How To Start a Conversation with Prospects and Customers

In tough times, who do you turn to? You turn to people who are friendly, helpful and trustworthy, right? You turn to people you know, who are open with you and who you can count on. You probably turn to friends and family. Well, when it comes to making purchasing decisions when money is tight, most people will turn to the merchants they know. Merchants they trust. Brands that they know are willing to start a conversation and keep it going. Now that people are losing their jobs and banks and car companies are losing their traction, people are thinking twice before buying anything other than grocery items. And some are even thinking twice about where to go grocery shopping.

Nowadays, your marketing approach has to be just as trustworthy if not more trustworthy than ever. These are unsure times and when consumers are unsure about their next paycheck, they think long and hard about where to spend their current one.

Tailoring your marketing message does mean emphasizing low prices, like how Target is right now, with TV commercials that actually list prices for all the items shown. But it your marketing message also needs to evoke a sense of trust, a sense of “I’m listening” as Dr. Crane on “Frasier” would say. The easiest way to market your trustfulness is to start a conversation on a blog. Blogs allow you, me and Joe Schmoe to have his say to the big companies, and the companies can talk back, starting a conversation (not talking back like how a teen talks back to her parents!).

Having a conversation means getting to know one another – you get to know what your customers really want, because, let’s face it – people are more brave and honest on blogs than they are face-to-face or on the phone. And, your customers get to know that you care about their opinions, which makes them care about you in return. Customers show that care by buying from your store.

If you have a brick-and-mortar store with employees, your employees are vital parts of your conversation with consumers. Many times, employees from cashiers to stockers are what customers think of when they think of your store. If your employees don’t understand your marketing message, or aren’t giving out your marketing message in every interaction with a customer, that could be a problem for you. You need to train your employees to treat customers in a way that will evoke whatever feeling(s) you want them to feel when they think of your brand.

Online, start a conversation by creating your own blog and by visiting forums. Social networking is a great place to connect with customers, but not a good place to sell to them. Just talk to them. The sales will roll in once you start the conversation. In a brick-and-mortar store, your employees as well as your signage can get the conversation started. Encourage employees to make small talk and get to know the customers. The rewards for getting to know customers will come back to you, not only in sales, but in word-of-mouth marketing and you can’t put a price on that.

Marketplace Influence of the Affluent

Avner Offer, professor of economic history at Oxford University, has said that “today’s rapid pace of innovation includes developments in science and technology, a widening range of consumer goods and services, and the powerful effect of media, advertising and the Internet—all pressuring us to make choices….”

What does this lead me to believe? That the affluent influence the marketplace – for themselves and for other classes below them. The middle-class and lower-class are offered what the affluent class decides is needed or wanted. The rich people are those that drive the marketplace offerings. People can afford to get high-end cars, which makes other classes of people get high-end cars, but it leaves the lower classes in a debt situation. This leads to more and more people taking out loans and using high-interest credit cards that they can’t afford. This leads to our tough economy where people can’t pay back what they’ve borrowed so the government has to step in.

Now I’m not saying that the affluent are bad in shaping the wants and needs of the lower classes; I’m just saying it’s a fact that we should be aware of. As marketers and consumers. The younger generations are used to getting what they want without having to pay for it. Mommies and daddies are charging everything for their precious little ones. And there are even games like Electronic Monopoly in which you charge things on a credit card instead of buying them with cash. Now what kind of message is that sending?

And as packaging and production methods get cheaper with outsourcing, we’re just filling up our landfills with last year’s products.

Of course, there is also global warming. With all of this extra production of products that people are just going to throw away, the factories are working year-round, 24/7 producing lovely smog clouds that are tearing up our atmosphere and killing us underneath.

And, one last effect of our affluent tastes – we’re getting fat! Obesity is at an all-time high due to the processed foods and easy access to drive-thrus every few blocks.

So what does all of this mean for marketers?

Market your line of products to all classes. Market your more affordable items to the middle- and lower-classes so that they know they have a choice. Two widgets sold at $20 each is just as much money as if you get an affluent person to buy your $40 widget. The lower classes shouldn’t be ignored – they have spending power.

Green your production methods. Whether that’s just for marketing – using recycled paper or using more online initiatives – or whether you can talk the CEO into using greener inks, greener packaging or whatever, you can then tout your greener methods to consumers. Everyone is concerned about the environment now, and you can get customers from all classes by showing how earth-friendly your products are. Market to the affluent responsibly. While marketing to the tastemakers of society, use your marketing prowess for good. Tout all of the socially responsible things your company is doing so that the affluent will tell their friends and family. This word of mouth marketing will trickle down to the lower classes and encourage them to buy products that are more socially responsible.

The Difference between Advertising, Marketing and PR

I’ve scoured the Internet for a good, succinct article that tells me the difference between advertising, marketing and PR. They seem so similar that I think certain functions of each overlap each other’s categories. As I write this, I haven’t done any research yet, but I think of marketing as a broad category under which advertising and PR reside.

I’m going to present the definitions here for myself and anyone else who is confused about the terms. I’m going to try to write them so that the differences are self-evident. I’m going to choose the best explanations on the Web and word them in language I can understand because I think that’s also part of the problem – explaining jargon with jargon. I’d like to note that I got most of this info from About.com – it’s the best guide I could find among many with convoluted messages.

Advertising
A paid announcement of a persuasive message by a sponsor, usually showcasing the sponsor’s own product(s). Advertising is not a process and it doesn’t take a lot of time – it’s something that can be done fairly quickly. Advertising is getting the word out about what you have to sell. Selling to a target audience. Brochures, TV commercials, and magazine and newspaper ads are best examples.

Marketing
The planning and implementation of activities that create a relationship that’s good for both the seller and buyer. Marketing takes time. Marketing affects how people perceive your company. Planning with a target audience in mind. Business cards, logos and anything else that you hand out to consumers that doesn’t include a direct selling message are best examples.

Public Relations
Getting free publicity, often focusing on media exposure. Gains more credibility than advertising or marketing because the audience doesn’t know that they’re reading a story that resulted from a press release. Or, if they do know that, they at least know you didn’t pay for the story. Public relations is what comes into play when your brand has a crisis – if your brand doesn’t do what it says, it’s the PR that saves it by either settling the crisis or building up your brand after the crisis. Planning with editors in mind – not talking directly to the target audience. More visible with the media. Press releases and speeches by spokespeople (PR people) are best examples.

Marketing is a Pie
It looks like my thinking was along the right lines, according to Laura Lake, About.com’s Marketing guide. She says, “The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a pie, inside that pie you have slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, and community involvement. Advertising only equals one piece of the pie in the strategy.”

So, marketing is the all-encompassing process that has the goal of creating a relationship between a company and consumers.

A Very Unconventional Approach to Discourage Speeding

Here’s an innovative idea to get people to stop speeding: make them sign their organs away instead of paying a $50 fine.

Governments launch many mass advertising campaigns to educate and influence social behavior. Whether it’s warning against drunk driving or buckling up, or even being more “green,” it’s hard to actually change behavior though.
The Latvian government needed to create an ad campaign that targeted young males, aged 20-35, who are the fastest drivers and the ones always getting into car crashes. An ad agency from Latvia called MOOZ! developed a campaign against speeding and aggressive driving by incorporating a punishment with a social problem – lack of organ donors.
The agency concluded that educating this group was useless, because they didn’t drive fast and recklessly because they don’t know the risks; they do it because it makes them look cool in front of their peers.

So, MOOZ! created an Organ Donors Certificate as part of the ad campaign. During the campaign, those drivers that were pulled over for speeding were asked to sign their organs to someone who is waiting in line for a transplant. Certificates were issued directly to drivers who were pulled over by the Latvian road traffic police.

No word on how all this would have been enforced, but the message was effective. The number of victims dropped by 29 percent!

Here’s a copy of the exact wording on the certificate, which those pulled over had to read and sign:
“Organ Donor's Certificate.There are people who would give up everything to be in your place, and being in your place they would never play with their life. THINK!

I, ____ _____. Since I tend to exceed the speed limit and/or drive aggressively: With this I certify that my life is not important to me and I would gladly spit on it. Being of sound mind and body I am aware that sooner or later an accident will occur, and therefore immediately after the accident I agree to bequeath my heart, kidneys, as well as any other organs that will not be damaged upon impact to those who need them more.I ask for forgiveness in advance for those people and their loved ones who I will have killed or crippled in the crash. __, _______, 200_. Signature __________.”

You can see the organ donation certificate at AdsoftheWorld.com.

In my opinion, reading this will definitely have more impact than paying a fine will. But I’m surprised that the government didn’t want to have the offenders sign the certificate along with paying the fine. I guess that goes to show how serious the Latvian government was about this campaign.

And the other nice thing about this campaign was that it highlighted the social problem of the shortage of organ donors. A one-two punch if you will.