So why choose targeted and not simply machine gun as many people as possible? Well for us the answer is simple and comes with a question. When was the last time you responded to a mass mailer, email or cold call?
Yes mass marketing works, yes it typically makes a return, but at what expense?
Our belief is to take more time and trouble over potential clients, subconsciously they will see that you have, appreciate the fact and respond in kind.
You will also be targeting the right clients, with the right message hopefully at the right time.
This will enable you to build rapport, create relationships and eventually business. Which if managed well will add a client for many years to come.
So what are the negatives of target marketing?
- More time taken to develop.
- Less targets.
- More expensive per lead.
- Less brand recognition within the marketplace.
However we believe that the positives make up for these.
The positives of target marketing.
- Higher win ratio as marketing is more personalised.
- More strategic growth of the company as you win the clients you want to win.
- Less wastage.
- Better strategy that can be modified and repeated.
To give you an instance of what I am talking about. A few years ago we ran a DM campaign for a client of ours in Telecoms. We only targeted 200 potential clients not the thousands they had been cold calling previously. They had a 40% response rate from the campaign (80 potential clients) and won 20 new clients from those meetings. The ROI was through the roof (no I won’t tell you, you won’t believe me) and they had 20 clients they wanted and continued to work with and grew the company around.
We look at it like a sniper and a machine gunner. A sniper will take their time, pick their target and use one bullet and know exactly who they are hitting. A machine gunner will shoot at anything that moves, waste huge amounts of ammunition but will hit something.
The big negative to target marketing is the time and effort taken developing the structure, sales cycle, cleansing the data-list, designing the approach and refining the message. However the benefits are huge.
The biggest problem we find is patience however if this can be overcome, your marketing may truly stand out.
