How Can I Market My Commercial B2B Loans?

eMarketing, Services,

Our company works with banks to underwrite commercial real estate loans for their borrowers. The majority of our marketing efforts are integrated with our sales team — who works diligently to build and keep relationship with our client banks. From a marketing standpoint, we communicate with clients through a monthly newsletter, DM, collateral, etc. I recently heard from a few clients – who apparently are not reading our newsletters — that they didn’t know about the most recent developments in our company. What are some fresh, successful, and cost effective marketing mediums for staying in front of our clients so we can maintain/grow our company presence and remain top of mind?

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When you have something of note – host a luncheon for your bankers.

If they aren’t reading your newsletters – find out why. Is it the content? Format? Appearance? If you move to e-newsletters (which will probably save you money and allow you to send out “flash” notices), you could easily suffer the same problem – your marketing gets ignored or labeled as spam.

What is your competition doing? You don’t want to necessarily copy them, but you do want to make sure you’re not missing something obvious. To find out, take a banker to lunch and find out what’s the best way to get their attention, when, etc.

How Can I Give An Effective Presentation?

Starting Out

In my experience, the most important thing is to focus on what you want the attendees to walk away with. That drives the format and content of your presentation.

Don’t worry too much about peppy & interesting – make the presentation memorable because the attendees “get” what you’re saying. Everyone has a preferred learning method: auditory, visual, tactile, etc. Make sure that your examples use different methods to illustrate your points.

If there are presentations before/after yours, account for the potential lack of energy in the room.

Don’t fill the room with your words. Fill the room with stories that illustrate your key points. People remember stories. Find stories that are relevant, with details, and some surprises.

Tell people what you’re going to talk about. Talk about it. Tell them what you talked about.

To get group participation (especially from a tired/shy group), first ask a question that requires a hand-raise for a yes (“How many of you … “). Then ask for a yes/no answer from the group. Finally, ask an open-ended question.

Don’t use Powerpoint. If you do, use a huge font and a max of 3 bullet points per slide. You can always hand out summaries afterwards. You want people focused on you, not your slides/handouts.

How Can I Attract Holiday Interest To My Mall?

Publicity

I represent a major mall. Each year we get the usual media coverage on what’s hot, what’s not, holiday gift ideas, etc. We are wanting to do something different that will attract the media’s attention and be fun for shoppers, too. If we can tie into a media partner, all the better. I’m looking for some creative ideas that will generate extra media coverage. Your thoughts?

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Do a holiday pet adoption. In San Francisco, Macy’s does an elaborate window display for adoptable animals (in conjunction with the SPCA). It generates a lot of foot traffic and media attention (not to mention some great adoptions).

Who Can Help Create A Personal Direct Mail Campaign?

eMarketing, ,

The other day I received a postcard in the mail that was clever. The postcard was personalized with my name front and back. It pointed me to a URL which also included my name: myname.company.net. When I followed the URL the landing page greeted me with my name as well. This was I imagine done with a single technology that generates the postcard and the web site address and populated the page with my name.

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The personalized postcard was produced using variable data printing (VDP). A number of companies also package VDP with direct marketing (as you saw). Here are some leads:

http://www.vdpcomplete.com
http://www.easypurl.com
http://variabledataprinting.printpelican.com/

How Much Should I Budget For Online Marketing?

eMarketing, Starting Out,

I’m not interested in knowing how much to allocate towards online marketing, but how much to allocate between online marketing activities? Banner ads vs keywords vs content development, etc. Is there anything about online marketing activities that would make this analysis any different that were I doing it for off line activities?

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Online, you have a much easier time measuring ROI.

There’s no simple answer to your question – each business is different. My suggestion is to try everything and measure the results. Make sure that you’re also split testing your ads to find the best combination of text, color, text size, etc.

As for how much money – it’s based on how much a new customer is worth to you (think lifetime relationship, not just the initial purchase). Then balance that with the cost to “acquire” that customer.

What Are Good Activities For A Horse Stable Open House?

Publicity, Services

I have a horse riding stable where I give lessons to all levels of riders. I want to host an open house to draw in more young children who want to learn to ride. I plan to offer door prizes such as riding lessons and trail rides. I also plan to have free horse rides, balloons and hot dogs. I am looking for any more ideas you may have for activities to offer at the open house or for ways to promote it.

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Once you get the kids there, so long as there isn’t a negative experience, it doesn’t matter much what your activities are. The key is that they should all be 100% fun & safe. You want everyone to feel like they can trust you and the horses.

To get people to the horses, you need to go where the kids (and their parents) are. If you’re doing this during the summertime, then co-market with day camps (offer to give them a % of the sign up, or pay a flat fee to allow you access to their e/mailing list, or hand out flyers at the end of the day, etc.). During the year, you’d approach local schools.

For more guerrilla-like approaches, team up with an ice-cream truck. Ride a horse in front of the truck in the neighborhood. Hand out flyers, etc.

How Can I Improve My B2B E-Newsletter?

eMarketing,

I work for a B2B software company, and I am about to send out the second issue of our quarterly e-newsletter. I would like to send out issues more frequently, but since I am the only one developing content, I am limited in what I can do.

My question involves what to do about new subscribers – is it advisable to send out back issues to new subscribers, and then follow up with the next issue in a week or so? I’m also putting back issue articles on our website, so it may not be fresh content for some.

Or, if I cannot produce a 5-article newsletter every month, should I start breaking the newsletters into smaller chunks? Maybe offer monthly news briefs? I don’t want to spread the content thin, but I don’t want to wait 4 months to touch base with subscribers again, either.

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Since the ultimate purpose of your e-newsletter is to generate more sales, the more frequent your name is in front of your prospects/clients, the better. One well-written article a month is much better than 3-5 every quarter.

Don’t forget to ask your clients what articles they would be interested in seeing – you might be surprised.

As for back issues, archive them online, and send new ones at the next cycle, making sure each of your newsletters have a link to your previous issues as well.

Made to Stick

Book Reviews

Order Made To StickHave you ever wondered why you remember what you do? The authors have distilled the essence of “sticking” (remembering a message) into 6 principles (“SUCCES”):

1) Simplicity: One great idea stated (or displayed) well. A classic sticky message is a proverb (“A rolling stone gathers …” and “A bird in the hand is worth …”). The message is short, concrete, and wise.

2) Unexpectedness: Challenging your knowledge creates curiosity. A message that starts with a provocative question gets the reader invested in the message (“Which of these animals is more likely to kill you? A shark or A deer?”).

3) Concreteness: Nouns are remembered better than verbs. Showing something is much better than talking about it.

4) Credibility: Do you believe the messenger? The more details you provide, the more believable the message. Does the messenger personally know the benefit to the problem you’re solving?

5) Emotions: Do you care about the message? The message needs to focus on a specific (“concrete”) individual. Does the messenger really care about solving a problem?

6) Stories: We seldom remember facts. We remember stories. It’s how we’re wired.

Crafting a message that uses these values is not trivial. You need to make sure you have something worth remembering, something that matters to improving someone’s life. You need to pique interest and provide useful information.

Marketing in a Flash

Creative Business Ideas, Publicity,

In A FlashLet’s say that business is slow, so you want to market a new product you’re selling. How can you get the word out “yesterday” and get measurable results?

Direct mail. A simple flyer can be created in a day or so. Printing and attaching labels (if you do this in-house) is another day or so (depending on your mailing list size). If you’re sending via bulk mail, or you need to use a printer’s services to print postcards, etc., you’ll need more time. Minimum time until seen: 1 week.

Print. If you already have a regular print campaign (in a publication), then it’s simply a matter of creating the new advertisement and waiting until the next submission date. Minimum time until seen: 3 days (for a daily publication).

Radio/Television. If you already have a campaign, then you need to record (and edit) a new message. If you need to create an ad, it’ll take time to interview agencies, hire talent, negotiate contracts, etc. Minimum time until seen: 2-3 weeks.

Press Release. To create a press release and submit it to the “wire” takes less than a day. There’s no guarantee that your press release will ever be published.

Blog. Respond (on-target) to a well-visited blog and introduce your solution. Minimum time until client contact: immediately (if your comment is approved).

Telephone. You can start calling your existing clients as soon as you’ve crafted your “message”. Minimum time until client contact: immediately (once you’ve got them on the phone).

Email. You can start emailing your existing clients as soon as you’ve crafted your “message”. Minimum time until client contact: 1 hour.

Internet Pay-Per-Click (or Pay-Per-Action). Creating a campaign is as simple as signing up, bidding on your keywords, and establishing an account. Minimum time until seen: 1 hour (immediately, once the account is established).

Internet Viral Video. Create a (series of) funny or novel (short) videos. Upload them to a free video directory. Start blogging (or have your friends blog) about the video. Minimum time until seen: immediately (once you’ve uploaded it and told people about it).