Target Your Best Clients

I hope you’re enjoying our ongoing discussion on message to market match and the marketing triangle. So far we talk about the markets you choose and the message (what you say). You can review those links at my postings below.

Today we’ll move on to Media which means the devices you use to get new clients to your business and how you get past clients to buy again. Remember, we’re using Dan Kennedy’s Marketing Triangle as a basis for our conversation.

By media, I’m talking about any means of delivering your message to your target audience (your market). These can include (but certainly not limited to):

• Direct mail
• Yellow pages
• Newspapers
• TV
• Radio
• Websites
• Blogs
• Videos
• Seminars
• Tele-seminars
• Webinars
• Car racks
• Signage
• Billboards
• Banners
• ValPak style mailers

The list goes on and on.

I know some of you probably have some pre-conceived notions about some of the media listed and think of some of them as bad or good media. To be honest, there is no such thing as a bad or good media, just as there is not good or bad tool in your toolbox in the garage. There are tools that are more appropriate than others, say if you want to pound in a nail, or screw in a screw. One does better than the other for certain jobs.

The same is true with your media. Here’s an example. If you’re targeting people over the age of 70 for vacation rentals in Florida during the winter, relying solely internet websites, online videos and e-mailis foolish. You’ll need to use other media to reach those people such as direct mail or magazine/newspaper ads.

However, if you’re targeting college aged spring breakers to come to Lake Havasu, then the web may be a perfect place and you’ll probably want to rule out the yellow pages, Val-Pak etc.

You want to limit yourself to those media that are paid the most attention to, and the ones that are preferred and given creditability by your target audience. And, most importantly, one you can affordable reach.

To know if they are affordable, that means you must track your lifetime customer value (LTCV) and short term customer value (STCV) as some media can and should be ruled out and make others more attractive.

The Words You Say

Last week we started our discussion on “Message to Market Match” and I introduced you to Dan Kennedy’s famous marketing triangle. Last week we had a great discussion on the Market (who) side of the triangle. To review where we’ve been see my blog post here.

Today we’ll move on to Message (what), or the things you say or write to your market (who). Remember, we’re using Dan’s Marketing Triangle as a basis for our conversation.
Your marketing messages are the things you say or write about your business/product/service to entice people to do business with you. They can include your:

• Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
• Unique Value Proposition
• Elevator Speech
• Sales letters
• Web site copy and images
• The offers you make
• The social proof you use
• Testimonials, etc.

This is not an exhaustive list, but I think you get the idea. We talked about the ‘who’ last week. Your job is to make sure your messages match your target market.

This is vitally important. For example, if you’re a charity targeting republicans over the age of 55, you probably don’t want to quote JFK. However,a quote, image, and extensive use of Ronald Reagan would probably be very appropriate.

On the flip side, if you’re the same charity targeting young democrats, quoting Regan is probably worthless. But using an image of Obama on the first page of your letter with a quote from him would almost certainly boost response.

The words, images, phrases, etc. you use play a vital role in having just an OK response and having excellent response. Later this week we’ll talk a bit more about howto craft your messages to match your markets.

Marketing Tip Reader’s Only Special

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Who's Your Who

Last week we started our discussion on “Message to Market Match” and I introduced you to Dan Kennedy’s famous marketing triangle. We briefly touch on the Media portion (see image below). There will be more to come on Media in the coming days. To review where we’ve been see my blog post here.

Today we’ll move on to the markets, or the ‘who’ in your business that you choose. Remember, we’re using Dan’s Marketing Triangle as a basis for our conversation.
The “Markets” side of the triangle refers to who you select and choose as your clientele, with a big emphasis on SELECT and CHOOSE. Believe it or not, you, through your marketing, advertising and other messages, select your own clients. To say it simply, if you have bad clients you have no one to blame but yourself.

There’s never been a worse time for an, “Anybody is my client” mentality. I can’t tell you how many times I’m consulting with clients and I ask the simply question, “Who is your client?” and they either say, “I don’t know…”or, “Everybody in Milwaukee.” (Assuming they’re in
Milwaukee.)

Quite frankly, it’s too costly to attract ‘everybody’ with one broad brushstroke. It’s a huge mistake to have too big a targeted market with too few resources. Leave that to big, dumb corporations.

So I’ll leave you today with a brief, concise definition of how you should target your ideal market:

A good market is identifiable, affordably reached group with shared interests, needs, fears, desires which you believe are well matched to your knowledge, product service and expertise.

Later this week we’ll tackle the ‘Message’ side of the marketing triangle. I’ll see you then!

Message to Market Match

Alright, so after a brief break we’re back this week with an all new series of tips, just for you, my loyal reader. If you recall we ended last week talking about mailing lists and how to get them. See my blog posts below and start from the top down if you’d like to review. Today we have a brief entry on message to market match.

Message to Market Match means you’re matching what you’re selling, the media you’re selling it through, and the words you write to very precise and targeted prospects.

The best way I’ve seen or heard this described is by my mentors Dan Kennedy. I’m not even going to try and top it,so just see the images below. For more on Dan and his outstanding No B.S. Marketing Newsletter (to which I am a subscriber for 7 years, Keith for nearly 20!) visit this link.
When I say media, I’m talking about the format, and appropriateness for the task you’re trying to accomplish. For example, a retailer sending a ‘stand-alone’ postcard who’s holding an event in the mall is probably OK. If you’re sending a ‘stand-alone’ postcard to business owners expecting them to invest in new accounting and order taking software which is a $10,000 investment, for their business…BAD!!

I’m not saying the postcard doesn’t have a place in your marketing to the business owners. It may very well have its time and place. But to expect a postcard to do the heavy lifting is not smart.

Second, you want to start with people you already understand, and for the vast majority of you that will be the niche you serve. For example, I write to other business owners and salespeople who obviously are interested in growing their business with direct mail and doing it creatively (or why else would you be getting this!). I know and can speak our language, can identify with you, and thus can make a stronger connection with my copy. The same should go for you, when writing to your own niche. The good news is you can get a very good response with just OK copy if you make sure you’re sending it to a highly targeted list.

To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com

How To Get Mailing Lists, Part 2

So last week I left you with the basics on getting commercially available lists for your business. As usual I posted that last conversation on my blog. To review, go over to the blog. Today we’ll go over some other ways to grow your mailing list.

One way to grown your existing list is to use “turn-key” vendors who can get you lists that match your target audience. Then, they do the entire direct mailing for you, including the writing of the copy, printing, mailing, all the grunt work you shouldn’t be doing. we do a lot of this for our clients here at 3D Mail.

There are two others that I would highly recommend you check out. One is Dean Killingbeck's New Customers Now program. Dean works with restaurants, auto repair shops, chiro's, dentists and others to get new people moving into your area and introduce them to your business. Check out the site and tell Dean Travis over at 3D Mail Sent ya.

The other is Rory Fatt's Royalty Rewards. Royalty Rewards is a complete "auto-pilot" rewards/loyalty program that is great for getting your clients to come back more often and get them to buy more each time they come in. A great combination! Here's a video you can watch on Royalty Rewards. It's hosted by Rory and my dad Keith. We did a webinar on this a few months ago. Check it out here. I give both my highest endorsement.

A third way to grow your list is by compiling it yourself through lead generation marketing. We've discussed lead generation marketing before so I'll be very brief here.

Lead generation marketing is the ultimate ‘pull’ marketing strategy. It allows people who are interested in your product or service to pull information for themselves about you and your business, rather than
the usually ‘push’ marketing that you usually see.

Almost all “Madison Avenue” marketing is push marketing. What you need for prospects to ‘pull’ information from you is great bait, or a lead generation magnet. This is something that you’re prospects request from you. They come in many forms, but the most typical is free information about your business or industry.

That's a wrap on our discussion on mailing lists. I'll be back next week with some more great information for you. See you then!


To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com

How To Get Mailing Lists

Earlier in the week we discussed the lists you should be using in your business. If you missed that discussion or want to review, go on over to the past blog entries to catch up. Today we’ll talk about ways to get lists, and how to grow your own in-house list.

One way to get a list is to rent commercially available lists. This article discusses the basics of renting lists. We'll get to other ways of growing your list in upcoming tips.

First, understand you will be RENTING these lists for one-time, two-time or multiple use and the price will go up with each option. The lists will be “seeded” with false names and addresses that deliver your mail to the list owners, so they can police the use of their lists.

Second, you’ll probably wind up working with a List Broker. A good List Broker can be of great help to you and can usually help you uncover ideas that you did not originally consider. You’ll find the List Brokers in your own area in your Yellow Pages, under MAILING LISTS and LIST BROKERS or similar categories.

Third, you will need to educate yourself about available lists, in order to clarify your ideas about what you want BEFORE meeting with or talking with List Brokers. You can start at your nearest major city, main public library, where you’ll find a current or one-year-old copy of a huge directory called “SRDS”, for ‘Standard Rate And Data Service’.

While at the library, you should also read some back issues of trade magazines like Direct Marketing and DM News. In a couple of hours, you can become conversant in the terminology, the language of the list business, so you can ask smart questions and deal with List Brokers.

There’s more on renting lists, but I think you’ve got the basics covered here. Next week we’ll talk about ways to grow your own in-house list without have to buy or rent a list. See you next week.

To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com

The Lists You Should Be Using

So where’d we leave off… That’s right, using direct mail and lists. To see where we started off last week, see my first blog post on the subject. To see where we left off last week on the use of lists, see that blog post below. Today we’ll pick up where our last post left off on the lists you should be using in your business.

The first thing to know is that all lists are not created equally, nor should they be. Today we’ll go over the four different kinds of lists you’ll encounter, in order of importance, starting with the most important.

First and foremost is your list of current and active clients segmented and sorted by a myriad of
topics. They can be sorted by SIC code in B2B, the products or services they’ve purchased, they’re buying behavior (do they buy only on sale, or at full price, one time of year, or year round, by brand etc), demographics and psychographics and many others. Your task as a marketer of your business is to ID and filter the segments that make the most sense
in your business.

A distant second to your sorted and segmented in-house list is your in-house list unsorted. While this certainly is better than advertising to the unwashed masses, it’s certainly not as good as having your list sorted and segmented as we described above.

Third on the list is a response list. A response list is a mailing list of individuals who have responded previously to direct mail offers, hopefully selling similar/complimentary to your. You can further segment these lists by the demographics and psychograpics we have discussed in previous posts.

Finally, there are complied lists of consumers and businesses. This is basic consumer and business data taken by survey, public records etc. There can be and is money in lists like these. You need to be sure you’re getting the right kind of demo and psychographics to match your copy and your offer to them.

There are few more kinds of lists out there, but those are the one’s we’ll concern ourselves with the most. So how can you go about getting those lists? We’ll talk about that a little later in a separate post.

Marketing Tip Reader’s Only Special

As we discussed, getting the proper list should be your #1 priority when starting a new direct mail campaign. You’re in-house list should be your most profitable one. But what if you’re ready to move to cold prospects? How should you start? I’ve teamed up with a list
company to make that quick and easy for you. Just some of the benefits include:

• 95% Average deliverability rate. Your mail gets delivered and into the right hands each time.
• 92% Delivery guarantee. Other list companies only guarantee 90%. You mail will get delivered, opened and read.
• Updated monthly so you have the most up to date records and information
• 100% Nine digit zip codes

We can now supply all your needs for consumer data including:

• Age, gender, income, marital status & more!
• Date of Birth
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• Credit
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• Even Voting party preference
• Plus Dozens more!

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• SIC codes
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• Employee size
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3D Mail Results is now truly your One-Stop-Shop for everything you need for your next 3D Mailing. Copywriting, grabbers, lists and fulfillment! Give me a call at 888-250-1834 and we’ll started on your next successful 3D Mail campaign!

To Your Direct Mail Success,
Travis Lee

www.3DMailResults.com