AMiable Solution #102: When I Grow Up, I Want to Be…

Some gardening enthusiasts plant only annuals.  These flowers require more maintenance (watering, weeding, dead-heading), but because they last only one season they give gardeners creative flexibility: the landscape never has to look the same two years in a row.  Gardeners can create and re-create as often as they want to. The cost, however, is the cost.  Although annuals generally cost less than perennials, they must be re-planted each year, causing gardeners to constantly invest in new material.

Others, on the other hand, swear by perennials.  They value the value that these deep-rooted, long-lasting flowers offer.  They like knowing that their landscapes will always look the same, always build from the foundation started years before.

Which category do you fall into?  Are you an “annual” marketer or a “perennial” marketer?  For the broadest appeal to customers, members, and donors, you should be--as are many gardeners--both. 

Maybe your renewal program is your “perennial” garden, and with good reason.  Keeping the renewal format the same helps ensure memberships and subscriptions are indeed renewed.  Change up the format or the process and you may not only confuse customers, but you may also lose them.

Live events, big releases, or special offers, however, should be less uniform.  Those promotions should “pop,” changing layout, color, and style to reflect each particular offer.

Combining unique, eye-popping promotions with more recognizable, hardy ones gives you greater coverage in all seasons and enables you to appeal to a variety of tastes.  Varying your marketing lets you build your brand with both longer-lasting staples and changeable promotions that cry out, “pick me!”

AMiable Solution #101: Timing can be Everything

Morning glories.  They don’t hide the fact that their blooms have a shelf life.  By their very nature, these flowers open in the morning and wither away before nightfall.  If you want to see one, you know exactly when you need to be near a plant.

You can say the same about your market, whatever it is.  You have a window of opportunity to catch your audience at the point it is most likely to respond to your offer: three months before an industry deadline, two weeks before your season-opening sales, three days before a membership expires.

How do you know if you’re timing your promotions effectively?  We’d love to tell you the answer is as easy as “you can see a morning glory in full bloom at 8:00 every morning.”  Unfortunately, you’ll need to work for your answer with a combination of history, response, and testing.

History.  First, look at the sales history for the particular product, service, or fundraiser you’re marketing.  When were sales or donations at their highest?  How close was it to the product release date, service date, or fundraiser deadline?  Are there other noticeable spikes?  When did they occur?

Response.  Look at your “spike” figures in terms of marketing.  How long after a marketing promotion went out did sales or donation numbers rise?  Can you determine a direct relationship?  Can you connect multiple mailings with multiple sales spikes?  If so, you’re getting warmer.

Testing.  Finally, use what you’ve learned to set up a mailing schedule.  Use previous mail dates and “spike” dates as your base, but also play with it.  What if you added a mailing even earlier than your historical first mailing?  What if you added one later?  What would happen if you eliminated one of the mailings?  Keep in mind the role your offer plays in each mailing, too.  Do you typically keep the offer the same or provide more incentive for early and/or late responders?

Catching your customers, members, or donors at their most active time isn’t a mystery, but it does take a little research and patience, research and patience that will be rewarded with a full bloom.

AMiable Solution #100: Don’t Overlook the Underappreciated

You see them in bouquets, on the wrists of prom goers, in the buttonholes of grooms and groomsmen, and in arrangements at funerals.  They are carnations, one of the most common and widely recognized flowers in the world. They are the multi-purpose workhorses of the floral industry, with blooms that last a long time, even after cut, and prices that are more budget-friendly than their glamorous counterpart, the rose.

Do you have a marketing carnation?  An economical, go-to format?  The mail piece or marketing collateral you update but rarely change?   It may be a small postcard that you mail to both new and inactive customers.  Or a one-page direct mail letter that you use for all four phases of your renewal campaign.  Or the four-page direct mail letter that you send to prospects and repeat donors. 

No matter what favorite crop your marketing garden grows, it doesn’t have to be generic or “one size fits all.”  Carnations, themselves, convey different meanings simply by changing color.  White carnations symbolize purity.  Pink carnations represent a mother’s love.  Dark red carnations imply a deep love.

What message do you send with your go-to piece?  Do you use it as a template and customize it for each promotion, or do you pick one “color” and stick with it?  Using a proven marketing tool over and over makes good sense, but tailoring it for specific audiences, sales seasons, or tones makes even more sense.  Even small changes, like swapping out photos, headlines, or highlighted benefits can be enough to make your workhorse a prize winner.

So go ahead--smell the roses, but don’t overlook the value of the carnations.

AMiable Solution #99: Nothing to Sneeze At

The sounds of birds are starting to fill the air.  Buds are breaking out on the trees.  Green is pushing through where white once was.  Every new daffodil bloom seems to shout, come on out!  Winter is over!

What does your marketing say?  Does your marketing, like a daffodil, offer rebirth and new beginnings?  Or does it convey something else entirely?

Even if your campaign, like a rose, is a vision of pure beauty, full of vibrant color, and sentimental meaning, and even if it conveys richness and value, it may still cause your market pain.  If you spend all of your time, effort, and budget on design but prick your readers with poor communication, confusing descriptions, or hard-to-find contact information, there’s not a single spring shower that will save your campaign.

How do you make sure your marketing package is the “whole package”?  Don’t make readers work for information, and don’t make it hard for them to figure out what you’re selling or how they can respond.  Tell them what you want them to do and make it easy for them to do it.  State your call to action, and then state it again (and again).  Make your phone number prominent.  Repeat your website.  Include your contact information on every spread.

Remember, too, to use clear language and make your message is just as clear.  Headings, subheads, and bullet points that briefly identify features and benefits will give scanners the key information they need at a glance while organizing your content in a practical way for those who take more time to read your campaign.

Finally, don’t get so wrapped up in your photos and graphics that you forget to prominently place your organization’s name and logo.  We’ve all received mail that both intrigued and frustrated us: the design and headlines had our attention, but we couldn’t figure out who sent it.

Eye-catching marketing is necessary to get consumers to take that critical first step, but it’s your content that really makes your marketing bloom.  Make it count.

http://amidirect.com/marketing 

AMiable Solution #98: Ready. Think. Go.

Looking for a way to reach out to your market and reenergize your marketing?   Try a contest.  People love contests, especially when there’s a great prize at stake.

The kind of contest should you have depends on your goal.  You’re going to invest time, effort, and money into your contest, so clearly define what it is you hope to get out of it.  Knowing what your target is will help you determine what type of contest you have, how long you run it, how you promote it, etc.

So, what’s your goal?  Do you want to acquire more email addresses, increase your blog readership, gather user-generated content, collect photos or videos for your website or other marketing efforts, increase brand awareness?  Once you decide what you want to accomplish, you can…

Choose a contest.  Photo contests, writing contests, video contests, random drawings: you dream it, you can compete it. Whether you hold a trivia contest, offer a makeover, invite participants to tell a first-person story, ask people to nominate a “best” (you choose the category), or hold an “ugliest” contest and have participants send in pictures of their ugly kitchens, lawns, offices--anything that your organization can sweep in and fix or replace--engage your market and challenge it.   The more creative and fun your contest is, the more likely people will be to participate.

Keep in mind how much you’re asking of participants and make sure your deadline reflects the time involved.  For example, a contest requiring a video or essay versus a photo or short anecdote should have a longer deadline so that contestants have enough time to finish the task.

If you want your contest to be successful, don’t forget to promote it!  Announce it in your blog, in your newsletter, in an email, on your website, and in a press release.  Talk about it on your social media sites.  Invite industry or community leaders to judge your contest and ask them to share news of your contest through their outlets.  Give your market plenty of notice, and then have fun.