Category: 1:1 Marketing

This is our version of “drop and give me 20″ …

Quick, what’s the difference between a Cross-Sell and Upsell?

Winded? So soon? Well you wouldn’t be the only one who gets tripped up on that.

Since we’re in the mood to deliver Primers this week, have a look here to get the skinny on the diff between a Cross-Sell and an Upsell. Linda Bustos over at GetElastic.com, provides an excellent tutorial, along with examples. Plus, she delivers some good thinking on the “you may also like” category which is neither fish nor fowl, but does offer an additional way to upsize a customer’s order.

In his post titled 5 Marketing Myths Worth Testing, Randy Vaughn over at Open Forum exposes a few myths that we’re sometimes guilty of propagating in the marketing world.

They’re all interesting, but here’s our favorite

Myth #5: Once I get a customer to try my product, they’ll never go anywhere else.  The marketing consumer is very finicky and I would not put much confidence in loyalty if it is only based on a few transactions. It can be true that you can find a local auto repair shop that does a great job and you’ll be hooked for life…but also consider how fickle you are with the different brands you personally use. My Dad always drove a Chevy until one day he pulled up in a new Dodge truck…you must engage your loyal clientele with continued extraordinary service, personalization, and perhaps a loyalty reward system.

Have a look at all the myths, and test them yourself for truthiness in your own marketing approach.

Moccasins in Miami. Stilettos in Syracuse. Loafers in Lubbock. Be prepared to be mesmerized by this map developed by Zappos that shows where product orders are being placed across the country in real time.

Perhaps by showing the endless stream of purchases, Zappos will inspire consumers to pick up a little something for themselves.

Past purchases and other trackable facts give you the bait to get personal and direct with your customers. But do you know how to turn those numbers into welcomed and useful personalized messages? Naj Kidwai of Real Time Content wrote an article for AdAge that nails the past and current state of this elusive marketing goal:

The term “personalization” often evokes bad memories and broken promises from the last technology boom, 10 years ago. You remember when the term was all the rage and marketers promised better customization and increased relevancy in their marketing messages? Well, marketers overpromised and underdelivered, and the idea of personalization revolutionizing the marketing industry just never materialized.

Kidwai looks forward with the reality of the day—marketers have the data and technology to deliver personalized messages far beyond just inkjetting their name into a sentence:

Now that we have the technology that delivers on the promise of personalization, agencies have no excuse not to find innovative ways to give their clients personalized campaigns to increase results and spend their media dollars more efficiently. As consumers take more control of the content they are viewing, agencies can make static campaigns work harder and deliver even better return on their clients’ investment.

You know how when you’re in a relationship, you sometimes just don’t connect with each other? You’re thinking “why don’t they know that their cereal munching is driving me insane?” and the other person is thinking “wow wonder why she’s so grouchy at breakfast”. Wouldn’t it be great if the grouch could just tell the muncher, “look this is what you need to do so that I’ll be all nice at breakfast”.

What does this have to do with marketing? Well, it turns out SMBs are telling marketers how to get their attention, but marketers are just munching away (loudly) on their cereal.

Despite a continued preference among small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) for receiving information via direct mail and in other traditional ways, major marketers to SMBs are cutting back on these tactics and switching to lower-cost, online marketing to save money.

Or so says Bredin Business Information, who completed two research studies earlier this year, “Marketing to SMBs in 2009″. There’s lots of good info in the studies, reported on today’s Marketing Charts.

Peter Bregman had an epiphany about crowd control during a weekend ski trip. The old slow lift was being underused while the new fast lift was drawing too many patrons. The ski resort launched a campaign that logically explained to skiers that their time would be better spent heading to the slow lift when lines are long. But nothing changed…until the fast lift broke down. From the source:

At first, believe it or not, nothing changed. We all stayed in line! After a few moments, a few people, the ones at the back of the long line, began to move over to the F-lift. Others followed. We went begrudgingly. Annoyed. Complaining. But it was our only choice. So we loaded onto the lift.

Bregman went on to relate this experience to business management:

A company wants all their employees to take everything on their personal hard drives (documents, emails, contacts, etc.) and move them onto a single company-wide shared drive. A sales director wants her people working together instead of individually chasing leads. A manager wants his employees to go to each other instead of him when they have problems.

In each case, they face resistance. People prefer inefficiencies they know over improvements they don’t.

Leaders usually respond the way the mountain did — big signs, marketing campaigns, people shouting in megaphones, rational “what’s in it for you” communications. And they usually get the same result: a brief, blank stare and then back to business as usual.

This idea of limited options can easily be applied to almost anything—call it the In-N-Out Burger effect. Limit the menu, quicken the ordering and production process. Check out the full article published on the Harvard School of Business blog.

Businesses of all stripes are trying to fit into the social media crowd, thinking that it is a fast and free place to promote.  But pitfalls are abound in this hyper-public world where conversation is king, slip-ups go viral, and posers are quickly marooned. Stephanie Miller wrote a fine article for Email Insider that explains the lessons that social media can learn from email. From the source:

It’s not free. There are plenty of free social media tools out there.  You can certainly set up a MySpace brand page or LinkedIn profile for free.  However, no social media program will succeed without time, resources and expertise.

Be authentic. This is a universal marketing truth, but worth mentioning because too many email and social programs lack it.  Our customers know when they are being sold.  Relevance, honesty, believability, integrity: these are the only things that create value and drive predictable response.

Integrate, don’t imitate. Replicating your website on Facebook does not a compelling and engaging destination make. Posting your email offers on Twitter will quickly tire followers.  Selling product may not be the best objective of your social strategy. Perhaps your blog is about education and driving inquiries. Your MySpace brand community may be about reach for video ads. Twitter may be a great customer service outreach tool.

Have something to say. This is perhaps most important. Don’t start talking until you have something valuable to say. Make the commitment and stick to it. Fund it. Be ready to maintain it.

The big takeaway should be that these channels require an entirely different approach than your other marketing efforts. Read the full article here.

We’ve been developing a loyalty strategy for a client and have dug deep into a bunch of industries that know how to treat their best customers. Airlines have traditionally been very good at segmenting customers by tiers based on frequency of usage, making the perks for each tier attractive and attainable, and reserving the very best treatment for only their very best customers.

Casinos, hotels, high-end retail, car rental companies—they’re all good at concentrating their perks on high value customers. But, you don’t need to launch a formal loyalty program to see the benefits of engaging best customers. Here are a few tactics you can employ to support a best customer marketing plan:

• Develop quantifiable measures for defining “best customer” and segment accordingly. The more detail the better.
• Understand those customers rationally i.e. Study purchase, demo, geo, any data that you’ve captured in your customer file. Form a profile.
• Understand them emotionally i.e. What do they value about your company/brand? What do they perceive as valuable in terms of best customer perks?
• Allocate budget towards this group —they should feel the love before the rest of your customers do.

With marketing budgets tightening up, a best customer strategy makes sense now more than ever. We all know it’s cheaper to romance an existing customer than it is to go out and find a new one. If you need some inspiration to get started…

Bob Lawrence, CEO of Brand Source, announced last Friday that he is extending an offer to existing Circuit City credit card holders: A $25 gift certificate and a year of no interest when they bring their credit card to Brand Source retail location.

Okay, let’s review. What’s right about this offer?

• Make your brand top-of-mind for high potential customers? Check.
• Give the prospect something of tangible value? Check.
• Simple to communicate? Check.
• Easy for the prospect to take advantage of? Check.
• Generate store traffic? Check.
• Take advantage of opportunistic situation? Check.

Have you seen anyone else take this approach after a competitor falls?