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Improving Marketing Effectiveness
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4. Know when you're beaten
A major clothing catalogue company uses financial modelling to determine that if a prospect has failed to respond after five targeted offers with different offer attributes, the likelihood of them responding in the future is low enough to make any further solicitations uneconomical.
5. Collaborative marketing – sharing marketing costs with a non-conflicting company that has complementary products aimed at the same target audience will improve effectiveness
Nectar (in the UK) is a good example of BP, Sainsbury's, Debenhams and Barclaycard combining their loyalty programme, reducing the overall cost of operation and then using this as a base to find high-category users and improve targeting effectiveness.
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Enquiry Management Opportunities
Again our assessments show that the opportunity here is huge:
Virtually no companies (2%) monitor 'near miss' enquiries – those lost in the final stages
60% do not have a defined enquiry management process
52% do not actively cross-sell to inbound telephone enquirers
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The following are some key steps to improve enquiry management effectiveness:
1. Implement procedures to actively monitor the lead distribution process and ensure all leads are answered and followed up quickly
An IT manufacturer realised that much of its expensive marketing spend was successfully creating leads but these were not being converted into sales. A knee-jerk reaction might have led to an alteration of the proposition or price. A deeper look showed that many leads were not getting through to the channels that needed them. Those that did get through were followed up with differing levels of 'professionalism'. They implemented a simple Web-based lead management system costing less than US$ 50,000, enabling them to monitor who had received which lead and who had 'actioned' it. This initiative, in conjunction with an incentive programme and a re-direction of the best leads to those that acted upon them quickest, resulted in a major up-lift in conversion rates.
2. Turn service into sales, using every opportunity to cross sell without abusing trust
One financial service provider sets the same sales targets for both its in-bound service line and in its retail branches, as it does for external out-bound telemarketers. The customer system prompts a relevant cross-sell opportunity, asks service staff to record a code to show whether they proposed the sale and if so, to record the outcome. The return on this system investment has been five times the cost.
3. Introduce relevant up-sell products at point of sale
A large petrol retailer fundamentally reviewed their store operations and found that the clever positioning of accessories in store increased average basket size by 19%.
4. Tailored Web offers are often an effective way to personalise and make relevant offers
An online office goods supplier records the sales made to various customers, and asks about their other areas of interest within the product portfolio. A customer returning to the website is prompted by a series of offers in their area of interest, and is presented with a shopping basket of the usual goods that they buy, with a dramatic impact on sales.
5. Look at conversion rates and attack root causes
A 1% increase in conversion would make a large difference in most companies. Why did your enquirer not buy? Sample and research some of them to find out, and attack the root cause.
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