Mad 4 Blog

Last week, we discussed Personalization within the framework of your business. Today, we’re identifying ways to personalize your services for customers/clients. This means treating those you’re contacting as if they’re your only audience (not one of a large group) while showing them that you appreciate their business – even if they haven’t elected to use you yet. Top ways to build a relationship in this respect are learning all about the person you’re addressing and then utilizing personal info (names, preferences) to tailor your advertising to them. And then, once they choose to use you, you can also tailor their experience to fulfill their expectations as well.

1. Create personality templates. From the beginning, you don’t necessarily know enough about a person’s preferences to specifically aim your marketing tactics toward him or her. But you can begin by looking at an overview of demographics from previous sales and beginning to come up with profiles about the kind of people who are using your business. You can break this info down into core categories and then target your marketing toward them. For example, Customer A is a Caucasian unmarried male aged 18-35; Customer B is a middle-aged woman with children or grandchildren who she often considers when buying products or services. You can start multiple campaigns that speak to these people as specifically as possible, which is a way of personalizing your marketing without yet having individual information.
2. Learn all about your audience. The next thing you want to do is gather as much information as possible from the people who are most likely to use your products or services. You should always have a newsletter/mailing list form on your website so that those who are interested can pass you their data. You can hold a sweepstakes that asks candidates to fill out info about themselves, conduct anonymous polling or solicit voluntary info at point of sale. Ask Mad 4 Marketing about other techniques to gather information and apply it toward your advertising efforts.
3. Personalize all forms of contact. Once you have a person’s specific information – based not only on info they’ve provided about themselves but also analytics of their interactions with your brand – you should begin directing your marketing to them specifically. E-mails should incorporate their names. Flyers and mailers should reflect their previous interactions with you and direct them to similar items they might like or need. Be sure to remind them of what they liked in the past about your company. And continuously ask for feedback to learn more about what you can do to improve their experience with your company.

Next week our three-part series concludes with some tips about Transparency.

When you’re promoting yourself or your business, there are certain rules by which you have to abide. You need to offer personalized services and transparent data in order to stand out. But those are just the umbrella topics; by themselves, they may just seem like jargon. In the coming three weeks, Mad 4 Marketing aims to break these concepts down into more approachable and executable tactics. First up, we’re covering Personalization.

Personalization is the combination of two basic ideas: giving your own brand a very specific identity and personalizing your marketing efforts to recipients. Let’s look at it first from the angle of your business.

1. Promote what’s different about your company. Instead of listing every single one of your many benefits, sort out your business attributes into those that are unexpected and expected. For example, if you’re a restaurant it’s sort of obvious to say that you serve hot food and cold drinks. This isn’t where you want to waste verbiage and visual space when it comes to marketing copy and creative. Instead, weed out the details that are very specific to just your restaurant. Is it a special dish created by the chef? Is it your unique location or décor?

On that same note, don’t be afraid to point out how you’re different from your competitors. This doesn’t need to lead to badmouthing your rivals, but comparing yourself to them is a healthy activity for internal use as well as external advertisements. If your competitor doesn’t serve desserts, than you can focus on your cakes and pies even if they’re just a small slice of your total menu.

It also helps to given customers personal information about the owners and operators of your company. Then, instead of thinking of a logo and tagline when they think of your brand, they can actually connect a face and a name. This helps with building relationships down the line. For example, an “about” page on a website should feature some pictures of your staff along with blurbs that make them seem like three-dimensional, approachable individuals. Try to find the interesting aspects of their character, since this will entice readers more than a boring synopsis of previous employers and work experience.

You can also orchestrate local appearances and sponsorships where representatives from your company actually interact with the community. Once people feel like they know you one-on-one and associate the company’s image with friendly individuals, they’re more likely to reach out to you in the future.

By picking out and highlighting the big and small traits that make you special, you begin to create a memorable personality profile. Now your angles will stick out in the minds of those who see your marketing.

Check back next week for our second chapter on Personalization.

Just by making an effort to be environmentally friendly, your business may make itself seem even more appealing to prospective clients and customers. You may not be able to totally revamp the way your organization operates, but even a little goes a long way. To get a leg above your eco-inconsiderate competitors, you should start by introducing your brand without harming the planet. After all, first impressions are the most important. Here are three possible ways to share information about your company while eliminating paper waste:

1. Mobile-to-mobile business cards. Instead of passing out those tiny squares of shredded trees that are apt to get lost, you can pass along your basic business details through a text message. Services such as Contxts allow you to create a standard template that’s sent to a phone directly or when someone (you or your new business associate) texts in a certain code. An added bonus is that smartphone users can simply tab a link to your company’s website to get loads more info than you could ever squish onto a little business card. The only downside is that users who pay to send or receive messages might not appreciate spending the extra cents (try reminding them that it’s not for you, it’s for Mother Nature).

2. Take info, don’t give it out. If you’re out in the field (trade shows, promotional events), you should solicit e-mail addresses and phone numbers that can all be input via a laptop at the site. Then you can send out e-newsletters or links with further information about your company. Visible materials on the site can be helpful ways to promote your business, and they can be used again (freestanding displays, T-shirts). But you can eliminate the paper handouts that weigh down those free totes that everyone else is giving out. And you can even helpfully inform your visitors that providing their electronic contact information for future advertising endeavors will spare the environment the burden of paperwork follow-ups. Hey, it’s worth a shot.

3. Put everything on your website. This may sound like a no-brainer, but it means you can just give out your website and consolidate a lot of marketing. Having a website that’s not only an advertisement but also a thorough resource having to do with your company and its industry can save your customers time when making up their mind about you. Sharing a URL is thriftier than giving out fliers, brochures and sell sheets. This is especially important because your info can be regularly updated online, while it more quickly goes out of date on disposable materials that get handed out. You might change your phone number four times before Mr. Buyer stops using that handy koozy you gave him at a convention eight years ago.

Although Steve Jobs, Apple’s iconic CEO from 1997-2011, was mostly known for his exemplary inventions and developments at the forefront of computer technology, his contributions to the marketing landscape can’t be overlooked. With a firm emphasis on user engagement and sleek design, Jobs left no stone unturned when it came to thinking about every product’s ultimate advertising appeal. From the crisp white, sleek lines of the Mac to the intuitive touchscreen of the iPhone, Jobs refused to settle for less than the most sellable attributes for each of his products.

Apple first came into focus as a marketing role model in 1984, when it debuted its now-famous third-quarter Super Bowl XVIII commercial. This ad played on Orwell’s
“1984” themes of Big Brother, showing a woman fighting conformity with a hammer and representing the unique attributes of the market’s newest PC, Macintosh. At the time, the commercial was a record-setter with a production cost of $900,000. It set precedence for major commercial debuts during the annual American football event; as of 2010, costs for a 30-second spot averaged at $2.65 million.

Even 22 years later, Apple would again make a splash via TV ads for the Mac that showed a hip, young male claiming to be the face of the brand as compared to a slower, dowdy and more conservative rep for the PC. The “Get a Mac” campaign spawned 19 spots and inspired several reverent riffs; it was quickly lauded as the best commercial campaign of the decade, if not the century thus far.

But the genius of Apple, Inc.’s advertising wasn’t contained to one mass format. Who can forget 2006’s iPod print ads featuring dancing silhouettes wearing the recognizable white ear buds of Apple’s groundbreaking personal music storage device? Musicians who later partnered with the advertising efforts for iPod through their faces and tunes included U2’s Bono, Mary J. Blige, Eminem and Coldplay.

Jobs’ focus on image went far beyond television commercials and print advertisements. He even went so far as to use himself as part of his brand’s iconography, becoming known for his standard outfit of jeans, sneakers and a black long-sleeved shirt when debuting the latest Apple products to the public. On the stage, Jobs showed supreme command of his audience by blending humor, forthrightness and showmanship to enthrall fans and investors alike. With his modest personality and choreography, paired with the flawless execution of graphic displays and accessible product demos, there was a precision and thoughtfulness to the shows that matched the high level of quality with which the brand has always been associated. These presentations superseded the role of press junket to become hotly anticipated events among the who’s who of tech media and moguls.

Jobs understood that even consistently offering the newest and best products wasn’t enough; standout branding that’s consistent from top to bottom in all media is also imperative to successful marketing. At age 56, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer, Jobs passed away among family on Wednesday, October 5, 2011.

Before you’re ready to start marketing your business, you need a plan. Marketing plans don’t require you to have formal knowledge of marketing (that’s where the pros come in), but they help you assess your needs prior to working with an agency. They help you focus on short- and long-term goals, and they provide a foundation for ongoing marketing work that can build on past efforts and help you monitor how well you succeed at achieving your pre-established objectives. They can also be adapted as your business grows in accordance with its size, changing needs and levels of advertising engagement.

Here are the basic steps to get started (adaptable to your select business needs):

• Determine specifically what your mission is (marketing a new project, establishing a brand, creating an overall strategy for ongoing, sequential efforts) and define your product (goods, services, etc.) in a way that makes sense both for your internal purposes and to potential clients and customers or investors and regulators you may wish to or be required to share it with.

• Analyze your current strengths and weaknesses in the business overall as of when you’re ready to launch your marketing initiative as well as with any pre-existing marketing projects (design Strengths, Weaknesses, Objectives, Threats (SWOT) chart; more on this another time); also look into the current climate for your industry both locally and nationwide.

• Create a nuanced financial budget both for your present agenda and including a 5-year plan; also consider your resources in terms of employees and time.

• Brainstorm ways to grow your marketing over time, with realistic limitations and expectations, such as conducting research into competitors’ stats for foundational data or speculating future reports once analytics begin to come in (especially useful if you’re a new business getting started, under new management or rebranding).

• Establish predetermined benchmarks. How will you define success? How can you measure if you’re meeting your objectives? Finding ways to qualify and rate your journey will be instrumental in helping you push ahead and outdo your preceding efforts.

• Consider breaking down the overall report into multiple areas to best create teams and target techniques for achieving your objectives – especially in terms of marketing widely varying products/services or creating multiple campaigns for the same singular objective.

Are you a small-business owner or entrepreneur ready to start building out your marketing plan? Ask how Mad 4 Marketing can set you up for present and future success.