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“The magic is in the product…You've got to live
with your product. You've got to get steeped in it. You've got to
get saturated with it.”
Bill Bernbach
- Advertising Age Magazine’s Advertising Person of the Century
Bill Bernbach
was the creative genius behind some of the most profitable
advertising campaigns ever launched. His firm, Doyle Dane
Bernbach, helped clients sell billions of dollars of goods and
services. A key reason for their success was the ability of
DDB’s creative team to find the magic in their client’s
goods and services.
At Positive
Response we take the same approach.
We even call our process Finding Your Magic. This thorough
and detailed approach typically involves five steps:
Step One – With your direction and help your Positive Response team will begin
the process of researching and understanding your company and its
products and services. If appropriate, and your budget allows,
the team leader will visit your office, tour your facilities and
spend a day or two out in the field with one of your sales reps.
In addition, we'll review all of your existing advertising,
marketing and PR materials along with your most recent "white
mail," such as customer testimonials. If your organization
prepares proposals as part of its sales process we'll want to see
one of those as well. Plus, we’ll look over any customer
satisfaction surveys and thumb through back issues of the major
trade magazines serving your industry. And, we’ll surf
the internet to check up on the competition.
Step Two
– As we gain an understanding of your company, your
product(s) and/or service(s), and your current positioning in the
marketplace...potential
tactics,
strategies, and messaging ideas will come to mind. We'll make
note of them -- and, as we become more and more familiar with
your business this increased familiarity will generate
additional questions.
When we’re done we’ll have a list of specific and detailed
questions to go over with you in our interview.
Step Three – Your Positive Response team leader will email you the
interview questions and arrange a time for your tape-recorded
interview. During the interview the two of you will "dig beneath
the surface" and get down to the "nitty-gritty"…as to why people
buy or should buy what you offer. Among the many areas of
questioning, you’ll be asked to -
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Assess your
company’s strengths and weaknesses
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Articulate
what differentiates your company from the competition
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Identify the
opportunities you see in the marketplace
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Point out the
threats to your success
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Describe the
common objections people give for not buying, and how you
overcome these objections
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Give us your thoughts on what
makes for an "A" lead, a "B" lead, and a "C" lead.
Plus, we’ll have detailed questions about your products and
services.
In this free-wheeling interview your answers will trigger new
questions and new information which will trigger new ideas. When
the interview is over, with your permission we’ll have the
audiotape transcribed. This document will serve as a
reference tool and a source of inspiration for ideas, tactics,
and strategies for improving your marketing, messaging and
lead-generation results. (You’ll receive a copy of the transcript,
which can serve as a valuable training tool.)
NOTE: We also recommend that we be allowed to conduct
another, similar interview with one of your company’s top
sales executives. In addition, we'll prepare a questionnaire to be
e-mailed to numerous other salespeople soliciting their written
feedback. Because getting your salesforce's perspective and input
and incorporating some of their ideas into your programs will
help ensure their “buy-in,” – and, make your programs more
effective.
Step Four – We’ll get the customer’s point of view. Are the reasons
you think they buy from you, the reasons they actually
buy? Depending on the size and scope of the project this may
involve only a few informal interviews with some of your better
customers. In other cases, you may want to undertake an in-depth
research project involving enough interviews to achieve a valid
statistical sample.
In addition to validating your beliefs or bringing new truths
to light, third-party customer interviews can benefit you in
other ways as well. For example, they can often elicit excellent
customer testimonials. Plus, they can uncover new sales
opportunities or potential customer defections.
Step Five – Your Positive Response team will review the printed
transcript(s), highlighting key sections and making notes. The
transcript(s), together with information gained from customer
interviews and our other extensive activities…will give us a
rock-solid foundation of knowledge. From this foundation your
skilled Positive Response team will achieve a unique
understanding and insight that will enable us to find the
magic in your product, your service, your company.
Then we will fully exploit this magic to make your Positive
Response project an unqualified success.
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