New Names From Co-Ops, Google, Facebook Is Not A Strategy

It's a tactic, no doubt about it. And it's a brain-dead easy tactic. Pay somebody, do very little, get new customers.

It's not being very strategic however, is it? I know, I know, here come the unsubs. But the New Marketing Leader has to have a toolkit full of ideas within each category of the Great Eight.

• Audience
• Awareness
• Acquisition
• Welcome Program
• Anniversary Program
• Optimization Program
• New Merchandise
• Existing Merchandise

For instance, if you are a catalog brand and you are generating 65% or more of your new customers from catalog co-ops, ask yourself a series of questions.

• Is this the audience you wish to speak to?
• Other than an expensive catalog plus merge/purge costs plus paying the co-op some cheddar, how do you plan on generating Awareness?
• What is your plan if the co-op mailed customer visits your website and leaves without buying something. Do you have a plan to capture information (at minimum)? Do you have a plan to capture an email address (at minimum)? Do you have a plan, period?
• In the unlikely event that the customer buys something, do you have a Welcome Program in place to get the customer to buy for a second time, quickly?
• What are the Anniversary events, the three or four big events you have each year, the events designed to maximize sales opportunities?
• Do you have an Optimization Plan in place to minimize over-mailing the co-op buyer who purchases after four website visits?
• Do you have a separate email marketing program that helps grow new merchandise performance via product categories adjacent to the categories the co-op buyer purchased from?
• Does the catalog front-load the first twenty pages with the absolute best items you sell, in an effort to maximize profitability?

Your co-op / Google / Facebook programs are not strategies ... they are a minor tactic within the confines of the Great Eight. The New Marketing Leader has answers to the questions I outline above, and implements a program unique to the industry.

Right?