“You don’t bring me flowers
You don’t sing me love songs
You hardly talk to me anymore
When you come through the door
At the end of the day!”

Most people over the age of 40 will recognize the opening stanza of the 1978 duet sung by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond.  It’s a song about two lovers who have drifted apart.

What does a song from the 70’s have to do with today’s sales and marketing?

Lately and all too often in this economic environment, I see the same attitude of a business toward its loyal customers.  Businesses tend to pursue new customers with more enthusiasm than they prize existing ones.  Most businesses have a very expansive and expensive acquisition strategy…a specific plan for attracting new customers.  However, few companies or professionals have a retention strategy, a precise, formalized program that outlines specific steps to keep current customers and grow the business.

The example in our personal lives is the perfect metaphor for customer retention and growth.  My buddy, who is a marriage counselor, always tells me that one way to grow a relationship is to continue to romance the person who has committed his or her life to you.  When we are dating, we do all the steps necessary to grow the relationship.  We make phone calls; send flowers, cards and text messages.  We try to surprise our loved one with little efforts that are out of the ordinary and above and beyond the normal call of duty.  Unfortunately, it all ends at “I do” for many couples.

Let me give you a business example that hits close to home.  We have a great neighborhood Greek restaurant in my neighborhood that’s been in business for 2 years.  My family dines regularly at least twice a month, usually after Sunday mass with the rest of the parish! Last week, while picking up my daughter at volleyball practice, I met one of the new school parents who had just moved into the area.  They asked me what I thought of the Greek restaurant.  They received a “two for one” offer in the mail welcoming them to the neighborhood. When I got home I did some quick math.  We’ve spent about a $100 per month there for the past two years.  That totals about $2,500 since they’ve been open.  All I’ve gotten is a 10% off coupon from their website!  Not a very good way to treat a loyal customer.  Guess what I’m going to ask for the next time I patronize the place?

Retention strategies don’t take much to set up and don’t have to be expensive.  Remember, it costs 3 to 5 times as much to acquire new customers as it does to keep the ones you already have in the fold.  Send your clients a hand-written thank you card with a Starbucks gift certificate.  Take them out to lunch.  Take them to a ball game or out golfing.  I send my clients a Danish kringle from my hometown in Racine, WI.  Your small gesture will pay off quite handsomely.

Excuse me, all this talk about retention and gratitude reminds me…I better go buy my wife of 18 years some flowers!

Rob Trecek
Director of Business Development
rob.trecek@johnsondirect.com

Accountability exists in all professions. Physicians are accountable for their diagnoses, receptionists are accountable for the messages they route, and marketers are held accountable for the strategies they propose and the methods they choose to implement them. A good first step in keeping up with what’s expected of us and staying in touch with the primary goals of what it is we’re trying to accomplish is performing a marketing audit.

Marketing audits allow us to discover problems and ask questions as to what goals we were trying to accomplish in the first place. Because marketing audits are so important to increasing ROI and maximizing revenue, we often begin our new client-agency relationships with a thorough look at how our clients go about marketing their products, goods, or services.  Over time, we’ve found 5 main reasons why a marketing audit isn’t just a good idea, it’s a necessary one:

Marketing audits reintroduce you to your product or service.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than a customer calling up your call center and, in not so many words, telling you that you don’t know your product. Believe it or not, it’s happened. Account executives, product marketers, and even CMO’s have fallen victim to the “just get through today” mentality and have forgotten what matters most: the product. When beginning a marketing audit, you go through your marketing plan, project plans, and budget documents to get a better understanding of why it is you chose “option B” instead of “option A”.

Marketing audits remind you of the initial campaign goals so you can adapt and succeed.

I remember back when I was in grade school I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up. Looking back, it was definitely an accomplishable goal, but somewhere along the line things changed and I no longer wanted to venture down that path. The same is true in marketing: campaign goals can, and most likely will, change along the way. By looking back at your planning and goal-development process you will get reacquainted with the original reason you got the project funding in the first place.

Marketing audits allow you assess what’s worked, and what hasn’t.

It doesn’t take much to realize that the best way to survive a crash is to avoid it altogether. Marketing audits give you an opportunity to take a look at what you’ve done, how you’ve done it, and any positive (or negative) results that may have come of it. Assessing the path you’ve chosen to follow with your marketing budget will enable you to sense an err in direction and pivot to avoid the proverbial crash.

Marketing audits uncover inefficiencies that you didn’t know existed.

You know that sinking feeling you get in your stomach when you pull into your local gas station, fill up your car or truck, and drive a couple blocks down the road to find the next station offering gas 20 cents cheaper? That happens a lot in marketing- you think you’ve gone down the right path only to find that if you’d chosen that “option A” you would have saved your organization $100,000 per quarter in ad spending. The results you gather when looking at your current marketing strategy allow you to see where your dollars are going and search for ways you can make that dollar go even further. Who knows what you’ll find?

Marketing audits recharge your campaign and spark life into new strategy and direction.

For me, there’s nothing more exciting than taking a client from planning to launch. Whether you’re unveiling a spiffy new website, sending out a new creative to the masses, or trying your hand with a new media publisher, launch dates get the adrenaline pumping and instill a sense of focus like none other. After looking at an old, aging campaign and identifying weaknesses, you can propose new ways to achieve the old goals you’ve been seeking all along. Modifying an old campaign shows the same promise of success that a new one brings so it will reignite the fire and take your product or service to a new level.

Anthony Piwarun
eMarketing
anthony.piwarun@johnsondirect.com

There’s an electrifying feeling of excitement here at Johnson Direct today. That’s because we’ve launched a brand new website for the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ female veteran outreach initiative, www.JoinSheServes.org.

We partnered with the VFW in 2008 to develop the She Serves program, and this is actually a second generation web presence for She Serves. The makeover is significant. In fact, anyone who’s been to the original site, may not recognize it at first.

Primarily a recruitment tool, the new She Serves website makes it easy for prospective female veteran members to grasp the real benefits of VFW membership. Not only that, it guides veterans through the application process showing them exactly how to sign up online as a member-at-large. With sisterhood and camaraderie at its core, the website speaks to female veterans of every generation, urging them to become an active member in the nation’s largest combat veterans’ organization.  Furthermore, the site is easy to navigate and gives visitors swift access to the news that matters most to female veterans.

The level of research, strategy and planning that went into the 2010-2011 She Serves marketing program and this website is off the charts. We can’t wait to report on the results of our collaboration with the VFW! Stay tuned …

Denise B. Hearden
eMarketing Director
denise.hearden@johnsondirect.com

The first article in this series about using the effective sales technique of StorySelling defined what StoryTelling actually is and what makes StorySelling more effective in your customer and prospect marketing communications. This article will deal with why StorySelling is such a critical driver in closing sales today and why you should be testing it sooner rather than later.

According to author and researcher George Bane, “Two decades ago, the average child under 18 spent about 15 to 20 hours per week digesting media content. Today, it has nearly tripled to almost 60 hours per week of unduplicated time. They now devote more time to media than to anything other than sleep.”

And, it’s not much better for those older. When I was growing up in the 1960’s and early 1970’s as a child, we had 3 TV stations and PBS. I can still recall when our first UHF station was added. Wow, was I ecstatic that I had another choice. Today, we have hundreds of TV channels, radio stations, satellite radio stations, newspapers and of course the internet. That’s added as much content and options we can digest, including YouTube, Twitter, Hulu, and on and on…

With increased media exposure and an inundation of advertised media messages, it’s getting harder and harder to “cut through the clutter” and make your marketing message(s) meaningful, even if they are relevant. While the number of impressions we are exposed to daily is cause for debate, it’s safe to say that the number is off the chart compared to only five or ten years ago. Therein lies the dilemma.

Through StoryTelling techniques companies can effectively distinguish themselves from competitors, and provide reasons to the prospect as to why their product or service is superior and why they should try it. The problem with most StoryTelling is that it does not nudge the recipient to a call-to-action. It should. Then, it becomes StorySelling.

Author Mary van de Wiel explains the power of StoryTelling in your communication efforts and how you and your company can benefit from it. She asks Why is storytelling so important to your business? Because:

• An authentic brand story makes you memorable.
• It differentiates you as desirable.
• It brings your brand to life.
• It gives you a distinct competitive advantage.
• Your target market becomes hugely responsive.
• It positions you as a visionary in your field.

Testimonials, when done right help your StroySelling efforts as they add credibility to your messaging. StorySelling makes you more successful because people remember it. In this fast-paced, uber-fragmented world we live in, it helps make an emotional connection to your brand and helps lodge your product or service in the recipient’s memory bank a little bit longer and gets them to WANT to take action sooner rather than later or never.

You need to be testing different StorySelling messages in your marketing and sales communications because they will help set you apart, make you more memorable and get your prospects to do what great advertising and marketing is intended to do – take action and do so now.

The amount of media exposure and advertising messages we are exposed to is not decreasing anytime soon. Thus, test this method to jump start your marketing efforts. As we become over exposed to all things media, we CRAVE simplicity. StorySelling does exactly that. It plays off of simplicity and makes your message more prominent and effective.

Once upon a time there was this marketer who wrote a few articles on StorySelling. He wrote about what it is and why it is needed. Then, in the final article, he described how it is being done profitably in this day and age. The “how to” article will be the last in his series on how StorySelling is an effective sales closing technique. Please look for it. In the meantime, visit www.johnsondirect.com to discover even more timely marketing tips and stories.

Sincerely,

Grant Johnson
Founder, Johnson Direct
grant.johnson@johnsondirect.com

It was a small gesture…yet it made all the difference in the world.

My wife and I decided to take our two kids, age 13 and 11 to Noah’s Ark in Wisconsin Dells a couple weeks ago.  It’s advertised as “America’s Largest Waterpark”. It has 49 thrilling water rides, two giant wave pools, two endless rivers, four children’s water play areas, miniature golf, a 4D theater and live shows. It truly is fun for the entire family.

Even though the weather was gorgeous and we were visiting in the middle of peak season, we didn’t find the crowd unbearable at all.  Even the line on the newest attraction, the Scorpions Tail, took less than 20 minutes.  The parking is free, they have plenty of lounge chairs to rest on and they even let you bring a cooler of food to eat at designated picnic areas close to the parking lot. The park itself was well maintained and spotless!

The only complaint I could come up with were the attitudes of the life guards.  They seemed rather robotic and excuse the term…”guarded”.  They are mostly high school and college kids, working for minimum wage, and working 7 days a week, 10 hours a day.  It can get rather monotonous and they are obviously more worried about getting people in and out of the rides safely than by creating small talk. You also have to consider that the majority of the lifeguards were from foreign countries and probably weren’t confident with their English.

Things changed drastically when the family headed to the Bahama Falls rafting ride in the late afternoon.  When we got to the front of the line we were greeted by a young man who was smiling ear to ear.  He was a Russian college student by the name of Vladislav Fedorov.  He was quite engaging in his broken accent asking us if we were enjoying our time at the park and asking the kids what their favorite ride so far was.  He then warned us to hold on tight as he gave us a big push.  My kids couldn’t stop talking about him for 15 minutes!  I went to one of the managers to let him know how much my family appreciated Vladislav’s friendliness.  “Oh yeah”, said the manager, “that’s good old Vlady.  He’s a keeper!  We get positive comments about him at least twice a day.”

Vlady’s customer service attitude reminded me of what Scott McKain calls the “Ultimate Customer Experience” in his book Collapse of Distinction.

McKain goes into detail on how they treat you on a Singapore Airlines flight.  On every first class flight, they will take your suit jacket and hang it up. The flight attendant doesn’t return your jacket until immediately after the flight has landed. She waits until he had stood up from his seat, then helped him put the jacket on. Other flight attendants did the same with every other passenger with a jacket.

It was a small, tiny gesture — that made a big impact. It was personal…not corporate. It was intimate…not mass appeal.

McKain also writes about the practice at Les Schwab Tires. When you pull in their parking lot, they RUN to your car to serve you. It’s created an amazingly successful business — even though the tires they sell are IDENTICAL to their competition — because of their “sudden service.”

Being personable before heading off on a water slide, helping you with your jacket…running to your car…are essential elements of the Ultimate Customer Experience®…yet, they do not cost the company anything in terms of execution.

Yet, as McKain points out, most organizations will seek to buy more ads, invest in more intensive marketing, or some other scheme to persuade people to come back and do more business.

What little, no cost, step could YOU and your organization take that would cost you practically no money… make a big difference with customers…and ultimately help you stand out from your competition.

Rob Trecek
Director of Business Development
rob.trecek@johnsondirect.com

Over the years, Facebook has evolved from a “yearbook” of sorts for college students to a full-fledged, 400 million user strong social networking site. As any marketing and advertising professional would tell you, the possibility of members from your target market having a Facebook account is relatively high. Luckily for you, Facebook’s advertising platform is easy to use and offers an analytics dashboard to help you track and measure your investment. If you are interested in advertising your brand on Facebook, then this guide is for you. Follow these easy steps and you will be advertising your brand on Facebook and seeing results in no time.

Identify Your Goals

Before creating your ad, targeting you should first think about what you want to accomplish. Some goals we’ve seen in the past include generating revenue, increasing cost per sale, or simply promoting your brand by maximizing visibility. It’s important to think about what you hope to gain so you can accurately measure your return and decide if it’s worth the time and resources.

Design and Develop

Ad Copy and Creative- After you think about what you’d like to accomplish by advertising on Facebook, it’s time to create the ad itself. Facebook advertisements are located in the far right hand column of the screen after navigating away from the newsfeed. Ads are composed of a headline, copy and imagery to go with your theme. Imagery should be compelling and on-topic. It’s strongly suggested that in any type of online advertising, you use a creative featuring a person’s headshot- they tend to perform better than an object or lesser-known brand logo. In terms of copy, the titles can be 25 characters in length and the body copy of the ad can be 135 characters. It’s best to keep your copy short and to the point – let the imagery you choose do the talking.

Landing Page- After clicking on your compelling, well-written advertisement, the user is taken to a landing page where they will decide whether or not they will buy your product. Facebook ads can link to either a Fan Page or an external website. After managing the online ad campaigns for numerous clients, we’ve found that an external, campaign-specific landing page outperforms linking to your brand’s Fan Page. Taking that into consideration, it’s important to keep brand messaging consistent between the creative and the landing page. If your ad uses a logo or object as imagery, add it to your landing page so the user doesn’t feels confident that they clicked on the right advertisement.

Target Your Audience

One of the many useful features of the Facebook advertising platform is the ability to target your advertising to specific segments. On Facebook, it’s possible to target:

The ability to target your audience using this much detail makes advertising as effective, or even more effective, than PPC or traditional online display advertising. With a well thought out goal (remember step one?) and proper targeting, you’ve already qualified traffic to your landing page.

Define Cost Structure

Defining goals, developing effective creative, and targeting your audience is nothing new. It’s been done since the beginning of advertising and is a standard procedure when launching any new campaign. Where advertising on Facebook, or anywhere online for that matter, differs from traditional media buying, however, is in the cost structure. There are two ways to manage your ad spend when running media on Facebook:

• Cost Per Click- You pay every time a user clicks on your advertisement. It doesn’t matter whether your ad was served 100 times or 1 million times, you only pay for every click.
• Cost Per Impression- You pay for a set number of impressions, or, ad views. This is measured in multiples of 1,000 and is called a CPM or “cost per million” ad spend.

Choosing a price structure that’s right for you is critical to the success of your campaign. If your goal is to increase brand recognition and don’t have any commercially-tied reason to drive traffic to your landing page other than to promote your name, choosing a CPM model would be the most cost effective. If, however, your success is measured by the number of sales you get via the landing page, starting off with CPC and calculating return would be well-advised.

Launch, Measure, and Repeat

After deciding which cost structure is best suited to your goal, it’s time to launch. Run your ad and regularly monitor it using the dashboard under the “Ads and Pages” tab. Here, you’ll get detailed information on metrics such as bid cost, the number of clicks, average cost-per-click, and more. Narrow down your dashboard by selecting monthly, weekly, or even daily statistics, and dig deeper by exporting reports into csv format and analyzing historical trends.

After running your ad for a few days, tweak the copy or swap the image and run both ads to find a winner. Running split tests will enable you to find out what works, and what doesn’t work for your audience. If you notice a positive return with advertising on Facebook, keep in mind the fact that users may get used to your ads after several impressions. Remember, marketing is an iterative process, and creativity is king so we always urge our clients to be constantly tweaking their advertisements even after they’ve found one that works.

Anthony Piwarun
eMarketing
anthony.piwarun@johnsondirect.com

Feeding the continuous improvement process is the key to search and content marketing success.

Writing and distributing content on the web is as much a science as it is a form of art. Back in high school, we all learned the importance of having a methodology – a series of steps or processes – to follow in order to ensure what we were doing was logical and most importantly, repeatable. Whether you’re looking to increase online sales, generate leads, increase customer retention, or simply create a presence for your company or brand, following a set of steps will help you create compelling content to meet or exceed your goals.

At Johnson Direct, Direct Branding™ is the approach we’ve created to deliver Marketing that’s Measurable. This proven process drives our strategic recommendations and plans — energizing the work we do, from advertising to website development and everything in between. Applying Direct Branding to our clients’ search engine optimization efforts is no exception.

THE FACTS: Search engine optimization is the process of developing and optimizing content to rank and perform better on searches via Google, Yahoo! and Bing. A recent Forester Research study showed that 93% of all web traffic is generated through search engines. Furthermore, a 2010 B2B Online survey showed a projected 57% increase in budgets for “content marketing” making now the best time to throw your hat in the ring and compete on search.

Direct Branding + Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Direct Branding™ is at the core of any traditional or interactive marketing solution offered by Johnson Direct. Whether your organization decides to work with us to improve organic search rankings or not, we advise anyone looking to boost web traffic to take a closer look at our approach.

The process in planning search engine optimization and content marketing differs little from that of other marketing strategies and tactics – it deserves a strong, persistent commitment in time, resources and energy to produce results.

Here’s a bird’s eye view of the 5-step process, inspired by Direct Branding, brought to you by the interactive team at Johnson Direct.

1. Fact-based Analysis

SEO / Content Audit: The first step in finding a solution should always be to first define the problem. Whether your issue is stagnant or decreased search traffic, page four rankings, or the inability to track and measure your investment in online marketing, it’s necessary to pop the hood and take a look at what you’re currently doing. Take a look at everything from your sites architecture and navigational structure to the copy on your pages to make sure everything is up to par.

Keyword Analysis: More often than not, we find that our clients don’t have a grasp of their target market. Sure, they may think they know what their users are searching for and where they go to search but unless you look at past results and go through the process of research it’s a shot in the dark. The key is to use a variety of resources, not just one, from keyword research tools to market intelligence. Using a variety research tools will limit the chance of error and give you a better idea of who is visiting your site.

Competitive Analysis: Equally as important as defining your problem and a path of improvement is knowing what you’re up against. Often times, your traditional competitors are not the same as your online competition. Using keyword research and analysis, it’s easy to find out what strategies your top competitors are employing to outperform you in search. Strategic competitive analysis levels the playing field and allows you to compete – even if they have a bigger budget.

2. Branding / Marketing Strategies

The heart of a search engine optimization and content marketing strategy lies in strategy development. When working with our clients, everything is pulled together – SEO best practices, content development suggestions, keyword placement, link building techniques and viral marketing strategy – and rolled up into an easy to understand report so you can be well on your way to improving your visibility in search.

3. Build Program Components

If you read any interactive marketing, SEO, or copywriting blogs, chances are you’ve seen the phrase “content is king” thousands of times. To be honest, it is. Having the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t is one thing but actually developing copy that plays to both your audience AND the search engines is another. Careful planning and cross-departmental collaboration is vital to the success of your content. It doesn’t make sense to have your web developer write your call-to-action or for your PR rep to set up Google Analytics, right? Play to your team members’ strengths and collaborate to produce end results that drive traffic (and revenue) through the roof.

4. Execute Tests & Campaigns

Whether you decide to implement your search engine optimization strategies in-house or utilize our experienced professionals to do it for you, the execution phase is where the magic happens.  By following the step by step process outlined in the recommendations report, you will be able to improve the efficiency of your current content and build a foundation of knowledge for future development.

5. Track & Measure

Everything done up to this point is useless without a method of measuring the results. To do this, we’ll optimize your web analytics and implement conversion tracking and goal funnels if you already have an analytics platform. If you don’t already have one, there are both free and premium solutions so you can track performance and assign value to your investment.

Continuous Improvement

We consider search engine optimization an interactive and ongoing process. A lot of marketers go through the steps of improving a process, see positive results, and call it a day. SEO, and any interactive marketing initiative for that matter, requires constant monitoring so you can see improvements as they happen and tweak for further improvements.

Why Johnson Direct?

Johnson Direct is not an interactive shop. We are an experienced, results-oriented full service marketing agency providing our clients with solutions that are proven to increase ROI. By working with a full service agency to deliver interactive solutions, you are choosing to partner with a firm that has a complete grasp of your goals and objectives to form a holistic marketing strategy, be it via interactive or traditional means.

Like anything else in marketing, search engine optimization is an “all-hands-on-deck” process. Involvement is required from all departments – marketing, copywriting, design, web development, and even public relations. Partnering with a multi-channel marketing leader like Johnson Direct will ensure that your search strategy is seamlessly integrated with your other campaigns and organizational goals.

If you’re interested in learning more about our experience in search engine optimization and content marketing, contact us today and speak with one of our interactive marketing pros to learn more about how we can help.

Anthony Piwarun
eMarketing
anthony.piwarun@johnsondirect.com

Are you aware that your brand is under constant assault… from forces within? Countless employees on your payroll use and abuse company brand identity, key messages, and taglines. It’s not because they want to do harm- often times it’s that they just don’t know how to use them. Luckily, there’s a simple solution: a brand identity guide.

In the current issue of Chief Marketer, our eMarketing Direct Denise Hearden discusses 13 rules that should be included in your brand identity guide. Read it here.

Does the name Dick Fosbury sound familiar?

If you are a sports fan, a tad bit older and follow the Olympics, his name will be instantly recognizable. If not, here’s the background: Prior to Mr. Fosbury, most elite high-jumpers used the Straddle technique, Western Roll, Eastern cut-off or even Scissors-Jump to clear the bar. Everyone did the high jump the same way; they ran to the bar and rolled over the bar, face forward. Not Dick. He ran full steam ahead, contorted his body, turned and jumped backward at the bar just prior to take off, arching his back and lifting his legs over him. Everyone laughed. Until he broke all the records. He won the gold medal in the 1968 Summer Olympicsusing his technique.

Everyone was doing the high jump the perceived correct way; but Dick Fosbury and his “Fosbury Flop” showed everyone the right way to do it. The moral: the popular way is not necessarily the correct way. Every high-jumper today uses the “Fosbury Flop.”

It’s the same with StoryTelling. Lots of folks do it, but they could be doing it better by changing to StorySelling. This applies both to firms that use it and to any full service marketing agency that is hired to implement it on behalf of their clients.

This is the first of a three (3) part series on StorySelling: What, Why and How to do it correctly. When used properly, it’s an effective sales closing technique that will aid in soft selling your prospects. This first article will deal with WHAT StorySelling is and what makes it different from regular StoryTelling.

“StorySelling,” as I call it, is the art of telling an emotional and compelling story, regardless of medium, to effectively convey a call to action that sells a product or service, or gains a donation from the recipient.

A good story is something the recipient can read easily, relates with and which effectively touches that something inside of them but does not often urge them to take action. The key to your success is to go beyond the story and to think about your call to action, from the prospective audience(s) vantage point. It’s really more about gentle persuasion than overt selling when done correctly. That makes StoryTelling, StorySelling.

Here are some great StoryTellers:

• Music: Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Chapin, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan
• Books: John Grisham, Shel Silverstein, James Patterson, Steven King
• Movies: James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Oliver Stone
• Plays: Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Neil Simon

All great indeed but not StorySellers, any of them. If you look at Anthony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, most seasoned politicians and legendary pitchmen, you’ll discover it.

It’s what made Billy Mays rich and Oxy Clean famous.

StorySelling is similar to full circle branding in that the story ends with a meaningful conclusion; in the case of measurable marketing a call to action to purchase or give. When done correctly both the advertiser and the responder win because ultimately they feel good, oftentimes excited about the action they just took. When done well, they go on to tell friends and they do the additional StorySelling for you.

Remember: People hate to be sold, but those same people love to buy, give or lend a hand. Great StorySelling then gives reasons for the recipient to take action. It incorporates purchasing options. In order to get to the call to action, it’s best to explain how the product or donation will help them or those who receive it. You need to lead with emotion and justify with logic. It’s the logic that takes the emotional StoryTelling to the next level of StorySelling.

Simply spend some time analyzing great infomercials and you’ll see what great StorySelling is about. Or, read ads from Oreck, Harry & David or Bose. They understand StorySelling. And, they are very successful.

We work with an important non-profit agency in southeastern Wisconsin that provides multiple social services to a wide variety of people. When we first became partners in direct mail campaigns with them, they were spending $25,000 per year on direct mail, and receiving about the same amount in return. Not-with-standing the potential lifetime value of the donors who made the gifts, this is still not the kind of return an agency executive wants to see.

We have been working with them for eight years now, and each of the direct mail pieces we have done for them has focused on an emotional, factual story of one element of their program. Of course, we have done considerable work in finding the right lists to target.

In those eight years, they have increased their annual direct mail expenditure to about $185,000 … with an annual return of more than $1 million! Now that’s a return a non-profit exec can get behind! That’s the power of StorySelling.

In the next article we’ll cover the reason WHY you need to be StorySelling today, right now.

Sincerely,

Grant Johnson
Founder, Johnson Direct
grant.johnson@johnsondirect.com