Time to get NUDE!

IT’S TIME TO GET N.U.D.E!

Not your average business catch-cry, admittedly, but then again, there’s nothing average about N.U.D.E. Marketing.

With over 50 years of marketing and business experience, N.U.D.E. can provide your business with solutions to issues ranging from improved marketing returns to increased employee productivity.

The N.U.D.E. brand came from listening carefully to what businesses constantly ask for -  solutions that are New Uncomplicated Different and Effective.  That’s what we provide. We achieve this by turning intelligence into relevance, for your business, your staff and your customers. We take a channel-neutral approach to finding solutions. After all, channel selection is only a relevant consideration once the audience has been identified, and digital delivery is not necessarily the answer to every communication task – the audience dictates the channel.

Kym McInerney has been managing director of several of Melbourne’s largest Customer Relationship Management agencies (CMC, Grey Direct & EWA) and has worked with businesses including Myer Grace Bros, Honda, Officeworks, Telstra, ANZ Bank, Integrated Packaging, Mobil, Ford, Sancella, Blood Bank, World Vision, TAC, OfficeLife, GN Netcom, McMillan Shakespeare, Roundhouse Entertainment, PROV, RACV, Heidelberg, Monash University, Reclink, Stem Cells Australia, Cenitex, GTAC and many more. His key strengths are strategic planning & facilitation, customer engagement and communications effectiveness audits, creative development and leadership/management coaching.

Kim Gasperino has extensive experience in retail and business marketing including customer segmentation, brand-building and customer communications. Kim also provides individualised programs designed to improve employee productivity. This experience has been gained over 20 years through working in and with businesses such as Target, CML corporate, Ford, Roundhouse Entertainment, EWA Australia, Cenitex, Reclink, MS Society, Ozchild, SANDS Australia and the Public Record Office of Victoria.

Services offered by N.U.D.E. Marketing:

·        Marketing effectiveness audits/review.

·        Customer segmentation analysis – strategy & development.

·        Business and Marketing Plan development.

·        New business pitch facilitation.

·        Brand and customer communications – development & execution.

·        Stakeholder/Staff communications.

·        Corporate memory documentation.

·        Leadership Coaching & process improvement facilitation for employees.

For further information or an initial 30-minute discussion on how N.U.D.E. Marketing can help your business prosper, contact Kym McInerney or Kim Gasperino on 03 9587 2404 or visit www.nudemarketing.com.au.

We look forward to helping you build your business.

Do expectations in CRM need changing?

The following information is taken from a report recently published by Salesstaff.com titled "100 Sales and Marketing Stats that will blow your mind".

I am not sure how wide a range of industries this covers and whether this figure encompasses high-consideration and low-consideration purchases, new sales and cross sales to existing customers, but assuming this is an average across all of these categories, it certainly flags some interesting points for discussion.

Pressure to perform and 'close' sales continues to escalate. It is simply the nature of business. The combination of technology and improved targeting opportunities has, for many businesses, increased the ability to attract more leads at a cheaper CPL than ever before. And predictive modelling based on past behaviour, life-stage, psycho-demographic profiling and propensity to purchase has certainly improved the ability for cross-selling.

Interestingly however, a widely-held belief and practice amongst many sales people I come across is based on the '3 strikes and out' philosophy where efforts and hopes are placed on the next prospect once the 3 attempts for a 'no sale' result have been made. Given the above figures, perhaps the expectations of businesses need revising.

Clearly, the strategy for high value/high consideration purchases warrants a more sustained effort, a range of strategies and a kit-bag of tactics before giving up, and it is assumed that the selling business clearly understands the metrics in terms of cost per lead (CPL) and cost per sale (CPS) so it knows when it really is time to lapse a prospect.

But I wonder - is it time for a paradigm shift in sales and CRM thinking? Does possessing the ability to so easily shop around, to be much more discerning, empower prospects to now demand more attention, more effort and more 'love' before committing their hard-earned money to a product or service? And if so, are all of your sales people really clear about the 'lead-sale-cross sell-retain' cycle and is this reflected in their targets?

Regardless of business size, having the right metrics in place is vital to gaining a clear understanding of what's working and what isn't. After all, if you can't benchmark it, you can't beat it!  

Add some real value - or someone else will!

I can't remember who sent me this visual but I believe it sums up beautifully the situation in which many service providers find themselves - and often as a result of their own actions. Or inaction to be more precise.

It never ceases to astound just how many business web sites and other branded collateral is littered with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and inconsistencies such as font size, punctuation, spacing, capitalisation, multi-language spelling variations and text alignment.

And these quality issues should be picked up and rectified, particularly if the Brand promotes itself as "expert', "professional", world-class", "industry-leading" etc. Now don't get me wrong, errors will always occur, such is the nature of our endemic 'speed-to-market' environment and the fact that the creators are so close to it that little oversights are quite often missed. However, while accepting these factors, this does not excuse the fact that these taints on the Brand are not picked up and rectified quickly.

Maybe, in a world where spelling and grammatical bastardisations are acceptable thanks to the need for speed and the ever-pervasive "add to dictionary" function on all electronic devices, these errors aren't considered errors at all. Or perhaps my expectations of state-of-the-art, market-leading, subject matter experts with a reputation for quality, professionalism and integrity are simply unrealistic.

However, for as long as I can remember, marketing and communications specialists/experts/gurus/service providers have prided themselves on being the protectors of Brands, developers and custodians of a Brand's persona, its attitude reflected by how it is portrayed and, hopefully, enhanced.

So while marketers can not control all of the Brand touch points such as face-to-face customer service, store or office layout or phone-based customer interactions, they certainly can on all things promotional including web, brochureware and other collateral.

Want to keep your existing clients happy and continue to be recognised as a valued member of Team Client? Then you should probably take a little more time to review the work once it has gone live, particularly in the digital space where volume is increasing. After all, you'd hate to lose a client based on the fact that one of your competitors drew published mistakes to their attention!

Handy Analytics Resource

Good reference for everyone wanting to better understand social media.

https://plus.google.com/111224383669619377607/posts/W1DVfPTpt3J

N.U.D.E. Insights: B2B, B2C social media insights

N.U.D.E. Insights: B2B, B2C social media insights

B2B, B2C social media insights

If you want to know some very interesting facts and figures about the usage and impact of the various B2B and B2C social media channels and SEO, have a look at the article that I came across on the CMO Network group on Linkedin titled '100 Sales & Marketing Stats that will Blow your Mind'.

One of the key statistics that stands out to me is the increase in the number of interactions reported between an initial brand touch and a sale - it might be back to the drawing board of expectation management for many businesses that still operate on the allowable of 3 or 4 contacts. 

There also appear to be many lost opportunities for gaining valuable client testimonials, largely based on the fact that most customers are not asked for them - and are yet willing to give them..

Very interesting insights here. Happy reading.

Ps. You will need to sign up to obtain the report and you can opt out of future contact - see the link below.

http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fokt%2Eto%2Fe7V9tV&urlhash=1i4p

Testing Times

When was the last time you DIDN'T open a plain faced envelope personally addressed to you?

Over the next few weeks, we will be running a series of effectiveness tests with a client to assess the reach and response impact of traditional mail vs email. This particular client is in the financial services industry.

Clearly, the cost of preparation and delivery favours the electronic version (Cell A). Both Cell B, the plain white envelope delivered via AusPost, and Cell A will each inform the recipient of the sending company - via the "From" & "Subject" fields in the email and the "If undeliverable..." address on the envelope. Importantly, the text and layout will be identical in the interests of ensuring there is only one variable between groups.

Whether there is any difference in the desired client-action rate based on the delivery method is yet to be seen. And the analysis of the customers that do respond should be able to provide some insight into whether there is any discernible difference between 'letter openers' and 'email readers'.

Although simplistic, this form of continual testing is important. The more we continue to learn about our clients' behaviour and the triggers that elicit that behaviour, the more likely we are to able to achieve better returns through improved CRM tactics - after all, CRM is actually a two-way street.