Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Marketing Season

What a beautiful day we are having here in Northeast Tennessee! I hope each of you are enjoying this day as well. Hello! It's me, Chris Teague, bringing you more exciting concepts and strategies we at the WIN Firm have or are using for our clients.

I want you to stop for a moment and think about this summer. Was this the best summer ever? Did the summer fly by? What do you distinctly remember about this summer versus other summers? Okay, now that you have thought for a moment, imagine using the thoughts and those feelings associated with them for a marketing message. Today's lesson is about using our longing for an eternal summer to create a winning message.

Step 1: Think of all the songs we hear about summer. What are the messages we are hearing? Use these same messages to help you communicate with your audience. What? I am referring to the feeling that summer is a bitter-sweet escape we all experience in our lives. We associate this feeling with being alive, if only for a short period of time. Therefore, craft a message that makes your customers feel alive.

Step 2: Position your product, company or what you need us to buy as being the solution to our longing for being alive. Be our summer. How can you reach me on this level? Think about what you offer and you will find the answer to this question. However, you must be authentic and truly have something of substance for me.

Step 3: Use the very images of summer you pictured in your mind earlier or that you picture when you hear songs like, "Boys of Summer," by Bryan Adams. Use these pictures to craft your visual tools that compliment your message. Once you have mastered these three easy steps, you will be able to bring customers to you.

We have used each of the steps listed above for various clients with awesome outcomes. The key is to implement this strategy for a short period of time so that you can accurately measure the impact of the campaign. We normally run this campaign for no more than two months.

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P. Marketing
WIN Firm

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Who is Following You?

Good day to everyone! This is Chris Teague welcoming you to another marketing post from my work with the WIN Firm. I would like to apologize for not having this post up yesterday: there were a few glitches on blogger that prevented us from posting. Are you ready for a simple marketing lesson many of us tend to overlook?

Look over your shoulder...check your rear-view mirror...turn around....are you being followed? It is kind of creepy to think you are being followed at times, but as a company, you want to be followed. In fact, we as people desire to follow. Yes, you may lead, but you really follow. Sorry to burst your bubble, but we are just made to follow and that is perfectly okay. So, do you know who is following you? Really? I bet there are people you are missing. Keep reading; I will explain.

Customer retention is so important to a company's growth. Any executive, store owner or manager will tell you that keeping customers is less expensive than finding new ones. While this may be true, many organizations are unaware of who their customers are. What do I mean? I am talking about the customers that have not purchased anything from you, but like you and will buy from you. What? You mean I have a large customer base following me? How do I reach them? You just need to engage this customer base a little and provide them a purchasing avenue, but you must know who they are first. Want to figure out who is following you and increase your beloved customer base? Come on down to see how we at the WIN Firm help clients "track" those following you.

Step 1: You must be open to knowing that your industry is constantly changing, people are changing and your customers no longer look exactly alike. Well, they don't on the outside. Once you are open to UNDERSTANDING your customer today, you will be prepared for the next step.

Step 2: Let's explore alumni giving a little bit. WIN works with colleges and non-profits that depend on the public's support of their efforts to remain sustainable, financially speaking. There is one question that we always hear from our clients: "Who out there will give?" Great question! To discover the answer, we have found that anybody will give and will, but he/she simply hasn't found a reason to just yet. So, figure out this reason and engage your givers. Wait! I thought we were talking about tracking our followers. We are! Keep reading.

Step 3: Now that you know people need a reason to do something, you can effectively discover your followers. How? Analyze your current customers and their buying, or in this case, giving behaviors. There are those that buy/give a lot, and there are those that do not buy/give a lot. Common knowledge, right? Right! So, use this knowledge to figure out who is following you. That's right! You can know who is following based on the characteristics and mannerisms of your "known" customers. Stay with me.

Step 4: Okay, you know that some people simply have plenty of money to spend/give, may really like you and even have found satisfaction in your product. There are others that want to share the same thing as these people, but you haven't discovered them yet. We at WIN are innovative, so take this next step/tactic/strategy openly. Check it out!

Step 5: People are everywhere. How do you find those following you? Engage them. Bring them out of the jungle and unmask their camouflage. We understand that people give due to various reasons, especially depending on where they are in life. We created a concept that reached and brought the following groups together: current students, those freshly out of school, those at the beginning of a career, those starting a family and those "established." These are all customers following a college, but the college does not really know who they are. Why not find them?

Step 6: We approached a school and offered them the concept of being "Social." No, I am not talking about social media just yet. I am referring to the power of socializing and networking. We created various socials within the college's community that connected these groups and allowed them to chat, meet one another and network. What brought them together? Their common connection: COLLEGE. Using the theme of "Helping," we were able to create a reason for these unknown customers to be engaged. The college discovered its "unknown" customer and giving increased!

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P. Marketing
WIN Firm

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

You DON'T Need It!

Good morning! This is Chris Teague from the WIN Firm welcoming you to another post by our group to help you understand what goes on inside of a marketing firm's operations. Basically, you are seeing into our brains without having to use any high-tech devices. Let's get going with today's post!

Listening to the radio the other day, I heard a typical advertisement for a department store. The message I heard was: "We have what you need, so come see us while supplies last!" After hearing this ad, I immediately thought: "Really!" You mean this store knows what I need. I am very impressed, because I haven't determined everything I need just yet. Thank goodness this store is here, or I would really be lost. Like my sarcasm? Sorry, but we at the WIN Firm would not ever tell someone what they need in any sort of advertisement because we don't know what YOU need. If anything, we have a better understanding of what you don't need than what you do need. What we do know is how to communicate with you though, and make an authentic connection. I bet that connection is why our campaigns produce measurable, impacting results for our clients.

Would you like to connect with your audience only having 5 seconds to really do so even though you have crafted a 30 second script? Follow these steps we used for a client in health care. The steps below are simple, but effective and really help us get our message to listeners in 5 seconds or less so that we can reach their conscious while planting a seed in their subconscious. Brainwashing? No, we don't do that. The WIN Firm just understands that our brain needs to hear our message and that the message needs to stick.

Step 1: We developed a script that could be read in several sections and the message still remained the same. Knowing that most people retain what they hear at first based on an initial five seconds (our scientific guess), we make sure that all scripts have the message you want your audience to hear. What did we write?

Step 2: The basic script was written with a call to action to seek more information. Being as ambiguous as possible, yet perking your curiosity to discover more than we provided you, helped our client connect with you on an authentic level. How? See step 3.

Step 3: Health care is one of those fields that scares the average patient. We are already inundated with messages telling us what is and what isn't healthy from the media, so WIN used this information to reach you. Our script implanted the importance of choice, and that choice comes from being informed. What happened?

Step 4: We were able to do exactly what our client wanted, have patients call them for more information. By providing you with power of information, but leaving out the information you still sought, we made you curious. Top that curiosity off with the choice of learning more, we informed you where to discover more about the client. How was this authentic?

Step 5: We simply took out assuming we had the answers for you, and let you discover them for yourself. Empowering you with a little information and providing you with a place to seek more, we created an authentic opportunity for our client to build a relationship with you. This relationship is important because it helps alleviate your fears and allows you to connect with our client. Our client received more calls in one month than they did over the course of half of a year. It works!

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P. Marketing
WIN Firm