| Kevin Kevany has some great marketing tips to engage new customers, courtesy of today’s new variety of smart marketers. Sow these ideas, water with enthusiasm and expect some serious business growth. You’ve got to give it to the marketers: nothing seemingly gets them down. The financial crash; the horrid spring weather; earthquakes and tsunamis – are all ‘opportunities’ to them. You suspect that even if the ABs were to lose the Rugby World Cup they would see some upside. It’s that kind of thinking we need right now: so we’ve turned to some ‘smart marketers’ to really turbo-charge flaky morale and flagging energy levels, to draft in loads of innovation, motivation and inspiration – the latter being a favourite theme of the New Zealand Marketing Association. And we’ve even looked for motivation from that bubbling and burgeoning economy across the ditch (not really wanting to say “Australia”, as they sail smoothly through the global storm). Michelle Gamble is the “chief angel” of Marketing Angels, one of their leading marketing agencies, focused on SMEs – making sure we don’t get too distracted by innovation and neglect the basics. “Let’s look at how you can use the energy and sense of renewal that spring brings,” Gamble says, “to take a look at your marketing approach; some ‘fertiliser tips’, if you like, which might help you ‘clear the weeds slowing new growth’.” Here they are, and in no particular order: 1. Do a thorough website review. Is your copy clear and concise? Check for broken links. Review any automated email messages. Bold important copy links. Add more inbound/outbound links. 2. Conduct a survey about what your clients want. Add a reward or incentive. Structure your survey around information to help you find new opportunities/add products/services or review the ones you have. 3. Start a system for measuring marketing. Make sure you are collecting information about how people found out about you and then tracking that through to conversion. 4. Clean up your database. Make sure you are getting rid of email addresses that bounce. 5. Take on an intern or work-experience student to have them call and get correct details of all clients or customers, and get them subscribed to your email newsletter. 6. Lay all your marketing materials out and do a thorough review for consistency of message, look-and-feel and regularity around who you are targeting. 7. Review any affiliate or partner marketing or referral programmes. Are they working for you? Could you create new relationships or nurture current ones to improve performance? 8. Take a look at your email signatures on all your and your staff’s emails. Are they consistent? Could you add more links to let people know about products, offers, events? Are you extending an invitation to subscribe to your newsletter, ‘fan you’ on Facebook, ‘connect’ on Linked-in or ‘follow you’ on Twitter? 9. Sit in on some sales meetings, or listen to some new phone enquiry calls. If you do all the selling, get some feedback on your approach. How are new business opportunities being handled? Can you create or review your sales scripts, email responses, proposal templates or presentations to make them work better for you? 10. Dig out your marketing plan or get a fresh sheet of paper to write a new one. Is your marketing activity aligned to marketing goals, or are you doing things ad hoc without a clear plan? Basically ‘smart marketers’ are using design, and everything which goes with it; technology in its broadest sense – adding value to traditional methodology; and high-tech stuff, from mobiles to broadband; text to email; video to 3D – all to get consumer attention and engagement in some of the toughest markets ever. A clear message is that they and their clients are twittering, emailing and are anything but effacing. Some marketers like Craig McColl’s company Supply Limited, with its flagship ‘Demand’ email product, combine all the elements – including the traditional – and do the lot. Others, like sell2cell, are steeped in text messaging. Unaddressed-mail David Nation is ReachMedia’s GM sales and marketing, looking to find “innovative ways to use technology to take traditional unaddressed-mail in new directions; specifically by starting with data and insight to optimise campaign efficiencies, then integrating with digital products lasoo (sends short, timely Twitter messages), Dynamic Catalogue, mobile, SMS, eDM, and social to give consumers the power-of-choice”. They also look to test trends with research. “In response to the consumer’s increasing appetite for technology, marketers have to find innovative ways to take traditional media in new directions – ReachMedia is one such company. “While traditional unaddressed-mail is an extremely effective way to get to potential customers, we recognise the growth in digital media and have recently added a number of innovative online technologies to our suite of products. We achieve this through the use of data and analytics, to ensure our customers reach the right people – with the right message. “With an established unaddressed-mail network reaching up to 1.4 million homes, ReachMedia has the means to drive communication messages into every home in New Zealand, twice a week. We’re also working to bring transactional data into the mix, and that’s the next step – creating offerings that reflect ‘different households want different things’.” The company commissioned Perceptive, a consumer insights company, to complete a media preference study in July. It echoed the findings of a similar one in Australia: online, social media, text, traditional catalogues and iPhone applications are among the most popular ways retailers communicated with consumers. A staggering 68 percent have registered to receive e-mails from retailers and a third opt-in to receive communications via text. “Moreover, nine percent of consumers use iPhone applications to engage with retailers,” Nation notes. “In all instances catalogues, TV and emails were ranked in the top three for media preference. The most significant finding was the rise of email. In a similar research study completed by Research Solutions in 2005, email consistently ranked in the bottom three channels for media preference.” Doing it, with text Sell2cell is a locally-owned and operated business, with more than seven year’s experience and expertise ‘in the text space’ – providing text, web and data solutions for a number of New Zealand organisations. Its solutions are designed to enable you to captivate new customers; communicate effectively; calculate real-time results; and cultivate and grow existing business. Brendan Brink is the director, a product development manager and a driving-force in pushing text as a marketing method and communications medium. |
“We specialise in marketing solutions which complement what you do now and enable you to extend your reach through a network of more than 700 carriers in 200 countries.” |
