Dear ‘Condominium Developer’, A Little Branding Goes A Long, Long Way

Here is something I received last Saturday morning, what I termed as ‘Door Spam’, leaflets/flyers stuck on the front door grille. It is a leaflet for a condominium development. Which one? I really can’t say. This is the second time I have received this leaflet. I cringed both times.

Observe for a moment. What is wrong with this leaflet?

Absolutely Zero Product Branding

Somehow, the creator of this leaflet had failed to provide a name for the condominium. Apart from a spot of personal branding for a ‘Mabel Ang’ and ‘artist’s impressions’ images, no other product branding element is visible on this leaflet. Perhaps they had deemed revealing the condominium’s name as none-too-important, or keeping it a mystery will entice prospects to put in a call. Wrong move I say.

Or perhaps the condo was so badly named, they decided not to use it after reading the article on the importance of naming condos and its significance.

Cryptic Copywriting

What exactly is the inspiration behind ‘cryptic’ and ‘ambiguous’ copywriting? There is a neglect to inform prospective clients of the condominium’s actual address but instead, ‘Minutes to Somerset MRT/Orchard/CBD/IR’ and ‘Prime District 9’ are used.  Come on! That can be anywhere on the southern part of this island.

Is it a top-secret, top-end location that is only to be revealed once you are funneled through the sales pipeline? To see if you fit the bill of a likely buyer persona first, someone who is flushed with cash to spare? But why then did this leaflet appear on my HDB door in Toa Payoh!? I see that as a failure in market research and a waste of money and paper it is printed on.

Does the whole thing sounds fishy?

You bet. The credibility factor is non-present in this effort. For a $800k product, this leaflet certainly did not help in providing consumer confidence to anyone that came upon this. I find it intriguing that if this leaflet does indeed belongs to the ‘Developer’s Sales Team’, why the secrecy and ambiguousness behind the effort?

Perhaps someone from the real estate industry, or close to it, can provide an explanation for this? I’d love to get to the bottom of this! Leave your comments below!

 

Bonus section for the marketer in you!

Using Direct Marketing Mailers to Win Online

Direct marketing via mails (physical or electronic) may not be the best form of marketing (it is interruptive after all). But heck, since it is being used and money is going to be spent, might as well use the opportunity to provide content or more information to the prospective customer, right?

So how to do this on limited real estate on a piece of flyer?

By bringing them online to your website through a printed URL. As long as there is compelling content and relevant information provided on your website, you can be sure your prospects will be happy to devote time and attention to your efforts. It is also an excellent opportunity to build a database of customers who are willing to listen to you on a regular basis. With the permission you have received, you are now ready to start a direct mail campaign online. I am sure that is more cost effective than printed materials and manpower cost for ‘door or letterbox spamming’.

Provide your social media information to direct your prospects to connect with you. This is your Facebook or Twitter pages. The fastest way to connect with you.

See? Your investment in a leaflet has possibly doubled or tripled! Perhaps Mabel Ang might want to take a leaf out of this

Self Publishers Guide To The Best Cheap And Easy Book Marketing Tips

source: http://articlescollections.com/self-publishers-guide-to-the-best-cheap-and-easy-book-marketing-tips/

Whether you’ve just published a book or have a book that isn’t selling, now is the time to get to it; start marketing today! Self publishers need to have a good marketing plan to sell books and should be written prior to writing your book and in place a year prior to publishing your book. Your book selling, book marketing, and book promotion planning should begin before the manuscript is completed.

Your book press release should not be written as you would a sales letter or flier, it should be written for the editor and tell about your book in a factual way, no opinion or glowing remarks. Mail a press release to at least 1000 print and broadcast contacts just prior to publishing your title and again and again after you publish; you can never send too many.

Make sure you have at least one good press release, written in AP style, that you can send out for the lifetime of your book.

Using press releases can be a very effective marketing tool if used properly. Make sure your press release spells out the ‘who, what, where, when, and why.’ Learning to write and use powerful optimized press releases can often drive tons of traffic to your website while providing multiple back links that can lead to increased page rank and numerous top ten search engine rankings for your targeted keywords.

Don’t underestimate the value of a good press release for making book sales. Send out the same press release to the editor of your local daily newspaper every week until you are called for an interview or are written up.

Make five telephone calls a day that relate to marketing your book. Create an online contest and list it in online contest directories to drive traffic to your website. If your book solves a problem, focus on this in your marketing.

Get as many testimonials about your book, as possible, from experts in the field relating to your title, not customers; use on your fliers and back of books. I’ve seen publishers lose a lot of money paying for expensive display ads, so beware if you do this; I don’t advise it in the beginning — get your feet wet first so you know what you’re doing.

When you get a nice write up or feature about you and/or your book, have it laminated and set it up on an easel at trade shows.

Every day it’s important to focus on a variety of marketing approaches. If your book fits a specialty market, find a store that fits the genre and offer to leave books on consignment; many publishers have sold thousands of books this way. Make sure not to overlook the Internet; get yourself interviewed or profiled for sites both about writing, publishing and about the topics covered in your book.

Remember to make sure your book is listed in Books-in-Print; don’t assume its already listed. Submit articles to online article directories that focus on your book’s topic to drive customers to your website. Contact non-bookstore booksellers and offer to leave books on consignment.

Build a web site that provides another avenue for ordering, a virtual online press kit and link exchanges with sites that relate to your topic. Make sure to promote and market your book each and every day, both online and offline.

It’s important to publish a website that focuses on your title; you’ll be able to refer editors and customers and all interested parties to your book information with the click of a mouse. Local radio shows and television appearances are good but are often forgotten within hours of the broadcast; make sure to make or get a copy of any television broadcast for future promotions.

Make sure to do some serious marketing and promotion every single day, no excuses. Don’t delay another day if you’ve fallen by the wayside; make sure to focus on promoting, selling and marketing your book each and every day. One of the biggest problems self publishers and book publishers tell me about is the hundreds of books they have in inventory they haven’t set up a marketing plan for; don’t let this happen to you — get prepared now.

For more information on book marketing tips and selling more books go to http://www.TwinPeaksPress.com founded in 1982, specializing in help for authors, self publishers, ebook and book publishers with tips, advice and resources, including information on media, library and other mailing lists, and press releases – online, wire service and offline distribution

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Marketing Basics: Save money on your marketing

Use joint ventures to cut your marketing budget in half and double your list…

Small businesses are always looking for ways to save money – especially right now. Joint venture marketing is a perfect way to do this. You share the costs and you share the list.

And it’s EASY!

So in this installment of the Marketing Basics: 17 Ways to Generate Leads for your Business, I am going to give you some ideas on how you can generate leads for your business while keeping your costs down using joint venture marketing.

Identify your target market

Understanding and knowing who your target market is, will help you identify other businesses that you can enter into a joint venture with. Normally you won’t want to do joint marketing with a competitor of yours, unless you are teaming up to offer and wider range of services and products and double your capacity.

However, the usual approach is to find a business, that is not a competitor, but who has the same or similar target market as you. For example, if you run a sportswear clothing shop then you may have the same target market as a fitness or sports provider such as a leisure centre, a gym or a personal trainer. Or if you run a Virtual Assistant business then you may have the same target market as a small business accountant or independent stationery supplier.

So you can see that by understanding your target market you can identify other business that will see value in working with you.

Understand how you will both benefit

This is the bit where you have to work out what’s in it for your joint venture partner – before you approach them. Because they are going to be looking to gain from the partnership too. Start with looking at what you want to get out of it:

** Access to a list that is larger than yours

** Share costs

** Widen your target market if they are not exactly the same

** Expand what you can offer to your client

Chances are your potential partner will want pretty much the same things. Work out how you are both going to get them. For example, if you have a large list but only one product to offer, the benefit to your JV partner is they get access to a large list and you perhaps get a commission on all products sold to list as well as building credibility with your list by being able to offer them products they may not have come across before.

Another example of joint venture marketing, on a very simple level, is to produce a piece of marketing collateral. You share the costs of production, printing and delivery – and you share the benefits.

What do you want?

Before you start approaching potential partners and coming up with lots of exciting ideas, take a little time to write down what you are hoping to achieve from partnering up but more importantly what you expect to gain out of each activity. Not “access to a larger list’ but more quantifiable than that. You want to get 10 new customers into your shop or you want to grow your subscriber list.

Knowing what you goals are will help you decide on the best activity to achieve them. E.g. if you want to get 10 more customers into your shop in the next fortnight then offer a time-sensitive deal they can’t refuse. If you want to grow your subscriber list then offer your partner’s list a gift or bonus simply for going to your website and signing up to yours. Then you can continue to market to them and develop your own business relationship with them.

In other words: Your goals define your actions.

Making it work

This is the fun bit! Coming up with the ideas. You know your target market, you have identified and approached other businesses (usually serving the same geographical area as you) that share that target market or similar and you know what you and your potential partners expect to get out of working together.

Now you need the ideas. 1… 2… 3…

1. Identify the needs, wants and desires of your target markets – what do they get out of buying from you. I.e. WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM?

2. Set out what you both want to achieve from the activity.

3. Come up with exciting and fun ideas that will fulfill numbers 1 and 2.

Ok it’s fun, but not always that easy and sometimes this is where you need the help of a marketing professional. One of the things I do for my clients is come up with creative and exciting ideas as to how they can market themselves. But to get you started (if you don’t want to talk to me…), here are some activities that lend themselves really well to joint venture marketing:

* Events, workshops, teleseminars

* Leaflet drops, adverts, competitions

* Seasonal promotions, referral schemes and discounts

* Bonuses, giveaways, guest blog posts or newsletter articles

If you want to know more about joint venture marketing or want to talk to me about helping you put a JV plan together from scratch then email me or give me a call on 0845 272 3539 or email me on alex@justtoobusy.co.uk.

Citroën Volta à Torre Eiffel

No ano que comemora 90 anos, a marca de automóveis francesa Citroën volta a fazer uma ação na Torre Eifel, que também celebra uma data especial, seus 120 anos. Durante os anos de 1925 e 1934 a empresa colocou o seu nome na torre mais famosa do mundo.

Logo da Citroën na Torre Eiffel - 1925/ 1934

Desta vez a empresa fez parceria com a SETE (Société d’exploitation de la Tour Eiffel). Só que ao invés de colocar o logo da empresa de novo na torre, a Citroën instalou uma iluminação especial com as cores da empresa – Vermelho e Branco. A ação ocorre em conjunto com o lançamento do novo C3 na Europa. Segundo o blog Brainstorm9, que usou informações do blog Quietglove, a ação foi decepcionante. De acordo com ambos, não era possível determinar que aquilo era um evento patrocinado pela marca de automóveis criada por André Citroën. Para contornar o problema, a empresa recorreu a vídeos online e releases.

Vista da nova iluminação da Torre Eiffel em um C3 da Citroën

Mais aqui e aqui

Movistar recompensa a sus clientes por la publicidad

Movistar comenzó a recompensar a sus clientes por escuchar cuñas publicitarias, a través de una iniciativa dirigida a los clientes de prepago, que no ha sido publicitada más allá de su página web.

Bajo el nombre de llamadas esponsorizadas, esta iniciativa pretende ofrecer el primer minuto gratis de las llamadas a móviles de la compañía a cambio de escuchar una cuña de entre 8 y 15 segundos, aunque la marca advierte que sólo se hará efectiva si hay anunciantes interesados en el segmento en cuestión.

Movistar advirtió que si el usuario no escucha la cuña en su totalidad o decide saltársela presionando asterisco, los descuentos prometidos no se harán efectivos y recalcó que este servicio cumple con las promesas realizadas en el congreso sobre telefonía móvil de Barcelona.

Más información: Marketingdirecto.com

Simplicity, Relevancy & Customer Service

Having just graded your online promotional assignments, I thought that the following articles were timely, as they provide some concepts for you to consider as you start thinking about your final project.

• The story of Zappos is a great example of how important customer service is to a brand.  His keynote at Pubcon, which tells the Zappos story, is covered by Outspoken Media in an entertaining post.
• Conversely, this week’s recall of higher end strollers by MacLaren is an example on the opposite spectrum.
• Besides thinking about what differentiates your company and products from the competition, it’s important that you also consider how relevant you are to your customer.  Without that consideration, you’ll be marketing in a vacuum.
• Apparently the consumer market is moving towards simplicity, whether it’s ice cream or pet food.  While this article focuses on food products, it can apply to other products.  Is your client creating needless complications in the marketing process (including pricing)?
• While it’s not always considered part of the marketing strategy, product design (including packaging) is important.  Fast Company’s slideshow on 12 cool product packaging designs might inspire you.

planning for the future

Planning is the process of identifying the most efficient and effective ways for brands to share the things they want with the people that matter to them most.

Until recently, that has translated into identifying the most compelling ‘big brand ideas’, and then broadcasting them to apparently homogeneous audiences through conventional mass-media.

However, this approach no longer delivers the results we need.

Contrary to the laments of the media industry, this is not because attention has become more scarce; indeed, people actually have more free time now than they used to.

The real issue is that people have more opportunities to participate in a wider variety of activities, and unsurprisingly, they are choosing to focus their attention on those activities which offer them the greatest rewards.

In place of some of the time they used to spend ‘fire gazing’ – escaping the boredom and drudgery of everyday life – people are increasingly harnessing their cognitive surplus to learn and grow.

This more varied behaviour means that ‘audiences’ are increasingly dispersed: fewer people are doing the same thing at the same time, and mass-media are increasingly less ‘mass’ as a result.

However, this actually presents more opportunities than it does problems.

Rather than simply interrupting people’s escapism, we now have greater scope to get involved and make their lives better.

But, in order to achieve this, we need to rethink our approach to brand communications.

We need to move away from planning that centres on people’s ‘media habits’, and focus instead on the things that people are trying to achieve through those habits.

In other words, we need to ask why people do what they do, not just what they do.

Once we understand people’s motivations, we’ll find it much easier to find more relevant roles for our brands:

If people want passive entertainment, how can we help with that?

If they want to learn something new, what role can we play?

If they have a challenge, how can we help them solve it?

Brand communications can evolve into a means to deliver actual value, rather than simply a means to promote other forms of value delivery.

The benefit offered can be as simple as passive entertainment, but interactive experiences, education, and even corporate social responsibility (CSR) hold even greater potential.

In line with this evolving quest for people’s hearts and minds, planning’s role needs to evolve too, becoming

The process of identifying the most relevant and engaging times and places to deliver specific brand benefits, and the most efficient and effective ways to deliver those benefits in that context.

Over the next few days, I’ll share some ideas that can help make that future a reality.