"Gotcha" Marketing

Listen to the audio podcast of this posting by clicking here (1:16).

Bob Sullivan recently published “Gotcha Capitalism”. It’s all about the culture of how hidden fees designed to rip you off every time, have somehow become so common we barely notice or know how to avoid them anymore.

While Bob’s got it right that we’ve become so used to rip offs like rental car insurance, airline fuel fees, bank fees, and the like, he’s missed the marketing tactic at work. This is a tactic that works, when it shouldn’t.

“Gotcha” is less about capitalism and more about marketing. Capitalism and free markets would never allow a company to get away with half of what they do because it would be too easy for a competitor to step in and back-door them for their silly nickel-and-diming practices.

Here’s the deal.

These “gotcha” or “ripped-off if you do and ripped-off if you don’t” tactics are about marketing a service in such a way as to be seen as cheaper, better, faster up-front while actually charging more, becoming slower, and allowing service to suffer on the backend.

That's Branding, positioning, pricing strategy, creative service level agreements, loss-leaders, etc. Those are all marketing tactics, not effects of a capitalist free market.

If a service is to be competitive without employing silly “gotcha” tactics, it’s got its work cut-out. I believe that the way to differentiate from these “gamers” and “gotcha-artists” is to combat their marketing with your own.

At Justin Downey Marketing, we market ourselves as a no-nonsense, high-quality, low-cost marketing firm. We don’t nickel-and-dime our clients; we offer fixed, up-front pricing. We don’t promise anything we can’t deliver. We don’t charge on-going retainers or monthly service fees.

We can’t change the way airlines, cell phones, car rentals, or banks market their business with these “gotcha” tactics, but we don’t have to do it their way. We will lead by example, even if they won’t.

For more information about Justin Downey Marketing, visit us online and when you’re ready to see our difference for yourself, contact us here.

What's everybody else saying about "Gotcha Capitalism"?

You can listen to the audio podcast of this posting by clicking here (1:16).

Marketing “Customer Service”

Click here to listen to the audio podcast of this posting (3:17).

“Customer service” is one of those things that’s as over-used as it is rarely delivered upon.

Great customer service is a must for any business to continue to grow without constantly turning-over its customer base, but what is customer service? More to the point, what is good customer service?

Good customer service begins with the realization that “You will be judged, not by what you say, but by what you do.”

To give you a starting place on your path from good customer service to great customer service here’s our “7 Sure-fire Paths to Great Customer Service” and a few keys to marketing your new-found level of service.

7 Sure-fire Paths to Great Customer Service

7. Answer the phone.

Email, IM, Fax are all fine, but in the 21st century people still want to talk to a human being. Ideally, they would like to speak to the same human being more than once. Get call forwarding, an answering service with access to your calendar, hire someone--whatever it takes to stay in contact with your customers.

Nothing says “I don’t care about your business” more than an answering machine and no call-back.

6. Under-promise and over-deliver.

Don’t promise even what you think you can deliver. Don’t plan on delivering only what you promised. It’s in the delta between what you promise and what you deliver that anyone cares about.

Set your customers expectations high enough to make them happy, but nowhere near as happy as they are going to be when you’re done. Keep to this and you will never disappoint and always dazzle.

5. Ask for feedback and listen.

Contrary to popular belief, your customers know more about your business than you do.

What your customers know about your business, their opinion of it, and their experiences with you and every facet of your business trumps your vision of what you want your company to be. Their opinion is what it is, not what will be.

Ask your clients for feedback, whether through an online survey, written letter, or personal visit to their office. Ask them for feedback and take it seriously. It’s their objective feedback that will make a greater impact on the success of your business than all the consultants money can buy.

4. Welcome complaints and fix problems

Don’t be afraid of complaints and take their resolution seriously. It’s likely that for every complaint that makes it to your desk, there are tens or hundreds of customers with a similiar complaint that prompted them to quietly take their business elsewhere.

3. Be helpful – even when it’s not necessarily profitable

If the resolution to a new customer’s problem is a simple one, why not just help them out free of charge? It’s a memorable and powerful gesture to offer to help a prospective customer for free. Weigh the actual cost of what you are giving away against the opportunity to generate priceless good will.

As point of fact, our best and most profitable clients were born out of just such a gesture.

2. Make an extra effort

Nothing screams "great customer service" like when you put in that little extra effort. This is the difference between telling someone it’s on aisle 9 and walking them over to it and making sure that it’s really what they want.

1. Build a relationship

The fasts way to build a customer base of Raving Fans is to actively cultivate a relationship. Show your customers that they are more than just a number. Show them that you care about their success, care about their well-being, and care about their every interaction with your business.

Customers like doing business with friends. Become a friend providing a much-needed service and they’ll become a life-long customer.

Tactics for Marketing Customer Service

Case Studies/Testimonials

A favorite among service firms, case studies and client testimonials in your marketing communications allows your actions and successes to speak for themselves. After all, everyone can talk-the-talk. Can you demonstrate that you have walked-the-walk and will continue to do so?

Open Reviews

There’s little or no value to censored customer reviews. There’s also nothing more interesting than a bad review. Allow your customers to review your product or service openly. Their uncensored reviews are far more interesting than marketing communications that just pound on their chests.

You can always moderate the reviews after the fact and delete any reviews that are slanderous. Open reviews are a great way of validating what you’re marketing has been saying all along.

Customer Feedback Surveys

Customer feedback surveys, especially online surveys, are a great way of asking for and aggregating feedback from your customer base. Today, there are many easy and cost-effective ways of producing a successful feedback survey campaign.

For more information, visit Zoomerang or Constant Contact. They are both outstanding solutions as well as partners of ours.

Customer Retention Campaigns

Sometimes referred to as "customer appreciation" marketing, this should be done at a time it's not 'expected'. Christmas cards are nice, but bland and forgettable. Send a “thanks for your business” on some random Tuesday. Send a “get well” card to your customer point-of-contact if he or she is out sick for some time. How about a “Thanks and we’ll miss you” note to clients who have been lost? Bet you've never gotten that one.

Recommended Reads:

For more information about marketing invisible services like customer service, we recommend Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith.

For more information about Justin Downey Marketing and our marketing services, visit us online at: www.justindowneymarketing.com.

Listen to the audio podcast here (3:17).

Trade Show Do’s and Don’ts

12. DON'T be afraid to ask questions

A lot of first-time exhibitors are shy about asking the trade show staff questions prior to and during the show. Don’t be. They are a wealth of information. It's better to ask them than for you to break a show rule you didn't know existed.

As a police officer told me over the weekend, "Ignorance is not a defense."

11. DO research

Having the best promotion, the best sales staff, the most attention-grabbing exhibit are meaningless if you’re not at the right show. It pays to do your homework and discover which show will most likely get you face-to-face with your ideal customer for a price you can afford.

10. DON'T pass up attending other shows

It’s a great use of your exhibition budget to attend, rather than exhibit at trade shows prior to exhibiting. You’re allowed to attend the show as a “non-exhibiting” vendor. That way, you are able to meet and hopefully generate some new leads while assessing whether or not this particular show is right for your industry or offering.

Better yet, attending in this manner is often a tenth to a hundredth the cost of exhibiting.

9. DO have a list of measurable goals

Was the show a success or a failure? Setting measurable goals will give you a really good idea of how successful the show was or how realistic your goal setting was.

8. DON'T do what everybody else is doing

Exhibition is no place for “Me too” marketing. This is the place for you to let your creativity (more so than your budget) win you business at the show.

For more information about getting creative at the show, see our posting: "No One Can Resist a Monkey".

7. DO listen more than you speak

They say you should listen 80% of the time and talk only 20% of the time at the show.

The key here is not to "throw up" your value statement onto every passerby. Instead, look at this as a rare opportunity for you to market your business in person. There’s plenty of time to shout your value statement in your advertising. Spend the show listening to your prospects. You might be surprised what you hear.

6. DON'T "hang out" at the booth

Eating, drinking, chatting on your cell phone are all fine at your local watering hole, but the trade show is no place for overly-casual behavior. Remember that as you are there to meet your ideal customers in person, they are also there to meet you.

What’s the point of that professionally-produced exhibit and collateral if the staff behind the table looks like they have better places to be?

5. DO meet people

Why stay in the exhibit the whole time? We recommend to our clients that they leave one member at the exhibit while another trolls the food & beverage counter and the smoker’s station outside.

It’s been my experience that these are the places where you can leave a lasting impression.

4. DON'T depend on remembering everyone you meet

I have a terrible memory, but even if you’re a memory savant, don’t leave the ultimate success of the show to your randomly firing neurons.

Take notes during interviews, collect business cards like they’re an investment and aggregate all that information. It’s all you’ll have left once they turn off the show lights and mail you the bill.

3. DO ask qualifying questions

Qualifying leads as they come by the booth with both allow you to more effectively budget your time as well as identify the hottest prospects for immediate follow up.

If you’re listening close enough, you might not have to ask anything at all.

2. DON'T forget to promote your exhibition prior to the show

It’s not the role of the venue to promote you. The fact that you are there means they've already done what they set out to do—sell exhibit space. It’s up to you (and your marketing firm, if you have one) to promote your attendance prior to the show and drive traffic to the booth once you’re there.

1. DO follow up

The number one mistake among first-time exhibitors is to take a break after the hectic show is over. I know it’s been a bit of an ordeal, but it's the follow up that all that work has lead up to.

Not putting adequate emphasis on follow up in the months following the show is like running a marathon and taking a nap once you’re within sight of the finish line.

About JDM’s Event Marketing Services

Justin Downey Marketing offers a variety of event services including exhibit design, show strategy, promotional collateral production, event promotions, list management, and more.

Visit our website for more information.

Podcasts for Traffic

If there's one thing these days that people can count on being on time, it's rush hour. So to give you something a little more productive to listen to than the local "shock-jock", we at Justin Downey Marketing have put together some of our favorite audio podcasts.

Download them at your leisure and hang onto them for the next time you're caught in traffic.

Audio Podcasts now available (click to download the mp3):

• No One Can Resist a Monkey(1:38)
  :: How creativity, rather than your budget will win you business
  
• Don’t Shout, Whisper(1:07)
  :: The key to high-impact, relevant marketing
  
• Learning the Most from your Worst(5:50)
  :: Build a better business from what you learned at the worst
  
• The Unattainable Triangle(2:40)
  :: The often over-looked golden rule of brand positioning
  
• Blogging and Beyond (2:25)
  :: Developing something that goes beyond the corporate blog

Stay tuned to Justin Downey Marketing for new audio podcasts coming soon.

"2009 Marketing Trends" Report Pre-Registration

As a loyal Big Marketing Ideas blog reader, JDM is offering the chance to pre-register to receive an advanced copy of our "2009 Marketing Trends" report.

In a volatile economy, businesses face challenges unseen in decades in the year to come. Pre-register to receive our trends report and you'll have the most forward-looking marketing insight a full month ahead of its public release.

Based on our own research, the report aims to answer the following questions:

• What new, low-cost marketing activities are being considered in 2009?
• How will uncertainty effect marketing budgets?
• To what degree will technology play a role in marketing in 2009?
• How businesses will use price promotions in 2009, if at all?

Add to our research by completing our 1-Minute Marketing Survey.

Pre-register today and receive JDM's "2009 Marketing Trends" report by email in January—a full month before it's publicly available!

Interested in JDM's "Taking Advantage of 2008 Trends" article? Download it here.