A Lesson from the Grand Canyon: The Power of Layered Marketing

 I just got back from an amazing trip to see the Grand Canyon in Arizona! While I didn’t hike down into the canyon, I did travel across its southern rim to enjoy its vast beauty from so many different vantage points at the top.

The different colored layers of the Grand Canyon tell the story of its history dating back millions, if not billions of years. That got me thinking how the most effective strategies for marketing are built on layers of diverse yet coordinated and consistent efforts over time.

Integrating multiple marketing mediums or layers such as email, direct mail, social media and paid ads gives you multiple prospect touchpoints. The more brand interactions a potential customer has, the greater the likelihood you have of converting them into a customer. The marketing rule of 7 says that a potential customer must see your message and branding at least 7 times before they’ll act.

So, reinforce your brand’s message with a layered, multi-channel marketing approach. By researching and leveraging the right layering of media and marketing channels you’ll improve your marketing performance and connect with prospects at different points to increase your ROI and sales.

✔️ Reach out to me if you need a marketing partner to help you find the right marketing strategy and mix to effectively promote your business.  jocelynm@marketing-er.com

Inbound Marketing: Pull Prospects Into Your Sales Funnel

Attracting prospects by providing interesting and valuable content is an effective form of marketing that "pulls" prospects in. Blogs, eBooks and white papers let you impart your knowledge and establish your expertise in the industry. Offering this helpful content in exchange for prospect data such as name, business or email address is the basis for inbound marketing campaigns.

This approach is vastly different from traditional outbound marketing which involves a "push" approach where companies use paid advertising to get products and messages in customers' minds and hope they take action.

Creating inbound marketing campaigns for a defined target audience to generate qualified leads is one of the best ways to market online.

Here's an overview of how to execute your inbound marketing campaign:

1. Identify the audience
Define your target audience, their specific needs and pain points. Consider surveying or interviewing existing clients or prospects from target audience to determine:

• Demographics
• Biggest challenges
• Perceptions

2. Set goals
Determine what type and how many leads the campaign should generate by a targeted date.

3. Create relevant offers and landing pages
Create a content offer (eBook, checklist, white paper, etc.) that's valuable to the target audience. In exchange for prospect contact information, give them access to this valuable content (downloadable PDF).

Having an effective landing page (with a call to action and lead capture form) on your website is crucial to converting prospects.

4. Choose promotional channels to get the word out
Decide which organic and paid channels to use to reach your audience and promote your offer. Email, blog posts, social media and paid advertising (such as Facebook) are good places to start. Develop campaigns and schedule posts or ads to drive traffic to your offer/landing page.

5. Ensure lead follow up
Once you capture prospect information, what will you do with it? Create a series of relevant follow up emails as well as sales team actions to turn your prospects into warm leads or even new clients.

6. Monitor progress
Assess whether your set goals were met and where campaign improvements can be made. Test different offers to see what gets the best response and closely track your promotional channels to understand where the leads are coming from.

Inbound marketing should continually evolve as you try different tactics, evaluate and adjust accordingly.

List Segmentation: What Is It and How Does It Impact My Marketing?

Collecting client and prospect email addresses should be a standard marketing practice for your business. Your email lists represent a big marketing opportunity to gain new business from prospects and to service and potentially up-sell your clients.

But assembling email lists is just the first step.  Consider how to segment your lists in order to make your email marketing efforts most effective. List segmentation is creating smaller lists or "segments" from the bigger list. How you segment your list depends on your business.  Some common ways are to identify customers vs. prospects or to segment customers by how often they buy or the type of product or service they've purchased.  The possibilities are endless and should be based on how you need to divide your lists in order to tailor your marketing.

By creating a targeted message and campaign designed for a specific segment, you'll greatly improve your performance and results. As far as email marketing goes, list segmentation and targeting can be some of the most successful techniques.

According to a 2012 eMarketing.com survey of US-based marketers, 39% segmented email lists by demographics, 28% by purchase history, and smaller percentages segmented by email open rates, type of purchase, and job titles.

Avoid having people unsubscribe to your lists by segmenting and targeting your email messages to each audience's specific needs.

For help segmenting your lists, contact Jocelyn at 203.377.9980.

Six Innovative Ways to Promote Your Next Event

Looking for some new marketing ideas to give your next seminar, trade show or other corporate event a big boost? Here are some promotional activities that we implement for grand openings, but they can be applied to any event to help turn it into a smart money-making promotion for your business:

1. Be Community-Minded

Is there a way that your event can be tied in with a greater cause? Can your grand opening or event help the local community in some way?  If it can, you're bound to get more attention and publicity!

2. Traffic Generating Incentives

Coupons are always a smart marketing tool.  In conjunction with the event, promote a product or service that prospects will respond to and make it time sensitive to encourage a speedy response.

3. Marketing

Beginning a month prior to the event, send timely emails, fliers and personal invitations and use social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) to spread the word.  Create a video for YouTube that acts as a teaser ad for the event.  Don't forget to include your special offer or incentive.

4. Use the Media

For big events, think about media partnerships with local radio stations, TV stations, newspapers and cable companies. In exchange for exclusive rights to promote your event on site, you can try to obtain on air promotions or advertising at no cost to you.

5. Advertising and Public Relations

If your budget allows, advertise in your local daily and weekly newspapers and on the radio for one to two weeks leading up to your event. Write a great press announcement and get it out to all the local trade and community outlets.

6. Form Partnerships    

Team up with related or neighboring businesses so that you all can contribute to and benefit from the buzz of your event.  Who can you create reciprocal marketing partnerships with for this event and ongoing? 

For more event promotion advice, contact Jocelyn Murray at 203.377.9980.    

Gain Maximum Marketing Results: Develop a Communications Plan

A business communications plan is a smart idea for any company, big or small. The plan will establish how your marketing communication activities will support your business' goals. Take these simple steps to begin devising your plan:

1. Specify Your Goals

Depending on your type of business, your communications goals might be stated as targeted revenue, number of leads, product or service sales targets or awareness about your business and its products or services.

2. Identify Your Audiences
List all of the various groups that you need communication with: customers, prospects, employees, the media, etc.

3. Determine Key Messages
What are the most important messages that you want and need to convey to each audience?  Product quality, service benefits, employee value, customer service, etc.

4. Assess Your Communications Tools
Take a look at your Web site, signage, employee newsletter, marketing brochures, etc.  Are they effective at articulating your key messages?  Brainstorm ways to improve each of them to ensure that they consistently include the right communications.

5. Evaluate and Measure
Evaluate the success of the plan based on how your actual results measure up to the goals you set.  Test and change your messages and tools to optimize your results.

Results Marketing: How to Make Your Marketing Materials Work Harder for your Business

Your customers and prospects are savvy buyers but they're bombarded by tons of marketing messages from vendors like you. Your success as a small business can hinge on the quality of your marketing materials (brochures, Web sites, newsletters, blogs, etc.) and how well they communicate the benefits of your products or services.

Mistakes to Avoid

Many marketing pieces don't work well because they are written from the company's perspective and not from the buyer's. Your potential customers are interested in finding out "what's in it for them?". What problem will you be solving, what process will you make easier, or what benefit will the customer derive from doing business with you? Keep it simple, straightforward and avoid industry jargon or overly complicated explanations.

While your marketing materials may be well written, if they're poorly designed, it may render them difficult to read , unattractive and useless. Smart design and good layout can make a positive first impression and make the material easier to read. All materials, from your Web site to sales flyers, should be complimentary in their look and feel and convey that they're part of the same "family". Include the cost of professional design services into your marketing budget.

Never overlook opportunities that allow you to build credibility or to become a source of knowledge in your marketplace. Try writing and submitting articles to an industry magazine on hot topics. Or provide your prospect and client databases with a monthly newsletter of tips, links and useful information. By providing consistent advice or information you'll quickly become an expert in your market.

Tips to Follow

Well written, effective marketing tools that reflect your business' branding can be a big asset. In addition to staying away from the problems listed above, here are a few tips to keep in mind in order to create winning marketing materials:

1) Know your target audience and speak directly to them Have a clear and concise understanding of who your ideal customers are, their likes, dislikes, attitudes and behaviors. This knowledge will help you improve your marketing focus and communication effectiveness.

2) Sell benefits, not features One marketing expert said it best: "Why is it better to offer problem-solving information than a straight sales pitch? Because nobody who bought a drill wanted a drill. They wanted a hole." Selling solutions or ways to solve problems is the key to compelling marketing or sales copy. Put yourself in your clients' shoes and imagine what information they would be interesting in hearing about your products or services. Eliminate the word "we" from your copy and include plenty of "you" and "your".

3) Include a call to action Never assume that prospects will take action without being prompted. Always include a call to action throughout your copy, whether it's on your Web site, in a print ad or brochure. Your call to action can be as simple as "Call today", "Hurry, offer expires soon" or offering a free gift if prospects act by a certain date.

Don't undervalue the power of your marketing materials. When done right, the results can really make a difference for your business.