9) Reminding Sequent Until They Buy

Remembering to shop at your business might not be on the top of all your customers’ to-do lists.

In fact, chances are, you’ve lost some customers. People simply disappear for many reasons.

These customers have purchased from you before, but for one reason or another, they haven’t been back. Why not? Where did they go?

Here are the main reasons that people don’t continue to do business with you (in NO particular order):

• They moved away, and it’s no longer convenient to do business with you.

• They had a bad experience.

• They’re “price shoppers” and found someone who provides a lower price for the same product or service.

• They no longer need your product or service.

But the number-one reason that people stop doing business with you is … THEY FORGET.

It’s funny, but it’s not. In fact, it’s downright sad. Most businesses forget that it is not the job of the customer to remember that their business exists. And so the customers disappear because they forget that the business is still around.

These are people whom I call “lost customers”—previous customers who have not returned to your business within the period of time that you think they should.

For example, in my menswear stores, we identified lost customers as people who did not return within six months. Restaurants might identify lost customers as those who don’t return within three months. An optometrist might identify a lost patient as someone who doesn’t return every year.

Yet the truth is that a lost customer is just someone who hasn’t been reminded enough times. That’s right. Lost customers need to be reminded, and not just with a campaign that says, “Remember us?”

I am suggesting a step-by-step campaign to get to these specific customers until, finally, you have broken down as many barriers as you can.

Usually, it takes three or four steps … but it’s worth it!

learn to think differently

Part of the secret to successful OUTRAGEOUS advertising is simply to learn to think differently. This happened to me, as I wrote in the preface, when I attended a marketing seminar for which Dan Kennedy was one of the speakers.

One of the things that Dan talked about that day was the concept of sequencing—sending more than one advertising message to customers over a series of time. When I first heard of this concept, my jaw dropped. It made perfect logical sense.

Not everyone thought so. My father, for instance, was still involved in the family business at the time, and I came back from that seminar and told him about the idea of mailing an offer two weeks apart to the same person. The second piece of mail would go to anyone who didn’t respond to the first, I told my father.

“You’re crazy,” said my father. “Why would you want to waste money on people who didn’t respond the first time?”

Crazy?

No, more like understanding human nature. After all, everyone is a procrastinator.

increase results… double your response!

Whatever response you get in one mailing (or ad of any kind), you will double in three mailings. And usually, you do better than that.

It’s actually simple. A lot of people will put you in the “maybe later” pile as discussed in chapter 2. And even though you’ve made it into that pile, you will often disappear along with everything else in that “maybe later” pile because people are busy. Remember, it’s not their job to remember your business.

But by reminding them, you become more than a blip on their radar screen. You recapture their interest.

Of course, doubling your response is only really helpful if your initial response to the first advertisement was significant. After all, zero times two equals zero. Or as Dan Kennedy says: “YOU CAN’T MULTIPLY ZEROS.”

There are things to weigh before moving forward. Typically, a sequential campaign is worth it, but you do have to do the math. It depends on the transaction size you are getting versus the cost of continuing a campaign, plus the size of the initial response.

The mechanics of proceeding forward basically begin with a test. Trying a campaign on a core group of 500 customers will usually tell you if the OUTRAGEOUS idea you are implementing is working. From there you can expand to the entirety of your mailing list.

Once you have determined that an initial mailing is effective, you can implement the sequential portion of the campaign. This means that about ten days to two weeks later, the customers who didn’t respond to the first mailing get another reminder.

dean killingbeck’s cold birthday mailing

Dean Killingbeck is a former sales representative to the home and garden store industry. He is a Glazer-Kennedy member, one of our independent business advisors in Michigan, and a master marketer in his own right.

And Dean was once consulting for a restaurant when he came up with an idea of buying a list of birthdays for all women from the ages of thirty-five to sixty-five in a certain geographic area around the restaurant.

Dean merged a lot of things together in this campaign, giving it a definite theme and look—starting right off with the stamp on the first envelope.

Dean Killingbeck’s birthday envelope. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

And then inside the envelope is a letter wishing a happy birthday and offering a free birthday meal. The letter uses all the essential elements and throws in extras like testimonials, personalization, and double readership.

Dean Killingbeck’s birthday letter. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

But then, if the person still doesn’t come in for the free meal, a second attempt is made with a funny postcard featuring a baby with cake all over its face. On the back of the card is a gift certificate—a reminder again that this offer is one he or she should try to remember!

Dean Killingbeck’s birthday postcard. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

connecting the dots

When you run a sequential campaign, you as the OUTRAGEOUS advertiser need to connect the dots. One thing needs to refer back to another, reminding the customer that “We’ve mailed you this offer once before.”

Tying this together is an essential element for a sequential campaign to work. There are a number of creative ways to do this, as I will illustrate in the upcoming examples. But the overall point is that each step of the sequence must be tied together.

In a sequential campaign, you are reaching out to customers who have already seen step one. So it is important to tie step two to step one and, while referring back to step one, give a REASON WHY you are sending this again. Customers are smart and perceptive, and yet suggestible.

farmers & merchants bank campaign

How’s this for OUTRAGEOUS—a bank sending you a bank deposit bag in the mail as I showed you in chapter 8 when I used it to illustrate premiums.

The bag itself, besides being an OUTRAGEOUS way to get a sales letter into the hands of the customer, is the very beginning of getting this message of who exactly sent this to the customer.

And so with that, step one of the sequential campaign was complete, and quite successful. But the bank was not finished yet.

A second mailing was then sent out connecting the dots to the first mailing of the bank bag. This mailing was a clear plastic bag full of shredded money, and another detailed sales letter.

Farmers & Merchants Bank Shredded Money Mailing. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

The letter was of the same design as the letter in the bank deposit bag, with an updated headline connecting the dots of the campaign and again asking and then answering the obvious question:

“Why Is The Same Bank Manager Who Sent You A Letter In A Bank Deposit Bag Now Sending You A Bag Of Shredded Money?”

Immediately “reason why” copy is hinted at; the dots are connected; and the campaign reminds the customers that they’ve seen something like this before. This is important because it triggers that “maybe later” memory that you are trying to access and turn into “I want this.”

Finally, the third mailing was a pop-up envelope that again connected the dots and was OUTRAGEOUS in its own way.

Farmers & Merchants Bank Pop-Up Envelope. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

This had a coupon for one of the six premiums actually attached to the inside flap of the envelope. This made it so that as soon as you opened it, without even reaching inside, you had access to the coupon.

As you can see, the bank followed up three times to create a very successful campaign in order to attract new customers. And I can tell you that if they just sent out one mailing, the results they achieved wouldn’t have been nearly as good.

how many in the sequence?

The idea of doubling your response in three mailings is obviously intriguing.

But why stop there?

Why indeed! In fact, I have used up to fourteen steps in my sequential marketing to promote my Platinum Business Building Marketing System (bgsmarketing.com) through the years—although I did scale that campaign back to a mere nine steps. In other words, keep going until it doesn’t work anymore. Some people just need to be reminded a lot or until they are finally ready to buy.

diversity leads to stability

There are lots of ways to put together a sequence. And there is different media—various ways to time and sequence things together.

If you remember, Yanik Silver’s “Save Yanik’s Marriage” campaign started with an e-mail, and it directed you to a Web page.

So for instance, you can start with a piece of mail and then follow it with a phone message and an e-mail. Each is a different media. The reason to do this is that every one of your customers has different media habits, but if you reach into enough different media formats, you are going to find them.

And then, by using sequential reminders to refer back to previous media messages, the dots will be connected to the point where the customer finally gives in and says, “I really have to go do business with these people.”

thanksgiving sequence

Have you ever received a holiday card in December from a business? Of course, you have received a bunch of these through the years—competing with personal holiday greeting cards from friends and family.

Are holiday cards in December easy to ignore?

YES!

Does sending a holiday card in December resemble something OUTRAGEOUS?

NO!!!

But …

What if you sent a greeting card at another time of year, when no one else is sending them?

Well, I have a solution. I send out Thanksgiving greeting cards. After all, what better time to send out a greeting card to one of your best customers/clients/patients than Thanksgiving, the holiday when we give thanks. And besides, very few people send out Thanksgiving cards, so you won’t be lost in the clutter of cards.

Front And Inside Message Of Thanksgiving Greeting Card. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

Check it out: A turkey with a sign that says “Eat Ham.” Now that’s funny, OUTRAGEOUS, and it gets attention!

I started doing this at my menswear store, and I discovered that when you pick a different holiday to send out greeting cards, the cards you send actually get attention. And sending a Thanksgiving card gives you built-in “reason why” copy—you can thank your customers.

Plus, sending a Thanksgiving card has an extra bonus of arriving the week of the busiest shopping day of the year—the day after Thanksgiving. All those people are shopping anyway. They may as well think of your business! After all, the best time to target people is when they already are in the mood to buy.

But a Thanksgiving card was only part of a quick multi-media campaign.

The card itself is typically sent out on a Saturday so that it arrives at the customer’s house on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Inside the card is an insert telling the reader to …

PLEASE OPEN THIS IMMEDIATELY

(EVEN BEFORE YOU PLACE THIS THANKSGIVING CARD ON DISPLAY)

As you can imagine, the recipient is so curious with the above message that he or she opens it up immediately, and inside is a special incentive to do business with you.

But that is just step one of maximizing this Thanksgiving weekend promotion. For the first five years I used these cards, I stopped at the first step. And then one year, after hearing Reid Hoisington, a marketer to the mortgage industry, at one of Dan Kennedy’s Mastermind meetings, talk about voice mail, I added a couple extra steps.

On Wednesday, before Thanksgiving, I left a voice mail on the customer’s answering machine. This is the same customer who received the Thanksgiving greeting card, and now I was wishing him or her a nice holiday and reminding him or her of the offer on the insert that accompanied the card.

Thanksgiving Greeting Card Voice Broadcast Script:

Hi, this is (your name), owner of (name of your store). I hope by now you’ve received the Thanksgiving card we sent you. I really appreciate your business. As a way of showing our thanks, don’t forget to bring in the enclosed Special Certificate for our Customer Appreciation Days this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Remember, as a preferred (name of your store) client, you are eligible for up to 18 percent off your purchase, and if you bring a friend or relative, I’ll give you both a full 20 percent off your purchases.

Again, Customer Appreciation Days are this Friday through Monday only. If you have any questions, please call us at (your phone number). By the way, if you lost your certificate, just mention codeword TURKEY and I’ll give you another one in the store.

On behalf of the entire (name of your store) family, I hope you and yours have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

When an answering machine picked up, my voice, sounding as if I called this machine myself, was on the line. And later, when I was in the store during the sale, many people actually came up to me and remarked how nice it was for me to call them and remind them of this sale.

Plus—the best part—adding step two in a different media to the sequence increased response to 92 percent!

what i did in 2000; taking advantage of a news event

Thanksgiving in the year 2000 was an interesting time in the USA. If anyone remembers, there was a very tight presidential election that year, and by Thanksgiving, the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore had still not been decided because they were recounting the votes in Florida.

So that year I added a twist to the voice broadcast as part of the sequential campaign featuring a celebrity impersonator voice delivering a message from President Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton Impersonator

Hi there. This is NOT your president. But the president of Gage Menswear, Bill Glazer, asked me to give you a call to tell one important thing: Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family and friends. I’m sure by now that you’ve received the holiday card Gage Menswear sent you. You know, they feel your pain when it comes to paying way too much for great men’s clothing. So this Friday, they’re kicking off their customer appreciation event, and with the coupon Bill sent you inside your card, you can save up to 20 percent off your entire purchase. And, get a free large display calculator, valued at $20. Wish I had one of those for the Oval Office. If you can’t find your coupon, don’t worry; just come into either store and say the code word “Bubba” and they’ll give you one free. On behalf of everyone at Gage, have a wonderful holiday tomorrow, and they’ll see you Friday through Monday at Gage Menswear.

WOW! This twist increased response another 21 percent over the previous year!

Since this was so much fun, the next year I delivered a message from an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator as Governor Terminator.

Arnold Impersonator

Hello, this is Arnold from California. You know, Governor Terminator? I’m checking in again to make sure you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and to remind you that it’s imperative that your plans for this weekend include getting over to Gage Menswear. Bill Glazer is making a Herculean effort to stimulate the economy by lowering all his prices. In addition, he is giving nineteen dollars and forty-six cents toward any purchase, free, no strings attached from now until Monday. This will terminate shopping debt. Don’t forget a terrific holiday gift suggestion from my lovely wife, Maria—Gage gift certificates. Stop into Gage and bring the money-saving certificate. You might even see me. They have my size and yours too. Don’t forget to pick up your two free gifts. Just use the code word “Terminator.” The locations are excellent—downtown and Owings Mills. I’ll be back, at Gage Menswear. They are open all weekend.

In later years I also added e-mail marketing as a step in the Thanksgiving greeting card promotion, which not only added another media (diversity leads to stability) but also increased overall response.

Gage Menswear’s Thanksgiving greeting cards e-mail reminder.

specifically targeting lost customers

Every business has lost customers, and you should NOT ignore them. The fact is they are the third easiest customers to sell—only third to

1) active customers;

2) referrals.

Once again, lost customers are customers who have bought from you in the past but have NOT come back in the amount of time that you would have expected.

So what do you do?

Well, the first thing you want to do is make sure your customer list is clean and up to date. Then you want to let them know they are lost and you miss seeing them. Remember it’s not the job of the customer to remember you. It’s your job to remind them of the products and services you provide.

The second step is to place these customers into a sequential campaign because lost customers typically take a little more work in order to get them to return.

For example, let me show you the four-step sequence that I used in my menswear stores in order to attract back lost customers. In fact, this campaign never delivered less than 13 percent of these customers back to my store.

I’m not sure if you’re impressed with this 13 percent statistic, but you should be. The 13 percent represented hundreds of thousands of dollars in “lost” revenue each year, and it also represented a return of hundreds of customers that we would have otherwise lost for good.

the gage lost customer campaign

At my menswear store, we tested several lost customer campaigns throughout the years and found that a four-step campaign, which included three oversized postcards and a voice broadcast, was the winner.

The first oversized postcard had a picture of a dangling carrot on it.

Gage Menswear’s step #1, front and back of the lost customer “dangling carrot” postcard. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

And the message is clearly, with a handwritten headline, that We Miss You.

The carrot is there as a visual way of telling them something is there for them. And immediately, there is “reason why” copy: “Our records indicate it’s been too long since you’ve visited Gage Menswear.”

From there, you see an offer, a deadline, and—referring to that big carrot—an offer of a gift certificate that becomes a bigger discount when a purchase is made.

And on the back of the postcard is the actual coupon. Plus there is handwritten personalization and the addresses of the stores and other pertinent information.

And that was the first mail in the campaign.

But I learned that although response was pretty good on step one (about 4 percent) there were a lot more people to bring back if I continued. So I sent postcard number two, featuring a compass and a headline wondering if we should send out a search party …

Immediately, the dots are connected with the first sentence that begins, “A few weeks ago, we mailed you …”

And the second sentence—giving a reason why—begins, “Well in case you misplaced it, here’s another one …”

And the compass replaces the carrot, but the offer remains the same, and the deadline is moved, and you are urged to flip the card over.

This time, the back also has personalization—but with typewritten easiest-to-read font and a big coupon. The layout should look familiar—again connecting the dots.

Gage Menswear’s step #2, front and back of the lost customer “compass” postcard. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

Of course, by this point, it would be easy for most companies to just quit and give up the customer to the ether of lost commerce. But not all companies—and not my company!

You see, I knew better. So before I quit, I told the customers I was going to quit. I sent them a “last chance” postcard that used “Last Chance” as a headline and then pictured a legal pad with the words “WE QUIT!” written on it.

Gage Menswear’s step #3, front and back of the lost customer “We Quit” postcard. You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

Right under the “WE QUIT!” headline is “reason why” copy, starting with, “Twice before we mailed you …”

And then, the offer again looks similar to the previous two postcards. And on the back is more personalization and “last chance” messaging, and then there is the same coupon as the previous two postcards.

By then, for sure, others would have given up. Not me. Not this campaign!

The fourth and final step was a voice mail from me, the owner. People like to hear from the owner, and, as the owner of Gage Menswear, I was always happy to send a voice mail. Especially because I knew even a final effort, using a different media, would still bring some response.

Hi, this is (owner/manager/key employee name) from (name of your store). We recently sent you three postcards with (your offer). We really do want you back as a customer. Please bring in your (offer) before (expiration date). If you can’t find your postcards, that’s okay. Simply come into the store and say codeword (codeword) and we’ll still give you (the offer).

Looking forward to seeing you in (name of your store) before (expiration date)!

As you can clearly see, this is a very smart strategy for any business, and you should put some thought into how you will structure your own lost customer campaign … but I URGE you to put one in place.

Remember, these are the third easiest customers/clients/patients to sell, and the number-one reason why they probably haven’t continued to do business with you is they have simply forgotten to do so.

Sizzling Outrageous Summation

1) Every business has lost customers.

2) It is not your customers’ job to remember your business. It is your job to remind them about your products and services.

3) If you run a sequential campaign to lost customers, you can double your response.

4) Keep your customer list clean to best gauge results.

5) A sequential campaign must connect the marketing; each step should refer to the previous ones.

6) Run a sequence until it doesn’t work anymore.

7) Diversity leads to stability: a sequence in more than one media is most effective.