After all that’s what your planning time is all about.
Keeping you and your employees on a continuous planning schedule, will reap greater rewards toward the success of a prospecting program.
The world of direct marketing and mail has changed dramatically since 2007, adding more meaning to “only the strong survive.”
Ten years later, business is tougher than ever. Competition is stiffer. The latest technology is out-of-date tomorrow. Loyal customers are harder than ever to find. And while you’re busy (and not watching), someone you don’t know could be marketing to your clients today.
The solution is for your marketing and sales teams is to take an active, aggressive marketing and prospecting posture today and every day – to utilize and implement a proven combination of prospecting and selling tools – designed to deliver a significant return on your prospecting investment!
Here’s the real starting point.
It all starts with marketing and sales planning. You need a four-month plan, an eight-month plan and then a twelve-month plan! And at the end of each four-month plan, you update the next four-month plan based on what you have learned in the past four months. It is beyond a doubt the most serious recommendation we tell all our clients.
The fact is, when you follow a plan, you lead by example to your marketing and sales team. We believe leadership is earned. You show your team members, customers and prospects that you believe in and practice the principles of direct marketing:
frequency… reach… quality… precision… consistency… high impact…
relationship building… educating… customers… and so on.
And by following and updating your basic 12-month prospecting and growth plan, you can’t help but attract more of the right kind of business and better human resources.
After all, when you’re in front of the right kind of buyers and prospects with this level of frequency, the payoff is that you begin to generate more inquiries – results you can measure – because your entire business community sees you as the “foremost expert on how to use direct marketing.”
It’s all about education.
First and foremost, it is critical to send the right kind of messages to a qualified and targeted audience –– and in a proper balance of marketing communications in a variety of channels, such as direct mail, email, landing pages and so forth, with much appreciated information, and most importantly, “Call-to-Action offers.”
In today’s competitive environment, the proper balance starts with an educational theme – because how you use direct and digital marketing is tricky to reach your target market. Your team must know more about communicating more effectively – gather new information with greater efficiency – and increased results.
In fact, that’s what all the planning time is all about.
Let us know what you think.
