persistence

Marketing – is a lot about persistence

Customer Delight, Marketing, persistence, service quality

I had written in September about my trip to Jaipur and how the staff at the Radisson hotel over there were so persistence that I comment on TripAdvisor if I found their service good. Not only did they delight my family and me with their service, they also ensured that I recognised their work, so that more people would come to stay in their hotel.

Today I just came back after a two night stay at another leading American Five Star Chain hotel in Gurugram. There’s a reason I am not naming the hotel here. The whole staff was very pleasant and the restaurant staff was extremely helpful and we had an excellent stay. However no one persisted with pushing me to rate them on Trip Advisor. So even though they gave me excellent service, I will not talk about them.

Most human beings are inherently lazy and will not go out of their way to do something, leave alone leave a comment on TripAdvisor. But if you are in the hotel industry and if you have raving fans, then your rooms will always be full. Its an uphill task to always keep delighting your customers, but terrific companies do it.

This is all marketing and I notice when people do something exceptionally well to delight their customer. In most hotels in India, the service levels are very high and we expect even average hotel to deliver high levels of service. In most western countries the service levels in the hotels are just about average, so I don’t actually expect high quality service. But when you come across exceptional service in any part of the world, you want to laud it.

Delivering exceptional service consistently requires a lot of work, but being persistent, that the service also gets applauded is a marketing task and I think the Radisson in Jaipur and especially a few of their staff with whom we dealt with did achieve that.

When you give exceptional service, get the customer to give you a testimonial in some form. A good testimonial is a thousand times more powerful than whatever you talk about yourself.

Till next time then….keep delighting your customers and be persistent in taking testimonials.

Carpe Diem!!!

Follow-ups – how much is good?

B2B, follow-up, Marketing, persistence

One question that I get very often from my team is – “if we send so many follow-up emails, won’t the prospect get offended and unsubscribe”. We deal in B2B customers and therefore the general audience is never large, so they are scared that they may lose one prospect from the small set of prospects.

If your follow-up is – just wanted to check if there’s any update for me – then yes – its irritating and people will get offended and not bother to pick up your calls or unsubscribe from your mails in the future.

But if the mail or call has value then they will look forward to receiving your mails or calls. If on the other hand, if inspite of the fact that you are sending them something of value and they still unsubscribe to your mails or stop taking your calls, then it’s a good sign. They would not have become a good customer for you anyway.

Since our time is extremely valuable, it’s extremely important that we eliminate the people who anyway don’t value our services. You should look forward to delighting people who value your service not to people who don’t value it. That’s a wasted effort.

How do you create value in your communications – you share case studies of how you have helped others. You share challenges, that other customers had, that you helped solve. You could have created some new setups/solutions, found a new way to sanitise the rooms. With B2B prospects, there’s a lot of ways you can create messaging.

If not, you can share industry news that you found, or send them a book. But you have to be persistent in reminding them of your presence because, they shouldn’t miss out on talking to you when they actually have a need.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

P.S: If you are interested in getting a free copy of my 7 point checklist for B2B markets, you can ask for it, by filling in your details below.

Lettuce and Garbage

B2B, Marketing, persistence

The difference between lettuce and garbage is Timing. If the lettuce is used at the right time, its good for health and can be used for layering various foods. On the other hand if you don’t use it when its fresh, it can cause food poisioning.

In case of marketing, timing is a major factor for success. In case of investments , I strongly suggest doing systematic investments so timing becomes irrelevant.

However in case of marketing, if the customer doesn’t think of your name when “her” need arises, then you will lose the sale. That’s the reason why you see the advertisements of Coke, Pepsi etc. all year round.

Even though B2B buyers are not impulsive, the logic still applies. If when the buyer begins to start evaluating a company to replace an incumbent and you are not in front of them, they may not contact you and you could lose a lead.

People have so many things going on in their lives, expecting them to remember you because you sent them some information or called them, about 6 months back, doesn’t work. Obviously you don’t want to bombard them with messages which are only self serving. If you add value to their business and then talk a little bit about yourself then its okay.

Till email was not prevalent, most companies used to send out newsletters, whitepapers or catalogs with detailed usage guidelines on a regular basis. With emails becoming so prevalent, if you send something which is in print form, it will actually stand out. Though with people working from home, this can be a constraint. So use email and print both or whatever other vehicle suits you. The email could be 2 times a week while a newsletter or postcard could be twice a month and maybe a seminar once in a quarter..

Whatever is the combination of methods you choose, ensure that you are persistent with it. Using marketing automation tools, you can actually make a lot of this work in the background. That in itself will also create a brand & trust for you, because of your predictability.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

P.S: If you are interested in getting a free copy of my 7 point checklist for B2B markets, you can ask for it, by filling in your details below.

Being Relentless – a Marketing discipline

Affirmative action, Marketing, persistence, Sales

Relentless is an adjective.

Synonyms – Persistent, Non-Stop, Continuous…

An adjective qualifies the noun – grade 5 English grammar course. In this case, the noun is going to be a person. A relentless person a persistent person is how this will be used.

So what is the significance of this English grammar lesson for today’s post.

The other day in one of the posts I mentioned about the I love marketing podcast episode with Chris Voss and I explained why I admired him because of his usage of of words.

With a background in hostage negotiation you have to be careful with your words and the words should have the the exact Nuance of what is being thought by the speaker. That is one of the reasons why his vocabulary is so good.

During the podcast, one of the questions asked to him was on the launch of his book, in 2017 I think, and how he went about promoting it.

One word that he mentioned which immediately stuck in my head was the fact that he was RELENTLESS in ensuring that he was on two interviews a week at the minimum, to promote his book which he is doing to this day.

While the book – Never Split the Difference – is very good, but if people don’t come to know about the book they will not go and buy it. It’s a terrific lesson in marketing from a hostage negotiator. If you keep yourself aware you can get marketing lessons even from the small kiosk on the kerb.

We may have a terrific product or a terrific service but if people do not come to know about it then people will not buy it.

In one word Chris had put out such a big strategy for marketing

Everyone knows about Coke. But they relentlessly advertise about their product so that when you visit the shop or restaurant and you are thirsty the first word which comes out of your mouth is a Coke.

Everyday in marketing and I include sales as part of marketing, if you are not somehow reaching more and more customers everyday , by some mechanism , you will not be able to build a sustainable pipeline and a predictable business.

You need not be brilliant, you need not be teriffic , but if you want to succeed you have to be relentless, persistent et al.

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!