Marketing to all 5 steps of the buying process

Some folks ask how fast their marketing will turn into sales & ultimately, revenue. I reply by asking three questions:

What is your time to sale?

What is your level of awareness within your targeted segments?

How many happy customers/clients have you created over time?
Usually, I get puzzled looks as a reaction. A question that they percieved to be simple, was just uncovered as more complicated than they thought.

There is a principle that's taught in business school - one satisfied customer can yield up to 10 more customers in less time than you could build them one by one, all by yourself. Let's explore the "Why":

There are 5 stages to building a satisfied customer. They range from some one having no-awareness of your business to having a full blown evangelist that sings your praises from the roof tops. If Branding is done correctly, you'll only have to go through the initial stages of marketing once or twice to build the initial base of satisfied customers.

This is a foundational principal behind Straight Line Marketing. It helps ensure that you have the strategies necessary to take a potential customer through each stage of the customer satisfaction/buying process.

#1 Awareness:
People MUST be aware of your product/service category, your business and its capability. They buy from you if they don't know you exist. It takes seeing something 7 times seeing or hearing something before the majority of humans will remember it. You must put your company out there it ways that the public will see or hear of you often and repetitively. That's not an opinion, it's science. However, if you accomplish this, many potential targets may still be largely indifferent as they may not see a need for your product or service.

#2 Interest:
Something happens in a potential customer's life or business for them to move from the awareness phase to the interest phase. You must have raised their interest proactively. To raise their interest, you have to push their buttons... to do that efficiently, you must know them. To recap - a potential customers cannot get to the interest phase if you haven't raised awareness of your brand and/or offering and when doing that, you have to raise their interest by targeting your message to their lifestyle, preferences, needs, etc. This is the point of a process where we would qualify a target as a warm lead and nurture them carefully to build their interest into hungry desire.

#3 Desire:
This is the hottest and most volatile point of the marketing and sales process - if you can take a customer through this journey and then identify when they have clearly made it into the "desire" phase of the sales process, then all you have to do is close the deal. But be warned, at this point you have done all of the hard work to build a client's awareness and interest in your product or service BUT if your product or service is not desireable enough (or your competiton is more convincing at this point) then you will lose the sale to someone else and all your effort will be wasted. You must be able to deliver on what you've promised in the first two stages.

#4 Action:
This is the point of the sales process where a customer parts with their money. At this point the decision has already made. Here's a good example of this stage in action: you've heard how men don't "window shop" - - well, when men, traditionally, go into a store, they already know what they are going to buy and how much they are willing to pay for it. If you have built awareness of your top-notch product or service and managed to hold on throughout the process constantly nurturing your lead with care, I would hope that you would be closing your sale here. The trick here is to make this stage of the process as easy as possible. You already have them, don't lose them.

#5 SATISFACTION:
Now this part is most important, once you've gotten a customer through to this point, from a marketing stand point. The reason businesses strive for satisfied customers and not just paying customers is that a satisfied customer is more likely to take the initial step of raising awareness out of your equation for the next round of customers. A satisfied customer will sits around with their connections and makes a recommendation to their peer at a time when their peer is interested and has a need thereby cutting the time investment of the first three stages down substantially. Meaning that they can multiple customers quicker than the natural cycle starting with stage #1.

The sales cycle is intrinsic to every business. You won't invest in marketing and be rewarded overnight, but if you understand the process you are investing in, it can be a much more rewarding journey, as you wont be tempted to give up half way there. Know that it takes time because you are having to lead potential customers on this journey. But if you are proactive and use a proven process like Straight Line Marketing, you can be assured that it will be the quickest that it can be, the most efficient, and the most effective because you are investing in doing it the right way.... scientifically.

Let Reformation Productions help you through the marketing process as a local business. Call Rachel Bennett, Director of New Business, at 404.862.8814.

Co-branding bliss

Would you like your product or service to have a stronger market impact? Do you want to reach new customers or reduce the risk of failure for a new product introduction? Co-branding strategies can help you achieve these goals and more.

"Co-branding" is a marketing term that describes the cooperation between two distinct brands to leverage the assets of both brands.In a co-branding strategy, brands work together to create a market presence that neither brand alone could readily achieve.

Barnes and Noble engaged in a co-branding strategy when it began including Starbucks coffee shops inside its bookstores.The company could have developed a proprietary Barnes and Noble brand cafe, serving Barnes and Noble brand latte and Barnes and Noble brand scones. It's certainly a large and powerful enough company to have done so. But the Barnes and Noble brand means books, not coffee and food. A Barnes and Noble-branded cafe would mean little to consumers. The Starbucks brand, on the other hand, stands for certain qualities that hungry or thirsty bookstore patrons find appealing and familiar.

Barnes and Noble and Starbucks are in no way competitors. The association of the brands therefore harms neither, and both have new customers and have extended their relationships with consumers. Starbucks increases its distribution, and Barnes and Noble keeps customers in the store longer. Co-branding benefits both partners in this marketing marriage.

Co-branding can offer a higher return on marketing investment than other strategies such as brand extension. If you'd like your business to offer a product in a new category, for instance, you could spend years building up that product's brand attributes in the marketplace. Adopt a co-brand, however, and you can reduce the time and marketing dollars needed to develop and nurture a completely new product line for your business.

Let's say I've owned an office supply company for 15 years. Over that time, "Edd's Office Supplies" has come to occupy a particular niche, with a brand that appeals to downtown legal firms. One day, I realize that adding a courier service to my business might expand its market presence and extend its relationship with existing legal firm customers.

But "Edd's" means notepads, pens and ink, not couriers. "Edd's Courier Service" would be an unknown for my targeted audience, and it would take a long time and much advertising for the new service to establish its own brand identity. If I reach an agreement with an established courier company that already caters to the same downtown legal firm audience I'm seeking to expand, I've got a built-in name recognition factor to work with. "Edd's Office Supplies Featuring XYZ Legal Couriers" becomes a smart way for two strong, noncompeting brands to expand their businesses - another marketing marriage made in heaven.

Clearly, co-branding can be a shrewd strategy to increase customer access points and distribution, as well as provide additional sales opportunities. If you decide to pursue this strategy, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Recognize that the co-branding effort must be mutually beneficial to both brands. You want to be certain the association will strengthen customer relationships with both brands and not dilute the brand of either party.

Find a brand that complements your own brand. For instance, "Edd's Office Supplies," which concentrates on the downtown legal firm market segment, shouldn't co-brand with a courier firm specializing in transporting medical records. It wouldn't be appropriate for Barnes and Noble to co-brand with McDonald's, since the bookstore's brand does not communicate the same speed-of-service attributes as the fast-food chain. Instead, it found a brand that complements its book-buying environment.

Think of co-branding as a long-term strategy. Co-branding isn't meant to be a quick fix and should not be confused with promotion. A promotion, such as a limited-time offer of a free Coca-Cola with every hot dog purchase at your diner, is meant to bring in a few extra customers for a short period of time. Co-branding works over the long haul, building your brand and business in a more permanent way.

Anticipate investing time to work effectively with another company. Your firm's culture differs in many ways from that of your co-branding partner, and it's sure to have a different organizational structure and procedures. Both parties need to be flexible and understand these differences for co-branding to go smoothly.

Co-branding is similar to a marriage because it's a union of compatible companies working for a common goal. And like a marriage, both partners gain something by working together that they never could gain separately.-Edd Johns

Contact Reformation Productions to build a proactive strategy that's right for you. Should you consider co-branding? Who would you co-brand with? Give us a call.

Developing a Small Business Marketing Budget

Many small business owners feel like they're running their business on a shoestring budget, and of course, that wasn't the intention when they set out to follow their passion in their own business. Just like many young families have to pull back the reigns on spending and follow a budget, the smart business owner must develop a plan and then stick to the plan in order to become profitable. The Small Business Administration offers some help with budgeting in all areas of business expenses but determining the ideal marketing budget doesn't seem quite as straight forward as other expense areas such as rent or salaries.

You will find many different formulas for the ideal amount to spend on marketing including a percentage of sales, a flat dollar amount, or matching the competition — and of course the ideal amount will depend on your industry, the age of your business and how competitive your marketplace is. But one thing is for sure, everyone know that you have to market yourself in order to stay in business. To be proactive and not reactive, to maintain control of your business and not let your business control you, to be strategic, effective, and smart - you must set a budget for this instead of trying to wing it.

One approach is to determine the value of new clients and how much you're willing to spend in order to acquire those clients:



For example, a physician wants to add a new service to his practice for which he will charge $1,000 (it’s a cash procedure – no insurance.)

This is a one time procedure and we’re ignoring the upsell potential as well as the fact that the patient will likely return over the next few years for other types of procedures. This physician is really good and expects to get lots of referrals from his patients but we’ll assume only one referral for every two patients (0.5). His practice overhead is roughly 50% so his profit is 50%. He wants to perform this procedure three times per week over the next twelve months which means 150 new patients (he’ll take two weeks off for vacation). He only wants to pay for acquiring ONE new patient out of every three (0.33).

This physician can easily see that spending less than $3,500/month to advertise and market this new procedure will net a profit of, at the very least, over $75,000 per year, and he knows that it will be even more when those new patients remain his patients and come back for more procedures. In other words, for every $1 he spends on marketing, he’ll make at least $3.



Now with your number in hand, it is especially important to focus those limited dollars on the most cost effective methods of reaching your prospects — and even more important to track the ROI of those efforts. -D. Hibbs

Reformation Productions specializes in helping local business determine the most cost efficient and yet effective ways to market themselves. It's a process we call Straight Line Marketing. Contact us today to find out more by calling 404.862.8814 and asking for Rachel Bennett, our director of new business.

What is the responsibility of Branding - - really?

Recently a colleague was approached by the professor of a top journalism and advertising program with a question about branding. He wanted his opinion on whether or not branding should be a major point of emphasis in the program. "Don’t get me wrong," he said "it’s been a staple in the curriculum for a while", but they were looking at the idea of making it a part of the degree emphasis for graduation.

Well, here‘s the short answer – heck yes.

Here’s a more thought out answer -
Now, we know that Advertising is without a doubt the one element in Marketing that receives the most attention and the most dollars. It has the responsibility of taking all the other elements in the marketing mix and crafting a persuasive message in a creative fashion that will sum it all up and communicate it to your consumer target. Branding is way more than a function of advertising. It should be a function of business. Because it permeates all elements of sales, operations, marketing, etc..

Let’s look at the traditional 4P’s of marketing and see how they can affect branding:

Product – We all know product is king. It dictates your brand offering. But the way you shape the touch, taste, sound, smell, name or experience of your product is all branding. Calling your Kentucky-based fried chicken company Kentucky Fried Chicken is branding. Changing it to KFC to lessen the negative affects of health conscious consumers is also branding. So is the really cool buckets they come in.

Price – More than just a unit of revenue, your price tells customers whether you are a premium brand, great reward or an inexpensive value brand. You can buy a .99 cup of coffee or a $4 cup. Again, that's part of branding. Depending on your consumer target, free may be a great word to use in promotions or it may be the kiss of death to your brand.

Place (distribution) – The way you deliver your sales experience is also about your brand. The fact that a fast-food restaurant can be found everywhere is branding. Your website’s appearance is branding (the role of websites today are no longer interactive brochures – they are a company’s 24 hour visitor center). If it were not, we’d all have plain type on white backgrounds for our websites. The decor of your store front and the atmosphere of your restaurant are all branding

Promotion – Okay, this is what people really think of when they think of marketing. It includes advertising, direct marketing, online media, events – heck anything that allows you to proactively tell other people about your product/service. The way you say it, the how you communicate, is again branding. A cardboard sign with a handwritten message that says “Fresh Corn” is branding. So is the same message typed out on a digital billboard or neon sign. Which one would you buy from?

Not only should the college advertising program be teaching branding as a major emphasis in marketing, but it should also make its way into other areas of study like public relations, fashion design, interior design, hospitality management and restaurant management. Yeah, it's that important.

Contact Reformation Productions to discuss your company's brand and how it permeates your business. Are all the parts working together for good or do some of the various elements in your business seem to fight against each other? Is your business a unified army of you? Does there seem to be one mission or several? Are you unsure about what you are saying as a company? Do you know how what you are saying is being perceived by others?

www.ReformationProductions.com

V-log #1 - Norcross Hair Show

Here is our first Video Blog. Periodically, we will highlight one of the local businesses we are working with through a V-log and feature it on ReformationProductions.com. Previous V-logs are archived on our facebook page and here, on our blog page.



Talk with us, Reformation Productions, about video production for tv commercials, dvds, presentation, new hire orientation, web design, viral applications, social media use, etc.
www.ReformationProductions.com

The advantages of adding video to your website

Video has always been an effective way for businesses to communicate, and the Internet allows businesses to present videos to anyone who visits their website. When they are added to a website, it becomes much easier to communicate one's message. Videos can also significantly improve search engine results, which will draw more visitors to a site. In addition, videos are great tools for effective internet marketing.

Website videos play a major role in many successful marketing strategies. They are an excellent sales tool because they can create a more personal, interactive experience between the website and the audience. If you sell products or services from a website, then adding videos can have a positive impact on your conversion rate. Businesses can use videos on their websites to help create a consistent theme for presenting products and services.

Videos can effectively communicate relevant information to the visitors of a website. Website videos help engage the audience, and they keep visitors on the website longer. With videos, an audience can experience high quality moving images and sound that they can quickly understand. Not just one but TWO fo the five senses. Websites can appear more visually appealing and more professional when they have videos. When the footage catches the attention of a visitor to a website, they are more likely to further explore the site.

Getting a first page search engine result for your website is no easy task. A website's search engine ranking is typically based on a number of factors, such as the age of the site, the number of pages, and the number of links to the site. These factors do not impact video Search Engine Optimization, however. Videos can allow any business to compete on a more equal playing field with its competition, regardless of how new or small its website is. YouTube is owned by Google. Video search results show up like display ads in search results.

Adding videos to a website can help improve search engine rankings, especially if they are tagged with strong keyword-rich descriptions. Video Search Engine Optimization utilizes techniques to make sure that search engines locate video content, successfully index it, and display the video content when particular keywords are entered as search terms. Since search engines typically cannot see actual video content, it is important to have a video title that will correspond with search keywords.

Videos can easily capture and keep the attention of the visitors viewing a website. Whether your goal is to increase sales, improve communication, optimize search engine results, or accomplish all of these, adding videos to your website is an effective way to achieve these goals.
Roger Stix

Talk with us, Reformation Productions, about video production for tv commercials, dvds, presentation, new hire orientation, web design, viral applications, social media use, etc.
www.ReformationProductions.com