The Gilman Company Blog

The Communications Audit: How to Get Started

This is not the post about the importance of branding. You're beyond that. This one is the post about getting started with one of the most important elements of branding: your front-line communications.

"Audit" in this context is just another way of saying that you're going to take a close look at an element of your operations with an eye toward improvement. One of the first material steps you can take to effectively enhance how your customers perceive your company is conducting a communications audit.

Get everything together. Everything. Brochures, websites, email templates, text content, magazines, the products, press releases, business cards, signage, ads, the music that plays when your customers are on hold, anything that the world perceives your product or service through. If it's not already, get it all on paper.

Once you have everything together, scan through all of it quickly. Is there cohesion or chaos? Does the look, feel and tone of your communications represent the unified vision, goals and fundamental objectives of your organization or are you sending mixed signals to your customers?

Not concerned about cohesion in communications? Without it, your customers may never experience, understand or recognize the core values of your organization and brand, and brand recognition is why your customers will be loyal, why your customers will pay a premium for your product or service. Whether you're a local printer or a national brand, you can leverage the value of a communications audit followed by an organized effort to improve.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Stephen King, Sending Email and Heavenly Bliss

Stephen King has written that he believes Hell is repetition. Any guy that has the wherewithal and talent to sell a bazillion books has to be onto something, right?  What does that have to do with your business and sending email, you ask? It has to do with you becoming more productive, efficient and avoiding repetition Hell.

Repetition Hell
You type out several virtually identical emails a day or every week that are virtually identical in content. Essentially, you're responding in the same way to inquiries or you're reaching out with the same type of message/information.

Purgatory (You're Almost There)
Who doesn't deplore needless typing. It's a waste of your time, your life and your abilities to be exceptionally efficient and productive. So, you type a message template once, copy and paste when necessary and throw in an occasional and personalized nice-ity. Better than repetition Hell, but aren't you really wanting Heavenly Bliss?

Heavenly Bliss
Create a unique page on your website with an easy alias URL related to the type of information you're getting out. Now, your three or four paragraphs turns into a line or two of personalized greatness and a short and easy URL.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Grocery Store Membership Cards

Dear Chain Grocery Store CMOs,

Yes, membership cards seemed like a good idea at the time. But let's face it. There is no value in grocery store membership card programs for customers and your not realizing the type of value that seemed to exist from a conceptual perspective. Here are a few reasons why you should drop your membership card program first and take credit as the industry leader who did so:

1. Obviously, all of the retail chain grocery store competitors in your category have the same program.

2. A lot of the data you collect is bogus.

3. The rewards you offer aren't compelling and unique enough to retain a customer that you wouldn't retain without a card program.

4. Now you have a duty to inform people when they may have purchased bad food. "Dear Valued Customer, we sold you some bad food."

5. Your card program is a hassle for potential new customers.

6. You give so-called preferred treatment to some customers and the others are chopped liver.

7. Wal-Mart has been expanding grocery sales since "Go" and they don't have a card. Although customers will still come in for your extensive mustard selection...unless it's cheaper at a card-less discount grocer.

8. You can reduce your marketing budget by eliminating membership cards and have something new to talk about or pass the savings along to customers.

9. Unless you're a discount chain, the real value in your local stores is location, personal service and selection, not membership. Spend more money marketing that stuff.

10. Relating to the people who come into your stores as "customers" is more important to them than relating to them as "members."

Get a Gilman consultation.

What is a Decision?

When the phone rings in your sales call center, do you make a decision to answer it? The correct answer, usually, is "no." The answer is "no" because some things in business that have to be addressed can and should only be addressed in only one way...if you want to maximize your chances of success in business.

When a basketball player turns over a play and he's running toward the goal without a single defensive player from the other team in site, does he make a decision to do a layup or try for a three pointer? No. There are some things in basketball that can and should be addressed in only one way...if you want to maximize your chances of success in basketball.

Generally, there is only one set of circumstances where a decision to pick up the phone in a your sales call center is made. Generally, there is also only one set of circumstances where a basketball player running toward the goal unchallenged will make a decision between a layup and a slam dunk. In both cases, the individual who turns this one way only situation into a decision making opportunity doesn't know what to do.

These "one way only" cases that are converted into a decision making opportunity happen a lot with technology based projects, sometimes because of a communication gap or deficiency between the people who know what to do and the people who don't. Sometimes it happens because an ego takes precedent over maximizing the chances of success. The same problem arises in marketing, logistics, accounting, PR, etc., etc.

Bonus Tip: Figure out who it is that know and who doesn't know.

Get a Gilman consultation.

SEO: Things that Matter

Here, a few search engine optimization considerations that matter when it comes to your site. These are some of the considerations that web site owners often overlook.

1. Size Matters: most advanced search engines take font size into consideration.

2. Placement Matters: generally, the content that you have toward the top of the page is given more importance. However, this blogger has seen cases where content from the very bottom of the page is grabbed by Google as a site description (the words just under the link in Google search results).

3. Bold Matters: Search engines recognize bold text as text that is more important than text that is not bold.

4. Page Titles Matter: Look in the title bar of the web browser when you visit your web page. Whatever content you have there will show up as the link text in your Google search results. Example: Visit The Gilman Company website. In the title bar it says, "Welcome to the Gilman Company" Now search Google for "Gilman Company." On the first page of results, you'll see "Welcome to the Gilman Company".

5. Sentences Matter: The days of simple keyword use on your site are over. Google and other search engines wised up and now look for actual writing, actual sentences.

Note: Search engine technology is very smart. Trying to beat the system with overdoing any specific technique typically doesn't work. Also, don't forget that your visitors still have to consume the information on your site and going overkill with one or more technique can turn your visitors off.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Existing Customers vs. New Customers: Marketing and Sales(Part II)

If your only marketing goal is to source new customers or members, you’re losing out on sustainable growth. That means you’re not optimizing the lifetime value of each customer. Unless you’re running a lonely gas station in the middle of nowhere that caters to the occasional passer by, existing customers should be a priority.

Because the attention span of consumers can be short and because consumers love trends, marketing efforts to retain existing customers or members should focus on the reason why your existing customer became a customer in the first place: “value.” If you keep a close eye on your competitors, this marketing focus might need to change to “added value.”

Also, it’s almost always less expensive to keep an existing customer than it is to track down a new one. This is precisely why the sophisticated players in this game are often willing to pass a part of that savings on to existing customers in the form of loyalty based incentives.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Existing Customers vs. New Customers: Marketing and Sales (Part I)

One of the greatest marketing flaws I see on a regular basis occurs when a company focused marketing (dollars) on either existing customers or new customers, but not both. First, existing customers.

Focusing all of your marketing or sales efforts on existing customers is a great way to create a downward spiral in sales and growth. One of the reasons why a marketer’s job is never over in a relatively free market is because customers always move on at some point. On one end, a customer tries your product and doesn’t like it. That customer is lost. On the other end, they try your product, love it, buy it over and over again for several years and then they…well…die. Either way, if you only market to your existing customers, you will eventually fail.

Ignoring your existing customers, on the other hand is much like chasing your tail. Maybe “reinventing the wheel” is a better platitude. Either way, your existing customers should be coveted and marketing efforts that are uniquely designed to keep them coming back should be planned and implemented.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Marketing Profile: The Unsuccessful Database Pimp

You’ve been pimping the same database for a years. Yes, you. You bounce thousands of messages every time. You’re not ICANN compliant and a good number of the messages you happen to get through never meet an eyeball, but go directly to one of the many black holes of marketing, this one called “Junk Mail.” You are an unsuccessful database pimp.

Although you may not technically be a “spammer,” you apply the same success ratio mentality as spammers. Every time you get a few thousand messages through, it does create a successful lead or two. When the successes get far and few between, as they always do, you dump more mildly relevant data into your database and keep on truckin’.

Fret not! There is hope. Here’s what you do. Establish a “permission marketing” approach. Commit to a more targeted approach to marketing. Segment your marketing campaign. More data is always better, but better data is always best.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Aligning Costs with Revenues

Now that you've had a few months to settle in to 2009 and we're all brushing the dust from the onset of the economic downturn, you probably have a good idea of where your cash flow is at and what you can probably expect throughout the remainder of 2009.

If you're not already, this would be an excellent time to take a magnifying glass to your costs and revenues. Your cash flow could be one of the most critical elements of your ability to get to the other side of this downturn. Cash flow is about surviving. Profit and loss reports are about how well you happen to be doing. Look at all of you data in each of these areas closely.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Seth Chavez

Quality vs. Quantity: Customer Service Call Centers

Logging calls might be a good measurement of how efficient your call center is, but are you really throwing money at your call center to support efficiency or is it to enhance the goodwill your company has with customers by providing great customer service?

Where does the value from your customer service investment go and where do you want it to go? Is picking up the phone enough? With your customer service investment, are you trying to address a quantity issue or a quality issue?

How well your customer service staff resolve a complaints is hard to measure empirically with call logs. One way to take a stab at this is by collecting data (electronically) on each call. For smaller organizations, a simple list of check boxes, perhaps in a spreadsheet, that will only take a few brief moments to complete will provide some added insight.

Also, training call center staff on how to effectively relate to customer service issues, especially the difficult ones, could make their jobs easier and less stressful. This will also enhance your return on customer service spending.

Get a Gilman consultation.