Deadhead For Prolific Marketing Campaigns

Some of you are already thinking, “What in the world does the Grateful Dead have to do with my business.” That’s not quite the kind of “Dead Head” I was referring to. Actually, the analogy was regarding the practice of clipping away the spent blooms of some flowers to get new ones: also known as deadheading. It occurred to me that smaller businesses rarely deadhead their marketing so it produces more. They tend to send out a campaign and then leave it. If you do that with your roses or geraniums you will have a lot of leaves and few flowers. If you want your good marketing strategies to become great, we need to borrow techniques from successful gardeners.

Only Cut Off Whats Dead – Often, we take the entire campaign and pitch it feeling that it wasn’t performing well enough. Take a look at it objectively. The graphics may be good, but the copy is off. Or, you’re using for the wrong purpose and audience. E.g. If you leave stacks of brochures, consider who will be in that location and why. Your cover is the most important part. If it’s one of those all-about-how-great-my-business-is they are probably collecting dust. Just change the cover, don’t ditch the brochure.

Reposition For Optimum Sun Exposure – Using the brochure example, perhaps it’s not being placed somewhere with enough traffic. If you have been reading my past postings and have done even the slightest amount of tracking/testing, you should know which venues convert best. If you are being found on Facebook, maybe it’s time to move your brochure online where prospects are already finding you. Don’t let the medium scare you. If the brochure is good in print just lift some copy into a Facebook note or onto your website and voila – instant online brochure.

Fertilize For Vigorous Growth – When your campaign yields good conversion the way for it to become great is for those conversions to become new clients. Those new clients need to be pampered and finessed for more business. Just like our flowering plants some are prolific and others could be given the right attention. This pampering can be in the form of thank yous, special offers, referrals for their business. Plan ahead for a successful engagement.

Tend to Plants When Dormant – When one growing season is over you need to protect that plant so it returns with vigor the next season. Clients are no different. I often hear, “Once I’m done with that job, I have to go out and find more.” Well yes, you always need to be prospecting. But if you have a long term plan for your past clients you should be mining referrals and new engagements.

One campaign can yield bushels of fruit if you tend to it with care. Approaching your marketing campaigns in this way is respectful and provides you tremendous opportunity to create amazing customer experiences – the kind people tell others about. Plan a fruitful campaign.