How to create an effective marketing campaign

Dear WW: I’ve been in sales my entire career. Recently I got the opportunity to move into marketing. I’ve complained about our stupid ads for years, but now I’m struggling with how to increase their impact. GOING TO MARKET

Dear MARKET,

Ikea recently tested an innovative approach for finding great employees. They put hand-written job announcements on bathroom walls at upscale restaurants in Malmo, Sweden. According to the company, the bathroom ads generated four times the response they get from classifieds.

Ikea learned the secret of an effective marketing campaign: experimentation. I’m sure the person who proposed the idea of writing ads on bathroom walls was initially told to dump it, but the results speak for themselves. Since you never know what might catch the attention of your customers, a certain amount of experimentation is required. Hopefully, the ideas below will encourage you to experiment more often. For more, check out Jay Abraham’s book, “Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got” (Truman Talley, 2000).

Do you feel wedded to the status quo?  There’s an old saying in business, “everything changes except Barbie.” But even that’s not true: every parent of a girl knows that Barbie is being endlessly reinvented (NEW! WebMaster Barbie! Only $29.99!) Adopt the attitude that no matter how well something is working today, it won’t work forever. Be on the lookout for how to adapt what you’re doing to changing times.

Do you know what’s working and what isn’t? The key to successful experimentation is a system that keeps track of the success rates of your various experiments. Each time you develop a new product, ad, marketing campaign, or marketing device, build in ways to track its response. Asking people to respond to different phone numbers, email addresses or web pages, or using coded coupons are some of the ways you can do that.

Do you test EVERYTHING? Nothing should be exempt from experimentation-and that includes even your most basic customer contacts. Take a look at your customer email program, your phone calls and customer snail mail. Experiment with changes in on-hold music, the outside of envelopes and messages at the bottom of your emails. Redesign your stationery and your boilerplate language. Track the responses and see what has the greatest impact on sales.

Do you watch companies outside of your industry? Sometimes we can fall prey to only paying attention to what’s going on in our industry. Make it a point to steal ideas from others.

Do you test different prices? For many businesses, price is the single biggest marketing tool. So experiment! Test different prices with different promotions. Be careful: don’t give new buyers a better deal than you give your best customers. Explore how various price points affect sales. But be careful to not just lower your prices, see if you can enhance your offerings and raise them.

Ikea’s experience gives a whole new meaning to the concept of a Dear John letter. Follow these tips and the results should keep your revenues flush.

Working Wounded poll:

Based on the marketing that your company is currently doing, would you buy your company’s product?

• I’d consider buying it, 23.9%
• I don’t buy it, 35.2%
• I’d buy it, 40.8%

Working Wounded strategy:

Our winning strategy for developing a marketing campaign comes from Terry B. in London, England. “I’m a big believer that too many marketers spend way too much time sitting in their offices and not enough time with their customers. Not in focus groups, I think it’s more valuable to watch customers in real settings. I’ve learned far more watching them in stores and talking with front line employees than I’ve ever learned from a focus group. Spend enough time with them and your customers will tell you what they need.”

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, speaker and internationally syndicated columnist. Sherrie Campbell is a relationship and business professional, having applied her counseling background in a variety of challenging organizational settings. They’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic, especially if you have better ideas than they do. Also check out their complete column archive at workmash.org, “The Boss’s Survival Guide” and “Gray Matters: The workplace survival guide.” Send your questions or comments to bob@workmash.org.

How to create a successful marketing campaign

Dear WW: I just inherited a family business. The business has been declining in the last few years, in part because it’s never been well marketed. Unfortunately, marketing’s not my forte. Can you give me some pointers? READY TO GO TO MARKET

Dear Ready,

Donald Cresitello and George Burke were running neck and neck for a town council seat in Morristown, New Jersey when Burke died mid-campaign. That didn’t stop Cresitello from worrying, though. “Now he’s liable to get the sympathy vote,” he complained.

(Yes, this is true. I read it in a wonderful compendium of off-the-wall news clippings called News of the Weird.) Of course, Cresitello’s concern is not entirely unfounded: more than once dead politicians have ridden the “sympathy vote” into office. However, I’ve yet to hear of customers opening their wallets in “sympathy sales” to resuscitate a dead or dying product. So for advice on how to turn your company into a lean, mean marketing machine, I suggest you turn to Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith (Warner, 1997). It’s been on every business best seller list for months because it uses stories and simple examples to illustrate key marketing concepts. The following questions have been adapted from it.

Is marketing part of every employee’s job description? Beckwith quotes an old Jewish proverb, “don’t open a shop unless you know how to smile.” Your receptionists, business office staff, and delivery people often spend more time with customers than your salespeople do. Think of them as marketers so that you encourage and train them to put a good face on your business.

Are you trying to win customers over at every point of contact? Phone book ads, brochures, telephone operators, customer service representatives, and even business cards are customer contact points. Make sure that you make the best out of even the most mundane interactions with your customers.

What are your clients really buying? The answer is: more than just your product. It might be reliability, convenience, security-whatever it is you need to know. So learn everything you can about your customers, how they use your product and why. Once you find it out, tout it in all the places listed above, then be sure to deliver it every time.

Can you reduce your customer’s fear? Buying a new product is a leap into the unknown. Offering a trial period, test product, or product guarantee is a way to reduce their fear. Rather than always trying to make them say yes, try to make it impossible for them to say no.

Are you hiding all your warts? Conventional wisdom says cover up anything that could be considered a weakness. Beckwith disagrees. He says including some self-criticism goes a long way toward making your self-praise seem more believable. 

Selling the Invisible maintains that marketing isn’t a department, it’s everyone’s job. If you can convince all your employees that they’re marketers too, your company probably won’t be dead-or even in the red.

Working Wounded Poll

What is your company’s most effective marketing tool?

• Fancy brochures, 14%
• Glitzy ads, 19%
• Our employees, 67%

Working Wounded strategy:

Our winning marketing strategy comes from Donna in Nashua, NH. “The most effective marketing I have seen was by a little entrepreneur, dressed head to toe in green. Yes, my neighborhood girl scout taught me a great lesson. I bought a couple of boxes of her cookies. The week after the sale I found a cute handwritten note tucked under my door thanking me for the sale. There will be plenty of girl scouts after my business next year, but only one already has earned a future sale.”

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, speaker and internationally syndicated columnist. Sherrie Campbell is a relationship and business professional, having applied her counseling background in a variety of challenging organizational settings. They’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic, especially if you have better ideas than they do. Also check out their complete column archive at workmash.org, “The Boss’s Survival Guide” and “Gray Matters: The workplace survival guide.” Send your questions or comments to bob@workmash.org.

How to fight the “big guys” as a small entrepreneur

Dear WW: I own a hardware store in a small town. Recently one of the chains opened a store in a mall just up the road. With their name and size I’m scared they’ll clean my clock. NOTHING BUT A SLINGSHOT

Dear Nothing,

Before you jump to conclusions, listen to this story. Mr. Badawi, an Egyptian suffering from liver disease, recently died and was placed in his local hospital morgue. Only thing was, he wasn’t really dead. When he came to several hours later, he did what any one would do if he suddenly found himself in a refrigerator full of corpses: he yelled. The morgue attendant heard his cries, ran into the refrigerator, took one look at the corpse-who-could-talk, and immediately died of shock. Which just goes to show that sometimes death and survival come where you least expect them.

So don’t assume that yours is the business that will bite the dust. Your small size gives you an ability to flex and change that your larger competitor often lacks. Take advantage of that to carve out a unique niche. Julie Bick, author of All I Really Need to Know in Business I Learned at Microsoft (Pocket Books, 1997), shares some of the secrets that catapulted Microsoft from two guys with big dreams into a software behemoth. From managing your email to your employees it’ll give you a peek into their windows. Ask yourself the following questions:

Can you differentiate yourself from the competition? When Microsoft brought out Encarta there were other encyclopedias on the market that were bigger and more thorough. So the company differentiated their entry by introducing multimedia and making it more fun to use. Today it’s the number one selling encyclopedia. What can you do to differentiate your store from your competitor? What new products or services can you provide that will keep customers coming in?

Can you learn to think three moves ahead? Don’t just focus on what you’ll do to set your business apart, but think about how your competitor will counter your move. Then develop a contingency plan to deal with whatever they’ll throw back at you.

Can you up your tolerance for risk? It’s tempting in a newly competitive market to batten down the hatches and do more of the same. But what you really need to do is take risks. Encourage your employees to try new things, and then applaud them when they fail: they’ll know what not to do next time! At Microsoft they say, “if you fire the person who failed, you throw away their experience.”

Recently Microsoft made major headlines when it invested $150 million in ailing Apple Computer. Why did Microsoft play Johnny Appleseed? A small part of the reason could be that once upon a time their positions were reversed and Apple came to Microsoft’s rescue with a $28,000 contract. So who knows? If you’re creative and you follow Julie’s tips, maybe one day a certain hardware chain with a store just up the road might be calling you asking about a loan!

Working Wounded poll:

If you were going up against a Goliath of a competitor, what song would you be singing?

• “Let It Be,”10%
• “Taps,” 35%
• “We Shall Overcome,” 55%

Working Wounded strategy:

Our winning entrepreneurial tip comes from Jim in Fall City. “The key thing to remember about the big guys is there is no such thing as big guys. There are only piles of medium to smaller guys. The real competition is in the quality of your ideas and your ability to deliver.”

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, speaker and internationally syndicated columnist. Sherrie Campbell is a relationship and business professional, having applied her counseling background in a variety of challenging organizational settings. They’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic, especially if you have better ideas than they do. Also check out their complete column archive at workmash.org, “The Boss’s Survival Guide” and “Gray Matters: The workplace survival guide.” Send your questions or comments to bob@workmash.org.