What Can Bruce Lee Teach Us About Marketing?

Many of us know Bruce Lee as the martial artist extraordinaire, film star, and tragic case of a man who died in his prime. He became a cultural icon in both Hong Kong and the United States and brought the spotlight to martial arts as no other man has.

So what can he teach us about marketing? Well, the obvious answer would be to look at how he developed his career and marketed himself to such fantastic heights. But, it’s his philosophy of combat that I would like to use as our teacher today.

Many of us are only familiar with Lee from his movies. Flashy kicks, incredible acrobatics, and speedy combinations are what we see in his acting. A raging debate among modern day martial artists continues to ask the question, “Could Bruce Lee have won in a real fight or was he all just show?”

There is no doubt about the fact among those that have actually studied Lee’s early life that he was an incredible martial artist whose ideas were well ahead of their time. His main philosophy was what he called “Jeet Kune Do.”

Jeet Kune Do was developed as “the style of no style.” In other words, it is the idea that there is no one perfect style of martial art. In order to be effective, you must flow like water, taking the path that gets you to your destination quickly and efficiently. Do not be constrained by any one method, he admonished, but use whatever works with objectivity.

An underscore of his philosophy occurred when he was challenged to by a professional wrestler in a friendly exhibition. The wrestler muscled the much smaller Lee to the ground, pinning his arms to his side. With a smirk he asked Lee, “What would you do to get out of this?” Lee replied, “Why I would bite you of course.”

This was Jeet Kune Do at its most literal…do whatever you had to do to accomplish your goal. The parallels of Jeet Kune Do and effective marketing should be obvious to you by now.

Far too often we are taken with one or two marketing methods and dismiss all others outright as being ineffective…often without even trying the additional methods!

Everyday we hear clients say, “Telemarketing doesn’t work” or “Direct mail is dead.” Our response is that there are no inherently bad media…only bad uses of media. Just the other day a client asked “What do you think about billboards? I think they are ineffective.” My response was, “Well maybe they are ineffective for your business, but if you had a restaurant and the billboard was on the freeway just before the exit someone would take to get your place then I would argue that you could probably use that billboard very effectively.”

The point is, the billboard wasn’t bad per se, only the particular use for it may have been. To dismiss it outright is naïve and short-sighted. For some it works, for others it doesn’t.

In summary, I would urge you to keep an open mind when choosing media for your marketing campaigns. Test new methods and new media to see if you can add a new lead generation tool to your marketing tool belt.

Above all, remember the master Bruce Lee and “Absorb what is useful; disregard that which is useless.”

Components of Relationship Building, Part III

This last installment of Relationship Building will give you the main three components of every message, whether they be Promotional, Informational, or Seasonal. These three components are Relevance, Timeliness, and Usefulness.

Relevant

Your messages have to be relevant to your target market. A main function of being relevant is understanding your target market in the first place. Too often we communicate with our prospects the same, regardless of their differences.

If you sell a product to two different groups (or more) that are very different it makes sense to tailor your presentation to the circumstances and needs of each group individually as opposed to having one basic presentation you use to sell the whole group.

So, do your homework and make sure you understand the wants, needs, biases, etc of your target market before you try marketing to them.

Timely

All of your messages, but especially your promotional and seasonal messages, must be timely. That means that your messages need to reach your target market at a time when it is needed or wanted most.

Since you may not always know when this is, it helps to have a messaging system that delivers your content consistently and evenly over time, as discussed in the previous post. Over time you should be able to recognize patterns of when the information you are delivering is most timely. (Think of tax firms sending out promotional material to prospects just after they receive their W-2s)

Useful (Valuable)

The content or information you deliver needs to have some sort of perceived value attached to it. And I don't mean "value" in a monetary sense necessarily, although it could mean that.

For promotional messages it could be a discount of some sort or special pricing. For informational messaging it should be something that is difficult to find elsewhere or has an application that is particularly helpful to your target market. Seasonal messages that help build rapport or trust… that feeling that someone cares about them… may be the best value you could offer.

Not all of your messages have to contain all three components but if you can construct them that way it's all the better. The main key is to put yourself in your prospects' shoes and ask if you would want to receive the messages you are creating for your prospects and customers. Good luck and continued success!

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Components of Relationship Building, Part II

In our previous post we talked about the first component of effectively communicating with our prospects and we touched on the types of messages we can send to them. Now, let’s talk about those message types.

Regardless of which media you use (i.e. telephone, mail, email, etc.) there are three main categories of messages…Promotional, Informational, and Seasonal.

Promotional

Promotional messages are those messages where you are trying to get your prospect to do some specified action. It could be to come into your store, make an appointment to see you, request additional information, announcement of a special sale…the list goes on and on.

The main problem I see with promotional messages is that they are overused. Without a proper balance between all of the message types your promotional messages will lose their effectiveness over time. With that in mind, try to keep your promotional messages to about 30-40% of your total communications.

Informational

This is where the real relationship building component to your communications comes in. The focus of these messages is to give your prospects targeted and useful information that they can use to make an informed decision.

These types of messages could include tips or tricks, white papers, comparison sheets, product or service literature, etc. The main thing to keep in mind is that this type of messaging is NOT used to try and generate any sort of specified action per se.

It is simply used as a way to give your prospect valuable information without asking for anything in return. This helps build rapport, trust, and loyalty between you and your prospects. Use this type of messaging around 50-60% of the time.

Seasonal

Seasonal messaging is also used as a way to build rapport and trust among your prospects and customers. There are several main seasonal opportunities you can use.

Main holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc. are common ones…try using not so common ones such as Valentines, St. Patrick’s Day, July 4th, etc.

Other seasonal-type messages could include Spring Break, start of summer/winter, back-to-school, etc.

Then there are always birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates that happen in your prospects’ daily lives. Get creative and design some of your own seasonal messages around yearly events that are important to your business. These messages should make up the remaining 10% or so of communications you send out.

Obviously, these communications may be mixed together and used congruently with one another…an example may be a “Back-to-School Sale” that combines the seasonality of school starting with the promotion of a special sale.

So, play around with your messaging and create those that will get the attention, and even more importantly the action, of your prospects and customers.

In the next post we will wrap up our discussion by defining what we mean by messages that are Relevant, Timely, and Useful.

Components of Relationship Building

In our last post we talked about the importance of building a relationship with your prospects and customers to get the most benefit for your business. One of the keys of doing that was by communicating with them on a consistent basis with relevant, timely, and useful information. Let’s dissect that further and explore what each of those components means…

Consistent

Ok, so what does it mean exactly to communicate with your prospects and customers on a “consistent” basis? While it varies by industry, I would argue that you need to be communicating with them anywhere between 30-75 times per year…possibly more.

Before you balk at what you may think of as excessive contact let me remind you that a crucial element of making that communication work is by following the principles listed above (i.e. being relevant, timely, and useful)…for now just trust me on this.

Communication can take a variety of forms using many different media. In fact, I would encourage you to use as many different media as possible when communicating with your prospects and customers.

The reason for this is because you never know which media contact will most resonate with your prospects. Some may respond better to a phone call, others to an email, and others to a postcard. Additionally, by seeing communications from you in different contexts, it helps the prospect remember your company more.

Which ever media you choose make sure to spread your messages out over time as evenly as possible. For 30 total contacts a year you would be communicating with your list of prospects about every 10-12 days. For 50 contacts per year you would be communicating with them weekly.

Figuring out what kinds of communications to send to them is pretty easy. There are basically three main categories of messages which we’ll cover in the next installment…

Building Relationships

“My business depends on building relationships.” Have you ever heard someone describe their business that way? I hear it nearly every day.

What’s most interesting, to me anyway, is that most of those who say it, don’t really believe it. It’s true. Virtually no one would argue the fact that it’s important to build a rapport and a relationship with their customers or clients. After all, people do business with people that they like, right?

But the reason I argue that most people don’t really believe it is because of the way they approach marketing. Typically, a prospective client will come to us and say, “I want to run a telephone campaign (or direct mail or email, etc.) so I can get appointments with prospective customers in my area.”

When asked what sort of follow-up plan they have in place for those they don’t actually meet with or for those that they don’t actually sell at the appointment there is usually dead air and a blank stare. These clients of ours have no intention of “building a relationship” at all. They think, wrongly, that building a relationship means collecting a check at the end of the sales presentation.

But it is much more than that. If you are in a “relationship building” business, then you need a marketing plan that focuses on building a relationship. Does that mean you can’t use different media to sell to prospects right out of the gate with? Of course not, but that shouldn’t be the only, or even primary, goal of your plan.

Your marketing plan should consist of a way to systematically and consistently communicate relevant, timely, and useful (i.e. valuable) information to your prospects and your customers. That is the way you build relationships. Not by selling them every time you see them…not by wasting their time with useless information…and certainly not by contacting them one time and then dropping them from your database.

So, how do you go about building a relationship with your prospects? We’ll get into some specific examples of how to do just that in our next post…so stay tuned!

New Article: 7 Good Reasons you should be Outsourcing Your Telemarketing

In recent years, outsourcing has proven to be an effective strategy for businesses. If you're involved in any type of telemarketing, then you should consider reaping the benefits of outsourcing for yourself. Let's look at some of the best reasons you should consider such a move:

#7. Expand Your Business Hours

Unless you want to pay your staff overtime or hire multiple shifts to do the telemarketing, your business hours are probably fairly limited to 9 to 5... By outsourcing, you can actually expand your business hours to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

read more from this article here: http://www.intelesure.com/articles/7_ReasonsYouShouldBeOutsourcing.html

New Article: Winning Tips and Strategies for Top Performance Advertising

This article reveals writing techniques and strategies that help you promote your business better, for less, when you advertise. It covers print media 'space ad' composition concerns in some detail and provides key guidance that improves advertising response.

The term 'space ad' is marketing jargon for advertisements placed in media page space sold by any publisher. This category includes everything from newspaper classifieds to multi-page spreads in national magazines.

read more from this article here: http://www.intelesure.com/articles/WinningTipsandStrategiesforTopPerformanceAdvertising.html

Marketing in a down economy...

Everywhere you turn the talk is on how poor the economy is doing. Unemployment is up, oil is ridiculous, the housing market is in the tank, yada, yada, yada...

So, what does this mean for business owners? Is it time to cut back on expenses? If so, where to cut and how much? These are valid questions. The answers may surprise you.

One of our Account Executives brought this article in that makes a very nice point. It's from Business Week and you can read the full article here:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2008/sb20080711_023930.htm

Following is a summary of how to not only survive in a down economy, but actually thrive...

1) Be frugal, but don't panic. If you are cost cutting, make sure you are trimming fat, not muscle.

2) Marketing is muscle, not fat. Just like buying low and selling high is a smart investment strategy a down economy is the perfect time to capture market share by maintaining, or even increasing, your marketing budget.

3) Don't lose focus. Resist the urge to take on any and all customers just because times are slower than normal. There's a reason you have a target market...stick to your guns.

4) Don't discount your prices. Although it's tempting you are only setting yourself up for failure down the road. Price cuts trains your customers to never pay full price for your goods or services.

5) Don't neglect the elephant in the room. The fact that we are living in a troubled economy is no secret to anyone...least of all your employees. Make sure they know that you are ready for the upcoming times and that you have a plan for dealing with them.

So, in summary, take these five tips into account and make sure you are taking the necessary steps to ensure your business's success...regardless of the economic situation.

3 Concepts to Consider Before Starting a Marketing Campaign...

Most people's marketing plan begins with a simple enough thought..."I need more customers." They then begin to sift through the different media or channels they could use to get more customers. The conversation in their head goes something like this:

"I need more customers/clients/patients. Maybe I'll run a radio ad during rush hour in the morning. Or maybe I'll try telemarketing for appointments. Maybe I'll just send a postcard out...it's probably the cheapest." And on and on.

The fundamental flaw with this type of thinking is that they are approaching a problem with only one small piece of the overall solution. But not only are they analyzing a small piece of the solution, they are analyzing first what should be analyzed last!

Let me explain...

For every marketing plan there are two main components: Strategy and Implementation. Strategy is what you are going to do and how you are going to do it and Implementation is actually doing it.

Before you can implement a plan you have to develop a strategy to work from. So, here we are going to give a quick overview of the three main components of every good marketing strategy. In order they are:

1) WHO you are going to market to.
2) WHAT you are going to say to them.
3) WHERE you can find them.

Notice that most people start with the last step of WHERE to find customers by thinking about which media or channels (i.e. telemarketing, direct mail, etc.) they are going to use. This is backwards!

99 out of 100 times I ask a client WHO their target market is I get a very vague answer at best and a blank stare at worst. But, if you don't even know WHO you are targeting how in the world will you ever know WHERE to find them?

(The WHO can be further broken down into Geographics, Demographics, and most importantly, Psychographics. If you would like to read our free report on how to best determine who your target market is please download a copy of it here: www.intelesure.com/targetmarket)

Once you have determined WHO you are marketing to you will need to decide WHAT you are going to say to them. This is your messaging component. Again, a very common mistake is to simply create standard messaging that is blasted out to all of your prospects, regardless of WHO they are.

Let me give you an example of how choosing your target market carefully will influence your messaging. Let's say that you sell life insurance and you have chosen two different target markets. One is a group of 30-40 year old business owners and the other is 55+ blue collar workers nearing retirement.

If you were to try and communicate a boilerplate marketing message to these two groups your attempts will fall flat. These two groups are at a very different place in their lives and your messaging needs to speak to those differences. Otherwise you won't resonate with either group and will waste your marketing dollars on being too generic.

Once you have figured out WHO you are targeting and WHAT you are saying to them you are ready to figure out WHERE they can be reached. If you started your plan with the WHERE you may have later found out that the market you were going after couldn't be reached effectively through the channel you chose.

Additionally, you may need to use more than one channel to reach different segments of your market. In the insurance example above you may decide that the best way to reach the 30-something business owner is through professional organizations and the 55+ employees through direct mail to their home.

This initial planning is just the first step in developing a winning Strategy. In our next article we'll talk more about what needs to happen next so that you create a complete marketing strategy.

In the meantime, if you would like additional information about this process and how Intelesure can help your company create a winning strategy please contact an Account Executive at 1-866-808-7366.

Until next time...

McDonald's vs. Starbucks?

In March of 2007 Consumer Reports issued the results of a survey they completed with a team of their trained coffee tasters. The idea was to pinpoint who had the best tasting coffee around.

For the surveyed bunch (which included McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, and Dunkin’ Donuts) the winner was…

McDonald’s...?

I swear I’m not making this up. McDonald’s actually beat Starbucks in a coffee taste test! After reading this report I gained a little bit of insight of what advertising agencies like to call “brand image.”

Now, I’m not a coffee drinker myself, but even I was under the impression that Starbucks was the coffee to buy when you needed something quick and flavorful. I mean, to go head to head against McDonald’s in a taste test should have been a slam dunk for Starbucks.

Notice the operative word in that last paragraph is “impression.” That’s right, I was simply under the impression that Starbucks had a better tasting coffee because they have done such a good job branding their product. So good in fact, that it actually shaped my perception of their coffee!

A couple of things here…One, brand image can be misleading, and two, Starbucks has deep enough pockets to manipulate that perception.

But what about small to medium-sized companies that can’t really afford to spend millions of dollars trying to brand their company? What options do they have?

This is where direct marketing comes in handy. You don’t have to be a known brand for everybody…just your target market. Reread that last sentence because it is a powerful concept. The more you know about who you sell to the more relevant and useful your marketing will be to those people.

An obvious example of this would be the following scenario: Suppose you sell lawn care services. You could have a variety of target markets but on the whole you are more than likely interested in homeowners as opposed to renters.

So does it really matter if all the renters in town know your name? It’s debatable, but I would argue that it is far more cost-effective to only target those who are your most likely customer. How do you do that? Through a variety of direct marketing channels such as mail, telephone, flyers, referrals, etc.

Just keep in mind that when you are investing in marketing it is vitally important to know who you are selling to so that you tailor a message specific to their needs and wants.

Branding can be an important part of your long-term success, but approach it with a more targeted plan and your marketing will more consistently hit its mark.

Good luck!

What Can Bill Parcells Teach Us About Business?

Bill Parcells, legendary NFL football coach, is a compelling figure. Most people I talk to that know anything about him either love him or hate him. There aren’t many fence sitters out there and I have a hunch that a man like Parcells couldn’t care less.

One thing that most everyone agrees on though is that he is a veritable genius as a head football coach. So what do his coaching abilities have to do with business? Well, last fall I was sitting down to watch a Monday Night Football game and Parcells was one of the studio commentators. The Dallas Cowboys were playing someone (I can’t remember who) and one of the commentators remarked that Parcells was going to reveal a list of success principles he has for quarterbacks.

My ears perked up instantly and I paused the program (you gotta love technology). Hurriedly I grabbed a pencil and paper to make ready to jot his list down. I figured that if the principles were good enough for a quarterback, they would be good enough for business owners everywhere.

I wasn’t disappointed. The 11 keys he presented are not only very applicable to business in general, but could basically serve as a blueprint for life as well. Here is the list reprinted in its entirety…I have listed his principle in bold and then a brief explanation in italics:

1) Ignore others’ opinions. No one knows the intimate details of your business like you do. People’s opinion, although well intentioned, is based on incomplete data and limited perspective.

2) Clowns can’t run a huddle. Leaders have to be respected and the class clown never is…people may think he’s funny, but they won’t follow him.

3) Fat QBs can’t avoid the rush. Businesses that are slow or have too much debt cannot respond to change, or opportunity, as well as businesses that are lean and flexible.

4) Know your job cold. You have to know your job better than anyone else.

5) Know your players and opponents. You have to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your employees and your competitors. Leverage the strengths of your employees and attack the weaknesses of your competitors.

6) Be the same guy everyday. A leader that cannot make a decision or flip-flops on his decisions will not be followed for long.

7) Throwing the ball away is sometimes a good play. You’ve got to know when to cut the losers, abandon ideas that aren’t working, and understanding that taking a small loss is better than taking a big loss.

8) Learn to manage the game: clock, clock, clock. You must use the time allotted in a business day to your greatest advantage.

9) Get your team in the endzone. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter how you scored, but that you scored. Statistics are meaningless if you aren’t putting points on the board.

10) Don’t panic. As a leader, your mood determines the mood of those around you. If you panic, they will panic. If you are confident, they will be confident.

11) Don’t be a celebrity QB (we need battlefield commanders). If you’re going to talk the talk, you better be able to walk the walk. Avoid distractions and stay focused on getting things done.

As I go through the list I can see how each of these 11 principles applies in my own business and life. I hope you can too. Until next time…

“We are the Music Makers…the Dreamers of dreams…”

Do you remember the movie “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?” I’m not talking about the newest one, the remake with Johnny Depp. No, I mean the real one that was made in the early 70’s with Gene Wilder playing Wonka.

That movie was a classic and remains one of my all time favorites. I think it may have to do with the fact that it plays to some very core human emotions of fantasy, hope, and dreams. As a kid, owning a chocolate factory is THE definition of the “American Dream!”

Anyway, a couple of years ago I was at home one Sunday afternoon and watching T.V. with my 3 year-old son. I happened to see on the TV Guide that HBO was replaying “Willy Wonka” that evening. So, after dinner, I sat with my boy and we watched that magical movie again.

But this time, one of the scenes made a tremendous impression on me. It really put an exclamation point on everything we have worked so hard to create here at Intelesure. I realized with a startling suddenness what our true purpose is.

The scene I’m talking about is when Wonka was leading the children through the factory on his tour and they were passing through a hallway that had the lickable wallpaper. Do you remember that part?

He stopped the group and told them that he had invented a wallpaper that had different fruits on it and that each fruit tasted like whatever it was…He said, “Strawberries taste like strawberries…blueberries taste like blueberries…snozzberries taste like snozzberries…”

To which one of the little girls retorted, “Snozzberries? There’s no such thing as snozzberries!” Mr. Wonka reached down, squeezed her face into a pucker and calmly said…

“We are the Music Makers, and we are the Dreamers of dreams…”

That was it. Nothing else, no explanation of any kind. Now, I have seen that movie at least 15 times and I never really paid much attention to what that meant and just wrote it off as more of Wonka’s weirdness. But this time it took on a whole new meaning!

See, that’s really who WE are here at Intelesure! It’s what we do with our clients’ marketing plans. We are helping them to create music…to create dreams! That’s really what marketing is all about and what our true mission is here.

Anyone who is involved in marketing has to understand that their real job is not to simply sell something. You have to make music…to make dreams come true! So, the next time you are putting together a marketing campaign, remember this ode from Willy Wonka to become a music maker and a dreamer of dreams.

Anyway, I am excited to create a resource for you to access and will include a variety of articles on the topic of Direct Marketing…so, stay tuned!

(If you want more information on where this statement comes from, see the “Ode by Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1874)” on Wikipedia.)

Welcome to Intelesure's Blog!

This is the inaugural posting of Intelesure's first blog and I have the privilege of being the one to write it! We are excited to offer this resource to clients and prospective clients alike as a place where you can find up-to-date information on all things Direct Marketing.

I will try to post at least 2-3 times per week with a variety of helpful tips, tricks, and articles that will help you maximize your marketing dollars and increase response rates. If you have any suggestions for article topics or would simply like more information about a certain area of direct marketing, please feel free to leave a comment below and I will try to address it in an upcoming posting.

We look forward to serving you and hope you will check back often!

Tobe Brockner - Chief Marketing Officer
Intelesure, LLC