While there are many life event elements that can be predictive of a consumer's future behavior, I'll focus on just a single and common life event that drives a monumental amount of consumer purchasing each year --the arrival of a newborn. Consumers who have their first child spend on average between $6,000 and $12,000 in preparing for the arrival of their bundle of joy. This single life event drives a significant change in how those lucky families decide to spend their money. To set your marketing results apart from those of your competitors - who are just like pigeons waiting by a park bench for the next bread crumb to be tossed - you need to look more deeply into your prospect's purchasing potential. You need the ability to predict future purchases. Understanding the behavioral reasons behind the purchasing history of that consumer's household can allow a marketer to be three steps ahead of RFM. By working with a database marketing company that tracks consumer household purchasing behavior, your marketing team gets a clearer picture of the purchasing power of an entire household. This level of targeting can significantly increase your results without increasing your costs. While eMail marketing has lost its "golden" luster to mobile and online marketing methods, it is still a very powerful and effective tool. With the CANN SPAM act of 2003, eMail marketing received national recognition. Unfortunately for direct marketers, it wasn't the kind of recognition that helped further its effectiveness. The secret to success with eMail marketing is no different than any other direct marketing medium. There are two parts to the equation. First, you need eMail addresses that are opted-in (meaning the consumer gave permission and you are compliant with CANN SPAM). The second key is relevancy. If what you have to say is relevant to the person that you are saying it to, they will appreciate and potentially respond to your message. The question becomes, how can you be relevant in a medium that requires large numbers of responses to be effective for your bottom line? For the last decade, companies that utilize direct mail marketing as a component of their new business strategy have been running their marketing program on a "single-cylinder engine." The engine works, but will never generate the horsepower needed to give the company the performance that senior executives demand. The good news is that it's never too late to revamp your pipeline efforts and turn the ship around. Surprising sales results can happen in a short period of time, if you focus on the right way to build, maintain and move your pipeline along. In this analogy, the single-cylinder engine represents the limited ability for marketers to select prospects for their direct mail campaign. Most marketers are focused on who to target for their campaign and that's where their thinking ends. Truly effective direct marketing campaigns have more than one cylinder. Savvy marketers expand their thinking to include tailored messaging, timing of the offer, and the media preference of their prospects. By taking these three additional factors into consideration, marketers can effectively up their marketing engine power - and their response percentage by as much as 3%. Finding good qualified prospects will fill the funnel and result in closing more deals for larger dollar amounts. If you implement smart marketing methods that can help your sales team predict which "trees to shake," and what "rocks to turn over," you'll see your profit grow faster than weeds in your garden. RFM also recognizes the "right place at the right time" edict. It's not a coincidence that you receive offers to purchase more products in the box that just arrived with what you bought. It's also not by accident that your mailbox begins to fill with catalogs and postcards of items similar to ones that you've recently purchased from a competing company. That's RFM at work. Building a robust new business pipeline in any economic condition is the result of hard work. No sales pipeline was ever filled without a salesperson taking action and reaching out to prospective customers. The good news is that 30% of the warm calls that a sales professional makes reaches prospects that are ready to buy. When comparing a 1 in 10 chance of selling to a 1 in 3 chance,Cheap Josh Freeman Jersey, it's no surprise that sales people prefer making warm calls. If cold calling is defined as calling someone who doesn't know you and isn't expecting your call, and warm calling is calling someone who has somewhat of an interest in your products and services, then relevant cold calling is a combination of the two. While not as desirable to sales people as a warm call, a relevant cold call is a more effective and efficient way for sales people to spend their time prospecting than making cold calls. Making relevant cold calls can result in a 15% to 18% conversion rate vs. the 10% conversion rates for cold calls. A typical RFM marketing tactic, for example, is for the marketer to use a list of consumers who have recently purchased. This marketer is playing "catch up," once again. That consumer has already made purchases from your competitor and the marketer is just trying to get a leftover breadcrumb. In this article, I'll highlight five things that you can do, today, that will have an immediate impact on your less-than-fulgent pipeline. Each one of the concepts that are outlined in this article all hinge on a few factors: understanding who the right prospect targets are, how to reach them, what media to use, and what to say when you do connect with them. The question that you should be asking yourself is: "Are my sales people spending their valuable prospecting time reaching the right prospects and building the path to a deal?" If the answer is anything other than YES, you have a pipeline problem. The problem with a pipeline problem is that by the time you realize that you have an issue, your new business efforts are significantly behind the proverbial eight ball. Conclusion Like all time-tested marketing methods, most of the marketers today who have implemented RFM as a way of thinking in their marketing process, have only implemented the very basics of RFM. The extent of how they apply the concept is to bombard the consumer with similar offers, trusting that they will get "their fair share" of that consumer's purchasing frenzy. They're focused on the mathematical aspect of RFM in the hopes that they'll get a fraction of "what can be had" at the time. Database marketing companies that specialize in consumer marketing can use a wide array of elements to help predict how relevant an offer can be. Marketing to existing customers and marketing to prospects require two separate approaches. Most experienced database marketing professionals can guide you through the ins and outs of how to be effective. The most effective way for your company to "use all cylinders" in its next marketing campaign is to work closely with a quality database marketing company that can help you to select prospects based on more than just where they live and how much they earn. Predictive Behavioral and Transactional Targeting While there are only so many "right locations", thereby limiting how many companies can be situated in the best physical place, the "right timing" can be controlled by any marketer who has access to quality information on a prospect's life events. Good Luck and Good Selling If you've taken any marketing courses, the term RFM or "Recency, Frequency, Monetary" has been drilled into your consciousness. The RFM concept stands the test of time. Conventional marketing wisdom dictates that how recently and regularly a consumer spends and how much they spend is a good measurement to predict future spending. Usually, the best performers in any sales organization are given what the 1992 classic independent film Glengarry Glen Ross coined as "The Good Leads". If you asked ten sales people what the definition of a good lead was, you would probably get ten different answers -- but each answer would be along a similar theme. A good lead or warm call, is a prospect that is ready to buy. Usually warm calls are prospects that called you or responded in some way to the marketing efforts of your company. The Relevant Cold Call The key to making relevant cold calls resides in two factors. The first component is identifying the best contacts with whom to connect, and the second is identifying the most germane discussion topic for your first call. The easiest way to accomplish both components is to work with a prospecting database that is built using consumer behavioral characteristics. Such a database contains self-reported information and compiled aspects that let your salespeople target the consumers that are most likely to be receptive to your offerings. By using information about a prospect's prior purchasing patterns and response methods, your salespeople -working with your marketing team and the information provider -can craft the right message to illicit the best response. If direct mail is part of your company's marketing program, then you are more than likely familiar with expression "test, test and then retest." Conventional direct mail marketing wisdom requires marketers to use a combination of test segments and control groups to tweak and fix each mail drop where the end goal is, in many cases, to increase the response rate by a paltry.3% or less. Pipeline management is one of the most important factors in the growth of every B2C business. While I don't want to minimize the importance of keeping and growing a customer base, new business development is clearly on the mind of every C-Level executive. Like many of the other concepts that I've outlined in this paper, eMail has more than one dimension. eMail isn't just about marketing a product or a service,Cheap Darren McFadden Jersey, it also serves to promote or detract from your brand. How do you feel about a company that bombards you with eMail messages every day? Don't get caught in the trap of more is better. If you do,Cheap Antrel Rolle Jersey, you'll be playing that numbers game again and you won't get the best results. Spectacular results come from the concept of personal eMail retailing that requires careful consideration of consumer behaviors and potentials. Any sales professional who has sold for at least one week knows about cold calling. Even the most proficient sales professionals have to face the harsh fact that sales physics dictates that 90% of the prospects that they cold call are not ready to buy. In retail circles, there is recognizable phrase that is commonly used and -- if you haven't heard it before -- you may be living under a rock. "Location, Location, Location." While this phrase has been uttered by many successful and struggling retailers, it doesn't tell the complete story. While location is paramount, it isn't truly the reason for the success or failure of a business. The true underlying element of what is really important in successfully marketing your business is timing. So while, location is critical, the more important age old phrase "Location, Location,Cheap Bob Sanders Jersey, Location" takes a second seat to another historical favorite; "Being in the right place at the right time." Personal Email Retailing Marketers that provide products and services that relate the dozens of life events that all consumers experience can profit by being in the right place at the right time. Working with a database marketing company that specializes in tracking consumer life events such as marriage, birth of a child, the purchase of a new home and retirement can be a critical component to your marketing programs. eMail has fallen into the same hum drum trap that direct mail did years ago. Somewhere along the line, marketers forgot about relevancy and traded it in for mathematics. Spray enough cheap eMail out in the market and even 1% makes it worth the effort, right? Well, no. This practice actually dilutes the effectiveness of the medium for everyone. Where these pigeon marketers fall short, is in not thinking through how powerful predictive transactional elements can be in gaining a greater share of that consumer's wallet. For example, why is that consumer making purchases? What is happening in that household that is driving their purchasing behavior? You've no doubt heard the term "left money on the table." Well, if you are thinking only about what piece of the "available" pie (or breadcrumbs) you can get with traditional RFM marketing, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. If finding warm leads were easy,Cheap Bob Griese Jersey, selling would be called order taking. Unless your company has a prodigious advertising budget,Cheap Tom Jackson Jersey, the reality of selling in today's environment dictates that effective and relevant cold calling be part of your sales efforts. The core concept to remember is that eMail is simply a medium, not unlike direct mail, mobile marketing and other push marketing channels. When you are going to push a message to a potential customer (or to an existing one), you are in effect taking a few moments of their time. If your message doesn't get caught in their SPAM filter, it's likely that they'll read it. Will they be glad they did? Objective Direct Mail Marketing Life Event Driven Decision Making