Look For Your Marketing Kill Switch

I remember pulling out of the dock that first day. It was an early summer day. The sun washed across my face and the wind brushed through my hair. This was going to be an awesome day. You see, it was Day 1 on our boat.

Tony and I talked about getting a boat for a number of months and then one day when we were out at dinner the wives said, “Why don’t you?”

This is one of those rare moments in life. A moment where your wife encourages you to do something that under normal circumstances she would never support. So we moved very quickly and bought a boat together before any minds changed or common sense showed up.

Trust me, this is important to set-up so you can truly appreciate how stupid we really were that day.

So where was I… oh yeah, we were now moving down the channel of the marina and out to the lake. Just west of Lake Michigan about 15 miles in Northern Illinois, is what we refer to as The Chain O’ Lakes . It consists of about 10 lakes that are fed from Wisconsin and moves south through Illinois down the Fox River. Out on Pistakee Lake we finally got to open her up. Our twenty-two foot boat tore through the waves as we cut left… then right… what a day! The temperature was heating up but as long as we were moving, you didn’t notice. This was going to be great summer!

We decided to cross to one of the other lakes in the chain through one of the channels. By this time it was downright hot. Every time we slowed down we realized this and picked-up the RPM’s a bit to keep a cool breeze across the boat. At the entrance of the channel we had to slow to a “No Wake” which basically is really slow which only emphasized the heat. And did I mention – I was piloting? My first time at the helm. It was so awesome, navigating through that warm water, talking about all the fun we were going to have all summer. I might even bring my kids out on it… then, the unthinkable happened. Something that could only be described as a true horror for first time boat owners on their inaugural cruise… the engine died. I turned the key again and again. The engine turned over, but it wouldn’t catch.

My first reaction was to sort of  “look down at the wheel” to see if I missed something. Nothing looked a miss. Second, was to look at Tony as maybe he knows why it would have simply stopped in the middle of that channel. Nope, the look on his face was similar to mine. We made our way to the stern and pulled open the engine cover… yep it was still there… we stared for a moment, then I started to laugh because both of us realized at the same time… “So what are we looking for?” We didn’t know anything about engines other that their necessity in driving the propeller. We did check the battery cables, fuel line, and hoses… looked good.

The laughter quickly vanished as we realized there were boats piling up all around us trying to get by. The channel wasn’t very wide, so basically, we were now blocking most of the traffic between these two lakes. Our embarrassment began to rise. Then the beginnings of frustration… the boat was like one hour old. it couldn’t have broke so soon. And oh, by the way, we filled it up before we left so we knew it wasn’t lack of gas just in case you were wondering.

What were we going to do? Call the marina? Call the coast guard? (remember, first time boater) Then we were introduced to one of the wonders of small lake boating. That is, nice people…

Some guy pulled up and asked if we needed a tow. It was a good few miles back to the marina, but he was willing and we didn’t know what else to do, so we thanked him, tied a line to a cleat on our bow, and sat back as we started our journey being dragged back to the dock.

I sat at the helm as we talked about what could have gone wrong. I kept turning the motor over as if to think on the hundredth time, it’ll just start. It didn’t. I looked at the wheel, the ignition switch. Took the key out, then back in… the motor cranked, but wouldn’t fire. Man how annoying. Then I reached for the… oh, what is that? It just fell to the floor. Uh oh, I had one of those realizations like – I hope no one is looking.

You see, boats have all kinds of safety devices, and with good reason, with people like me on the water. They’d better or who knows what I could do. One of those features is a long vinyl coil chain that you connect to your belt (which no one actually does) and the other end is connected to an engine kill switch. That way if you fall off the boat, it won’t continue running across the lake unmanned. Guess it got loose…

While I stood there for a moment thinking of what I could say. I leaned over and picked it up, clipped it back on the kill switch when it caught Tony’s eye. He looked at me with one of those “Seriously?…” looks when he realized what I was doing (Hey – he didn’t think of looking at that either). I grabbed the key and turned… and yes, it fired right up… We shouted out to the guys towing us with gratitude and appreciation. “Are you sure your ok?” they asked. “Oh yeah, we’d be fine now” what were we going to tell them? Not the truth, that was for sure.

One of the not so funny things was that when we bought the boat, that was one of the features they pointed out because sometimes they have a tendency to wiggle loose and it is a common sense thing often over looked when new boaters are getting used to life on the water.

I also decided to read the manual and page one of the Trouble Shooting Guide, line 3, right after “Make sure key is in ignition” and “Check for Gas” was a reference to the “Kill Switch” … sigh …

So what does any of this have to do with marketing your small business? Simply put, sometimes we don’t look for the obvious when planning our strategy. We lean on the safety of this technology without understanding how it works and why it was developed… then we wonder why the campaign dies.

Take client A. They asked us to build a Purl for a campaign they were planning. Their thought, add a Purl, get a 28% response.

They just wanted to add a PURL to their existing piece. Without a change in strategy, without targeting their audience, without a good call to action. It wasn’t hugely successful, and rather than try to understand what went wrong with the approach, it simply became one more Marketing techniques “That doesn’t work.”

So why did they think this was going to be so successful? Because the industry pundits love to quote these impressive, generally unachievable results that others have had and not really explain the strategy behind it. A Purl by itself, isn’t going to add much to your campaign. You have to look at the demographics of your audience, the offer, the call to action. The tried and true marketing techniques all have to be in place, then molded for this newer technology to be effective. Point is, you need to know how it works for it to be successful.

So “Read the Manual” … or at least try to understand each marketing technology you use. But where do you get this knowledge? You can start by reading and researching, but the easier way is to simply ask you marketing service provider and see if they know what they are talking about. See if they ask you the right questions and offer you a convincing reason to use it. The key on this one is listen and develop a strategy on what you learn. And see if it makes sense. After all, more times than not, marketing is just convincing people that using your product or services just makes common sense.

The Relevance of Time

First – the Forward…

 

Do you work in marketing field? Maybe I should ask… Do you have client or customer contact? Do you want people to buy from you? Do you want your business to grow, whether it is a one-two person operation, a department of a large organization, or an Fortune 100 enterprise? If you reading this, then the answer, of course, is Yes!!!

 

But how do you market? And why do you market the way you do? And does it work the way you want it to?

 

All these good questions. What about the answers???

 

That is what my little corner of this blog is going to be dedicated to… for while anyway.

 

First off, although I don’t have all the answers and I don’t know everything (despite what my wife might tell you)…  I have been in the direct marketing industry for more years than I want to admit to and I have seen a great deal in this arena. Some approaches work very well and do not. But what is important here is that how I have gained my knowledge is through interacting with people like you. Anyone can have a great idea, and our job as good marketers is to know when to listen and when learn. My hope is that here, we can learn together. So I ask this — get involved. Feel free to reply to any of these postings, and if you would like, let me know and you can post your own. Collectively, we might actually get some this figured out. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Scott Bussert

sbussert@datamartdirect.com

 

 

Now to the post…

 

The Relevance of Time

 

To start things off I think we need to look at Time.

 

When I started in this thing about 1,000 years ago it seems like ( I think paper had just been invented or something) we, as a society, moved at a much slower pace. Now this would have been before VCR’s, before CD’s, before cell phones and even pagers (what kind of archaic world was it?). If you don’t remember those days, you can skip this next section because you won’t get it. Or, at least, it will hold no relevance to you.  If you do remember these days… please read on.

 

Today, our lives are divided between work, watching what we recorded on the DVR, checking our emails at work, checking our emails at home, replying to the text messages in a language many adults can’t follow (lol), surfing the web, to shopping on-line and off, oh crap…. I forgot about the kids… ok, becoming the Bussert Van Line to tote the kids all over, tae kwon do, school functions… and the bills, can’t forget the monthly bills… Man!!! When will I have time to look at all the letters, and brochures, and postcards, and the companies that are Marketing to me?

 

Unfortunately, I probably won’t be able to give them much time.

 

And as I marketer in the world today, I know this. Where many a moon ago, the Offer or Message  was king, today, it is one element of many that will decide the ring of success or the ring of the waste recycle bin. If we are going to be successful, we have to relevant to our customer.

 

Today, we can gain that relevance through technology and developing our Offers or Messages to the individual rather than the group.

 

Our company DataMart Direct is having an Open House this upcoming Tuesday and from our marketing we convinced over 200 people (based on registrations  - a 5% active response) to come visit our facility in the middle of February in Chicago, not an easy task. Our goal is to show what we do, how we do it, and hopefully help them in their own marketing efforts. You see, our job is rather simple, make you successful through smart, effective use of marketing and technology. For the more successful you are, the more you will use us to grow your business. So how do we do it? Relevance.

 

Step 1: Become Relevant.

 

So how do we become relevant? What tools and technology do we employ? And how do we track it?

 

All good questions. Let’s start looking at them next time… J

 

Well, you didn’t think I spill all the beans NOW did you?