Are your marketing dollars driving visitors to your site? 

We often write about the value of integrated marketing communications (IMC).  This Independents Mall posting echoes this theme. It also suggests a simple but valuable way to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. 

Make sure you track Web visitor activity right after you mount a major direct mail or advertising campaign that features a “visit our Web site for more information” (or for an incentive offer) call-to-action.  How many total visits were made to your site?  How many of these were Unique Visitors? How does the activity compare with normal visitor counts?   

Did you get a bounce in traffic?  If not, you may want to test another approach in your direct mail/advertising campaigns.

Database management is a key to sales success today 

The more you know about your customers, the more you will sell. 

The more you know about who you want to prospect, the more you will sell. 

The more you know about appeals to market segments, the more you will sell. 

The more you know about ways to communicate by e-mail with customers and prospects, the more you will sell. 

The more you know about keeping your Web site fresh, the more you will sell.  

The more you know about social media, the more you will sell.

Who handles your database marketing and sales programs today?  More and more agents are hiring part-time and full-time people to support their sales and service activities and agency management systems. 

THOUGHT-STARTER #1 

Set up a Customer Advisory Council as a way to stay closer to consumer interests and needs, and test new agency marketing ideas.  Think of the value you can get out of quarterly sessions. Think about the value of “we stay in touch” reports to your customers in your newsletter or renewal enclosures!  It’s a way to differentiate your agency from all your “me-too” competitors in town!  

We will feature a series of Build-A-Wall KEEP marketing ideas on our Blog.  If you would like us to e-mail the complete “white paper” series, featured in MullaneyCookson Inside-Out Marketing Seminars, contact Don Cookson at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .  

Integrated marketing communications is key 

Web sites PUSH information. 

Print, radio and TV advertising PUSH information. 

Direct response mail PULLS information. 

Social media PULLS dialogue. 

Social media is not a replacement for traditional advertising and direct mail, but a complement.  The keys are to use this new tool appropriately as a conversation starter with prospects and customers, and to integrate it with your overall marketing and sales strategy and tactics. 

Rules of Thumb for social media

Use Twitter, Linkedin and other social media to enlighten, entertain, and share information that fans and followers can use. 

Use social media to DRIVE TRAFFIC to your agency website or blog. 

Use consistent messaging instead of a shot-gun approach.  What is your vision for presenting your agency and its services?  Consistently support this vision. 

No preaching. No pushy talk.  These are sure ways to promote disconnects.  

“Hi, neighbor, have a ‘Gansett!” 

Remember this old slogan? It’s back, thanks to a new beer producer in Rhode Island. I vividly recall the Narragansett beer company as a major sponsor of the Boston Red Sox (way back when Jim Britt and Tom Hussey formed the radio broadcast team doing live games and telegraphic recreations of games).  Well, the enterprising RI business team has brought back the beer and the slogan. Proves the lasting quality of a powerful branding tool. 

Is “Hey, Mabel…Black Label!” on its way back?  Or the White Knight?  Or, Sanka’s Mr. Coffee Nerves?   

One great slogan that has outlasted them all is Maxwell House Coffee’s “Good to the last drop…and that drop’s good, too.” 

What’s your agency slogan????