The Awesome Power of Testimonials (Part 2 of 2)

So, how we do it? How do we create a little army of testimonials marching over the competition? Oh… you should not have asked… you are opening the Pandora’s box…

There are many ways to ethically employ and exploit testimonials for the good of your business: let me give you one of my favorite, that I still did not see put in practice.

If I was still in sales, I would start carrying with me a “Success Binder”, a very precious book with transparent folders that I would fill with testimonial letters. See, every time I would get a letter, I would print it (from email) or just photocopy it and put it in the binder. Then, when I am meeting my prospect, even before starting to talk about my products, I would go thru my “Success Binder” with him/her, showing how many other people I already made happy.

Of course not only text works: pictures would add to the effect. Imagine you sell cars and you go thru your pages where you have pictures of happy families jumping in their new car you sold them, pictures of a student proudly taking possession of his first automobile, and then testimonial letters.

I am telling you, if anybody pulled this technique on me, I would be sold before even starting the sales pitch.

Why nobody does it? Hmm, not sure, maybe it requires too much discipline…

Happy collection of testimonials: we will talk more about this fascinating subject in the future.

Oh, by the way, if you like this blog, feel free to write your testimonial in the Comment field :-)

Mau in Texas

Safely arrived home

I made it home ok.
Today is Memorial Day: I take the day off and rest.
Back tomorrow with postings: I got some new interesting stuff to share with all of you.

Ciao

Mau in Texas

On my way back to Texas tomorrow

It's that time again: finally, I can enjoy one more time the subtle yet profound pleasure of jet lag...

For one week I will be having coffee with Batman at night, watching infomercial of Ron Popeil in industrial quantity and wondering about how airplane pilots can survive past 50 years old.

Next posting will probably be from the other side of the Pacific: bye bye to Asia, Howdy to Texas.

Mau Taipei

The Awesome Power of Testimonials (Part 1 of 2)

Today we start talking about a subject very close to my heart: testimonials.

Why do I like testimonials so much? Very simple: they allow me to sell my product, service, ideas faster and with less effort. This is enough to put testimonials squarely in the category of “good things in life”, together with slinky, Seinfeld DVDs and Tiramisu dessert.

As Dr. Cialdini explains in his book “Influence”, about 95% of people, in one aspect or another of their life, are imitators: only 5% are initiators. That does not mean that 95% of us are just amoebas going thru an insignificant life: it means that, if we talk about food, 95% of people would be OK with going to the same restaurant, 5% are those exploring new places. But talking about books for example, a different 95% are the followers, and still a 5% minority (albeit composed by different individuals) will be the pioneers.

Having established this interesting aspect of our societies, it becomes easier to explain why the astute marketer loves testimonials: anything that supports the impression that the rest of the population is already using that product, agreeing with the idea or using that product, will exert a magnetic pull on 95% of the population (imitators) to start doing the same.

For this reason it makes great business sense to take the time to diligently collect testimonials from your happy customers and start leveraging them as a low-cost, high impact weapon of influence.

The letters that a business receives from satisfied clients can then be put to work, like little indefatigable soldiers, attacking and demolishing the resistance barriers in the mind of the prospect (End of part I).

Mau in Taipei

Thank you - Grazie - Xie Xie for the link

As it is now tradition, we send you a wave of positive thoughts and good karma to the blogs that link to us.

Today is the turn of >ilMorso<>

Grazie

Mau in Taipei

Ikea is great - Amen !

(Credits: Stef in Rome sent in this story: he is the same Stef that sent us the deliciously sad Fendi story we published last week)

Stef and Alex wanted to renew their living area in their Rome apartment. They went shopping in several places not finding the good compromise between price and comfort that they were looking for. After a while they ended up checking out Ikea. In Ikea they found inexpensive solutions and bought two leather couches with delivery included in the price.

Ikea customer service kept Alex and Stef informed about their purchase, and the leather sofas were delivered in the expected time. Everybody happy.

However, the leather couch had a very strong smell: kind of like the BBO of Seinfeldenian memory.

After a coupe of days Alex called Ikea toll free customer service asking for advices. An Ikea customer center representative promptly and professionally reassured Alex. She was told that she had the choice of either returning the couches and to be reimbursed 100% (no penalty fee applied), or to order a new set (of any given model) of sofas .Having said that, the sales representative, suggested also maybe to wait few extra days to see how the “smelly” situation evolved.

Few days later, the bad smelling was still there, so Alex called Ikea again and decided to replace the couches with 2 new ones of the same model. The customer representative quickly organized the pick up, and again reassured Alex that she had the right to be satisfied or reimbursed.

Independently from the quality and price of Ikea products, that sales representative (and Ikea sales procedures) literarily sold Ikea to Stef and Alex who were extremely impressed by the professionalism of Ikea people and Ikea post sales support.

Now, thanx to that, they are getting all this good word of mouth for free…

Isn’t being nice good business too?

Mau in Taiwan

PS Today the weather in Taipei was very humid: so humid that it rained most of the time… the number of motorbike in this town is really impressive: I wonder how they could sustain the traffic if everybody was to buy a car…

I was also the victim of a gang of very dangerous Chinese criminals, that surrounded me with threatening postures... fortunately, your hero escaped safely from this most dangerous situation

Hampton Inn Gets It !

Several times in the past we talked about Money Back Guarantee (or Risk Reversal), as a smart approach to make sure we get feedback from unhappy customers.

I remind you that only one person out of 25 (4%) takes the pain to contact a business to let it know about his unhappiness: the other 24 just silently walk away, bringing their money elsewhere.

So, it makes very good sense to have a mechanism with teeth that allows for these problems to surface and be dealt with.

I was positively impressed by the Hampton Inn posting on the Marketing Genius Blog (here): now I add this very nice example of Money Back Guaranteed policy (see picture below)



Think about it: for the cost (potential) of one night, they get very useful feedback from a customer that otherwise would never patronize the company anymore. What a good deal !

Thank you very much to GiuseC for the picture and the blogpost idea.
Keep thinking smart,

Mau in Taiwan

PS yesterday I was on top of the world ! I went all the way up on Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world !

So simple yet so effective

In the Seoul airport in Korea I saw this elegant application of the principle of scarcity.
In the duty free area they simply notify the passing prospects that this is the last chance to do shopping before getting to the plane.

Simple, yet very effective



Mau in Taipei

Interviewing your Best Customers

As Stephen Covey eloquently describes in his book “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, it is important to position our actions in 4 quadrants, depending on 2 variables: Important/Not Important, Urgent/Not Urgent.

The most important quadrant for the long term is the Important/Not Urgent: basically, the planning of strategies and tactics that will allow for the development of our project or vision.

Well, this is the theory… then in reality we are caught living in the Urgent/Important quadrant, which is also called Emergency…

Anyway, this long discourse is to bring the attention to one activity that should be in the regular planning of companies but that seldom appears: interviewing the best customers.

I give right away a very specific example: I travel a lot for work, and 99% of the people, I tend to stay in the same hotels when I go back to the same town. I spent literally hundreds of nights in the same establishments, and they know it, thanks to their database.

Or maybe they don’t know it: I mean, the information is surely in their systems, but they probably are not aware of it... which basically is the same thing as not knowing it.

Now, a guest spending 100 nights in a hotel is worth about 150$ per night x 100 = 15,000$. Not shabby at all. I think it would be interesting for the hotel manager to have a 10 minutes conversation with somebody that knows so intimately his or her hotel: what would he want to see in the future, which services, which amenities etc.

Probably if hotel managers did this regularly, the widespread availability of high speed internet in the rooms would have started way before. And not as a competitive catch up with the other hotel chains, but as a competitive advantage: any traveling business person has been dreaming of high speed internet since the inception of broadband. And we were willing to pay for it!

And who knows, maybe you are even going to become friend with your best customers…

Mau

the Chinese Approach: Simple and to the Point

I love elegant solutions, that communicate in clear and concise way.

So when I saw this one on Saturday at the "Fashion Market" in Shanghai, it got straight into my posting planning.

Enjoy,

Mau in Taipei

Landed in Taipei

here I am, landed in the island.

My flight Hong Kong to Taipei was cancelled but the Cathay Pacific agent was ultra corteous and got me to wait in the First Class lounge... whooooo

Mau

On my way to Taiwan ...

all,

after a much more human day in Shanghai, tomorrow I am on my way to Taipei via Hong Kong.

Only few hours of easy flight and tasty (...) airplane food stand between me and the tallest building in the world, Taipei 101.

And you can be sure that I will be on the outlook for innovative marketing ideas from the island.

I got some good stuff from Shanghai that I will post in the next days: stay tuned.

Ciao ciao Shanghai, Nihao Taipei,

Mau

Come on Fendi, you could do money back more easily...

(Some Hollywood-style dramatization)
This posting is based on a true story.
(Silence...)
it happened to my dear friend Stef in Rome (thanx Stef for the material!).

In a beautiful afternoon in the spring of 2005, Stef walks with his wife Alex into the Fendi store in the eternal city, Rome. After a brief (or not so brief...) interval, his wife chooses a beautiful leather purse, that perfectly matches her style and contributes to enhance her beauty. It is a classic model, produced in limited quantity with the serial number recorded in an internal silver plate. Stef, seeing his partner so visibly happy, does not mind shelling out the 1,050 Euros (about 1,400 USD) that it costs. Ahh... what we do for love...

So far so good, everybody happy: birds are chirping and life looks fantastic.

However (and when you hear “however” you know that the real story is about to start) 4 weeks later, in a Saturday afternoon the precious purse shows signs of poor quality control and, alas, the belt bag breaks.

Stef brings back the purse and the "Proof of Purchase" to the store asking for an explanation and expecting a quick replacement, especially due to the price paid in the first place...

We know this is a Critical Interaction Moment (CIM): customer in need of help, very vulnerable and sensitive. How does the store react? To Stef bewilderment, the lady (manager in duty) in the shop refuses to do anything to help out immediately, saying that he would have to keep the purse the way it was for the moment, and to come back in the afternoon.

After lunch the same lady accepted to keep the purse "to be checked" in the Tuscany factory and still refused to replace it.

In complete shock, Stef leaves the shop, vowing to never ever buy anything from Fendi and to make sure no friend will ever consider spending any money on that brand. On the way to home, Stef (which is a top manager in a multinational company) calls the Fendi office in Milan to report the incident: he is put in touch with a professional lady, the Milan shop sales director, who apologized profusely and offers to replace the purse right away with a new one, at absolutely no cost, no question asked.

With this information he goes back to the Roman shop where the local manager still refuses replace the purse (ehi, she surely is perseverant in her approach)

Fortunately there is a happy ending: the following Monday the same Roman manager experiences a sudden about face and replaces Alex's purse with large smiles , and apologizing profusely for the misunderstanding.

Now, how much damage this behavior brings to astore? Not only it makes customers like Stef and Alex run away, but my friends started actively bad mouthing the company, putting all his energies in trying to hurt their sales… why creating such an enemy in order to save few dollars?

Episodes like this make me smile and look to the future with anticipation: there is still lot of work for guerrilla marketers!

Till next time

Mau in Shanghai

Your Local Restaurant Is Getting your Name (and You Love It)

Subject: Building a database of your customers
Principle: Get the names of your customers to communicate with them.
Who should be read on: Every business that is not yet asking personal information to its customers.

There are 6 billion people in the world, and only a little handful is giving you its money… Wouldn'’t you want to know who these kind people are...

To my great delight I found a restaurant that is doing something about this: it still is not perfect, but at least they are moving in the right direction.

La Madeleine is a chain of French casual restaurant in Texas. The atmosphere is cordial and people are friendly: a good place where to go for a calm but not formal meal.

At the counter, they now have the form you can see in the picture: “Join our Café eClub”. Hmm, cool name, dandy and trendy.

Notice that they put an incentive very self serving, in my own interest: a certificate for a soup or Cesar Salade.

Very elegant the fact that they will send the certificate to the email, and not give it on the spot: in this way they are sure you are providing a real email address.

Nice also the remainder that the email could be appearing as bulk (=trash/spam): that should allow a certain percentage of subscribers to avoid losing it.

And the best for last: they ask for the birthday date !!!!!!!! They are my new hero.

La Madeleine, c’est parfait !

Mau in Shanghai

PS Weather here: very hot and humid. I have been visiting customers today and I was sweating like a pig. It feels almost like summer in Texas...

They keep building everything everywhere: they build highways 7 days a week, night and day.

They are breaking ground for the biggest building in the world: last year Taiwan got it thanks to Taipei 101, but now Mainland China wants the number 1 spot!

Gabetti, a Real Estate giant using Guerrilla techniques

Subject: Targeted direct mail hand delivered
Principle: Analyze where your target audience is. Reaching it can be simple and low cost.
Who should be read on: Every (new) business with a geographically defined customer-base

Large companies can be surprisingly nimble at times: it is refreshing for a guerrilla marketer like me to see huge corporations running low cost, highly effective initiatives, far away from the regular “institutional” advertising.

The example we check out today comes from Italy: Gabetti is a nationwide Real Estate company, similar to Century 21 or ReMax.

My mom (ehi, she is becoming the co-star of this blog… she brings so many interesting example to my attention…) passed me the attached flyer.

For our non-Italian speaking audience (this must be a rare blog: English language with reference to Italian stuff :) ), here’s the translation verbatim “Gabetti is looking for houses here. We have several potential customers in this area. If you have a house to sell in this building or around here, get in contact with us right away!”

I love it: the idea is crisp and simple, the delivery effective and to the point. The flyer was hand-delivered in the mail box, probably by a cash-strapped student working for 10 Euro/Dollars an hour or so.

This technique can be easily used for any business that wants to kick start revenues or revitalize a flagging season: imagine a local restaurant offering a special discount to the neighbors (maybe on a rotating basis: one block this week, one block next week), or a copy center or a dry cleaning company.

Adding a personal touch in the text of the message would make it even more effective: something sincere and wholehearted about the business and the desire to serve the neighbors in the community would strike the right chord in the bulk of the recipients.

And what’s the investment? Maybe 100$ of cash for the student working 10 straight hours delivering hundreds of perfectly targeted messages… Even less if the astute entrepreneur can use the century-old (but still very modern) art of bartering… (more on this in the future)

Mau in China

Change of name to Mau

All, I decided to change my name to Mau, much closer to my real name.

Sorry for the confusion that this can create: for some time, I’ll keep signing the postings with both names.

Mau (aka Kramerilio)

Seth Godin's list of "What Every Good Marketer Knows"

I found very informative the post from [mini]marketing.it (here) about Seth Godin's list "What Every Good Marketer Knows" (here on Seth's blog, here in PDF").

It is the final comment that, to me, shows that Seth really has experience "Obviously, knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it."...

Seth, you are so right !

Kramerilio in China (under the rain in Shanghai)

Flying to China tomorrow -

Tomorrow I am on my way to China, hopefully finding tasty and interesting local new mktg approaches.

Bye Bye Korea, Hello Shanghai !

Kramerilio in Seoul

Again on Residual Value of the Customer

Subjects: Lose a little in the short term, make big money in the long term
Principle: When you got a misunderstanding with your customer, be flexible, concede to gain good will and referrals

I was not sure what to blog today about and my mom come to the rescue with the perfect story about business myopia, obtuse mind and lack of big picture perception. Interested in hearing about the perfect customer relation screw up? Then read on…

My mom lives in a condominium with some 25 other families. As the sun shines on the balcony for long hours during the day, she decides to install shades to get some relief from the heat: she goes, together with another neighbor family, to a shade-shop that was referred by a friend (referrals!!!!). So far, so good: now let’s enter into the twilight zone of bizarre business behavior.

The owner show them several shades and they (my mom and the neighbor family) decide for a specific type: they then sign a contract for the installation. As the owner is with them all the time, they just get a glimpse on the contract (about 1,200 Euro or 1,500 USD of value), sign it (big error) and leave 100 Euro (130 USD) of deposit.

The day the installers show up, my mom realize they are installing a different kind of shade: right away, she calls the owner of the shop to clarify the misunderstanding. And here the trip to fantasy-land starts.

The owner, in this CIM (Critical Interaction Moment) asks (with rude manners) my mom read again the contract and make her realize that she signed to get exactly what the workers were installing. “But this is not what you showed us: we trusted you when signing the contract” “Sorry Madame, next time you should read what you sign”.

Sure, he is going to probably save some tens of Euro, refusing to concede to my mom…

But let’s see how much this Einstein of business is going to lose

• My mom and her neighbors will now do anything possible to void the contract

• They will never, ever consider any upgrade to the installation

• From this moment on, my mom + neighbors will do anything possible to make sure he does not get a single dollar out of any family in the building. As the building is new, potentially all 25 families need shades… they are all now unreachable by this Machiavelli of shades

What could have been an alternative, saner, outcome?

Well, how about this: the owner answers in a polite way, recognizes the error in the procedure, fix the issue and get all the goodwill in the world from my mom.

My mom tells everybody in the building about this incredible person and he gets lot of extra referrals. Everybody would have been happy, very happy.

Sometime it’s too difficult to be smart…

Kramerilio in Seoul, Korea

The N3W BMW S3RI3S 3

This is a funny and creative one, from Yahoo!

Few days ago I was checking my stocks to see how far I am from Bill Gates (full disclosure: I am very very far) and something bizarre happened.

After few seconds that I was looking at the Yahoo! Finance page, I saw some letters change... I knew I did not have any alcohol yet that morning, so I was supposed to be still sober: what was going on?

I reloaded the page and the same effect happened few seconds later: the letter -e- became a number -3- in many words... and it was underlined...

How can I resist? As Claude Hopkins preached, curiosity is one of the strongest forces to motivate human behavior... I approached my mouse to the -3- and clicked...

It actually did work: it was the advertisiment for the New BMW 3 Series...which sports the tagline "SHARP3R than any corner"...

Before "Allucination"


After "Allucination"


Enjoy the rest of the day,

Kramerilio in Korea

Can I have your name please?

I continue to wonder why so few companies ask for my information and then use it to create a stronger bond with me.

Having somebody coming to your shop, jewelry store, tires shop, car hand-washing place is good: but knowing where he/she lives is way better: one can start a communication, can send special offers to boost short term results, can make alliances with other companies to cross promote products that will be of interest for the clients.

Of course a valid self-serving reason has to be given to the prospect: but just receiving special offers reserved to customers is sufficient to convince a large number of people (me included) to sign up.

Next, a database will be needed to store the organized information: we'll talk about it in the near future.

Kramerilio in Tokyo airport, on my way to Seoul

Carrefour action and communication

Subjects: The customer will not appreciate what do but you don't communicate
Principle: If you are doing something for the customers, tell them. Otherwise they will not be able to value it.

Many times businesses provide great advantages to the customers and don't reap any reward: why? Because they don't tell the customers about it...

Companies sometimes live in a parallel universe, where they think the only think a customer does all day is to look for them, for their products, for their logos, for their news... Hmm, sorry, that's not the case: we are busy, very busy, so if you want me to notice something, you got to tell it to me very clearly.

I like the initiative of one Carrefour center in Italy (Wal*Mart competitor) where they managed to lower the prices of a group of products.

The interesting things is that they take the pain to let the customers know about it: very smart, indeed. That little flyer you see did a good job: now I know that Carrefour worked hard and lowered my cost of grocery shopping (at least in Italy...)
(ups, for Non Italian speaking readers, the flyer says:"Carrefour beats the inflation. We don't keep the prices stable: we lower them. Since 8 months, you spend less than one year before")

We'll see more example of this pre-emptive strategy in the weeks to come

Kramerilio in Texas

Flying to Korea tomorrow - Back online on Thu

Tomorrow I am flying out to Korea: I'll surely be on the lookout for some tasty local marketing ideas.

K

Increase your sales with some extra ink

Subjects: Use of quotes to increase chance of success
Principle: If an authority is endorsing a product, we agree to purchase it faster
Potential Worth: Extra sales at no extra effort
Referenced Reading: “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” Robert B. Cialdini

I was literally in awe when I saw this exemplary example of use of Power of Authority.

As Dr. Cialdini explains in his excellent book “Influence”, there are few principles that the professionals of compliance use to short-circuit our rational thinking patterns and get us to “Yes” right away. One of these principles is the Power of Authority

For example, if I am evaluating which one to hire between two lawyers, for all other things being equal, if I see that one is Texas-Bar Certified I will definitely go with that one. This is not because I did a long and extensive analysis of the careers of the two individuals: simply I trust the Authority of the State of Texas, follow their advice and move on to my next decision for that day.

Same thing for toothpaste: if one has the approval of the ADA (American Dental Association) I am generally sold.

One more note of introduction for today’s example: David Ogilvy is one of the most influential and respected advertising personality of the twentieth century. Founder of the agency Ogilvy and Mather, he is responsible for the creation of many of today's best known brands, like Dove soap, and they are in charge of clients like IBM, Motorola Cell phones, Nestle etc

Let’s get back to our example today: check out the cover of the book before and after the sentence from Mr. Ogilvy has been inserted. Compare the persuasive power on the prospect that the extra ink is exerting.

I personally did my very unscientific surveys: I show the book to a marketing colleague first covering the sentence and ask “If you see this book in a book store, between 0 and 10, what is the probability of your purchasing it?” As Hopkins is (unfortunately) a relatively unknown author, I normally get a “Hmm, maybe 1 or 2”. Once I uncover the sentence, a staring look appears on the marketing colleague and he/she proceeds to change the answer to “Ok, now I will buy it right away”.

The sentence is "Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times. It changed the course of my life" - David Ogilvy

Wow, one sentence… few extra dots and lines… so powerful…

Kramerilio in Texas

Thank you, Grazie, Merci, Gracias for the links !

The blogosphere is treating Smart (Business) Ideas with great kindness: two blogs linked to us in the last few days.

[mini]marketing and giusec&frienz mentioned our blog: we bow in respect and gratitude and link back to them.

For our Italian-speaking readers, I surely advice to check those blogs out: they have useful information not only on the business arena, but about life in general.

Grazie ragazzi,

Kramerilio in Texas

Recruit an army of sales people for free

Subjects: Turn your customers into sales people on commission thru referrals
Principle: Give incentive to your customers to sell your stuff to friends

Potential Worth: Extra sales at no extra effort

As you know by now, I am a great admirer of elegant ways to create extra value in a relationship between two or more parties.

One method I like is to give real incentives to the other parties to do what you want them to do. Sure, even without doing nothing, some random kind soul will send their friends your way. But why depending on good fortune and not putting in place a solid, well structured referral method?

I love referrals (see the other postings on the subject): referred customers are, statistically, the ideal crowd – they negotiate less, purchase more and more often.

So, how do we turn our customers into active referral machines? How do we turn them into evangelizers of our business? There are many methods of course: today we take one specific example.

I take this example from one of my favorite authors, Claude Hopkins, from his book “My Life in Advertising”. On page 87 he describes how he transformed the clients of his shoes business into an army of sales persons. How did he do it? Simple: he shared with them the benefits of any sale they would bring in.

Basically, he sent coupons to his customers saying “Look, for any extra pair of shoes you sell to your friends, you get 10% off on your next purchase. So, if you sell 10 friends, you get a free pair of shoes”. I love it: so simple, linear, clean and sincere.

How can we apply it? Well, let’s say you have a truck rental business, or a termite removing business or a go-kart racing place. Just make to all of your customers the proposition “Ehi, dear XXX, if you liked the experience, why not sharing with a friend? And on top of that, you get free – blank -(fill the blank with: truck-rental, termite removal, go-kart race day etc). For every friend you bring, you get 10% off. Bring 10 friends and get it free”

The beauty of this model is that you pay only for results: no base salary for your army of sales people. The more they bring results (real new customers), the more you pay “commission” to them, but the more you get business at no marketing and sales cost!

Sure, you have to give up part of your pie, but I prefer 90% of a bigger pie than 100% of nothing…

Happy recruiting of sales people,

Kramerilio in USA

I crave Points: Hallmark, give them to me! (Part 2 of 2)

Subjects: Points-accumulation programs
Principle: How to use points to increase sales via returning customers

So now that I applied for my Hallmark membership, I expected something great to happen: as the Hallmark people now knew me (they have now my address, name and even phone number), they could start communicating with me.

And they surely did: few days after my signing up, they sent me the welcome package – I am a very happy member!

In the welcome package there was a diabolically effective and smart item: a keychain version of my Hallmark Card, with my Hallmark Id and bar code. How irresistible: I immediately integrated it in my key ring, together with my mailbox and house keys.

So, now it’s always with me and there is no chance for me forgetting it. What a smart idea from the folks in the marketing department of Hallmark. Kudos to them for having the idea or even for just imitating it.

Lesson for the guerrilla entrepreneur: make sure you create a keychain version of your points program - it works great!

Kramerilio in USA

I crave Points: Hallmark, give them to me! (Part 1 of 2)

Subjects: Points-accumulation programs
Principle: How to use Points to increase sales via returning customers
Referenced Reading:

• “Permission Marketing” by Seth Godin

As discussed on Monday, there are 3 ways to increase business

• Increase the number of clients
• Increase the Average purchase they make
• Increase the frequency of purchase

Today we talk about a way to increase both the second and the third one: Points.

As Seth Godin describes on page 98 of Permission Marketing, there are 5 levels of permission and Points are the second-highest level, just after “Intravenous (or “Purchase on Approval”, like the “book of the month” club, that chooses and purchases books for you)

Using points helps with soliciting returning business and increasing average purchase: people tend to buy more and more often if the see they are accumulating points toward a reward. I am amazed by how few companies use this extremely powerful mechanism.

It is so easy to set up: Get a point card designed by your nephew, print 1,000 at the local Kinko’s (open 24 hours, so you can do it even after work hours) and start handing them tomorrow to your clients.

I can’t believe my Dry cleaner is not doing it, and my cleaning lady, and my local small Pizza place…

So, after American Airlines, Hallmark got me: they proposed me in their store to register for their point program: hey of course I sign up, I want to see what happens !

About 2 weeks later, I got my personal card from Hallmark: now they know me and they keep a direct contact with me.

And every time I think about a card, I think Hallmark store first: they reward me, shopping there is in my best interest…

Kramerilio in Usa

How to write a great headline

Subjects: How to create a good headline
Principle: With the right headline, you can attract attention

I see headlines that are so boring and uninspiring that I wonder why would anybody read the rest of the advertisement… “Institutional Advertisement”, with the big budgets associated, is difficult to track, as far as results are concerned, so the pressure to use only effective headlines is low.

But for the budget conscious entrepreneur, it is imperative to get maximum bangs for the bucks. For this reason the headline has to capture the eyes and the attention of the greatest possible number of readers.

Just searching on Amazon for “Headline marketing” gives me back 34.153 books: any of them would probably make a good read for the guerrilla marketer-entrepreneur.

But for a super quick recipe for a decent headline, just get this: start your headline with “How to…”.

How to create a great headline, How to solve your house financing problem, How to send your son to Ivy League College with less than 100$ a month, How to find the cheapest car on the market etc

“How to“ headlines are curiosity-arousing and very self serving for the reader: they show why the reader (in his/her best interest should keep on reading). And that’s the best way to persuade people to give you their time and interest.

Kramerilio in USA

The Amazon Gold Box

Subjects: Increasing Average Sale per Visit
Principle: Once you got the customer in the door looking for something, what else can they buy from you?

As Jay Abraham says, there are only 3 ways to grow a business:

1. Increase the number of clients
2. Increase the Average purchase they make
3. Increase the frequency of purchase

That’s it…

Today we talk about the second way: increase the Average purchase a client makes, and we talk about Amazon.com

I really love that company: their web site is a neve- ending source of ideas on how to efficiently run a business, optimizing every aspect of the purchasing experience.

Since some time, Amazon has a little icon in the top of the screen called “Your Gold Box”. At the beginning I was puzzled by it: it’s basically a series of special offers tailored to you, time-limited (60 minutes), that you can take or lose forever. Hmmm, not exactly a life changing concept...

Now I understand… every time a visitor to the web site clicks that icon and goes thru the series of special offers, Amazon has the opportunity to increase the average sale they make. Yes, because all the stuff they show me during the "Gold Box little parade" is something I would not have bought anyway… if they can sell only 1% of people, it’s 1% extra sales at no extra effort (Amazon does not have to hire extra sales people to do that… it’s a piece of code, perfectly scalable and that repeats an algorithm to propose with extreme consistency an optimized sequence of offers, tailored to the specific viewer).

Amazon in this way is capitalizing a great asset they have: the fact that a viewer is on their web site. Since he/she is there, they try to get maximum return.

Kramerilio in USA