This is a guest post from WindsorONE’s CEO, Craig Flynn, and Director of Marketing, Brian Bunt. See more posts like this about word of mouth marketing for all types of companies on their blog.
Chances are you have attended an industry tradeshow.
At these shows you walk around from booth to booth and if you see something of interest you have your name scanned by a card reader. When you get back to the office the next day the e-mails start to arrive “we appreciate your interest in xyz…”. You might read a few but most of the e-mails get deleted.
Thirty days later your packages start to arrive. You know the type, the thick letter sized envelopes that are filled to the brim with product catalogs and single sheets. It looks like a literature volcano has exploded on your desk. Again, you might save a few, but the majority hit the recycling can. This is a lot of wasted energy and resources.
Your company is probably guilty of this as well.
Marketing cranks out a bunch of collateral for sales to use to gain business. Science shows us that out of all the material marketing produces, sales uses about 20% of it. This can be pretty disconcerting for a marketer. Still, if you were to ask your marketing department they would tell you that the sales team is always asking for that extra piece of material that will give them the edge. It is your marketing departments job to help start the sales conversation.
Now let’s look at it from the sales side. They look at your marketing pieces as something to help get their foot in the door. It will provide information about who they are and what they do, but it needs to start a conversation.
So how do you give both sides a win? What can your company do to create relevant content to move the sales process forward? How do you give your sales team something to talk about when they walk into a call?
Think packaging…
Chances are the prospective buyer has either been sent an informational packet/e-mail on your company. You need to make this talk worthy.
Step 1:
Dump the e-mail. E-mail is lazy and it lacks creative ideas. Don’t get us wrong, it is a great tool and works well for follow-up, but it is not what you want to use to create a first impression for your company.
Step 2:
Send out some physical information to the customer, but do not make it that boring, old thick envelope. Get creative with your packaging. Create something that the prospect will keep on their desk or in their office. Use information you have on the customer and include a personalized message from the sales person who is going to make the call.
Step 3:
Have your salesperson meet with the prospect already having the conversation started.
Below are two videos of a special package and message a WindsorONE sales-guy created to be memorable and create some sales WOM.
[WindsorONE manufactures high-end wood trim boards and moldings. Lowe’s was stocking a less expensive product of an inferior quality. It was important that samples of the inferior product as well as samples of the WindsorONE product be included in the package so that the prospect could see they were not comparing apples to apples.]
Check out the packaging:
The Sample Box from The Empty Bin on Vimeo.
Check out the DVD-video itself:
ECMD Number Play from The Empty Bin on Vimeo.
About WindsorONE
WindsorONE CEO Craig Flynn and Director of Marketing Brian Bunt are big advocates of word of mouth marketing. Craig has worked with sales organizations across industries, is a certified Miller Heiman Facilitator, Word of Mouth Crash Course speaker, and recipient of Seth Godin's "In My Office" meeting. Brian is constantly working with lumberyards, suppliers, and builders to help them craft campaigns to spread the word about their companies. When they're not working at WindsorONE, they're teaching word of mouth marketing courses at TheEmptyBin.com to companies in different industries from building to insurance.
