for marketing and customer service employees.
A broad marketing skillset, in this digital era can span across a very large horizon. Traditional marketing has been around a long time. Have you heard about the four P’s? It’s a marketing mix defined as the set of marketing tools that a company uses to pursue its marketing objectives with a “targeted approach.” The traditional marketing mix refers to four broad levels of making marketing decisions, such as: product, price, promotion, and place.
If you have a product priced fairly, free delivery and send reminders to your customers, such as, “it’s time to buy” and it’s producing revenue, then it’s a decent business model.
Now ask yourself.
Who are my customers? Why should someone buy from me rather than the competition? Is the answer your 30 second elevator speech? Maybe it’s in your USP (Unique Selling Proposition?) In your sales presentation? Maybe the answer is on a prominent page of your website?
As a traditional direct marketer, there are lot of questions to improve the marketing mix. Questions answered provide some of the information a marketer needs to make decisions. Today, most marketers are always in a problem-solving mode. Which hopefully, puts them on the customer’s side of the table. A good place for you to start – when looking for better marketing results.
The reason to get on the customer’s side of the table is trust. The focus is no longer sell, sell and sell some more. Customers or prospects are looking for answers to solve a problem you have to offer. How do you get and keep your customer’s? Keep in mind, trust is something you earn.
Do you have enough customer information? The customer data unlocks the door leading to many paths a customer can take to make a purchase. A good employee skillset can unveil these paths defined by your marketing strategies. Plus, another good idea on how to build trust in a variety of methods.
Direct and customer marketing strategies.
Both are a good marketing skillset for your employees which can make a big difference in your company revenue.
First: “The variety of different strategy models is often overwhelming for both practitioners and businesses alike.”
Second: “A look at a number of recent reports and surveys shows that while there is an appetite for using data more wisely, and an intention among top executives to use data more, there are still many companies not using data as effectively as they could.”
Third: One can be a lot of work and the other does not have to be. Let’s start there.
Consider, a direct marketing strategy. Since this is considered the “Age of the Customer” prompted by many marketing professionals, this is a great strategy.
Let’s look a few employee marketing skills to look for when considering direct marketing strategies. Another strategy is learning more about customer decision to buy or not to buy.
Direct marketing, direct response and direct-2-customer is vital for any business. Direct to the customer. There is no middleman.
Compelling copywriting is another “sales person.” Use words that sell. Make a customer an offer he or she can’t refuse.
Visuals and design help pull the reader into the copy. Pictures of people using the product is a great tactic.
There are many tactical channels to use to reach your customers. The top two are direct mail (everyone has a mailbox), email (is more than likely number two) and whatever channel your customers prefer.
Employee Skills:
- Build customer profiles.
- Segment specific customer groupings.
- Analyze to tantalize “like prospects” to buy.
- Conception to innovation with motivation to see the results and then ask “why?”
- Any employees in marketing or customer service must to be part detective and very analytical.
Why do many companies think each customer is the same? Or a prospect is, well, just a prospect? A company must capture as much marketing information that a customer will disclose, and you’ll discover why.
Every time you hear of traditional media, think of direct mail with a direct marketing strategy. Of most importance, both use a mixture of channels to reach out to our marketplace. Data management with social marketing and other customer channels, is important digital tools which should be a part of a marketing mix.
