Tag: stratetic marketing

General, Marketing with Mansfield

Now’s the Time to “GPS” Your Marketing for a Successful Year

Marketing with Mansfield

Happy almost-end-of-the-year! What will your marketing resolutions be for 2020? The end of the year is always a good time to reflect on the results of your marketing plan and to consider what changes you might want to make for the upcoming year. They key word is “plan.” Think of it like GPS directions for your marketing. When you need to get somewhere, GPS knows where you are but you have to tell it where you want to go and then it gives you options on how to get there.

Know your final destination

http://gps.gov

I am willing to bet that when it comes to a marketing plan a lot of people don’t start with the final destination, where they want to be by December, in mind. Instead they start heading off “down the road” – destination to be determined.

Awhile back I spent a weekend at Frequent Traveler University. It’s a convention for people who not only like to travel but they also like learning about how miles and points can enhance their travel experience. It was perfect timing because all my travel and loyalty calculators reset to zero at the end of the year (jut the calculators, not the accumulated points or miles.) This is important because in order for me to achieve my travel-related goals for 2020 and beyond, I need to know by the end of the year how to structure my 2020 travel plan.

For example, if my goal is to acquire a Southwest Airlines Companion pass in 2020 so that I can bring a companion along for free in 2020, then I need to determine what strategy I will use to acquire the required number of Rapid Rewards points in order to receive the pass. The final destination would be 125,000 QUALIFYING points.

Know your starting point

I know what I am starting with in January 2020. That would be zero points. Remember those point calculators reset on December 31st. You might think that there is only one route to get there – not true. The final destination would be 125,000 QUALIFYING points OR 100 QUALIFYING one-way flights . In reality, there are a plethora of routes that will get me to my final destination. Route 1 is flying. Route 2 is a mixture of flying and shopping. Route 3 includes getting a Southwest credit card (with sign up bonuses) and those are just 3 routes. Some might take me all year to get there. Some might take me a matter of months. Some might be cost prohibitive and some will be relatively inexpensive.

Important NOTE – not all Rapid Rewards points are qualifying points and not all flights are qualifying flights.

The two things I know for sure are – where I am right now and where I want to end up. What I also know is that I would really like that pass sooner rather than later and I don’t want to waste money or time getting it.

Know your route options

Back to O&P marketing…if you know that you have 270 newsletter subscribers as of today but that you want 2,499 subscribers by the end of 2020 which route are you going to take? Just like getting the Companion Pass, there are a lot of different routes with different time frames and different costs. I have clear goals. Get the points to get the pass so that my companion can fly for free so that I can save a lot of money. I know most of my travel schedule for 2020 right now so I can actually calculate how much money I will be able to save depending on when I acquire the pass. That is very helpful in determining my route.

In our newsletter subscriber example, we have a clear goal of acquiring 2,229 new subscribers. We want to make sure that all of our new subscribers are people who are relevant to the success of our business and not just “route detours” for the sake of pumping up our numbers.

What’s your marketing GPS route for 2020?

General, Marketing with Mansfield

Pro Tip: Use Treats as Strategic Marketing

Marketing with Mansfield

IMG_4131(1)We have a lovely neighbor named Agnes. Agnes is an expert on…cat treats. In our little community, she is the go-to pet sitter. She has a couple of her own cats and is a big proponent of catching feral cats and having them spayed or neutered.

Whenever she spent time with the late “Slinky” (Tom’s cat), she always came armed with cat treats. Slinky was the epitome of a scaredy cat. He refused to come out from underneath the bed for anyone other than Tom. Not me, not the kids, absolutely nobody – except Tom.

As a cat lover extraordinaire, Agnes made it her mission to coax Slinky out from under the bed and establish a relationship with him. Treats were the number one weapon in her “we are going to be friends no matter what” arsenal. These were especially compelling since I can honestly say that “treat time” was not a regular part of Slinky’s day.

When used strategically, treats can be an effective marketing tool. I think most people associate treats with some type of food or beverage, which is perfectly reasonable. But, treats can also come in the form of… time off, gift cards, events or other non-food experiences. The key to treats is to use them wisely. Do not overuse. Overuse = nothing special. Once a treat moves from unexpected surprise to expectation you have lost the “specialness” of the gesture.

A lot of my readers work in patient care facilities. Any place that relies on human beings to provide care or services to other human beings is subject to waits and delays. That is not a criticism, just a fact of life. While discussing marketing tactics with a business owner – we’ll call him “Chad” – recently, he brought up an excellent example of how he uses “treat” marketing when the waiting room backs up and starts becoming crowded.

He said that now that so many people travel with their own coffee, he does not provide a coffee station in the waiting room anymore. Instead, when he knows they are running behind and people are getting antsy, he walks out into the waiting room and asks his office manager if she would mind going next door and getting some coffee and donuts. She takes the individual coffee orders and brings back treats for the office.

IMG_4130

What I loved most about that story is he, as a skilled marketer, realized and appreciated the value of taking a regular old perk (the waiting room coffee station) and turning it into a treat by offering it strategically.

If “Chad” had coffee and donuts out every day, even if they were Krispy Kreme and Starbucks, nobody would feel “treated” if he got behind. The coffee and donut run is, hopefully, a gesture that is appreciated and is not an expectation. Are you strategically using treats? Let me know!