Manizesto

I found my dentist, Provo Dental Care, like most people do, from a referral (word of mouth still trumps any paid channel). But I’m continually impressed with their marketing campaigns. Here’s what they’re doing that keeps me engaged.

1. Referral gift. I was so impressed with the practice that I’ve referred a few people to their practice. Every time I do, they send me a Thank You card with a hand written note, two movie tickets and a gift card to a local restaurant. How sick is that? Of course I’m referring people whenever I get the chance. This is what my mentor and friend, Brett Barlow, calls “Surprise and Delight.”

2. New customer gifts. After my first visit, they gave me a toothbrush, floss, chapstick, a couple stickers and a t-shirt with the practice’s logo on all the items. The shirt looks pretty cool and fits well, so I actually wear it. Surprise and Delight again.

3. Appointment reminders. I get emails and postcards in the mail when my next appointment is coming up. They even let me know I need a checkup when I don’t have a follow up appointment scheduled.

4. Relevant Marketing Nudges. I got a letter from them a couple of weeks ago reminding me I still have money left on my dental plan for another visit. The letter even told me the amount I had left on my plan and encouraged me not to let the money go to waste. I love this!

These guys have got their CRM marketing running like a well-oiled machine. It’s not like they’re innovating like crazy; they’re just consistent and relevant. Every business in the service industry should do this kind of stuff.

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[Photo by snowriderguy]

From today’s Washington Post:

“The news that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) has been taken into custody on charges of seeking bribes in exchange for an appointment to the Senate (among other allegations) fundamentally reshapes the Illinois political landscape.” (More here)

This is staggering, and it’s why politicians are some of the least trusted people out there, along with real estate agents and auto mechanics (Advertisers and marketers don’t fare much better, by the way).

In today’s world, many companies will find they need to dip into their company’s “trust account” probably more than you expected. Hopefully you’ve got some trust savings to pull from. Every time you exceed customer expectations, you’re making a deposit. Every time you market your products honestly, right a wrong, go the extra mile or lean in the direction of customers, you’re making deposits into that trust bank.

When you don’t do those things, of course, you’re making withdrawals.

And in a tough economy, more and more people will turn to companies they already trust and that have deposited into those trust accounts over the years. Might want to check your account.

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[Photo by TheWhiteRabbit11]

The day after Thanksgiving is the culmination of much planning, development work and anticipation for many marketers (and consumers, for that matter). Today, thousands of marketers are refreshing their revenue reports and biting their nails hoping for a not-too-dismal shopping season. But f you’re one of many marketers out there who didn’t cut your prices drastically to fill your store with swarming, finicky consumers today, congratulations.

I congratulate you because your self discipline will pay off. The truth is, huge fire sales are not the way to keep your business successful or your brand reputation strong. They cheapen your products (or your store), they do little to build relationships or loyalty with your customers and most concerning, they take away any emphasis on creating a good customer experience through a great storefront, outstanding customer service or better quality products.

You don’t want to be a fire sale business.

Having regular sales with deep discounts means your customers become accustomed to you having sales, so they wait to purchase until a sale comes along. No one expects to pay full price. And are those the kind of customers you really want?

Instead of rack your brain coming up with some innovative marketing plan for the holidays, you’d be much better served reminding people you’re out there, that you have great products, reasonable prices and that you’ll actually still be in business next year because you’re not killing yourselves selling low-end crappy products, skimping on service and attracting the wrong kind of customer.

It’s much better if your building is next to the business with the fire sale. Your store becomes a refuge from the madness.

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[Photo by jquiz]

Ever found yourself trying to market an inferior product? It’s frustrating, and easy to point the finger of blame to your development team, your engineers, or senior management. Don’t do it. Finger pointing accomplishes nothing.

I wrote a post a while ago arguing that if you’re products suck, innovating marketing or a large budget can’t help much, which I still believe is true. But friend and marketing-minded entrepreneur Chris Baggott, founder of Compendium Blogware (a company that helps businesses create and manage corporate blogs) had a pretty solid rebuttal that’s worth mentioning:

“Early in my career I worked for the world’s largest diagnostic equipment company. We developed this chemistry analyzer that was supposed to compete with to top preforming analyzers in the industry. It sucked. It was too slow, reliability was a problem and the average cost per test was just too high to compete. What to do? Of course the answer was to hand the problem to marketing. What we had to do was reposition and find the one competing analyzer that was worse than ours. The IL Monarch (I remember it like yesterday)…..

We built a database of every IL Monarch in the country and sorted by age. (these things are typically leased on three to five year terms) By initiating the conversation with labs before they were shopping we were able to establish our criteria, we could show what the advantages were over what they were currently doing and the net result was that the following year our machine was the number one instrument sold that year…..and because we had specifically targeted the RIGHT customers, they were happy. Win Win.”

In other words, as long as your product is not the absolute worst in the industry (which means most of you), you still have an edge. So quit making excuses about the inferiority of your product, see how you are truly better, and find a way to turn that into a meaningful message. Certainly your product can help someone.

And if you can’t find a reason to stand by your products, find a new company to work for.

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[Photo by *One*]