Your marketing's working, but your follow-up stinks

Not a day goes by where I don't notice missed opportunities in marketing. Over the past three weeks, my husband and I have had six companies come in to assess some issues we're having with our crawl space and excessive moisture levels in our home. When it comes to choosing what companies we might want to talk to, I picked them based on seeing their marketing -- advertisements in community magazines or direct mail sent. In my line of work I save every piece of direct mail I receive, so I usually turn to my "pile" to pull contractors. I then look them up on Angie's list to see their reviews, volume of business and published estimates from past clients with a similar scope of work.

Normally I don't call in six companies for estimates, but this time we were receiving conflicting approaches and we really needed more advice before moving forward and spending thousands of dollars. All of these people spent between one and two hours at our home in order to investigate our problem. Five of the companies were leading crawl space remediation companies, and the other was an HVAC company -- a company we just spent 10k with just over a year ago when we replaced both AC units and furnace.

About half the companies provided written estimates on the spot. The others did more of a wishy- washy verbal dance and either left things open, or told me they'd send me an invoice.

The companies I called all had spent money on marketing and direct mail. Their efforts were successful, as they scored a response and a lead. The industry standard used in direct mail to calculate ROI on direct mail indicates that 50% of all responses will lead to a sale. You've sent your direct mail. A prospective customer calls you. Now what?

Out of the six companies, we only had ONE follow-up with a phone call. I even followed up with one company (where the owner met with me), and sent him an e-mail apologizing that my husband was out of town and we hadn't had time to talk and make a decision. He didn't respond back at all, even when I reached out first. Some may wonder what the big fuss is about following up if you provided a written quote. Following up does two things: 1) it makes your prospect feel valued 2) it shows that you are so confident enough in what you're selling or your capabilities that we need to choose you.

Now we're stuck. The only one who followed up was the only one we had ruled out entirely. We're having a hard time wanting to spend money with anyone who hasn't bothered or cared enough to follow up. The one guy that impressed me the most came out last Thursday. As it was before a long holiday weekend, he indicated it might be Monday before he would send me an estimate. A little longer than I wanted to wait, but I had a good vibe from him and liked his approach. Monday came and went....it's now Friday, and there's been no follow-up at all eight days later. This was the owner of the company, himself, so there's just no excuse for dropping the ball.

For the life of me, I don't understand how all these companies can afford to spend money on advertising (not to mention taking 3 hours between drive time and time spent assessing our problem) and not close the sale by following up. I'm also dumbfounded that the owner of the HVAC company we spent a lot of money with in the past has not reached out to me to follow up. It costs seven times more to attract a new customer, as opposed to keeping a current customer. The owner had spoken with me on the phone, but sent a very young technician out to pitch installing a dehumidifier in the current system, instead of in the crawl space. We were ready to pull the trigger using two of the contractors -- one to fix the French drain issue and the HVAC folks to install the dehumidifier and UV light.

The only thing I can think is that perhaps they've convinced themselves that it takes X number of sales calls to get a sale. Instead of just accepting that it takes that long, why not change the way you operate and make that conversion rate higher than the industry average? Business owners need to be thinking why a homeowner would go with Contractor A over Contractor B. It's not dumb luck, people. It's all in the follow-up, and this is the easiest fix in the world. You shouldn't spend thousands of dollars on marketing, if you're not willing to invest 20 seconds to send a quick e-mail to follow-up with your prospects.

Here I sit waiting to spend money and fix a problem, but not feeling valued as a customer. If you're reading this and can fix my crawl space issues, now would be a good time to call.

Make your customers pay for your direct mail!

I originally titled this article "How to calculate your customer's value against the ROI of your direct mail," and reading that made me want to stick a fork in my eye out of boredom. Businesses sometimes grumble about the cost of direct mail, feeling as if it's stealing away at profit margins. Hopefully, this blog will serve to turn that thinking around a bit and help you understand that your customers are the ones actually paying for your direct mail! If they aren't, then that's a problem that we'll need to talk about....

Owning Message in a Mailbox, a company focused on direct mail -- and more specifically, direct mail flyers and postcards, you'd expect me to pronounce that direct mail is critical for every business.

However, I'm not going to say that, because it would dilute my credibility. I am all about helping small businesses, and I will be the first person to tell a business when their money would be better spent in other areas. However, I will say that most businesses find direct mail both beneficial and essential when it comes to growing their customer base. So, how does one determine if direct mail is right for them?

Businesses need to have a good sense of their own numbers, before looking at any form of advertising. What is the lifetime value of a customer to your business? This is not how much a customer spends on a sale, but rather how much profit that customer brings to you. Not only is it the profit from their transactions over a lifetime, but it also includes the value you receive from them in terms of referral business and the increasingly important social engagement (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) If you are a realtor, you are looking at a commission of between $8,000-15,000 for an average Lake Norman home, and upwards of $30,000 on one sale if you're selling some of the exclusive lakefront properties. If you gain the trust of your clients and handle more than one real estate transaction for them during their lifetime, that customer could have quite a large value to you.

Let's say as a realtor, you want to send out 10,000 postcards per month all year long. That would be 120,000 pieces of direct mail in a year. For simplicity sake, we'll stick with flyer box delivery and calculate the total cost of your direct mail piece at .20 per household. This would come to $24,000 per year spent on direct mail (printing and delivery). Direct mail averages around a 2.5% response rate. Now, I'm not going to calculate the response rate based on the total number of pieces mailed. I'm going to assume you are repeating your mailing to the same 10,000 people each month (repetition is the key), and use the reach (number of households) and not the number of pieces mailed (each of the 10,000 homes will receive 12 postcards/year). If the target group that you're mailing to is 10,000, and we conservatively factor a 2% response rate, this would be 200 responses over the course of the year from this campaign. The conversion rate of a response to an actual sale is estimated at half the response rate. Now we have 100 sales that came from your mailing to the same group of 10,000 people each month over a given year. If your average commission is even $10,000, then you've spent just $24,000 and received over $1 million in new commissions. Keep in mind, that realtors need to subtract overhead and other expenses so that $1 million would not be pure profit, but they've more than covered the cost of that direct mail campaign several times over. This is why realtors dominate when it comes to direct mail -- they know it pays off big for them.

Let's walk through another example and take an owner of a heating and air company. They might have two groups of customers -- those who have only used them for routine or minor repairs, and those that have actually used them to replace a major unit in their home. Their goal is to maintain customers over a long span of time, so that the majority will require a large purchase at some point in time. Conservatively speaking, let's say their average customer has a value of just $1,000 to their business over a lifespan. This would be someone who uses them for maintenance and repairs for a span of 5-10 years or a customer who just had his AC and furnace replaced. Clearly, calculating the "value" of the average customer is a little trickier in this line of business. For this example, their target reach might be less. We'll look at mailing just 3,000 postcards a month for 12 months. This equates to 36,000 pieces of direct mail at a cost of less than $7,200 for the year. Using the 2% response rate on the 3,000 homes they've targeted each month, they will get new sales from half of the 60 that responded over the course of a year. If their average customer is worth $1,000 (in profit) to their business over a lifetime, they've spent $7,200 but received over $30,000 in profit.

You can see why direct mail continues to lead among preferred advertising channels for many types of businesses. The more "value" a customer brings to your business over a lifetime, the better rate of return you will see. Above I mentioned that direct mail is not for every type of business. It's hugely successful for businesses like realtors who can realize a $10,000 commission off of just one sale. It's also successful for businesses who have repeat and steady business from their customers over the course of a lifetime (financial planers, doctors, dentists, cleaning services, landscapers, hair salons, etc.) What kinds of businesses aren't served well with direct mail? Those where the sale is neither a one time big revenue generator (realtor, builder, home remodeler) or a steady stream of repeat business over a lifetime. Let's say I wrote a book and wanted people to buy it. I target 5,000 people each month and send out 60,000 pieces of direct mail at a cost of  $12,000 for the year. Out of those 5,000 people, 2% respond and 1% actually purchase my book. I've sold 50 books. I'd be lucky to receive a $5 profit on that book, so I've now paid $12,000 for $250 profit. Oops...not a great return on investment at all! For any businesses that might be selling a single product or a service that's under $500 and would only be purchased once in that customer's lifetime, I would not recommend direct mail marketing.

I hope these examples help as you analyze what kind of rate of return you can expect through direct mail. Stay tuned, as we'll soon be discussing "how much" and "how far" your direct mail efforts should be for your business goals.

Are you selling lipstick when you should be selling hope?

In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope." Peter Nivio Zarlenga

Once you understand this fundamental concept in marketing, it will help you to better position your product. So many times businesses focus too much on what they are selling, and not the benefit to the consumer. A lipstick manufacturer's marketing department might fall into the trap of wanting to promote other benefits of their particular brand -- how many colors they make, the innovative tube or packaging, the longevity of the lipstick stain, the glossy finish, or the moisturizing nutrients added to the product. While each of these are benefits, to focus on any of those without realizing that you're selling the promise of hope to women would be a miss.

How can this message translate into your own marketing? If you're a realtor, are you focused on the square footage, the lot size, or the fact that the home boasts a huge island and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, instead of what that means for a potential buyer's future lifestyle?

If you're a landscaper, are you more focused on the laundry list of services you provide (mowing, trimming, pruning, fertilizing, etc., rather than the emotional appeal your services provide to your customers in terms of having more time to relax and enjoy their outdoor spaces?

Think about the power emotion plays in your next advertisement or direct mail piece. Product benefits and statistics to back up your product add value, but they should be the supporting elements of a campaign and not the feature.

No, your phone won't start ringing after sending out one piece of direct mail

Marketing's (Somewhat Sacred) Rule of Seven

Probably the biggest challenge with taking on any new client is when they haven't done much marketing and they're ready to add marketing to the mix to grow their company. They're revved up, thinking that if they spend some money on marketing, their phones will be ringing off the hook in the next few weeks.

Marketing professionals walk a fine line, needing to be enthusiastic for our clients while still establishing realistic expectations. I remember when I took on a landscaper as a client. He wanted to start with an over-sized postcard mailer. He committed to doing one mailing to start with. As much as I tried to convince him that he needed more than one mailing, or that November wasn't the ideal month to expect people to call for landscape designs, it was what he wanted to do. One mailing...in November. Sigh.

I learned from that experience that the client isn't always right and that for the sake of my own reputation, I could no longer take on clients that were too timid to commit to more than one random mailing.

With any new clients, my first step is to educate them on Marketing's Rule of Seven. Most professionals have already heard of this rough adage, but maybe don't share it with clients. It's really important that clients understand "the process" and how marketing works, so that they aren't setting themselves up for disappointment.

What is the rule of seven? The rule of seven is simple. It takes (roughly) seven exposures before someone notices your message. The seven exposures don't need to be in the same format -- for the landscaper, this could include his fleet of trucks people see with their large logo, his work crews with his employees all wearing the same t-shirts with his distinct logo, flyers, newspaper ads or articles, facebook posts, tweets, etc. People need to exposure to something (roughly) seven times before it's on their radar.

Now, does that mean the phone will start ringing once a client hits the magic number of seven? No. There are still other factors that go into a person's decision-making. Most often, it's timing. Does the person need this particular thing or service at this time?

For the landscaper, he wanted his direct mail to focus on elaborate waterfall features they could design and install. Again, one mailing in the month of December. One direct mail impression was not enough. The timing was completely wrong. While I tried to suggest that people aren't looking to have their yards dug up and deal with contractors between Thanksgiving and Christmas (he was a single guy who didn't grasp that people had too much on their plates this time of year to be thinking about designing water features), this was the time he wanted to do it. Timing wise, sending a mailing towards the end of winter when people are thinking ahead to spring would have been more effective.

Realtors are another group that depend on marketing to further their businesses. Realtors were easier customers in that they seemed to understand that not everyone who received a postcard mailer would be calling them. They know that not everyone is in the market to buy or sell a house. From personal experience, I probably received thousands of flyers and postcards from realtors in my mailbox for the six years I lived in my home. Many realtors didn't just send me seven direct mail pieces and call it a day; they sent me pieces at least once a month year after year. When the timing was right and I was looking to sell, I immediately had an impression of 3-4 realtors that I felt were the most established and professional in our area. Why? I was exposed to their constant stream of direct mail over several years, and it had gradually resonated with me. These were the realtors I called in for listing presentations when we were ready to sell.

The rule of seven combined with repetition and persistence will pay off in the long run. Clients need to know that their customers may not be ready for their services today, tomorrow or even a year from now. However, when they are ready, who will they call? They will call the companies that come to mind through all those repeated exposures to marketing messages.

Encourage your clients to stop thinking about whether or not the phone is ringing next week and have them focus on a long-term plan to increase consumer awareness and build a solid reputation over time. And, do not be surprised if you need to tell them this at least seven times before it starts to resonate! ;-)

Why my mother's absence from Facebook should concern you

Let's backtrack and talk demographics for a moment. Let's take a look at Ar...Jenny. She

• is college educated and has a master's degree
• is upper-class
• actively volunteers in the community, including mission trips to Africa where she helps children infected with HIV
• travels to exotic destinations like New Zealand (where she enjoys hiking up to 17 miles a day) or Costa Rica (where she enjoys zip-lining in the jungle)
• drives a Prius
• owns an iPhone
• reads books on her iPad (and is completely addicted to online Scrabble)
• shops online

You're probably thinking that Jenny must be your typical social media savvy consumer. She is the ideal person you want to reach through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social media outlets. If you were thinking this, you'd be wrong. Jenny is my mother, and she will never use Facebook.

My mother's name isn't Jenny, but all the rest is true. My mother is 72, bright, and incredibly active -- she's even with-it when it comes to some technological advances in this century.

"Jenny" won't be found on Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites. While she enjoys and uses some Internet-based technologies, she doesn't like appreciate social interaction online. She prefers her communication face-to-face and is too busy with all she has going on to spend much time sitting behind a computer. While demographics are helpful, they can also be misleading when you've used them to make assumptions about your customers like my mother.

There's also another interesting thing about "Jenny." She reads newspapers. She tears out coupons and sets aside any additional offers she finds in the mail. Whenever I visit, she's frantically rummaging around on the counter asking me if I need the latest coupon to Kohl's, Stein Mart or Bed, Bath and Beyond.

It's been tempting for companies to replace traditional advertising and marketing with forms of social media, as they are much more cost-effective. Social media will reach additional people and reach your customers in new and engaging ways. More exposure never hurts. However, if your boss or your client is suggesting that social media is the new marketing going forward, please tell them about "Jenny." Those of us who use social media channels on a daily basis often make the mistake of presuming everyone else shares our same habits.

My mother will never be reached via Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, but feel free to reach out to her five (broke) teenage and young adult grandkids through social media. If you want to reach "Jenny," a demographically perfect consumer with her comfortable retirement nest egg at her disposal, you're still going to have to use traditional marketing and advertising in print.

5 PR skills we can learn from Sainsbury's tiger bread

What can we learn from Sainsbury'sand their letter from a  3½-year-old suggesting the U.K. market rename their tiger bread to giraffe bread? A lot. We see how customer service is an integral part of public relations. Many times, the stand-out stories involve poor customer service. Sainsbury's illustrates just the opposite.

In this letter, 3½-year-old Lily writes to "Sainssssssssbbbbbbbbbburyyyys," asking why their tiger bread isn't called giraffe bread instead. Most customer service representatives would have smiled and tossed the letter aside. Sainsbury's customer service rep not only responded, but (unwittingly) created a shining example of public relations that would later get the store unprecedented media attention when the letters went viral after Lily's mother posted them on her blog.

What makes this such a great letter?

1) Taking the time to respond.
The representative, Chris King, took the time to respond, without caring "who" the original letter came from. Lily wasn't a shareholder or a major customer. Lily was a 3½-year-old girl.

2) Listening to your customer.
Mr, King listened to Lily's idea and agreed with her. "I think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant idea."

3) Providing a meaningful answer.
Mr. King took time to research and explain an answer, as to why the bread was called tiger bread.

4) Speaking in the language of your customer.
Mr. King had an amazing understanding of his audience, as he wrote the phrase, "loooong time ago," and later stated his age in his signature just like Lily had, "age 27 & ⅓." His response wasn't an adult talking to a child. Mr. King met Lily where she was, and answered at her level.

5) Giving your customer something.
Mr. King included a modest gift card so that Lily could return to the store and buy some tiger bread on her next visit. Often, it's the gesture that counts. A gift doesn't need to be much. A simple gift of a $5 voucher or a 10% discount goes a long way in telling the customer you value their continued business.

Chris King was likely doing what came naturally to him (as the company reported that he's since left to continue studies to enter the teaching profession). For other pr professionals, this kind of finesse may not come as naturally, but the above techniques certainly can be followed and mastered.

Sainsbury's received so much attention once these letters went viral, that they decided to actually change the name of their bread per Lily's suggestion. Sometimes the best public relations examples arise from things that haven't been plotted out by a pr flack at a conference table. Sometimes it takes someone like Lily, Chris King and a loaf of tiger bread to remind us what public relations is all about.

What's the coolest, trendiest thing in communications?

This question was recently posed on a LinkedIn group. A member was asked this question on a job interview and wanted to know how others would answer.

Some answers from the group included: Pinterest as a marketing tool, content marketing, brand journalism, interactive communications (all valid trends). I recently read a blog suggesting all communications professionals go on a "press release diet" for six months or more, arguing that press release content could easily and effectively be distributed via twitter, blogging, YouTube videos and LinkedIn. The writer suggested we've come so far with all this cutting-edge technology that the press release was now out-dated and no longer an efficient communications tool.

He got slammed (in a polite way). Several communicators jumped in and argued that the press release was still an essential tool. Think smaller town communities and newspapers (many of which are not online). Communicators need to be targeting the least common denominator in their audience, instead of using the "trendiest" communication tools at the expense of missing most of their audience.

Mistake number one among some communications professionals is that everyone out is using the social media with the same ease and frequency. If you're gulping down your morning coffee while hovering over HootSuite to coordinate how you will push content out to your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, you are still in the minority. You are also at risk for being out of touch with your audience, who may not be using any of these forms of social media.

Admittedly, there are some industries where marketing and communications are all about social media. I'd imagine that companies like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and HootSuite practice a much different kind of communications since their target market is the social media junkie. Marketing skateboards to twenty-year-olds or used textbooks to college students could similarly benefit from an online and social media communications strategy.

For most communications professionals, it's not so black and white. While advances in social media have opened up some "cool" and different communications channels, it's important to not lose sight of who your audience is and what they are using. To paraphrase one comment, "I can write the most brilliant and engaging 140-character Tweet, but if my audience isn't on Twitter, they don't see the message." This doesn't mean we should be ignoring social media by any means. Social media can and should be used in conjunction with traditional communications tools. Each company's audience is unique and needs to be assessed as such. Every communicator should know what social tools are available -- knowing how to use them is equally as important as assessing whether to use them.

Right now, so many executives and companies are hearing social media buzz words and rushing to hire social media mangers that will take their companies to this new Promised Land. An executive hears something like "Pinning with a purpose," and starts to freak-out because their company doesn't have a presence on Pinterest (and he's not even sure what Pinterest is). Before you know it, a newly hired social media manager is tasked to Tweet and Pin content about motor oil (maybe not to the extreme, but you get the point).

For ordinary communicators promoting ordinary products and services, the "coolest" thing they can bring to the table should always be crafting the message and knowing their audience. That is far cooler than the ability to orchestrate content pushes on your social media dashboard in a single click, even if you're someday able to do it hands-free on a smartphone.

This is how I'll answer the question if I'm ever asked on a job interview.