Well, maybe it does want to keep me, although that isn’t clear.

I went to the website to check options because I had been thinking of getting a competitor’s paper on just one day. Did it make sense to stop the other paper for that day or just leave the suscription as it was? While checking prices, I discovered that new subscribers — not yet VALUED subscribers — could get the paper for half price for six months.

I called to ask politely why VALUED subscribers weren’t offered a similar deal. Eventually I was able to get  half price for four months if I paid with automatic monthly billing. But why did I have to ask?

Meanwhile, I’ve let a magazine subscription lapse, although I’m wavering. To encourage me to renew, the magazine just sent me a promise to send me a free cookbook as part of the Special Renewal Savings Rate.

If we as subscribers and customers are so valued and appreciated, why aren’t companies stepping up to SHOW us that appreciation with the goodies they dangle in front of people who aren’t yet customers? Why do they wait until we hear that someone else got a cheaper rate, a bonus something, a sweeter deal? Why do they make us call and demand better treatment, the same treatment a prospective customer would get?

I know, it’s a sign of the times. A sad sign, to be sure.

Image credit: Salvatore Vuono and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

But there’s a difference between being pushy and following up in a polite way. You’re nothing like the telemarketer with a set speech that doesn’t allow someone to say a word for five minutes, right? So as I said in an earlier post about cold calling, here’s a better way to think about following up: you have a valuable service that the right person will be glad to know about. Your job is to find that person. Sometimes you just need a gentle reminder to bring your name top of mind to uncover some business.

I had a great example of just such a gentle follow-up this week. Gerard Braud sent his contacts in Canada a “friendly heads up” that he was going to be in the Toronto area in a couple of weeks, and that he had a day available if anyone needed his services for media training, key message writing or crisis communications planning. No pressure, no hard sales, just a recognition that he has a valuable service, and I or some of my colleagues might need it. I don’t, but his name is in front of me in case I do.

Nicely done, Gerard!

Related posts:
It’s OK to follow up
How to warm up to cold calling
Hit or missed opportunities

Image credit: Stuart Miles and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Tom’s topic was “Marketing on a tight budget,” and he had plenty of suggestions. First, though, he made sure the group agreed that we aren’t in sales or communications, but in the problem-solving business. “If you can solve a problem I have, you have value to me,” he stressed, adding, “Don’t tell people what you do, tell what you can do for them.”

Tom said the most important part of the sales cycle is needs identification. He advised us to define and know as much as possible about our target market, keeping track of current and prospective clients in a database. He suggested getting a business plan (“in writing”), saying, “Don’t be random. Marketing should be an organized, sequential activity.” Budget $500 to $2,000 each year for marketing, covering such things as membership in networking organizations, attending networking events and business cards and other stationery.

Here is more of Tom’s advice:

Business cards: Make sure your cards say what you can do and are easy to read. Leave the back blank with a matte finish, so people can write a note about where they met you. Only give your business cards to “qualified prospects,” who are people you can help and who are willing to pay. After you get someone’s business card, follow up within eight to 14 hours.

Cold calling: You have five to seven seconds to get attention, so have a unique selling proposition. Seventy percent of success is how you script your call. Ask gatekeepers for help or an opinion; “Who’s the best person for…?” You can leave a couple of voice mail messages, then another one saying you will put the person on a “do not disturb” list and will call again in three months if you don’t hear back.

LinkedIn: “You will not be successful in life unless you know a lot of people.” Get on LinkedIn. Join groups and associations. Contact executives or companies in your target market.

Newsletters: You want to be top of mind but in a subtle way, and a newsletter is a great way to do this. Keep it simple, current, interesting. Don’t promote your product or service, but share tips, success stories (what Tom called “victory stories”), highlight a small business that has helped you or one you have helped, talk about upcoming seminars or share newsworthy articles. If you get a business card, send the person a copy of your newsletter. Ask permission to add him/her to your distribution list. Include a way to opt out in every issue.

Website: Your website gives you credibility. Provide background and more information on you and your product/service.

Tom also discussed pricing, advising the group to “Find out what your competitors are charging, determine what the industry will bear and never be the cheapest.” He likes to say, “I may not be the cheapest but I’m the most valuable.” Factor in your time and gas, charging 50% of your hourly fee while travelling.

Tom encouraged the group to get out and market, saying, “You’ve already grabbed the low-hanging fruit, now you’ve gotta go shake some trees.”

If you were at the meeting, what points stuck out for you? What successes have you had marketing on a tight budget?

My post about pricing from an earlier PIC meeting:
How to get paid what you’re worth

It’s okay to follow up.

That was my message this week to a friend who runs an aesthetics business out of her home. Pat has been in business a number of years, but at one point went from being there all week to only a couple of days when she worked part-time at a local salon. Now that she’s back working from home full-time, she realizes that some of her past clients may think she’s still at the salon.

I encouraged Pat to phone her past clients to let them know, but she said, “I don’t want to bug them.”

As one of her clients, I can say that this type of call is welcome.

• She has been a valued service provider for years, and I want to know that she’s more available to me if I need a manicure on short notice.
• It’s a good chance for Pat to see if the previous clients still want to hear from her, or if they would prefer to be taken off her list.
• At the same time, she can collect email addresses. Then she can easily let people know about new products or services, any specials she’s running, or just remind us that, say, spring is a good time to think about a pedicure.

This type of follow-up is nothing like the annoying call centre calls from people you don’t know trying to sell you something you don’t want. So if you’re in Pat’s position, think about the relationship you have with your clients. Will they appreciate hearing from you if you can be more available or valuable to them, even if you haven’t talked lately? Is it useful for you to know if they don’t need your services any more? In both cases, I think so.

So don’t put yourself in the same boat as telemarketers. Follow up!

Image credit: Thanks to Michal Marcol and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Quite a while ago, an association I belong to created some new marketing material. Prominent on what really was a good-looking piece was a stock photo of a group of people, basically standing in for those of us who are actual members. The stock photo is also front and centre on the web site.

I registered my complaint at the time that someone visiting the site might reasonably expect these people to be our members; they are not. I also felt that there was nothing wrong in showing a less-staged photograph — or even a staged photo — of our own members. After all, it’s not as if our looks are likely to terrify small children or anything!

So I’m pleased to present some support for my thought that the world needs more photos of real people:

Michael Katz, who writes a great “e-newsletter on e-newsletters,” points out that:

“Real clients hire real people. If the real people in your company don’t appear on your web site, how are these clients going to know when they’ve found you?”

Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen says that web users pay close attention to photos, treating them as important content — particularly photos of products and “real people (as opposed to photos of models).”

“…users ignore stock photos of ‘generic people.’”

What do you think? Are stock photos obvious? Do they bother you?

I was already juggling a number of projects, but this is a long-time, valued client and I thought it could be done relatively quickly. So I met my other deadlines and then worked late on the “rabbit.”

The very first thing I did was change the lead sentence. By remarkable coincidence, Ragan.com CEO Mark Ragan today posted a link on Twitter on this very topic, pointing to a classic Steve Crescenzo column called “Dumping C.R.A.P. on reporters.”

In it, Steve rants that the “trained monkeys” who write most news releases follow this formula for the lead sentence:

Name of company + everything great about this company that nobody really cares about + bad verb + bad quote by a guy with too many titles.

My client’s release originally began with “Name of company + something great about this company that nobody really cares about” plus that other classic: “today announced” (as if the “announcing” is the news). And took 42 words to say it. The actual news event was in paragraph two.

I rewrote the lead to start with “Employees of [Company]” and link to their involvement in the event that was the “news.” It took only 18 words, and I was able to work in “polar bears,” which you have to admit is pretty awesome. I pushed the “something great about the company” to paragraph three, and included some facts that were relevant to the event.

My client was happy with the result, but I was worried some of the executives might have changed it back. She just called, however, and said they went with the revision. And she appreciated the link to Steve’s column, which gave her a laugh.

The bottom line: With news releases, as with newsletter articles, look for the news and put it up front. Your readers will be more likely to read it, whether they are employees or journalists.

HPCA’s social media expert Rob Clark will discuss web analytics, and his colleague Kyle McKeown will talk about inbound marketing and search engine optimization. A couple of HPCA guinea pigs (including me) have offered their web sites for closer inspection.

The event takes place Wednesday, May 26 at the Halton Region Museum, 5181 Kelso Road in Milton, ON (at the Kelso Conservation Area, between Appleby Line and Tremaine Road just south of the 401). Networking starts at 6:30 p.m. and the presentation runs from 7 to 9 p.m.

The event is free to HPCA members and only $20 for guests. Guests, please book your spot online.

See you there?

Oh, those funny folks at Honda! They’re doing a good job of keeping in touch with me, long-time Honda owner that I am. But their enthusiasm for selling me a new car always seems to overtake their good sense.

I bought a 2009 Honda Civic last year, and I’m happy with it. But one of the first pieces of mail they sent me after the purchase was a flyer promoting their new 2010 models.

Today, they sent me an e-mail. Surprise! It recognized that I am celebrating the one-year anniversary of my purchase.

“We appreciate your loyalty to our dealership and invite you to take advantage of the coupon below,” the note said. I wondered if my “owner loyalty certificate” would cover a free oil change, or maybe a half-price car detailing. No, it was $500 to use on my next vehicle purchase.

In small print was the note that the coupon expired within 30 days.

I guess despite the fact that I kept my last Honda for 10 years, having my newest car turn one year old means it’s time to get rid of it.

What I learned from my correspondence from Honda is that it’s not enough to know a few things about your customer. You have to pull together all the pieces of information you have on your customer — remembering to find and include the information held by other departments in your company (hello, Sales? meet Service). Did she just buy a car a month ago? Then there’s probably no reason to send her news about the latest model. Did she keep her last car for 10 years? Then a promised discount to buy a new car after just one year is not likely an incentive.

If you don’t make the connections, then you’re just wasting your time.

Patriotic feelings. Canadians are normally shy about this, at least compared to Americans, but put us in the Olympics, especially on home turf, and watch out for the flags, red & white clothing, Canadian flag tattoos and spontaneous outbursts of our national anthem. Come to think of it, it’s kind of like the Canadian hospitality suite at the IABC World Conferences.

The feeling of goodwill that seemed to permeate the games. Well, until it came down to the big Canada vs. USA hockey game, when it was all GO CANADA on our part. (Thank you, Team Canada and Sidney Crosby, for letting Canada win gold and USA silver 3-2 in overtime. We may have lots of Americans on our Canadian teams, but we consider it Our Game.)

The unusual medals, a collaboration between artist Corrine Hunt and designer Omer Arbel. Each medal is unique; find out how here.

The crazy sports like ski cross that have athletes flinging themselves down steep slopes and runs with seemingly reckless abandon, although I know it’s only hard training that makes it look easy. And the snowboard races! And wild ski tricks!

CTV ran a great series called “How tough are these sports?” In it, various athletes tried a different sport than usual to see just how difficult it really was. So figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier discovered working with speed skater Denny Morrison that the skates and the method used for speed skating are quite different. Ditto for hockey player Georges Laraque, who had fun with short track skater Olivier Jean learning that racing isn’t as easy as it looks, and hockey player Wendel Clark, who strapped himself in to play sledge hockey with the Canadian Sledge Hockey team.

CTV ran another great series called “Difference Makers,” hosted by Rick Hansen, himself a difference maker. Hansen is the “Man in Motion” who pushed his wheelchair through 34 countries in 1985, raising funds for spinal cord injury research and awareness of the potential of people with disabilities. The series pays tribute to the extraordinary people who have helped Canada’s Olympians and Paralympians overcome their personal and athletic challenges.

Norway’s men’s curling team and their crazy pants. I didn’t exactly love the pants themselves, originally made famous by golfer John Daly, but I sure did appreciate the sense of humour the team had wearing them.

Here are some of the things that don’t get a medal:

The use of “medal” as a verb, as in, “She’s expected to medal in this sport.” I think I also heard “to podium” as a verb. Ughhhh.

How it so often seems to be all about winning gold, and seldom is a silver or bronze medal won; instead, it’s “settled for.” I think any medal is a real achievement, especially when you look at timed sports where athletes set personal records and finish mere fractions of a second apart.

The “I believe in the power of you and I” line  in the stirring song, I Believe, sung by 16-year-old Nikki Yanofsky. Grammatically speaking (word nerd alert!), it should be “you and me,” since “of” is a preposition and takes an object, as pointed out by grammarian Joanne Buckley.

CTV’s official Olympic coverage site, which wanted to make me “upgrade my browser with the latest version of Microsoft Silverlight” to watch the Canadian gold medal performance of ice dancing, and any other videos on the site.

What did you like or not like about the Olympics?

People imagine that independents sit around in our bathrobes and fuzzy slippers, and therefore we don’t know how to clean up real nice.

First of all, I do not work in my bathrobe. I shower, put on makeup, get dressed (usually in jeans and a t-shirt or sweatshirt) and am at my desk by 9 a.m. Freelance writers may have freedom, but they must also be disciplined and professional.

Second, I usually work with and for corporate communications people. They are a well-dressed crowd. I am part of that crowd, even though my office is at home. So when I leave my office to meet other people, I like to look the part, and that means a jacket over a skirt or pants, if not a suit. Even if the event involves other independents, not corporate communicators, I like to look professional. If I know the group, I might wear jeans (dark wash or black), but I’ll still have a jacket on top.

In fact, a nice jacket — like the red one that gives my blog its name — is pretty much the independent gal’s secret weapon. Throw a jacket on, with perhaps a striking necklace and lipstick, and people will always think you are well-dressed.

It isn’t frivolous fashion. You are marketing yourself even before you open your mouth, and image and appearance matter if you want to be taken seriously.