Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on February 4, 2010 under marketing | 
Jean Gianfagna, marketing strategiest and business owner of Gianfagna Marketing recently started a blog entitled: Smart Marketing Strategy. Great name and as it turns out – great information.
I just took a visit and found an interesting blog post on connecting the customer data gathered with the marketing message delivered. In the post, Why Customer Data is Essential for Effective Marketing – Especially for Your Customers Jean shares a personal example of how Disney and Chase bank missed the boat when it came to using the historical customer data they had on file.
Generic marketing message sent to existing or prior customers without taking advantage of the weath of personalized data sends the loud message WE DON’T CARE TO TAKE THE TIME TO SEND YOU A MESSAGE PERSONALIZED TO YOUR NEEDS.
In Jean’s case, Chase sent a message that missed the boat on a variety of levels. Her advice for how they could have captured her attention more effectively:
Dig deeper into the customer file and find all the Charter Cardmembers who are lapsed customers. Append those recordswith current demographic data to see how many are families with grown children or adults who are now grandparents. Send these empty-nesters a direct mail package promoting the fun and value of the Disney experience for adults, or a package targeting grandparents with grandkids for that segment of the mailing list. Most important, acknowledge and celebrate the customer’s prior relationship with Disneyand demonstrate — in a way that’s relevant and real — why restarting that relationship now, at a new point in the customer’s lifecycle, is an unbeatable offer.
Jean’s point – take the time to match an appropriate message to customers based on the information already gathered. It is the rifle approach rather than the shotgun. A targeted message is more likely to connect with the customer and inspire them to take action.
If you are going to gather the data – why not use it to build a customer relationship?
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on December 15, 2009 under General, marketing |
I can remember sitting around the executive table at Pearle Vision with the competition ads in front of us. We would scour over their wording and product focus and even their color scheme to see how we could position our message to stand out.
Then one time and gosh I wish I could remember who said this – we threw out the competition material and decided to look with a fresh, clean slate. “If we only compare ourselves to the competition then we force our thinking into a rigid box. We need to just compare our performance and company to ourselves and then begin to think outside the box.”
I just joined a gym. Yes – I’m paying good money for all the pain I am in. I look around the room at people 20 years older than I am lifting weights, working out on the machines going a mile a minute and it is hard not to be intimidated. But the trainer that helped me get started gave me some great advice.
“Don’t look at them. Don’t compare yourself to them. Don’t look and see what someone else is doing, just focus on your own progress.”
And I am making progress. I can see it in my clothes and on the scale, I can feel it in my knees and I am enjoying a greater sense of energy than I’ve had in the past, but it is hard not to compare yourself to others.
When we compare ourselves to others we do so without all of the information. We don’t know their strategy or what they have planned for the future – we can only see the tip of the iceburg and therefore in our comparison can make invalid assumptions. Whereas, when we only look at our own performance for comparison, we do have all of the information. We know about the great margin discounts we received from a supplier or we understand the unique needs of our customer or the fact that we just invested money in a customer service training program for our sales staff. We can see what the results are based on the effort and focus we put forth.
So rather than comparing yourself to the competition – hold the mirror up and ask yourself a few simple questions:
- How am I doing based on the customer’s expectations?
- Has my referral or repeat business increased?
- What percentage of my customers are returning customers?
- Has my average transaction increased?
- Have we improved relationships with our vendors?
- Has the number of complaints dwindled?
- Has the number of compliments increased?
- How is the employee morale versus last year at this time?
Just like Mom always said “keep your eyes on your own plate” when I’d complain that my brother didn’t have to eat as many peas as I did – we need to just focus our attention on improving business based on our own performance rather than that of the competition.
What benchmarks do you have for your business? How do you compare and measure success?
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on October 21, 2009 under Internet Connections, marketing |
Have you heard of the new pop band opening for the Jonas Bros? Honor Society.
While in Phoenix I heard them interviewed on the wildly popular morning talk show John Jay and Rich and they were fun, quick and talented. But the thing I took away the most from their interview was that they “got” the importance of being easy to find and being EVERYWHERE on the Internet.
They have a consistent brand. Their name: Honor Society.
When asked where fans could find them to purchase their records they said:
We are on Twitter @honor society, on MySpace/honorsociety, on Facebook/honorsociety, on YouTube/honorsociety. Then one of the band members said, “yeah we are pretty much everywhere – just type in Honor Society.”
I thought – man, these little 20something (if that) have nailed a critical branding fact that I’m still struggling with. Pick a brand – stick to it – use it everywhere. I’m on all of the social media sites but some times I use my name, other times, my tag line and still others, my company name. How can anyone find me? How can I be known one for thing?
How about you? Are you easy to find? Are you visible on the web with just one brand name?
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on October 5, 2009 under Books, marketing |
Drew McLellan of Drew’s Marketing Minute is at it again! For the third time he’s bringing together marketing and business professionals from around the world to share their thoughts, tips and techniques and profits benefit a charity.
I had the pleasure of joining in the Conversation last time.
This time Drew has invited 300 authors to participate and share their views in ten different areas. There are already 137 of the original authors signed up to contribute again (me too!) but effective TODAY, Drew has opened up the opportunity to YOU!
Go RIGHT THIS MINUTE – to complete this Survey Monkey survey and sign up to be a part of Age of Conversation 3. Only thirty people will be selected for each topic so you need to go right now and sign up so you can get the topic of your choice.
For more information about Age of Conversation 3 visit Drew’s blog.
Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on June 29, 2009 under Customer Moments, marketing |
I just returned back from a once in a life time trip to Italy with my Mom and daughter, Emily. We began our adventure in Rome where we hooked up with 38 other Americans experiencing Italy with cross-generational family members. Tauck tour groups has a series of tours called Bridges in which Grandparents and their Granchildren can experience a new country together.
My 12 year old daugher has wanted to go to Rome since Hillary Duff filmed the Lizzie Mcguire movie and so away we went.
During our first day we experienced the Vatican museums and the Sistene Chapel. In the grand hall leading up to the chapel we encountered this painted tablet. Our tour guide, Richardo, informed us that it was advertising in its earliest form.
This tablet is about 4 feet sqaure and was painted outside of the restaurant – informing passers-by what type of food they could expect to enjoy should they venture indoors. Advertising as early as 2 AD.
While I was traveling, I took notes of some of the sales, marketing and cutomer service experience we encountered. Over the next few blog posts I’ll be sharing some of my insights. Suffice it to say – my Earning Customer Loyalty speech is going to be revised based on the lessons I learned from the Italians I encountered.
I invite you to share the experiences you’ve had while traveling abroad of if you live in another country – please share your culture as it relates to customer service.
I sometimes think that Americans believe they have it all figured out when it comes to sales and service and yet I found an entirely different truth while in Italy. It was eye opening!
Jean Gianfagna, marketing strategiest and business owner of Gianfagna Marketing recently started a blog entitled: Smart Marketing Strategy. Great name and as it turns out – great information.
