Going 3 deep to understand concerns

It is so important these days to understand needs of customers, affiliates, vendors, and all others that we do business with. Many times an answer to a question we ask may not contain the real reasoning of concerns that a contact is having. For this reason it is so important to go 3 DEEP with your questions. Here are 4 quick tips on going 3 DEEP and getting a result. 

1. Ask open ended questions to try and get to the real reasoning behind a concern. Avoid Yes/No questions

2. Probe a little further with questions like "Tell me a little bit more about that?" and "Help me understand why this is a concern?"

3. Know when to be silent and listen. Sometimes silence after a question or an answer can lead the other person to try and fill that silence with more deeper reasoning. 

4. Be friendly with your contacts. Follow the "Platinum Rule" and treat them as THEY would like to be treated. 

Thoughts on Going 3 DEEP?

Email Campaigns

 What is the Key to email campaigns? How do you measure success with an email campaign? How often should you do email campaigns? These are all questions that you need to address when formulating your strategy. Some quick thoughts and tips:

1. Formulate tests and a different creative for each group you are trying to reach. By testing different ideas and ads you will be better able to see which ideas work and which don't.

2. When you make the creatives for the email campaigns try to formulate each one to appeal to different personality types ie. Have lots of data, comparison, and reviews for the analytical minded people. Have testimonials of how great the product is and how everyone is using it for those who seek to have everything that is currently Hip, and be quick and too the point of why and how to purchase the product quickly to those who are quick start minded. 

3. Track your numbers of success, whether its click through rate, revenue from the campaign, or page impressions on your gateway site, find a way to see the success of the project. If one campaign is more successful on revenue but less on click through rate and vice versa on another campaign, find a way to combine those two campaigns to create a efficient, effective way to reach people. 

4. DON"T BOMBARD PEOPLE, through analysis of your numbers and customer surveys you can find out what the optimal amount of emails that you should send is. Use your numbers effectively to produce less unsubscribers and more devout customers. 

Skull Candy Ad Review

I saw this great commercial from Skull Candy the other day. Skull Candy is embeded as a company for the action sports enthusiast. Through this brand positioning, Skull Candy has 2 unique audiences. First, the actual participants in Action Sports (Skiing, Snowboarding, Skateboarding, etc) Second, it has captured the spill over effect to those who WANT to be participants in action sports. This has proved to be successful, and along with new brand extensions such as shirts and backpacks, Skull Candy appears to continue its enormous growth and remain entrenched as the number 2 distributer of headphones worldwide.

This commercial does a great job at hitting its target audience as well as its secondary audience, and the tag line, Every Revolution Needs a Soundtrack fits perfectly with the people it wants to purchase its product.

Take a look.