My Marketing Strategy

Nicolette Lemmon, President & Founder

At our office holiday luncheon, my Secret Santa gift was a beautiful keepsake music box that played, “It’s a Wonderful World.” (Thanks, George!) As I watched the gears working together to produce beautiful music, it inspired me to consider what it takes to get that great result.

The effort of working to crank up the music box to play for a period of time is rewarded with the success of sweet music playing. However, if you want more “success,” more music, you must keep cranking on a regular basis!

Then, once the marketing music box is playing, the beautiful music attracts listeners.

Just as a music box consistent cranking to get results, so does marketing.

In these economic times when budgets continue to be stressed and marketing is getting slashed, the ability to keep the marketing flywheel moving is getting squeezed. The slowing of the contact with customers/members, means less generation of leads and less ability to convince people to consider our clients’ brands for their next purchase. Focus on fundamentals:

• Schedule the “Magic of 7” touches whether by direct mail, in statements, online, and by e-mail to your best prospects for more business.
• Encourage the front line to capture (and verify) as many e-mail addresses as possible to help stretch every marketing dollar by direct mailing only to those who haven’t provided an e-mail address and e-mail to the rest.
• Get the entire team motivated to keep the flywheel singing it’s beautiful “music” with fun contests for cross-selling, competitor rate and product comparisons to show your value, and branch level contests to meet realistic goals.

What are your ideas to stretch marketing dollars next year?