Integrate Your Top Materials
Integrate Your Marketing
Materials For Top Results
By Natalie Armstrong
| Natalie J. Armstrong is President of Golden Media, the premiere marketing firm for the conflict resolution industry. Golden Media specializes in assisting mediators and arbitrators develop thriving practices. Natalie can be reached at Natalie@golden-media.com or by calling 310-836-4628. |
Make no bones about it, marketing is a contact sport. If you don’t contact your clients and prospective clients regularly you don’t play., in marketing terminology those contacts are called touches. It sounds “familiar” and should be just that. You want your target to become familiar with you and your practice. In order to accomplish this you must first familiarize yourself with their preferences and personalities (see the chapter on creating a niche for yourself).
The average prospective customer requires between six and eight “touches”. The ultimate goal to reach your target market no closer together than 4 weeks no further apart than 6 weeks. If the touches are too close together, your prospects will feel hounded. If your touches are too far apart your prospects will begin to forget you from the last touch. The touches you choose should use a variety of mediums to relay your marketing message unless your prospects have a clear preference for one form of communication over another.
In order to create a communication plan you will want to look ahead in yearly increments. Take out your current calendar and next years as well. On these calendars you will plot out your marketing activities, deadlines, holidays to keep in mind (or use as reasons for contact), industry preferences (for instance sending your materials to an accountant from January through April will be a waste of your time. You want to market your services to accountants when they have time to listen to your message).
On this same calendar you need to list to whom you will be marketing, what the intended message will contain, and via what medium it will be conveyed.
Integrate Your Marketing Materials for Top Results
The following format of contact is just one example, the content may be altered to fit your goals, your potential customer’s goals, economic, legal and industry trends, holidays, etc.
The more personal your “touch” the more likely you are to receivea response.
| 1. Fax / mail / e-mail |
|
Brochure presentation |
| 2. Fax / mail / e-mail |
|
“Engaging” Post card |
| 3. Fax / mail/ e-mail |
|
Send a letter of introduction of service availability (include your business card) |
| 4. Fax / mail/ e-mail |
|
A survey, statistic or piece of legislation |
| 5. Phone Call |
|
A follow-up phone call to ensure that your customer has received and understood the material sent |
| 6. Fax / mail/ e-mail |
|
A list of references and C.V./resume with the letter of why you should be considered for hearing your customer’s disputes |
| 7. Fax / mail / e-mail |
|
An appropriate article (preferably written by you) |
| 8. Phone Call |
|
A follow-up phone call to offer service |
I cannot too heartily prevail upon the importance of consistency in your marketplace. You have to be where your customers are when they need you. That means you have to be there consistently. You can’t assume that your target market will always have a need for your service at the precise moment you place and ad or send a letter. Your goal is to create mindshare. Mindshare means that when in fact someone is in a dispute, your name is the first to come to mind. And mindshare occurs with consistent touching.
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