have any questions about corporate blogs. 773.292.3294 or 216.472.8502

August 2007

5 tips for beefing up online marketing response

Dear GetMoreCustomers reader:

Okay, you have a presence online, and the website is looking good. But you're hoping to get a little more action from it. What can you do? Here are a few tips:

1. Give visitors a couple of options for interacting with you. If your main hope is that visitors convert to buyers, remember people seldom take action the first time they see/read/hear a message. It takes an average of 6 to 7 exposures to the same or very similar message for most people to decide to make a move--like open their wallet, or even just give you their phone number. Signups drop dramatically when forms require phone numbers in addition to emails.


2. Examine the way you describe things on your website. If you offer a "Product Overview," which sounds like a marketing brochure, but your material is actually more interesting--like an interactive tutorial or a virtual tour--you'll increase visitor interaction by calling it what it is.


3. Test your registration form. See how much information most of your visitors are willing to give--the more they give, the better qualified they are as a lead. But you don't want to lose the chance to capture other visitors--you never know when they will become interested enough to turn into a hotter lead. So experiment with a couple of different forms. See which one gets the best returns.
   
4. Make sure you have a search box on your site. Visitors love to be able to type in what they're most interested in and see what your site has to say. If their search turns up information that rings a bell with them, they'll generally start browsing the rest of the site. There's a f*r*ee one available at ATOMZ.


5. Mention your website URL in everything else you do--television, radio, print, in sales, promotional and instructional materials--everything you do. If you've done your homework and you know where you appear high in the search engines, you can include your keyphrase in your collateral, too. State plainly "search keyword: Chevrolet parts" or "Google: guitar lessons."

Marketing--online and otherwise--is a process that must be reviewed, revised and revamped on a continuing basis to lead towards the desired events: sales. But keep in mind, marketing works best when it makes things easy and it appeals to the minds and, especially, the hearts of the individual persons who make up that amorphous "target audience."

Sincerely,
Barbara

P.S. Still debating about a company blog? Check out Blog for Business:

* Can a manufacturer blog? Would Sears?
* Law of attraction works for corporate blogs
* What the heck is Web 2.0 and why should you care?

Give me a call if you have any questions about corporate blogs. 773.292.3294 or 216.472.8502

April 2007

Great products aren't enough. Your customers need more.


Dear GetMoreCustomers Reader:

If you sell commodities in the marketplace, you run a special risk. More than any purveyor of services or customized solutions, you can be lulled into forgetting that good products aren't everything. Your customers' needs and desires can change overnight—and if you’re not listening, your competitors will be glad to.

Here’s a powerful example. Read this story and answer this question: How are the manufacturers of power-saving fluorescent bulbs—and the husbands in this story and the editors who printed it—missing the “customer desires” issue? Answer in the P.S. below.**

Yet you face significant barriers—both organizational and people-related—when trying to shake a product-focused organization out of its complacency. At least four broad types of strategies can help, according to the HBR Spotlight in the May issue of Harvard Business Review:

• Change how people work together. If you're like most other product-focused companies, your organization has likely developed some silos in its structure. People at all levels with X responsibilities flock together and don’t interact a lot with people with Y responsibilities. And then there are those Z people... Try these:
  • Share customer information between departments
  • Either break down existing silos and create new ones based around customer needs, or reorganize processes and mechanisms so people can easily reach across without fear of stepping on toes.
• Create a culture of cooperation. The softer side of business has far greater influence than most of us realize. Consider these ideas:
  • Celebrate customer-service victories, no matter where in the company they occur. Regularly bragging in this way helps people appreciate each other—and can improve the ever-present misunderstandings and even hostilities that sometimes develop between, for example, floor workers and logistics, or technical people and sales/marketing folks.
  • Promote customer-oriented values; use symbols, logos, stories that celebrate successes with customer solutions—tell those stories internally as well as externally. Consider special terminology—Disney and Target call customers “guests.”
  • Treat your employees as you want them to treat your customers. What goes around definitely comes around in this area. Don’t stress hierarchy; make employees feel respected.
• Cross-train staff. Delivering customer-centered solutions means you need to have generalists on staff.
  • Make sure at least some people in each area of your company understand and can deal knowledgeably with customers on more than a single product line.
  • Help people develop relationships across departments within the company. You want them to be able to quickly find help from anywhere to solve customer issues.
• Connect with more external partners. Outsourcing non-core services (not necessarily overseas) and developing close relationships with partners can do a lot for you:
  • dramatically increase your efficiency
  • allow you to cut costs
  • expand your ability to respond creatively to customer needs

In short, breaking down boundaries will help you serve customers better. And it seems these are some of the same lessons we're learning about surviving in the global marketplace. Good to know they can work pretty well closer to home, too.

Sincerely,
Barbara

P.S. ** The answer to question above: How are they missing the point? They are trivializing the real issue that keeps many women from wholeheartedly adopting these bulbs. It's not about saving the earth--yes, most women care. It's not about saving money--yes, most women care. It's about how a woman feels about the atmosphere surrounding her. A sense of comfort here is critical to her optimal peace and productivity—and by extension, her family’s if she has one. No amount of good qualities in a light bulb can make up for giving off a light that makes a woman feel uncomfortable in her own home.

P.P.S. Want to reach your customers more effectively? Want help discovering customer issues that you may not be addressing? Give me a call. 216.472.8502 or 773.292.3294.

June 2007

2 secrets to making your customers happy


Dear GetMoreCustomers Reader:


Stephen Covey said it to great applause. That you're most effective when you properly prioritize your time. And the way I remember it, his proposition seemed intellectual and complex...that big box divided into four sections with all those pages of explanation for each! But the gist was, Secret #1---do important and urgent things first.


He's right, of course. And all good things flow therefrom--including excellence in customer service. You'll find several intriguing formulas in this new book for maximizing high personal effectiveness (note: not high efficiency, which just means doing more stuff). It's called The 4-hour Work Week. Author Timothy Ferriss suggests if you truly want to become more effective, ONLY do the quadrant I stuff. And that means learning to delegate...and outsource.


Among other things, Ferriss says you must write your employees an email saying, “Keep the customers happy. If it is a problem that takes less than $100 [you pick the amount based on what your time is worth] to fix, use your judgment and fix it yourself.” Do you recall the times when a service person said something like, "Oh, I'm sorry, sir/madam, let me fix that for you right now"? Of course you do. Those are the golden customer service moments of our lives. You tell all our friends. You might even blog about it...


Assuming of course you’ve hired the right people–supervisors and employees with brains who care about the company and the customers–this alone should gain you a significant amount of time...time that you would have spent answering questions and giving permission. I love this quote, “It’s amazing how someone’s IQ seems to double when you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.” If it doesn't work that way with everybody, hire people it does work with.


Great advice: Set yourself up as information-free as possible–a huge challenge in today’s multimedia-ed assaultive world. Do you read newspapers and/or watch television news? My long-time personal favorite–stop. You’ll gain that time every day. And you’ll discover that if there’s anything you should know, you’ll find it out anyway. Set up specific times when you’ll read your email and check your voice mail–let people know what those times are, and then stick to them.


Read the whole article to learn what Smart Money says about Secret #2: outsourcing–including your blog and the 5 musts for doing that well....


Sincerely,
Barbara


P.S. Want to reach your customers more effectively? Ready to start that company blog but want help getting started? Give me a call. 216.472.8502 or 773.292.3294.