Great Ad Campaigns Aren't Enough

I just read that Kaiser, the behemoth healthcare association in California, only signed up 100,000 new members last year. And that despite their fabulous ad campaign about 'thriving' using Allison Janney to voice over clever scripts about how eating blueberries and staying healthy is Kaiser's mission. Well, of course it is. If you stay healthy, Kaiser saves money. Still, it was such a nice campaign, don't you think?

It seems to me that Kaiser must have one awful sales force of brokers (or they're not incentivized enough to sell Kaiser) if they can only find 100K new members. As a small business owner, I can authoritatively comment on the awful selection of health coverage today--insane prices for awful coverage. Or programs that are so confusing to understand you can't possibly get your value from the coverage. Or insurance providers like Aetna who loses every claim one submits, has the absolute worst customer service and earns their money apparently by ripping off customers.

Sure, this is a rant, but there's a marketing lesson here. Advertising alone just doesn't work. A successful company in today's world needs a great product with decent customer service, great marketing and a solid sales force. If Kaiser can't even get it right in this aging baby boomer society of ours, who can? I think it's the small businesses who are filling these needed niches. What do you think?

Marketing is Like Dating

Marketing is Like Dating

Marketing like Dating? Is it really crazy? Don't you want to attract the relationships that are truly right for your business just the same as in your personal life?

If we'd apply the lessons we learned from dating to marketing, it would be just so much more effective. Using lessons to get to know someone (our market) or develop a friendship (business relationship) can be completely applicable towards getting more clients. Why? Because people are people, whether they're making a purchase or dating you. We all want to have a great relationship with fun, commonality of values and sharing great moments in both our personal lives and in our businesses.

This article looks at some common problems that arise with easy solutions to consider.

In both business & dating, we struggle with common problems: "Wouldn't it be easier if they already knew us, we didn't have to prove ourselves?" or "Sometimes we just don't know what to say -- maybe it will be taken the wrong way." See, it's the same in marketing as it is in dating. So, if our job in marketing is to authentically educate our clients, then many of the same rules and techniques apply. What do you think?

easy shopping cart, ecommerce marketing tip

Often I find clients completely confused about ecommerce and shopping carts. They want to know if the steps of the purchase need to be built onto their own site, not always grasping that it's all built on the back end.

They need a solution that allows them to add and remove products so easily they don't need a programmer. So, I highly recommend 2Checkout. Details are at the box labelled "Our recommendations", which I've scrutinized or used myself http://www.allisonbliss.com/resources.htm.

This solution is easy to set up, has good tracking, low cost and really helpful customer support. Then, when companies have much more complicated inventory management requirements they can pay big bucks for those solutions.

I use my shopping cart to manage class sign ups, too. It makes it much easier for registrants.