How-To Marketing Guide

STRONGER TOGETHER.

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8 FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS OF A MULTI-CHANNEL MARKETING CAMPAIGN

1. DEVELOP YOUR UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION (UVP)

There are 8 Foundational Elements to Building a Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign1. UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION

2. TARGET AUDIENCE

3. COMPELLING OFFERS

4. CREATIVE STRATEGY & COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

5. LEAD CAPTURE

6. LEAD PASSING

7. LEAD FOLLOW-UP

8. ROI REPORTING

A unique value proposition is a short statement that encompasses the services you’ve provided and how you differentiate yourself from your competitors. Once identified, your messaging in all communication vehicles in your multi-channel campaign will carry this message forward, creating a clear, consistent voice for your company.

A Strong Value Proposition Must:• Capture the attention of your target audience

• Be easy to understand

• Differentiate your company from your competitors

• Be enticing enough to sway a purchase decision

Questions to Ask to Help You Identify Your Unique Value Proposition Include:• What pain do you solve?

• What makes you different?

• Who is your market?

• What are the alternatives?

• Why can’t they say no?

How-To Marketing Guide

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• Strengths – List 3-5 bullet points describing your company’s strengths

• Weaknesses – What weakness do you have in regards to market demand and your current offerings? In regards to your competition?

• Opportunities – What opportunities do you have to increase revenue/profit and gain market share?

• Threats – What are the threats to the market? To your company directly?

1. DEVELOP YOUR UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION (UVP) CONTINUED

Many companies use a SWOT analysis to help them develop their UVP – a simple chart that articulates Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Use the SWOT Analysis Template in the back of this booklet to develop your own SWOT. Ask your team for their input in this exercise.

Th e next step is determining which types of companies will appreciate your value proposition. Start by evaluating your best customers with the mindset of fi nding more just like them. What types of industries, markets and demographics do they represent? If those qualities aren’t refl ected in your current prospect list, you’ll need to build or acquire a new list.

Strengths and Weaknesses are Internal Factors and Relate to the Present Situation

Opportunities and Threats are External Factors and Relate to the Future

STRENGTHS OPPORTUNITIES

WEAKNESSES THREATS

2. MAP YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

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Today, acquiring a targeted list is just a click away. You can purchase or rent lists from a variety of companies. InfoUSA, Experian and other list brokers let you build business-to-business mailing lists by selecting from a multitude of attributes, including:

• Industry type

• SIC code

• Geographic location

• Company size

TIP: A great source for targeted lists are the publications that target the audience you want to reach.

Manage Your ListTo increase the value of your list over time, you’ll need to manage it. Implement a documented maintenance plan to periodically cleanse and append your existing data.

• Compare mailing lists to the National Change of Address (NCOA) or Canadian Change of Address (CCOA) master databases to improve address accuracy and deliverability rates.

• For email lists, check deliverability reports after every send. Remove or correct email addresses that result in a hard bounce.

• At each prospect touchpoint, look for ways to collect information beyond basic address.

• Supplement your list with sales/purchase data from your own systems to understand who your best customers are (so you can find more like them).

Extend Your Reach Outside of Your ListWhile direct marketing (such as direct mail and email) requires a database/list, many communications vehicles in your multi-channel campaign are designed to help you reach outside of your database – online banners, 3rd party eNewsletters, print ads and social media. Identify the publications and other channels that target your audience and build them into your multi-channel campaign.

2. MAP YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE CONTINUED

3. CREATE COMPELLING OFFERS

• Years in business

• Number of employees

• Contacts by job titles

• And more

A strong offer will be relevant to your target audience and enticing enough to motivate recipients to take action. Your salespeople and customer service reps are good sources for brainstorming. Think about the types of offers that will be of most interest to your targets, then give them a compelling reason to respond by making yours:

• Time sensitive – Create a sense of urgency by limiting the time or number of offers available.

• High perceived value – It doesn’t have to be expensive to have value to your prospect.

• Easy to understand – Keep your offer simple and easy to explain so it can be grasped quickly.

• Prominent – Use color, imagery and type size so they don’t miss your call to action.

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3. CREATE COMPELLING OFFERS CONTINUED

Types of OffersAs you brainstorm, consider these tried-and-true offers and how they might be adapted to your marketplace.

Discounts• % off

• Dollars off

• Introductory price

• Buy one, get one free

• Seasonal discount

Keep in mind that while a free gift card offer might generate a higher response, you may get a better quality lead with a content offer, such as a white paper, that is relevant to what you are selling.

4. ESTABLISH A CREATIVE STRATEGY & COMMUNICATIONS CALENDAR

When you use a variety of communications vehicles to communicate your message and offer, it is important to develop a consistent look and feel, or creative strategy. By doing so, your prospects and customers will begin to recognize you in the marketplace, whether in a print ad, online banner or direct mail.

TIP: The My PressGo! program features a number of templates you can leverage for your multi-channel campaign. Be sure to check it out at www.MyPressGo.com

A well-thought-out creative strategy clearly articulates your unique value proposition. It defines what you want to say about your product or service and explains how you want the audience to think about your brand. Use an overarching theme and corresponding imagery to create consistency across all media channels.

When working with an agency or graphic designer, preparing a Creative Strategy Brief for them to follow will help you guide the end result and ensure your creative strategy is aligned with your goals and unique value proposition. Use the CREATIVE STRATEGY BRIEF TEMPLATE in the back of this booklet to help articulate your goals.

With creative strategy identified, you can then develop a calendar of communications vehicles you will utilize to communicate your messages and offers and prepare to launch your multi-channel marketing campaign. The COMMUNICATIONS CALENDAR TEMPLATE in the back of this booklet can be used as a guide to get you started, and you can add or remove communications vehicles as appropriate based on the goals of your campaign.

Content Marketing• White paper

• Research

• eNewsletter

• Case study

Promotions• Premium

• Free sample

• Sweepstakes or contest

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4. ESTABLISH A CREATIVE STRATEGY & COMMUNICATIONS CALENDAR CONTINUED

Now that you’ve developed your unique value proposition, target audience and creative strategy, it’s time to select the various communications vehicles (or channels) that you will utilize to deliver your message and offer to your prospects. Today, marketers have more communications options than ever before.

Here are some of the communications vehicles you may want to consider as part of a multi-touch, multi-channel campaign:

• Direct mail

• Email

• eNewsletters

• Outbound telemarketing

• Paid search

• Organic search

How are you asking the prospect to respond? Call a 1-800#? Visit a PURL or microsite? Send an email or go to your company website? When you launch each of the communications vehicles in your multi-channel marketing campaign, you will want to ensure you have included a way for them to respond.

Many marketers like to give their prospect a variety of ways to respond so that the prospect can easily engage. It is helpful to create a standardized process – such as making it a practice to ALWAYS include your company’s 1-800# and company url in Extended Marketing, and the 800# and personalized urls in Direct Marketing.

PURLs have many advantages, including taking out the registration process for the prospect. As a side note, if you haven’t used PURLs, increasing your response rates is certainly one reason to do so! Industry benchmarks have shown that there is a 50% abandonment rate when a prospect reaches a registration page – meaning they click off the page and do not register. Th at means you lose 50 of 100 responders. With a PURL in place you remove the registration barrier and capture all 100 responders!

Th ere are a variety of ways to get your prospect to respond/engage with you, including:

• 1-800#

• Company website

• PURL

• Microsite

• Email address

• QR Codes

5. CAPTURE LEADS

• Online banners

• 3rd Party eNewsletter

• Webinar sponsorships

• Social media: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter

• Advertising (print ads, radio, outdoor, online)

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It is well known that converting responders to qualifi ed leads requires timely follow-up. Once a prospect responds to your campaign, the response must be quickly followed up on to lead qualify the opportunity. Th ere are many software tools that can automate your lead (response) passing process. Whether you use these tools or pass responses manually, you must have a well-thought-out strategy to get the lead passed quickly to the person who will qualify the opportunity.Know before a prospect responds to your campaign where the response will route to and who will follow-up. Ensure they are aware of the campaign and equipped with the right talk or call guide and sales tools for follow-up.

6. PASS LEADS (RESPONSES)

7. FOLLOW-UP ON LEADS/RESPONSES

8. REPORT ROI

Once the response is quickly passed for lead qualifi cation, it is equally important that TIMELY contact is made to lead qualify the opportunity. Research indicates that nearly half of all inquiries/responders are not followed up within two weeks – if at all! A Marketing Sherpa study confi rms the likelihood to connect is 80x greater if you attempt follow-up within 5 minutes vs. 20x greater if you attempt within 30 minutes. Th e odds of making contact with and qualifying a lead decrease dramatically the longer you wait to follow-up.

Responses should be passed and followed up on within 24-48 hours for the highest conversion rate.

Th e only way to know if your campaigns are meeting your goals and optimize future campaigns is to be diligent in tracking metrics on each communications vehicle.

Use the CAMPAIGN REPORTING TEMPLATE in the back of this booklet as a guide to create a reporting template unique to your campaign. Continue to add onto it with each and every deliverable you launch into market. Th en, you can begin to compare and contrast the success and get a good understanding of which vehicles are performing for you and which need to be optimized.

Common metrics you will want to include in your reporting:

• Open Rates

• Click-Through Rates

• Bounce Rates/Undeliverable

• Response Rates (# of Responders/# Targeted)

• Response-to-Lead Conversion Rates (# of Leads/# of Responders)

• Lead-to-Sale Conversion Rates (# of Sales/# of Leads)

• Cost Per Responder (Campaign Cost/# of Responder)

• Cost Per Lead (Campaign Cost/# of Leads)

• Cost Per Closed Deal (Campaign Cost/# of Closed Deals)

• ROI (Gross Profit Margin attributed to campaign – campaign cost/cost of campaign = ROI)

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SWOT ANALYSIS TEMPLATEFill out the SWOT analysis below to aid you in developing your unique value proposition. Th e examples listed are intended to help you get started, but ask your team for their input, as well.

STRENGTHSWhat characteristics of your business or team give you an advantage over competitors?CapabilitiesEquipment and technologyKnowledgeable staffCustomer serviceQuick turnaroundExperience and reputationGeographic location Pricing strategySales strategyInnovative leadership

WEAKNESSESWhat characteristics of your business or team are lagging behind competitors?CapabilitiesEquipment and technologyInexperienced staffCustomer serviceOrder fulfi llmentGeographic location Pricing strategyLack of innovationLack of expertise in selling new services

OPPORTUNITIESWhat external forces are providing opportunities for your business?Industry move toward integrated marketing servicesNew markets like short-run book publishingNew technologies and equipmentSeasonal demands – holiday and election campaigns

THREATSWhat external issues could cause problems for your business?Less demand for printCommodity pricingEconomic downturnEquipment and technology obsolescence Competition from marketing service providers

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

Appendix

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APPENDIX CONTINUED

CREATIVE STRATEGY BRIEF TEMPLATE

• Objectives

• Target audiences

• Unique value proposition

• Desired customer experience

• Audience pain points

• Messages

• Tone and manner

• Offer(s)

• Calls to action

• Medium or channels that will be used

Points to Consider• Use messaging to tell the audience “What’s in it for them”

• Address audience pain points

• Use a tone that reflects your company’s personality

• Differentiate your offering from your competitors’

• Create a consistent and recognizable theme and graphics

• Make your call-to-action easy to find and easy to respond to

• Always connect – graphically and with messaging – your communications to the response mechanism (landing page, PURLs, etc.) recipients will use to respond

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JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUNE JULY AUG SEPT OCT NOV DEC

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Direct Marketing

- eNewsletter/eMail

- Outbound Calling

- PURL Site

- Microsite

Extended Marketing

Social Media

- Facebook

- Twitter

- YouTube

- Blog

SEO

Print Ads

- List Publication

- List Publication

Editorial Sponsorships

- List Sponsorship

Online Banners & 3rd Party eNewsletters

- List Publication

- List Publication

- List Publication

- List Publication

Live Webinars

- List Webinar

- List Webinar

Offer Development

- List Offer

- List Offer

COMMUNICATIONS CALENDAR TEMPLATE

APPENDIX CONTINUED

CSA HOW-TO MARKETING GUIDE 10

CAMPAIGN REPORTING TEMPLATE

WEBSITE DASHBOARDDate Visits Unique Pageviews Pages/visit Time/visit Bounces Conversions Leads New visits

TOP 5 REFERRERS TOP 5 REFERRERS %

Adwords Organic Direct Online Ads Adwords Organic Direct Online Ads

GOOGLE ADWORDS - PAID SEARCH PROGRAM

Adwords Monthly Cost Lead Forms Avg. Position Cost Per Click

ORGANIC SEARCH PROGRAM POSITIONS

#1 Top 5 1st Page 2nd Page None

APPENDIX CONTINUED

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