B2B Lead Generation Advice
Archive for June, 2008
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Direct Mail
That’s right direct mail. Even with a first class stamp increased recently to .42c it can still be one of the most cost effective ways to market, reach and deliver to your target audience. Sure there are quicker, sexier, faster ways to reach your target, but in a world of advertising literally everywhere and with unwanted email stacking up at everyone’s desks, direct personalized mail can be a very effective and very overlooked advertising medium.
There are other mediums like email and faxing that can be targeted and even personalized to your target audience. These should also not be overlooked as great ways to stay in front of your existing customers and get your message to relatively small groups.
Publications like trade magazines in your prospects industry can also be a great way to keep your advertising dollars focused on a targeted group.
However, while I like all of these targeted, rifle-like types of marketing, let me tell you about my favorite…
This industry boasts half a million varieties, has at least a dozen different reasons to use it and recipients say THANK YOU when they receive it.
This medium is so effective in crossing genders, audiences and such wide appeal that I personally chose to build my entire business around this one specific medium.
The medium?
Promotional Products
You may have heard them called giveaways, promos, tchochkies, premiums, freemiums, grabbers, and yes, my favorite: Trinkets and Trash.
But before you discount this medium as the types of products you use when times are good but should be cut back in tougher economic times, let’s take a closer look at the world of promotional products.
Last year the promotional products industry grew to 17 billion dollars in annual sales. It has grown by double digits for the past 14 years. During the same time it has been the fastest growing advertising medium of all.
Even in 2001, which saw huge decreases in every advertising sector, the promotional products industry grew by 3% (Source; Advertising Specialty Institute). Why in the midst of a recession, huge stock market losses, record bankruptcies taking their toll in nearly every industry and all advertising medias showing record losses, has promotional products gone nearly unaffected?
Smart companies have realized that it’s targeted, rifle approach can be even more effective in tough economic times tan ever before.
Instead of gambling valuable advertising and marketing dollars on shotgun approach, broad-based campaigns, these smart companies realized they could not afford to stop doing the right things to make their business successful.
They can drastically reduce their marketing expenses while still thanking, motivating and rewarding their most important partners (customers, employees and prospects) with real, tangible advertising that not only creates awareness about you and your message but delivers value, says thank you and stays around to do it over and over again!
Let’s take a closer look at why these products have been and remain to be so successful.
Just like the football team we previously referred to, has to concentrate only on what wins games, in tougher times we need to concentrate our time, money and resources on what is important.
Spending money on marketing campaigns to keep up our image or stimulate brand awareness would be like our football team’s coach buying new uniforms for the players or hiring new cheerleaders in hope somehow that new, shiny image will immediately get them winning again. Our football team will concentrate only on what is important to win and we must do the same.
So how will promotional products help us win with what is most important. Let’s take a closer look at what is important to our business.
Although the order of importance may vary depending upon your specific business, these mantras will no doubt be very high on your list of successful “must do’s”
- Keep Current Customers Happy and Loyal (Solidify existing revenue stream)
- Develop new business from these existing customers (More revenue from same customer base)
- Get more customers (more revenue from new people)
- Get employees to do more with less (cuts in payroll and personnel create new issues like higher turn-over, drop in morale, attitude problems, etc.)
At the risk of saying promotional products is the ‘end all’, I must say that they offer very practical solutions to every one of these issues and when implemented along with good business sense, can be extremely powerful recession fighters.
Why?
Because unlike other advertising mediums, promotional products actually represent multiple facets. The pages on this blog will show you black-and-white, easy-to-use, and inexpensive ways to beat the tough economy while continuing to profitably build your business.
KEEP CURRENT CUSTOMERS HAPPY AND LOYAL (and Profitable…)
While some people think clients are something to keep, they are so, so much more. With the use of strategically placed promo products you can virtually double the amount of business that is coming from them. And after maximizing the business they give you are you done?
No Way!
Save your valuable advertising dollars by having your existing clients do your advertising for you. Turn your current clients into RRMs!
That’s right.
Rapid Referral Machines!
Their word-of-mouth marketing is not only much more valuable than any other kind, IT’S FREE. How about that for recession proof marketing!
Challenge: Client Retention (i.e., keeping the customers you have)
Solution: Regular Logo Thank You Gifts.
Saying “Thank You” is still one of the most important things we can do to show appreciation. We were taught it from birth yet, still take for granted those who make us successful. Don’t just say Thank You -
How about a program where you consistently show appreciation to your existing clients for their first order, reorders, anniversaries, end of year/holidays of doing business with you or just a THANK YOU at any time and for no specific reason other than to say THANK YOU for their continued patronage?
What are you doing now to keep the hungry competitor wolves away from your client’s doors?
Too expensive? Can’t afford it?
Don’t EVEN go there.
First of all, since your customers are the entire reason you are in business, you can’t afford NOT TO SAY THANK YOU. Not to mention the thank you does not have to be expensive. Our Thank You gifts start at under $1.00 each. We all know that even a note or card can be a very appreciated sentiment.
But how about if you combine that with a small token of your appreciation that is not only a useful keepsake for your customer but also carries your name to constantly remind them of who gave them this gift.
Not sure how much you can afford to spend? We can help you calculate the value of each customer and how much you can afford to spend to acquire each new custome ror lead. Give me a call in the office i can help you get started with this,
But as you will see as you continue to read this blog, it is not just about keeping your customers, it’s about maximizing their value (i.e., increase the amount of business you are receiving from them).
Nye. O.
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This bulletin was about advertising in a tough economy using direct mail and promotional products. Next post will be about how to use my special T.I.P. to boost business in any economic climate. See you then… If in the meantime, we can help bring fun and excitement to your next show, event, promotion or offer, click the link below and fill out the form. We’ve got some great ideas we’d love to show you!
————————————————————-
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Related posts
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"Advertising in Tough Economic Times Part II"
Step I: Pre-Show Marketing- You gotta’ have a ‘hook’
The battle for attendee’s attention starts long before the trade show doors open. It all starts with getting them to come to your booth. This should be your first and foremost purpose. The name of the game is making sure you get quality time with the most amount of prospects.
The first step is to get a good list of attendees. While none of these lists are perfect due to last minute changes, the best list source is typically from the show producer. They typically sell their list of attendees who have pre-registered.
If you haven’t yet negotiated your booth space, make sure that an electronic list is made available to you at little or no additional charge. Depending upon how much time you have before the show, I like sending an invitation to attendees via direct mail. If time is short you can also accomplish this quickly by fax or email.
The key is not just an invitation, but creating a reason to come to your booth. Save the money you’d spend on fancy invitations and invest in a fun, practical item that you can tempt attendees with. You can do this one of two ways.
STRATEGY ONE:
One strategy is to offer a FREE GIFT if the attendee comes to your booth. This gives the attendee a special reason to stop at your booth above and beyond a desire to see all of the booths. If your gift is compelling, the attendee will no doubt make a note of your booth location and make sure that she gets there even if she runs out of time to visit the rest of the booths.
STRATEGY TWO:
The second strategy is to actually send ‘part’ of the gift in the pre-show mailing. Example; your mailing includes the cap of a very nice pen. You tell them that when they come to your booth with the cap, they will be presented with the rest of the pen.
Or send a key tag.
Explain in your letter than when they arrive at your booth they will receive the other end of this special key separator. We have quite a few products when it comes to two-part gifts so give us a call and we’ll show you what is possible.
In either case I suggest creating some type of urgency to coming to your booth like a limited quantity or time that these will be available. Make it an offer to the ‘first 100 attendees to your booth’ or ‘only while supplies last’. This many times helps jump start an otherwise slow starting trade show.
At the Show
If you are offering a gift for coming to your booth, make sure not only the gifts are ready, but that your staff is ready as well.
With what?
Remember our purpose at this show is to ‘acquire prospects’. To properly acquire the prospect, you must have a system for collecting their information.
Just asking for a business card is not the best answer.
Titles, phone numbers and especially email addresses have a way of changing faster these days than the business card printer can keep up. Also many people forget their cards or run out. You want to collect all of the current contact information as quickly and painlessly as possible, so have a simple system.
The simplest manual method is to have pads of registration forms in the pockets of all trade show personnel that ask all of the pertinent information. If they want to attach a business card instead, that’s fine. Just make sure that your personnel verify the information on the business card.
Make sure that everyone working your booth understands that the purpose of this show is to collect accurate information on all prospects. Explain the costs in acquiring these prospects information (i.e. If your booth personnel understands that cost per contact is $106.70, they will be more likely to handle their information accordingly).
One of the most important things in post show follow up is accuracy of the visitor’s information and speed of follow up, so make sure you have someone already assigned to inputting the information into a database (daily if a multi-day show).
Waiting until after the show to draft a follow up letter or have a data entry plan will delay your post show plan terribly and in many cases kill it completely. That is why hardly anyone does any type of post show follow up. Chances are you will be one of the few if any following up with prospects, which is a wonderful place to be.
In Your Booth
Okay you have maximized your pre-show efforts by luring registered attendees to your booth, but as we know there are many more attendees that are at the show that didn’t register early or see your offer.
How do we get these people into our booth/sales funnel?
In one word; Participation.
People love getting involved with contests, tests of skill, games, you name it. It is however, important that whatever ‘fun’ you create to get people into your booth meet the following requirements.
1) Be highly visible (as to attract people from a distance)
2) Be simple and fun to play (for both sexes and all ages)
3) Be short in duration (long lines discourage people from coming into booth)
4) Encourage conversation (you want prospects focusing on your company not just your ‘fun’)
A Great Booth Idea
One of my all time favorites and one I continue to use successfully year after year is a black jack game. While all party supply companies can furnish tables and dealers it is also easy to do yourself.
Here is how it works;
You set up a standard “Vegas-style” black jack table in the middle of your booth. Since they are about 6 feet wide, they fit very well even into the smallest 10′ by 10′ size booth space and leave plenty of room for product and service display.
(PM-Maybe show a black jack table? Did we ever get any photos of booth Andrea did last year or one Tina did a few weeks ago? If not, generic OK)
You don’t need or want chairs.
Remember, your goal is to get people into your booth, not keep them there all day. Without signs or words, an open space at a black jack table says; “Come in” to anyone that has ever been in a casino. The table will comfortably accommodate 6-8 people which can keep pace with even the busiest of shows.
At the same time, even during a slow period an attendee is normally OK with being the only player. The openness of the game and positioning of your sales staff behind the table (where a dealer would be) is much more inviting to an attendee than a lone sales person hovering inside a bare booth.
Since the common attire of most pit bosses is suit and tie, formal business attire works just fine in this environment as does business-casual. If you want to spice things up, have the dealer wear a visor or dealers apron. If at all possible, have your booth personnel do the dealing.
The game is easy to teach and learn and nearly anyone that has played for more than 30 minutes is qualified to deal. Since most interaction is with the dealer, this opens up dialogue between your personnel and prospects very naturally. Since your salesperson/dealer controls the game, they can control the pace of it based upon the player’s questions, comments and body language.
The end result is quite remarkable. You have prospects drawn to your booth, comfortable, relaxed and having fun. Let’s now talk about doing business in this environment.
Well, as we’ve discussed, on of the primary objectives of the show is to acquire prospects. This is easily done in the black jack environment. Have one of your booth personnel play pit boss and be soley in charge of chip distribution and lead acquisition.
When attendees approach the table, the most common question is “How Do I Play?” or “Where Do I Get Chips?” Have your dealer direct them AWAY from the table to your pit boss who in a side bar exchanges their full contact information for a predetermined quantity of chips.
With this important exchange done, the prospects are now free to play their chips at the table. Even if they are distracted or leave the booth, the important business is done.
The value and quantity of chips issued can be customized to fit your show. (Believe it or not; the chips can be customized with your company information as well.) I normally will issue 3-5 $5 chips (no real value). This gives the player $15 to $25 to play with. The game ends when the player either loses all of the chips or doubles them in value.
This normally takes one to five minutes based upon how the player does. The nice thing is the player controls the time they want to spend at your booth. If they want to hang out and talk they certainly can by betting conservatively. If they want to try their luck and move on, this can be done rather quickly as well. Either way the player has fun and appreciates the little break.
You’re the Winner!
If a player doubles their original chips, we give them a promotional product. Once again, this is something tastefully decorated with our logo and/or message and offer.
The awards should be practical, fun and appeal to both sexes and all ages. Things that can be worn, such as sunglasses, fanny packs, necklaces or hats are all great gifts that not only are well appreciated, but continue to promote your booth, products and services.
Every attendee loves to be part of an exclusive club, so to add pizzazz to your promo items, have us imprint the product with “I played black jack at…” or “I beat the dealer at …” Before you know it, your booth will be the place to visit, confirmed by all of the positive word of mouth you are getting from people who visited and played.
(PM- Maybe an ESP or Sage research can produce some dice and/or deck of cards for some graphics…)
Losers? No such thing.
Show your prospects you care by giving them a less prominent, yet fun gift “just for playing”. How about giving them the custom printed chips as a souvenir? Imagine a deck of cards customized with your company information? How about a real pair of dice? Or a fuzzy pair of giant dice with your offer? Or a dealers’ visor?
Have fun with the imprint on these conciliation gifts by having us imprint them with; “I lost it all at…” or “I lost my shirt at…”
The black jack theme also lends itself to so many fun themes that can be tied directly to your company and promotions. Imprint your gifts and awards with “Don’t gamble with (your product or service)” or “When it comes to… You can bet on…”
Other ideas are; putting contests, dart throwing, magic tricks, slot machines, bingo, roulette and almost any other games of skill.
Just remember the four requirements and above all your focused show goals.
Nye. O.
————————————————————-
This bulletin was about having the best trade show ever. Next postwill be about turning those attendees and prospects into business. See you then… If in the meantime, we can help bring fun and excitement to your next show, event, promotion or offer, click the link below and fill out the form. We’ve got some great ideas we’d love to show you!
————————————————————–
To get Lead Generation Advice Articles in your Inbox when I post, make sure to subscribe to LeadGenerationAdvice.com!
Related posts
Click Here to request more information on:
"Smart Trade Show Exhibiting Part II"
Yesteryears trade shows ran something like this;
Spend big bucks on attractive booth. Send personnel to schmooze. Spend lots of money on entertainment. Give away lots of ‘goodies’ with the company logo. Overall goal? Staying around the budget of previous year and ‘making a presence’ (talk about a goal hard to measure….)
Let talk about those giveaway goodies…
Why do we use them at trade shows?
What is their purpose?
Can their effectiveness be measured?
Or are they just a sunk cost that is part of the whole trade show budget blur?
Interesting to note:
According to a study done by Louisiana State University, the use of promotional products at trade shows during 2002 increased by 12%. A 12% increase is especially remarkable considering the same study showed an overall decrease in general promotional product sales (for all uses) by 5.6% (not bad either when most advertising is down 20-40% in today’s economy).
This also comes during a year when many trade shows were down in attendance by as much as 50% thereby drastically reducing the need for any trade show support materials altogether.
Let’s do the Math
The average industrial sales call costs $229.70 and takes an average of 5.5 sales calls to close an order, bringing the cost to $1,263.35.
Compare this to the average cost per contact of $106.70 at a trade show with 0.8 follow-up calls. Bringing the average cost per sale to $209.46.
According to Exhibit Surveys, Inc., 4 out of 5 trade show attendees have the final say, specify or recommend the purchase of products and services being exhibited.
Yes, there are many reasons that trade show marketing is highly effective, but let’s not exhibit at a trade show just to ‘make a presence’ or ’show up and be seen’. Let’s do the research and planning necessary to make money from these shows. Isn’t that really the bottom line?
Holding Your Trade Show Budget ACCOUNTABLE
Even if you have multiple reasons for exhibiting at a trade show, focus on one specific purpose and hold that purpose accountable. What do I mean?
Let’s say that in previous years rationalization of why you are exhibiting at a trade show was; meeting prospects, cultivating relationships with existing customers, key meetings with clients and vendors, industry goodwill and new products exposure.
On the surface this would appear to be a mountain of evidence to show up and do your thing. But in this economy, my recommendation is really focusing in on one just one primary purpose for the show. Something that can be tracked and held accountable.
My favorite; Acquire Prospects!
That’s right, “acquire”.
Not schmoozing, not handing out cards, not passing out catalogs, not throwing stuff out there and see what sticks. That may all be part of the mix, but at the end of the day (literally) how many quality prospects you have collected (in effect acquired) and what you will do with them is most important.
Any marketing that we do should have some form of accountability in terms of how many qualified prospects are acquired and at what cost. Trade shows are no exception.
Trade Shows Offer Great Positioning
Trade Shows are a great place to acquire prospects for one simple reason; unlike so many other forms of media, like direct mail, telemarketing or radio, you are not taking people by surprise.
You are not entering the busy life of a potential prospect who is doing something else and have to get them to drop that and listen to you.
In a trade show environment the attendees have left their day job and many times traveled and paid to attend this trade show. At minimum they have paid with their time to attend.
They aren’t at their desk and don’t have a telephone and email sitting next to them (excluding of course cell phones which should be confiscated at the entrance anyway….).
Your prospects are at the show to DO BUSINESS.
They have taken a positive step towards you by registering for the show and walking those aisles. So, in reality, with them away from distractions and paying to be at the show, they are highly probable to not only visit you, but listen to what you have to say.
The biggest competition you face is not usually your competition or the other booths.
It is time.
The Problem
Once at a trade show event, most attendees are the victims of missed aisles, shortened itineraries and lack of focus.
You see if it was just the trade show we all might have better success, but most trade shows are a concoction of business and extracurricular activities all jammed into a time period that is usually too short and too demanding. The trade show may be the reason they came, but once they arrive there are happy hours, golf games, dinners and extended meetings all competing for attendees time.
Bottom line?
Sometimes I’m amazed anything gets done on a trade show floor. Add to this the attendance drop due to the war on terrorism, the housing slump, the economy slump and the pending election and things can look pretty bleak.
BUT YOU can THRIVE in this environment.
With many of your competitors cutting back, you may even be able to be more effective. The simple solution would seem to be ’stand out from the crowd’ and be more enthusiastic and inviting than the other exhibitors. These are good ideas, but the battle for your prospects attention starts long before the trade show doors open.
Next Step: Pre-Show Marketing- You gotta’ have a ‘hook’
Stay tuned for the next Post on how to develop and use the ultimate killer hook! Make sure to Subscribe to our thread to get updates.
Nye. O.
————————————————————-
This bulletin was about having the best trade show ever. Next post will be about turning those attendees and prospects into business. See you then… If in the meantime, we can help bring fun and excitement to your next show, event, promotion or offer, click the link below and fill out the form. We’ve got some great ideas we’d love to show you!
————————————————————-
To get Lead Generation Advice Articles in your Inbox when I post, make sure to subscribe to LeadGenerationAdvice.com!
Related posts
Click Here to request more information on:
"Smart Trade Show Exhibiting Part I"
How to Actually take all these Marketing Ideas And Execute Them Ontime Everytime While You Sleep
Lead Generation and Automated Marketing Systems has been my passion for many years. But here’s been my frustration (and I’m sure yours as well), How do you take a great idea that you come up with and actually execute it on time, everytime and measure the results so you can move on to the next idea?
Example: For instance, your boss tells you that you need to generate more sales.
And then someone on the marketing team decides that landing pages using Google Ad Words is a great idea.
So now, you build a WEB 2.0 landing page. But for some reason nobody is filling out the form or doing what you want them to do.
And you are spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars each day.
Lets say you want to run a landing page on Google Ad Words you want to have different variations of the pages in the beggining so you can track your conversions is step one Right. So you’ll need some software to do this right?
Ok now you need a website that can handle lead capture then you need to automate that data to do something else.
Step 2 Example: Now you have a landing page that is converting at a decent rate and the copy is good people are filling it out but we all know step one is usually giving something away such as a White paper, Free Report etc.
And we also know that we need to pre-qualify these people after we send them the FREE something right?
So now you need a system that handles landing pages with multiple variations and be able to rotate them equally to test conversion ratios.
Not the ads on Google but the actual landing pages. And also the ability to get those landing pages ranked #1 by your keywords in google so you dont have to pay forever Right.
Step #3 So by now you know that your sales force wont follow up on this on-time at the right time nor will you know if they are or when.
So all your ideas hard work fall short… And its not your fault…
But what if you had a system that brings in the lead data sends out the white paper and round robins to the list of sales people you have in the Que to call each lead to pre qualify them and automatically Ques them in their headsets and cant get around it if they do you have a log of the results.
What has just happened… Well your ideas just got successfully implemented this far and executed at the right time the right place and you are now tracking it and the sales people are happy because they are not cold calling and being invited in as the expert its effort less and fun.
But its still not over we now just pre-qualified and sorted them out.
Here is where its starts to get fun.
Step: #4 Now we all know that e-mail is great but Multi Step Multi Media Sequential Step marketing is key but execution, Immplementaion and measurement is very poor.
But imagine Step #4 we now send them a 3 Step Snail Mail 3 dimensional Letter Campaign that generates as high as 37% on a face to face appointment.
Now some might say isnt that expensive.
Ask yourself this question would you rather have Million dollar closers making cold calls or going out on pre-qualified face to face appointments all day.
Second if they get the Appointment through a cold call they are looked at as a pest and have to work very hard to establish rapor.
My way suggests the welcome guest approach get invited in as the expert. Look at my post on this subject called: “Getting Past The Gatekeeper”.
Step: #5 is what i call the irrisistable relationship where you drip to these qualified buyers on a regular basis an through the automated system.
Example: you now send out a newsletter by e-mail or by direct mail, and special offers regullarly using the automated campaign manager, then once a month you have a live call qued up for your sales force, or an automated voice-mail left on voice mail only. “I’ll talk more about this later Voice Mail Casting”
Sounds Fun doesnt it… It is I have Spent 5 years and 7 programmers building this system it is the most robust marketing system on the planet.
WOW Thats a big statement. YES it is… Imagine your ideas put to work with personalization and automation, Imagine Indigo Printers using variable data spitting out Letters, Post Cards, Creative Packages to your customers at the right time and then being able to tie a Sales reps e-mail into this drip campaign then a text message, then a live a call after the third day from there very own sales rep.
The rep comes in that day logs in and puts on his headset and clicks on next call and he see’s his active calls for the day and clicks dial and then has a choice to continue the campaign or redirect it effortlessly.
YES I said E-Mail, Voice Mail, Live Caller, Direct Mail even Variable Data Even catalogs and TEXT Messaging all with out even moving a finger.
Its the only Robust Enterprise Management System tying it all together… And Its Affordable… Just to tease some more we have intergrated data mashups built right in. Live feeds and data analitics in realtime processing.
Subscribe to hear more…
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"How to Actually take all these Marketing Ideas And Execute Them Ontime Everytime While You Sleep"
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