Posted By Industrial Web Solutions Marketing Team on May 4, 2010

I read an interesting post recently by Gary Stein for ClickZ about a San Francisco manufacturer and marketer of backpacks and apparel for urban cyclists who ran a “give away” program designed to generate interest in, and I would presume the sale of, its newly introduced running shoe products. One of the goals was to expand perception of the brand beyond messenger bags to include shoes.

The plan was simple: Ask the respondent to do something – send an old pair of sneakers or bring your favorite six pack of beer and old sneakers to the store – in order to receive something – a new pair of sneakers. Needless to say the response was overwhelming – well beyond what was predicted. All the staff was called in to deal with the truckloads of old shoes that arrived. According to Stein’s article, “a rough estimation is that the program cost (in terms of goods and work) about as much as running two-page ads in [the company’s] top five magazines for the entire year.”

The whole thing was executed via Facebook, where the company had built quite a following. It is too soon to report how it will affect sales and the article did not indicate what was being done in the follow-up to ensure the initiative has a lasting impact and brings in orders. And it is on this point where this post really begins.

Having done a lot of marketing and publicity for the restaurant business I learned very quickly that it doesn’t take much to encourage people to take advantage of “free” or “reduced price”. In order for free or discount programs to be truly effective it is necessary to include in your strategy follow-up initiatives that:

1. Keep your target audience groups thinking about your product/brand as a solution over the long term
2. Generate significant revenue – downstream ROI – in the short term and in the long term

Unfortunately, what I refer to as “hit and run initiatives,” or promotions that lack a follow-up plan, generally do not produce any long term results. Sometimes that is ok, depending on what you’re selling. But for most manufacturers who are engaged in business-to-business endeavors “hit and run initiatives” just aren’t good enough. Some years back I tried to warn a client about the danger of spending $30,000 to hire a big publicity firm to develop a campaign that did not include follow-up initiatives designed to generate business that fed off of its success. And I had no doubt the campaign would garner the publicity the client was after.  However, my advice was not heeded and just as I predicted the client got little mileage out of a New York Times full page story on the front page of the particular section it was targeting. Great job. But it never translated into business only short-lived “fame.”

Whatever online or offline media you use – email, direct mail, your website, a micro-site, radio/tv ad, local or international journals, magazine, social networking site (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) – and I strongly urge you to utilize both online and offline concurrently in a mutually supportive fashion, you must always include follow-up initiatives as part of your intelligently laid out long term plan. 

Branding is an ongoing process. Marketing is an ongoing process.  And each initiative needs to be given enough life to exact the desired result(s). For example, if your campaign involves a “give-away,” then you will obviously have the opportunity to collect potential lead data before you mail or email anything to your respondents. Ensure you structure your questions in order to collect all the necessary data you need to market effectively to each of your target audience groups. Avoid a generalized campaign that lumps all respondents into a non-descript pile. Then develop at least five follow-up plans that continue to engage and maintain the interest of your respondents. The idea is to present your information in such a manner that it begs another question from your respondent that only you can answer, or that provides a valued answer that only you have given. In effect, your follow-up initiatives act to gather more information about the interests of your respondents while gradually and systematically drawing them to you through strategic calls to action. 

A branding, publicity or marketing campaign designed to generate attention and interest has to include follow-up initiatives to ensure its effectiveness particularly in the long term. Carefully planned follow-up initiatives give you the opportunity to develop relationships that can effectively turn interest into sales.

Categories: email marketing, industrial marketing, manufacturing, mobile web marketing, online marketing, professional networking, Sales, social networking
Tags: branding, give-aways, industrial marketing, promotions, publicity, roi