I’ll Spell It Out

Trust:  a relationship of reliance.

Relationship:  “…is managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with its customers…The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new customers, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former customers back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and customer service.”

Reliance:  “…a system’s ability to maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well as unexpected circumstances.”

Trust Is To A Relationship Like Glue Is To…

Two-part epoxy is strong stuff!

Trust is like an adhesive; it takes time to set and cure. Test a bond too early and the joint can be stressed and fail. But waiting until it cures – has had time to properly mature through its developmental stages – results in a strong bond.

That’s my analogy, and I think it’s really very applicable to business/customer relationships.  Maybe even more so given the tenuous state of the global economy, set in motion by big business subterfuge and the banking world’s poor judgment.

Failure To Communicate

Consumers are skeptical of “newspeak,” and miss the personal nature of yesteryear’s account transactions.  Consumers are frustrated at the lack of swift and sure recourse (has automation, the IVR, and the form letter taken things too far?).  And consumers are outraged at what amounts to the complete and total absence of any application of rational, intelligent discretion when the applicability of policy comes into play (just because GE Money *can* increase a customer’s interest rate by 20% when payment is received one day late doesn’t mean that they *should*).

Hello benevolence. Hello valued customer. Hello accessibility and empowered front-line employees.

The Have And The Have Nots

I believe these “big business” mindsets to be polarizing. The indiscriminate application of sterile policy, the distancing of consumers from the human profile of the brand (emotion drives even the most practical and basic-need purchase decisions; the association of memory and related experience influences brand choice at the onset), and complicating the back-end details to dissuade customers from dispute, return, or issue resolution all work to segregate customers into similar-looking groups that can be  managed swiftly and dispassionately.

Dispassion. Wait a minute. Isn’t customer passion – engagement, affinity, loyalty, stewardship – the holy grail of brand marketing?  Don’t companies pay for passion, real or feigned? I’m talking about the passion that drives testimonials, product reviews, endorsements, word of mouth, fan-ning, retweeting, forwarding, logo-wearing….So passion is okay provided its the right kind, from the happy customers. The rest can eat cake.

Which Came First, The Chicken…

Circle back around to trust. You can’t be passionate about anything without being vulnerable and vested (hey! we’re talking emotions here!).  And you won’t ever willingly be vulnerable without having trust and confidence.

Buzzle.com author Don L. Price says it best:

“Trust is the true differentiating feature for any company in a world of increasingly commodity-like products and services. A relationship, founded on trust, is the only genuinely sustainable competitive advantage a company has.”

When there’s trust, when a brand truly recognizes transparency as an opportunity to get closer to its clients and chooses vulnerability (its mutual, you know) over cover-up, gobblety-gook fine print, and power games, good things happen. Like forgiveness. And an appreciation for respecting its consumers so much that being honest wasn’t really a choice at all. It was simply the obvious next step.

The Moral Of The Story

Your customers have trusted you to make good on their $19.99 or $1,999.99 investment. Don’t screw it  up. We’ve already lost too much already.  Another disappointment just might jade us.

We all know that customer testimonials are a primo tool leveraged within new business development initiatives. We like validation for our choices, and testimonials can be a low-key, non-invasive way to present a winning scenario that a prospect just might relate to (in whole or part) – whether it was due to similarities in budget, accelerated timing, market, customer base, etc. We want the same big win that the person offering the testimonial got.  We want to be successful, too.

I’m working hard to gather customer testimonials for Ovation as we add new clients. I wonder if succeeding these days is more difficult than in those past – maybe my peers are now required to confer with public information officers and legal departments first.  But another tool I’m trying to develop is our portfolio of case studies.  In my opinion, these are equally impressive as testimonials, more detailed, and in some ways less subjective in nature (of course, even case studies can be manipulated to some degree).  And there are fewer to no hoops to work through.

Case in point:  We have a new client with a consumer audience. The nature of their business requires the consumers spending some down time in one or two waiting areas. It’s expected that there be dog-eared, outdated reading material handy, and maybe even half-expected that there be cheesy cable television to help pass the time.

Ovation’s position is this – consumer-facing businesses need to accept that media consumption habits have changed and the outbound brand-shouting they’ve done for years needs to be laid to rest. While a consumer in your waiting area doesn’t necessarily equate to an engaged or even satisfied customer, it’s wise to make use of them being “in the moment.”  After all, they’re there, right?  They might not read your direct mail, but for now they’re in your office.  For as long as they sit there, you have the opportunity to reach them. Targeted, relevant messaging on a custom media channel like digital signage can make a difference in the minds of the consumer. I have one case study and the raw data from another survey to prove it.

Recognizing the importance consumer feedback can mean to the success of a digital signage program, we recommend (and sometimes even subsidize) writing a custom survey instrument (sometimes there are multiple survey variations) to gather insight from those exposed to the messaging/content. In one instance, the survey has been in the form of a card that’s completed, and in another it involved an electronic touch pad to pose questions and collect data.

Whether you offer testimonials, case studies, an open accessible list of references, or some other means by which a prospect can learn more from those who’ve already traveled the path doesn’t really matter.  The important thing is to offer something for them to chew on. Something for them to evaluate in a real-world context and consider comparatively with their own needs.  They’ll see themselves in that other guy’s shoes.  There are tons of ways to use and repurpose testimonial and case study gold, and of course MarketingProfs has some great ideas for you to incorporate.

Small biz at its best

For small businesses, it can be a challenge to look uber-polished and sophisticated with every communication and customer relationship tactic. If you’re also repositioning and rebranding the company as we are at Ovation, in many way’s it’s on par with a brand new start-up.  There’s the Web site, collateral, product sheets, trade show materials to develop. On another level is logowear, corporate gifts of various values, advertising for awareness and image building. There’s also the requisite trade associations, Chambers of Commerce, and more for networking.

The reality is that small business budgets are, well, smaller than that of their mid or large sized counterparts. With an eye on growth – that one “tipping point” win – small business marketers know they can’t afford to be overlooked.

Beautifully Simple

One area I’ve given a lot of thought to is email.  Done right, email can be a professional, relatively unobtrusive way to reach a variety of prospects, influentials, and existing customers. Many elements can be placed in a library and re-purposed for multiple “drops,” and of course there’s the power of the visual to draw a reader in (along with well-written content) and lead them to key landing pages.

But which provider was right for us? I had a few essential requirements when I started my search.

My Basic Criteria

1. Low monthly cost (or free!)
2. Flexible design and layout formats
3. Low-level coding requirements
4. Tracking and reports for insights
5. Flexible list management (we use Highrise for CRM)

The Little Red-Haired Girl

After a lot of evaluation (I confess, I didn’t understand the significance of some of the items listed on

Mad Mimi: email with moxie

various feature sets) I narrowed my choices down to two. Running neck and neck (sharing many of my requirements, and each offering a few “something extra’s”), I chose MadMimi.

In just minutes late the other night, I pulled together a simple email sample and sent it to a few people. Using a few branded graphics I had easy access to, my new email had a masthead, intro paragraph, two stories (each with their own visual), and a footer. There’s no charge for a good long while (we’re still developing a list). It was easy to tell which of my recipients opened theirs (and which didn’t!), and also who forwarded it.  I can create separate campaigns for different purposes (say, a drip marketing program for customer development, routine emails for ongoing relationship management, etc.), maintain separate lists, and generate insightful reports that tie into site conversion funnels.

All of this may be all in a day’s work for many – email consultants, direct marketers specializing in digital, developers, and the like. But this was my very first hand’s on creation experience (it’s one thing to receive a slew of them, another to plan and create them for specific use cases!), and I have to say I’m jazzed at the potential. I’m only limited by the time and energy I have to focus on learning all the ins and outs. Not to mention watching the trends…

Other Options and Resources

During my research and with help from others during my Twitter crowdsourcing, I made note of a number of other email providers.  Now that we’re in the last leg of planning our first few email campaigns, I’m also paying more attention to articles and posts on the topic. I’ve listed a few of those as well, in case you can use them.

1. Exact Target
2. Act-On
3. SendLoop
4. iContact
5. Constant Contact
6. StreamSend
7. Mail Chimp (my runner-up preference)
8. Silverpop
9. Campaign Monitor
10. SendLoop
11. Mailer Mailer
12. Jason Bayer of Convince & Convert is a leader in email marketing and its possibilities with social
13. MarketingProfs continually focuses on great email content, email strategies and email tips
14. ChiefMarketer instructs on how to build an email list
15. Google even helps for campaign-specific insights, tying email to your Web site
16. iMedia Connection has new-school thoughts on email
17. Website Magazine offers info on subject lines

Your Turn

Is your small business using email for customer retention or lead development? If so, do you have any good stories to tell? Experiences with a particular provider you’d like to share? Resources to add to the list? Let me know!

Last week, I was in Des Moines, IA attending a marketing conference sponsored by the Iowa Banker’s Association titled “Blue Ribbon Banking: Marketing for Success.”   At Ovation, we’re considering our sales strategy for the bank vertical and this local conference provided good timing.

My banking experience is limited to the typical consumer relationship, so I thought it particularly important to visit with bank marketers in hopes to better understand their pain points.  Knowing the issues they face could help us tighten our messaging or even inform development of creative sales programs to help reduce barriers to entry.  While in attendance, I sat in on three presentations that remain top-of-mind for me, from presenters Mills Financial Marketing (Spirit Lake, IA), F&M Bank (Columbia, TN), and McLellan Marketing (Des Moines, IA).

140 Characters or Less

Mills had the opening keynote and endeavored to cover a lot of ground including e-marketing tactics, ideas to befriend local media in an effort to increase exposure, and about tapping into the community to create a vibe and stay current.

F&M had another 2-hour session presented as a case history of the institution. From a small, infrequented bank located in the wrong neighborhood to an incredibly successful, high profile institution with impressively appointed offices, F&M has grown by tapping into key customer motivators (like ‘exclusivity’) and psychological aspects (such as southern-bred compunction to reciprocate). It started by using twice-weekly ladies lunches (hence the chicken salad) to create networking opportunities for bank executives to connect with prospects (and their friends!) on a personal level.  The bank remains focused by funneling marketing dollars only into venues that provide the greatest opportunity for exposure and return–instead of sponsoring a Little League team and receiving the F&M logo imprint in return, the bank might sponsor the winning team pizza lunch and make a short congratulatory announcement, followed by small talk with the kids parents.

Drew McLellan (@DrewMcLellan) provided curious bank marketers with insights into baby step-sized forays into the world of social media and social networking.  I live-tweeted the presentation (#drew), but you may have to scan through some other search results in order to view my notes.  I think Drew used humor to to comfort and reach his audience, and broke down the various tools and platforms into easily understood and prioritized chunks. Among his imperatives were Google Alerts and LinkedIn. He mentioned posting his presentation online, and when I can get the URL, I’ll update this post.

At the End of the Day

Some part of me had hoped to learn about some new tools or understand topics in a deeper way that I could apply back at the office. While that didn’t necessarily happen, I did gain a greater appreciation for the unique situation marketers in each separate vertical must face–I truly did not anticipate that banking would be slower to adopt than healthcare, but in speaking with folks at the conference I’d say that’s definitely the case. This event impresses upon me the importance of research, focus fieldwork, and good old-fashioned listening.  You may have a great product or service, but you’ll run into difficulties reaching prospects if you don’t truly understand how to relieve their pressure points. Looking forward to the September IBA conference, I figure we’ll be ready.