find, keep and grow your customer

July 31, 2008

STOP THE INSANITY - Restructure For Revenue!

Filed under: sales process optimization, sales team development, 1-to-1 relationship marketing, lead generation, marketing strategy, General —

RESTRUCTURE FOR REVENUE

BY DON RIGBY - www.integratedmarcom.com 

STOP THE INSANITY!  If I could add a volume control to this text, it would be cranked up to 10. I can’t say this with any more passion or belief with every bone in my body…the purpose of marketing is to generate sales–new sales, repeat sales, REVENUE!

Last week, I worked with 2 CEOs of growth companies on restructuring their organization with intent to lean operations. Both executives believed Marketing & Sales were separate sciences.  They are.  Sales department focuses on 1-to-1 relationships while Marketing leverages 1-to-many. Yet both disciplines need to operate with a common purpose and the goal that matters most is revenue. Why create separate dynasties?  Why not a single department, directed by someone who truly understands Cause & Affect?  Call this department anything you like, but the objective is Business Development and make certain their grade card is based on revenue.  Combine these teams into a single department and you’ll break down natural barriers that keep marketing & sales from working on the same team.   

Perhaps this is a subject that rivals similar emotional debate as religion and politics, but I’ve witnessed too many gaps, too many obstacles with separate marketing & sales teams working at cross-purposes unless the Top Officer is willing to give an unfair share of his/her time to coach the ambitions of both department heads. Your leader can create value for the organization in other strategic ways.  

The Classic Gap  Your marketing team believes their job is to generate leads. Your sales team believes their job is to generate sales. When 95% of your sales leads are not ready to buy now, whose job is it to nurture these prospects to the next stage of relationship?   

This is classic…sales will point to marketing and say the leads are worthless and they’re right since they view the world in terms of 30/60 day close cycles.  Marketing sees things differently.  Marketing believes there’s interest and desire within each lead and sales needs to do their job.  Both are right.  What’s missing is a strategy to nurture prospects through multiple stages of the purchase process until they are ready to buy.   

Aligning Buying and Selling Processes This is easier than you think.  There’s a system that honors every lead as a possibility to create a customer.   This same system understands there’s often 12-15 touch points required to convert a prospect to a customer. Your sales team does not have to shoulder this responsibility alone.   These touch points can and should be well-planned, multi-media communications and needs to include person-to-person dialog.  Integrated MARCOM (www.integratedmarcom.com) synchronizes these events with a workflow system that automates the step-by-step communication process and walks the prospect through a pre-defined, linear sequence leading to a predictable outcome.   

 So how can you get sales and marketing on the same team?  Give them a system that serves common revenue goals.  Do this and more wealth possibilities will unfold.

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July 28, 2008

GOT MAIL? An Intrepid recap…

Filed under: direct response marketing, General —

 by Todd Schnick / Intrepid LLC

This past month, I was the featured program for the monthly GrowthANSWERS “Meet the eXpert” series.  My workshop was a brief survey about some dos and don’ts with your direct response marketing (DRM) program.  The purpose of this posting is to recap the main focus of my workshop – a description of the “The Intrepid Three-Step DRM Program.” The concepts are simple.  But not always executed effectively.  No DRM program should be launched without executing on the following three steps: 

  1. GET THEIR ATTENTION – You must get the attention of your target audience.  You need to offer a compelling solution to a problem – or provide something that your prospects WANT to buy.  And you need to push emotional buttons to do it.
  2. CLOSE WITH A STRONG CALL TO ACTION – Once you demonstrate that you have something the prospect wants; you need to have a clear and easy-to-follow call to action so that your prospect can take immediate action.  You need to provide a moving offer so that your prospect will have no roadblocks to take further action to move the buying cycle along.
  3. AIM FOR THE RIGHT TARGET – An attention-grabbing and emotional reason to buy and a clear and easy call to action will only work – IF you send it to the right target audience.  Careful understanding of your market and your potential customer are necessary to do this right.  This is the most important step in determining success or failure with your DRM program.

If you follow these three steps with your DRM program, you will see an increased likelihood of success – which is to identify MORE qualified prospects.  And when you accomplish that, you are on the way to building a sustainable growth enterprise. Stay tuned to this blog – for coming soon will be a downloadable podcast of this “Meet the eXpert” presentation!

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July 11, 2008

Customer Experience and “Bad Profits”

Filed under: branding/differentiation, marketing strategy, General —

With so many companies under pressure to raise revenue, I am constantly amazed at how poorly companies treat their customers. I firmly believe there are good profits and bad profits. Bad profits are those that raise your revenue, but will end up costing you more in the long run. I believe the airlines are headed in that direction. “Nickel and diming” people may generate incremental revenue in the short-term, but at what long-term cost?

My 6 year old son and I ran into just that situation on Sunday while shopping at a local mall. I was going to get an order of pretzel sticks from Auntie Anne’s. Knowing he would be thirsty, in addition to ordering the pretzel sticks, I asked for a glass of water. I proceeded to watch as the cashier rung up the pretzels and then added a 47 cent charge for the water. When I enquired about the charge, she said “They charge for water on weekends”.

Excuse me? First off, I would argue that 47 cents for a cup is a bit ridiculous, especially to charge a customer. But that aside, you only charge on weekends? Why? Because you have more people in the mall and figure you can get away with it? This may very well be the definition of bad profits. Yes, they probably get additional revenue (only on weekends though) from charging for water, but at what cost? I ended up walking away without buying anything, which means they lost at least one sale.

While I would still think its ridiculous, if they put up a sign saying they were going to charge for water, then at least they’d be consistent. But only charging on weekends seems to me to be a ploy to simply make more money - not recover costs.

You might think I’m over-reacting since it was only 47 cents - I would argue that’s not the point. Being in the customer service industry myself, I will not (knowingly) purchase from companies that don’t get “it”. There are too many companies that know how to treat customers - Why would I want to give my money, even 47 cents, to those that don’t. I simply went to another place in the mall and was happily given a glass a water to go along with his snack.

Treating customers well and making them happy is the absolute best way to increase revenue - not by “nickel & diming” them.

Steven Winokur is a branding consultant and President/Founder of Turning Point Strategies

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