How to Reactivate Past Clients – Part 2 – 8 Steps to Designing a Reactivation Campaign

As promised here are the 8 Steps to Designing a Reactivation Campaign

One of my clients just launched a fairly large reactivation campaign. While there are many ways to run a reactivation campaign, the following steps will set you on a straight path should you decide to launch one.

First, understand that a reactivation campaign is when you create a strategy around those sleepy subscribers. You want them to get back to opening your emails and engaging with them. This can help improve sales, click-throughs, website traffic, and more.

1- Who is your target?

Are these people who stopped buying from you six months ago? Three months? Twelve months? If you run a subscription service, are they people who canceled one month ago? Two weeks ago? Two years ago? Decide first who you want to try and reactivate. If someone bought from you four years ago and you’re just now getting around to sending them an e-mail, it’s probably too late. It’s OK to run a few different variations of the campaign if you want to target several different groups from above.

2- What’s your goal?

I’ll take a wild stab and say your goal is to either have these consumers buy from you again, re-subscribe to your services, or otherwise reengage with your company. But, are there more specific goals than that? Maybe you want to introduce a new product line, introduce a new account manager, or upsell them on something they already own (or a service they already use)?

3- Why did these consumers leave?

Unlike a normal marketing campaign, you need to understand why your consumers left. Did they not like your products? Were you too expensive? Did you not have enough content in their particular field to keep them interested? Knowing the reasons they probably left will enable you to craft a message that addresses those issues specifically.

4- What segmentation or persona data do you have?

If you can segment these consumers either by persona or by purchase habits, you can make your reactivation campaign that much more effective. The rules here are the same as for any direct marketing: don’t just send a mass “We want you back” e-mail. Instead, use whatever knowledge you have of the consumer in order to create a more relevant message.

5- Split test offers.

It’s fine to offer a reactivation discount code to these consumers. They were effectively “dead” anyhow, so you aren’t really losing a full-price purchase by offering them a discount. However, showing consumers that you understand them and have new offerings that meet their needs might just be enough. So, do a split test and create discounts for some percentage of the group, but not all of them. See how they do when compared to the group with no offer.

6- Focus on your content.

Instead of just saying, “We want you back, here’s 15% off,” make a real Show your consumers you understand them. If they used to buy video games, talk about all the new things that have happened in video games since they last checked your site out. If you run a content subscription-based site (like E-Learning), highlight the new content you’ve added to your site since they were last members. Put the relevant content first. Consumers can get a discount anywhere if they try. It’s your content and products (if they’re relevant) that will be more interesting to them.

7- Make it easy for them to come back.

If it has been a while, there’s a good chance your consumers don’t remember their usernames or passwords. Either send them this information (or at least their username) in the e-mail, or make it really easy for them to find it. If their account has “expired,” make it easy for them to renew without reentering all their information again. If you offered a discount code, make it very clear where they enter it.

8- Reach out via different channels.

Are these consumers on Twitter (and do they follow you)? If so, send them a direct message, not an e-mail. E-mail marketing is great, but try other channels if you have access to them.

Finally, realize the difference between a reactivation campaign and a regular campaign. While the above steps could be the recipe for any old marketing campaign, there is one important difference. Reactivation marketing needs to understand how long people have been gone, why they possibly left, what is different in your offerings now that would make them come back, and what (if any) incentive they might need to come back.

If you can’t answer, “What is different in our offerings that would make them come back,” then skip the reactivation campaign and focus on answering that question first!

You are more than welcome to take a FREE tour to see how I can help you grow your business:

Check it out at: www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com/guidedtour

To Your Success,

Nancy Baki at Best Entrepreneur Solutions

www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com

Getting Out of the Rat Race and Onto Your Journey of Creating Wealth

Get Out of the Rat Race

We’ve all worked jobs we hated. We were underpaid, underappreciated and bored out of our minds. We either quit these jobs or were fired for poor performance because we just gave up. Instead of taking that approach you need to consider every job an opportunity to learn something new that you can apply down the line to find success.

When you give people the tools they need to come up with unordinary solutions, you are enhancing their lives for the long run. You need to take this approach. What if one of your terrible jobs had been one with no pay at all and you needed to come up with some ingenious ways of making money? I bet you could have found a diamond in that rough. This idea can also be used in your own company.

Now, I don’t recommend going into the next meeting declaring that no one will receive pay anymore, but you can tell them that their potential raises, bonuses and other perks are now dependent on their creativity in ways to enhance business.

Let’s talk about a great concept called financial literacy. This certainly isn’t something they taught you in school, but is still essential to know. So, what is financial literacy?

The old school way teaches people to be good employees and not employers. This mindset will never make you wealthy. You need to focus on becoming a good employer. You also need to learn how to not only attain wealth, but sustain wealth for generations. This is what financial literacy is all about.

So, how do you get out of the rat race and start working toward a wealthier future? You need to understand the difference between an asset and a liability. Take a look at your own life and you’ll probably find the following:

Assets

• Real Estate
• Stocks
• Bonds

• Intellectual Property

Liabilities

• Mortgage
• Consumer Loans
• Credit Cards

You’ve probably been fooled into thinking things like your house, car and entertainment system are assets. They aren’t! Assets should be continuing to MAKE you money. When you continue to struggle, you are not building wealth. If you’re primary income is from wages and each time you make more money, you pay taxes-you’re not really creating wealth either, are you?

So, if buying a house isn’t an asset (and, it’s not because you spend about 30 years of your life paying it off), then what is. Here are some of the best assets to attain and when you can start to actually see wealth being created because of it:

Average time of holding on to an asset before selling it for a higher value:

1 year

• Stocks (Startups and small companies are good investments)
• Bonds
• Mutual funds

7 years

• Real estate
• Notes (IOUs)
• Royalties on intellectual property
• Valuables that produce income or appreciate

So, here are the steps to getting out of the rat race and onto your journey of creating wealth:

1. Understand the difference between an asset and a liability.
2. Concentrate your efforts on buying income-earning assets.
3. Focus on keeping liabilities and expenses at a minimum.
4. Mind your own business.

If you need help getting out of the poor mindset and into the wealthy one, try our FREE test drive and let’s look at working together.

Check it out at www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com/guidedtour

We went through the first three and next time we’ll talk about how to mind your own business to keep your eye on the prize.

To Your Success,

Nancy Baki at Best Entrepreneur Solutions

www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com

Steps to Create a Word of Mouth Campaign

Prepare for Lift Off!

Last time I gave you a laundry list of tips and tricks you can use to make your word of mouth program work for you. Hopefully you’ve taken a look and decided which ones are the best fit for your company, products, services and target customers, so you can put them to work in your word of mouth campaign.

We are going to wrap up this series on word of mouth where we give you the specific steps to create a word of mouth campaign.

Now, let’s take a look at those steps:

1. Seed the market. Find some way to get the product into the hands of key influencers.
2. Provide a channel for the influencers to talk and get all fired up about your product.
3. Offers lots of testimonials and other resources.
4. Form an ongoing group that meets once a year in a resort and once a month by teleconference.
5. Create fun events to bring users together and invite non-users. Saturn, Harley-Davidson, and Lexus have all been successful with this approach.
6. Develop cassettes, videotapes, and clips on your Web site featuring enthusiastic customers talking with other enthusiastic customers.
7. Create custom CDs for each potential customer.
8. Hold seminars and workshops.
9. Create a club with membership benefits.
10. Pass out flyers.
11. Tell friends.
12. Offer special incentives and discounts for friends who tell their friends.
13. Put the Internet to work.
14. Do at least one outrageous thing to generate word of mouth.
15. Empower employees to go the extra mile.
16. Encourage networking and brainstorm ideas.
17. Run special sales.
18. Encourage referrals with the use of a strong referral program.
19. Use a script to tell people exactly what to say in their word of mouth communication.

These are all amazing ways you can get the word out about your products and services and start a word of mouth campaign that takes on a life of its own. Before you can release your word of mouth campaign out into the world, you need to go through the checklist to make sure you’ve covered all the essentials.

Here’s your word of mouth campaign checklist:

1. Are all of your communications sending the same simple message? If it can’t survive word of mouth, it’s not a compelling story.
2. Is your product positioned as part of a category? Ex.”A dandruff shampoo that doesn’t dry your hair.”
3. Are your examples outrageous enough to be shared?
4. Do you enhance your materials with success stories from real people?
5. Are you using experts effectively and in an objective manner?
6. Have you created mechanisms so people can follow up on the word of mouth they hear, as well as simple ways of inquiring or ordering?
7. Have you made the decision process easy for customers?
8. Have you created events and mechanisms so that once a year your prospects hear about your product, and it is easier to try or buy?

These are all essential elements to take keep in mind when taking a second or even third check over your word of mouth campaigns. I hope you’ve found this series on word of mouth to be a great resource and are getting ready to put it into action for your own products and services.

Remember, if you need help with anything in this series, try our FREE test drive to gain access to the best resources, tools and business coaches you can find.

Check it out at www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com/guidedtour

To Your Success,

Nancy Baki at Best Entrepreneur Solutions

www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com

The Science of the Memes and How Spreading Ideas Around and Through Society is Ingrained in Humans

Science of the Memes

Today I’d like to discuss the science of the memes and how spreading ideas around and through society is ingrained in humans.

Memes:

This refers to types of ideas that spread the fastest through society, why they spread fast and how that affects consumerism. You can use this same information to create a lasting positive impression about your company, products and services. People are more likely to try a new product or services when they feel protected and reassured by the masses.

It’s been determined that spreading ideas is essential to the survival of a society. There are 5 main situations where this occurs. They are:

1- Crisis

2- Mission

3- Problem

4- Danger

5- Opportunity

Think of evangelism. This is prime example of people not only spreading the word, but convincing people to jump on board and start to spread the word themselves. To do this effectively, you need to incorporate a few key things that always catch people’s eye:

1- Sex

2- News

3- Unique Results

4- The Unusual

5- Helping Others

6- Secrets

Next we are going to switch gears a little and talk about viral marketing. While, traditional marketing can be used to your advantage, the reality is viral and online marketing is the king of the castle. You can spread the word online like the plague, if you know what to do. Here are some simple steps to do this:

1- Find an interesting idea

2- Make it easy for people to experience or trial

3- Spread the idea while people who are in close contact with others

4- Take advantage of existing communication methods

5- Develop the way of trying your product in such a way that it automatically draws more try-ers

6- Some great places to use viral marketing are:

7- Geocities

8- Ebay

9- Roger Wilco

10- ICQ

11- AOL Instant Messenger

12- MSN Instant Messenger

13- Winamp

14- Hotmail

15- “Tell A Friend” Buttons

16- E-Greeting Cards

There are six things everyone should be doing to benefit from word of mouth on the Internet:

1- Put Word of Mouth components on your website.

2- Assign people to monitor your viral marketing.

3- Place testimonials in different places on your website to walk a customer through the purchasing cycle.

4- Set up an email marketing campaign.

5- Stay up to date on what products and services the experts in your industry are recommending.

6- Use your website to demonstrate the great ways people are using or finding success with your products and services.

Here are other non-viral Internet opportunities to explore:

1- iPhone’s

2- Handheld PC’s

3- Blackberrys

4- And other well connected electronic devices

This wraps up the lesson on traditional and viral marketing. If you need help putting together any of the plans or successes in this lesson, try our FREE test drive to get all the help you need to put these plans into action.

Check it out at www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com/guidedtour

To Your Success,

Nancy Baki at Best Entrepreneur Solutions

www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com

Shortening Your Customers’ Decision Making Process With Positive Word Of Mouth

Word of Mouth Meets Customers Head-On

Today we’ll cover the idea of shortening your customers’ decision making process with positive word of mouth. There are essentially 5 stages in the decision making process.

They are:

1. Give the product a chance and transitions from a “no” to a “maybe”.
2. Check out the options and investigate the different products available.
3. Observe the product to check for potential benefits, features and operations to see if there is a fit with their needs.
4. Become a customer and purchase their first item. They will be discriminate with their first product as they form their opinion of you.
5. Purchases again and starts spreading positive word of mouth as an advocate of your products.

So, let’s take a closer look at each one of these.

From “No” to “Maybe”

This stage is really important because if your potential customers don’t even take a second look at your products and services, then you have no chance of sealing a deal. This is why you need to offer credible information and well thought out pricing, guarantees and incentives.

Investigating Your Products

At this stage they are taking a closer look at your product line to see if there is actually anything that could benefit their life. This is where you need to make sure your hard information is right out there in front for the customers to see and compare.

Trial Period

Customers often feel more at ease and ready to purchase when there is some sort of a trial in place. They usually want to try vicariously through someone else, so they don’t feel any risk involved. A good way to offer this is through demo videos, product demonstrations or a tour of your facilities. This stage may invoke a reaction of “I tried it and liked it. You should check it out.”

Make a Purchase

At this stage, they have taken the risk of purchasing one of your products or services and are now evaluating how easy, convenient, cost effective and satisfying your product or service is. At this stage a common reaction would be, “It was really easy to use and learn from. It’s really great, you should get it!”

Advocates for Yours Products

At this last stage of decision making the customer is immensely pleased with your product and often keeps using it and/or comes back for more products and services. They are likely telling everyone they know how much they like it, that they use it every day and have already (or will be) back to your establishment for more.

We talked a minute ago about the different types of purchasers. Now we are going to take a closer look at their characteristics, so you can figure out which tactics are best to use at the right stage of the decision making process.

The Innovator

• Wants to stand out from the crowd
• Know what’s hot and trendy
• Likes “strange” or “weird” new products
• Wants to be the first to try and will talk about it animatedly

Early Adopter

• Driven by excellence
• More concerned with possibilities than realities
• Always looking to be a leader
• Always looking for a new vision

Middle Majority

• Wants to be perceived as competent
• Concerned about practicality and easy comparisons
• Needs an easy way out if not satisfied
• Wants products that meet the industry standard

Late Majority

• Generally skeptical and wants to know the risks upfront
• Needs to shop around for the best deal
• Needs a support system
• Wants what everyone else has

Laggard

• Needs it to be completely safe and traditional
• Needs reassurance that nothing will go wrong
• Won’t try new things unless it’s the last resort
• Will search for loopholes and problems
• Wants to use it in the standard industry way

As you can see, each type of consumer wants something just a little different depending on their personality type. The key to successful word of mouth is to target and cater to each type of consumer. If you need help identifying the types of consumers you are currently helping and how to attract the types you are lacking, try our FREE test drive for the resources and tools you need to get the job done.

Check it out at www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com/guidedtour

Next time we’ll talk about how word of mouth messages are delivered and what you can do to help facilitate that.

To Your Success,

Nancy Baki at Best Entrepreneur Solutions

www.BestEntrepreneurSolutions.com