Great points about marketing -- "retail (and entertainment) is detail"

(I was gonna stop putting in entries today but this is so good, I couldn't resist.)

From Joe Gracia's Give To Get marketing e-newsletter:

1. You Must Make a Strong Offer
Never, never invest in a marketing vehicle that merely tells people about you, your company, or your product orservice. This is what most business owners do -- and they get little or no response to their marketing.

If you don't make a simple and compelling offer to your prospects and customers, then they will have nothing to respond to. They will glance at your marketing piece, and then quickly discard it and move on to the next item that attracts their attention.

You must get them to make an immediate decision to take action. And to do that -- your offer is everything!

If you don't have the knowledge to create compelling offers to get your prospects and customers to take immediate action -- then you will get very little response to your marketing. It's as simple as that.

There is only one thing that generates response --compelling offers. Once you learn how to create compelling offers for your product or service, your phone will literally ring off the hook. Your prospects and customers will find it difficult to resist responding. Creating compelling offers that your customers can't resist isn't really that difficult once you learn the simple step-by-step system that we teach. If you are serious about growing your business, you owe it to yourself to learn howto create irresistible offers.

2. You Must Contact Your Prospects and Customers Often
So many business owners get a call from someone inquiring about their products or services, and they send them some information, and never contact them again. What a waste.

People will forget about you very quickly if you don't contact them over and over again. The more times you contact your prospects, the more new customers you will generate. The more times you contact your current customers, the more repeat and back-end sales you'll receive. The companies that continue to grow are the ones that understand that if you want more sales than you can handle, then you must keep reminding your prospects and customers about your wonderful products/services and your offers.

[This is especially true in these days of information overload -- e.g., I have about 10,000 unread email messages...]

3. Become a Guest, Not a Pest
If all of your repeated contacts with your prospects and customers sound like this, 'So, are you ready to buy yet?' or, 'Have you had a chance to read over my proposal?' you will quickly lose your 'Guest' status and become a dreaded 'Pest.'

To avoid becoming a pest marketer, you have to learn how to Give to Get. You can follow-up with a periodic newsletter instead of just a sales pitch -- like this newsletter. You can pass on an article that your prospects might find helpful. With a Web site you can actually share helpful articles with your prospects and customers very inexpensively. By providing helpful information to your prospects and customers along with your current offer, you will maintain your 'Guest' status. Your contacts will be something your prospects look forward to instead of something to dread.

Lots of options to choose from...

Here Are Two Examples

'Small Regional Playhouse Fills the House with Inexpensive Post Card Follow-ups'

The Sunset Playhouse in Elm Grove, Wisconsin understands the marketing power of consistent follow-ups with their prospects and customers. About 10 years ago I signed up to be on their mailing list, so they could remind us from time to time about their latest plays. Obviously they entered our name and address into a computer database at that time, and without fail, approximately every 6 months we receive a simple, inexpensive post card letting us know about their upcoming plays.

They have a simple Call to Action and Sense of Urgency: 'Call 555-5555 Today for Reservations! Don't Delay --Our Seats Fill Up Fast!'

And nearly every time my wife, Maria, and I receive one of their post card reminders, we select one of the plays, give them a call and reserve our seats -- and we do it immediately, because we don't want a bad seat. We always have a wonderful time. But you know what? If they didn't send us these reminder post cards, we would rarely go to any of their plays. I know this is true, because for one, I've been a marketer for many years and know that this is how we human beings are -- out of sight, out of mind, and two, because from 1980 to 1990 I never went to a single play at the Sunset. Why? Because they never sent me a reminder post card!

Even though I knew about them, I just never thought about them. Because The Sunset Playhouse was savvy enough to get us onto their follow-up list they have us as customers for life!



'Small Dinner Theater Misses the Mark by Never Reminding Past Customers of Their Latest Shows'

About four years ago, we read an article in our local newspaper about a small dinner theater in our town, called Broadway Baby. The article said that it was a terrific dinner theater, but that it was struggling to survive.There are two things that we really enjoy -- food and the theater!

So when we read about Broadway Baby, we had to give it a try. We called and made reservations for the following weekend. We loved it. The food was great, the service was excellent and the play was very entertaining. We wondered why they were struggling when they offered such a quality experience.

It didn't take us long to figure out why they were having such a hard time filling their seats. They took our name and address when we made our reservations. We assumed that they would be entering our name and address into their customer database so that they could follow up with us by post card or letter in the future.

But they 'never' did. In fact, we never heard from them again. Know how many times we've been back to Broadway Baby in the past four years? Never. Not once. It's not because it wasn't a good experience. It's because we just never think of them. The folks who own Broadway Baby know how to feed their customers well, how to serve them well, and how to entertain them well.

What they don't know, is how important it is to stay uppermost in their customers' minds.

Out of Sight -- Out of Mind!

We keep hoping they'll figure it out one day before it's too late. Don't leave your marketing to chance.

'Out of Sight --Out of Mind' is no strategy for your business. There are so many simple and inexpensive ways to attract new customers and keep your current customers coming back for more that there is no excuse not to succeed with your business.

[These two examples alone will get me to buy the Give to Get Marketing Package. Clearly, Joe Garcia knows what's up, and I bet he has a direct marketing background, because direct marketers understand that marketing is about connection, action, results, and measurability.]
______________
Many Main Street programs, cultural organizations, and BIDs send weekly or monthly e-newsletters. Particularly good ones come from the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and the 16:62 Design Zone (Pittsburgh). The University City District BID in Philadelphia sends a monthly e-newsletter that is very simple, but it includes special offers each month, featuring different businesses in their District, and aims to build retail traffic for individual businesses. Another one that I like is from the Over-the-Rhine district in Cincinnati. (Each of these links is also in the "Best Practices Community Revitalization Programs" section in the right sidebar of this blog.)