Why everyone should be a marketer

The world revolves around trade, commerce, selling and marketing. I have been involved in marketing and sales from a young age of 13 with my first business of Flyer Distribution. Since then I have been a sales person, marketer, corporate marketer, marketing educator at the Undergraduate and Graduate and then then marketer again. Here is the one thing that I have learned.

You can never take your eye off the marketing throttle, and you must have the lead flow, marketing funnel constantly being filled. Now that is easy to say but hard to do.

The simplicity of the statement the complexity of the statement. Sales is the Parent of Marketing according to Eban Pagen, marketing is sales that has been stylized across many mediums so that we can talk to many people vs 1:1.

Packaging, tools that you use, social media, traditional media, TV, direct mail, branding is is all there and should all be used.

Everything we do is marketing first and foremost.

Why are Direct Mail Still Rocks for SMB’s

A great post from Allen Rosen’s Fall Newsletter

 

“Online marketing, which includes electronic ads, targeted emails and
revenues from selling information to brokers, is about a $62 billion
industry.”
Kenneth Roseborough, owner of Money Mailer in Maryland reports
that “People get caught up in the digital age, but they find they have
to go back to paper. A lot of people want to see something in their
hand like a coupon, and not just an electronic image on their
smartphone or other device.
“Coupons are particularly effective as customers seek better value in
leaner times.”
There’s another reason to use direct mail. The study says, “The
electronic advertising industry has come under fire recently as
officials and others cite concerns over privacy in using targeted
emails that pick up characteristics of online users through “cookies”
— electronic tracking messages — and other methods.”
“New regulations that would stop the exchange of electronic data due
to privacy and other concerns would affect $110 billion in revenue to
the U.S. economy and 478,000 jobs.”
Mark Twain once wrote, “Put all your eggs in one basket and then
watch that basket!”
But that’s just not a good idea in marketing. Clients who integrate
social and digital marketing and direct mail usually have far better
returns than just one media.

The Where of Your Business

The Where if your business. Where do you customers buy your product? Where do they consume your product? Where do their customers use your product? Where do you sell your product? Where do you want to sell your product? Where should your product be sold? Where do you want to take your business? Where do your customers want you to take your business? Where do your serve your customers?

Marketing March Madness with My Brackets for Marketing Success

RSVP March Madness Marketing Brackets

Here are my favorite Marketing Tactics all set up in bracketology lets see who wins

Marketing March Madness with My Brackets for Marketing Success

RSVP March Madness Marketing Brackets

Here are my favorite Marketing Tactics all set up in bracketology lets see who wins

What works in marketing to the affluent form Alan Rosenspan’s Blog

Marketing to the Affluent

We just completed an article called, “Who Wants to Market to a Millionaire” and I’d like to share some of the highlights with you:

How do wealthy people treat advertising and direct mail? Do they respond to different approaches? And what should you consider when marketing to the super-affluent?

The opportunity is huge, because today, there are more affluent people than ever before. There are an estimated 5 million millionaires in the U.S., and 267 billionaires.

Before I continue, let me confess that I’m not one of them. This is only because I have carefully invested in buying books, watching movies, visiting good restaurants, and going on great vacations.

But I have worked for several companies that market to the affluent, including Steinway Pianos, The Private Bank and J.P. Morgan (before the merger) and I’ve learned a great deal.

The Millionaire Next Door

For a deeper understanding of the affluent market, I recommend reading the best seller, “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas Stanley and William Danko.

The authors were commissioned by an international trust company to do a focus group of people worth at least $10 million.

Now they couldn’t offer to pay these multi-millionaires — it might even be considered an insult. So they hired two gourmet food “designers” to create a buffet that included four different pates and three kinds of caviar.

The first multi-millionaire to arrive was offered a glass of wine — very expensive 1970 Bordeaux. He replied, “I drink Scotch and two kinds of beer — Budweiser and Free!”

By the end of the two-hour focus group, not a single person had touched the pate or the vintage wines.

The book continues with, “Today, we are much wiser about the lifestyles of the affluent. When we interview millionaires these days, we provide them with coffee, tea, soft drinks, beer, scotch and club sandwiches. Of course, we also pay them between $100. and $200 apiece.”

What Motivates the Affluent?

Another source of information about the affluent consumer is the Robb Report, a glossy 250-page magazine with about 10 times as many ads as articles. It sells for only $7.99 an issue, but it can be hard to find. I got my copy — the 25^th anniversary issue — in the lobby of the most expensive hotel in Boston. What do rich people buy? Here are some examples of the things that have been advertised:

• A sterling silver tennis ball can for $1,750.

• A brick from Al Capone’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Wall — which has “seized the interest and imagination of collectors and crime buffs from around the world.”

• The “world’s most expensive bow tie” in 24-karat gold with 22 karats of inlaid diamonds for $140,000.

• Noble Titles — “Acquire with confidence an authentic Scottish title of Baron or French Title of Marquis, Count or Baron.”

• An 18-karat gold Space Traveler’s Watch which displays mean time, star time, the age and phase of the moon, for $350,000.

But rather tellingly, there are also ads for:

• Earn $10,000+ monthly within 6 weeks, and:

• Make $4,000 per day playing baccarat.

My favorite ad is “TP for the VIP” — customized toilet paper imprinted with the name of your boat, your airplane or business — or any photograph you choose — 8 rolls for $49.95.

Who do you want to get even with?

 

What Techniques Seem to Work?

Here are some ideas you may want to consider when developing a program towards the affluent market.

1. Affluent people love to save money — that’s probably how they became affluent.

Even the prestigious Robb Report includes a bind-in BRC with a subscription offer — save 35% off the cover price! — just like People magazine and Guns and Ammo. And in a recent issue, they ran an advertisement for used cars. (Okay, it was for Rolls Royce — and they called them pre-owned, but they were used)

2. Affluent people like to be acknowledged as affluent.

However, when it comes to direct mail, you need to be careful. An outer envelope headline that identifies the prospect as a wealthy individual may be a breach of their privacy, and even raise security issues.

3. Affluent people also like to be acknowledged as something more than just affluent.

They’re not just richer — they’re smarter, more sophisticated, more demanding, more worldly. They’re connoisseurs, collectors, gourmets. A recent ad for Aglaia Jewelry had this headline; “Your aspiration for perfection is your essence.” Not your bank balance, apparently. And our most successful positioning for The Private Bank was “Why do so many affluent and accomplished people rely on The Private Bank?” (Italics added)

4. Affluent people respond to exclusivity.

They long to be charter members, or even charter subscribers. They want to believe they are in good company, with access to things that are beyond the rest of us.

5. Affluent people want the things that money can’t buy.

One of my favorite techniques for marketing to affluent people is to offer them something that their money can’t buy. It may be information on the best beaches in the world, or a listing of the 10 most exclusive hotels. It may be meeting a famous celebrity, or sports star, someone that would not normally be accessible. It may even be an experience that cannot be duplicated. I ended the article with the following:

Alan Rosenspan is incredibly wealthy — he has a loving wife, two beautiful children, and two highly affectionate, if not obedient, dogs.

Interesting Addition to Amazon’s Review Process

In looking at some items on Amazon the other day, I noticed the button on Verified Purchaser Review and I fell in love with it immediately. The biggest complainant/question that most people have with Amazon reviews (in fact all Review Websites) is that most  people who review a book are plugs, they have not purchases the book and our nothing more than a friend of the author or have an axe to grind with the book or product.

However this is now all gone away. Well done Amazon, Yelp maybe you can learn a thing or two from just. Just a thought.

What I learned from my 11 year old about prospecting

Last week we had time to kill before my son’s football game on a Sunday afternoon so we went to a BBQ restaurant that we wanted to try in the North Shore suburbs. This was a restaurant that we saw highlighted on a TV Show the Best of Chicago. The food was great and it had a neat atmosphere.

As we were getting ready to leave, my daughter said “Don’t you want to give them your card about advertising with RSVP Chicago?” And you know she was correct. I did, it had slipped my mind. So I walked over and gave it to the manager.

Lesson learned: Always be prospecting. It takes a family to grow a business. Everyone is a prospect. Live through the eyes of a child.

What is happening with Daily Deal Sites? Like we did not see this coming…

This week, Facebook Closed down their daily deal site and services, the Chicago Tribune closed down their daily deal site. Living Social and Groupon saw limited visits to their sites. Groupon stated that they will cut their marketing expenditure to $0.00 to get to profitability in 3 year??? Really cutting your sales and marketing expense to nothing is going to get you to profitability.  Are daily deal sites a passing fad. Were they ever really a business model

Now don’t get me wrong, I think some of the deals were great for the customers, and probably a great way for cash infusion for cash strapped small business. But the downstream consequences of these deals needed to be thought through. What was our acquisition cost per customer. What was the long-term position of this to our business and our brand. Will we keep the customer that we acquire, if so what percentage is acceptably for me to make money.

For the business that were started what is the long-term strategy? What is our competitive distinction and differention? How will we make money in this competitive environment? How will acquire new customer and build our consumer database?

At the end of the day, the daily deal site was a great idea but the question is for who. And was it ever really more than a lead generation model or sampling for the year 2011.

Why you should dare to be different.

Spending as much time as I do on local advertising: thinking about it, studying it, dissecting it, wondering why about it. In fact it is probably every waking moment when I am not with my family.

What I see is that it is the same old, same  old, no one is doing anything that is different. Take any ad that you see and remove the company name and phone, and it is interchangeable. No one is different, their is no value prop. No USP. No Call to Action other than call us today.

Spend some time with your ads and see if there is anything different about them. Why should the prospect pick up the phone to call you vs everyone else, or doing nothing.