Keeping a campaign together
Elements of a marketing program must be cohesive
Kelly Niessen knows her niche. As president and co-founder of KANDY Outdoor Flooring, Inc., Niessen and her franchisees install interlocking flooring for condo balconies in a range of finishes, from hardwood to composites, granite and teak.
Early on in her business’s development, Niessen determined the main market for her product was condo owners.
“They have a limited space to work with and they typically want to get maximum use out of every square inch, including their balcony,” she says. Even better, they’re generally not do-it-your-selfers, which means Niessen’s custom-designed and installed solutions appeal to them. Her problem: How to get her message to her target audience effectively and affordably.
Ads through TV or radio would have been costly and may not have reached her narrow market. Finding your perfect customer The answer for Niessen has been to go multi-channel. She and her franchisees put in regular appearances at local home shows to demo their product. She also uses her website to attract condo owners, running a blog every three weeks on subjects such as how to work with a property manager and what to know about purchasing a pre-construction condo, as well as a photo gallery of rejuvenated condo balconies.
But Niessen also wanted to reach people who might never stumble on her site. So she launched a directmail campaign: Niessen created simple postcard mailers featuring before-and-after photos of condo balconies and sent them to owner-occupied condos across different geographic areas.
“We can break it out by age and household income. There are all kinds of different demographic profiling and targeting tools available,” she says.
The approach has worked well, she believes, largely because it is so targeted. “The key is to send mail that is relevant to the person receiving it,” Niessen explains. “This is not a shotgun approach.” Connecting the dots Simply reaching out to customers isn’t enough, however. Ultimately, Niessen believes, all the elements of her marketing strategy must link together to move her customers along the path to purchase.
For that reason, Niessen uses data analysis to monitor the response to her program and marketing, tinkering constantly to ensure it’s still working.
She tried a mailed-out letter, for example, but found she got better results from the photo-oriented postcard. In addition, she says, “we monitor what is and is not working on our website.” She keeps an eye on how people interact with her site as well, regularly making modifications aimed at keeping potential customers engaged longer, and ultimately encouraging a consultation.
Such an integrated approach to marketing is the wave of the future, according to Steve Mast, president of digital marketing firm Delvinia. In the past, he says, marketing was about blasting the same message to customers through various media — perhaps radio, TV and direct mail. “Now it’s about telling a story using different media,” he says, “and connecting with customers at various points along the path to purchase.”
An integrated marketing approach, he says, might use television and video websites like YouTube to connect with an audience in an emotional way.
Ultimately, that connection should spark a “more intimate conversation” online; asking for feedback from customers or suggesting they sign up for more information.
At that point, he says, a targeted direct-mail piece or digital communication may be effective. Says Mast: “There is nothing that motivates people more than when you send them an offer. The right message at the right time to the right person works really, really well.”