Monday, July 19, 2010

Five questions for effective ads.


If you honestly evaluate your advertising using these five questions, if your adverting doesn't provide compelling answers, start to think about how you could change it so that it does.

Why are you bothering me?

Advertsing in an interruption. Your ideal prospects don't wake up in the morning, get out of bed, and say, "Wow, I sure hope someone advertises to me today." Your ideal prospects, however, get out of bed with business problems, goals, and things that are important to them. If your advertising doesn't grab their attention with a compelling reason that's important to them (not you), it will be ignored.

What does it have to do with me?

After you capture the prospects' attention, you must get their interest. You can do this by telling them waht the advertisement's information has to do with the things they consider to be important. Again, this is about what they think is important, not what you consider to be important. A tried-and-true way to capture interest is to state the biggest benefit or promise you're able to make to your target market.

Why should I believe you?

Decision-makers default to skepticism, not belief, about your claims. If you don't give your prospects powerful and compelling reasons to believe your claim in your advertising, they won't. If your advertising doesn't provide proof, get to work to add it in. My three favorites are testimonials, case studies and photographs.

What should I do about it?

Just having a phone number or website URL isn't enough. Have you given prospects a specific step to take to begin the process to becoming your customer? The key word here is "specific." Tell the prospects exactly what to do, how to do it, and what they'll get as a result.

Why should I do it right now?

A cute theory by many is that decision-makers will remember your company when it comes time to take action, even if they don't take action right away. But reality shows that notion to be utterly false. If your prospects don't take the action you want when your message is in front of them, it's highly unlikely they'll come back to it at a later date. Sure, they might file the ad in a pile of things to do, but the end result is usually that your message is put aside and forgotten. Your advertising must give prospects a compelling reason to act immediately. What will they gain if they do? What will they lose if they don't?














Customer Loyalty Matters - Part III



Three final tips to deepen relationships with customers, establish greater levels of trust, and build stronger customer loyalty...


What have you done for me lately?

One of the most common mistakes companies make is focusing primarly on the early part of the sale. They wrongly assume that once a customer is happy, that customer will stay happy and continue to use the product or service. Each customer's experience is the sum of every small experience that customer has while using your product or service. Ask yourself, if I were this customer right now, what would I really want in terms of product, care and service? Remember, your customer is always thinking "what's in it for me?" What you do (or fail to do) at every point during a customer's course of care makes an impression.

Never take loyalty for granted.

A successful marketing campaign will encourage buyers to try your product or service, but only good outcomes and an authentic relationship with you will keep them coming back. Customers' willingness to return to your company depends only partly on their need for your product or service. They can easily choose between other suppliers if they were not happy with what they experience with you, your staff or dealer channel. Never take loyalty for granted. Never underestimate the power and value of the one-to-one relationship customers have with your company. Customers return to where they fell connected, where they have a sense of belonging, where there is mutual esteem, where they are treated with respect, and where their care results in positive outcomes.

Word-of-mouth marketing isn't new.

Third-party endorsement or customer referral has long been a part of marketing. What is new is that the bar for what customers expect is higher today. Being good isn't good enough to get customers talking about you. Outstanding is the new good. Research repeatedly shows the quality of customer service is on the decline across industries. When you consistently exceed expectations, customers become "raving fans." Those are the customers who refer your company to other prospects.




Thursday, July 8, 2010

Customer Loyalty Matters - Part II




Three more tips to deepen relationships with customers, establish greater levels of trust, and build stronger customer loyalty...


Understand what customers are paying for,
We like to believe customers are paying for our expertise. Yet, most customers cannot evaluate our expertise. So they simply assume we are experts by virtue of our brand credentials. What customers can assess is whether they experience positive outcomes, if the relationship they have with you is meaningful, if they feel valued, and if they receive a high level of service.

Outcome matters.
Practicing good interpersonal skills and maintaining solid customer relationships ae important for developing customer loyalty. But what really matters to customers are results they can see, count on, and talk about. Customers might come to you a few times because you have the right product or service for their needs, but they won't keep coming back to you based on your business personality alone. Customers must trust you to help them. They must see results and learn something from you to make it worth their while to continue as your customer.

Integrity leads to trust, which leads to a relationship.
Integrity involves fundamental behavior such as keeping your word, being honest, providing a consistent level of service, and being reliable. Building trust requires a business to continually put the customer's interests ahead of their own and display a genuine "other' orientation. You demonstrate that by being interested reather than interesting, and by not treating every interaction as an opportunity to share your message. Without integrity, there is no trust. Without trust, there is no enduring relationship.

MY OBJECTIVE:

To share common sense lessons learned with 40-plus years experience in marketing, sales and as a B2B publisher.

Followers