Two Marketing ruts to avoid
Posted by admin - 25/01/10 at 09:01:17 pmGenerally, when people think about marketing, they think in terms of tangible extensions of their brand such as their website, a catalog or advertisement. However, one of the most important elements that define your brand are the intangible interactions and experiences people have with your brand. Often that can come in the form of an experience they have using your website or using your product, but for the sake of this post I’m going to assume you already have a great product and a great website. But marketing doesn’t stop there.
It should be fair to say that existing customers have more interactions with your brand than potential customers. Yet, why is it that when we think of marketing (which really is just about managing brand interactions and perception), we so often only think of ways to get new customers?
There are two ruts I’d like to point out that hopefully you can avoid in your marketing strategy:
1. Marketing only to new clients and not marketing to your existing customers
2. Treating potential clients better than existing clients
Now nobody sets out to treat their existing customers poorly or worse than their potential customers, but it’s an easy trap to fall into. I like to think of these two problems as fishing with a hole in your net. You may get a lot of fish to swim in, but they’ll just swim right out before you can eat them. Now hopefully you aren’t planning on eating your customers, but sometimes when companies only focus on new customers, their existing customers can definitely feel like they’ve been swallowed up.
3 Ways to avoid these ruts:
1. The most obvious solution is to literally market to your existing customers. They already believe in your business so chances are they would do more business with you. Often times clients may not even realize you offer an additional service that compliments the one they already purchased from you. Email marketing is great way to stay in front of your existing customers and remind them of other services you offer.
2. Don’t make marketing all about discounts and free stuff. Not only can this often degrade your brand and lower your margins but it can also offend your existing customers. I have personally experienced this with phone and insurance companies who have “new customer rates” that are far better than existing customer renewal rates. To me this seems backwards. We address this issue with of one of our clients that we do a print catalog design for and email marketing for. When a catalog hits the mail and customers start to place orders, we don’t want to follow up with an email offering a discount on something they may of just recently purchased. With this client, we offer a handful of “web only” products and are careful to only offer email discounts when a catalog is getting close to the end of its season.
3. Another big way businesses can fall into the trap of treating new customers better than existing customers and letting those fish swim right out of the net is through their support and service. I can’t tell you how many times I have a seen a company offer both phone & chat support for sales but only offer chat for support. What that tells a customer is that you are willing to do everything you can to get their business but then once you have it you’ll only use part of your resources to keep them happy.
So keep marketing to your customers, keep them happy by offering them the same great support and attention you do your prospects and don’t make it all about new customer discounts just to drive in some new business. Focus a little more on the customer you do have and you may find that you don’t need as much new business as you thought!
How a website is built
Posted by admin - 04/01/10 at 08:01:13 amWe put together this web design workflow chart to help communicate the process of building a website to our clients. This simple document has been extremely helpful in illustrating some very important details about the process and client involvement. For those clients who have never been involved in a site design, it serves as helpful road map that helps grasp what they may feel is an overwhelming project. For other clients, it raises awareness of the importance of their role in the process. Download the MODassic Web Design Workflow.
MODassic meets with TX Governor Rick Perry
Posted by admin - 29/08/09 at 10:08:41 pmNo matter what your politics are we believe meeting with the Governor is quite an honor and last Thursday we had the privilege of meeting with Texas Governor Rick Perry for a 45-minute private meeting. The Gov is a big fan of an online video, Texaplex that we produced for a client.
We met with the Governor and discussed online video, social media, twitter and Texas! We were pleasantly surprised how hip to social media and online video Governor Perry is. He even ‘tweeted’ during our meeting about us and as you’ll see in the photo below the Gov uses a MacBook Pro.
Ryan Short (MODassic Marketing) with TX Governor Rick Perry
Discussing online video, social media & Texas!
Mad Men Yourself!
Posted by admin - 31/07/09 at 11:07:24 amIn promotion for the upcoming Season 3 of Mad Men on AMC (which in my opinion is one of the best TV series of all time), they have created “Mad Men Yourself,” where you can create your own Mad Men character to look like you! Pick your features, your clothes, setting and extras.
Here is mine…. That’s me arriving on my first day at Stanley Cooper!
The Evils of Invisible Tape
Posted by Nic - 15/07/09 at 09:07:56 amHow many times have you walked into a place of business, only to be greeted by a sign taped to the window like this one? Forget the content of the sign for a moment, we’re simply looking at the display of the sign itself:
There are several problems with this particular sign. We could talk about the wording of the sign, the fact that capital letters make it seem like they’re yelling at their customers, why “italic” font isn’t the best for readability, and why the image of the padlock should be replaced.
But the first problem I notice with this sign is the invisible tape used to hang it up.
What’s wrong with using invisible tape to hang a sign on your entryway? I see three main problems:
- Invisible tape doesn’t work as advertised. Namely, it’s not actually invisible. Most brands of invisible tape are actually fairly cloudy looking, and the closest-to-true-invisible brands tend to gather finger oil and bubble up while being applied.
- You’re making a first impression, and the tape isn’t helping. Unless you run a “hole-in-the-wall” restaurant or a government agency, the tape contributes to an image of “junky, thrown together crap”. Especially if your sign is well-designed and printed on nice cardstock, the tape effectively cancels out your efforts on the messaging itself. Consider the example above — it’s bad enough that some people’s first experience with this restaurant will be that it’s closed, the presentation of the message should help assuage that problem, not exacerbate it.
- The tape is just lazy (and / or cheap). There are plenty of ways to hang a sign without resorting to invisible tape. Suction cups, wire, pushpins, magnets, all kinds of simple, efficient ways to keep your messaging while improving your image. If you simply must use tape, try rolling the tape (to make it faux-double-sided) and sticking it on the back of the paper, out of sight.
I understand this may sound incredibly nit picky. But when you’re developing a brand identity (and if you own a small business, you’re doing just that), all these little tiny details actually matter.
Especially when the first encounter some people will have with your brand is right at your front door.
eCommerce SEO Tip
Posted by admin - 10/07/09 at 01:07:17 pmBING is Microsoft’s recently rebranded search engine. They changed things up in an attempt to compete with, or at least slow down, the increasing dominance of Google. The jury is still out as if it will gain any market share, but it still pulls enough traffic that it is important that your site is well represented.
One of the main focuses of BING is comparison shopping.
Bing is focusing a large of part if its million dollar ad campaign and functionality on their tagline “Bing and decide”. If you have an eCommerce website or have shopped on an eCommerce site then I’m sure you understand the importance of user reviews in making purchasing decisions. In an effort to make BING the search engine of choice for comparison shopping, they include REVIEWS in the search results.
IMPORTANT: BING is pulling their user reviews directly from these 3 sites:
These review sites are not just important for BING. These review sites (especially Yelp) are referenced on numerous sites and iphone applications. So, be sure that your site is accurately listed on those sites and encourage your customers to leave positive reviews. If you get positive feedback or a great testimonial in person or over the phone, don’t be afraid to ask that customer if they would mind posting that online where it can really do you some good!
And I’m sure you will all start hearing a lot about another SEO-ish acronym DEO (Decision Engine Optimization)
Can I use stock photos for that?
Posted by admin - 18/06/09 at 11:06:19 amStock photos are an affordable way to quickly get great looking photos to use on your website and marketing materials. However, it is important to remember that the photographers, stylists, models and artists who created those images are hard working individuals just like you and me, so it’s important not to steal and misuse their art. Many clients often ask what the rules and laws are with using stock photos. iStockphoto.com (one of our favorites) has put together this quick and easy explanation of some of the most common questions and issues regarding the proper use of stock photos:
- Using an image as part of a business name, logo, trademark, design mark or service mark.The whole point of having a logo, business name or design mark is so that it will be unique in the marketplace. How can your logo be unique if you’re using a royalty-free file that millions of other people could have downloaded? Besides violating the iStockphoto Content License Agreement, using an image in this way also infringes upon the rights of the artist who created the file. If these aren’t reasons enough, good luck trying to develop or enforce rights in conjunction with a logo that uses a royalty-free image.
Continue reading Can I use stock photos for that?…
Google Local Business Search NEW Reporting
Posted by admin - 11/06/09 at 10:06:56 pmGoogle has just recently updated the local business search reporting interface. Some of the new reporting features are pretty great and show you a lot more about how customers interact with your local search listing.
The new reporting dashboard shows statistics about your business listing, like how many users saw your business as a local search result, zip codes where driving directions requests come from, and the top search queries for which your business appeared.
Here is a sample of what our site’s local search data looks like:
Business: MODassic Marketing
Impressions in the last 30 days: 1498
Google Local Search Reporting - Dallas SEO
New GM commercial
Posted by admin - 04/06/09 at 09:06:32 pmHere is the new post-bankruptcy commercial from GM (General Motors). Marketing a bankrupt company is always a massive challenge, especially one with such a public collapse. This is just a small piece of what will be a massive rebranding, but I think this commercial is a pretty good start.
How to effectively evaluate and proof a design
Posted by admin - 21/05/09 at 12:05:18 am
When it comes to evaluating, reviewing and proofing a design, be careful whose opinion you get and most importantly how you get it.
It’s something we all do and many are required to do. You’ve designed what you think is a great looking piece. You’ve taken into consideration the demographics of your audience, the path the eye will take across your piece, the medium upon which the design will be implemented, the message it delivers and most importantly it just looks killer. If you answer to no one but yourself, you’re set! But odds are you do answer to someone. It has to be perfect and it most likely needs some kind of approval. So you show it to your boss or your client, or make the rounds getting the opinions of your co-workers.
Continue reading How to effectively evaluate and proof a design…
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