Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

The rubber meets the road…

January 21 2010

These days everyone has a formula for marketing success and no two are exactly alike. We either adapt our clients to our direct marketing approach, or adapt strategy to the goals set forth by the client. Giving clients solid advice along backed by previous campaign metrics creates an healthy partnership and solid dialog marketing campaigns. It takes a delicate touch to offer advice without talking down to clients. Many agencies fail here. You should hear our clients relay stories of agency egos the size of conference rooms.

Revenue generation is a team sport. Marketing starts with solid prospect or customer lists.* High mail-to-web rates drive these same prospects and customers into the marketing funnel.** Sticky microsites educate these folks and prime them for discussions with sales. Sales cycles grow shorter as sales gets into deeper and deeper conversations. Decision makers and those that influence the purchase get involved. Revenue is won. It all started with established campaign expectations and a solid customer-vendor relationship.

Not all clients buy into our approach 100%, but together we find ways to leverage our creative work to meet organizational milestones and goals. At the end of the day it’s about communicating expectations, setting goals before the first brainstorming session, and executing against those goals. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

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*Marketers spend far too little time cleaning lists. Traditional direct mail took a shotgun approach. You could afford bogus data, because the per unit costs were somehow justified. Not so with dimensional mail. Higher-end mail pieces help keep lists smaller with better, targeted contacts.

**Once you have a solid list it’s up to us (VLG or whatever agency you use) to deliver a value proposition to those future/current customers. Look for mail-to-web (or visit rates) over 20%. Our Dialog Marketing gives you a leg up with real-time behavior tracking online and notifications via email, SMS, or RSS feed.

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Every Body Poops

November 4 2009

Thanks to long-time friend Susan Abbott, author of the Creative Crossroads blog, for sharing the release of Skip to the Loo, a book by California-based Linda Wright. I’ve been waiting for a chance to share a pictures of our VLG restrooms. Now’s my chance.

First let’s get to the book. I have not read the book, but Linda appears to make the case for restrooms as powerful marketing tools. I don’t think she’s talking about ads over the urinals, but something a bit more sophisticated. In fact, the book focuses on women’s restrooms. It makes the argument that women spend more money, so retailers should spend more making sure their, um, needs are met. The basic premise of the book is “a good bathroom is good for business.”

I can’t endorse the book and I won’t rush out to Amazon and buy a copy, but as a marketer you have to applaud the idea, research and effort that went into writing a bathroom book.

We take a little comfort in the fact that we actually took time to consider how the men’s and women’s restrooms at VLG would be set up to meet our varied needs. We’re a digital ad agency so user interface is always important. Below you’ll find contrasting pictures of how we tackled this opportunity and created two unique spaces in our office.

Ladies first. You’ll see that many of the comforts of home have been incorporated in the design elements. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of the user experience, but it looks pretty. We should spend some money to make it even better. Maybe a little color on the walls.

Artwork, wicker baskets, and scented candles.

Artwork, wicker baskets, and scented candles.


As you’ll see in the pic of the men’s room, we prefer or need only the basics. Nothing complicated. Good reminders. Simple experience.
Simple instructions help get the job done.

Simple instructions help get the job done.

Potty talk may be awkward, but in the end it might be one of the best marketing tools you’re not using effectively. Susan put it best. This is a need felt by 100% of the population.

Follow us on Twitter: @wefightboredom

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Brands: Bend Don’t Break

March 1 2009

We talk a lot about brands. We’re a marketing and advertising agency so it’s hard not too. A year ago, or maybe two years ago we started telling our customers to put their brands on the back burner. There’s no need to march your brand out out in front of your target audience where it will twirl and dance and preen and distract your target audience from your message and your story. Harsh words for someone with a brand management background and a tough sell for us, but we’re sticking to our guns on this one.

Maybe there is a different way to communicate this to our clients. I’m starting to think we should ask them to just let the brand bend a little bit. It won’t break as long as you have a compelling story. To be fair, we do work in the B2B space more often than not. The growth of social media and crowd sourcing brand control on the consumer side no longer rests with the Brand Manager. You might give it a nudge in one direction or another, but branding now resides with consumers and brand evangelists.

In Texas speak, brand control is kind of like bull riding. It’s not the cowboy, but the bull that’s in control.

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Don’t Get Carded

February 27 2009

April Dunford is one of our (new) favorites on the web. If you’re a fan of the beautiful game, or at least pretend to tolerate soccer (Joey) in certain company, you’ll appreciate this little piece.

Just like a foul in a soccer match, bad marketing decisions can be put in two buckets, says Ms Dunford. Sneaky, verbose, meaningless, unsegmented marketing will certainly get you booked. Now that you have a yellow card don’t push your luck. Repeat the same mistakes and you’ll end up with a second yellow that’ll get you tossed. Worse still, lie or cheat or spam and it’s a red card straight away. You won’t do your team any good if you’ve been sent off. Shame, shame.

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Lead Generation Machines

February 24 2009

On Thursday, Bob DeStafano will present a seminar on “How to Make Your B-to-B Website a Lead Generation Machine”. As a premium subscriber on MarketingProfs I like to cheat a little by taking a peak at the slide deck prior to the seminar. I usually base my decision to attend the seminar purely on the content of the slides. I’d wager a bet I’m not alone here. In this case, I’m out. Mr DeStefano loaded 30 slides with some very obvious advice. He also neglects my 10/20/30 rule. Ten slides, 20 pt. font, and 30 minutes to deliver.

What can we surmise from his fully-loaded slide deck? He’s going to speak to the importance of SEO to SEM. If you can get inside your target audience’s head, you’ll use keywords they would use to find you. Most likely these would be based on their real or perceived needs, pain points and solutions. He states, “Make Your Website Customer-Focused”. I hope that’s not news to anyone in the B-to-B space.

Next Mr DeStefano takes us through the importance of converting your web presence into a lead generation machine. We agree. He suggest the use of targeted microsites to drive lead generation. Again, we agree. He speaks to the importance of measuring the impact of your online efforts. Yeah, we agree. Prepare your team to quickly follow-up on the leads generated. Yep, he’s got it.

The real meat of this seminar seems to kick in around slide twenty, so you can roll in a little late on this one and still get good value. If you are not a Premium subscriber to MarketingProfs, keep your money in your pocket and get someone to slip you the slide deck Thursday afternoon. Hint, hint.

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The Lies We Tell

February 20 2009

Waiting in my inbox this morning was an interesting piece by Geoffrey James. He walks us through the five lies marketing tells its sales counterparts. With a title like that you know comments are soon to follow–as of this post he had 38.

For the sake of brevity, here are the lies we marketers tell. 1) Branding is vital to success. 2) Marketing can train sales to sell. 3) B2B marketers conduct scientific research. 4) Marketing can deal with the press. 5). Marketing delivers good leads to sales. There you have it. Now stop lying.

It’s not that easy stop lying, Mr James. 1) At some level branding is vital, but it’s the definition of branding that is changing. 2) Maybe marketing can’t train the sales organization, but we can give them an arsenal of weapons to use. 3) Research is research. Every little bit of intel you can gather about your target audience is helpful. I guess he’s just saying when you collect good information about an audience don’t call it scientific. Okay. 4) Someone that has written for 15 years should be mindful when it comes to lectures about dealing with the press. If you’ve only found 4 diamonds in the rough, maybe it’s you. And 5) This was his big miss. Will sales ever be satisfied with marketing’s efforts on their behalf? It is fair to expect that a cost center and revenue center have differing definitions of leads, or qualified leads. Let me start another paragraph here, because this is our sandbox.

There is no doubt in our collective minds at VLG that marketing and sales do not communicate with each other as well as they should. We also believe marketing works for sales and companies should consider turning marketing into a revenue center rather than cost center. This shift would go a long way, aligning the incentives and measuring stick by which both groups are compared. Talk about bridging the gap between the two. Did I say sandbox?

Maybe I meant soapbox.

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13/02/09

February 13 2009

Marketing departments are still, sadly, cost centers. In a down economy, if it doesn’t make money it takes money and nobody like that. Our plea to all marketers is to turn your department/division/group into a revenue center. Reinvent yourself as “the” revenue engine in your organization. We build this clever Dialog Engine solutions, so called because these solutions enable sales.

As a marketing and advertising firm, we see firsthand shifts in marketing spend. They are a little scary. We’re a small, niche player that provides a very specific, revenue-centric solution. Cuts in marketing spend affect even the most sales-focused marketing organizations. Does that make sense? Nope. Together we can reinvent marketing. Find less expensive ways to reach more households. Find ways to get more our of your spend. Find ways to objectively measure marketing’s impact on the bottom line.

It’s not as scary as it sounds. We find new ways to do this everyday.

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Traditional Segmentation Doesn’t Reach “i”

November 26 2008

I am a 30 year old married female who works full time, has two children (both boys, if you must know that too), a dog, a master’’s degree and I own my own house and car. I live in the suburbs and enjoy exercising, reading and photography.

Segmentation by way of demographics, psychographics and the like still exist as the lazy way to attempt to lump me into categories based on traditional market research and I have to say it offends me and you must have realized by now its not working for you. Though I live in the suburbs and have two children, I do not have a desire to drive a minivan or SUV. If you must know, I drive a beefy mustang and yes, my children fit in the back seat and there aren”t stale fries under my seats. When they were small I was not in the market to child proof my home in plastic and vinyl. I have strong values about education, but don”t fall into the “listening to classical music with improve their math skills” hype, so stop sending me invitations to children’’s book clubs and educational DVD memberships.

Though I”m 30, married, live in the suburbs and enjoy photography, I do not sit at home and scrap book, watch Lifetime television or spend my weekends making my home sparkle for my family’’s health and well being. I expect my husband to not “help”, but simply do his part around the house. He lives there too! I prefer to watch car shows like Top Gear and Spongebob Squarepants and I still like to go out to a dance club with friends once in a while, the latter of which my mother still disapproves of (because married women with children DO NOT behave that way).

While I know I am probably more of an exception, a one off case to be set aside in favor of the segmented group as a whole, you must realize that in this day and age of iphones, ipods, ichat, ilike and others, its not about reaching the right group. Its increasingly about “i” - reaching the right individual - or as Joseph Jaffe calls it in his book “Join the Conversation”, generation “i”. Now if you”ll excuse me, I”m late to get my car washed and meet my girlfriends for a night out.

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