I had an idea straight away and shared it with them.

Unfortunately it wasn’t appropriate for them, or their market!

The good thing is – it’s okay! We should never be afraid to share an idea. It’s a great way to discover more about your client and their needs – and it shows that you’re thinking about their business with their best interests at heart!

In the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine, Lorne Michaels talks about how ideas are presented and often rejected for Saturday Night Live.

The writers for the show will come up with creative thoughts, and then develop and write many different skits. They’ll present the skits to the boss (Lorne) and the other writers. Then, they are often told that a skit is not good enough to be put on the actual show.

At that point, a writer can throw the skit away and work on new ideas. Or, they can file that skit away and try to present it again at another time.

One of the most famous SNL skits in recent memory is “More Cowbell”. In the Rolling Stone article, we learn that skit was rejected and re-presented 7 times before it actually saw the light of day. With that much “failure” surrounding it, that skit could easily have ended up in the trash. However, it went on to become one of the show’s greatest moments.

There are many ideas that we may think of when it comes to marketing our company, product, or services. We have many “flashes of creativity” that excite us for a while. But for one reason or another, they are not converted into actual marketing campaigns. Reasons may include budget, timing, or just a lack of resources.

Many of those ideas may end up in the trash for a good reason. They can’t all be great. However, we may find that keeping ideas filed away may provide benefits to us months or even years down the road. Technology makes it very easy for us to store ideas. It could be in the “Notes” app on our smart phone. Or perhaps we keep an easily retrievable document somewhere that we can edit at any time.

There will be times when flashes of creativity escape us. If we take the time to review our list of “ideas from the past that never quite became reality”, we may find the inspiration that we need to create and develop a successful marketing effort.

Sometimes it’s fun – and profitable – to use a marketing gimmick, by introducing an intentional error into your direct mail campaign.

Not long ago, Jeff Kaller mailed a mountain of postcards driving people to call – the wrong number. Followed by mailings apologizing for and correcting the mistake.

And getting better than ever response.

In another case a sales letter and registration form was sent out for a very pricey event with the dates, place and price missing. Nearly 70% called to inform the sender of the mistakes: some irritated, some trying to be helpful. This put 70% on the phone with his three telemarketers, who closed half during the calls; net 35% registration vs. best ever prior sign-up rate from same customers for comparable events, 15%.

Joe Sugarman gave discounts and rewards to people who found the most mistakes in his ads. The technical term for this is: involvement.

Intentional errors… are they gimmicks, or are they ‘hooks’?

You’ll know once the responses start coming in!

“Marketing: It’s Not About You” was borrowed from a similar heading in the Marketing Technology Blog on website design. But the same is obviously true in marketing. Too often we talk only of ourselves. Our amazing product. Our amazing service. The reality that customers generally couldn’t care less about us or our fancy offerings. They are concerned only with themselves.

Persuasion architect guru Bryan Eisenburg of futurenow provides a nifty little online calculator which calculates your website or brochure effectiveness. (Click here). It looks at the we vs you words and determines how often you talk about yourself and how often you talk about the prospect.

Ref: It’s the Customer Stupid.

But adopting this new strategy brings many new challenges:

1. Most clients have not collected the right data, or any data, on their customers, and if they have it, they are reluctant to share it.
2. Companies that have successfully produced programs using new bells and whistles are not sharing their results for fear that their competition will learn how to catch up to them.
3. A majority of creative content providers (writers and designers at the agencies) are totally without any understanding of or how to write and design for variable, versioned pitches, let alone Web-print-to-Web programs, or database mining.
4. There is the commoditisation in the products offered by a majority of print providers, and how it affects content providers, like creative firms.

(N.B. Above list derived from an amazing article by Harvey Hirsch)

Although challenging, none of these issues are insurmountable. The blueprint for success, although not widely known, is there and well proven. And like all successful marketing or advertising campaigns, expert planning and execution is the key.

Show me the money!

Certainly in our tight economy, the financial incentives to improve business results is strong. The question here is why continue using a largely ineffective, unprofitable marketing and advertising model, when a better, more cost-effective one can provide many times higher sales results?

This is because most online as well as traditional advertising or mailing campaigns treat everyone the same. It’s been referred to as the ’spray and hope’ system. These [often expensive] campaigns are relevant only to a few…

The secret to high response marketing lies in your customer database – It tells us WHO we should communicate with, HOW we communicate, and with WHAT offer.

Data mining helps you find a subset of your customers that are most likely to react/respond to your marketing campaigns. By targeting ONLY those likely to respond, you achieve about the same response/sales at a fraction of the cost!

But the problem with databases is that they’re inevitably in a mess. Companies are lucky to have one that has accurate names and postal addresses, let alone other specific details like the customers email address, birth date, product or service preferences and most importantly, previous buying patterns.

Direct mail for small businesses is what we do best. We can provide a complete design-print service or let you design it yourself using our free MS Word or Publisher templates. When you’re done, just mail merge and ‘print’ the job to us via our internet print queue. Whether you’re promoting a new product, service or your new website, direct mail REALLY WORKS!

Let us help you save time, expense and achieve a great ROI on your next newsletter. For details or a quick quote phone Dean on 03 963 8899 or email info@cq.co.nz