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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us July 23, 2005 Marketing Today The process of good marketing Anthony Hernandez What is your marketing process? What measurable, clearly defined steps do you take to convert a lead into a prospect, a prospect to a customer, and a customer into a lifelong client? If you’ve been following my columns, you know that marketing is a courtship ritual that encompasses all contact between anyone in your business with everyone outside it. So what’s your ritual? Imagine you’re sitting somewhere minding your own business. A total stranger approaches and asks whether you’d care to find a room and get friendly. My guess is that odds of your saying yes are pretty low. On the off chance you do accept the offer, the odds of your partner ever contacting you again are ... well ... minimal. Question: Does this sound like most marketing you see every day that wants you to make the purchase and then vanish? Does it remind you of your own marketing efforts? I call this approach Friday night marketing. Friday night marketing relies on spreading a message far and wide in hopes (literally) of getting lucky. Sure, these ads might be targeted (you are, after all, far more likely to be approached in a singles bar than at your local eatery). But their approach and tone remain the same: buy, buy today, and happy trails. Let’s return to our example, only this time the stranger asks if you’d like to go for coffee. Are the odds of your saying yes to coffee higher or lower than the odds of your accepting the more personal offer? My guess is those odds are far higher. You go to coffee and have a wonderful time with no pressure whatsoever. Afterwards, your new acquaintance invites you to lunch — another very easy step to take. From there, things progress to dinner, walks on the beach, and more until one day this former stranger asks for your hand in marriage. By this time, that huge step, that ultimate leap of relationship faith, has been rendered far easier by the step-by-step courtship ritual. And after the marriage? In theory, you and your partner remain together forever. Their family and friends become yours and vice versa. In other words, the marriage connects each of you to each other’s networks. The trick here is twofold: One is to craft a process that consists of a series of well-defined and measurable steps toward a sale and then taps into your customers’ networks post-sale. Two is to design your marketing so that each step only asks prospects to take the next step. Why is having a clearly defined process a good idea? You might know that you’re converting, say, 12 percent of your prospects into customers. But where are you losing the other 88 percent? Without a clearly defined process, you might have no idea what you’re doing right and where you’re going wrong. Change your existing methods and you risk breaking the one thing that’s working for you. On the other hand, if you have a clearly defined series of steps, you could easily see that you’re losing 65 percent of your prospects at Step 5. Fix Step 5 (and Step 5 only), and your conversion rate will skyrocket. Best of all, this change should require very little time and effort because you know exactly what needs fixing and can zero in on the problem without breaking what wasn’t broken. Why does each step of the process only ask customers to take the next step? For the same reason you only ask someone you’re interested in out to something easy like coffee: This step-by-step progression builds the foundation for lasting trust, rapport and business. How much business? Imagine you’re selling a $100 product that the average person buys 3 times per year for 20 years. Use Friday night marketing and you’ll pocket your $100. Create a process to ease prospects into becoming customers and then keeps them and their friends coming back for more and the numbers jump. Say each customer refers 3 friends who all follow the average purchasing pattern. This $100 sale has just become $24,000 ($100 x 3 sales per year x 20 years x 4 people). Which would you prefer? Relationship marketing using well-defined processes takes time, just like it takes time for a seedling to bear fruit. You’ll need to invest lots of water, fertilizer and love before you can reap the benefits of your labor. The results, however, can be very well worth it — especially if you take advantage of the most potent marketing tool there is, a tool that can only work with relationship marketing. Details next week. Stay tuned. Need additional help with your marketing or any aspect of your business? If so, please e-mail me to set up a free 30-minute consultation with no obligation whatsoever. As always, I look forward to your questions and comments. You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Anthony Hernandez is a local business consultant with over 19 years of business and marketing experience. He lives in Ashland with his wife Robyn, son Logan, and their three dogs. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams