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Are you leveraging visual content? September 8, 2015 by Drew McLellan Leave a Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 11 visual contentIf any of the trend reports from the last five years are accurate — visual content should be a critical element in your marketing and content strategy. If’ve you’ve master this — you’re in the minority. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, marketers have not turned a strategic lens on optimizing the return from their visual media content investments. While 65% of senior marketing executives believe visual assets are core to how their brand story is communicated, only 27% have the ability to aggregate, organize and manage these assets across marketing and non-marketing teams—including those outside of the organization. A new study from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council—entitled “From Content to Creativity: The Role of Visual Media in Impactful Brand Storytelling”—reveals that marketers believe visual assets, including photography, illustrations, infographics and videos, are core to customer engagement and will increase in usage in the coming year. Video will most dramatically increase in importance in the near future, according to 79 percent of senior marketers. Infographics (60 percent), photographs (50 percent), and illustrations (41 percent) will also increase in usage. The 17-page strategic white paper is available for download today by clicking here. Conducted in partnership with Libris, a PhotoShelter business unit, the study reveals that internal silos, disconnected content development strategies and a vast list of other marketing priorities have prevented visual assets from being fully leveraged across the organization. “Marketers have been remiss in approaching the visual asset dialogue as part of the strategic customer experience and engagement dialogue,” said Liz Miller, Senior Vice President of Marketing for the CMO Council. “Perhaps because visual assets have long been the domain of creative or agency resources, the conversation around maximizing value across the organization has fallen off of the priority list. But as customers continue to react in meaningful ways to visual media, marketing cannot afford to stand idly by and not include visuals in the content ROI agenda.” Consumer research shows that 40 percent of customers will respond better to visual information than plain text (Zabisco). Marketers have, in turn, shifted content production to include vast quantities of graphics, videos, photography and illustrations. Infographic production, by one estimate, increases by 1 percent every day (Zabisco). Yet according to the 177 marketing executives surveyed by the CMO Council in the second quarter of 2015, current investments in centralization of these assets do not reflect this level of priority. The audit, conducted through the CMO Council’s Content ROI Center, tapped into the insights of 177 senior marketers, with 52 percent from B2B organizations, 18 percent from B2C companies and 30 percent from hybrid organizations selling to B2B2C. A quarter of respondents hail from organizations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, and 41 percent hold chief marketing officer, head of marketing or senior vice president of marketing titles. Areas explored in the paper include: The role of visual content in marketing and brand storytelling strategies Anticipated shifts in the importance of visual content Budget allocations and anticipated shifts in spend for visual content development Key challenges and obstacles to maximizing ROI Impact and value of visual content aggregation and consolidation About the CMO Council The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is the only global network of executives specifically dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries. The CMO Council’s 9,000 members control more than $450 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include more than 35,000 global executives in more than 110 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, India and Africa. The council’s strategic interest groups include the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Mobile Relationship Marketing (MRM) Strategies Forum, LoyaltyLeaders.org, CMOCIOAlign.org, Marketing Supply Chain Institute, Customer Experience Board, Digital Marketing Performance Institute, GeoBranding Center and the Brand Inspiration Center. Learn more at www.cmocouncil.org. About Libris McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the No one wants to be sold August 31, 2015 by Drew McLellan Leave a Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 5 Smiling man with hand out to shake handsHere’s a truth we seem to want to ignore — no one wants to be sold. Ever. Think about some of your favorite stores. Beyond the merchandise they have – what do you love about going there? Odds are your favorite stores became your favorites because of the experience you had. So you go back time and time again. Now – forget about your favorite stores for a minute. If I asked you to describe the ideal encounter with a salesperson, what would you envision? Is it the salesperson that follows you around on the floor, repeatedly asking you if you need help or interjecting their opinion on every item you look at? Or would it be walking in the store and having someone introduce themselves and ask how they can help you? If you say “I’m just looking” which is universal code for leave me alone – do they? Are they around to answer any questions you might have but otherwise, let you explore? Let’s translate that to when you call a business looking for information. Does the operator read from a script, barely letting you get a word in edgewise because he has two specials you need to know about? Or are you immediately connected to someone who can either answer your questions or get you to the right source for the answers you need? The truth is – no one wants to be sold. When you hear the word salesman, what images pop into your mind? The stereotypical used car salesman with the “you can drive it off the lot today” sort of sales pressure? I don’t care who you are or what you’re in the market for, no one welcomes that sort of salesperson. Why do we react so badly? A bad sales person is someone who: Wants you to buy today Relentless Talks to much about themselves and their product/service Doesn’t listen Makes us feel as they though they only care about the sale When you look at that list, no wonder we run for cover. If your favorite store had that sort of sales force, I suspect it would no longer be your favorite store. Now – go grab your brochure, pull up your website and eavesdrop on some of your sales calls. See any similarities? All too often marketing materials and messages bear an uncomfortable resemblance to that pushy sales guy. We’re so anxious to make sure the prospect knows how amazing our stuff is – we over sell and the reality is, no one wants to be sold. Ever. What you love about your favorite stores and your favorite brands is that they’re helpful. Depending on your needs and the type of purchase, helpful come in the form of convenience or providing you a lot of information. Helpful might be that you can try as many styles and sizes as you’d like and return the ones you don’t want for free (like Zappos) or it might be a robust website that really allows the consumer to educate themselves long before they speak to a salesperson like River Pools and Spas that has over 800 pages of content and offers it all for free. You will sell more if you sell less. Be helpful, be someone I can trust, be approachable without putting your hand in my pocket looking for my wallet and I will come to rely on you. When I am actually ready to buy – who do you think I’m going to by from? You. McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Filed Under: Love Affair with Customers, Marketing, Psychology, Sales Fundraising is marketing August 4, 2015 by Drew McLellan Leave a Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 10 fundraising-is-marketingLet’s face it — fundraising is marketing. I love the stories of the good old days in my community. You’ve probably already heard the same sorts of stories in your community too. How the “founding fathers” would gather over coffee and when the community had a need, they’d each pull out their checkbook and invest in the solution. Many of those men and women have streets or foundations (or both) named after them and their mark will forever be a part of most of the cities in our country. There are quite a few charities that owe their start or a portion of their success to those visionary leaders. As great as they were – those days are long gone. I’ve received a few solicitations lately that make me wonder if there are still some area non-profits that are living back in the old glory days and haven’t fast forwarded to today. Whether the target is a business or an individual, the game has changed and if nonprofits want to keep serving their mission, they’re going to need to make some shifts in their efforts. They need to recognize that fundraising is marketing. There’s no separation today and the organizations who embrace this idea will win the day and the dollars. Here’s what non profits need to remember: Why you? It’s a rare charity that doesn’t have a competitor who also serves the same people/cause or at least a portion of them. If you want a donor’s dollars or even their attention, you’ll need to be able to demonstrate how you do it differently or better and you need to do that on a consistent, steady stream of communication basis. I don’t know you so get your hand out of my pocket: The “send everyone we can think of” a solicitation letter (especially at the end of the year) is just a waste of money. If we don’t have a relationship and your work isn’t meaningful to me, I’m not going to send you a dollar. Don’t waste your stamps. Slow going: The days of walking out of your first meeting with a check are gone. Sure, it might happen once in a blue moon but in general, you’re going to have to work hard for your money. Think marathon, not sprint. Fewer but deeper: One of the amazing truths about Des Moines is that we’re blessed with a huge number of committed charities. But the flip side of that truth is that no business can possibly support them all. Which means, choices have to be made. Businesses don’t want to be one of ten logos on the back of yet another t-shirt. Donors are opting to spend their money on fewer nonprofits but to give more to those few. And once they’re locked in with a specific charity, it’s going to be much tougher to pry them loose. Going, going, so gone! Our community is golf tournament and auctioned to death. If you don’t already hold one of these, don’t start one. And if you already have one – be ready for declining attendance or revenue unless you can make it unique. Bravo to Des Moines based charities like YESS (Duck Derby), Childserve (Bubble Ball) and others who have taken the risk and created something one of a kind. The Obama election fund reality: One of the ways Obama defeated McCain back in ’08 was to race more money from more people. The dollar amounts were smaller but the impact was bigger. The same 20 companies (every charity has the same list) in Des Moines cannot be the title sponsor for everything. Find ways to make it valuable for smaller companies who don’t get into the limelight every day to be your benefactors. No one is arguing with the amazing work you do. In fact, we want to make sure you keep doing it. But, like the for-profit businesses have… you have to adapt to today’s economy and reality. And soon. McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Filed Under: Community, Marketing, Psychology, Strategy Dollar cost averaging equals marketing August 17, 2015 by Drew McLellan Leave a Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 5 dollar cost averaging equals marketing dollar cost averaging equals marketing If we’ve learned anything over the last decade it’s that the stock market is volatile and difficult to predict with precision. Even Warren Buffet can’t tell you exactly when a stock will go hot or drop like a rock. Which is how the whole concept of dollar cost averaging came to be. According to Investopedia.com, it’s a technique of buying a fixed dollar amount of a particular investment on a regular schedule, regardless of the share price. More shares are purchased when prices are low, and fewer shares are bought when prices are high. Dollar-cost averaging lessens the risk of investing a large amount in a single investment at the wrong time. That’s how you need to think about your marketing efforts as well. Rather than trying to guess when a potential buyer might be ready to buy – you need to be marketing every day, so that when they’re ready, you’re right there. Even if you sell a season-specific product or service, that doesn’t let you off the hook. It may dictate that you ebb and flow your marketing – but it doesn’t mean you stop or restrict your presence. With social media and SEO/content marketing – there’s no off-season. An article that’s posted on your website in March may be the search result that drives a sale in November. Think of your marketing efforts as constant lead nurturing. It’s all about building solid relationships through consistent conversations with your target audience, acknowledging that while you don’t know when they will buy, you know some of them will buy sooner or later. Here’s a quick overview of how you can build up a lead nurturing program. Generate leads: You can’t market if you don’t have anyone to talk to. You’re going to want to generate leads on a macro and micro level. Some tactics, like social media and offering something for free on your website, tend to draw big numbers and many of those leads aren’t really quite the right fit. But that’s okay, because you haven’t expending a lot of money or time to attract them. You’ll also want to generate some more targeted leads. To do this, first you need to define your sweet spot customer. Then create a lead scoring tool, which will let you objectively assess leads and sort them accordingly. Create a drip campaign: Lead nurturing is all about regular contact. Now that you know who your sweet spot customer is – what kinds of information would be helpful to them? Note – I did not say what kinds of things could you sell them. This is about you offering value over and over again. Make me smarter, more efficient or better at my job and I will be indebted to you. Try to sell me something all the time and I will disconnect. You don’t have to offer them a twenty-page white paper each time. It can literally be a nugget – a single idea or suggestion. In fact, they’re more likely to keep reading what you send if you do keep it bite-sized. Test, track and tweak: The beautiful thing about most drip campaigns is that they’re so trackable. You will be able to test headlines, the types of content you’re sharing, day of the week and a host of other variables. Let the data help you fine tune your program and keep in mind, even if it needs a lot of tweaking – you’re still ahead of 95% of your competitors who are still trying to time the market! Don’t expend energy trying to figure out when to market. The answer is now. McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Filed Under: Marketing, Strategy Pinpoint your sweet spot customers July 20, 2015 by Drew McLellan Leave a Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 9 bullseyeWe’ve talked quite a bit about the importance of understanding who you can delight when it comes to looking for new customers — finding those sweet spot customers and turn them into your best marketing tool. Rather than trying to be something for everyone — the smartest businesses understand that they’re the perfect solution for a certain subset of potential customers — and those are the prospects they should target and pursue with a vengeance. To help you get your arms around this idea and put together a game plan — we’ve created this list of questions. Walk your team through each one — and at the end, you’ll have a pretty good picture of who you should be targeting and how you can earn/keep their interest throughout your buying cycle, How many new clients would it take for you to have a killer year? Who are your favorite clients? What about them puts them on that list? If you could replicate one client – and have a bunch of them – who would you replicate? What traits/characteristics would all of those cloned clients have? What kinds of information, help, tools etc. would those clones most value? If you were on a scavenger hunt and I said you needed to find 10 people who closely resembled your sweet spot client – where would you look? How would you get their attention? What do they need? How would you stay under their nose/in touch in a valuable/helpful way? List 10 ways. How could you help them today in a way other than giving them financial counsel? If you couldn’t talk to them directly – who is your Kevin Bacon and could connect you? And don’t forget your existing customers, who are your best source of new revenue: What can you do to re-connect with your existing clients 2 – 4 times a year that has nothing to do with the work you do together? McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Are you minding your packaging? June 21, 2015 by Drew McLellan 1 Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 13 The smartest brands know that having an awesome product/service is important but how you present that awesome product or service matters too. Yes, it probably costs more. And yes, it means you have to keep upping your game. So there’s risk and cost in making that choice. But it’s what separates the premium brands from their competitors. Here are two of the world’s best brands and example of how seriously they take the simple presentation of their product. Check out how Disney presents their MagicBands and Apple is sending out its new Apple Watch. This is how Disney mails out their MagicBands. This is how Disney mails out their MagicBands. Inside the box is your personalized MagicBand -- in the color you selected and with your name printed on the inside of the band. Inside the box is your personalized MagicBand — in the color you selected and with your name printed on the inside of the band. This is the packaging for the Apple Watch. This is the packaging for the Apple Watch. And finally, you get to your new watch. And finally, you get to your new watch. In every case — the anticipation of actually getting to the product (and keep in mind with the Disney MagicBands — the bands are simply the access point to getting into Disney) heightens the experience of getting the actual item. They don’t have to go to the extra lengths — but they do. Which triggers even more buzz and loyalty for their brand. So — how can you, no matter what you sell, use anticipation and packaging to elevate your brand and create more buzz? McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Filed Under: Branding, Magic of Disney, Sales Tagged With: Apple, Apple watch, Disney, Disney MagicBands, Packaging If they don’t care, are you even there? June 18, 2015 by Drew McLellan Leave a Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 11 Two pieces of white paper with the word invisible turned into visible Two pieces of white paper with the word invisible turned into visible Your creative needs to be creative. No doubt about that. But sadly, many people think that’s enough. I received an email from a college student, asking if he could interview me. Two of his questions in particular caught my attention because they put the spotlight on a dangerous mistake that many seasoned marketers make. It all revolves around the idea that marketing needs to be wacky or groundbreaking with the end goal being that it’s memorable. I can think of a lot of crazy, funny and touching marketing tactics that I’ve remembered for years that never prompted me to buy the product. Should your creative be fresh, interesting and different from what everyone else in your category is doing? Sure. But you can’t stop there. And you can’t start there. You start with understanding your own product or service as objectively as you can (how does it rock, where is it weak, etc.) and who the ideal consumer for that product or service happens to be. And you end by telling those ideal customers enough about your product or service that they understand why it’s the perfect fit for them. You have to match your sweet spot customer with the benefits that make them the right buyer for what you sell. I thought at it might be useful to you to see what he asked and my replies. Q: When developing a concept do you try to go with something new and groundbreaking or do you have a more straightforward, proven approach to getting the message out to the target audience. The truth is – what sells is the truth. We begin by understanding our audience and what they care about. We learn as much about them as possible. Every product/service has a “perfect fit” customer. It’s our job to figure out who that is and then craft our message to appeal to that person. What is new today will be old hat tomorrow. So gimmicks and shock value and crazy aren’t good marketing strategies. Look at the Kmart “Ship My Pants” ads. Are they funny? Are they memorable? The answer to both those questions is yes. But will it sell more stuff? I don’t think so. And THAT is our job. We help clients sell stuff. If we don’t do that – no matter how funny or memorable our work is – we got it wrong. So the creative approach depends on the audience and what will connect with them and help them see why what we sell is what they need or want most. Q: I believe that promoting brand recall is the most important objective in a message strategy. What is your favorite way to do this? First – I respectfully disagree. I believe the most important objective in a message strategy is to help the audience understand how this product or service is uniquely positioned to benefit THEM. The most important objective is brand relevance. Again, it doesn’t matter if you are memorable if you aren’t relevant. The best way to develop brand relevance is to understand your sweet spot customer and why they would care and then figure out how to deliver value towards that for them. A brand’s job is to be important to the consumer. Harley does this brilliantly. For Harley riders and prospects – no other bike will do. Anything else is a poor substitute. Harley is about living the dream of a biker – freedom, independence, camaraderie etc. No brand captures and sells that like Harley. Harley could run a bunch of ads that promote the name so we’d never forget it. But instead they promote the dream/fantasy of owning a motorcycle and tie their name to delivering on that dream. I’d much rather have 100 sweet spot customers reach for their wallet than 10,000 people remember the ad. Remember that and you’ll enjoy a long career in this crazy business that I love. Good luck! McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Filed Under: Innovation & Creativity, Marketing Tagged With: creativity, know, like trust, strategy Like millions of businesses around the world, at some point in time, you decided to hop on the Facebook train. You created a presence with either enthusiasm or distain (seems everyone starts at one end of the spectrum or the other) and posted your first update. Since then, things have been a little stagnant. The fans didn’t come pouring in the way you hoped (or expected) and as a result, your enthusiasm and activity level have waned. Ready to fire back up? First, let’s diagnose why your Facebook fans have been a bit lackadaisical. Or worse. You set up the wrong kind of presence: Many businesses mistakenly create an account rather than a page. An account is owned by an individual and has friends. A page is created by an account holder and has likes. No only is it the wrong kind of presence but if Facebook realizes you’ve given a business entity a personal account, they can force you to shut it down. Which means you’d lose all your friends/fans and have to start over. Be sure you have the right set up. You infrequently and inconsistently post: It’s a little like knowing someone who rarely speaks to you. Or speaks to you a ton for one hour and then ignores you for the next five days. Pretty soon, you find someone else to talk to. You can’t expect people to pay attention if they can’t count on you. Hopefully your plan is to use your Facebook presence to create a relationship with people who either are already fans of your work or could be. Silence is not a great relationship enhancer. You’re all about you: This is one of the biggest marketing mistakes that most organizations consistently make. All they do is talk about themselves. This usually comes from one of two places. First, you don’t have a good idea of who you are talking to, so you aren’t sure how to talk about what they’d care about. So you default to talking about yourself. Or, you aren’t thinking about your Facebook presence as a relationship conduit in the same way you’d think about a face-to-face conversation. If you were sitting across from someone, you wouldn’t be rude enough to blather on about yourself non-stop. Don’t do it on Facebook either. You use Facebook as a sales tool: It’s okay to share a great deal or special pricing now and then on your Facebook page. But, it’s not a sales flier – it’s a place to connect. The Facebook pages that I spend time on are the ones that make me smarter, make my life easier/better, make me laugh, connect me to a memory or to a community of people with whom I share a common interest. I never mind when they occasionally pitch me, because the rest of the time they give me so much value, I’m grateful. Would your Facebook fans say the same thing? You never use Facebook as a sales tool: I know, people are fickle. Especially if you are a retail location or sell a product, one of the reasons people are willing to like your page is because they think it will get them something special or at a discount. Don’t disappoint them. Just do it sparingly. You tell and sell: One of the best and easiest ways to generate activity on your Facebook page (which will generate new likes) is to ask questions. By getting your fans involved, you can actually have a conversation and even better, their friends will see the interaction and hopefully decide to join in as well. Remember that like all social media, Facebook is permission based. Your audience can disconnect from you any time they want. So provide value every day and watch your likes spike. McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How Becoming a marketing master June 2, 2015 by Drew McLellan 1 Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 9 Becoming a marketing masterYou don’t have to be a good writer or have a mind for marketing to set a goal of becoming a marketing master. You just have to be willing to do the hard work of learning how to do it and practicing it regularly. There’s a huge body of research that has studied how people who are at the top of their game got there. Many people assume these superstars had a wealth of natural talent that gave them a huge advantage over the others in their field. But even when you look at remarkable performers like Tiger Woods or Warren Buffet, it’s not true. We’ve all heard the story of how Tiger started playing golf at 18 months and had over 15 years of regular practice before he began competing at a national level. Warren Buffet admits that he knew very little but invested significant time studying business and financial statements to learn how to spot patterns and trends. In fact, the research is so consistent it has evolved into what is commonly called the ten-year rule. It states that the most accomplished professionals, no matter what field they’re in; need about ten years of intense study to get to the top of their game. The ten years isn’t an average, it’s a minimum. And there’s one more element that matters. It can’t be casual or haphazard practice. It needs to be what is called deliberate practice. It’s you doing things with the explicit goal of improving your performance that will push you past competent to a level of excellence. Why does all of this matter to you, in terms of marketing? It means for you to develop and execute effective marketing, you need to be deliberately practicing on a regular basis. It erases the excuse “I’m just not wired to be good at this” when it comes to marketing your business. Like most other aspects of running or owning a business, it boils down to doing the hard work and committing to it for the long haul. And there’s one other benefit to taking this sort of approach. In the case of marketing – unlike a golf game or investing, you have a potential audience and that audience requires many marketing touches before they start paying attention. The fact that marketing is a marathon not a sprint works well with this “practice every day” philosophy. Very few marketing tactics deliver instant results and when that happens, it’s more dumb luck than anything else. Marketing is a cumulative effort. Your efforts stack up and create that consistent drip drip drip marketing that we’ve talked about before. In many ways, marketing is the perfect skill to develop, given the ten-year rule. You have to do it consistently and intentionally to get better at it and your audience needs you to do it consistently to notice you. So the more you practice, the better you get and the better results you’ll experience. Now the question is – what do you need to do to put this idea into play? Daily Practice: What marketing tactics can you commit to doing on a daily basis? Is it a Facebook page update? A customer thank you call? Weekly Practice: What can you do every single week? An insightful blog post? Sending out targeted direct mail pieces and then following up with a call? Monthly Practice: What, come rain or shine, will you do every month? Writing a helpful newsletter that establishes your expertise? Running an ad in a niche publication aimed at your primary audience? Be sure you build your skills by practicing every single day and before you know it, you’ll be on your way to becoming a marketing master. Not only will you get better every day but you’ll get also more customers as you practice! McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Filed Under: Business Owner/Leader Stuff, Marketing, Strategy Tagged With: 10 years of hard work, Becoming a marketing master, Drew McLellan, marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Marketing strategy Who shouldn’t you serve? May 18, 2015 by Drew McLellan 1 Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 12 you shouldn't serveWho shouldn’t you serve? I have often said that the power of a good brand is not only does it attract your sweet spot customers but it repels the wrong customers. Too many businesses adopt the “every dollar is a good dollar” philosophy which inevitably brings them misery, unhappy customers and financial losses. When you try to serve people who are a bad fit — they almost always leave, disgruntled. And that’s after you have chased your tail, trying to make them happy, even if it means you lose your shirt. You’re far better off to dramatically narrow your focus. Only serve the people/companies who can be your very best customers or as Steve Farber says in Radical Leap — “Doing What You Love in the Service of People Who Love What You Do.” The picture with this post is a window at a Tattoo Parlor in Asheville, NC. Clearly they know exactly who they do and don’t want to serve. And while they have taken a rather aggressive way of communicating that — it’s highly unlikely that they get a lot of walk ins who turn out to be bad customers. I’m not suggesting you post a sign. But I am suggesting that there’s value in knowing exactly who you should and who you shouldn’t serve and going out of your way to be equally clear on both sides of the equation. By the way — this isn’t rocket science. Make a list of your best customers. The people you’d clone if you could. What do they have in common? Next, make a list of the people who you’d pay to stop serving. What do they have in common? Now — look at your marketing messages. How can you tweak them so they attract your best customers and communicate to your worst clients that they’d be better off going somewhere else? You cannot have a love affair with your worst customers. You simply can’t woo them and win their hearts. So it’s better to let someone else have them so you can concentrate on the people who truly will love you and what you do for them. McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Show your customers that you care May 5, 2015 by Drew McLellan Leave a Comment Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 28 In previous posts, we’ve explored the idea that a potential buyer has to know, like and trust you before they’re going to buy anything from you. In this one, I want to dig into the trust part of the equation a little deeper and how important it is to show your customers that you care. I think that the trust goes far beyond trusting your brand promise or trusting that your product will perform. No doubt that’s part of the equation but I think it’s more than that. The trust level they’re really looking for is the reassurance that they can trust you to take care of them if things go badly. When you think about it – when we buy something and it all goes according to plan, there isn’t the need for all that much trust. It’s when there’s a problem that we suddenly feel vulnerable. Now we’re exposed – and need to count on the company. That’s the moment that you need to prove to your customers that you care. There’s a quote flying around the Internet that says, “Yes, you can show me what you do, but first, show me that you care.” That sums up the essence of what a prospect really wants to know with confidence, before they buy. Check out this great story about taking care of our customers. Where has your planning taken you so far? April 22, 2015 by Drew McLellan 2 Comments Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 3 planningAs the first quarter of 2015 whizzes past us, it’s time to take stock of your planning abilities. 25% of the year is now done. How are you doing on your goals for 2015? I suspect the answer to that question fall into one of two camps. Camp One (also known as the Camp of the Seat of My Pants): Goals? We’re doing pretty well. I think. Translation: We didn’t set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound) goals so we know we want to make more money than we did last year, but other than that – we’re not sure what success in 2013 looks like. Camp Two (also known as the Camp of the Strategic Planners): We’re at 32% of goal one, 17% of goal two and we’re doing a customer survey in June to see how we’re doing on goal three. Translation: We took the time to set SMART goals and then built a plan for accomplishing those goals. We’re tracking our progress and adjusting the plan as we go. Now you might argue that there’s a third camp. The Camp of Lucky Breaks. No argument there. Every once in awhile a business hits one out of the park through no particular fault or planned effort of their own. They’re just in the right place at the right time. Everyone deserves a break like that every now and then. But that’s the problem – it’s unpredictable and at best, sporadic. Since we can’t count on falling into the third camp, the truth is – as business owners and leaders, we make a conscious decision to plan or not. Make whatever excuses you want – it’s either a priority or not. And you get to reap the benefits or not. It’s really that simple. Whenever I think about the true value of planning, I remember my experience with our office move a few years ago. It was a sight to see. The team at MMG is filled with native planners. They like to be organized and anticipate as many details as possible. It’s how they work with our clients and it’s just how they’re wired. We had several meetings in the months leading up to the move, trying to anticipate anything and everything we’d need. There were plenty of checklists and task assignments. I watched in amazement at how smoothly the move went. Each area of the office was assigned a different color of duct tape and everything that belonged in that area was marked with the appropriate colored tape (including me by the end of the day!) This allowed the moving crew to load the truck by area, knowing they’d unload in the same way. When we got to the new office, there were color-coded charts on the walls, and large colored signs by each area in the office. The unloading was incredibly fast and efficient. Even on move day, – we were back on track and taking care of clients. Within two work days, we were completely settled into the new space and everyone was working at full speed. That’s the thing – while planning does require an investment, it almost always pays dividends. Here’s the short list of planning perks. You get where you want to be – by starting with the end in mind, you can plan the path to get there. Resource conservation – you’ll burn fewer resources (time, money, good will) to accomplish your goals, which means you’re that much further ahead. You can track your course – when you are actively monitoring a goal’s progress, you can make course corrections faster and minimize your losses. You’ve lost the first quarter. Will you lose the second too or is it time to get planning? McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Filed Under: Business Owner/Leader Stuff, Strategy Playbook for word of mouth July 6, 2015 by Drew McLellan 2 Comments Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinShare on stumbleuponMore Sharing Services 3 fizzTed Wright’s new book Fizz (affiliate link) is a fantastic playbook for word of mouth that’s fun to read and easy to connect with your business and how you could take the examples and modify them to work for you. Wright works hard to demystify this area of organic marketing that seems to create so much confusion and missteps. you’ll appreciate the examples of both what works and what happens when things go really wrong. No matter what size is your business, you’ll be able to implement the ideas on the book as it explores strategies, techniques, and approaches of building a company and a brand worth talking about. One of the reasons why this playbook for word of mouth isn’t just another fluff book is that Wright has actually had a hand in a lot of the examples and he offers up data like sales results, so you can see that it’s not just about creating buzz but it’s ultimately about creating sales. This book is entertaining to read but at the end of the day, as Wright says at the opening of his playbook — it will actually help you “sell more stuff to more people more often for more money.” Hard to argue with that. Get your copy from Amazon here. (affiliate link) McLellan Marketing Group is an advertising | marketing agency based in Des Moines, IA, and serving clients all over the US. How might we help you? Filed Under: Books, Sales, Word of Mouth