Looking for deals for this holiday season?  Well, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the days to buy online.

Look for free shipping deals, special limited-time offers and exclusive product bundles.

My new company, kajeet, is joining in.  We've got free shipping running and if you buy a kids cell phone on Thanksgiving or Black Friday, be sure to use promo code "FRIDAY15" at checkout to get 15% off any cell phone.

Check out the selection of LG Rumor phones in Champagne, White, Blue and Green.  With no contracts and unlimited FREE parental controls and just $169.99, the Rumor at kajeet is a great deal.  With 15% off and free shipping, it's the can't miss wireless gift for the kid in your life this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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How can you tell if an offer is good, i.e., is a strong consumer offer that makes money?

The answer is when the organization making the offer continues to use the offer.  The case in point is Chrysler's "Let's Refuel America" $2.99/gallon gasoline offer, which I wrote about recently.

The offer was supposed to expire in early June, but based on early results--including 25% more web traffic and a 34% increase in Internet leads--the promotion has been extended through July 7th.

Apparently Chrysler has re-crunched the numbers and found the financial results worth continuing making what's turned out to be a very strong offer.  This is good news for the car buyer looking for a deal, the dealers who like the floor traffic and is good for Chrysler, as far as "moving the metal" goes.  (Overall, though, Chrysler is still in trouble.)

The takeaway is that Chrysler's promotion has, once again, proven the old direct response maxim: If you want to dramatically increase your response, dramatically increase your offer.

When was the last time you looked at your offer? How might you reallocate your offer cost to create a more exciting offer that's a true consumer benefit?
photo credit: epicharmus

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If you've gone through the hard work of developing physical products for customers, why not take advantage of the low-cost and free Web 2.0 tools available to help increase adoption of your product and reduce your sales cycle?

A perfect case in point is Octane Fitness and their line of elliptical trainers.

We were in the market for an elliptical trainer for about 6 months, when we finally pulled the trigger in early April on an Octane Q37ce trainer.  Since then, we've been extremely happy with the investment.  I've found that a six-day-a-week workout routine is easy to maintain and have seen marked improvements in my level of cardiovascular fitness.

So why did it take 6 months to purchase a product that I; a) really wanted; b) really needed; and c) is a terrific product that fits my needs exactly?

After reflecting for a month and doing some additional research, it's clear that Octane could have cut the sales cycle down to under a month.  Here's how.

Our month and a half with the product has been great. It's sturdy, has a number of very usable electronic training programs and it fits both Mary Beth and I quite well.

The key product benefit for us? It has narrow pedal spacing, which makes the stride very comfortable for both myself (5' 8") and Mary Beth (4' 11").

Of course, neither of us knew that pedal spacing was important (to us, anyway) or the other features and benefits of a trainer that might be important.

And we didn't find the answer when we started doing some basic searches for information about elliptical trainers.

This is the point where we get into the marketing of elliptical trainers and where Octane Fitness could easily improve their efforts.

AIDA and SEO

Let's see where Octane Fitness could have done better in the old AIDA model through some simple improvement in their SEO and other online marketing tactics.  We got stuck in the "A" part of the funnel for a number of months, even though we were intent on buying home fitness equipment.

Attention/Interest

Try some searches on elliptical trainers or for elliptical trainer reviews.  The search results, whether you use Yahoo or Google are disappointing and confusing.

The SERPs return mostly SEO'd pages from various manufacturers or online retailers that clearly don't offer any real consumer point of view on the best elliptical trainers.  The landing pages are mostly garbage and devoid of objective information.

Within a few minutes of searching, I came to the conclusion that the entire fitness equipment industry was somewhat sleazy.  Not an environment conducive to immediate purchase decisions and I froze here while I tried to figure out who to trust for unbiased information on the product category.

How could Octane do better to improve Attention and Interest? A few quick suggestions:

1. Build an online community.  It doesn't have to be complex.  It could be as simple as a Yahoo or Google group or a message board.  Get some deep and unique content generated about the benefits of the products.  As that takes hold, real consumer information will start to show on the SERPs and will counteract the impact of sleazy SEO tactics.
2. Improve/start SEM efforts.  I just checked and still see zero efforts by Octane in SEM.  Create a thoughtful SEM strategy that targets consumers at key points in the purchase cycle funnel with the right information to counteract the SEO efforts of the competition.  Octane could have driven me to the right retailer in our area, Fitness Resource, to demo the product.

Decision

How do people decide on which product to buy?  Increasingly, it's through word-of-mouth (or blog).  Octane has to get it's satisfied customers (like me) to write and blog about their products.

How can Octane get customers to blog about their products and participate in community?

1. Launch an effective email program.  I registered my trainer online the day after it was delivered.  As I write this, I haven't received a single communication from Octane.  Why not email me to thank me for purchasing?  Or encourage me to participate in their online community?  Or ask a trainer how to make better use of my purchase?
2. Build the online community. Give people a chance to talk about their product and how to use it.  When prospective customers identify with a current product owner and get an honest and unbiased review of the product, it opens the door for Action.

Action

The key to driving action is to give me an immediate reason to buy today.  If you check out Elliptical Trainer Deals on Yahoo search, nothing from Octane or Octane retailers pops up.

How can Octane Fitness drive action?

1. MDF to retailers for use in SEM.  Provide your retailers MDF to spend on SEM and for incentives, such as free home delivery or a free floor mat, to drive traffic to the stores where the sales people can close the sale.  This is a particularly good tactic if you're not doing any SEM (as appears to be the case with Octane) or if you sell through retailers instead of direct to consumer.

Summary and key takeaways

As you can see, building great products is just the start.  Even manufacturers of physical goods need to use new "pull" marketing techniques to complete the sale.  A quick checklist:

1. Are you using your database? If you're asking for customer information and they give it to you, are you taking the time to thoughtfully engage the customer in a conversation about the products?
2. Give the customers a chance to talk with each other. Even if the interaction between your customers isn't always positive, you have the opportunity to learn about how your products are being perceived in the marketplace.  And if they're collectively raving about the product, you'll rise above the SEO noise screen your competitors might be tossing up.

Are there any products you've used that could benefit from the free/low-cost techniques available now?  How would, say, manufacturers of industrial pumps take advantage of Web 2.0 in their marketing?

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Are you using sampling in your marketing efforts?  Ad Age had a quick article on some of the sampling efforts being undertaken by major marketers this summer.

What's old is new again.  Is it better to hit a prospect with 3 to 5 impressions and tell them about your product or is it better to put the product in their mouth or on their skin and show them how great it is?

If you think about it, the Web 2.0 technique of giving away your entire product dates back to the days of the local shopkeeper.  

Back in the day, the general store owner would give you a taste of what was in the barrel to get you to purchase the product.  Now, digital products and services providers allow you to use virtually all of their services free of charge, with the hope that you'll come back repeatedly and purchase the premium (paid) product or generate pageviews to generate advertising revenue.

Sampling's an old marketing technique, but it's taken hold in Web 2.0 products and, with the advent of more granular tracking tools, is becoming more popular with traditional CPG.

As Winston Churchill once said, "The further back I look, the further forward I can see."  What other "old" marketing techniques can you think of that can be resurrected in your marketing efforts?

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My first post of 2008 comes as the result of a fairly normal activity that many of us--if we listen to the financial gurus and our financial advisors--undertake every year.  Namely, double-checking our financial records, investment portfolio allocations, life insurance and so forth.

During this year's analysis of my bank accounts, I found that a teaser rate from Wachovia bank had expired and the interest rate on one of my money market accounts had gone down from 4.75% to the standard rate of 1.75%.  As the result of a couple of phone calls and some quick online banking, Wachovia lost a large chunk of my business that they needn't have.

And they could have prevented it all by taking a lesson from Willams-Sonoma.

Salt, gold (investment grade) and the like are as close to pure commodities as you can get.  Banking services, thanks to the lack of creativity on the part of the major banks, aren't much less of a commodity than pure salt.  Money market accounts, for example, offer a given rate of interest for your deposit with a certain number of allowed transfers per month, linkage to other accounts at the bank, access via branch and ATM and online and--importantly--FDIC insurance to protect your investment.

If you take a look at money market accounts from the major banks, you'll find that they are more-or-less the same.  The rates will vary slightly, banking hours will be slightly different and the UI for the online banking portals will vary.  Otherwise, the deal is that you put your money in and, on a regular basis, your account is credited the proper interest per the agreement you have with the bank.

A few years ago, after the banks were deregulated and before the rise of online banking, Google and Web 2.0, the banks had a decided advantage in the business to consumer relationship.  Once you were secured as a customer, it was a lot easier for the bank to hold you.  After all, to decide to move your money to another bank, you'd have to go through a lot of phone calls or in-person visits.  Then, assuming you wanted to move your money, it was more in-person visits--usually at times that were very inconvenient to you--to take care of all the paperwork necessary to get a quarter- or half-point more in interest.

Now the playing field has been leveled.

Once I discovered that my teaser rate had gone down, I did a couple of quick searches.  It turns out that a number of banks such as HSBC, Commerce and a couple of local credit unions, have non-teaser rates in the 4.2 to 4.5% rates, all of which are much better than Wachovia's crummy 1.75%.  So, I rang up Wachovia and asked if they'd give me a better rate.

Wachovia had a golden opportunity to keep (not even win back, but just keep) my business on that phone call.  And instead of arming their customer service reps with powerful products and terrific offers, served up through benefit-oriented scripting, they instead armed them with popguns.

I was offered the opportunity to move my funds to a CD with a 5.05% interest rate.  But that product required me to lock up my funds for at least 5 months.  No thanks.  I offered the rep a chance to extend the introductory rate to keep my business and he wasn't able to do that.  When I asked him "got anything else", he said "no".

So I thanked him and within 3 minutes of hanging up, moved my money to an existing online account that currently pays well over 4.25%.

What does my banking story have to do with direct response marketing?

Plenty.  Let's look at salt.  It's just NaCl and you can buy it in various forms.  At Peapod, for example, you can get Giant brand salt for $0.42/lb, get fancy with Morton brand at $0.55/lb or splurge with Hain Pure Foods sea salt at $1.53/lb.  That's right, you can pay almost 3X for a product that's arguably less pure than the Giant or Morton's brands.

But that's nothing.  Check out Williams-Sonoma, who charges almost 44X the Giant brand for their sea salt. Now there's a marketer who understands how to decommoditize a product offering!

What did Williams-Sonoma do to be able to charge 44X more for salt than Giant?  It wasn't much.  Sure, there's the W-S stores in the malls, which are costly to staff, stock and operate.  But aside from the stores, the salt is packaged a little better.  There's a better story around the salt; after all, salt dried out by hand from the sea by a glamorous Frenchman beats the heck out of something blasted out of a mine in Pennsylvania by a sweaty miner.  Other than that, it's the same stuff.

The difference between Giant brand and Williams-Sonoma salt is in the 4 P's:

• Product.  Hand-dried in the sun vs. dug of the the dirty ground.
• Place. France vs. some hole in the ground.
• Promotion. Well written catalog story vs. unit cost tag on a low shelf.
• Price. Heavy premium vs. cheaper than the dirt it was dug out of.

So what could have Wachovia done to make me be at least OK with 1.75% interest?  How about:

• Product. Add a "free" financial plan for my family and myself?
• Place. Waive up to $20/month in foreign ATM fees for as long as I kept the money with them?
• Promotion. Offer double the FDIC insurance, provided by Lloyds of London at no charge to me?
• Price. Get the interest rate at least a little closer to the competition, provided some adjustments are made on Product, Place or Promotion.

That's just a few off-the-cuff ideas.  I'm sure that bankers know of hundreds of possible changes to the marketing mix to allow their products to be different from the muck of commodity product offerings and dramatically increase their profit margins.

Summary and takeaways

1. Don't sell commodity products.  If Williams-Sonoma can sell salt at 44X the going rate with a better package and an interesting story, you can turn your commodity into an exclusive product as well.
2. Give your customer service agents the ability to retain customers.  Know your customer LTV and give the reps wide leeway in doing as much as possible to retain your hard-won customers.  You'll also find that the reps will perform even better once they are confident they've got tools in the toolkit that actually work.
3. Continue developing new products.  Unless you've got a mile-wide barrier to entry around your product, you will be commoditized.  If you're not selling salt, you don't have to worry about the guy in the mine next door.

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