My Passion for Marketing

I have never done a full blown marketing plan before so I was thrown right into the fire. With guidance from my boss(now my former boss, he has transitioned to a new role), I embarked on my marketing plan writing crusade. It started back in July and finished up this past week with my 3rd version being sent to my new boss.

I have learned a lot in these last 4 months. Marketing plans should not be robotic. It should not say do Tactic A to achieve B. It needs to grab the reader by the ears just like any good story or novel. The result is not having them buy your next book but buy into your "plan".

Your "plan" should be a story. It needs to engage the reader. If it doesn't, your colleagues will move on to the next thing. It must illustrate what you have done and with what. I told the story of building a YouTube channel and Flickr photostream on a shoe string budget. It shows I took initiative and achieved some goals. The goals in this case, was to gain more web exposure and better our SEO on Google and Yahoo. This tactic has achieved both and it only cost about $200. Mission accomplished.

It is all about telling your experiences and achievements from the past year. The reader needs to get in your shoes and see what challenges you faced. If your reader can say that you did all you could with what you had, you performed your job to the best of your ability. You didn't bellyache because your budget was small, you made due with what you had.

Seeing this all on paper in the form of a "work diary", your reader will be excited and enticed to see what you have in store for the next year. Its not all about plans, its about experiences and achievements. Its your body of work that speaks volumes!

Nothing like being a marketing manager of a company that lets you bring in your own ideas. It doesn't hurt that your boss is from the new school of thought and actually promotes your growth!

One of the many tactics I began to employ was email marketing. At the beginning of my tenure, my company just used email blasts through outlook by entering contacts in the BCC field. Ok, this tactic is saying to your customers, "We aren't serious about winning your business!"

I would never buy from a company if they can't invest money in a domain name or an effective email marketing system. You smell like Spam unless your emails look professional and actually target your customer's needs. The folks on the other side of that computer screen will give your email as much chance as a snowball in a volcano unless it piques their interest!

It's all about messaging and appearance! Your email subject line must be targeted and interesting. The reader must feel compelled to take 3 seconds out of their busy day to open the email. Once they open the email you only have a few more seconds to grab their attention or POOF! They are like a David Ortiz home run, long gone and hard to find!

My friend Anthony turned me on to an email service called Constant Contact a few years ago. I tried to use it at my previous job but the old boys club who only believed in old school marketing, derailed my efforts. However, my current job embraces the initiative.

This service is superb. It is extremely user friendly and ANYONE who is computer literate can use it. You can compose emails with the various templates offered. Want to drop in a picture? Click! Click! Done! Change a color? Click! Done! It doesn't get easier than this.

Importing contacts is just a matter of cutting and pasting. You can have various contact lists for different marketing campaigns. This service also allows you to scrub bad addresses after each email blast. One of the biggest downfalls in email marketing is all the "dead wood" that rots in your database. Constant Contact does all the dirty work for you!

The most important and valuable component of this service is the reporting. You can see who opens your email and when. It will also report on the number of clicks for each link embedded in your email.

People it's all about return on investment. In marketing it's all about the mighty dollar and if you have the stats to back up your ideas, you will live to see another day. Constant Contact helps you validate all your email marketing efforts.

I use this service to send out invites for tradeshows, internal emails to our employees, and of course targeted marketing campaigns. If you are a small company or a large company with a small budget, a service like Constant Contact is a must. Give it a whirl! You will be hooked!

http://www.site.thegooknows.com/EMAIL_MARKETING_WITH_EASE.html

Being in marketing and customer service a majority of my career, there is one rule I live by, make people feel WARM and FUZZY! There are too many people in business that just do enough to get by. They seldom put in extra time at their job or do those special things that make their customers feel all WARM and FUZZY!

The Rule of Warm and Fuzzy is going that EXTRA MILE for your client who in turn makes them feel one or a combo of the following ways:

1. Wow that company....really values by business.
2. Wow that company....considers me a person and even a friend not just a dollar sign.
3. Wow that company....will be the first place I contact for similar products.
4. Wow that company....will be the first I refer my friends or family to.
5. Wow that company...sent me a "You're welcome" gift.

I have been on both sides of the Warm and Fuzzy Fence. I had 2 experiences in the last 2 weeks being on the customer side of the warm and fuzzy great divide. One good and one not so much.

Ok first the good...I traveled up to Vermont this past weekend for getaway. We stayed at a hotel that starts with an "S". I have received a multitude of points for my event planning over this past year. It safe to say I get treated pretty well. The hotel with an "S" knows that if I get treated well, I will continue to book corporate events and even stay at their hotel for personal trips.

There is a special lounge for points users that seems only to be open during the week for business travelers. Okay what happens when you actually want to use your points for personal use? I guess no special lounge for me, but wait! I called to the front desk and asked if the lounge has breakfast on the weekends after a pleasant explanation, the rep offered me free breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Not for one day but for BOTH! We are talking top shelf breakfast, no muffins and juice. My girlfriend and I had about $60 in meals for zip! Zero! Nada! The WARM and FUZZY arrow hit me dead center in the consumer bull's eye. Mad props to the hotel that starts with an "S"!

The bad and ugly...as you may have read in the preceding module, I was in charge of planning a user's conference in Sin city, Las Vegas. We chose the hotel that starts with "M". My colleagues wanted to stay on the strip and had good experiences at the "M" in the past.

In planning the event and interacting with the hotel events rep, I wasn't feeling the W and F right off the bat! The rep wasn't being too flexible in regards to my budget. Every time I wanted to cut back, the rep would say that the food wouldn't feed my attendees. I had to cave....what other choices did I have!? Sometimes you feel like a hostage to a hotel's catering and a/v options. Outrageous prices and average service is usually the guarantee.

Okay so after choosing the breakfast, lunch, and a/v set-up, it was off to Vegas. I met with the rep upon my arrival and went over logistics. She also took me to the pool lounge where we were having a client welcome reception. She then left me by saying "Gotta go I am on vacation today!" Okay I appreciate you coming in on a day off but don't make it out that you were doing me a favor. Your effort to make me W and F was quickly doused with that closing comment.

Okay our welcome reception went great and the staff was super friendly. The folks at WR went above and beyond and successfully achieved full blown W and F! They helped me execute a flawless and successful event. WR employees, M and J, both gave me and my client free passes all week. They even gave us cabanas for 1/5th of the cost. Result=I will be booking a few events at WR for sure in 2009!

Can the event rep, from the hotel that begins with an "M", follow suit? We will soon see....

Request for copies, A/V tweaks, and flexibility on room rates went on deaf ears. I was even phoned about beer being brought down to our meeting rooms. The way I look at...if the beer was bought at their casino what should they care? Its more profit for them right? To say the least those WARM and FUZZY slippers were nowhere to be found. It was like I was wearing cleats on a concrete floor.

My co-worker happened to know a big gun at the hotel that begins with "M". He asked me how my experience was and I said, "Rep X wasn't doing a horrible job but I wasn't feeling all warm and fuzzy." Within seconds he was on the phone and things began to happen. I returned to my conference room and an A/V technician was there with tape in hand (I already taped the wiring down myself). I received a call from Rep X to make things right even though she preceded to tell me what she already did for my company. Okay here is my angle on this, if you get called out for not going above and beyond, apologize don't try to paint yourself out as Mother Teresa.

Granted, Rep X did pick up the pace and the hotel with a "M" did adjust our lodging rates, sent me a food basket, and delivered a thank you bottle of liquor to my room. These things brought me back from the Dark Side for sure. I finally had those warm and fuzzy slippers on kicked up on my favorite stool. Result=I will be booking events there in 2009.

Another way to make a client feel all W and F is my little of saying thank you....AGAIN! I call it the "Youre Welcome" Gift. I feel if a customer went out of their way to thank you. They deserve a youre welcome.

After my last users conference in Vegas(see preceding module), clients emailed me and even sent hand written notes to thank me and my colleagues. Thanking us? We should be thanking you! You are the life blood of our company. Without you and your teams spending your budgets with us, we would be out of business. I decided to send some youre welcome W and F gear out to them. If you spent the time to thank us, I need let you know you are always perceived as a valued customer, partner, and friend.

The rule of WARM and FUZZY is pretty easy to pull off. Just envision how you would feel if the company you dealt with, sent you those warm and fuzzy slippers to kick back in!

Ok. You are in Vegas and you have 45 clients coming for a user's conference. What do you need to do?

1. Be organized. Make sure all your ducks are in a row. Have a binder handy with all the important information such as hotel reservations, catering contracts, shipping info, etc. oh yeah make sure you have contact info for ever person touching your conference. Hotel staff, co-workers, event personnel, or even the bus driver, you have no room for error!

2. Plan your days step by step. I call it a run of show. It's my daily task list. Did I confirm the bus for the dinner Monday night? Check. Did I book a room for one of my clients who registered last night? Check. Did my brochures arrive? Check. Follow your list and adjust on the fly if necessary.

3. Once you double and triple checked everything, its implementation and execution time. Has your demo equipment arrived? Is your LCD projector functioning? Are your speakers and their presentations ready to roll? If so, its showtime!

4. After the daily meetings have adjourned, make sure your attendees are reminded of all planned social activities. I recommend an email prior to the conference and daily reminders at the conclusion of the meeting are always helpful. Make sure you communicate all the who, what, and where's. Too much info is never bad especially after a long day of mental acrobats.

5. At these social events, gather intel. See if your clients are having fun or rather be doing their laundry. I try to read facial expressions and their interaction with other attendees and staff. You need to mingle people! You will never know what it's like in the trenches unless you get a little muddy!

6. Your attendees/customers/clients or whatever definition you have for the folks that make your business successful, they must feel that you and your staff are on their level. They need to feel comfortable chatting with you or sharing a drink. My strategy is that I am here for them. I want to make them happy and feel they are amongst friends. EVERY client is important to me whether they are VIP's or have only spent $1000 with my company. It's all about relationships! Business relationships expire after time, but friendships endure!

7. Thank you! Thank you! Tell your attendees this at the conference and after the week has concluded. A simple email thanking them makes the client feel warm and fuzzy all over again. Wow this company really cares about me! There is no room for the out of sight, out of mind mentality in business. Customers must feel important at all times, as they should. Good customer service skills are paramount even at a user's conference!

8. Getting praise from your external and internal customers makes the long days and nights worth it all! Nothing like executing a successful event! You get that instant gratification and you can look back and say "I hit the ball out of the park!" When someone takes time to thank me, I can take time to go one step even higher. I usually send them a cool premium as a "you're welcome" gift. Go above and beyond!

9. In closing, always think about next year. Take notes on what worked and what didn't. We all want to get better right? Keep plugging and polishing those skills! Time for batting practice so you can hit that ball out of the park again!