The Marketing Power of a Story

Posted on November 19, 2013 by JeffKontur

The other day I was talking with a friend. Not about marketing, just about relationships and the stuff of everyday life.

I made an offhand comment which caused her to stop and ask a question. I said, “You know, there’s a story there.”

To which she laughed and replied, “It’s always a story with you.”

Exactly.

Stories are the way by which human beings relate to one another. Stories make it easier to remember facts and information and to associate with the world around us.

Stories are also the key to good marketing.

If you walk up to ten people and try to sell them something, chances are you’ll get to see the backs of ten people’s heads. But if you walk up to ten people and tell them a story, most of them will stick around at least long enough to find out if your story is interesting or relevant to them. A few may still vanish after deciding it’s not but some will stick around for your story.

In order to sell to strangers, you need several things:

A crowd of properly targeted people who may actually be interested in your story and/or your product.
A story they will be interested in listening to.
A product or service that has a logical tie-in with the story you tell.

A well crafted story, and a product or service that has a logical tie-in to that story, is the key to selling to strangers.

Your story could be about the product itself, about the company that makes it, about people who have benefited from its use or about the need for the product in the world.

With a good enough product and a compelling story, price almost doesn’t matter.

So tell me a good story…

When Making a Profit can be Deadly to your Business

Posted on December 10, 2012 by JeffKontur

In your marketing, is it necessary to always make a profit? Or to at least have profitability as your goal?

We’re not talking about charities and organizations whose goal is not to make a profit. We’re also not talking about “awareness” campaigns or ones in which your goal is to get people to sign up for a mailing list or something like that. (Some of these things have questionable value to begin with for most small businesses.)

So in cases where you are advertising and your goal is for the ad to generate sales, is it always important to make a profit?

The answer is a big fat NO.

In fact, there are some cases where making a profit from an ad can be deadly to your business.

It all comes down to knowing your average customer.

So this is a strategy that will work only for established businesses. New businesses need sales before they die in infancy.

With an established business that already has some customer base and a sales history, it pays to analyze that sales history.

If you know that, say 12% of your first-time customers stick around to become long-term repeat customers and your typical long-term customer stays with you for three years and spends an average of $3,000 over that time, then you logically want to get as many such customers as possible. It isn’t necessary to make a profit on the very first sale because you will stand to profit on each subsequent sale over the next three years.

Do you want to lose money?

Ironically, there actually are times when it makes sense to lose a bit to attract a customer. Grocery stores do this all the time. Say they advertise coffee for some ridiculously cheap price. They might even be losing a few cents on each can of coffee they sell.

Sure, a few customers will come in, buy the cheap coffee and leave. But most will come in for the cheap coffee and end up doing their whole week’s shopping while they’re there. A few may even go on to become regular customers, having been lured away from a competitor.

Most of the time, however, smart marketers want to price their initial offer so that they just break even. The money brought in from sales should be just enough to pay for the cost of goods plus the cost of marketing.

It’s an educated guessing game but if you can do it, you introduce yourself to a lot of potential new customers at zero cost to you. Some of them will go on to become long-term customers. Now you’ve just made a bundle in long-term profits at no up-front cost.

And all those people who take you up on your introductory offer but then never come back?

Well if you’ve done it right, those people cost you nothing. You made no profit but also lost no money on the deal. You also learned a lot about what will generate response and sales. It’s a win all around.

Knowing and understanding this kind of stuff is where a marketing strategist comes in handy.

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There are some cases where making a profit from an ad can be deadly to your business.

Ironically, there actually are times when it makes sense to lose money in business.

Make a bundle in long-term profits at no up-front cost.

Knowing and understanding this kind of stuff is where a marketing strategist comes in handy.

Split Testing

Posted on December 3, 2012 by JeffKontur

Split testing, also sometimes known as A/B testing, is one of the cornerstones of effective marketing.

In it, you test two ideas against each other. It could be two different ads, two versions of a web page, you name it. Measure customer response to determine which is better at achieving your goals, whether they be more signups, more inquiries, more sales, longer time on your website or whatever.

Keep the better version, throw out the “loser” and then try a new idea against the winner.

You may have a winner which stands for many years and beats all challengers or you may have a new winner every week. Either way, you will know with certainty that the ad you are using is the best you can come up with.

Of course I’m glossing over a great deal of hard work and fine detail. There’s formulating a marketing goal, knowing what to track and how to track it, how long do you run the test, how do you allocate the “load” and so on.

Let’s look at that last one a bit.

Say you already have an established winner (called a “control” among professional marketers) that has proven itself over time. Now you have a new challenger which presents a completely new idea and you want to see how well it resonates with your customers compared to your control.

You wouldn’t want to risk 50% of your customers on a gamble but you do want to test the challenger on a large enough sample to make it statistically valid. Depending on the size of your customer base, it’s normal to show the challenger piece to between 5% and 20% of your customers while the rest continue to get the control version.

Split testing requires an incredible amount of meticulous tracking and record keeping. It really takes a full-time, dedicated person to do it right and most big marketers have entire staffs fully dedicated to split testing. That’s a huge commitment but the payoff is more effective marketing and more sales.

100,000 Stories

Posted on June 11, 2012 by JeffKontur

Imagine for just a moment…

You’re out for the day in town. Perhaps shopping, perhaps just browsing. You meet someone on the street and he convinces you to go to a theater to check out a show.

So you go to the theater. There was no set start time for this show. The guy just told you about it and you went there immediately. But someone else had arrived at the theater before you so the show already started. You don’t really know what you missed or even how much of the show you missed.

Think of the situation from the performer’s viewpoint: There is no designated start time. He doesn’t know how many people will show up. But he can’t keep his audience waiting so when the first person shows up he starts the show. But then a second person shows up; does he start over again from the beginning? What if a third person arrives? Or a 50th? At what point does he cut it off?

He only has the ability to tell one story at a time.

But what if you could tell more than one story at a time? What if you could tell ten stories at once? Or 100? Or 100,000? What if it was the same story but you were telling it, individually, to 100,000 different people? Even though they may know that they are not the only ones hearing this story, each one gets a sense that it is personalized especially for them. You start when they’re ready. You call each one by name. You add personal little touches that are unique to each audience member. And only that audience member hears those bits of uniqueness. Other audience members hear their own bits of uniqueness.

That’s exactly what an email autoresponder lets you do!

You create a series of emails — a story, if you will. Each person who comes to your website and signs up to hear your story gets it from the beginning. A specialized computer program or email service keeps track of everything for you. It will send each person his or her own story in installments. The service will add personalized touches along the way.

From the perspective of each “audience” member, you are having a one-on-one conversation. You are telling the story just to them and them alone.

It’s the ultimate personalized experience for your customers and the easiest way for you to deliver 100,000 personalized experiences without cloning yourself.

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What if you could tell more than one story at a time?

What if you could tell ten stories at once? Or 100? Or 100,000?

It’s the ultimate personalized experience for your customers.

The easiest way for you to deliver 100,000 personalized experiences.

Clone yourself!

5 Sweet Marketing Tricks my Dentist Uses

Posted on April 2, 2012 by JeffKontur

My dentist is terrific at marketing. And I’m not entirely sure that he even fully realizes it. He’s a very smart guy and his marketing efforts are far from accidental, I’m just not sure that he has enough basis for comparison to realize how much better he is than the average schmo who hasn’t studied marketing.

Here are five things my dentist does that make him a marketing machine:

1. Testimonials

In his waiting room — which, incidentally, looks more like the lobby of a nice hotel than a typical doctor’s waiting room — he has a small digital picture frame on one of the oak tables. The frame changes images every five seconds or so. Every single image on the frame is a photo of an actual patient paired with a pull-quote from a testimonial that patient has given. He has dozens of these testimonials. Both the quotes and the photos are all top-notch.

2. Upsell

His staff is absolutely genius at the art of upselling. Dr. Rosen himself tends to stay above such things and is just the good old friendly doctor. He never sells a thing. But don’t be fooled into thinking he isn’t the puppet master pulling the strings on all his staff. They never go for the hard-sell. It’s always a “recommendation”. If you don’t buy, they leave it alone but their pitch is good enough that most patients buy.

3. Email

He uses an autoresponder to keep in touch with patients. I always get a reminder about two weeks before an appointment and a second just a few days prior. I also get a follow-up the day after an appointment inviting me to review and give feedback on the services I received during my visit.

The emails are beautifully formatted and very inviting.

4. Text Messaging

Social media is great but it’s a means for communicating to anonymous masses of people. Dr. Rosen augments his social media presence with direct one-on-one text messages. These are also of the autoresponder variety and mostly appointment reminders, but they’re highly effective. After all, if appointments are canceled or forgotten, he doesn’t make money so these reminders reduce the number of missed or canceled appointments and thus maximize his income.

5. Free Gift

On their first visit to his office, every new patient is given a very nice electric toothbrush. I have seen these in stores selling for around $35. Why would Dr. Rosen give away $35 toothbrushes when every other dentist in the world gives out cheap $1 toothbrushes with their name and number embossed on the handle? It’s all about making a lasting first impression. His services are not inexpensive. I just had my teeth cleaned and the bill came to $220. How many times do you think a patient needs to come back before he makes a profit? That’s right. Just once. If he can make such an impression that all or most of his patients come back for just one more service, he’s made a profit. If a large percentage of those patients are like me and become regulars for a long period of time, he makes a huge profit. Dr. Rosen knows the lifetime value of a patient so he knows exactly what he can afford to spend to attract a new one.

Wrap-up

Without great service, the best marketing in the world is just a revolving door. You might get customers in but they won’t stay and you’ll find yourself in a constant (and expensive) pursuit of new ones.

Dr. Rosen’s sweetest marketing trick of all is that he and his whole office provide excellent service. He has so many repeat customers that he doesn’t really have to go out and actively market for new ones.

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5 Sweet Marketing Tricks my Dentist Uses