Your attention to customer relationships always pays off – either for you or your competitors.
In my last post we met the creative director for a large communications company who was discomfited with her existing printer and looking for a better match. I discussed the all-too-common causes of customer relationship issues that I see almost every day.
Today, I’ll dig more into the ways you can manage your relationships with your customers to keep them from being lured away by some opportunist, like me.
Be thoughtful, attentive and creative about your communications. Some automated communication – postcards, email, letters, for example – is practical in getting the word out about your new store, special offer or that you’re still here, better than ever. However, while they might trigger a stampede to your sale, they won’t make your audience feel like you were reaching out to shake hands with just them.
Personalizing your communications is really fairly easy, even on a large scale. Capture the easy milestones. Know their birthdays? Or, the date they became your customers? Hi Julie or Hello Bob on postcards gets Julie’s and Bob’s attention, and suggests your making an effort at a personal overture.
When customers reach the preferred ranks, your gestures need to reflect their status. They’re more than acquaintances now. These individuals are no longer customers. They buy products like yours only from you and never look at the price tag. You should welcome them by their first names and shake their hands with both of yours as a somewhat poorer local printer can attest. Handwritten notes on personal stationary should replace email. (No. Email marketing using the Zaphino font is not the same thing.) When gifts are appropriate, monogram them.
Or, how about this for a crazy idea – call them on the telephone. Seriously, many smartphones now come with this app.
Continue growing all of these relationships by being genuinely helpful. Assist with useful guidance, especially if there’s nothing in it for you. Don’t be a stranger. Drop by to ensure all is going well. Send them case studies, white papers, newsletters and articles that will have value to them. Refer prospects.
Yes, and sales promotions, which will be much more warmly received. Remind them you appreciate their business and your relationship with them.
Having said all this, I have to admit, my new communications company client came really cheap and easy. I want to extend my personal appreciation. I’m just not sure to whom.
We’ve all made mistakes in managing customer relationships. What are your biggest ones and how could you have avoided them? Don’t be afraid. Be honest and candid. Feel free to use a pseudonym if you really blew it. Our mistakes are how we learn, right?
What other topics are of interest? Let us know and we’ll try hard to cover them, or get an expert to do it. Want to share your experience? Let us know. We’re eager to share this space.
Your attention to customer relationships always pays off – either for you or your competitors.
I recently met with the creative director of a large communications company. She was talking to potential replacements for her current printer and a colleague referred her to me. I asked what the problem was with her existing printer.
Even though she spent between $125,000 to $175,000 annually – healthy revenue for any printer – she didn’t feel appreciated.
She wasn’t looking for fanfare or gratuitous gestures. Her printer’s lack of attention and recognition made her feel awkward whenever they met. The printer was so oblivious that the creative director had to track project milestones, schedule times to check proofs and other routine aspects of the commercial relationship.
We all know we’re supposed to thank customers and make them feel appreciated. However, we shouldn’t be store clerks reciting, “Thank you for allowing us to give you super-duper service and make you feel happy and loved, today.”
Appreciation is not feeling happy and loved. It’s being acknowledged and respected. Appreciation is the foundation for building good relationships that keep customers loyal. It’s far easier and cheaper to hang onto satisfied existing customers than to find new ones.
Many of your competitors offer similar products and services with prices and delivery standards that are on par with yours. Knowing this, how can you continuously keep your current clients and customers from being lured away?
All things being equal, your clients will go where they’re well treated, appreciated and respected. Where they feel at home. In fact, such relationships will surmount some failings on your part.
We’ve all made errors in managing customer relationships. What are your biggest relationship mistakes? Don’t be afraid. Be honest and candid. Feel free to use a pseudonym if you really blew it. Our mistakes are how we learn, right?
What other topics are of interest? Let us know and we’ll try hard to cover them, or get an expert to do it. Want to share your experience? Let us know. We’re eager to share this space.
Well designed direct mail pieces have the power to even communicate with teenagers.
Direct mail isn’t that much different from a face-to-face sales pitch. It’s all about grabbing prospects’ attention first and only then selling them on your product. Without their interest piqued, it’s like talking to your teenager. In reality, direct mail isn’t that much different than selling your teenage son or daughter on cleaning their rooms.
First you have to dominate their visual arena. You step in front of the TV, right? For those of you who don’t have teenagers, that arouses both their visual and emotional senses. Then you must overwhelm their auditory receptors. What do you do? Make them remove their ear buds.
Do it quick though. Otherwise, they’ll scatter. Their cellphones ring. Dinner is called. The wind blows. If you haven’t grabbed their attention long enough for your key message – a few seconds tops – then the opportunity vanishes and recovering it is resource intensive.
The good news is that you may have one to two seconds longer with a prospect than a teenager, unless you sell skateboards or worn-out blue jeans. If you do, pay really close attention. It’s the same with direct mail pieces, their design first grabs readers’ attention. Once you have it, you can then promote your brand, introduce a new collection, offer a seasonal special or whatever your objective.
The goal is to stand out, visually and conceptually, always keeping your goal in mind. A direct mail piece may be impactful, and have all the latest design and production tricks, but if the concept isn’t relevant or interesting to the recipient, it won’t yield results.
Coming up with the right direct mail design begins with format and then rolls into the message. With direct mail, our overall priority is to get the recipient to stop and see the post card, guidebook or fund raising package. Visualize it as a shop window, you want your targets to be compelled enough by what they see to step inside. Then you can make your pitch and call them into action.
Most people don’t think about all they have to work with. You don’t have sound, of course, and a direct mail piece itself can’t move in front of the TV. However, they do have weight and texture to impart importance. Color can flash like a spotlight or coax the reader into a relaxed attentive state. Photography makes it real. It’s the window showcasing your new offering. You can add action and bring your prospects further down the sales funnel with QR codes.
With so much to work with, a well designed direct mail piece could even get teenagers’ attention. What are your tricks for grabbing prospects attention? Let us know.
In fact, could it be good grist for a guest blog? If so, contact us. We’re eager to share this space with guest bloggers.
Variable Data Printing is so easy, yet so underused, it’s driving Péllo crazy.
In my previous post, I suggested just a few of the ways that Variable Data Printing, or more commonly VDP or personalized printing, can turn direct mail campaigns into personal correspondence that makes response rates soar. Many of you are undoubtedly thinking, That’s great, but where do I get all of that personal information for the database?
That’s today’s topic. Few, if any, have such a database. That won’t stop you, however. You get creative with what you have and build over time. You’ll be surprised at how much that even a basic database tells you.
Begin by looking ahead. What are the topics you’d like to discuss with prospects? What kinds of information supports your Action Message. Take notes. Gather information over time. Jot down on your copy of the receipt the kind of sandwich or drink a customer orders. What topics do you discuss when you meet? Have customer service representatives work specific questions into their conversations.
You’ll likely still have holes in your database. That’s OK. That’s OK. Focus on only the top 20 percent of your prospects, then use broader criteria to group the rest and semi-personalize the mailers you send them.
What if you still don’t have the data you need? The next best option is a direct-mail list with statistical characteristics and lifestyle information that enables you to target narrowly defined niches in your market – so narrow that it’s like talking to a small group with common interests.
Imagine a collection of content based on, say, income, occupation, number of children, spouses’ names, children’s names, relationship status, preferred clothing brand, occupation, race, favorite ice cream, music they prefer, age, neighborhood, do they ride motorcycles or horses, do they rent or own their homes, hobbies – well, you get the idea.
What would you say differently about life insurance to 30-40 year-old women and 50 to 60-year-old men? How would you change it if you knew their incomes? How would you revise your Action Message for married firefighters with two kids and a mortgage, and a 20 to 30-year-old African-American ballerinas who love chocolate? You can mix and match characteristics wherever you see an affinity, and then craft content that speaks directly to each.
This is just scratching the surface. Use your imagination! You’ll come up with dozens of creative ideas to spin ADP to boost your direct-mail revenues.
I just told them that, Péllo. Yep, I emphasized it: Use your imagination!
I looked around the Internet for stats that demonstrate the return on investment for ADP. Although dated, a study by CAP Ventures in 2001 found that personalization resulted a 24 percent increase in the size or value of orders, a 36 percent increase in response rate and a 48 percent increase in repeat orders. That study may be 11 years old, but it grabbed my attention – and certainly Péllo’s.
I’m hoping your minds are reeling a bit as ideas of how to turn ADP to your advantage. Here’s some homework. Evaluate the direct mail you receive today that’s not personalized. If that was your promotion, how would you apply ADP to personalize the message. Give us your idea in a comment below within the next week.
If you’ve been following this series and done your assigned homework, you should have a draft of a promotional postcard with at least two spots for first names, and spots for prospects’ individual problems and your offers. Even if this first VDP exercise is purely practice, you’ll discover a powerful new strategy for communicating with customers that can get a significant boost in response.
If your serious about moving forward on your project, Péllo and I will each provide the next five of you to place ADP orders and mention this blog two hours – four hours total – of consulting to help you craft a killer ADP marketing piece.
But wait! The first three of you to place orders also will receive the most delicious chocolate cake you’ve ever eaten complements of BAKE! BAKE!, which specializes in perfecting the taste in its cakes, pies, tarts and pastries, just opened down the road from us in Walnut Creek. Fair disclosure: BAKE! is one of our clients. Nonetheless, I swear they make the most delicious pastries you’ll ever eat.
As a reminder, we’re currently drafting our 2013 blog schedule and we’re encouraging contributors with marketing and communications perspectives their experience to sign up. If you’d like to share your experience and gain more exposure for your business, contact either of us.
Variable Data Printing is so easy, yet so underused, it’s driving Péllo crazy.
In my previous post, I made the point that while variable data printing, or more commonly VDP, is commonly used to personalize direct mail material of all kinds, marketing professionals seldom, if ever, used anywhere near its full potential.
Today, I’ll discuss how to milk the money from VDP.
So frustrated is Péllo when he sees materials that left 90 percent of their advantage in copywriters’ pens, that seeing a direct mail card that only addresses him personally in the salutation, can trigger a tirade.
Personalized VDP printing is to direct mail marketing what social media is to the Internet. It’s virtually speaking one-to-one with every target.
Sure, you can fill in blanks: Hi, <<Mr/rs/s>>. <<Last Name>>, This week only, we’ll slash half off our dealer prep charges on any of the hundreds of Suzuki Equators rusting in our back lot . . .
It’s true that while people understand that a computer, not the sender, adds their names, even just inserting just prospects names in the salutation increases the likelihood that they’ll look at the mailer.
But, come on, use your imagination! This is where businesses miss the big almost free opportunity to address each prospect’s personal needs, interests, longed-for desires.
Péllo, please, sit back down. I don’t want to tie you up, again. That’s the way.
I’ve talked about the importance of Action Messaging that communicates your offerings as if you’re channeling your customers. VDP takes your Action Messages to a one-to-one level in a mass mailing.
All you need is some information that you already know about your customers or prospects and add it to your contact list. Once gathered, the 1:2:1 VDP printing system looks at each recipient’s name and drops the personal message tailored just for them into the mailer.
Instead of just personalizing the salutation and causing Péllo to begin pounding his head on the wall, again, consider the opportunities that VDP can introduce into your direct mail program. Here are a few thoughts to kick-start your imagination:
Use previous purchases and their prices from your records to suggest a newer, better model or related product in the customer’s price range with a personalized deal just for them.
Reference part of a personal conversation that you had with a customer in a seasonal thanks-for-the-business letter.
Change the photo in every direct-mail postcard, flyer or brochure based on each customer’s hobbies or information that would be just about their specific business.
Turn customers’ addresses into maps from their driveways to your store. Take it one step further and direct them to the outlet that’s the closest to their homes or businesses.
Make it easy to say yes. That same data enables you to complete in advance much of the response card for the customer. All that’s needed is the credit card number.
Combine products you know your customer is interested into package deals: Buy the lawnmower and the refrigerator you were looking at last month and we’ll take 25 percent off the total price.
I know, you’re thinking, where do I get all of this data? Some you likely already have: customers’ addresses, for example. From that you can create maps or cite drive times on each mailer. That will be the topic for part 3.
Last time, I asked you to create a simple spreadsheet that lists the first names of 10 prospects in the first column followed by columns with the dates you last met and the specific problem you discussed in just three to five words.
For next time, draft brief copy for a fill-in-the-blank postcard with an enticing offer aimed at new business – same offer for each prospect. The postcard should have at least two spots for the first name, and spots for the offer and problem.
You may struggle a bit at first wording the entries in the specific-problem column. However, once you’ve done a couple you’ll have developed a template that makes the rest go quickly.
As a reminder, we’re currently drafting our 2013 blog schedule and we’re encouraging contributors with marketing and communications perspectives their experience to sign up. If you’d like to share your experience and gain more exposure for your business, contact either of us.
Variable Data Printing is so easy, yet so underused, it’s driving Péllo crazy.
This should be Péllo’s blog to write. He’s the master of “variable data printing,” which is also called VDP, 1:1 and personalized data printing. Regardless of the terminology, it refers to the same thing – any piece of paper on which the text or images were driven by a database.
Your telephone bill is an example of a variable data printing. So are your credit card statement and the bill from your dentist. Each was custom printed according to information supplied by a database.
By the way, a database isn’t necessarily anything complicated. If you keep your customers’ names and addresses on a spreadsheet or the contact app on your mobile phone, you are maintaining a database.
Billing statements and digital address books are functional, but not very compelling.
VDP is putting a spreadsheet (like your customer list, for example) in charge of a digital printer and making the output speak one on one.
However, spice up your customer list or address book a bit by adding birthdays, restaurant names from business lunches or products your customers recently purchased, and now you have a database for a winning direct mail campaign.
What makes direct mail promotions that take advantage of today’s variable data printing techniques so much more successful than usual Hi, XXX . . . strain of postcards and letters? It’s because they take strategic advantage of this information to make their mailings relevant. Relevance means delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time.
The ability of savvy marketers enables them to use what they know about prospects to create compelling marketing messages. A full-color direct mail piece with just a few variable elements can have a completely different impact than a telephone bill with hundreds of variable elements, even though both have the same roots: a digital printing press coupled with a database spiked with relevant factoid.
What does that have to do with me rather than Péllo writing this blog? Because he’d just rant. That so few even good marketing professionals take even a smidgen of the advantages that VDP offers, causes Péllo to rant to the point that I half expect him to bite the head off a . . . well, it ticks him off a bit.
VDP spells the end of impersonal junk mail. Every direct mail piece personalized using VDP becomes a private chat with the recipient and an opportunity to further your relationship.
In part 2, I’ll share more of Péllo’s secrets on VDP. Before then, make a list of the first names 10 prospects in the first column of a spreadsheet. In the next column, jot down the date you last met. In the third column, write the specific problem that specific problem that each prospect needs your help to solve. That’s it.
We’re currently drafting our 2013 blog schedule and we’re encouraging contributors with marketing and communications perspectives their experience to sign up. If you’d like to share your experience and gain more exposure for your business, contact either of us.
Andy McClure, a frequent guest blogger, coaches his Sherpa Business Development clients in methods that attract more customers and generate higher profits. Today, Andy begins a three-part series on how generate more leads with less effort. He shares many more secrets in his blog.
Do you feel a baseline of doubt – a constant level of anxiety – about your efforts to generate more business? Do you wonder if you need to change or add to your strategies, but aren’t sure what you should be doing instead?
Perhaps we all experience this fear from time to time. So, what can we do about it? It can be tempting to just get busy doing “more” by kicking off a completely new campaign or changing a bunch of existing programs – hoping to stumble across something that works.
While we should absolutely use multiple strategies to generate new leads, it is important to recognize that each one is not going to work the way we’d like right out of the gate (sorry to say). We must be prepared to:
Take focused action to get it off the ground
Adjust our plans as we go
Ultimately automate, delegate or outsource it (so we get the benefit of the leads, without huge personal effort)
Recently I helped a new client uncover that he was not only experimenting with multiple strategies to get new customers, but he was pursuing multiple customer types with differing needs – spreading his efforts way too thin. In order to explain the pitfalls of this I used an analogy that seemed to help – so I wanted to share it here.
Picture each method for generating leads as a car that is at a standstill. Getting a car rolling takes a lot of effort in the beginning, right?
Once you have it moving along things get a little easier, but you can’t totally stop pushing. It requires continued effort to keep making forward progress.
Now imagine that instead of keeping that car rolling along, you leave it alone to go get another car moving. You have to expend an extra amount of effort once again, because the second car is at a dead stop.
When it is time to come back to that first car, what’s happened to it? It’s come to a stop and you need to start all over – with your maximum effort required. Try to get 4 or 5 cars moving together and you spend nearly all of your time pushing with your maximum effort, to make minimal forward progress.
How does this relate to marketing? Well, ponder the similarities of this scenario to maintaining sufficient momentum behind four or five business development projects at the same time. Hold off calling a tow truck until you’ve read my next post, where I’ll offer a solution.
Andy McClure, a frequent guest blogger on this site, coaches his Sherpa Business Development clients in methods that attract more customers and generate higher profits. Today, Andy demonstrates how to make your marketing efforts more profitable with a simple change of perspective. He shares many of his other secrets in his blog.
I saved a recent unsolicited email I received because it perfectly illustrated a flaw that I believe is behind almost all failed marketing attempts to generate leads. Let’s call it the “core flaw” — talking about products and services as if that is what their prospective clients want.
Here are the contents of that email (with name and services changed to protect the guilty).
Hi Andy,
Hope you are doing well. I am following up with you to see if you have availability for a quick call sometime in the following weeks.
Our Services Include:
1. Service #1
2. Service #2
3. Service #3
4. Service #4
5. Service #5
6. Service #6
7. Service #7
8 Service #8
9. Service #9
10. Service #10
[No joke, 10 services were listed. The email then goes on to talk about “how” the above services are delivered and closes with the following:]
Please do let us know if there is anything we can help with on any of the services we provide.
How about a call next week? Please suggest . . .
Look forward to hear from you.
Thanking you,
First name Last name
Head of Inside sales
Some Company
Address
Ph.: 650 — —-
firstname@somecompany.com
www.somecompany.com
Just another reminder of what not to do to generate leads. So, even though using unsolicited emails is somewhat of a last resort, this approach would have been much more effective if the beginning, middle, and end all had to do with me and the results that I am seeking (vs. the “stuff” this sales person wants to sell).
Here is a good exercise for this week: simply create a list of your products and/or services and write down next to each one a result that your customer will experience if they buy it. See how it goes!
Loyal customers crave a personal touch in direct-marketing appeals
At the end of my last post on the importance to nonprofit organizations of personal relationships with donors, I asked you to make a list of your top 10 supporters. Then calculate a ratio of the number of times you’ve communicated with them to solicit donations versus the number other reasons.
What’s your ratio? If it isn’t one to one, you should read on.
Péllo’s Rule #1: Business is personal. So, be a person, not a letter, email or disembodied voice.
That rule applies to every business, not just nonprofit organizations. Here are seven (the possibilities are unlimited) successful ways for an organization to have a face, body and trusting personality that remove financial ceilings.
1. Conduct exclusive behind-the-scenes events just for donors. Treat them to previews of public events.
2. Schedule periodic dinners for donors with board members and the executive director to express your appreciation.
3. Stage facility tours or public events where board members serve as greeters or docents, and can experience firsthand the appreciation of those your organization serves.
On those occasions when you absolutely can’t organize a face-to-face activity, add the personal touch with one of these ideas:
4. Gather your board for an evening to telephone all of your sponsors, patrons and other donors to personally thank them.
5. Have board members, chairs and the executive director respond to contributions and volunteer efforts with hand-written thank you cards.
6. Publish a newsletter just for donors that shows them exactly how they made a difference.
In all of these activities, when the offer arises, the response is, No, we aren’t accepting contributions now. We just want to say, thanks.
None of these ideas work if you do them just once. In fact, a slap on the back and shake of the hand followed by nothing makes a donor feel, well, used. The secret to success is an ongoing program.
Direct marketing isn’t just about mailers, emails and automatic phone dialers. It’s about being human. Though simple, these ideas will have an extremely powerful effect on donors’ attitudes. There will be no more cringing when they receive communications from your nonprofit. Just a smile with their checkbook in hand.
Would you like to share your expertise? If so, contact either of us to join the growing number of guest bloggers in this community.
Loyal customers crave a personal touch in direct-marketing appeals
I was meeting a few days ago with the executive director of a nonprofit organization that serves the San Francisco Bay area. During our chat, I asked her how her fundraising was going for some capital improvement projects and operations projects that I recalled she’d been focused on the last time we met. She admitted that she’d expected better results, especially from ardent donors who comprised the core market for the organization’s fundraising efforts.
This lack of response from her core constituency puzzled me as well. I’m a director or chair on several nonprofit boards and thought I might be able to help. So, I asked a few more questions.
I asked if there was anything different in her current fundraising programs from previous efforts. No, she was using the same marketing activities as before – direct mail and email promotions, phone calling during campaigns and publicity programs.
What were competitive organizations doing? Same stuff mostly. Some maybe had picnics, potlucks or the occasional annual dinner. None raised money, however.
That told me something interesting. Though she didn’t say it specifically, what I heard was, Every time we communicate with our donors, supporters, sponsors and prospective contributors, we ask for money. That’s our job and what keeps our services available.
Did she ever communicate with their constituents without asking for money? No, not really. Why did I ask?
I explained that in my experience in nonprofit fundraising has taught me that if you have your hand out every time you communicate with people, eventually they begin to cringe when they see the letter, email or the group’s name on their ringing phones. It’s them wanting to put their hand in my pocket, again.
What she’d been telling me was that she had no personal relationship with any of her donors. They contributed because they were fond of the cause. I knew that without a personal connection those donors had a ceiling on how much they’d give and could be easily wooed by a handshake from another cause.
What can I do differently? she asked.
That will be the subject of Part 2. I’ve discovered a number of easy, yet powerful, ways to establish that personal connection. By the way, if you’re in a for-profit organization, there’s still something in this for you. Personal relationships are important to every enterprise.
Meanwhile, make a list of your top 10 supporters. Count the number of times you’ve communicated with them to solicit donations versus the number other reasons. What’s the ratio?
Would you like to share your expertise? If so, contact either of us to join the growing number of guest bloggers in this community.
