The Key to Successful Marketing - Free Bread, Mushrooms and Mini Bruschetta
Turning cold marketing into relationship building strategies
In recent articles, ‘The Beating Heart of Local Marketing’
and ‘Top Tips for Creating an Engaging Website’, I have discussed that the key
to effective local marketing is about offering something of value to the
prospect or the visitor.
I met a business last week that shows the reality of what
happens when you don’t address this very real and current marketing trend; this
is probably the result for many businesses who after much time and effort spent
on their marketing are left wondering…why am I not seeing the returns?
On the surface they looked to be doing everything within
their power to market and promote their business. They had eight different marketing activities
in the mix; all of their communications were professional, were scattered with
the benefits of doing business with them and all were followed up through a
consistent and professional marketing process.
The trouble was they were not seeing the return from what
was a significant amount of time, effort and co-ordination; the results were
average at best.
It was their e-mail marketing strategy that really
highlighted the problem; they were sending tens of thousands of e-mails each
month to a cold, bought marketing database.
Each e-mail had a sales-led theme on one of their many products and each
listed all of the benefits of doing business with them as a local business.
Because none of these people had agreed to receive their
e-mail communications in the first place, the open and click-through rate was
low and not surprisingly the list hadn’t grown in almost nine months.
The method of swamping a market with sales-led communications
will never generate you a consistent return; many resort to this approach
because it is traditional and what they are used to, the same reason people normally
resort to advertising as their first choice for trying to drive interest.
Build a warm list of prospects and the results are very different; not only will you see a higher readership of your
communications (what you send) but you will see a higher click-through rate to
your website and better returns.
The only way to do this is to offer something of value in
your communications, stop selling all of the time and give the reader something
of use, for free. Yes this approach
takes time like everything else does if you aim to do it properly, but there
are very few, if any, quick wins in marketing that will bring extra-ordinary
results.
Given that you all operate in very different industries it
is impossible for me to give you all an individual idea for your type of
business; the best way to approach this is to think about what you or your
clients like to receive.
For me personally, I like to receive things that educate me
(briefly and in small doses), things that I find interesting or useful in
relation to the job that I do or the clients that I work for and things that
make me smile, the fun and quirky stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, in all of these communications there are
subtle sales messages, but I don’t feel the driving force of them sending me
something is to sell to me. I am being
given a chance to sample their experience and expertise, I feel as if they are educating
me and I feel kept up to date with the things that effect what I do.
More importantly, I don’t feel like they have intruded on my
time; how often has an unsolicited e-mail popped up in your in-box just at the
wrong time? You feel annoyed as it has distracted
you; if you are like me it goes straight into the trash and I avoid them in the
future because they have become an annoyance.
This type of approach where you share useful or valuable
information is called ‘Content Marketing’.
You may have heard this term being mentioned a lot more lately as it has
been the buzzword in marketing for some time now.
The beauty of this type of marketing is that if you do have
a number of different marketing channels in place, this one single weekly or monthly
message can be replicated across all of your platforms.
For example, you may host these pieces of free information
on your website on a dedicated page and all of your other
marketing channels simply funnel the recipient through to this part of your website.
Your communications therefore become consistent and with one
key theme they are easy to put out across a number of platforms.
Because your communications are not merely sales driven, and
as long as what you are sharing is compelling, educating or informative, you
will see more of the recipients clicking through to your website and you will see
more organic growth in your mailing list.
People will share what you send out.
Once they are on your website you are entitled to be a
little more direct in your selling, in fact they would expect you to try and
sell to them a bit more. Granted you can’t
then plaster the page with big sales driven messages but you can certainly
position some of your products and services around the information you are offering
for free.
The simplest example I can think of to demonstrate this type
of approach would be when I was on holiday a few years back; the promenade for
this particular town was a row of about a dozen restaurants side by side, each
offering something similar in terms of cuisine, cost and atmosphere.
All but one of these restaurants had two or three staff
outside most of the day literally trying to drag you in; they would grab your
arm, force a menu in your face and walk in front of you in a somewhat
sheepherding motion trying to steer you towards the entrance, it was like
running the gastronomy gauntlet.
The very last restaurant had only one member of staff
outside and every evening, between 5:30pm and 6:30pm, they would stand behind a
small, neatly laid table covered in a crisp, white tablecloth. On the table were small samples of their food;
it was adorned with freshly baked bread, garlic mushrooms and mini bruschetta
and these were being freely offered, not forced, to anyone who approached the table
to have a look.
Each time someone sampled some of the food the guy behind
the table would mention where the ingredients had come from, in this instance
it was from a local source and he took great pride in sharing this interesting
information with people.
Guess which restaurant was full all night every night?
It was a pretty new development so I’m sure by now the
others have cottoned on, but it’s a great and simple example of how you can
re-think the way in which you present your business to prospects.
Sure, I get that this may not be as easy or as interesting
for your type of industry or product and the appeal for what you offer may not
be as far reaching as food is, but it is possible.
This is where the biggest challenge lies; irrespective of
what tools you choose to get the message out there, if you can master the art
of becoming a resource to prospects and clients, you will see steady and
consistent growth in your marketing efforts.
In my own personal view this way of marketing is the way of
the future, irrespective of how the marketing platforms may change, the premise
of your marketing having to build relationships is here to stay and the sooner
you can come to grips with it, the sooner you will reap the rewards.
Final Thoughts
Get to know your clients and you will get to know your
prospects; understand what your clients want and respond to and you will
understand what to start sharing in your marketing.
Your thoughts, comments and criticism are always welcome,
after all this is a blog and everything is up for discussion and debate.
Next Article: Monday 13th August
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