Whittaker Associates: Giving Information Meaning">Whittaker

By Jim Bruckbauer

For most communities, your best prospects are different than they were 2 years ago, and most companies are thinking differently than they were 2 years ago.  So if you’re implementing your marketing strategies the same way you were 2 years ago, you should think again.  You need to quickly adapt to the changing economic environment.

We are experiencing a time of tight budgets, overworked staff, and information overload. This not only applies to us as ED professionals, but also our prospects.  This will change–maybe sooner or maybe later–but for the time being, how are you changing your marketing efforts to meet your goals during this time?  Cost-effective marketing is a must for 2009. Here are a couple of ideas that have been discussed around the office lately:

Be noticeable.

It is becoming increasingly tough to get the attention of the decision-makers of companies. This is usually due the mass quantities of solicitation attempts throughout the day in any given corporate environment.  Our partners and clients who have proven to be most successful at reaching decision-makers have gone to some lengths to infiltrate the administrative shield.

Many marketing experts will advise you that building a relationship with the gatekeeper is truly a necessary step in reaching your target. This can be done a number of ways.  Routinely sending informational 2-dimensional materials such as brochures and letters followed up by a phone call is a traditional way that has worked.  This is especially effective when mixed with a charming tone or when a great amount of graphic design is incorporated into the materials.

A more effective way to differentiate your materials from the rest of the information in front of the gatekeeper is to send a 3-dimensional item that may trigger an emotion. This creates a memory in the brain that can be a point of reference for a future follow-up.  An idea we had for one of our clients with a strong Irish heritage was to have them send a live Shamrock to companies that are suspected of having relocation or expansion needs.  Building on their branding theme, a Shamrock is directly related to the region and gives the emotional feeling of “growing.” A Shamrock is an item that will most likely not be discarded with other marketing materials. It will most likely be placed on a desk and enjoyed. The call that you make to this company is no longer cold, as you have now established a reference point.

You could even go the extra mile by sending a watering can, followed-up by a planter, followed-up by a soil and seed mixture. This adds an element of humor and eager anticipation for the next item that will definitely be memorable. The more memorable you are, the more effective your marketing can be. The outcome of this investment is well worth the minor cost incurred.

Other cost-effective things to think about:

• How much will you PAY a potential prospect to visit your town or have a 1-hour meeting with you?  How about a $100 donation to a designated charity of the prospect’s choice?
• Attract more visitors to your website by setting up a Scavenger Hunt, where the participants are asked questions about your community.  Establish a prize, such as an iPod, for the winner.
• Hire a seasonal intern from a local university to develop a complete Web 2.0 marketing campaign.  Social media outlets like YouTube and Facebook are literally free ways to market not only to current executives, but up-and-coming future executives.  (Very proactive communities are targeting Millennials and younger on Facebook.)
• Are you promoting your local banks, which were not as affected by the mortgage crisis and still have lending power?  Companies are looking for this.
• Your best prospects may have changed without you knowing.  We’re very interested in discussing marketing ideas.  We’re also very interested in assisting our clients in discovering which industries are shifting in this economic time.  If you’d like to join the conversation, call us.

by Cory Koch

Today, nobody seems to be around to answer the phone. You spend time cold-calling, and all you get are voice-mail messages. You know people don’t bother calling back if they think it’s a sales call.

Because I kept running into this situation, I decided I had to leave a voice-mail message that would encourage prospects to call back. I obtained my best results by leaving a message that shows interest in their company by asking a question about their future corporate goals. My message goes something like this:

“Good day. My name is Cory Koch and I am calling you from Whittaker Associates, an economic development partner of the city of Holland , Michigan. We are extremely interested in your company and wondered whether we could have a moment of your time. Can you tell me more about your company?”

Most prospects can’t resist the opportunity to talk about their favorite thing, their company, so they call me back. Now I’ve made contact. My next task is to build rapport. I ask several questions about their company: what they do and how they do it. I never start talking about our company unless they ask. I keep the focus on the prospects. By the end of the conversation, one of three things has happened:

• I’ve established enough rapport that I can call these prospects back and be reasonably certain they will take my call.
• The prospects have expressed interest in our company, and I may be able to talk to them about our services right away.
• The prospects give me permission to contact them again in the future.

Turning Your Promotional Pieces into an Appointment

When you initiate a telephone sales call, it is important to remember that your prospect is not as prepared for this conversation as you are. Before you called, the decision-maker was doing something: working, conducting a meeting, reading, or meeting with a client. His or her mind is still involved in that activity. Thus, your call is an interruption.

In the first 60 seconds of the call, you need to get the prospect’s mind away from whatever he or she was doing before you called and generate enough interest in your call so the prospect will want to stay on the line.

Below are some techniques you can use to turn many of your literature follow-up calls into appointments:

• Identify yourself and the name of your organization. Never say, “How are you today?” to a stranger. Only sales people address people they don’t know this intimately, so it alerts your prospect that your sole purpose is to sell.
• Go slowly with your introduction, breaking it into separate sentences. Remember, suspects are still concentrating on something else. Give them a chance to hear you and understand what you are saying.
• Tell prospects why you are calling: to follow up on the mailing you sent.
• Inject pauses. Give prospects an opportunity to speak if they want to.
• Don’t ask your suspect whether they have read the information or have any questions about it. They may not have read it, or they have read it but don’t remember much. You will only embarrass them with such questions.
• Refresh your prospect’s memory by presenting a brief overview of your organization and community. Personalize this as much as possible by mentioning information you have about your prospect’s company.
• As soon as your prospect expresses interest by starting to ask detailed questions, begin to sell the appointment–in order to answer their questions, you need to know more about their businesses.
• Ask for the appointment by giving your suspect a choice between two days. They will likely pick one or come up with a date and time of their own. Do not ask: “When is a good time for you?” Most business people are too busy to have a “good” time.
• Throughout the conversation, always listen to your prospects without interruption. The more they say to you, the more they become involved in considering the purchase.

by Cory Koch

Separate suspects from prospects.

Too many advertising dollars and too much time are spent on people who are not responding to your marketing efforts. Unless your lead-generation advertising weeds these people out, it’s not working effectively. The media you select, the offers you make, your creative strategy, and even your tone all play key roles in drawing out high potential prospects and screening out suspects.

Sell the next step harder than you sell your community.

Your whole objective of lead-generation marketing is to focus on the sales process, not to finalize it. Initially your direct mail or e-mail should push for action on the next step: sending for more information, a free sample, or a free analysis. Once you have qualified prospects, you can concentrate on a full presentation of your benefits, features, and applications.

Once is not enough.

Give suspects more than a single time to qualify their status. No matter how clear your direct-mail package or email may be, your target may miss it the first time around. Give prospects multiple opportunities to respond to your offer.
This will involve getting additional information out to follow up with your prior marketing piece. The more you narrow your market, the more time you have to spend on each prospect.

Support your mail.

Direct mail is still your best business-to-business lead program. If you decide to try mail, support it. If your mail package is an expensive, dimensional one, announce its arrival with a teaser package, e-mail blast or print ad. If the mailing is relatively small, think about leaving a voice-mail message with the recipient. After the mailing drops, follow it up with telemarketing, a quick mail reminder or an e-mail.

Support your sales force, distributors and wholesalers.

Make sure they have full information on your marketing efforts–sample packages, copies of the print ads and e-mail messages. Keep them posted on results. An exciting “sell in” can be as important to your success as anything else you do.

Don’t make it TOO easy to reply…

…if you want more QUALIFIED leads. Checking off a single box on a reply card and putting it in an outbound mail pickup may not make a prospect. Simply asking prospects to hit “Reply” to your e-mail may not qualify them, either. Ask your prospects to fill in just a few lines of information and you’ll increase the quality of your response without damaging quantity.

Let your prospects tell you how serious they are.

Allow several options on your response form–ranging from “Have your representative call me immediately” to “No interest now. Call me in six months.” Even the “no interest now” respondents are prospects.

ENVELOPE, please!

Unless your objective is to drive prospects to your web site, it’s unlikely that self-mailers or postcards are going to work for you. Yes, they’re cheaper to produce, but the cost in lost opportunities is huge. In mailing to certain market segments, you need an envelope that indicates one-to-one correspondence. Words like “Important,” “Confidential,” “New” or even “First Class Mail” can kill one-to-one perception. In most market segments, think of your envelope as a billboard for what’s inside. Use sizes that will stand out in the mail. Test a strong offer or powerful benefit statement as teaser copy.

Plan separate creative strategies and offers for different levels of decision-makers.

Even if you’re prospecting within a specific industry, your copy, offer and sometimes graphics must change to fit the objective of your communication. The simple approach you make to a real estate contact may not work in addressing the CEO. And the CEO’s possible interest in your product/service will differ from the CFO’s.

Test a survey approach, particularly with suspects.

If it’s carefully structured, a questionnaire mailing can help you learn more about your target audience and how to approach it with follow-up efforts. Surveys engage interest as they begin selling. If they’re kept short, surveys can work in e-mail efforts as well.

Throw away the concept of response percentage.

If your market universe is 1,000, a 2% response rate is totally insufficient. Standard direct mail will not suffice. Your direct mail must be an “event in the mail box.” That may involve creating and mailing hand-assembled cartons, sending out videos, or delivering a series of premiums by courier. On the other hand, in working with very large universes (or with a very small sales force), a 2% response may mean you haven’t done a very good job of pre-qualifying prospects.

Use testimonials and case histories.

Aside from the credibility they inspire, testimonials provide the prospect with applications and usage guidance. Include testimonials which emphasize how companies were rewarded by finding out more when they were prospects.

When in doubt, play it straight.

Humor and cuteness can cut through clutter in a business environment. However, if you have the slightest doubt about how the message will be received, play it safe and use a strong statement of benefits to break through.

Include a “keeper” in your mailings…

…particularly if you’re planning only one mailing. We all want response immediately, but in most cases 98% of recipients have no need to respond at the moment. Give them something to remember you by after the “advertising” portion of your mailing has been discarded. It could be anything from a wallet-size calendar or tips for saving time or improving energy to a pad of post-it notes with your company’s name on it.

Use premiums with caution.

The right premium increases response to your lead-generation efforts, and may even lower your cost per response. It also maintains conversions to appointments and sales. But overemphasizing the premium can bring you response from “freebie junkies.” Select premiums with obvious value, but not enough value to be a bribe.

Test response lists.

Even though you’re not selling directly through the mail, you should be testing your response lists against the compiled lists you may be using. Proven willingness to open and respond to direct mail and e-mail solicitations is as important in lead generation as it is in direct selling.

Transform gatekeepers into advocates.

If you’re mailing to upper management types, be aware that most of their mail is still screened by administrative assistants. To get your message on top of the pile (instead of in the circular file), address a message to the screeners explaining why the VIP should see your communication.

by Pete Julius

Need to improve the success of your marketing program? I hope that all of you answered yes to this question. Every organization needs to improve, no matter how much success it has experienced. A tremendous amount of increased competition from new, low-cost locations around the world has been generated in this age of globalization. This forces economic development agencies to become smarter with their marketing efforts. Below is a list of things that can help give you a successful marketing program, or at least improve your results.

Leadership - It all starts with solid leadership. Make sure the leader of your organization is going to be able to build trust with all internal and external team members, plan for future growth, successfully implement all objectives and strategies, monitor progress and most of all, lead your organization to new heights. Your leader should have experience, a well-established reputation and a proven track record, and be a people-person who is suited for the position. Take the time to find the right person for the job. Just don’t accept a person because he or she was the best one who applied for the position. First understand the mission and vision of your organization, then find the right person to lead the charge. Also, keep in mind that this “ideal leader” may come with a price tag. If you are really serious and committed, then you may have to shell out some bucks to get the right person.

Support & determination from community - Your community marketing efforts must have support from the entire economic development organization, elected officials, non-elected city and county officials, business leaders, volunteers and anyone else who may play a role in promoting your community. More importantly, you must do what you can to reduce the level of political bickering that exists within the local and area political system. Fighting between political entities does nothing more than create more problems and significantly reduces the chances of success. This is especially true for regional organizations and those communities insistent upon looking out for themselves. Globalization has changed the traditional methods of economic development: communities must learn to cooperate and work together to compete. As globalization continues to grow, communities will get smaller and smaller. Corporate real estate executives now have more options for their next facility, which makes marketing your communities much more difficult, especially if yours is a rural community.

SWOT & Focus – Before you can even begin to think about recruiting and retaining businesses, you must have knowledge of your community. One of the easiest things that can be done is to conduct a SWOT analysis. This assessment is designed to help you identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The SWOT analysis will help you to identify your competitive advantage. In this age of globalization and increased competition, it is imperative that you understand your position and how you can market yourself against your competition. Too many times we have we seen communities target growing industries simply because they are active, without considering how that particular industry would fit in their community. We have seen too many organizations waste money targeting industries that they don’t stand a chance of targeting. Luck does exist, but success is far greater when you understand your position and market your position effectively.

Innovative, customized strategies - You need to develop marketing strategies that are both innovative and customized. This is especially true for small communities, whose innovative strategies that will make them stand out from other communities. Host a conference or seminar within one of your targeted industries, develop sister-city partnerships with foreign countries, recruit talent instead of companies, or even buy a company within one of your targeted industries and build on that base. Whatever the strategy, communities must do something that is different from the ordinary to stand out from their competition. This process will involve the same marketing tactics (i.e. direct-mail campaigns, catering to site selectors and brokers, media placement, etc.), but the implementation may be different. One common practice is to implement an innovative strategy that had been successfully implemented by another community. The problem with this approach is that the best practices are not a “one size fits all” strategy. Best practices are good to use, but they must be tailored to your community.

Clear, accurate messages – Once you know your position and have developed your innovative strategies, make sure that you communicate clear and accurate messages about your community. Make sure that you do not mislead your target companies: it will only bring about disaster. You run the risk of attracting companies poorly suited to your community. As a result you could successfully attract a company that closes its doors a few years down the road because the community did not deliver what it promised. Where does that leave you? Right back where you started.trying to attract businesses to your community to generate jobs for the unemployed. More importantly, that ridiculous stunt will be remembered by the company that you fooled, other prospective companies, site selectors and real estate brokers.

Measure, evaluate, adjust – How can you improve anything that you do not measure? Improvement is always needed. Even the best need to improve. You must first establish a set of marketing measurements, monitor them on a consistent basis, and fine tune.