I’ve recently returned from a trip to Malaysia. Whilst driving along the main Expressway from Kuala Lumpur to the North of the country, I travelled past many huge billboard ads for various Malaysian and Worldwide brands.
Nothing particularly new in this, or interesting, expect for with one of the adverts I went past.
It was for a clothing brand, that much I recall, and was advertising female fashion. Travelling at the legal 110 km/h, of course, I didn’t have time to take in much more than and don’t even recall the brand name.
I did, however, spot that the ad had a QR code in the bottom right corner of this ad. If you’re familiar with QR codes, then you’ll know that you need to open code-reading software on your Smartphone and line your camera up to the code, for it to trigger a signal to open your web browser to a certain website location.
Fairly useful technology in magazines, lampposts and other static locations, but not particular clever when you are travelling past said advert at 110 km/h – I reckon the average Malaysian that sees the advert and QR code firstly probably wouldn’t know what the small barcode thing is anyway, but for any that do recognise it, and have the right software on their Smartphone, well they certainly don’t have time to patiently line the camera up to the code as they hurtle by!
This struck me as an interesting parable for a lot of marketing that I see back in the UK (or in any other country to be fair) and particularly in Business to Business marketing.
Often marketers don’t give enough time, information or care to their prospects and their marketing can pass those prospects by before they have had time to think or react.
The kind of traps I mean...
If at first they don’t read…don't give up
Email and social are good ways to get your message across to your audience. But just because you sent it, doesn't mean they read it.
With open rates on email dropping month on month, you need to ensure that you keep going back to your audience if at first you don't succeed.
Use remarketing techniques to encourage opens on a later date. Simply adding “reminder” to a resent email can be all you need. Schedule re-posts of your tweets/messages, particularly to take into account different time zones around the world and the fact that your prospects won’t all read every tweet they see the minute it arrives – they have day jobs to do!
How easy is it to buy?
If you are selling to a business, then ensure that you understand and answer all of the pre-sale questions they will have, and help them answer them.
The more expensive or complex the purchase, the more decision makers will be involved, and the more information they will need (and encouragement and confidence) to make the purchase.
Consider what questions IT director would have, compared to the CEO, or the Finance Director, and ensure they are all answered - ideally online.
Who else will be involved in the decision?
Continuing that same theme - who else in the organisation is going to be involved in saying yes (or no) to your product or service? How can you reach them and ensure they understand what you are selling and why they should say eys to buying it. Typically, the five main areas to consider are:
- Management (the board)
- Finance
- IT
- Sales & Marketing
- HR/Personnel
Learn from a salesperson
Marketers can learn a lot from the tenacity of a good salesperson. They know that they will often have to work hard and keep in regular contact to encourage a prospect to become a customer.
A client of mine told me that they managed to sign a new customer (for a high-end golf club) because after the various calls and emails from them, the customer thought that "they must really want me to be a member"!
Perseverance pays off. Map regular contact to your expected sales cycle length, and regularly send your prospects the information they need to keep answering those questions they have.
Bread crumbing not bombarding
Once you have mapped your messaging to your sales cycle, then start to drip feed out the key messages on or two at a time. Nobody has the time or inclination to read chapter and verse on your offering, particularly not at the early stages.
Remember to use a model such as AIDA to help feed the right type of messages out, based on the sales cycle.
Don't just bombard them with one big message, sit back and prey they come - that QR code on the Malaysian highway is never going to get any response, and increasing lazy marketers, on or offline, are being found out too.
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