The Evolving Internet Marketer

The Power of Images

Don’t you find that it’s easy to recall the seminal images of your life…

• Giggling at the altar during your wedding ceremony
• The birth of your first child
• The Daisy Ad from the 1964 Presidential Campaign

You know the Daisy Ad. Ran once and pulled because it was too controversial. Child counting daisy petals as she plucks them supplanted by count down to nuclear explosion followed by ominous voice over? Cool News of the Day reminded me of the power of media in general and advertising in specific to create an image and preserve a message over generations.

I was 7 years old but I can still story board the Daisy Ad even after all of these years.

What kind of impression do you leave? Do people remember you? Your products? Your services? Or are you merely a momentary marketer leaving as lasting an impression as footprints in a desert sandstorm?

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PS – imagine the even greater power of the Daisy Ad if YouTube had been around in 1964!

Customer Retention, Part 2

Worth repeating (from the American Marketing Association newsletter)…

A two-percent increase in customer retention has the same effect on profits as cutting costs by 10 percent.¹

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1 Business Gain from How You Retain, CMO Council with CSC, IBM and Dun & Bradstreet, April 2008

OpenTable – Very Nice Post Event Marketing Follow up

Whether you sell products or services you can steal a page from OpenTable.com’s approach on how to follow up with your customers.

OpenTable is the leader in providing online restaurant reservations. They do an excellent job on the front end whether you know where you want to dine or are looking for suggestions.

We had an opportunity to use them to book reservations for Fathers’ Day brunch. After the event they did something that all of us who use the web to promote and sell our stuff should do … they followed-up!

A day after our reservation I received an email asking about our experience with the restaurant we dined at (Duo in the Highlands area of Denver – I highly recommend it!). Such a simple idea but too often overlooked. When you sell a customer a product or provide a service how about inviting their comments and feedback after they’ve had an opportunity to use the product or once the service has been delivered. Why? Well for one, your customers appreciate it. It sets you apart as too few vendors ever take the time to do this. Second, it allows you to be a hero instead of a zero. (My friend and client, Mark Sanborn, talks about the hero/zero choice in a November 2007 post at his blog.) You’re a hero when you find out that your customer’s experience with your product or service was less than stellar and you take the necessary steps to positively resolve their issues.

Third, and the final piece in the OpenTable follow up experience, is that you have an opportunity to ask for more business. In OpenTable’s case once you’ve provided your feedback they send you to a thank you page that has a list of restaurants that other Duo patrons dine at with the call to action to make your next reservation now. Hmmm. Great idea, don’t you think? After all if your customer liked the gadget they bought from you don’t you think they’d be receptive to more of the same?

So here’s the methodology 1. Sell something 2. Follow up 3. Sell something else. 4. Repeat. Simple, isn’t it?

Learn as You Go – The “McBlini’s” Lesson

Time magazine (June 16, 2008) has an interesting article about a fast food restaurant in Russia which, in the last 10 years, has grown to be the 4th largest fast food chain in the country and the only home-grown entry on the list. The chain is called Teremok and they’ve grown by focusing on blinis – the traditional Russian thin pancakes (think crepes). They serve them with everything from butter to smoked herring and caviar.

What captured my attention in the article was the founder’s, Mikhail Goncharov, approach to problem solving. The article states:

…All of it is learning by doing. “When I see a problem, ” Goncharov says, “we buy books on the topic, then we read, then we decide.”

Wow, how simple can you get and, by following this approach, Teremok has grown to $110 million in revenue (including a huge increase of $47 million over last year). So here’s the methodology – 1. Identify the problem –> 2. Search for solutions –> 3. Investigate the solution –> 4. Decide on a course of action and –> 5. Implement the solution.

With 400,000 books published last year and millions (billions?) of blog postings on every topic imaginable, you think that you might be able to find the answer to the problems you face in your business.

TechSmith Aces Marketing Follow up

TechSmith, the creators of 2 great tools – SnagIt & Camtasia Studios – for capturing and recording screen activity, is very smart when creating positive buzz for their products.

I’d downloaded the trial version of the SnagIt screen capture tool, was impressed, bought it. Not only did TechSmith provide solid support throughout the trial with an informative series of email tips and tutorials but they followed up afterwards asking me to take a brief survey on my experience with the tool. They solicited my feedback on the usefulness of the tool, documentation, support and, oh yeah, did I buy it and would I recommend it. Then, brilliantly enough as I answered yes to both questions (bought/will recommend), they asked me to write a review at Download.com – one of the primary distribution sites for their product trial versions.

To summarize:

1. They provided a brilliant tool
2. They didn’t leave it to me to discover this on my own but fed me a steady stream of how best to use the tool advice
3. Once the trial was over they asked me how it went, was I satisfied, did I buy, would I recommend…
4. Then, they solicited my endorsement to help others make the same ’smart’ decision I did.

Whether you sell a product or service you can and need to employ this kind of follow up response in your marketing and selling cycle. Do this and you, like the folks at SnagIt, will be a category leader.