TODAY MARKETING is closer to the edge than ever before. Survival means building one-on-one relationships with customers without face-to-face meetings, more results with fewer dollars and rethinking the rules-keeping what works and eliminating what doesn’t work.
To accomplish this, direct marketers must have a well thought-out strategic plan. How do you know where you are going if you don’t know where you want to go?
Strategic planning provides direction to the marketing communication process by defining the value of customer relationships, establishing a unique selling proposition and forming the foundation for marketing tactics. The payoff is simple: more qualified sales leads, which more rapidly convert into revenue.
The first part of strategic planning involves analysis of your company and market.
* Know yourself. Analyze your product and company strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of your competitors.
* Identify the most profitable opportunities. Determine where the easiest, fastest sales are and how they can be used as stepping stones to larger, more difficult conquests.
* Determine the lifetime value of your customers. Marketing is about leverage: make an investment today to acquire and then maintain a customer relationship to yield a continuous revenue stream in the future.
Therefore, financial analysis-including value of initial sale and follow-up sales, profit-per-sale and acceptable cost-per-sale-should be part of any strategic plan.
The second portion of a strategic plan should look at your future objectives.
* Determine your unique selling proposition. You only have 30 seconds to convince a prospect to do business with you as opposed to anyone else. Determine what it is that makes your company better or different.
* Transfer the risk from the buyer to you. How are you going to make it easy and risk-free for a buyer to see your product in action? How will you stand behind your promise? The goal is to alleviate the buyer’s fears.
* Quantify sales goals and set measurable objectives. Determine the number of new customer relationships, sales presentations, and qualified sales leads required to reach your goal success. Be sure these goals are realistic given your resources.
* Outline your most powerful marketing strategies and tactics. Will you reach your goals with brand building, direct response, channel development, lead generation, or public relations efforts? Then consider what tactics to employ, such as print ads, direct mail or seminars.
People do business with people they like. Therefore, understanding your target audience is an important step in a successful lead generation campaign.
To effectively communicate, you must be empathetic with your prospects and possess a deep understanding of the problems customers face. The single most effective way to do this is through market research.
Mail surveys are a powerful market research tool because of their ability to collect a large amount of accurate information. They can help determine interest for a product category, validate media accuracy, sort the importance of messages, headlines, and offers, and identify sales leads. Market research can also be used as a basis for a one-to-one selling program or for the development of a marketing information database.
Pre-test headlines and offers with a mail-based survey to customers and non-customers using a cash incentive (response rates can be as high as 40%). A well-constructed research instrument allows you to validate the problems your target market is facing, their interest level in your solution, and the ability to rank message importance as well as offer importance.
Speaking directly to customers is another way to conduct research. In-depth interviews and focus groups with customers and non-customers alike have a number of advantages. One-on-one contacts allow you to watch how customers use your product or competitive products, and to learn their preferences and problems. This leads to an understanding of the target audience’s beliefs, attitudes, decision processes and concerns.
Before any lead generation program is initiated, a lead capture, qualification and distribution system must be implemented that sends responses to inquiries within 24 to 48 hours.
Effective lead follow-up includes: qualifying prospects with a set of questions to determine time frame, budget, purchase authority and need. In this way only ready-to-buy, hot sales leads will be sent to the sales channel, sales representatives or distributors.
People take time to buy, so establishing an aggressive follow-up contact program keeping your name and product out front is imperative to a successful marketing campaign. Ten percent of leads close within 3 months, another 16% within six months. Nineteen percent close within 12 months from the date of inquiry. That means 45% of leads buy from you or a competitor within one year. Strong, ongoing contact programs include a combination of phone, e-mail, fax and direct mail. Include a reason to respond in each contact.
Finally, track your follow-up activities. A closed-loop reporting system is crucial when identifying what works and what doesn’t.
Follow these steps and you’ll have an outline to create a strategic communication plan that reinforces the power and value of market research and serves as a reminder that advertising and marketing investments are ultimately made for just one purpose-to generate sales.
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