How to Create Sustainable Sales Activation

PART THREE of SEVEN SECRETS OF SALES ACTIVATION

The objective of a Customer Bonding campaign is to make your name the one that people think of first and feel the best about.

When you have not successfully bonded with your customer, any attempt at sales activation is simply an experiment in direct marketing. This can certainly work for awhile if you’re good at it, but it will work less and less well the longer you keep doing it.

The world of marketing is full of people who will tell you exciting success stories about high-impact offers that made them a lot of money quickly. But have you ever noticed that all of those stories are told using past-tense verbs?

They are telling you about something that happened, but is no longer happening now.

Give that some thought.

“Have you ever done anything that worked really well?” is a question I have asked a couple of thousand business owners over the past forty years.

“Oh, yes!” they answer.

“Tell me about it!” I say with bright eyes.

After they explain to me what they did and how awesome it was, I say, “Wow, that sounds great! Are you still doing it?”

When they say “No,” (which they always do,) I wear the expression of a puzzled puppy and ask, “Why not?”

Yes, I am a tiny bit evil. But the simple truth is that I want them to realize their mistake, own it, regret it, and decide – on their own – never to do ask me to temporarily fluff up their sales numbers by resorting to the meth-laced crack cocaine of lies, gimmicks, artificial urgency, ambiguous offers, or misleading messages.

It’s just not the way to build a company.

Few business owners have the patience to win the hearts of the public.

But if you have what it takes to become the company that people think of first and feel the best about when they need what you sell, a new day will dawn for you and your business.

In golden glow of that goodwill, up to 40 percent of the ads in your Customer Bonding campaign can include happy, healthy, sustainable Sales Activation.

These are the ways to do it:

Remarkable Item, Remarkable Story.

A 30-year client, Kesslers Diamonds, recently conducted a contest among their designers with the winning designer honored by name in a radio ad.

RICK: I’m really looking forward to this.

SARAH: Me, too.

RICK: She absolutely nailed it.

MONICA: Are you talking about Jenni Sambolin?

SARAH: Yeah, Jenni and her pendant, “The Music in a Mother’s Heart.”

JENNI: [SFX Door Opening] Hi Rick. Hi Sarah. Hi Monica.

MONICA: Hi Jenni!

SARAH: Hi Jenni!

RICK: Jenni, we’re going to produce your pendant design as a limited-edition collector’s item and put a few of them in all 8 Kesslers stores.

MONICA: Congratulations, Jenni!

JENNI: Wow! This is HUGE!

SARAH: Jenni, we expect “The Music in a Mother’s Heart”to sell out very quickly.

RICK: We’ll also make a few available online.

JENNI: I designed that pendant from the memory of how my Mother made me feel when we would sing together.

MONICA: How often did that happen?

JENNI: Constantly. We would sing along with whatever was playing on the radio, or sometimes we would watch a musical on TV and sing along with that.

SARAH: At just 124 dollars, “The Music in a Mother’s Heart” is going to sell out lightning fast.

RICK:  I’m buying one.

SARAH: I’m buying one.

MONICA: I bought the prototype the moment I saw it.

RICK: For the location of the Kesslers nearest you, visit KesslersDiamonds.com

Catch the Wave of a Coming Trend.

In the early 1990’s Woody Justice was watching a hot new show called Melrose Place when he noticed an actress wearing a drop-pendant necklace. A couple of days later, he saw Katie Couric wearing a similar drop-pendant on the TODAY show. So he called a supplier, described the necklace, and had several hundred of them made. We decided to call it the Melrose necklace.

I wrote a 60-second radio ad and Woody sold a ton of them for $99 each. These were well made, fine quality products, and every customer who bought one was happy-happy-happy.

The supplier who made them for Woody began telling the story of our success to all the other jewelers on his account list, and within a few months every department store in America was selling plastic or glass “costume jewelry” versions of that necklace for $79, then $59, then $39, $29, $19, and finally, $9.95. Most of these retailers described it as a “Y” necklace, because a capital Y describes the basic shape of a drop pendant.

When other retailers started selling them, Woody moved on to something else that was new, exciting, and different.

Woody Justice had a special kind of intuition that allowed him to catch that first, early wave of every new trend and ride it all the way to the beach where he would sit in the shade and drink Pina Coladas while all the copycat weasels raced each other to the bottom of the sea.

If you have the ability to spot “the next big thing,” use it, use it, use it.

Timely Offer.

Make an enticing offer during that predictable window of time when people start thinking about purchasing a particular seasonal product or service. The key is to begin airing your mass media ads a few weeks BEFORE the season begins. If you wait for the starter’s pistol, you’re going to get lost in the crowd. Have the courage to start early.

Most advertisers just buy some keywords and then wait for customers start typing those keywords into Google. They do this because they assume online ads are more effective simply because they are more easily measured.

When was the last time you saw a NIKE ad on TV? NIKE abandoned television a few years ago to boost their online budget and sell direct to the public. NIKE now recognizes that as their “25-billion dollar mistake.” 

I’m not saying you don’t need an online budget. I’m just saying that Google is never going to make you a household word. It’s never going to make your company the one that people think of first, and feel the best about.  

Bundling.

Bundle a group of related purchases together to deliver everything the customer will need, then sell the bundle at an attractive price. Offering this convenience to your customer saves them time and money.

Your profit margin will decrease a little due to the discount, but your gross profit will jump due to the higher average sale. It makes you more money and it makes your customer happy. It’s a win/win.

Gift with Purchase.

One of the ways you can combine “a gift with purchase” into a bundle is, “Buy these and get THIS free.” If the customer sees what they will receive for free when they buy the other item(s), it gives them the logic to justify what their heart has already decided.

But it’s usually better to give away something that your company does NOT sell.

One of my most successful gifts with purchase was back when everyone wanted an iPad but most people didn’t have one. My client had traditionally offered a $2,500 rebate on the purchase of a new Air Conditioning System in the month of October, and it usually worked pretty well. But the offer of a $800 Apple iPad for FREE with the purchase of a new air conditioning system performed significantly better. 

Fly in the Eye of the Storm

A hurricane is a vicious circle of high-speed air powerful enough to move everything in its path. But in the middle of that circle is a zone of peace and quiet called “the eye of the storm.” If you had a small airplane, you could fly around in the middle of that storm if you were careful to move with it and not get caught in the outer edges.

A big news story is a hurricane, moving heaven and earth for your benefit. Find a clever way to legitimately tie your product or service into a BIG news story that has everyone’s attention.

When you see race cars on a track, you will often see one car following tightly behind the car ahead. This is called “drafting.” The idea is to let the car ahead of you push all the air out of the way so that you can ride in the calm vacuum of that “hole in the wind” that travels behind them. This makes additional horsepower available when you punch the gas pedal and whip out from behind them to “slingshot” around them and take the lead.

Ride in the quiet, empty air that travels with a big news story. Be part of the solution to the gigantic problem presented by the news.

Recognize the Lifetime Value of Your Customer

Remember the iPad story I told you a minute ago? For every $800 iPad we gave away, we were saving $1,700 on every system we sold because we had previously given them a $2,500 rebate, remember?

This allowed us to delight those customers who called to say, “Hey! I bought a new air conditioning system from you last month. If I had known you were going to be giving away iPads, I would have waited.” Because my client is a wise and thoughtful man, he would always say, “Okay, I’m sending a courier to your house right now with a new iPad. Thanks for doing business with us!” Those people became raving fans and customers for life, of course.

Don’t measure your success transaction by transaction. Recognize the power of happy customers and invest in creating more of them. All it takes is an attitude of generosity and a few simple actions that whisper, “This is what you purchased, and here is a little bit extra that we want you to have because we love you.”

Roy H. Williams

Eric Savitz knows Business Technology inside and out. He spent 24 years as the “Investing and Technology” reporter for Barron’s magazine in New York and Silicon Valley. He served as a partner at Brunswick Group, an international consulting firm where he had an “up close and personal view” of some of the world’s most important companies. And three months ago, General Motors hired Eric as its corporate editor-in-chief! This week, Eric shares his best insights on “Investing and Tech and its Impact on Global Culture” with our own roving reporter Rotbart. Where can you listen in on magical conversations like this? MondayMorningRadio.com!