It got me thinking about all the things that we as marketers take for granted that most consumers don’t even consider in their daily lives.

Marketing is all about helping to make the complex simple and putting it into context where people understand the value that is in it for them.   This requires understanding human psychology, technology, sales and company objectives.

A good marketer understands more than their craft, they need to understand how what they do interacts with the entire business to be able to meet objectives and drive sales within the organization.

Let us work with you to understand your organization and what your objectives are.    I am sure that we can then help to develop the strategies and processes to better Get YOU Noticed!

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Last week I was fortunate enough to Sponsor and Exhibit at the Digital Strategy Conference here in Vancouver.     If you are going to be in Ottawa June 3-5th, I highly recommend you go.

The value of this conference was not only networking with some of the top digital strategy people in the industry, but to take three days out of my work life to learn new and exciting things.

It re-affirmed my belief that taking the time to develop sound strategies and understanding how those strategies must dovetail with your brand should be central to all marketing efforts.     Marketing without strategy is merely adhoc tactics that may or may not create the desired results.    There is no real way to quantify success because you have not taken the time, at the beginning of the process, to assess where you are today and understand where you wish to be in the future.     Without that level of contemplation, how can you expect to measure success and justify ROI within the company?

Take time out of your busy work life to attend conferences dealing with information that is valuable not only to you, but your clientele.      By better understanding their challenges and frames of reference, the more you can help them to grow beyond them.

I love learning more about what my clients’ needs are and am putting surveys out over the next couple of months to better understand where they are and where they wish to go.    In the end, it will better help me Get YOU Noticed!

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Here is a great article on the “Dos and Don’ts of Direct Marketing”

With so much discussion on email marketing I wanted to share with you and few Dos and Don’ts to help you get a better return from this very popular method of communication. It is worth noting that some email campaigns are getting responses below .001% so on a cost per response if you are using a third party to send blast emails, it might be costing you $800 to have one email opened, might be cheaper to send flowers and a hand written note!

Used correctly, email marketing can be very effective and a low cost way of keeping in touch with customers and prospects whether they be distributors or ends users.

Email Marketing- Do and Don’t

DO: Create compelling content.

Pay particular attention to your email subject line – if you can’t get someone to open your email, you’ve fallen at the first hurdle. Try to avoid spammy words like ‘free’, ‘sale’, and ‘special offer’ and don’t use full caps. Drive action with impactful words and – as a rule – keep it short.
Make sure you have a clear call to action on your email. Too often the action you want your customer to take isn’t clearly signposted enough, or is lacking in motivation. ‘View Details’ is not as strong as ‘Order today for 60% discount’, for example.
Try and focus around one central idea – don’t confuse your customer by bombarding them with multiple sales propositions in a single email.

DO: Send targeted messages

Your customer database should allow you to record detailed information about your clients, including their industry type, location, size, and transaction history with your company. Armed with this information, you can segment your database into groups, for example ‘education institutions in Florida’ or ‘Distributors that have construction company clients’.
The benefit of doing this is that you can send those groups much more targeted email messages, like t-shirts, lanyards, name badges and pens for schools and colleges, and safety products and workwear for construction companies.
The more relevant the content is to your customer, the more likely they are to both open and engage with your email marketing.
What’s more, if you can, you should send the email from a known contact at your organization – the account manager for a particular group of customers, for example, it’s more likely to get opened if the recipient knows the sender versus it coming from as sales@ type address

DO: Test deliverability

As a rule of thumb, subject lines should be short and to the point, however the more targeted an email, the more likely a longer, more explanatory subject line will be welcomed. The best way to tell is to TEST.

Some email programs, like Mail Chimp, make it easy for you to test multiple subject lines to segments of your mailing list; you can then select the most successful, and send the remainder of the database the email with that subject line included.
Don’t rely too heavily on images. Most customers will not see the images in your email unless they click to download them and as so many people look at emails on their smartphones, you need to consider that they don’t like paying for data to download images that they might not have an interest in. This means you need to make sure that your text content works just as hard. Plus having too high a proportion of images to text can mean that your email gets consigned to the spam folder without ever being seen.
Make sure your email is mobile device friendly; about 50% of emails are opened on a mobile, and so it’s imperative that your email is legible, impactful and actionable from a mobile device.

DO: Track results

You should be reviewing open rates, click-throughs and bounce rates as standard. It’s a good idea to not repeatedly email people who never open your emails, as this has a negative effect on your overall email deliverability. Remove anyone who’s not opened your last five emails, for example, and just contact people who are interested in hearing from you.
You might also want to consider having a marketing campaign code associated with your email, so that you can record any quotes or orders that you receive as a result of the campaign. In this way you can better manage your return on investment.

DON’T: Send too many emails – or too few!

It’s up to you how often you email your customers, but be wary of sending out too many. Your clients will get burnt out and end up not reading any of your messages. Once a week, or once a fortnight, is generally considered acceptable.
However, send too few emails and you’ll run the risk of customers forgetting who you are, and having to reacquaint themselves with your company every time.
Equally, if you’re pursuing a ‘chain-sales’ strategy where you’re marketing to them based on their previous order history with you (i.e. they’ve bought a cap from you, would they also like a matching polo shirt), leaving too great a gap between your emails will break that association.

DON’T: Ignore preferences

Simple – if they want to unsubscribe, unsubscribe them, that’s it. This is a legal requirements in some countries and is gaining traction in many states in the USA. Fines are substantial for ignoring a direct request. Also bear in mind that while business to business emails can carry an opt out, rather than being specifically opted in, every customer who flags your email as spam is having an effect on the deliverability of ALL of your emails, so it’s best practice to get permission before sending any mail out.

DON’T: Be inconsistent with your branding

To build familiarity with your products and services, your email format should reflect your website, your catalog, your mailing pieces etc., and it shouldn’t vary wildly from one email to the next.   Consistency here will help strengthen your brand values and build trust. The recipient needs to know instantly that the communication is from you and your company before they even open it, its about maintaining your ‘tone of voice’ and brand identity. Think about it, you would not change the design of your proposals or presentation each time you send to a customer, so don’t do it with an email.

Finally, the latest research on email marketing has come up with a couple of interesting facts which you should take into account. Firstly, basic personalization isn’t the hot ticket it was; in fact, putting your customer’s name in the subject line has a negative effect on open rates. Use sparingly, if at all.

Secondly, there’s no magic time in which customers are most likely to open your email any more. Because so many people receive and open mail on their phones, the open rates are actually higher on Sundays than they are on Wednesdays and Fridays. My advice here is just to mix it up and see what your customers seem most receptive to. Look at the reposnse rates and open rates for each campaign and then use your CRM solution to track the quotes and orders that come from these campaigns.

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The trouble with many companies is that they market from a position of not truly understanding what their niche is and what the value is they wish to communicate through their marketing efforts.    In other words, they don’t take the time to ask the question “who am I as a brand?”.        Seth Godin talks about the 7 Marketing Sins, however my argument is that the first sin should be:  being unaware of who you are and what you do.

If you do not understand yourself, are not able to quickly and efficiently describe your value or do not have a unique story to tell in the market place, how are others supposed to care about you or sing your praises?  As Seth Godin says “what is your story?”

Every company must have a niche.   A place that they own, or at least can compete comfortably within.   Within that niche they need to be able to describe both to staff and then to customers why they are special and how, what they do, adds value.     Value is the key to understanding the brand.      People do not buy from you because you make a widget.   They buy from you because you have demonstrated that you understand their particular problem and have a widget that solves that problem better than the alternative they have been given.

This can only be done through understanding your niche and what your value is within that niche.   The days of being everything to everyone is gone.    Find a segment, carve out a niche within it and OWN IT!  Understand what makes you better and have a compelling story to tell.

If you understand your niche, your brand and your value, it is so much easier to develop the right marketing campaign to Get YOU Noticed!

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Sam Harris – It Is Always Now

How do we obtain the attention of those we wish to influence and have them focus, to understand the value that we are trying to deliver in a world that is full of so many distractions?

How do we as marketers help develop a strategy to help people understand how the product or service we represent matters in the every day life of those we wish to communicate with?

How do we go about understanding what is relevant to the audience we wish to influence and tailor our messaging in a language that they not only understand, but can relate to?

Marketing has focussed too much over the last number of decades in creating noise that shouts above the others to the point where everyone has become deaf and numb to the shouting.    It is our belief that to influence decisions, moving forward, marketers must take the time to understand how various segments of society wish to be communicated with and and in what tone.   By listening first, analyzing critically and then developing strategies of engagement that are real and relevant, marketers have a much better chance of developing relationships with their audience that lead to long term return on investment.

Let’s work together to Get YOU Noticed! in a way that your intended audience can relate to.

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One of the companies in our industry, IClick, who sells custom USB drives, created this video to tell their story.   It is far more about showing you their culture, brand and mission than it is how they do what they do every day, but even that is weaved into the story.

View Video

Take the time to understand what YOUR STORY should be.   Craft the message in a way that is meaningful and will be remembered long after you leave the room.    BE REMARKABLE  and find a way to Get YOU Noticed!

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They have mail boxes full of what marketers perceive as campaigns and they perceive as SPAM.  Social media has become such a labyrinth that it is hard to keep messaging consistent across platforms and therefore brand confusion becomes reality.     Mass media does not target audiences in a way that is meaningful anymore and the app that you create is designed far more to show your audience you are innovative than provide any real ongoing marketing or branding opportunities.

So what is the next medium that will help you cut through the noise and have your brand perceived as valuable and your call to action acted upon?

Video Brochures!

View Video

Technology has reached a point where this process is a viable option for not just the Fortune 50 businesses.   Consider the impact this will have on your customers when opened.     Yes, per piece it is a more expensive option than traditional direct mail, but the ROI in terms of conversion is much higher.

Consider this is a tactic to go after a specific vertical and segment of the market.    Those to whom you want to demonstrate the higher value, higher margin aspects of your business.

If this is a market segment you are looking to focus on and have the product or service that lends itself to create high value creative, let us help Get YOU Noticed!

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One of these suppliers, that we featured in a blog earlier this year sent out the following piece today.

We are proud to have our key suppliers recognize how we can help them in their marketing efforts.    Marketing can be as simple as capitalizing on good press. . .  and why not?   If one client talks about the value that you can bring to the table, others will want to know why and take the time to investigate what you do and why you are unique in the marketplace.

Let us help Get YOU Noticed! 

The post Do you have suppliers that reference you in their advertising. . . we do! appeared first on CMYK Solutions Inc..

More than 10 years ago we were creating a birthday card direct mail program for a casino, the response rate, based upon variable offers was consistently in the 40+ % range.  Why?   DATA!!!!!!!!!!   We knew when these people came in, how long they came for, what types of games they played, how long they spent playing and how much they won or lost on a per visit basis.    If we were able to tie husband and wife loyalty cards together, the data was stronger and so was the response based upon being able to provide an offer that benefited both parties.

Think about how much information is available to you, as a business, if you take the time to collect and analyze it.    How much better could you forecast trends and pre-empt customers from shopping at your competition through timely marketing offers?

There is a story of a certain car company that “found” the leasing information for one of their competitors.   They not only had names and addresses, but they had colour, make of car and when lease was up.    The story goes that you would receive a direct mail piece that would have your name on it and it would say, wouldn’t you rather be in car brand X.    On the front would be a version of the latest model year of the type of car you owned, but their model.  I.e.,  if you had a red two door soft top, that would be the picture which would be on your postcard.    The call to action was strong and so was the response rate.    In other words:  great data +  great offer + great marketing program = great ROI!!!!!!!

Here is a great example that was done by a hospital group in the US.    They realized that there were other places for potential clients to go when they needed medical services, so they found a way to make it easy for people to think of them.

This is a variably printed fridge magnet.   70000 + were produced, each one has a different map that takes you from YOUR house to the closest facility that they own.    Think of what this does to the end consumer.   They have a visual on their fridge at any time that shows how easy it is to get medical help when needed.  Notice how each magnet is unique to the address it is being mailed to?  This is a true value add!

Think of the options that are available using this technology and the variety of different businesses that could attract long term clients using this medium.    Yes, the cost per piece is higher than other mediums, but so is the return on your investment.    If you have a high life time value of every customer acquired, this is a marketing tactic that should definitely be part of your overall marketing strategy.

The next step in this process is the development of PURLS,  Personal URLs.   With this technology, you have driven your customer to a website that is specifically designed for them.   It allows you to cater your information to their individual needs and provide each and every client with offers that are relevant to them.

So take the time to understand what data you have on your clients, what data you would like to have and how that proper use of data can help develop your brand long term and see how we can Get YOU Noticed!

The post What kind of information do you have on your customers? appeared first on CMYK Solutions Inc..

Given three competing companies, each with similar product lines and comparable pricing structures, what sets one off from the others?    It is how it relates its value to its potential customers.    Through the development of consistent marketing tactics that transcend mediums, people begin to recognize the value of one company over the other, because they create the perception through marketing that they are different.

It is not enough to be different from your competition; you need to be perceived as different by those you wish to influence.

This does not come by accident.    Strategy is a huge part of the equation.   Taking the time to understand who you are as a company, the value you bring to the table, understanding who the audience that you wish to influence is and developing calls to action that resonate with those audiences takes time, budget and effort.

Here is a great article that I found in Entrepreneur magazine that speaks to this point.

The cow for sale may be a simplified example of how marketing works, but it demonstrates that you need to understand your audience and how to market your product in an effective manner.

Let us work with you to help develop your story and Get YOU Noticed!

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