We head for the airport tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM and we’ll be on the road most of the week. We thought we’d leave you with the best relationship-building, perception-improving marketing tool EVER.
Impact 8™ -- The Best Stealth Marketing Tool Ever
Years from now someone will spend millions of dollars to study American life circa 2011 and wonder who these people were who desperately need to lose weight, perfect their relationships, look younger, make certain body parts larger, get their “medical needs” on-line, buy fake Rolex watches, and grab those PhDs they so richly deserve but have not earned.
Sigh.
That’s a typical day of email for us. 1748 messages, 95% of it is junk that gets nuked ASAP and 5% actual mail.
The snail mail isn’t much better. Our mail box is typically brimming with bills, and a bunch of offers from companies we have never heard of, let alone do business with. That and fourteen “You have already been approved” credit card applications. On a good day there’s mail that arrives in a handwritten envelope.
Guess which one we open first?
The telephone isn’t much better. At least ten times a day, in the office and at home, we answer the phone with a smile in our voices only to be greeted by silence then a recorded message that is supposed to encourage us to act immediately but instead we just hang up the phone.
We all have far too much impersonal communication in our lives. Most of us rarely receive handwritten notes or letters so when we do it’s a big deal. Anything handwritten gets opened first – there are studies that back that up. It’s the personal touch that gets our attention.
We discovered the power of the personal touch years ago and have shared its secret in every single presentation for one simple reason: It works. We call it Impact 8™, a simple technique that can make you the most visible person in your company, or the most talked about store in your community. Impact 8™ has elevated some retailers to celebrity status, and even created a cult following among their own customers. And all in the amount of time it takes to have a cup of coffee each morning!
There are two parts to Impact 8™. Part one involves a personal telephone call to four customers you spoke to or worked with the day before. This isn’t a telemarketing scam; in fact the only rule is that you are not allowed to talk about business unless the customer brings it up. If you happen to get the customer’s answering machine, its okay to leave a message – you’ll make their day.
Here’s a sample conversation:
“Hello Mrs. Customer? This is Joy at XYZ Store. How are you today?”
After the customer has had a chance to respond, you say:
“I enjoyed speaking with you yesterday and I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for your business. I know that you have lots of choices, and I thank you for choosing my store. If there is ever anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to call me anytime.”
Call four customers per day and watch what happens! But that’s only the first part of Impact 8™.
For the second part of Impact 8™ you’re going to need blank note cards (about 3.5” X 5” or 5” X 7” in size) printed on the front with your photo, a photo of your store, your logo -- you choose, plus your store's name and address. You will also need the names and addresses of four customers you spoke or worked with the day before – these customers are going to get a personal note from you.
There are a few rules:
1. The note must be handwritten. (Handwritten mail is always the first mail to be opened.)
2. You must address the envelope by hand. (You’re only doing four a day so this is no big deal.)
3. You must use real stamps. (Weird or interesting stamps, and you might consider using different denominations to make the envelope look really different!)
Your note can say something like this:
“Dear Mrs. Customer,
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your business. I know that you have a lot of businesses to choose from and I appreciate your choosing my store. I have enclosed my business card, if there is ever anything I can do for you; please do not hesitate to call me anytime.”
If you implement Impact 8™ just four days a week, you will impact 32 customers per week; 128 customers per month; and 1536 customers per year. And if those customers tell just ten others, as they typically will, that’s 15,360 people! And because customers have a tendency to believe what other customers tell them, the word of mouth advertising and good will you’ll generate is immeasurable. You’ll become legendary and your competition will never know what hit them!
Impact 8™ builds the best kind of advertising you can have: Word-of-mouth – it’s so powerful that a consumer study done by BIGresearch found that “Word of Mouth” was the number one thing that brought new customers to stores.
Add to the positive word-of-mouth you’ll build, you are also creating a Stealth Marketing campaign. Stealth Marketing is a Street Savvy™ strategy that is designed to help you to attract customers. The cool thing about Stealth Marketing is that it operates "under the radar" and is rarely noticed by your competition because they’re too busy looking for your ads. All they’ll notice is less cars in their parking lot and more cars in yours.
Impact 8™ -- The Best Stealth Marketing Tool Ever
Years from now someone will spend millions of dollars to study American life circa 2011 and wonder who these people were who desperately need to lose weight, perfect their relationships, look younger, make certain body parts larger, get their “medical needs” on-line, buy fake Rolex watches, and grab those PhDs they so richly deserve but have not earned.
Sigh.
That’s a typical day of email for us. 1748 messages, 95% of it is junk that gets nuked ASAP and 5% actual mail.
The snail mail isn’t much better. Our mail box is typically brimming with bills, and a bunch of offers from companies we have never heard of, let alone do business with. That and fourteen “You have already been approved” credit card applications. On a good day there’s mail that arrives in a handwritten envelope.
Guess which one we open first?
The telephone isn’t much better. At least ten times a day, in the office and at home, we answer the phone with a smile in our voices only to be greeted by silence then a recorded message that is supposed to encourage us to act immediately but instead we just hang up the phone.
We all have far too much impersonal communication in our lives. Most of us rarely receive handwritten notes or letters so when we do it’s a big deal. Anything handwritten gets opened first – there are studies that back that up. It’s the personal touch that gets our attention.
We discovered the power of the personal touch years ago and have shared its secret in every single presentation for one simple reason: It works. We call it Impact 8™, a simple technique that can make you the most visible person in your company, or the most talked about store in your community. Impact 8™ has elevated some retailers to celebrity status, and even created a cult following among their own customers. And all in the amount of time it takes to have a cup of coffee each morning!
There are two parts to Impact 8™. Part one involves a personal telephone call to four customers you spoke to or worked with the day before. This isn’t a telemarketing scam; in fact the only rule is that you are not allowed to talk about business unless the customer brings it up. If you happen to get the customer’s answering machine, its okay to leave a message – you’ll make their day.
Here’s a sample conversation:
“Hello Mrs. Customer? This is Joy at XYZ Store. How are you today?”
After the customer has had a chance to respond, you say:
“I enjoyed speaking with you yesterday and I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for your business. I know that you have lots of choices, and I thank you for choosing my store. If there is ever anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to call me anytime.”
Call four customers per day and watch what happens! But that’s only the first part of Impact 8™.
For the second part of Impact 8™ you’re going to need blank note cards (about 3.5” X 5” or 5” X 7” in size) printed on the front with your photo, a photo of your store, your logo -- you choose, plus your store's name and address. You will also need the names and addresses of four customers you spoke or worked with the day before – these customers are going to get a personal note from you.
There are a few rules:
1. The note must be handwritten. (Handwritten mail is always the first mail to be opened.)
2. You must address the envelope by hand. (You’re only doing four a day so this is no big deal.)
3. You must use real stamps. (Weird or interesting stamps, and you might consider using different denominations to make the envelope look really different!)
Your note can say something like this:
“Dear Mrs. Customer,
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your business. I know that you have a lot of businesses to choose from and I appreciate your choosing my store. I have enclosed my business card, if there is ever anything I can do for you; please do not hesitate to call me anytime.”
If you implement Impact 8™ just four days a week, you will impact 32 customers per week; 128 customers per month; and 1536 customers per year. And if those customers tell just ten others, as they typically will, that’s 15,360 people! And because customers have a tendency to believe what other customers tell them, the word of mouth advertising and good will you’ll generate is immeasurable. You’ll become legendary and your competition will never know what hit them!
Impact 8™ builds the best kind of advertising you can have: Word-of-mouth – it’s so powerful that a consumer study done by BIGresearch found that “Word of Mouth” was the number one thing that brought new customers to stores.
Add to the positive word-of-mouth you’ll build, you are also creating a Stealth Marketing campaign. Stealth Marketing is a Street Savvy™ strategy that is designed to help you to attract customers. The cool thing about Stealth Marketing is that it operates "under the radar" and is rarely noticed by your competition because they’re too busy looking for your ads. All they’ll notice is less cars in their parking lot and more cars in yours.
Impact 8™ and Street Savvy™ are trademarks of
Rich Kizer and Georganne Bender . KIZER & BENDER Speaking!
COPYRIGHT KIZER & BENDER . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
COPYRIGHT KIZER & BENDER . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Great ideas! It's funny how we've come back to "handwritten" vs "computer generated". In the 90's handwritten usually meant "small and cheesy" when I got something from a business in the mail. Now it says, "Personal" because we are bombarded with too much of the impersonal.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a blog worth following. You’ve got a great deal to say about this subject, and so much knowledge. I think that you know how to make people listen to what you have to say, especially with an issue that’s so important. I’m glad to know this blog.
ReplyDeleteNo second thought on value of WORDS OF MOUTH Advertising. It is the method of advertising that make sure that you got most qualified lead for your business. Other methods has their important but this method is crucial and beats other methods of advertising when come to conversion
ReplyDelete