Do you run advertising in offline publications?
Do you spend money on direct mail marketing?
Do you hand out business cards to potential clients?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, this post is for you.
Let me start by telling you a quick story. I recently received a post card in the mail from a local real estate agency. The two pictured agents were trying to get me interested in some town homes for sale here in Ankeny.
In order for someone to contact them they only printed a phone number and a physical address for their office on the card. No web site address… no easy way for me to get more information. Sadly, I think they really mis-spent their money on this mailing, because I cannot imagine anyone in the demographic they were trying to sell to wanting to do anything other than look for more information online. That’s what I would have wanted to do.
And I would not have wanted to land directly on their corporate web site either. No, I would want to go directly to learn more information about these specific properties they were marketing to me.
Imagine if they had constructed either a mini-site, or even a sub-section on their existing site just to provide really great information about these properties. I could have learned about special financing, the qualities that make the neighborhood special, watched video of ducks peacefully floating by on the pond, looked at photos of the properties themselves and maybe even been taken on a virtual tour of the properties by one of the sales people who could have taken the time to build my trust long before I bothered to pick up my phone and call. Now that would have been effective!!
So, you spend time and money trying to get your products and services noticed… how can you use that offline message to bring people online? What details and useful information could you provide online to exponentially increase the power of your message? How can you craft your message in such a way as to encourage people to learn more… on their time… on their terms… online?
Next time you are planning a marketing project, give me a shout. We can work together to develop a plan (offline and online) that empowers your audience to understand all of the things they need to know to make an informed decision.
Technorati Tags: Offline marketing, online marketing, direct mail, mini sites, internet marketing, design
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Last week I encouraged you to look around you and try to notice the design of things in your daily life. I asked you to look at their effectiveness, perceived effort involved, uniqueness, and to try to come up with areas for improvement. I wanted you to look at other things, other people’s marketing materials, other people’s web sites. I wanted you to try to notice how these things made you feel when you interacted or learned from them.
What did you discover? Anything interesting?
The next step I want to encourage you to take is to look at your own brand touch-points: your marketing materials, web sites, packaging, advertising, vehicle graphics, invoices, sales letters, emails… even your office itself. Whatever things your customers or prospects receive from you or see about you.
Now go through the same list as last week, this time with your own materials. (I had you do this with other things and other people’s materials first as a warm-up of sorts, to get your brain looking at design, and without any bias.)
- Is it effective? Does it accomplish what it set out to do? What was it set out to do?
- How much effort seems to have gone into the design?
- Is it unique or different? If so, does that hinder its effectiveness?
- What could be improved?
- If I were the designer or marketer, what would I have done differently?
We’ll get together again next week to see what you discovered about your own materials. I really hope you gain some insight into how your customers are perceiving you in the process. If you do, please share it! (HINT: Try to look at these things with fresh eyes. Set aside your biases, your inherent understanding of them, and try to be your audience.)
Technorati Tags: design, effectiveness, unique, different, improved, marketing
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Design is everywhere. It influences every part of our lives. You might not notice it all the time, but it’s there. From the kitchen sink to the signs on the road to your business cards and other marketing materials. Design usually gets overlooked. Things that are designed well, often don’t get our attention… we expect things to be designed well. It’s either when they’re not designed well, or they’re designed differently… that we take notice.
Look in front of you. That computer monitor went through many pain-staking design processes before being approved for production. So did the case of your computer, its keyboard and mouse. The chair you’re sitting on, same thing. The watch on your wrist. The cup that holds your coffee. The telephone. Start looking around you. Do you see it? Every single thing you see has been designed.
I don’t mean engineered. That’s different.
I’m talking about the way you interact with it. The way it makes you feel as you use it, look at it, learn from it…
As an exercise for the next few days, I encourage you to start looking at the design of the things around you. In addition to how you feel about these things, also look at them through the lens of their design teams, their marketing teams. As you do, ask yourself a few questions about it:
- Is it effective? Does it accomplish what it set out to do? What was it set out to do?
- How much effort seems to have gone into the design?
- Is it unique or different? If so, does that hinder its effectiveness?
- What could be improved?
- If I were the designer or marketer, what would I have done differently?
As you’re probably expecting, next week I’m going to ask you about your marketing materials… but I don’t want you to think about those yet. Just wait. Open your eyes to other things first. Feel free to look at other people’s marketing tools if you must, but keep your eyes off your own for just a few days… Next week we’ll get back to you.
Technorati Tags: design, effectiveness, unique, different, improved, marketing
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