Know What Works Blog

Have you ever thought about who your Perfect Customer is?  Have you actually written out the characteristics of your perfect customer?  I was talking to an employee of The Limited, which is a women’s fashion retail store that has many locations, usually in malls.  The employee that I was talking to worked in the Lancaster, PA  store.  She was telling me that The Limited talks about their ideal customer, and she went on to describe their ideal shopper for their stores.  What I found interesting was that one of the characteristics is that this ideal customer is from New York City.  If you’ve ever been to Lancaster, PA, you will quickly realize that it is nothing like New York City, so why wouldn’t the perfect customer for the Lancaster store be from hmmm, tough one here, uhhhh Lancaster????

So while having a Perfect Customer description clarifies, and also attracts, your perfect customer, make sure that it makes sense for each location.  And, make absolute certain that everyone on your team knows what The Perfect Customer looks like, acts like, spends like and is like. 

And, share the Perfect Customer description with your network.  Then, they will also know who to refer to you.

After leaving a brief stint at a regionally recognized ad agency, I realized that you can’t understand what happens within the client’s company while simply designing and placing ads, no matter how many meetings and conversations you have.  There is too much to be learned by being a part of the company’s culture, even if only for a short time.  For the past eight years, I have worked within the offices of a client company at least one day a week and here are the top ten things that I have learned:

10.  Very few co-workers understand marketing and its purpose.  They also don’t always realize that they are part of the marketing endeavors of the company. 

9.  Very few co-workers understand the costs associated with marketing, and why it is important to collect information to determine if it works or doesn’t.

8.  The customer touch points are all marketing vehicles

7.  The company culture needs to be aligned with the brand or brands to facilitate marketing communication.

6.  All operational functions can be helped with general marketing principles.  An example,  individual meetings can be branded, communicated, and the effectiveness evaluated. 

5.  Marketing endeavors need to be communicated to all front line personnel.

4. All managers need to understand the customer, not just the marketing department. 

3.  All managers need to understand marketing principles.  The company needs to be support the brand internally as well as externally.

2.  Everyone’s ideas are important when it comes to marketing, and the not-so-reasonable contributors need to be let down gently so that they don’t stop coming up with ideas.

1.  The number one thing that I’ve learned, is that the owner’s vision, personality, and character can aid the marketing momentum just as much as it can hinder it.

RED equals power.  When used together, the objectives: Reputation, Excite, and Drive equal major marketing power.  Think about every marketing effort that you spend time or money on.  These could range from creating business cards, to multi-million dollar television campaigns.  They could be writing thank you notes, or making a follow up call.  Let’s explore these four marketing efforts that I just mentioned to explain how powerful RED can be. 

Reputation - the objective to build and enhance the sender’s reputation

Excite - Provide an incentive, either direct or implied for a receiver to act.

Drive - Provide the means for the recipient to contact the sender, or to take action.

Assume that our objective is have more people contact us. 

Business Cards are primarily used to provide contact information, which enables the recipient to call or email the name on the card.  So this means that the business card is driving the result.  If the card is an extension of the company’s branding, it will communicate the company’s reputation.  Most business cards don’t excite the recipient, unless there is a compelling reason for the recipient to act quicker with a phone call or contact. 

A television campaign can provide all three, but some don’t always provide the Drive.  Meaning, they don’t always provide the means for the viewer to act.  The design and the content work together to communicate the reputation of the advertiser whether it is intentional or not.  Most television campaigns want to Excite their audience about their brand.  

Writing thank you notes is a great way to build a reputation that is thoughtful, caring, and appreciative.  Thank you notes aren’t usually meant to excite a prospect although they can remind the recipient to call or contact the sender, so they can certainly drive the recipient to act.

Making a follow up call is another great way to build a reputation that is thoughtful, as well as organized, and thorough.  These can be used to excite a prospect, and are primarily used to drive the recipient to act.

It is important to know which objectives are attached to which marketing efforts so you know how to track each one.  Hint:  they aren’t all tracked the same way.

Next post:  Tracking the Drive Marketing.

Learn to know what works.  Ask questions, get answers.  This blog will be updated weekly.  ~Jill Reed