Archive for the ‘Interactive Marketing’ Category
Sure, people say a change will do you good, but when it comes to actually changing, it’s just not that easy. People are actually hard-wired to resist change. That is what makes marketing so challenging. You are either trying to get people to try a completely unknown product or service, or asking them to move from the established provider to you, the great unknown.
The most common reason for resistance: the potential value is counteracted by a perceived risk or switching cost. Irresistibility is the condition you create through strategic marketing to reduce risk and increase the perception of value. Eight “Rules to PERSUADE” can help reduce buying resistance that leads to easier and faster commitment.
The 8 PERSUADE Principles
Marketing is the process of diffusing the natural resistance that prospects and customers have for committing to a decision to act, whether that’s picking up the phone, going to your Web site, or making a commitment to buy. To create a ‘Condition of Irresistibility,’ marketers generally employ one or more of 8 strategies for reducing resistance, thereby increasing the propensity to PERSUADE:
Pain Principle
Endorsement Principle
Reframing Principle
Steps Principle
Unavailability Principle
Appearance Principle
Dollars and Cents Principle
Exchange Principle
To learn more about how you can incorporate the 8 PERSUADE Principles, click here.
Dan Droz is Chairman and CEO of Droz & Associates: Marketing, Branding, Design, Public Relations, Advertising, Web Design, Interactive Marketing for Pittsburgh and surrounding regions.
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Pittsburgh No Comments
The New Year is a good time to develop good marketing habits. Here are 10 Simple Marketing Resolutions to Recharge Your Marketing for 2009.
1. Give Out More Business Cards. The most natural way to give someone a business card is to ask for theirs. Tit for Tat. Start with 10 a week and progress to 20.
2. Add 20 Names To Your Contact Database Every Week. By the end of the year, that’s over 1000 new contacts. (These can be from the business cards you collect).
3. Start a Blog. Blogs make it easier for search engines to find you, give people something to read when they find you and provide a great platform for creating connections.
4. Join a Networking Group. Professional organizations or other networking venues provide a great foundation for creating referrals and prospects.
5. Send a Newsletter. Creating a printed or outbound (online) newsletter or bulletin allows you to keep in touch with prospects, clients and referral sources.
6. Eat Lunch. Take a prospect, client or referral source to lunch once a week. This is a great opportunity to cement relationships, develop referrals and tap more business.
7. Toot Your Horn. Send press releases to print and online media when you do something special, add a staff member or introduce a new product or service.
8. Write Notes. When you meet someone or if someone sends you a lead, write a note. A real one, not an email. And be sure to enclose your card. (see #1)
9. Return Calls. The easiest way to frustrate a client or prospect is to postpone a call back. Return calls the same day.
10. Call Droz. These are just the beginning. Droz can help you Recharge! your marketing program to drive down cost, increase sales and create a pipeline of new business.
Dan Droz is Chairman and CEO of Droz & Associates: Marketing, Branding, Design, Public Relations, Advertising, Web Design, Interactive Marketing for Pittsburgh and surrounding regions.
Monday, January 5th, 2009
Design, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Pittsburgh, Public Relations, Sales No Comments
The holidays are a great time to reach out to current and potential clients. The reason: holiday greetings and online gifts provide an excellent opportunity for viral marketing. Viral marketing is a marketing strategy that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Like regifting… only they can be regifted a gazillion times. Viral marketing typically involves messages, greetings or information that are free, interesting or fun and leverage existing and easy to use communications networks, like email. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive games, images, or even….fruitcakes.
The goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and create viral messages that appeal to this segment of the population. The more creative or relevant…the better chance it will passed on, or regifted… like a fruitcake.
To demonstrate, suppose someone, like us, sent you an online gift like… a fruitcake. Well what are you supposed to do with the gift of fruitcake? What does anyone do with the gift of fruitcake? Regift!… That’s the spirit of viral marketing. This year, people went nuts for our greeting our ‘do-it-your-self’ fruitcake. We sent it to our core email list, along with an option to ‘regift’ it others. We also sent out a link on our Twitter, and other social networks.
The result: an increase in traffic to our Web site and our blog, and multitudes of positive comments from regiftees. The positive word of mouth that we built with our simple holiday gesture is priceless from a marketing standpoint, and the perfect example of a successful viral marketing campaign.
Click here to get, send and/or ‘regift’ your own fruitcake.
If you’d like more marketing tips on viral and other types of campaigns, or would like to receive more things like do-it-yourself fruitcakes, click here.
Dan Droz is Chairman and CEO of Droz & Associates: Marketing, Branding, Design, Public Relations, Advertising, Web Design, Interactive Marketing for Pittsburgh and surrounding regions.
Monday, December 22nd, 2008
Advertising, Branding, Design, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Pittsburgh, Public Relations, Sales, Uncategorized, Web Design No Comments
Determining the best promise or ‘claim’ for your product or service isn’t just a matter of defining the message. You have to make it engaging, relevant and differentiated. So many claims (and copy) use words like ‘biggest,’ ‘cheapest’ and ‘best,’ that are platitudes at best and probably not true. More importantly, they waste the most valuable opportunity to engage and differentiate you. Here are two simple tests you can do in the privacy of your office to evaluate your claims and headlines.
The “Duh” Test. Ask someone why you should buy from them. They respond, “because we give great customer service,” or “We Deliver Results.” A plumber says, ‘we’re there when you need us,’ or a builder says, ‘the house you’ve always wanted…’ Duh. If it’s something you (and your competitors) need to do to just be in the game, that’s not a claim. It’s simply a description. Not engaging, relevant or different.
A charter school, called Propel Schools , used to say they provided a ‘Student Centered’ education. Duh. By using their name, and making the claim that they ‘Propelled’ students, they and created a compelling promise that had energy and engagement. You’ve got to answer the question, “Why would anyone choose you over one of competitors.” For Real. No Duh’s.
The “Different” Test. The issue of differentiation isn’t a matter of what you do. Your competitors probably do it too. Usually, difference lies in some specific detail of how you do it. Your “3 Steps,” “113 Simple Ingredients” or “10 Inspectors.” All those ‘differences’ like experience, quality or creativity aren’t differences. They could well be characteristics of your competitor as easily as you. Gleem toothpaste has GL-70 . Domino’s Pizza has 30 minute delivery and Saab’s are designed by aerospace engineers (as well as having the coolest cup-holders in the business). If you can cross off your name in an ad and insert your competitor’s name without substantially misrepresenting them, you’ve got a problem.
Dan Droz is Chairman and CEO of Droz & Associates: Marketing, Branding, Design, Public Relations, Advertising, Web Design, Interactive Marketing for Pittsburgh and surrounding regions.
Friday, October 31st, 2008
Advertising, Branding, Design, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Pittsburgh, Public Relations, Sales, Uncategorized, Web Design No Comments
Until about 200 years ago, the design process was quite immediate in that there was a very direct connection between people who made things and the people who used them. If you wanted a canoe, you’d use the time-tested method of getting bark off a tree, and shaping it like your forefathers did. They learned what worked over time, by the process of boats sinking, or floating. There was an evolution to the forms that products, buildings and packaging took. The person who designed and built your boat probably lived down the street. There wasn’t really a mass market.
Designer as Intermediary
But as technology and mass production became part of the business environment and markets expanded, people who bought and used things got farther and farther from the people who made them, so that eventually, they never even met. People who made things had to imagine what people might need in the future, and gradually, the field of professional design emerged as an intermediary, anticipating and planning for products, services and communications would impact and connect to people they’d never met.
Where the engineer, marketer and sales force typically represents the provider of a product or service, the designer represents the user, defining what would be desirable, useable and useful to people. Even in the developmental years of the design professions, designers understood that the products, services and spaces needed to address a range of desires and physical and emotional issues that went well beyond functional need. Products and services were opportunities to create experiences for the users, not just a solution to a problem.
Representing the User
When Henry Dreyfus, one of the founders of the Industrial Designers Society of America and it’s first president, designed the now classic phone handset in 1937, he said that “the phone is merely a way for people to have the experience of communicating directly with someone they love over great distances.”
In 1939, he designed the Big Ben Alarm clock for Westclock. After a year of development, it was ready to market. The first customer was the John Wanamaker department store in New York City. Henry Dreyfus, in what is considered to be the first live ‘user testing,’ observed potential customers pick up the clock, examine it and put it down without buying it or asking any questions. Eventually, he questioned customers. Why were they putting it down after examining it? What was wrong?
Their response: it felt too light. Something so light couldn’t be substantive. Whether they were right or wrong, Dreyfus realized that people were associating weight with value even though he knew there was no connection. In a radical departure from the notion that ‘less is more,’ he added a 3 oz. weight, serving no function whatsoever, but to create the perception of greater substance. In this case, more weight equated to more value. He said, “people want the experience of knowing that their alarm clock had something inside.” Weight was an attribute that had meaning and relevance… it created a cue that led to a perception of value and substance.
Dan Droz is Chairman and CEO of Droz & Associates: Marketing, Branding, Design, Public Relations, Advertising, Web Design, Interactive Marketing for Pittsburgh and surrounding regions.
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
Advertising, Branding, Design, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Pittsburgh, Public Relations, Sales, Uncategorized, Web Design No Comments