Cathy Veri @ marketecture @cathyveri-blog - Tumblr Blog

Design and Teach a Course with Teachable

Go check out: teachable.com

I read about this over the last few days... very interesting way to monetize what you know how to do. You can combine video, audio, text and provide a way for “paying students” to view the course and pay you for it. You will need marketing skills to get an audience of paying customers, but everything else is here. Decent package starts at $99/month.

#teachable #marketing

Improve Your Email Campaigns Instantly with Post Up Software

I have had three conversations lately about email campaigns. Hands-down, if you are using Constant Contact or Mail Chimp you need to really sit down and hear this: you will never get the results and open rates your company wants with this awful software. Stop going through list reviews. Stop accepting 9 to 24% open rates. Run, do not walk away from this software. Just dump it. Do not look back.

There is something out there that is so much more robust for nurture campaigns and customer communication. Delivers better, looks better, better service, better staff, smarter people.... My recommendation is Post Up Software, www.postup.com Message me via email or call me if you would like to find out more. I have a great team available to make measurable improvements in your email communication and ultimately, your sales growth. Your open rates should be near 90%...

[email protected] or 512-330-4900

How to Welcome New Sales with What You Already Have

Jun 3, 2015 - As seen on LinkedIn

In the news the last few months, I keep hearing about how large public companies are borrowing money to buy back their stock. Or, they have a ton of cash, and are using it to buy back their stock. Is this really the best use of that money? The companies are so baffled about how to grow sales that they would rather just buy back their own stock? That is like kissing yourself in a mirror....even Goldman Sachs is warning companies to stop doing it, and that they are just "creating the optical illusion of better earnings per share."

Thinking in my little office in Austin, Texas, I always have a bunch of ideas for people who work at these big companies, about how to grow sales. I especially think about the companies that have me as a customer. So here is my Top 10 list on how companies big and small can put out the "Welcome Mat" for new sales, with hardly much more effort or cost at all...

1. Pier One. You kill me. Your quality gets worse and your prices are getting higher. Lower your prices back to what they used to be. And start a candle of the month subscription service. Women like me love candles. And I don't like paying full price. Sign me up for a subscription and give me a discount, and send me a monthly order of candles. How can Pier One not have a candle program? Ditto Anthropologie! You need one, too.

2. Things Remembered. I bought from you the first time over Christmas. My engraved glasses were not done correctly a week later when I came in to pick them up ($210). You fixed the problem, within an hour, but you were snippy and grumpy because four people were in line behind me and you did not have any cash in your register. Suggest: send me a mailing or email once/ month, send me offers, and ask me when the birth dates of all my relatives so you can get me to order something for them.

3. The Credit Card Companies. In general, your service is snippy, and you ding me 60 seconds after my payment is late, with a $35 late fee. How about you send me a $5 Starbucks Gift Card to pay on time, with a reminder email, and I get the $5 if I pay on time. I guarantee I will pay you early. That money can be invested by your company and you will make more than $35.

4. Starbucks. If I buy a $25 or $30 gift card, I think it would be nice if you gave me a free coffee of my choice. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf does it. Would it be so hard to be nice? I think more people would buy coffee at $25 a pop instead of $5.40.

5. The Tile Shop. You have absolutely beautiful flooring and tile. I am in love with four designs. Why don't you have installers on staff? Do you realize how hard it is to find a good contractor to re-do my bathroom and shower? I think you are missing out on a huge opportunity to earn money and lifetime customers. (And yes, my bathroom project has not started and I still need a contractor.) By the way, I think Home Depot should buy your company this year.

6. Target. Dear Target, I love your 5% off red credit card. I use it all the time. I love saving 5% on literally everything. However, what I don't love is that all of your good merchandise (furniture, lamps, dishes) is online only and what is in the store is sub-par. Photo albums? Where did they go? If you could just stock what you have online, your sales would go up 15% per day. Especially the wedding registry items. Going to Target used to be more fun. Please work on your product inventory!

7. California Closets. Lovely, beautiful solutions. Can you please make a less expensive product line for Target and have them sell it in their stores? You both would do well!

8. Taco Bueno. This is a local chain in Texas for tacos. Tacos are decent, quesadillas are even better. Salsa is good. But the fajitas? The meat (steak and chicken) is not edible. How can this little chain ask us to eat this meat? I am not sure any of the managers or owners have tried to eat the steak fajitas? Or chicken? It is like rubber. Please think about a new recipe for your fajitas? Maybe you can work with a famous chef like Bobby Flay ?

9. Lenovo. I have your ideapad laptop. Annoying pop-ups come on all the time, ads that Lenovo allows and built capabilities for. Please put a button on the Lenovo to turn all that stuff off. Charge me $10 to turn it off, I really don't mind paying. I just want the little box pop ups to go away forever. Please. Make them stop.

10. BMW Dealerships. Send me a free coupon for a car wash once/ month and I will be a customer forever. Shiny, clean BMWs look great on the road, and that is marketing for you. BMWs could be the cleanest cars on the road ever if this were to happen! Right now, Tesla is winning that role.

Big Public Companies: Put your money into these things, not stock buybacks. These things create customer lifetime value and raving fans.

The Thrill of the Deal

Sometimes you forget how awesome that feeling really is... when you find something high-end that you really want, and it's marked down 50 percent, and then you get to the register-- and it's marked down another 30 percent! That is what it's like when you shop at Neiman Marcus Last Call. And to a lesser extent, you can get that thrill at Kohl's too!

As a marketer, you have to create these experiences when you can, because guess what...that person will tell five other people, might blog about it, and might come back tomorrow and buy more. Plus the fun of a warehouse setting and digging to find deals, especially high end home decor and clothing, is the ultimate for women aged 35 to 60. And that includes me!

Example: Neiman Marcus Last Call today, a high end designer stocking holder, with glass, bronze and fleur-de-lis theme, marked $48 each. On sale for $18.90. Then at register, another 30% off for $12.60. I got two. That price and quality is unheard of at retail. For $20 you can get a fake shiny silver plain stocking holder at Target. Boo, who wants that?

In marketing your business, do you give your customers the thrill of a deal once in awhile? Maybe you should! How can you make that happen more often, and creating raving & returning fans?

Thank you Last Call!

10 Low-Cost Playbook Tactics to Get More Website Traffic and Orders

No or low budget but you need to ramp up customer acquisition or monthly views? Read this!

Branded product catalog, order management, multimedia file sharing. Mobile Solutions for sales reps & marketing professionals. Free 14-day trial. ** Best field sales tool for distributors and manufacturers. Ever! ***

New App Gives "Unfair Advantage" to Field Sales People

I think I may have found the best new tool for field sales people since the Smartphone -- Showcase for iPad. This software app is specifically for field sales, acts like a catalog and order taker, works with no wi-fi (tradeshows), and is meant to take advantage of all the beautifulness of an iPad. If your sales reps have laptops or iPads, it's time to put iPads in their hands and showcase your product offering with "Showcase." This tool is perfect for companies that do not have a robust e-commerce site, or for resellers who work out of vendor catalogs and not a master catalog. This new app is priced at cost per month and might be only $10/month depending on how many field salespeople you have. Showcase can also house all your sales collateral, presentations, forms, and more (Sales Library) and you can control it and update it (constantly up to date) from your home office. Call me if you would like a demo. www.showcasecloud.com

#iPad app #unfair advantage #field sales tool

SXSW - Thanks U of M -- you threw a very nice party

Maybe not known for their stellar social or marketing skills, the Alumni Club of University of Michigan put on a very nice party last Saturday at South By, at Lambert's on 2nd. I graduated in 1992 and don't remember going to a FREE party hosted by U of M so this was a treat! The alumni club sponsored drinks and appetizers for two hours. Free . And no one hawking you for an alumni donation. Plenty of people there -- maybe 400 ? Patio outside and upstairs party room. Only thing missing was a live band. But the attendees and social atmosphere more than made up for it. My husband and I met quite a few people from out of state and most were over age 30. One observation: The 20 -somethings are seriously too busy looking at their smart phones to meet anyone interesting. I feel bad for the young alumni I saw there that could not even manage to look up and say hi to anyone on the patio -- they could have been meeting their next investor, business partner, next employer or idea maker. Michigan was well-represented this week! And I might even make a casual donation to the M.

Thought this was interesting... real is better than staged, authentic experience better than electronic, and maybe you might need to grow a beard?

PRweb.com Gets a High-Five

For $250, you get a great wire service for your press release.

I had the best experience of using prweb.com yesterday and I have to commend the company on their customer service and promptness. I had just entered my credit card information for a new account into their website, and my phone started ringing immediately. It was a rep from customer support. I had not even entered a press release project yet. I got a nice welcome call and the person, Graham, listened to me talk about my intentions for this specific project and set up a call time for me next week to hear a bit more about the company’s marketing services and additional publicity services. He also suggested some specific things on the PRweb tool. I also spoke to someone in customer service again that day, regarding some set up questions I had using the site. What a difference from the typical larger PR wire firms! I was really impressed and need to commend them. What a pleasant customer experience! Plus the press release I did got over 4,000 headline placements on various sites AND I had over 20 journalists access the article info. If you would like to hear more about promoting your news through various wire feeds, whether your business is small or large, please contact me at: 512 330 4900 or [email protected]

glutenfreegirls

10 Low-Cost Playbook Tactics for More Web Orders

This article was written by Cathy Veri of marketecture, a direct marketing consultant to industrial distribution companies such as Lawson Products, Rutland Tool and Newark Electronics. Arlette Braman, V.P. of Sales at Paper Catalogs Online, also contributed to this article. Read more about Cathy on Linked In and more about her work at: http://cathyveri.tumblr.com. You can find Arlette at www.papercatalogsonline.com. Arlette has created digital catalogs for hundreds of industrial distributors such as Travers Tool, E&R Industrial and King Architectural Metals. Cathy can be reached on 512-330-4900.

It sure is expensive to improve your website traffic and orders, and promote a bit, isn’t it?

Most industrial marketers struggle every day with finding results to defend their SEO (search engine optimization) and Pay Per Click (PPC) expenses. Whether those costs are for internal employees or paid to external experts in SEO and PPC, it’s hard to keep going to the board room or your boss’ office to justify the cost for the (low number of) conversions-to-orders you may be getting. Consultants and expert agencies have popped up to make what you may already be doing “better” with the promise of more traffic and more orders. But do they really impact your business? Today, there is not a direct correlation between spending more dollars and getting more traffic, let alone more orders. Even if you have some budget, your PPC and SEO results may be so poor that you and your stakeholders no longer have the stomach for it.

No budget does not mean that your marketing team gets a pass on learning about SEO and PPC, nor does it mean that they have nothing to do in this arena. Over the last few years, my colleague Arlette Braman and I have picked up on 10 low-cost tactics to gain website traffic and orders. So whether you are short on budget or stomach, or both, here is our best advice to you, a website “playbook” that you can post on your cubicle wall, office (or even the back of your hand and arm.)

1. Build an interactive, digital catalog(not Flash) on your Website. And get first page placement on Google without paying PPC rates. If you use a third-party solution, all the links including page numbers and indexes, are created on launch, and you can link video, You Tube, images, product descriptions and social links, immediately. Digital catalogs greatly improve your organic results on search engines. Papercatalogsonline.com has many examples of companies whose rankings went to the top five results on hundreds of key words, within two weeks of going live. With digital catalogs, you instantly get more real estate on Google and other search engines. Don’t use Flash since that information is slow to be spidered (if at all) by Internet search engines. Interactive catalog development expense is much less than a pay-per-click recurring-until-infinity bill. These digital catalogs are viewable on mobile as well. Websites should be built with the intention of being “found.” Digital catalogs are key to this.

2. Put keyword-rich text home at the bottom of your page. Your home page should be very long. Let people scroll down, for a long while. Seriously, a very long page works. Lots of content, links to other pages on your site, videos, contact information, etc. You would be surprised what this does for rankings in just a few weeks. This can be text that is below the fold, oftentimes in smaller point text. It is meant for spiders but can be viewed by anyone, of course. There is some key word ranking homework you can do before crafting your key word rich text. Examples: www.partstown.com and www.medinuc.com. Don’t believe us? Read a bit on: www.tastyplacement.com.

3. Make search quicker. You have about 10 seconds or less to engage a website user. Sometimes the visit is just a look-up on brand or price. A digital catalog will drive the user to a specific page quickly, instead of sifting through mountains of info. Fewer steps = faster finding. Quick to find the product, the price and possibly a promotion/offer. And make the Shopping Cart experience quick, too. You know, people are spoiled by Amazon.com. Now, you have to be as close to that one- or two-click shopping cart model as possible.

4. Go where the buyers already are: Get on directories like Thomasnet.com to drive “eyeballs” to your site. Think of it like real estate: you want to put your sign up on as many busy corners of the Internet as you can. Thomasnet.com is a good example of a ‘shopping mall’ online. They have over 30 million+ users per day looking for what you sell. Directories have tremendous pull, both in the way their data is available and in the sheer number of users of these sites. And their analytics are excellent, showing you all the details of who is clicking on your listings. (These click lists should be proactively sold to by phone follow up!) You can host a shoppable catalog on the directory website or choose to drive the links back to your website. I call Thomasnet.com the “Google of Industrial Supply.” You can get online with them starting at as little as $6K/ year. I have seen one large industrial supplier spend $90K/year with Thomasnet. Surely you can put together an effective strategy at any spend level.

5. Put on a short skirt! One day only sale? Great. Free shipping? Yes. Buy three, get one free! Yes to all. These are “short skirts” and they drive attention, and eyeballs, and orders. In a word: PROMOTE! Put a short skirt on your Google ad for that day or week. Get the eyeballs, and give the website visitor a reason to buy. Short-term offers (24 hour, today only, this week only…) create impulse to act. A 30-day promotion online is too long; there is nothing driving impulse. Industrial marketing needs promotion. People are creatures of habit and it’s hard to break a habit. A promotion is one solid reason to break a habit and try something or someone new. Even if the recipient does not act on the offer, he/she will be more inclined to look at your website’s next offer or communication. If you have invested in technology and people for your website, don’t overlook the very important 5th P of marketing, Promotion.

Arlette has seen, in the last few months, more of her client base embracing the mobile and social aspects of promotion. She monitors Google stats for all of her customers and has seen a real rise in traffic to the online catalog sites because of their efforts to do more promotion in social media venues, the web and mobile. Arlette always says, “this is not Hollywood… just because you build it, people won’t come.” You have to promote your site.

6. Believe in these two letters, PR, but don’t ignore FB. Industrial marketers should not put all their eggs in one basket – Facebook and social media. Though these social venues are becoming more important to industrial companies in getting the word out and promoting their brand and products, the jury is deliberating how these venues will impact industrial sales. Google’s new version is tracking social media for traffic, so do consider this as part of your integrated marketing mix. Arlette has done extensive work in this exploding area for promotion. We believe in putting more effort in Promotions (#5) and PR, which is publicity and public relations. Press releases do gain audiences on the web and all the various (free) news media websites, both industry news sites and general news sites.If you are measured on number of orders and eyeballs, I would not be throwing a Hail Mary with Facebook likes… I would put energy and money into press releases, publicity, events, anything to get third party mentions of your company and products. Even posting press releases (new content) to your website creates new text for spiders to find, and you can also distribute your press releases through free and paid service bureaus. Spiders love new content. Some industrial products clients I have had do not have a place on their website for archiving press releases. (Bad, bad.) Of course, if your company has a Facebook presence, get the plug-in for posting your digital catalog to your FB page.

7. Build an email audience and welcome email sign ups on your home page. This is key. Just as your website should be built to be found, it should also be designed to capture email registrations. The email sign up should be visible from the home page. As a marketer, when someone raises their hand and says, yes, take my email, you better market to them fast. Arlette and I are always surprised to see industrial products websites that do not have an easy-to-get-to email registration and/or it’s not on the home page. Or it’s done poorly and no reason is given to sign up! Email blasts, whether you do it for offers, product announcements, company news, links to videos, etc. can be an excellent tool to communicate with customers and prospects, and also sell something you might not have otherwise sold. Response rates to email offers (open rates and click-through rates are two factors to watch) should be on your marketing team’s list of KPIs. Sending an email blast once/ month is kind of lazy. Why would you communicate only every 30 days? What can you be doing on a weekly if not a daily basis for those recipients? It is likely your customers are already buying your product somewhere else. A frequent email can start to help to change those habits.

8. Pre-register all your customers to buy on your website. Many industrial companies overlook this simple thing. When your website went live, did you pre-register your existing customers? Did you send them a sign-on and temporary password, and invite their first order online? Did you call certain customers or all of them to announce that the website was available? Did you send any direct mail to drive business to the site? Oh boy, maybe you need to do these things! Solid website e-commerce systems can be loaded with customer-specific pricing so that when your customer signs on, they see their specific price. No need to “call to get my pricing.”

9. Track visitors to your website that are repeat visitors, not just unique visitors. It may take three to eight mailings of a catalog to get an order. It may take that many website visits as well to get an order. Look at your repeat visitors. Is that number going up or down? What can you do to encourage those users to come back and convert to orders? This is always a huge challenge to present to your marketing team. Your website offers and content need to keep changing and getting better to encourage repeat visits and orders. Develop a set of model offers that a high potential to get an impulse or every-day order.

10. Get referrals for other buyers, from customers on the phone and on the website. I am a huge fan of referrals and I know Arlette is, too. In my personal life, my friends are always sending me website links for all kinds of products or information. The business-to-business world is not that different. Your current customer contacts can be a resource for other buyers in their company, as well as buyers and specifiers at other companies. All you have to do is ask, either in person on the phone or on the website itself. Some salespeople are wimpy and they won’t ask their customer contacts for other contact names. I see if often! That is really silly, right, especially if you are in sales. You cannot be shy! Your website cannot be shy, either. A website link, using embedded email in the site, is a great way for one buyer to send your company info to another buyer. Design your website and sales process to solicit referrals.

Get these ten plays in your playbook. This month! No matter what your budget. These ten tactics are common sense, cost-effective, and they will challenge your marketing department to do what it should be doing: executing smart marketing. Do all of these things first, before you start hiring SEO and PPC experts.

#Thomasnet.com #website marketing #SEO #marketing consultant

Hi and welcome to my blog. Since 1999, I have been busy creating campaigns for current customers, customers that have gone away, and finding new customers, for B2B catalogers and distributors of all types of products. Lately I have been working with tool supply catalogs and medical imaging product catalogers. And they are making money! Do you have a hard project or something interesting? You can reach me in Austin at: 512 330 4900.

Thoughts today? I am still pro- Thomasnet for industrial suppliers who are advertising online. Paid search = not so great results or leads. And I am researching the vitamin and supplement business. And taking some. Oh, and I invested in Domino's Pizza (DPZ). They are running tons of ads and it seems like their artisan pizzas are taking off... and they have a gluten-free option now. You have to love that innovation. People eat pizza no matter what the economy, you know.

New Customer Welcome Kit - with a "WOW" factor M&M theme

This is for a medical products cataloger. Fun! Wouldn't you love to receive this in the mail after your first order?

Mr. Appliance: A Sales Rock Star... who knew?

Last week, I had the pleasure and surprise of being sold to by Mr. Appliance. Seriously? Mr. Appliance. A technician armed with all the right questions, solutions and an iPad. Yes, an iPad. These guys are slick…. I called to have my digital high tech microwave repaired. It seemed that the number pad had worn down or there was a short. Well, I am not sure anything was wrong with the microwave except for a glitch, because all the guy did was unplug it from the power and talk to me for two minutes, and plugged it back in. Well, it worked and $90 later, I was mad it was so simple but relieved. My husband unplugged it for 8 hours to no avail. So while we laughed about how that project was too easy, he started asking me about the rest of the house…. he looks at his iPad and my service history, seeing an opportunity, “how is your dishwasher behaving?” he says, I say, terrible, it’s got a bunch of soap scum and doesn’t clean anything, damn GE. He opens it up and says, yep, it needs to be cleaned, you are using too much soap and it’s not getting anything clean since the soap scum is circulating. He also tells me that maybe my water is not hot enough, and to run the faucet before I run the dishwasher.

This is news to me…. He recommends a $40 bottle of Dishwasher Magic, swears by it. So I say okay, and it arrives via UPS in three days or so, and I am running it now as I type. Then he says, what else you got? So I say, well, our dryer is horrible. Takes three cycles or more to dry clothes…so he takes a look. The unit gets hot, but he reaches into the vent in the wall and takes a look outside at the exhaust, and it’s got 7+ years of lint and gunk. Yep, so I sign up to get it cleaned, for a future appointment for the next week, for $160. Sold. I had it done Monday and have 1/3 of a big garbage bag full of lint to prove it’s clean. I am happy. Clothes are drying much faster, with my 16 year old dryer unit. He types all his notes in his iPad and leaves, driving away in a super -decaled, colorful, branded “Mr. Appliance” PT Cruiser.

So $90 plus $40 plus $160… $290 came pretty easily to Mr. Appliance. He was not trying to sell me, just providing solutions to a few domestic pains in my you know what. I did not feel sold to, and I will probably recommend them to anyone who will listen. Mr. Appliance fixed three problems for me and I am happier than ever to write that check.

Austin Interactive Conference - Comments on Marketing

Day 5 of Interactive Conference in Austin - Comments not about conference topics but on marketing... There are lots of young people in town wearing their orange badges and spending a lot of money on 2nd Street, 4th Street and 6th and everywhere in between. I have seen parties for Bing (in the rain outside) L'Oreal (kind of a boring-looking party upstairs at Lambert's on 2nd) and I saw a funny banner in green for Survey Monkey on 6th Street at one of the upstairs bars. It said something like, "To drink here or there, that is the question." I saw a party network bus driving around/ double decker style bus, with speakers so loud it sounded like a real concert. They parked by the Moody Theater by the new W, and I turned my head to see if I had walked by a concert venue and it was this BUS! Good job to the marketers there.

These folks are going to seminars even on Saturday and Sunday til about 5pm - - you have to give them credit for kind of working all day. It is such a great town when the sun is out. Rained all day Friday and Saturday, so the sun was very welcome on Sunday. Every outdoor table and stand up bar is full, everyone is smiling, everyone is buying stuff. And guess what? Drinks are affordable, food is affordable and the shops on 2nd Street are inexpensive!! $12.90 for fun earrings. $17 for a Kensie shrug sweater marked down from $68. Buy two pieces of jewelry, get one free.... such simple marketing.... have an event and wrap creative/fun restaurants, and bars, and retail around it, make it safe, have some creativity, be ever so friendly, and people come! People stay! People look for creative places to go. They don't want TGIF or PF Chang. They want new. And they find it. People pack the bars and stay on Sunday night!!! People look happy! They look relaxed. They are soooo loud having fun! What a concept, right. Not every convention city is like this, is it?

Austin is awesome. We have an awesome story. It's so many little details that make it great.... it's the entire approach.... It is not just one singular thing. This successful and growing city is just like any strong marketing program for a company. It's not just trying to hit one home run. It's all the people, all the businesses, all the everyone going for RBIs, on all levels, all the time.

It is weeks like this where I look at Austin and say, I am so happy to be here! And I smile harder at the male pedicab dressed as Wonder Woman. It's all the little things that tell a great story. And all the folks here will go home and talk about all their experiences and tell their stories... And more will come... Just like you hope your marketing efforts will tell stories and convince people to come and stay awhile. - Cathy

Other tips/ comments.

1. Email prospecting- I don't advise it. Especially a one-time rental of a list. It's like throwing a Hail Mary. Does not work very much. I try not to do it.

2. You have to go where your buyers are online. Do you have to drive traffic to your site to get a sale? Or can you drive them to agents or resellers or buying sites? Go where the buyers already are/ and where they are already looking. Go where they are. Be there when they look for you. Old school is to constantly pull them to your site.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Cathy Veri @ marketecture