Since January 2005, I’ve been spent a lot of time explaining how Business is Personal.

When I started this journey way back then, I named the blog “Pancake Bunny“.

I called it that as a result of a customer service interaction where a company’s CEO told a customer that their message made no sense and then included the pancake bunny in their reply (click here to see the original pancake bunny).

It struck me that I had work to do.

Not solely because of the bunny remark, but because of a pervasive antagonistic attitude toward customers – especially by many in tech-related industries (remember, Ive been in the software biz since 1982).

Nine Hundred Eighty Five

Nine hundred and eighty four times I have posted here in order to teach this one important lesson. This one is number 985.

I’ve shared little anecdotes here and there, stories, admonitions, an occasional rant or two – whatever it takes to make you and your staff attract, sell, talk to, think about and work with your customers as if they are real people.

Like your grandma. Imagine that.

That lady you were snarky with on the phone this morning is probably someone’s grandma, or mom or something. Would you talk that way if she were in front of you? Hopefully you aren’t the snarky one in the first place and that was intended for someone else cuz you’d never do that.

Progress

I know that in many cases I am preaching to the choir, but I also know that many people have related personally to a story here and it has changed their business. They have finally seen how treating their clientele like a friend, a partner, a family member – changes their business.

Others have finally figured out that hiding from their customers, treating them poorly (if they treat them at all) and thinking “Damn, if those customers didn’t keep interrupting me I’d get some REAL work done” is not how business is done.

Instead, it’s how your “Dear Valued Customer” becomes someone else’s.

If you haven’t gotten that yet, today might be your lucky day.

Enter Mister Butts

Earlier today I got an email from a Twitter acquaintance named Rick Butts. He’s one of those internet marketer types (and he just winced when he read that – sorry Rick).

EXCEPT, he isn’t like many of them. He’s a regular guy who gets the Business is Personal thing.

If after reading Rick’s email, you don’t understand why you simply have to treat someone who is viewing your blog, your newsletter, walking into your store, calling you on the phone, or tweeting you *like your grandmother*, then I suggest going back to post #1 and read a few posts a day.

I can’t help but think it’ll help.

Here’s Rick’s email. Enjoy.

I Am Joe’s Email List – An Open Letter To Internet Marketers

Hi,

I am Joe’s email list.

Joe calls me his list, his peeps, and sometimes just “the list.”

But, I am not a list, really, I am not a crowd, or an audience. I am not “everyone out there” as they teach new broadcasters to say.

I am me.

One single person with hopes, dreams, stresses and fears.

In many ways I am just like you – the way you describe yourself in your hungry years before you went to that life changing event, read the book, and started making money online.

I get email from you Joe.

I can’t remember for sure, but I think I “joined” one day when you offered a free report or video and I had to put my email address in – and confirm – in order to see it.

In my inbox, Joe, your email looks just like the personal emails I get from my daughter or son, and sometimes, sadly, from my ex.

Now that you’ve been sending me email – as well as some of your “good friends” – I have begun to be able to see in a glance that they are just offers, sometimes disguised as important messages, sometimes blatantly, not.

Whenever I see the word “this” in your subject lines, like – “this won’t last long” – or “have you seen this?” I know it’s an offer.

Since the Product Launch Formula I and especially II – I’m amazed at how many times per month I am literally inundated with emails from so many people all about the same exciting product.

They arrive over multiple days, culminating in a bonus orgy that is just overwhelming.

I read a clever post in a forum once, that “the bonuses are so comprehensive, it makes me wonder what is covered in the course, that is not already covered in the bonuses!”

That made me laugh.

I’m writing you today, to share something important about myself – and I hope you’ll take the time to consider my feelings, ok?

I have to get off of some of these lists.

The volume of email and the distraction of chasing the offers is just crippling my time, my focus, and my ability to get things done.

When Rick Butts asked his readers to consider unsubscribing from the people who sent you Stompernet Launch offers IF they had not provided any useful content in the last month – he really got me thinking.

Then Ed Dale made a video saying, basically, that no one is holding a gun to your head and that if you wanted to stop getting offers – stop bitching – and just unsubscribe.

But here’s the deal. I’d LIKE to learn from you Joe – and to be able to know that being on “your list” is valuable to me, my business, and my future.

So, please don’t think me a big whiner, I’m a customer, and here’s what I respectfully request:

1. Slow down the frequency of mailing to me, Joe.

Do not email me every day – that’s just way too much now.

2. Don’t mail me offers all the time.

I’m reading a lot more RSS feeds from bloggers who are putting out great content. If you are using Feedburner or Feedblitz or Aweber’s blog notification service that mails me when you update your blog – then, cool. I’m good with that.

3. If you do mail me an offer PLEASE don’t cut and paste the pre-written one from the creator of the product.

Do you know how stupid that makes you look to me? And, how insulting it is to get them from multiple people?

4. Try giving me some TRUTHINESS in your communiques to me.

If you are really making money in the non-marketing-to-Internet-marketers, then tell me some useful tips that are working for you. No, you don’t need to tell me your market niche but hey, every once in a while how about your show me how valuable I am to you buy sharing one of those SECRETS?

5. Show me some stuff that made less than $1,000,000.00.

I’d be immensely interested in real world examples of success I can get my head around. I’m never going to build a big list of “biz-op” peeps and hammer them with a big JV launch. Show me how I can make $500 a week – then be able to replace my income and quit my skank job.

6. Stop bragging about your zero-gravity dives and how you are spending my money in outrageous ways.

Trust me, this is a lot more fun for you, then it is for me to read about it. You may excuse it as “inspirational” but I dont’ even think that works in MLM anymore. It just annoys me. A little “high life” goes a long way and I’m more impressed by how Internet marketing lets you enjoy your family.

7. Please, please, please, for the love of God, stop participating in these dreadful launches!

Let me believe you are successful enough without having to bend over and schlup me and the rest of my list mates through your embarrassing attempt to get me to “buy from you” and help you win a contest.

The reason Rick Butts wrote about the 12 Biggest Whores, without naming anyone, is that we have all watched the emergence of about that many well known marketers who cross-promote each others stuff so regularly it is hard to imagine that they do anything else.

I think that gives you a pretty good idea of the kind of things that would make getting email from you valuable again – and persuade me not to unsubscribe from you forever.

Final thought…

The blowback from the “unsubscribe” and “launch fatigue” has been to accuse me and my list mates, the little people, of being whiners.

And while there is no shortage of whiners in the world, I want you to know that from the bottom of my heart – I am pleading with you to not dismiss me so easily.

What most of us really want is for you to provide us with value, treat us like a long term relationship, and we will, certainly reward you for helping us get to the next level.

Now back to check my email, I think there’s a Traffic Secrets 2.0 launch today?

Sincerely,

Joe’s List

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photo credit: anyjazz65

Last week we talked about the direct mail letter that was used to secure donations of cash, in-kind items for the auction and to attract people to attend – as well as what could have been improved in the letter.

I left a few things out of the discussion at the time, so lets get back to them.

We started with some small but focused lists and I want to discuss how those were used so that you can think about the various customer groups you have in your business.

Two of the lists we had came from the organization who was the primary recipient of our fundraising efforts. They had a list of donors and supporters as well as a list of families receiving services at the two closest locations to our town. One of the locations is in our town, the other is 14 miles away so I only used the families who were local for the mailing.

I sent the same postcard to both lists because all I really wanted from them was attendance. The donors of this organization do not need to be confused by my sending them a plea letter asking for donations on behalf of an organization they already support.

If I had done that, the natural response would have been “Why is org A asking for donations for org B when I already give to org B?” I just want them to show up, buy a ticket and bid on the auction.

The families were a different story – I could have asked them for help – but knowing the demographics of the group, I really just wanted them to buy a ticket, eat and visit with Santa. We wanted them to learn that Rotary was helping their family, not just asking them for $. The best way to make that happen was to get them to the event.

As a result, I sent the same postcard to both lists. I used Click2Mail.com, primarily because they had the turnaround time I needed, plus the price was quite good for an oversized glossy 4 color postcard.

I uploaded my PDF and address list, it cleaned them and I paid. Over and done with in short order and I didn’t even have to lick a stamp.

You might be asking why a postcard? Why didn’t I hand address *these*?

I used a postcard because it doesn’t have to be opened and my message was relatively short.

I didn’t hand address them and mail them myself because postcards are open by design. I don’t have to work to get them opened, instead I can concentrate my effort on making them effective. I couldn’t do that with the donation letter because the message needed to be longer and required a donation form.

Almost forgot… The postcards were timed to arrive within 48 hours of the event.

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photo credit: trialsanderrors

Yesterday we talked about the details about the envelope and letter we sent to request Brunch with Santa donations and to sell tickets.

There were (in my opinion) a lot of things right with it. BUT…what was wrong with it?

Keep in mind it is perfectly normal to find things that are wrong with a mailing you just dropped at the post office. There’s a big lesson there: We didn’t wait to mail it until it was perfect. You just can’t do that.

If you wait until your campaign is perfect, you’ll never mail it because it’ll never be perfect. It’s like waiting until the perfect time to have a baby – there’s no such thing.

That said, there is always room for improvement. Maybe there’s a better way to state it rather than “what’s wrong?” is “How can I make the envelope and the letter even better?”

Slice em and dice em

One thing that I advise customers (and readers) to do is segment your mailing. Some might look at the letter sent to chamber members and think that I did – but that really isn’t the case.

The people on this particular mailing list fall into a couple of distinct groups: blue collar services (construction, auto body, auto repair, custom logging, trucking), white collar services (attorneys, accountants, bankers, computer consultants, real estate sales, graphic artists), hospitality businesses (restaurants, caterers, hotels, motels, bed and breakfast inns) and traditional retailers (clothing, food, auto parts, tires, coffee, etc).

What changes would segmentation bring?

If I broke that list down into the four segments I mentioned, it would allow me to make several important changes. I didn’t do so this year simply because of time pressure.

For blue collar service businesses: I would likely use slightly different verbiage that is more in tune with their businesses and would have made a more specific ask. Like the others below, the ask would be for items or services that are most likely to get the business a new customer. In their language, specific to their needs.

For white collar service businesses: I’d use some different verbiage, a different ask – more specific to the services they offer and keeping in mind that I want a donation that helps them get a new customer – and some slightly different psychology. Again, the language used would be in tune with these kinds of businesses.

For the hospitality businesses: Again, specific language to their business. In fact, I would likely split this group into food-related and non-food-related because of the differences in what I would like to get in donations, differences in industry language and COGS. For the food biz, I’m trying to create an opportunity for them to make an impression that brings new customers to their restaurant or catering service. That happened this year as well – I didn’t simply ask for a donation. I offered them an opportunity to promote their business with the best they could bring to the table. Positioning is important.

Other thoughts

I would like to have a bit more automation in place to deal with generating specific responses, logging auction assets and so forth. I’ll be working on that throughout 2009. While that automation will be somewhat specific to the Brunch, it is designed to work with any campaign – and with multiple media. It might become a system that you can buy.

A blue collar vs white collar mental image

Speaking of blue collar and white collar services, I’m reminded of an interesting way that Ford Automotive’s Social Media guy Scott Monty described the difference between white collar workers and blue collar workers: “people who shower *before* they go to work” and “people who shower *after* they go to work”. Paints a pretty clear picture, doesn’t it? You can follow Scott on Twitter.

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photo credit: jilly~bean

Yesterday, we started a discussion about the promotion of an event here in town.

Today, we’re going to talk about one of the mail pieces that went out to promote the Brunch.

Don’t worry, this series isn’t all about direct mail. We’ll also be talking about video, email, postcards, newspaper, press releases, PSAs, radio and TV.

That’s right. Every single one of those media were used to promote the event. While I didn’t use all of my arrows (with good reason), I did use just about everything in the quiver. Different types of media reach different people.

There are so many ways to consume news these days – you’d better be using every means possible to get the attention of your prospects.

Of course, you will be measuring the response from them, so you’ll know which are worth the expense IF there is an expense.

One of the most important mail pieces that went out was sent to business owners here in town (and a few in neighboring towns). I wanted to concentrate on our little town because the benefit is being received here. It makes for a tougher sale to folks from other towns unless you have a relationship with them. More on that later.

But will they open it?

The most important thing about the letter is making sure that the envelope gets opened.

If it isn’t opened, it was a waste of time and money. If it isn’t opened, the letter inside doesn’t get a chance to go to work selling the event. That’s kind of a problem:)

In rural Montana, post office boxes are the norm rather than the exception. This holds true for residential and business addresses. People stand over the trash slots at the post office and sort their mail into 2 categories: trash and probably-not-trash. You probably do the same at home if you don’t get your mail at a PO Box.

Because of this, I used several strategies to make the envelope less likely to be tossed out:

• A real stamp was used. In fact, a Christmas stamp (the nutcracker one). It’s a little thing, but it matters. It makes the letter appear more likely to be from a real person.
• Each envelope was hand addressed. To make it feel even more “real”, a green felt tip pen was used. Computer printed labels might work fine for people you already have a relationship with – but with no relationship, a pre-printed label is another check mark on the road to the trash bin, even more so if there’s a postal barcode.
• Each envelope had a little Santa or snowflake sticker placed on it to the left of the address. Again, it makes it look a little more “from someone I know”, which contributes to more of them getting opened.
• No return address was used. You really have to be careful with this one. If you already have a business relationship with the person you’re mailing, then the return address WITH your name is important. If you don’t have a relationship with them, the return address will likely become a criteria for tossing the mail, rather than keeping it.

Sweating the details inside the envelope

Inside, the letter was just one page long, printed on both sides. The letter was folded and inserted so that the front page would be seen first if the letter was opened traditionally (with the back facing the reader).

On the left side of the front page of the letter, all the board members are listed. Many are well-known in the community, thus establishing some credibility. The letter was personally addressed – not with a standard business lead in, but just with the person’s name. No business name. I’m writing to the individual.

The greeting is to the individual, not “Dear Sir” or “To whom it may (probably not) concern”. The latter two greetings aren’t even remotely personal. You want the reader to feel that you wrote the letter just for them, even if it is printed on a computer. That’s why…

The first line noted that I was only going to take 2 minutes of their time (yes, I timed it, it was just a hair over 2 minutes). I want them to know that this isn’t going to take long. I don’t want the letter set aside for later.

At the end, I hand sign the letter.

On many of them, I made a personal note at the bottom in that same green felt tip pen, usually to suggest an item for donation but sometimes just to make the letter more personal.

On the other side of the letter is a donation form that is already filled out with their contact info. I already have it in my database, why should I force them to re-write their contact info?

Remember, make it as easy as possible…

PS: A Sticky Situation

Just a little side note on the attention that is paid to the success of mail pieces: I received a letter promoting the Breakfast with Santa in Opelousas. It was closed with a 1.5″ long piece of scotch (ie:transparent) tape. I was curious if there was some testing behind the use of tape, so I asked my friend about it. It turned out to be a productivity issue. We laughed about the fact that we pay attention to silly things like that, but it illustrates the level of thought that has to go into every aspect of your marketing message.

In this case, we’re talking about a letter, but the same scrutiny is necessary for any other media.

Be sure that you’re putting this much care into the delivery of your message – and in fact, the message being sent by the delivery itself.

Tomorrow – how could this piece have been improved?

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photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

With all that direct mail talk over the last couple of posts, I can just hear the eyes rolling.

After all, direct mail is dead, right?

Perhaps in your market it is. Or, no one needs to use it because other things work better in your market, or because everyone in your market uses it poorly.

Regardless of the reason, if you’re convinced that direct mail is irrelevant – or at least no longer useful – in your market, those last couple of posts were a big waste of your time, right?

Psst…Think about them again, but replace “direct mail” with “email”. Or “face to face sales”, “telephone”, “television”.

Likewise for radio, newspaper ads and any other media you use to communicate with your clients and prospects – including Twitter, blogs, video and other social media tools.

After all, if this message wasn’t carefully crafted to be of use to you…you wouldn’t likely be here.

Each of these tools are simply another way to have or start a conversation with a person.

Never, ever forget that.

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Our discussion from a couple of days ago (yes, the last 2 days were insane!) about direct mail mistakes was far from complete. We could discuss tools, techniques, strategies and such about direct mail for days, maybe longer.

None of us have time to do that, but I do feel obligated to elaborate on the five direct mail mistakes and discuss some additional issues on these topics.

Stamps vs. Indicia

While I don’t recommend the use of indicia, if you carefully plan your use of indicia, you can get away with it.

For example, if you’ve already established a relationship with a client and you’re sending a monthly newsletter, using bulk mail indicia makes financial sense IF you’ve cleaned your list using CASS software (or a service) or if you’ve mailed to that list in the last 2-3 months using a stamp.

I recommend to clients that if they want to use bulk mail indicia, they should do so on a quarterly rotation for a monthly newsletter. IE: first month, use a stamp. In months 2 and 3, indicia will be OK as long as they are updating their list with the return/change info that comes back on returned mail from month 1.

A different type of mailing might require a different plan, so don’t assume that my newsletter mailing postage rotation schedule is perfect for every kind of mailing. It isn’t.

Deliverability is still a concern, so again, make sure that this mailing isn’t something that’s going to assure your ability to make payroll this week:)

Sending the same mail to everyone

The only exceptions to this that I can come up with are things like “Hey, I’ve sold the company and I’m moving to Costa Rica” letters. I’ll be testing this in the future:)

Measuring Response

I really can’t imagine a day when I wouldn’t mention this. Except for the Costa Rica letter. That’s one that I wouldn’t care about measuring. But…the buyer should.

Follow-up

One of the things I didn’t have room/time to mention in the 5 mistakes post that it is CRITICAL to make sure that you don’t look like a putz by sending the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th mail pieces in your mailing sequence to a person who responded to the FIRST mailing.

It sends such a message that you aren’t paying attention and that the mail isnt…personal. Put things in place so that you can avoid doing this – it’ll pay for itself in postage and printing saved, much less in aggravated clients and your reputation among them.

Response percentage vs ROI

Russ took me to task – a little bit – about my assertion that response percentages are meaningless, noting that “response rates indicate how well your campaign is working“.

It depends. If you get a 20% response, but you lose money on the campaign, did it work?

On the other hand, he noted that “All responses count, even the “take me off your mailing list” requests (data that shows how to increase the quality of your mailing list!).” which I completely agree with.

All in all, we agree but from perhaps different perspectives.

First, you have to keep in mind that a mailing’s goal might not be directly financial – ie: it might not be a sales piece. In that case, your ROI is measured by asking yourself: “For this customer, did the mailing piece accomplish its goal?”

And in that case, the response percentage might prove to be of the same usefulness as the ROI.

In fact, I made that comment about response rates being meaningless in hopes that someone would challenge me on it (thanks Russ).

ROI *is* still most important, but response percentages are one of the things that you simply have to sweat. You have to test (that goes back to the measuring issue) carefully so that you can determine what improves response.

For example, you might test to see what the difference in response is between a letter with a printed, barcoded label and one with a hand-written address, for example. Assumptions are cheap. Testing is accurate.

And then there’s conversion – but that’s another whole set of discussions on its own:)

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It’s easy to burn through a lot of money mailing the wrong way. Here are five common mistakes that businesses make when sending sales materials through the mail. Don’t make them:)

You don’t use real stamps

Your direct mail pieces – of any kind – should be using regular first class stamps most of the time.

While I will admit that I use CASS bulk mail postage for some newsletter mailings (at client request to save postage), this happens ONLY after having sent at least one mailing using a real first class stamp.

Why? 3 reasons: Deliverability, address service and speed

If this excerpt from “Privatizing will improve mail service posthaste” doesn’t help, I’ll clear it up in a minute.

As journalist Jonathan Franzen recounted in a detailed portrait of Chicago’s postal crisis in the New Yorker last year, a letter carrier helping a coworker start his truck in a post office parking lot stumbled onto 100 sacks of undelivered mail in the rear cargo area. Chicago police in 1994 found 200 pounds of relatively recent mail burning beneath a viaduct and 20,000 pieces of vintage mail (some pieces dating to 1979) in garbage cans behind the house of a retired mail carrier. Last May, Chicago firefighters found 5,670 pieces of flat mail and 364 pounds of bulk mail in the attic of postal carrier Robert K. Beverly. And in October, Washington firefighters discovered four truckloads of mail in the apartment of postal carrier Robert W. Boggs

Other than because of postal workers like this guy and because of post offices like the Chicago one described above, a first class stamp in conjunction with a valid return address (sort of) guarantees you a returned mail piece with a corrected current address, or an indication that you should remove that name from your mailing list.

Speed. Bulk mail is not guaranteed to reach your destination anytime soon, if ever. In fact, isn’t guaranteed at all.

One last aspect of this: Choose your stamps wisely. Mailing to women? Use stamps most women would like.

Mailing to NASCAR viewers? Use stamps that fit their profile. Patriotic? Cars? Think about it.

Not making sure that mail only goes to the right people

Sending the same letter to the entire population of the United States: Bad idea.

Sending the same letter to your entire client list: Bad idea.

Are all doctors the same? You know… chiropractors (yes, that was intentional), heart surgeons, thoracic surgeons, dermatologists, general practitioners, podiatrists, sexologists, psychiatrists, ophthalmologists, and so on. They all need malpractice insurance, medical office software, furniture, etc.

Are all mechanics the same? Is a diesel mechanic the same as a HVAC mechanic? Ditto for single engine airplane mechanics, heavy equipment hydraulics mechanics, boat mechanics, jet engine mechanics, or …

Are all painters the same? Home painters vs automobile painters, detailed “pimp my ride” paint artists, industrial painters, high rise building/tower painters, and so on.

If you were trying to sell each member of these groups accounting services, a website, tools, furniture or rubber bands, would you have the same conversation with them?

Not likely.

Is it more work to create different sales materials for different groups of people? Sure.

Is it more profitable? Almost always.

“Almost?” – What kind of comment is that? The kind that leads to our next mistake…

Leaving out a way to measure response

If you can’t measure it, you’d better not mail it. Otherwise, how will you recognize what works and what doesn’t?

Failing to send another mailing to the same person for the same thing

Yes, I mean follow up.

But how many times should I mail stuff to my mailing list? When do I know to stop?

WHEN A NEWLY ADDED STEP LOSES MONEY.

Getting a 1% response to a mailing is your goal

You’ve undoubtedly heard that 1% is an average response for direct mail.

Or maybe you heard 2% is what it takes to make a profit (h*mm, like $0.01?).

Or you’ve heard some other number.

Forget them all. Percentages mean nothing. Return on investment is what you care about.

If you spend $100,000 a month to mail 100,000 pieces of mail (yes, per month) and you get 1 sale, that’s a response rate of 0.00000000001% for each mailing.

If you’re selling $2500 custom trailer hitches for big expensive RVs, you have a big problem. You’re spending $100,000 a month. Even if you sell every lead, you’re spending $100,000 to get $2500. Unless there’s a pretty successful upsell process, or very large lifetime customer value, this just isn’t wise.

On the other hand, using the same numbers, if you sell boats – especially boats like these – then selling 1 of the 56′ boats per month is a ROI of somewhere in the neighborhood 13 times your investment. In other words, if you average 1 boat sale a month from your mailing, you’re spending $100k to get $1.3MM. Seems like a good idea.

In both examples, 1 response was the result of your mailing that month. The response RATE in both was the same. A terrible 0.00000000001% per month. Yet the ROI for the boat example was 13 times the investment.

A loss of $100,000 or a gain of $1.2MM cost $100,000, despite one response.

This happened despite both mailings having the same response rate. Don’t fall for the 1% trap. Or even the 2% trap.

Those are the common direct mail mistakes that come to mind for me… What other direct mail mistakes always jump out at you?

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Last week I received a phone call from SendOutCards, whose service sends personalized postcards and greeting cards – with pictures if you like – simply by pounding on their website for a moment.

First of all, kudos to them. They were just calling to see if I was getting what I needed out of the service and wondered what – if anything – they could do to help me.

Why kudos? Because SO FEW actually make the effort to do this.

Yep, that’s a not-so-subtle hint.

The downside of the conversation was that I blindsided them with my request.

It’s important to clarify that I really like the service – they even let me create a font of individual letters using my handwriting, so that the text I type into the website is printed in my writing on the card or postcard. This includes several variations of my hand-written signature so I can sign the cards any way I want depending on who the recipient is.

The disappointment is that the service lacks the ability to let you automate the delivery of what they produce.

You can import a list from your Outlook or whatever, but that isn’t automation. It’s manual and a pain. Plus it’s a duplication of data – bad idea.

Once you’ve imported contacts, you can setup a series of cards or postcards or notes to go out over a period of days as you like. Setting it up is a little bit of a pain, but it works.

Then the trouble starts. There is no automated way to update the contacts when their contact info changes on my systems, much less to add or remove them. It’s 2008 folks, this stuff is commonplace and simple to implement.

Also – when you have 9400 customers, you don’t have them in Outlook and you don’t want to manually import and categorize them using a web interface.

Their goal SHOULD be to make it as easy to send cards and postcards as they possibly can, since their profit depends on two things: the revenue from sending cards and postcards, and the exposure they get to new people who receive those cards and start using the service on their own.

As it is now, it isn’t real automation. Automation occurs when things happen automatically because something else happened, manual or otherwise.

I tried explaining this to the vendor and gave them a few examples.

If I have an online store that sells stuff, I’d want my online store to automatically send a thank you card with shipping info in it. A month or a week or whatever (depends on the product) later, I’d want to send a follow up thank you that asks for a review, comments, makes sure they are happy with their purchase, etc.

That just scrapes the surface of needs of that type.

Random customer behavior: bad idea

Another example: Let’s assume that I’m performing a service or selling an item to customers who come back intermittently. Your internal point of sale and invoicing system should have the information needed to produce a list of “Who hasn’t been here in 30 days?” (or 60, or whatever).

If you’re on top of this situation, someone is currently printing out that list and having someone mail them a postcard, or a note, or calling them to see if they’re doing OK, need an appointment, etc. Or SendOutCards could be *automatically instructed* by your systems to send a reminder card or what not to try and retain this customer and get them back into the store, office, etc.

If you aren’t on top of this sort of thing, you’re simply waiting on the random behavior of your customers to return to your business – exactly the kind of thing SendOutCards is designed to assist you with.

Smart businesses DO NOT depend on the random behavior of their customers. Instead, they show up (and/or deliver) “Just before just-in-time”, as Don Ferris says.. They also make a point of reminding their customers to come back / purchase / do maintenance (or whatever) when it’s best for the customer… without being an annoying nag about it.

By now, you should have asked yourself what you can be doing in this area. Here are a few questions to ask yourself about your business:

• What do your customers use every month?
• What do they own that requires maintenance every quarter?
• What happens TO THEM if they don’t come back on a regular basis?
• What happens if I lose track of changes in their personal situation (if B-to-C) or business situation (B-to-B)?

If they aren’t buying or maintaining those things on that basis, every day they wait is costing you money *and* it could cost them money too.

Oh yeah, back to that every 30 days list.

What if your systems were automated and knew to send out a postcard (not one of those lame ones from the corporate office that no one reads) when someone should have an appointment coming up? And the system knows not to mail one if you already have an appointment scheduled in the next few weeks.

And it knows to email the right person in your business 10 days after the postcard is mailed to remind them to call that person if and only if they don’t have an appointment (or haven’t made a purchase).

This isn’t rocket science, but the vendor didn’t seem to get how valuable this was not only to me, but to their bottom line (ie: more cards get mailed, more people are exposed to the vendor’s service).

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Several of my clients use direct mail for the obvious reasons – it works. Like a chainsaw in the hands of the skilled artisan, the results can be amazing.

Or they can be downright awful.

Common mistakes people make when using direct mail:

• Talking about the wrong thing
• Not knowing your numbers
• Making assumptions
• Not segmenting your mailing

Let’s look at each of these direct mail mistakes (yes, they could also be made in other media).

Talking about the wrong thing

You might remember a project from several months ago where we talked about political candidate websites and what you can learn from them and their signup processes.

I’m still on all those lists, mostly so I can see what techniques they’re using.

One of the candidates keeps emailing me at the end of each month, asking for a contribution and reminding me that the campaign contribution reporting period ends the next day.

As if I care.

I’m a voter, or in small business terms, a prospect.

I don’t give a flip about campaign reporting periods. I care about issues and what a candidate is going to do about them – something rarely (if ever) mentioned in detail in their contacts.

You wouldn’t offer to talk about AARP to a teenager. Why would you contact your prospects and talk about something they don’t care about? Don’t do it.

Not knowing your numbers

Before you stick that thing in the mail, you better have way to track who responds and of those who respond, who orders.

Yes, I mean keep track of and take action based on: How many you mailed, how many the mailing caused to respond, or how many of those who responded actually bought.

Making assumptions

In particular, making assumptions about the relationship you have with the person you mailed to.

I received a piece of mail not long ago that was personalized and made reference to things I had done in the past with this entity, yet made a slew of inaccurate assumptions about our relationship.

The result? The mailer hit the trash before I finished reading it.

You wouldn’t steal a kiss at the front door as you picked up someone on a blind date. Don’t make assumptions about the relationship you have with those you are mailing to.

Not segmenting your mailing

If you were doing the mailing for Ford Motor Company, would you send the same brochure to everyone in the country?

Of course not. But you probably do it with your mailings.

• The same people who buy a Mustang Cobra are not likely to be buying an Escape Hybrid.
• The same people who buy a F350 Diesel are not likely to be buying a Probe.

And yes, it is possible a family might have both, but your mailing’s goal shouldn’t be to sell BOTH, or you’ll end up sending 300 million identical mailers out and getting 0.0000001% response from them.

• You send the camper and boat owners, construction business owners, farmers and similar businesses info about the heavy-duty diesel trucks.
• You send the Mustang Cobra mailing to successful people in the right income brackets and age groups (if you are Ford, you know exactly what those brackets / groups are).
• You send the Escape Hybrid mailing to people who subscribe to Mother Earth News or Money, as well as kayak owners in the Pacific Northwest. But only those in certain income brackets.

You segment your mailing rather than rain huge piles of random paper down on their heads that do little more than empty your bank account.

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photo credit: Arkangel

Apologies to Monty Python with that “run away” thing, but it’s a good example of the talk in some business circles this week.

Once again, I hear people talking of abandoning direct mail. You know, because of the 1 cent postage increase. 1 cent. A 2.4% increase.

Tell me…for 42 cents, where else can you get something delivered to the home or office of a specifically qualified prospect, without running afoul of anti-spam laws, anti-fax laws and so on?

If you aren’t taking the care to segment your mailings and send them only to the most qualified people for your offer, then you deserve to be pouring Forever stamps down the drain. Just remember, you didn’t learn carpet bombing direct mail tactics from me:)

Honestly, I love it when I hear others in my market talk about the “expense of direct mail”, because I know they are cutting back on it, leaving another gap in the market for my clients.

Wendy over at the Wall Street Journal brought up the postage increase this week and asked what businesses were doing about it. Some got it, some didn’t. One commented that the costs could add up. Sure. So can the return, if you know what you’re doing – and testing. And measuring response.

Over at the Huffington Post, a reader pointed out someone making fun of direct mail as an out of style waste of money for political candidates. No question: BAD direct mail is absolutely a waste of money, whether it’s sent by a business or a political campaign. Most political direct mail is horribly done (but not all of it).

However…Done right, direct mail is still incredibly effective, but hey, don’t listen to me, keep thinking about that extra penny.

Somewhere in heaven, Dick Benson must be shaking his head with disdain.

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Over the weekend, one of my readers emailed and asked this very smart question:

We are hiring someone “green” to do marketing for us in about a month. I thought that starting someone from the ground up would be a good way to build someone’s skills for our business and not have to pay a small fortune at the same time. Do you have a couple of books that you would recommend for this person? I’m looking for books on both general marketing theory and on the nuts-and-bolts.

photo credit: chefranden

So that you don’t overwhelm them on that first day, let’s go with 6 books.

That’ll start them off with a good baseline so they won’t spend a huge pile of your money and have no idea whether it was well spent or not – plus it may avoid scaring them to death:)

It’s hard to come up with a list that short until these 2 questions came to mind:

• What books would I least want to give up if I found out they were the last copies ever?
• What books would I want someone to have if they were going to spend a lot of my money on marketing without my oversight?

With those thoughts in mind, it was easy:)

Number 1 – your business procedures manual. (no, not the HR policy manual, ugh)
I’m sure you have one, right? I mean, we’ve ALL read Michael Gerber’s E-Myth (that was sneaky wasn’t it?), so we know how important that procedures manual is. I’m talking about the manual that your newbie assistant manager would use to run the place while you are off on that romantic cruise that you promised someone about 15 years ago. It has all the vendor contact info, how to turn off the alarm, how to lock up for the night, how to Z out the cash register (and when), how to do all the things that someone has to be trained for – step by step, so you don’t have to be a dozen places at once, or interrupted 72 times per day.

Number 2 – Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. Doesn’t seem like a marketing book from the title, but it’s critical path brain food for someone who will be coming up with copy, headlines, emails and so on. Both practical and theory, this one is a keeper.

Number 3 – The Ultimate Marketing Plan by Dan Kennedy. Mostly practical. Dan isn’t much on theory, instead he relies on results. Not very thick, not very expensive, but worth a ton.

Number 4 – The Secrets of Successful Direct Mail by Dick Benson. Not just about direct mail, if you look closely. Definitely a must have for anyone who sticks an envelope in the mail. The list at the front is worth the price of the book.

Number 5 – My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. These come in 1 volume, so I counted them as one. So there. Claude was marketing like a master before your parents were born, or most likely so. Even this many years later, something to have on your marketing nightstand.

Number 6 – Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. That’s Caples as in Ogilvy, Caples and other world-class folks from last century.

Total expenditure: About $94 or so new, even less if bought used.

PS: Being the shy person I am, I would have recommended a 7th one: Business is Personal – The book, but it isn’t out yet…

In fact, it was a little hard not to include a handful of others on this list, but this will get you started. Next time, perhaps I’ll limit it to books written in this century:) And besides, I don’t think Gary Bencivenga has a book:)

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Email is “free”, notwithstanding the copywriting, measurement tools, ISP issues with delivery and a few other things.

With “free” comes your favorite target – spam email.

You can afford to send 100,000 emails without testing – though the smart ones do not. On the other hand, most can’t afford to send 100,000 direct mail pieces without testing FIRST.

I can assure you that those who can afford to send that much direct mail each month would never do so without testing first. No question, direct mail has it’s share of issues – most can be solved with smart mailing (as opposed to carpet bombing).

So while newspapers and magazines see falling advertising inches, direct mail continues to grow – because done right, it works.

And lookee here, even the Wharton School of Business says direct mail works (archived pdf here).

Just one example: Those “silly little 4 page print newsletters” I create get places that the same content will never get via email.

How do I know? Because newsletter clients tell me this every month when I call for the next month’s snippet of content. They say things like “I can’t believe how well these things work.” I hear it over and over again – and best of all, no one else in their market has a clue.

Competitors sure wont duplicate the effort. Too lazy. Too busy stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.

Whether I do it for you, or you do it yourself, just flippin’ do it. Measure it. Go to the bank. Repeat.

What are you waiting for? You have Wharton’s permission.

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Recently, I received a few questions about measuring advertising response so I thought I’d cover that a bit today. The measurement and use of the results you record is one of the most important things to do when advertising – at least once the ad has been created for a particular target market.

Question: Why can’t all ads produce a response?

Very, very few ads pull nothing, but I have heard second hand of a business that mailed 20,000 direct mail pieces and gotten nothing for their trouble.

However, as I hear it, their mail piece was poorly done and was mailed to anyone with a heartbeat, so they sorta “deserved” that result.

In any audience, there is a percentage of people ready to buy (and thus, your timing is good), another percentage thinking about it, and the rest in various modes of not caring, not being interested, caring but not having a need or want at this time, etc. The key is motivating the 2nd and last groups to buy.

Question: How do you eliminate the process of testing ads and culling the non-performing ones?

The key isn’t to eliminate it, but to always test what you’re doing so that you can make decisions based on information rather than gut feel.

If we mail 1000 pieces, we might mail 333 people one letter, 333 people another letter and 334 people another one. Next time we mail, we’ll know which is the best producer. After that, we might mail 500 of the winner and 500 of a new challenger. You should always be trying to beat the current best performing ad you have in each media for a particular type of prospect.

If we place 20 radio spots, we’d alternate 2 or 3 spots in each time slot we select so we know which one works in that time slot (ie: different audiences, assuming they should all be “target rich” audiences). As each day goes on, we might adjust the spots that play in a slot based on the response we’re getting.

Question: Isn’t ad testing a very expensive process?

Depends on how you do it. If you try to contact everyone with a heartbeat instead of focusing on a personal, contextually important message for that prospect group, it can be very expensive, not to mention seriously unproductive.

For example, you wouldn’t likely send the same mail piece to opera lovers that you would NASCAR fans, for obvious reasons. Sure, there will be some exceptions (people who like both NASCAR and opera), but you aren’t worried about the crossovers. You’re worried about completely missing the boat with your message to one group or another.

Question: So how do I measure response on a mailer, newspaper/magazine ad, radio ad, email or website?

I could go on for pages about the details of this, but the bottom line is to do at least one of two things so you can tell exactly which ad they are responding to:

• Create an offer that is specific to the ad.
  Ever notice how TV ads ask you to ask for a specific operator, department or send you to a website that has what seems like random numbers in it? That’s why they do this – so they know which ad you are responding to. They want to know which time slot works and which ad works, among other things. A particular price, quantity or product name can also indicate which offer you chose (and thus, which marketing effort you responded to).
• Create a mechanism for contacting you that is unique.
  A different phone number (800 numbers are easy to use for this, because they forward to another number). A different fax number. A different web address. Google Analytics codes on your URLs (in emails, for example). A different email address. A special page on your website. A department number, or a contact name, ie: “Ask for Harry”. You can give them some sort of reference that gives them access to a discount or bonus, such as “Tell em Tiger Woods sent you”.

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Each candidate’s web site includes a way to get on their email list so you can get current news about your favorite Presidential candidate.

Today, I compare the sites from a “I’m here for the first time and I want to get news emailed to me” perspective, as well as give some first impressions of the site as I arrive to give them my email address.

Barack Obama : Acts like a squeeze page upon first visit, but only the first visit (ie: the site is paying attention so they don’t “bore you” with a squeeze page that you’ve already seen – smart). The squeeze page was nice and clean. Do this, or do this, no chance of distracting you with the “bright shiny object” and take you away from the goal of that page – to get your email.

After that initial visit, the squeeze page is not shown and you must choose to give them your email address. Low objection level to joining, it only asks for your first name and email address (ala aweber.com).

Because they aren’t asking for much info, they’re more likely to get email addresses. On the other hand, not having address info makes it tough to localize emails, meeting notices and perhaps most importantly, it makes GOTV and direct mail more difficult. It’s possible to get some of this info from some email addresses based on domain registration and reverse IP lookups.

Hillary Clinton : More traditional entry page, joining the mailing list occurs first. You’re asked for an email address and zip code. After adding your email to the list, you are taken to a page where they request your contact info and identification of priority issues. It remains to be seen if these issues will drive specific emails in the future.

One oddity about Clinton’s site: The main menu has a “States” drop down. Only the states with a caucus or primary are included. If I’m interested in what’s going on in my state and that state isn’t on her menu, what message does that send to me? The site has no search capability.

Regarding the email news signup process: Asking for all contact and priority issue information might put off some people, but it does allow them to tailor the email by issues. At the point where this ask occurs, they already have your email address and zip code. On the other hand, the site is unclear if you are volunteering (“join our team”) or just asking to get on their email list.

Clearly the latter is a goal, but for someone who just wants to be kept up to date, it might put off some people. Failing to ask for a name, or at least first name puts a damper on the ability to personalize future emails, at least until they get you to fill out the “Join the team” page with complete contact and issue info.

John McCain : Required zip code, then took me to a Team McCain signup form where they asked for complete contact info, important issues and areas where I might want to volunteer. Site includes a search capability.

Mitt Romney : Splash screen on first entry didn’t offer a place to enter an email. Options were an economic platform video, a contribute link or a button to skip to the site. I closed by browser after the first visit without clicking on anything, and like Obama’s site, a second visit skipped the splash screen and took me to the main site. Again, the server is paying attention. The main page includes a search feature, an oddity among candidate sites.

Oddly enough, there was no place on the main site to just enter an email address and get email updates. I had to dig around a bit to find an email-only option where I could get news without becoming a “Team Mitt” member, something I’m not doing on any of the candidate sites.

Ron Paul : Asked for first name, last name, zip and email. Upon completion, it went to a form asking for complete contact and issue information. No search capability. Paul’s “States” menu item included all 50 states.

All of the sites clearly understood the value of having an upsell on the thank you page. Upsell as in contribute, join our team or both.

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Ever seen that t-shirt? In big letters, it says “Viral marketing doesn’t work”. The rest of the shirt says “tell everyone you know”. You know, just like direct mail doesn’t work and Google AdWords doesn’t work.

Neither do electrical circuits, if you don’t know how to design them. Skills required to use these tools aren’t second nature, or instinct. They require study.

Want to learn about direct mail that works? Start by reading Dick Benson’s book (available at Boardroom books). Want to learn about AdWords? Start with Perry Marshall’s book and email series. Want to learn about viral marketing? Read Seth Godin’s books, among others.

Viral marketing sells pork. It sells cars. It sells marketing and business consulting work. It sells coffee. It sells a ton of things.

Viral marketing sells pork?

Yeah. Remember a spider named Charlotte? Her viral marketing message was… “Some Pig”.

E.B. White knew about viral marketing way back when. His character used it when she weaved those words into a spider web in the barn where a little pig named Wilbur lived.

Viral marketing does work, if you know how to use it. Seth didn’t invent it, he just fine tuned it and uses it very effectively. There’s no reason why you can’t do the same. Just takes a little effort, whether it’s direct mail, viral, AdWords or some other skill.

Update: Another example of viral ”marketing”,
the recent Virginia snow day episode.

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One of the many things my Cajun friend does (aside from an occasional interest in LSU football) is help out a cerebral palsy clinic in Opelousas Louisiana with a special event they do every December.

It’s called “Breakfast with Santa“.

He describes it like this:

We have a local cerebral palsy clinic where kids … and adults … can come to get therapy and treatment.

All the funds are donated funds. None of the kids are charged for the services.

Many of the kids who get treatment wouldn’t have it available to them anyplace else.

We put on this “Breakfast with Santa” fundraiser each year. We charge $25 for breakfast and 100% of that $25 goes towards providing therapy for a child.

Local celebrity chefs cook the breakfast, local dignitaries serve the breakfast, everything is donated, 100% goes to the clinic.

Some of the promotion for this event/fundraiser is done by direct mail. Not that boring old direct mail you expect to get from the chamber or United Way every year. No, no, Sparky.

Instead, you get full color envelopes and letters with signature fonts, Santa images, and calls to action on the outside of envelopes. It’s done at a time when most businesses wouldn’t dream of dropping a big mailing, fearing that it’d get lost among the holiday cards. Or they’d use the “people are busy” and similar excuses some business-to-business folks use to avoid marketing their products and services in December (if not November).

The reality is that direct mail in the 6 weeks before Christmas is just as effective then as any other time of year, IF the proper ingredients are in place.

These include a well-crafted letter (offer) and call to action with things to get your attention (color, signature fonts, angled text, photos of the kids being helped).

All these things make the letter stand out from all the inept direct mail crap you get in your box every day – the reasons that most people think direct mail doesn’t work. Those colors, signature fonts, etc are the tools that turn the mailing into what Dan calls ‘A pile’ mail, ie: mail you’re gonna open before you open the bills. If you’re keeping score, “B pile mail” is bills, “C pile” mail is crap that hits the trash can before it even gets opened.

I suggest you send 25 bucks to the clinic if nothing else so you can get the thank you letter, a direct mail (much less web) marketing lesson all by itself (the lesson is the bit of blue text at the bottom). I won’t show it to you here, you’ve gotta earn the right to see it by sending them some cash.

Send your check (made out to the clinic) to:

Breakfast with Santa
Opelousas Area Cerebral Palsy Clinic
PO Box 70
Opelousas, LA 70571-0070

In return, you’ll get a thank you letter that will be well worth the $25, plus you’ll have helped some kids who need it.

Merry Christmas.

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Last week in the Wall Street Journal, Wendy Bounds wrote a column about why the “Do Not Call” list doesn’t stifle your business.

I’d take it one step further. The “Do Not Call” list is actually GOOD for smart businesses.

Why? Because all the marketers who aren’t paying attention will just look at their feet and sing “Woe is me” about losing another media. Yes, the telephone is effectively, just another media.

The thing is, cold calling is one of the worst medias there is.

• You don’t have a warm prospect.
• You don’t have an appointment.
• You’re interrupting whoever picks up, more often than not.

What about that says “I just lost a good prospect”?

People HATE cold telemarketing calls. Some people even seem to hate it when their credit card company calls to verify a charge – and those are people trying to protect you (and themselves), they aren’t even selling anything.

The smart business finds a better way to use the phone.

Pre-recorded messages that help your prospects / clients.

Inbound phone answerers who answer the phone and know what they are talking about. Not press 1,2,0,1,1,267 and then hold down the 0 key to get a person who you can’t understand very well.

Chasing a prospect results in the same thing that chasing anything else does: the prospect running away.

Cold calling is sometimes compared to direct mail, but there is little to compare.

• Cold calling forces the prospect to deal with you on YOUR schedule. Direct mail is opened on their schedule.
• People answer the phone because it rings (or not, more likely these days). Direct mail gets opened because it was done right and looks like something interesting.
• The cold caller takes action on your marketing message by getting torqued at you and hanging up. The person who gets your direct mail has to take action to show they are interested, otherwise it’s a simple toss-it-in-the-trash thing.
• Cold calling is all about interruptions. Direct mail interrupts nothing.
• Cold calling is about selling to someone who doesn’t think they want what you have, looking for a way to say no or just hang up. Direct mail only attracts the interested party, a person warmed up to the idea of your product or service, looking for reasons to buy, or say yes. Looking to solve a problem, fill a need, or satisfy a want. Cold calling does none of that unless you just get lucky.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways to generate warm leads other than direct mail, but if you think about it, any sort of lead generation process (like direct mail) is an ATTRACTION process. Cold calling is anything but. Replace “direct mail” with your favorite attraction marketing method or media in the above list and you’ll likely find that it works just fine.

Lead generation marketing attracts qualified people who are interested, not ticked off people who  waste your time on the phone and get annoyed with you before they might become interested.

Let the other person complain about the Do Not Call list hurting their business.  Meanwhile, go out there and sell something to the person your marketing attracted.

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Halloween (yes, Valentine’s Day is first).

Obviously we’re not including Christmas, which is head and shoulders spending-wise ahead of both of those days. I don’t figure I have to advise anyone to market their business around Christmas, particularly since Wal-Mart has had lights and ornaments out since last May, or at least it seems like it’s been that long:)

No matter what kind of business you own, you can take advantage of Halloween in some fashion, have a little fun and generate some PR. Oh yeah – and make some sales!

The obvious thing is for you and your staff to dress up on Halloween, but that doesn’t help you much if you don’t have a retail or service business where the public is in and out of your store all day.

If you do ask your staff to dress up, be sure and provide them with Do’s and Don’ts well in advance so they can make good choices and still enjoy the fun. Some costumes might create safety issues in your workplace, and some people always need a little reminder of what is and isn’t tasteful. You more than likely don’t want your VP of Consumer Loans coming to the bank dressed up like Madonna or Britney. Too much information:)

Everyone has options if they plan ahead a little. You still have time if you hurry, and can include Halloween-related marketing in your print, direct mail and radio ads.

The themes should be obvious. An accountant can have their staff dress up like some scary creature (a politician comes to mind<g>) and put a headline on their ad that says “Scared of paying too much of your hard-earned money to the IRS?” and then proceed to describe and make an offer.

An attorney might send a mailer to their clients reminding them that a hard deadline (December 31, for example) is coming soon and include a picture or clip art of the Grim Reaper, or similar character.

An quick lube oil change store could show their staff dressed up as creatures down in the bay below the vehicles and talk about the dungeon and how they are ready to keep your car in tip top shape so that you don’t get stuck on the side of the road, only to be caught by the boogeyman.

An on-site event at your store or service location is another obvious, but rarely used, idea. People have live remotes with a radio station all the time. Rarely do they have any fun with them and make them interesting and worth driving across town to attend. You could make this a customer appreciation event as well. It won’t be long before the hectic season is here, may as well do it now and start a tradition.

Obviously, you can make these ads, events and offers as edgy or sedate as you like – just try to have some fun with them. Even the clients of accountants and lawyers like fun stuff.

Be absolutely sure to craft these offers so that you know how much business comes from your day of silliness. You might find that you want to do these kinds of things more often.  You want to know what works and what doesn’t, even the fun stuff.

Even if your business doesn’t appear to have much synergy with Halloween (or has a different idea of fun), it’s easy to turn it around and still make use of the day.

For example, if you own a store that offers religious goods/services, you may have some clients who wouldn’t appreciate it if your staff came to work in costumes and festooned the store with black and orange, goblins and ghosts. Only you know your clientèle well enough to decide what you should and shouldn’t do. Still, do something.

There’s no reason why you couldn’t provide a fun alternative. Perhaps the staff arrives for work dressed as their favorite person from the Bible. Or you have your own version of a Haunted House, with a religious theme. And obviously not scary, but instead a lesson, scene or room from your favorite story.

There’s room for almost every business to do something with Halloween, you just have to put a little thought into it. And don’t stop with Halloween. There’s a trick or treat bag full of holidays and other special days between now and March (see, even I can do it).

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A few weeks ago, I decided to celebrate winning a Glazer-Kennedy (GKIC) contest by having a contest of my own.

To enter, you needed to send me the best testimonial you have. It could be about you, about me, or anyone else.

The best testimonial would do what we talk about here when discussing what makes a great testimonial. It might address a sales objection, such as price, unfamiliarity with the vendor/product, common reasons not to buy, etc. It would mention a specific vendor, or product. It would be specific about results.

Joel’s testimonial did all those things.

Yeah, it was about me, but that really isn’t the point. The point is that he pressed the right buttons when he wrote it.

He addressed sales objections. He mentioned his results in reasonably specific terms. He brought up what the “other guys” do, noted their less than desirable actions / results, and then used a form of takeaway selling before launching into the meat of the testimonial.

Now, the prize.

First off, a copy of Dick Benson’s direct mail book. A classic text on direct mail, with strategies usable in many other media. I suspect Joel knows why I chose to give this particular book to him, but I can’t mention it here.

Second, since I happened to be in Billings (where Joel’s shop is), I secret shopped 2 of his competitors.

One of them is a Montana brand that any coffee joint in MT has to compare themselves to if they want to be successful. Sort of the “Montana Starbucks”, yet with usually better service and definitely better coffee, even if it isn’t as good as Rock Creek’s. It was a little bit of an off-day for this shop. I walked in with a large restaurant coke cup in one hand (trying to provoke a little attention) and my laptop in the other, sat down and parked myself at a table for 2 hours. Never greeted. Never approached to see if I needed anything. This is mid-afternoon (1p-3p) on a Thursday afternoon. Otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary for this shop.

The other is a shop around the corner and down a block from Joel’s. A markedly worse encounter.  Dirty floor, with leaves scattered about. The booth smelled faintly of urine, of all things. Flies, bees and spider webs were around the booth I chose, which was right next to the front door. 90 minutes was all I could stand. No one ever approached me, with the exception of one older guy who was on flyswatter duty. He walked up to me and said “flies must think this place is safe” and smacked a fly on my table. He then left the smudge on the table, brushed the carcass onto the bench and walked off. He never returned with sanitizer, bleach or whatever. Just went about his fly-killing duty.  I could mention several other smaller issues but this one was enough for me.

Ian sometimes talks about store owners who complain that people don’t shop at their religious stores and how the reasons are often obvious, describing dark, dank places right out of merchandising and retail purgatory.

If there’s a purgatory for coffee shops, this place around the corner from Joel’s is well on the way.

But that’s the end of the good news. When we talked, I could tell that Joel knew the other shoe would drop. It had to. While searching for competitors to secret shop,  it became obvious that some downtown people who wanted really good coffee were going to have to have trouble getting it.

So we talked for a good while about that. I suggested that they take a swing at solving it, because you can’t get a hit unless you swing the bat.

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Seems like only yesterday that you moseyed on over to http://www.donotcall.gov and registered your phone(s) for the Do Not Call list.

Well, that 5 years of peaceful dinners, early Saturday mornings with the paper (or your spouse) is over, Chuck.

It’s time to do it again: Register your phone numbers.

Go to http://www.donotcall.gov, put in your phone numbers and a VALID email address. You’ll get a confirming email and then your numbers are on the list. Don’t worry about getting spammed by the Do Not Call list – it doesn’t happen.

Be sure to use the link in the confirmation email within 72 hours or your numbers WILL NOT be placed on the list.

Or you could make millions of telemarketers happy, and just blow it off.

There’s a big marketing lesson here: Act like a jerk when you use your marketing tools and those tools will be taken away from you. Remember, that earlier this year even here in the independence-minded state of Montana, someone was trying to ban direct mail until myself and others woke up the legislature.

The same thing happened on telemarketing calls – except it’s now illegal. Before people went nuts and decided to call you every single day during dinner, telemarketing calls weren’t considered as such evil things. But, as usual, someone just couldn’t control themselves, went overboard and now you have what you have – only non-profits and politicians can call you during dinner. Like I really want to talk to my Senator’s fundraising people during dinner more than I want to talk to someone hawking a new credit card. I don’t think so:)

Smart marketing doesn’t annoy to the point where you get ignored. It makes the prospect think “That’s for me”.

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