When a business makes mistakes in their marketing communications, there are several problems:

• The business looks stupid.
• The business looks careless.
• The business’s marketing communications strategy to address the mistake is inevitably complicated, because there’s no good solution to the problem.

Recently, I received a series of mistake-ridden marketing emails that illustrate these points quite well. A local business sent me an unsolicited email that contained a devastating typo– they included the wrong phone number. Trying to atone for this mistake, they sent a follow-up missive:

My first thought was, “That’s what you get for sending me unsolicited email.” I definitely have a problem with email marketing that isn’t permission-based. My second thought was that customers won’t likely trust a business that can’t remember its own phone number.

My third thought was to notice that this email also contained a glaring typo.

While apologizing for the previous mistake, the business makes another mistake in their subject line – “Our Apologizes!” It’s a bit like the Internet meme, “All your base are belong to us.”

Despite their claim, I don’t believe the cold had much to do with their typo, since this marketing email was sent on the warmest January day I can remember (with a high of 62 degrees).

The lesson here for businesses everywhere is to take care. Details matter. Your marketing communications reach many people, and it’s important they tell the story of your business without distracting the customer with mistakes and typos.

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By letting customers try it out!

Lighthouse Carwash does this whenever they open a new car wash. For the first few days, all the washes are free. It helps them build a customer base by showing just how great the service is.

Busken Bakery in Cincinnati does the same with their business catering service. Their flyer promoting the service is pretty nice:

But it isn’t nearly as enticing as the free dozen donuts that accompanies it:

Who wouldn’t trust this bakery to cater their next business breakfast after tasting these delicious donuts? (My apologies to anyone dieting this January.)

Not only does giving samples allow customers to experience your product, it’s a much more cost-effective marketing effort than almost any other tactic. For instance, compare the cost of a free car wash or dozen donuts to the price of a radio commercial.

When you’ve got a great product you can sample, your customers get a delightful experience, and your business stays in the marketing budget. See why it’s the best?

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• Affiliate Marketing
• B2B Marketing
• B2C Marketing
• Buzz Marketing
• Cross-Marketing
• Door-to-Door Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Grassroots Marketing
• Guerilla Marketing
• Internal Marketing
• Long-Tail Marketing
• Loyalty Marketing
• Niche Marketing
• Permission Marketing
• Viral Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Telemarketing
• Traditional Marketing
• Viral Marketing
• Web Marketing
• Word-of-mouth Marketing

The problem is that marketing doesn’t really work when it’s so highly segmented. Customers don’t care about the differences between a business’s loyalty marketing efforts and social media marketing strategy. And a customer doesn’t know when they’re being targeted by the web marketing team or the traditional marketing team.

To the customer, it’s all just marketing… even the activities that the marketing team aren’t responsible for, like billing.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what you call your marketing, as long as it all works together to help you customer have a great experience.

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• Marketing Mix – The marketing activities that make up your marketing plan. For instance, e-mail marketing, pay-per-click advertising and promotional events.
• Target – The customers you are trying to reach with your marketing efforts (You’ve probably noticed that many marketing terms have militaristic origins. I think this is a terrible way to think about marketing, as I wrote in this article – “Marketing isn’t war on your customers“).
• Copy – The written content on a business’s website, blog, brochures, advertisements, etc.
• SEO – Search Engine Optimization. The ongoing process of making a website attractive to search engines like Google.
• SEM – Search Engine Marketing. This encompasses the marketing mix a business uses to market to users of search engines, both SEO and advertising.
• CPM – Cost Per Mille. In the advertising world, this is the cost per one thousand showings of your ad. Sometimes, it’s also referred to as Cost Per Impression.
• Impression – An impression is when your ad is visible to view. For instance, each time a banner ad loads on a web page it counts as an impression. But just because the ad is visible doesn’t guarantee a person is actually looking at it!
• PPC – Pay Per Click. This is the type of internet advertising made popular by Google and is used by all the search engines, along with Facebook. It means you pay for the advertising when someone clicks on your ad.
• CPC – Cost Per Click. How much each click costs in a PPC advertising campaign.
• Viral Marketing – Marketing efforts that are started by a business but grow and become controlled by groups of customers. For instance, you’ve probably heard of a video that has “gone viral.”

Have any other marketing jargon you’d like defined? Just post a comment, and I’ll be glad to help!

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The USCA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2011 USCA Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)

U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a New York City based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Association

CONTACT:
U.S. Commerce Association
Email: PublicRelations@uscaaward.com
URL: http://www.uscaaward.com

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Here are three ways marketing is easy when you’re awesome:

1. PR and social media are easy

For many businesses, developing a compelling PR and social media strategy is hard– what do we say? who will care? who will spread the message? But for businesses that are awesome, PR is easy.

Grady Veterinary Hospital in Cincinnati, OH accepts animals in need from the SPCA. Right now, they are caring for a kitten that had been set on fire and loosed on a city street. Each day, they provide updates on the little guy’s progress. Because they do awesome things, their public relations and social media strategy is easy: Tell stories about the wonderful animals we help.

2. Word of mouth marketing is easy

It’s pretty obvious that if your business is awesome, your customers will want to talk about you. That’s the essence of word of mouth marketing. Give your customers something to talk about– a charitable initiative, an innovative application of your product or service that goes above and beyond what they could have imagined.

The BonBonerie is an extremely successful confectioner here in Cincinnati. Customer demand is so strong that they have an entire cafe dedicated to wedding cake tastings. Their business has been built mostly on word-of-mouth marketing because their business is amazing. The beautiful cakes, delicious flavors and careful service give customers plenty to rave about. Crafting this business wasn’t easy, but the word of mouth marketing is creating itself.

3. Employee satisfaction is easy

Happy employees make happy customers. When an employee believes in what she does, she wants to help each customer as much as she can. And, no surprise, employees find it easiest to believe in awesome employers.

When I worked at Apple, my fellow employees were 100% dedicated to the company’s way of doing business. Apple has a great employee training program and customer service methodology, and the employees already believe wholeheartedly in the products they sell. Because employees believe the company is awesome, they are able to provide customers with awesome experiences.

Marketing is easy when you’re awesome. “But my business isn’t awesome,” you might reply. So what are you going to do about it?

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“Budding entrepreneurs with big ideas can still make their dreams come true and ABC is about to give them the chance to make it happen. Each week a group of self-made millionaires [Sharks] from all corners of the business world take their own hard earned money and offer everyday people their one true shot at making their dreams a reality. Some will sink, some will swim and some will be eaten alive.”

The show’s investors (or “Sharks”) are start-up and entrepreneurial experts. Small business owners can learn a wealth of free knowledge from these investors.  In the final episode of Season 2, watch some interesting and instructive entrepreneurs as they wheel and deal with the sharks. There’s a custom jewelry artist trying to take his designs to the masses. Another woman has patents for a brilliant shoe design that lets women change the uppers while using the same sole– perfect for traveling.

In this clip, a woman makes the case to reposition her maternity clothing brand in face of a declining boutique women’s market. But, as the sharks adeptly conclude, this strategy will require as much investment as building a new brand from nothing (and in a still-persistent tough economy, no less):

From a marketing perspective, it’s interesting how many entrepreneurs benefit from the show just by making the pitch and explaining their innovative products to television audiences. These entrepreneurs might make a deal, or they might not, but the exposure does wonders for their marketing. It’s a good strategy, and I recommend it for charismatic entrepreneurs selling a great consumer product.

Having all those sharks devouring her desserts helped Daisy Cakes‘ founder Kim Daisy sell a lot of cake. And Rebecca Rescate of CitiKitty may not have overly impressed the sharks, but her great presentation certainly won over many cat lovers, causing shipping delays from the high order volume. Watch her presentation below:

I definitely recommend this show to small business owners. It’s rare that you get free advice that’s worth more than you pay for it.

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Ordinances can be tricky, so read carefully. A client of mine is located in a township that will only allow businesses to display an outdoor banner if they are approved for a permit. The permit allows the business to display the banner for 15 days, but you can only have one permit every six months. We had to prioritize which two 15-day periods in the year were most important to the business and plan far ahead to make sure we received permit approval in time.

Don't be scared. They are just people in suits.

If you have to present your outdoor marketing plan at a council meeting, leave nothing to the imagination. Create mock-ups and show pictures from where the idea has been implemented elsewhere. You’re trying to convince a committee, so your visual evidence should be as compelling as possible. By showing council members your plan is aesthetically pleasing, you will remove their fear of marring their town’s image.

The imagination of the marketer often is at odds with the strict codes of some planning and zoning divisions, but through careful planning, you can make your outdoor marketing as effective as possible.

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Some assert that younger consumers are eschewing email, but Pew Internet research shows that’s not the case. No matter which generation your customers are, 80-90% of the ones using the Internet are using email. Considering that Older Boomers spend more than their younger counterparts, this knowledge could be particularly profitable.

Since email marketing is such an important marketing tool, I want to give you some tips for doing it right. Businesses can’t just blast coupons to all their past customers and expect success. Let’s use this Pillar to Post marketing email I received as an example of how to run a successful email marketing campaign:

See the full size Pillar to Post email here.

Pillar to Post is a home inspection company. Home inspection not a service customers often need to purchase. The company’s email marketing strategy does a great job of keeping in touch with past customers and helping them remember who to call if they (or their friends and family) need a home inspection.

I’ve analyzed the Pillar to Post email to help you learn how they did it. Following are some email marketing tips you can start using today in your own marketing:

Send emails that fortify your brand and your customers will care about. Share information that will be useful, interesting or funny. Coupons or other promotions can be great, but they can’t be your sole strategy. For customers to be eager to open your emails, you need to give them something to be excited about.

The first day of summer was June 21, and most homeowners perform their home maintenance on a seasonal schedule. Knowing this, Pillar to Post shared a fairly thorough Summer Maintenance Checklist with their customers. This information is not only helpful to homeowners, but it establishes Pillar to Post as an expert in the field of home maintenance as well.

Mind your timing. Communicate with customers too often, and they will unsubscribe from your list or mark your emails as spam. Pillar to Post sends quarterly emails, each with season-specific advice. They recognized their customers’ natural home maintenance patterns and customized their approach for them.

Keep your content fresh. Avoid sending duplicate emails, even if they are months apart. Customers have a knack for remembering when they’ve read something before and will unsubscribe if they believe a company is putting forth a lackluster effort to engage them.

Design a clean, easy-to-use template. The Pillar to Post example email isn’t the most beautiful or effective design the company could have developed, but it is simple and easy to read. It has the added benefit of using as few images as necessary- images don’t always load in your customers’ email inboxes, so avoid placing text in an image.

Depending on your type of business, your email marketing strategy could be markedly different from Pillar to Post’s. Pillar to Post has a long sales cycle- a customer likely will go years before needing a home inspection. A retailer, on the other hand, might expect customers to make purchases seasonally, monthly or even every single day. Your sales cycle determines your messages and frequency.

Take inspiration from this great email marketing example to refresh and revitalize your email marketing (or to start email marketing, if you haven’t already!).

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It’s fun and exciting to engage in a large marketing project like branding a new product or revitalizing your marketing with a social media blitz. But these large projects receive undue credit for a business’s success- it’s the day-to-day actions that cumulatively build success. Your customers need to be able to rely on you, not just when they first buy or when you launch a new campaign.

Here are some tips for managing your marketing:

1. Set goals. Set daily, weekly or monthly goals for how the frequency of your marketing activities. For instance, your goals could be one local event per month, one email newsletter per month and one Facebook post per week.
2. Make a schedule. Looming due dates have quite an effect on the human psyche. Set a firm schedule for your goals, like publishing a blog post every Wednesday morning.
3. Monitor and make changes. Some marketing activities keep themselves going. For best results, you should monitor these activities and make changes based on your observations. For example, look at your Google AdWords each month to see what you can learn.
4. Measure results. Managing your marketing can be hard work. Measure your results, so you can see which efforts are paying off and which aren’t. Stop the least effective ones, and put more energy into the producers.
5. Show discipline. All of these tips are rooted in having the discipline to keep marketing. Discipline is the number one ingredient for marketing management success. It’s not sexy, but it’s true.

By managing your marketing, you will create a compelling story for customers to buy into. You just have to keep at it, everyday.

If you don’t have the time or energy to manage your marketing, you could look into hiring a professional to manage it for you. Conveniently, Zoo in a Jungle Marketing excels at marketing management. Contact me to talk about your business: Amanda Cullen, 513.833.4203, amanda@zooinajungle.com.

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