What is SMART marketing?

In sales and marketing terms its straight forward : Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic (or relevant) and Timely.

Nearly everyone I speak to, associated with sales, is familiar with the specific, achievable and realistic.? They are the ones that trip easily off the tongue.?

We want to sell more . . . cars / vans. . .? over the weekend of Friday 26th?April – Monday 29th?April.? Achievable and realistic are often rolled into one -, ‘damn right it’s possible, we have did it in October!’

But measurable and timely are getting more difficult as we move further into a digital and GDPR world.

Once upon a time, we put a large advert in the local / regional paper.? Probably with a list of cars we were selling on Wednesday, that would unfortunately be out of date by the time Friday came around. (But who cared, we would have other, similar cars by then)

If we were looking for a big push we would hold a Black and White event, a Man from the Factory event, Double Discount.? The list could go on, but you get the idea.? It needed to sound different to the customer and it needed to say ‘this weekend you will get the deal of a lifetime’.

If we were lucky, the manufacturer of our chosen brand would also be running a smooth and sophisticated advert on ITV or Channel 4.? ‘Putting all your money on red, and losing, is not important to the VW Golf driver.’

Today, you have a head start if you are part of a large group, or have a really switched on marketing team.? But not every retailer is the same size or has the same resources.

In the past, several boxes of pizza were ordered together with a few bottle of beer and everyone was roped into the showroom to make some early evening calls.? Job done.? We had people in the showroom and we sold some more cars.

And the salesman hated it – and therefore didn’t try hard to be really good at it – so outside companies were asked to make the calls.? They do it all the time, so there results were always going to be better.?

They may have costed slightly more than the pizza and beer, but then if you sold one more car, it paid for the extra outlay. Everyone was happy.

(Don’t ask about the focus group I was running in a ‘neutral ground’ conference suite, to measure customers opinions, that had to be cancelled mid-session because the ‘sales team’ sat next door, watching the video feed live, decided to order pizza and drink and be a bit loud party that could be heard by the customers)

Today we need to spend much more professional attention on Measurable and Timely if we want to make the most of our marketing.

Cold calling is now out of the window. If retailers are slightly twitchy, paranoid or have no confidence in how diligently the in-house database had been updated with ‘Do not contact’ notes.? Even today, in 2024, I am still seeing client databases that don’t have the option to say ‘Don’t call / text / email’.

Digital marketing rose in parallel with the internet. But now your message is one of a thousand that will bombard the customer this week.? Making it difficult to stand out.? Buying the back page of the local paper, knowing that it will sit on a coffee table or side board for a few days to attract an extra number of subliminal glances is also unfeasible.

So sales teams hit everything.? Checked Email lists, BLOG posts, Facebook, Instagram, X, etc.

But what is Measurable and Timely? ?Sales exec’s haven’t started to asked customers what brought them into the showroom – they say they do, but they still don’t!

In my job I subscribe to dozens of social media marketing feeds for different groups. But if the posted number of followers is anything to go by, then I am in a very small group.

You need to combine the two letters of the acronym, (M) and (T) and manage them together.

Most email marketing platforms, like our own eSend system, records how many emails were sent, when, who opened them, which ones bounced, etc.

But that’s not really telling you much.? An Outlook user - If you don’t open the email but read it in the preview window like more than 50% of email users do, then it will never be flagged to the sending company that the email has been opened or read.

How many times have you, yourself, seen some vague message in your in box, only to enter the details straight into a browser window to have a look?? No way of tracking that.

There is a lovely phrase in marketing called ‘Bounce rate’, not to be confused with bounced emails which just means ‘at that one moment in time’ your email couldn’t be delivered.?

Marketing ‘Bounce Rate’ is the level of customers that visited your webpage, but didn’t go any further.? Perhaps they were distracted, their page could have been one of many open on their browser for a couple of hours.? In fact Google assumes they have already gone if the page is still up after 30 minutes.

So what do you need.? Is it really worth spending a tiny amount with someone to show you how to make it all measurable in a timely manner?

Absolutely.? You would know :

How many people followed a link on your email, or your google ad’ and ended up on a specific information page you are promoting. The landing page.

When visitors looked, can be tracked down to the minute. And for how long.

Landing page for each message you are putting out there? One for the blog, the email and one or more for social media. It can split up all your enquiries.

Which offers ‘name’ is attractive enough, that users entered that into their Google search.?

(Remember to add an information box on your main opening page – something like – ‘Latest Offers’ and then a line of links to the most recent marketing campaigns.)

The more information you know the better.? The initial idea, the offer, is only part of it.? So is writing about it, texting, email marketing or calling.? You need to know exactly who is seeing what you are creating.? If you want to know about marketing A/B testing. Give us a call.

For 30 years out telemarketing approach always broke down exactly what the customers through, and how that affected their buying decision.? Google Analytics (GA4) does the same thing online.? But sometimes a retailer needs a little hand holding to set up something that is basically free (from Google) to make money for you.

Give Cymark a call.? We can develop bespoke landing pages with your team and put in place Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics that will work for you.? We will even do the reports so you can manage the effect.

Marketing is expensive.? Don’t waste it.

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