By Ed Pierce, Principal, ITA Fleet Communications
Last month, I promised to address customer engagement. Of course, engagement begins with communication. And, true communication is two-way, give-and-take. Still, most marketing plans focus on the outbound design, the message, and the cost of running an ad, distributing a press release, or sending out an e-mail blast. Management wants to know cost and return.
Lost in the marketing-management discussion is the customer!
How do we know that the message will be effective with our prospect customers? How will we determine what went wrong if a mailer or e-mail blast has a zero response rate? How do we determine whether our market position and our branding messages are being received, understood and changing or opening minds? Feedback, of course!
A comprehensive marketing program must integrate “feedback feelers” both on a tactical level and a strategic level.
Tactically, marketing people tend to rely on quantitative measures such as cost per thousand, response rates, conversion rates, click-thru’s, and leads to determine success of the program after the fact. That’s a perfect approach for those averaging a 100 percent success rate. But, since a good direct mail response rate is 2 percent, feedback prior to tactic implementation is a smart idea. A/B testing of message, focus group testing, survey concept tests, and other methods can help ensure a better result at the tactical level.
Strategically, awareness and perception studies, conducted annually, can help management understand the progress being made by the entire marketing program.
On a day-to-day basis, there are two other resources a B2B marketing department can rely upon
1. Sales representatives can be the eyes and ears of a savvy marketing department. They can offer terrific insights during the development of a program or tactic.They can test messaging as they conduct their daily sales activities. They can provide an early-warning system related to issues, trends and even new opportunities as a result of their regular prospect and customer contact.
2. Customer service representatives, too, can bring the same feedback as sales and may provide a different perspective of customer relationships since they deal with others within a customer’s operations. In order to take advantage of this resource, the marketing manager needs to keep the customer service team to-to-date on marketing strategy and tactics.
In the next column, we will address the benefits of an integrated marketing program . If you have a specific marketing issue or question, call me at 610–585-0801 or send an email to [email protected].
