You have now decided to follow the small business marketing advice and create a cultivating pool for the fish (clients) you plan to catch. Therefore you are not using a fishing net designed for Hippos like traditional small business advertisers do. Let’s now create the cultivation pool.
How can you sell advertising with an off line marketing medium, like Coffee News, if your advertisers cannot measure the response they get? You may ask if it’s your job to teach them or even your job to worry about it…… because they advertise all over the show and they don’t measure anywhere.
I suppose nothing stops you from selling your services even if your advertisers don’t measure response. But when your advertisers start asking questions about distribution and poor response rates then it means they want out. They want to stop paying you. And it’s all because they have no way of knowing how to measure – and you have not told them how to measure either.
Before we get to the list of possible off line advertising measuring tools lets have a look at a few loop holes. Loops that are difficult to track off line.
When you measure off line advertising response rates you have many people who could potentially bypass any of the measuring control points, listed below. It’s therefore critical to create a measuring system that caters for this.
How Do You Improve the Confidence And Integrity of the Measurement?
Well, this is a complicated story, which we only will touch now, but will discuss in detail in another post. The summary has two angles;
Here’s A List of Ideas to Measure off Line Marketing Response Rates:
I sincerely hope that you found this post useful. If you did, please leave a comment and if you want to add to the list feel free to do so.
I want to thank one of my friends Nicholas DeGraff at Linked for his contribution to this article. Nicholas DeGraff is the Marketing Manager, Pacific Business Centers. He provided me with the great ideas; 3 to 7.
Have fun
Johan Horak
Author: Johan Horak is the South Africa owner of http://www.SA.CoffeeNews-4u.com a small business opportunity publishing a newspaper in local neighbourhoods. They also provide a marketing consultancy and training service for business who wants to adopt online marketing techniques. Tel: 0860 COFFEE (0860 26 33 33)
Off Line Businesses can learn from online marketers. Have a look at this case study where an off line marketer wants to stop and the publication does not know how to address the issue. What can we learn from the incident?
One of the Coffee News Publisher received an email from an advertiser wanting to stop his ad in Coffee News.
The Coffee News Publisher:
I received the following from a computer repair company that started with me on April 3, using a version of the “Computers gone bad” ad that is in the ad exchange:
Martin,
The Advertiser:
I writing this letter to cancel my advertiser agreement, once the 4 months are up. I signed the contract on 3/20/09, according to my paperwork. Although we get a few calls here or there, it’s just not worth the $160 a month (that’s my base rate for this edition). Most of the calls are just people asking for prices. So far (editors note – in just 5 weeks!) we only had two customers that brought in their computers. It seems most of the customers are from referrals and repeat customers. So on that wise (sic), after my 4 months are up, I no longer want to continue the advertising.
Signed by one of the owners.
The Coffee News Publisher:
I intend to go see this customer. My thoughts are that after only 5 weeks, they have had several calls and 2 sales. The sales should result in additional referrals and repeat business. I tell every advertiser that they may not get any response for 8-12 weeks at least. This looks like great response to me, considering they are a new advertiser, using an ad that is just starting to brand them. As to the calls, I would like to know how many is “a few calls here or there”.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me like their ad is working well for them and that things are only going to get better. What other things might you suggest I say to them? I would appreciate anyone’s thoughts on this one.
Best Regards,
My Answer:
The Coffee News publisher is correct in saying that 2 sales in 5 weeks are not bad depending on the conversion cost or rather the long term income projected for each customer. The problems that I see are:
I Believe We Can Learn Lots from Internet Marketing
Let’s compare the online approach with the traditional off line marketing approach.
The computer guy thinks he can advertise, get the girl responding to his ad today and get the kiss on the first date.
He’s smoking his socks. Ask me.
Our problem as off line marketers publishers are that we do not educate our users.
Coffee News publishers sell the ads/service/ to advertisers who think they know what advertising is all about. Some of them think that when they advertise people will immediately start running in to their shop and start queuing up for the kiss. It took a long time for me to get my first kiss. The first time I tried I got a smack. It’s only after I gave and gave and gave; did the girl trust me and I got my long awaited kiss ;-)
My Proposed Solution can be found here:
What I did not include at the link above:
It takes time before people part with money; they need to know you, like you and trust you. And we can do it with the right approach. Give them gifts (information) and then ask them for the kiss.
Image by Thai Jasmine via Flickr
Let me continue the topic that I discussed here:
And ask you a few questions on
Nurturing Of Your Off-Line Contacts:
Whether your answer is "Yes", "No", or "Sometimes"…
Wouldn’t you agree with me, that it’s probably time you do something to improve your ability to turn your contacts into long term paying customers?
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RULE: Are You Breaking This Rule?
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You Always Add Your Contacts To Your Automated FREE Tips Database (=Blog Newsletter).
If you don’t get the sale ask for permission to send them the free tips. All your marketing material should have your online free tips address. Always invite readers of your marketing material, to subscribe to your free online tips.
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UNLOCK The Power Of Free Automated Tips
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That’s when you do the physical work once and let the automation do the rest of the relationship cultivation.
The freedom of working when and where you want – having your own business – is not as free when you have to revisit a contact over and over because you did not get the business.
Can you imagine the great feeling when a customer who have said no when you made the first contact, phones three months later, asking you to sign them up.
You will know that feeling too as soon as you have an automated and FREE Tips newsletter.
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BUT HERE’S THE PROBLEM…
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Many new small business owners end up not freeing themselves from a job, but just trading their old job and old boss for a new job and boss that are more demanding, take more time, and are far less tolerant.
That’s because the businesses they set up, don’t work towards auto pilot status. (I am not saying you will ever achieve 100% Auto Pilot Status BUT …doing more auto stuff is possible and marketing can be automated.)
If you don’t convert the contacts you make into paying customers; you won’t build the business you were hoping to build.
So many are under this false impression that "if I only had more contacts" marketing problems would go away.
But guess what?
That’s only true IF you have an automated follow up tool helping you nurture relationships.
Always have an automated nurturing tool and ensure that it is performing well.
If you are a small business owner then you must not fool around; use the internet to automate your marketing efforts today and work towards Auto Pilot Status.
P.S. If you want to learn how to use a blog effectively for off line marketing take action.
P.P.S. If you agree or don’t agree please feel free to tell me so ;-)
Dear Off Line Marketing Friend
I have been reading a lot lately on marketing. And specifically on how off line marketers, like Coffee News owners, can promote Coffee News. And every time I revisit the online marketing experts I am reminded of this obvious truth (adapted for off line):
Off Line Business people don’t convert the contacts they make into paying customers. Therefore they don’t build the business that they were hoping to build.
So many are under this false impression that "if they only had more contacts" all their marketing problems would go away.
Your off-line marketing problems will not go away until you decide to adopt internet marketing ideas. But let’s start at the beginning.
The questions Off-line marketers need to ask themselves:
Let me get back to the statement above and make you a promise:
How do you automate your follow ups?
Good Luck My Off Line Marketing Friends
P.S. Get your off line marketing blog professional setup today and start cultivating long term relationships.
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