Wesley Day Advertising

ON ADVERTISING
April 2007 issue

PREPARE BETTER COLLATERAL FOR YOUR SALES TEAMS.
Here’s how sales and marketing can work together for better results:
1. Define the target.
   Get sales involved at the very beginning to define the precise target they want you to influence.
2. Think beyond the lead.
   Prepare collateral pieces – such as case studies, articles, reports, white papers, and guides – that help your salespeople push their hot prospects through the sales pipeline.
3. Recycle your work.
   Stretch budgets by making your collateral serve double or triple duty.
4. Produce useful content.
   Think from your prospects' point of view and deliver information that helps them do their jobs better. And put it where they want to find it, e.g., your Web site.
5. Reconsider that capabilities brochure.
   The flip side to creating useful content is eliminating what no one really reads.
6. Organize by issues, not industry.
   How can you demonstrate expertise in unfamiliar territory? By focusing on issues instead of industries.
Give us a call for more ideas on how to better empower your sales teams. Return to top

ANNUAL BRAND CHECKUPS.
You know the importance of having a regular checkup for yourself. The same applies to maintaining healthy brands.
A great way to get a quick read on how well your brand is performing is a simple brand checkup. Here’s how it works:
Select six to eight people for querying – a focus group setting is preferable but not necessary. Choose a person from sales, one from marketing, and one from customer service – but not the directors. Add a couple end users, and, if you can find them, nonusers of your brand.
Each person is asked two questions:
1. “What does (brand name) stand for"?
2. If they are able to answer the first question, with or without prompting, follow up with: “What things does (brand name) offer or do that supports the brand promise"?
If everyone can define what the brand stands for and the things they say support your brand promise, then your brand communications are likely doing their job.
If not, you may want to consider a more comprehensive diagnosis, such as a brand audit. For help with your brand checkup, audit, or to fix brand problems, just contact Wesley Day Advertising. Return to top

PUTTING CUSTOMER CENTRICITY TO WORK.
While the concept has been around for quite some time, few companies are doing a good job of applying it. Here’s how to make it work for you:
Identify the right individual.
Allocate resources toward individuals who are likely to respond favorably – and profitably – and away from individuals who are likely to respond unfavorably or favorably but unprofitably.
Choose the right channel.
The right channel for directing a particular action depends on any number of factors, including the nature of the action, the economics of using one channel over another, and both the inferred and stated channel preferences (if known) of the individual being targeted.
Pick the right time.
Identify “event triggers” that increase the probability of another specific event occurring in the near future. For example, a bank might make a marketing pitch after noticing a customer made a large deposit or credit inquiry.
Direct the right action.
Directing an action can take any number of forms, such as sending a message, making a recommendation, presenting an offer, extending an invitation, and providing a treatment.
Bring customer centricity to life.
By applying the four Rs of customer centricity – right customer, right time, right message, and right channel – a pharmaceutical company wishing to increase prescriptions written for their drug, for example, would determine the right individuals (which physicians to visit), right time (when to visit and how often), right action (the number of samples to leave behind), and right channel (which promotional levers to adjust). Return to top

TRADE SHOW OPTIONS.
Here are alternatives to trade show exhibiting that can still get you in front of the same prospects but cost much less:
Attend, don’t exhibit.
Since a main purpose of trade shows is networking and talking to prospects, send your sales reps to work the aisles. Hang out near your competitors’ booths to get an indication of who is interested in your types of products.
Host a demo suite.
Conduct a demo event in the show hotel. Offer food and drinks and have professional know-how people on hand. Promote it with flyers around the trade show.
Present a paper.
Remember, the more problem/solution-specific and valuable your paper, the better the chance that you will be accepted. The more company focused it is, the worse your chances. Return to top

WHEN KEYWORDS DON’T WORK.
Sometimes keywords simply do not work well for search engine marketing. Products might be difficult to define or so cutting edge that nobody knows about it yet.
In these cases, you need to identify your prospects and introduce yourself, rather than waiting for them to search for you. For example, if you know your prospects are very engaged with health-related research and the medical industry, you can target users who visit those sites and enable them to view your ad. Return to top

WHAT TO TEST IN WEB-RESPONSE ADVERTISING.
A recent comprehensive study of which creative e-mail tests produce the best return on investment (ROI) revealed:
• Copywriting (copy, offer, subject line) is more important than design and graphics.
• Landing page (where clicks in your ads go) is critical. Don’t just link to existing Web pages; design your Web site to fulfill clicks.
• Measuring Web site opens and clicks doesn’t cut it – you have to measure results.
Whether you use print, direct mail, e-mail, or other media to drive traffic to your Web site, your advertising agency should have a heavy hand in your Web design and decisions.
For more advertising and marketing tips, visit wesleyday.com/ideas.htm. Return to top

Name:
Type:	Mail E-mail
E-mail:
Company:
Address:
City:
State:
ZIP: