Forgotten Reputation

With a hat tip to Paul Williams, I’d like to remind everyone not to forget reputation. 

• Brand = Reputation
• Image = Reputation
• Survival = Reputation

In the sink or swim world we live in, reputation is everything.  Sure, you can get by for a little while skating around like an elephant on an April ice sheet, but sooner or later you’ll crash through into the hypothermia-inducing water (i.e. have to go out of business).  If not go out of business, you’ll have to run and hide.  Or change your name and move to a non-extradition country with lax laws regarding entry.

In order to get repeat business–or even stay in business at all–you’ll have to manage your reputation.  And with a bad experience spreading on the Internet faster than a virus in a 90 minute horror movie, you have to regularly stay on top of what’s being said about you–and who’s saying it.

Nobody has the luxury of enough time to constantly monitor their mentions online by going from site to site haphazardly.  That’s why you can setup a Google Alert for your name, company, product, or anything.  Google with its minions spiders all over the ‘net will let you know when your alert word is mentioned.

Your survival in business and your professional survival is all about your reputation.  As Paul points out, many people lose touch with what a “brand” is.  What people think of when they hear, “Mac”, “F150″, or “Coach purse” is reputation.  I’ve never owned a Mac, F150, or a Coach purse, but because of their reputation I have an opinion of those brands.

• Do you monitor your brands, products, or person online?
• What products/brands do you want based on reputation only?
• What products/brands do you want nothing to do with based on reputation only?

Create A Successful Promotion – Part 4

Today I wrap up my 4 part series “Create A Successful Promotion.” Over the first 3 posts, I introduced Promo-smart, PMRT, which are the keys to a successful promotion.

1. Product
2. Message
3. Recipient
4. Timing

I already explained the first 3, and in today’s final installment I’ll cover the last one, Timing. For a quick recap, in the first post, I said it’s not enough to have a good product, you have to have the right product for the person you’re trying to reach. In the second post, I let you know that an effective message isn’t your logo alone; rather you must include a call to action. And in the third post, I gave you an example of how targeting specific groups to deliver your message is the most effective way to do a promotion. The final essential is:

4. Timing

What’s the difference between the latest, hot tech product and a piece of junk? Timing. It wasn’t long ago that we carried around floppy disks to transport our files. Now there are online storage sites, flash drives, portable hard drives, and even Blu-Ray burners. And in a few years Blu-Ray will be laughed at by the next generation they way you laughed as you used your Tandy, Apple II, or Commodore 64 while your parents did their resume on a typewriter.

Timing is also vital to your promotion. Sending out a promotion that doesn’t arrive at the right time is a waste of resources. Think about a floral shop. A promotion in June might not be very effective since Mother’s Day is in May. On the other hand, a promotion in January might give them a chance to get husbands and boyfriends to place orders for Valentine’s Day. The florist can better forecast what resources they’ll need to meet demand and the men don’t have to worry about picking up wilted flowers from a gas station on their way home from work on February 14th.

I’ll give you another example. A car dealer wants to sell more service. Knowing how much mileage the average driver puts on their car in a year, the dealer can offer promotions to get people to bring in their car for the expensive regular maintenance, such as the 30 and 60,000 mile check ups. If a promotional product shows up when you’re at mile 55,000 you’ll likely be a lot more interested in a 60,000 mile service than if you’re at mile 80,000.

“Better late than never” isn’t always true. A Christmas card from your insurance agent in March will actually make you think twice about keeping your business with that agent.

As always, feel free to comment. I’m sure you’ve all done something with bad timing, so I won’t ask you to relive the embarrassment.

Create A Successful Promotion – Part 3

In my first two installments of “Create A Successful Promotion” I introduced you to the 4 keys to a successful promotion: Promo-smart, PMRT, stands for:

1. Product
2. Message
3. Recipient
4. Timing

I covered the first 2 keys to a successful promotion, Product and Message. To ever so briefly recap, your product can’t just be a good product; it has to be the right product for the intended recipient and your message can’t be just your logo; it must make a call to action in order to be effective. Today, I’ll cover the next step in a successful promotion using Promo-smart (PMRT).

3. Recipient

As I said, in the first installment, you must know who you want to target. Wanting everyone to be your customer is okay, but how realistic is it that with only one promotion you can win over 100% of everyone who is not already your customer? If it only took one promotion, there wouldn’t need to be thousands of promotional product distributors and suppliers in the U.S. So in order to maximize the effectiveness of your promotion, you have to determine which group is the most likely to be interested in what you’re selling. Here’s an example:

Saf-T-Boot sells steel-toed boots direct and wants to run a promotion to cover the entire Indianapolis metro area. They decide on a good product and have a great message. In the mail goes the widget with the great message to 1,000 randomly distributed people in the Indianapolis area. Some of the people who get the promotion in the mail are accountants, teachers, salespeople, postal workers, photographers, and just about any other profession you can think of. You can bet accountants don’t have much use for steel-toed boots, so the response rate is pretty low—we’ll say 2% (which is considered a decent to good response rate on mass mailings).

Now, instead of picking 1,000 random people to send the promotion to, what if they would have focused on their recipient? Using the same good product with the same great message, this time Saf-T-Boot sends their promotion to every contractor, construction worker, and heavy machinery factory worker they can find. It’s hard to imagine that a good product and a great message going to such a specific, targeted group of people would have a low response rate. It could be 10% (5 times as much as the random mailing); it could be 20% (10 times more effective than the random mailing).

For its next promotion, Saf-T-Boot can target retailers of work shoes. Changing the product and/or the message makes the promotion entirely new to this second, targeted recipient. Again, response rate can be much higher than it would have been by randomly distributing the promotional products.

Who you target is just as important as what you say and how you say it. After making sure you target a specific audience for your promotion, there’s only one Promo-smart (PMRT) step left—Timing—and I’ll cover that tomorrow.

In the meantime, feel free to comment. Have you ever done a marketing campaign without thinking about targeting a very specific group and gotten a terrible response rate?

Create A Successful Promotion – Part 2

In my first installment of “Create A Successful Promotion” I introduced you to the 4 keys to a successful promotion and a nifty way to remember them. PMRT, or Promo-smart, stands for:

1. Product
2. Message
3. Recipient
4. Timing

I covered the first of the 4 keys to a successful promotion, Product, and pointed out that it’s not enough to have a great product. In addition to a great product you have to make sure your product meets the needs or otherwise reaches the specific audience you’re marketing to. Following Promo-smart (PMRT), here’s the next step in a successful promotion.

     2. Message

Many companies think that splashing their logo on a promotional product, whether a shirt, pen, magnet, hat, or any other kind of widget, is a good use of marketing campaign dollars. But it’s not. Do you recognize the following logos?

Unless you haven’t seen a television in a few decades, you instantly recognize Nike, Apple, and Pepsi. Nike, Apple, and Pepsi can put their logo on anything, but unfortunately for you, you’re not Nike, Apple, or Pepsi. These 3 can pull it off because they spent gobs of money on corporate branding so that when someone saw their logo they would know what it means. So, if you’re going to tap into the next biggest athlete the world has ever seen, ala Nike signing Michael Jordan, you’ll be able to stick your logo on anything and people will know you.

What Can You Do?

You need to focus on the M in Promo-smart (PMRT). Your message isn’t only who you are, but why someone should choose you. You need to induce an action. Let me give you an example.

A pizza place just moved into a great spot near a big university just outside of Indianapolis. They go to the quad and student union on a beautiful spring day with 250 Frisbees. They are white and imprinted in red letters, “Empire State Pizza.” Not bad. College students like Frisbee and would rather toss a Frisbee than sit through another discussion of The Canterbury Tales. But what has the pizza place gotten? Not much. They have no way to know if the message was a success.

Now, let’s say the message changes. This time, using 250 white Frisbees with red letters, they pass out the following message: “Empire State Pizza. Across from Dodd Hall, next to the laundry mat. Bring this Frisbee in by May 1st for a free slice when you buy a slice.” The words “Empire State Pizza” are now smaller because the same size space contains a lot more info. But, the message calls the students to action. The Frisbee says why they should eat at Empire State Pizza—because when they buy 1 slice, they get another free. Attracting new customers is much easier if they know where to find you, and Empire State Pizza told the students exactly where the pizzeria is located. Finally, the message called for a specific action, bringing in the Frisbee, and contained a deadline, May 1st. This makes the promotion timely and easy to track—all you have to do is keep a running list of the number of people who show you their Frisbee.

Using the right message is a vital component of a successful promotion. You might think that the right promotional product and the right marketing message is enough to ensure success, but there are still 2 more keys to success in the Promo-smart (PMRT) method. Next time we’ll discuss the Recipient.

In the meantime, feel free to comment. Have you ever done a marketing campaign using just your name or logo and felt it wasn’t a success?

Create A Successful Promotion

Everyday I deal with businesses that know they need to get their name out, but don’t know how to go about it. There are 4 things you need to do to pull off a successful marketing campaign involving promotional products. These rules apply whether you’re a local dry cleaner or a Fortune 100 company.

The 4 factors for success were passed to me; I just came up with the easy way to remember it. The mnemonic I’ve created is PMRT. An easy way for me to remember it is just like “smart” except the “P” means “promotional”. “Promo-smart” for short; here’s what it stands for:

1. Product
2. Message
3. Recipient
4. Timing

I’ll tell you how to be Promo-smart in 4 installments, but I’ll give you the easiest one first.

1. Product

It isn’t enough to have a great product. The latest and greatest kitchen gadget might impress a local pizzeria owner or even a 5-star chef in the finest restaurant in downtown Indianapolis, but it wouldn’t mean very much to a construction foreman or an accountant. Your product has to be right for your audience. The first thing you must do is determine whose attention you’re trying to grab.

You must know your target market. If I ask who you want to be your customer and you say, “everyone,” then it’s likely your promotion will fail. It’s fine if you want to do 5 different promotions to 5 different types of prospective clients, but trying to win over everyone with a generic product shows one thing: you’re generic. And if you’re generic, you’re not special. If you’re not special, there’s certainly not much reason for anyone to do business with you when your competitors are right there on the same side of town.

Next up in the PMRT, Promo-smart, list is Message. I’ll tackle that at the beginning of next week.

In the meantime, feel free to comment. Have you ever done a marketing campaign using a great promotional product, that didn’t work just because it wasn’t the right product?