Naming your New Product –Top Ten Tips

It’s a tricky process coming up with a name for a new product. Here are some things to consider that will avoid landing you in legal trouble, or worse, deter customers from buying it.

1.       Is it easily pronounceable by your target market? You might dream up an exotic sounding French-inspired name, but can it be pronounced by English speakers?

2.       If exporting the product, check the word doesn’t have a silly or offensive meaning in another language.

3.       Check trademark availability before commencing any packaging design. This could be an expensive stuff up if you’ve got to go back to the drawing board.

4.       Think about all the connotations of the new name. Think laterally across generations and cultures. What means one thing to a 20 year old may mean something else to an 80 year old.

5.       Check the name isn’t used for some other product category. You may have the rights to use it, but it will be unhelpful to your marketing efforts if people already associate the name with another product.

6.       Conduct some research among your target market. Remember I-snack 2.0? A very funky clever name but it irritated Vegemite consumers to a point where the name had to be changed after the product was launched.

7.       Does it fit well with other product names in your portfolio? If you have a naming convention in your brand guidelines, you will need to stick to this.

8.       Choose a name that will convey the quality or essence of the product.

9.       Consider the consumer. Will they be proud to say “I’ve got a XXX” without thinking “stupid name.”

10.   Check that the internet domain name is available for your chosen name. You might not be planning to use it now, but it could be important in the future.

Have you had any interesting experiences in naming a product? I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to add your comments below.

Struggling to come up with a product or business name? Contact CraftWrite for help. jill@craftwrite.com.au

The Dos and Don’ts of Exhibitions

Exhibitions can make quite a dent in your marketing budget. There are many costs to take into consideration – stand space, freight, furniture hire, and signage to name a few. So you’ve got to make sure you use your exhibition or trade show attendance as an opportunity to make sales. Here are a few Dos and Don’ts to ensure you attract customers to your stand and make the most of a show:

Don’t expect people to find your stand by chance.
Do advertise that you are going to be at the exhibition. Inexpensive ways to do this are through your customer newsletter, on email footers and on your website. Make sure you are listed in the exhibition guide as well.

Don’t expect your sales team to know what they are doing without getting them involved.
Do arrange a briefing session with those manning your stand. Explain the show offer and details of any competition happening on the stand. Stress the importance of recording leads, so success of the show can be measured and leads can be followed up. Also provide details of stand dismantling arrangements at the end of the exhibition.

Don’t just rely on a few posters and a sales rep on your stand to attract passers-by.
Do try and think creatively as to how you can best demonstrate your product or service. Use all your senses: hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell to develop a memorable customer experience.

Don’t have a collection of laminated A4 sheets stuck to the walls of your stand. Visitors can’t take in the information and the overall look is very poor.
Do use large signage with strong headlines that can be read at a distance. A0 is a minimum size for posters.  You could also consider signage suspended from the ceiling to guide the way to your stand.

Don’t mindlessly collect business cards on your stand.
Do have a lead sheet where you can record a customer enquiry and you can follow up later. If you can make the sale at the stand, make sure you’ve got order pads or credit card processing facilities to make this easy.

Don’t block off the entrance to your stand with furniture and deter passers-by.
Do keep your stand open and inviting. Include a table and chairs where you can sit down and talk business with customers and prospects.

Don’t hand out lots of giveaways. This will only attract freebie collectors to your stand.
Do promote a show special offer. This will attract real buyers and give you real results

Jill Bynon of CraftWrite has many years of trade show and exhibition experience and has probably been guilty of all the “don’ts” on this list at one time or another. This is called learning the hard way! CraftWrite can assist you with writing collateral for your exhibition stand, whether that’s pre-show promotion, stand signage or leaflets. And you can be sure that behind the writing is a lot of insight and experience!  Contact jill@craftwrite.com.au if you're planning for your next exhibition.

Getting the best from your reseller program

Thousands of companies do it – that is engage third parties, such as authorised resellers, authorised dealers, brokers or agents to sell their products and services to the end user. For the purpose of this blog post I’ve opted to use the term “authorised resellers”.

When launching or reinvigorating an authorised reseller program, you will need to demonstrate to existing and new authorised resellers that you are able to support them appropriately.  Authorised resellers are often small or medium-sized businesses and they will be demanding, so you’ve got to be prepared!

Tools of the job

First up you will need to provide sales tools to enable your authorised resellers to go out into the market and sell. Depending on your product these items are likely to include:

·         Authorised reseller logo

·         Brochures

·         Posters

·         Building signage

·         Vehicle signage

·         Uniform or badge

·         Sales scripts

·         Demonstration videos

·         Order pads and other sales paperwork

·         Welcome packs for customers

These items can be provided to authorised resellers via a secure internet site. The print-quality templates can be customised with their own business contact details. You may also wish to arrange an agreement with a printer to ensure quality and consistency of output.

Make them feel part of the family

Ultimately you will achieve higher sales from resellers if they have regular contact and feel supported by your company. Organise induction sessions, regular conferences or training sessions where you can reinforce product knowledge and explain the behaviour expected of them when representing your brand. Also, be sure to set up a dedicated point of contact for your authorised resellers, such as a national reseller support team or a regional manager who can visit them.

Information flow

Regular communications will also assist in boosting sales. Remember authorised resellers may also be selling other products through their business, so you need to find a way to keep your product to the fore. You could organise a regular email bulletin or write a newsletter to communicate company and industry news or interesting market data such as research and survey results.

Protect your brand and company reputation

Authorised resellers are not employees of your organisation therefore they will require a clear set of rules to adhere to in terms of how they represent your brand. This can be presented in a format such as a handbook and reinforced through regular training sessions. The handbook should include:

·         Use of the logo

·         Expected behaviours for face-to-face and telephone selling

·         Adherence to industry codes of conduct

·         Procedures for order processing

·         Disciplinary action procedures

Incentivise sales

Your rewards program will be a key component to driving and boosting sales of your product. Here are a few SMART things to keep in mind when designing a rewards program.

Simple: Ensure your rewards program is easy to understand. Complicated programs will be hard to manage and may discourage reseller participation.

Measurable: Let everyone know how they are tracking in the program and have regular goals (eg quarterly or monthly). This will bring out competitiveness in your resellers and achieve greater buy-in to the program.

Achievable: Don’t set the goals too high. Equally don’t make it too easy either, or else it could end up costing you a lot of money.

Rewarding: Ensure the prizes are something to aspire to and worth working hard for.

Top performers: Recognise your top performers and celebrate their success with other authorised resellers. This will encourage a competitive perspective to your program.

These are just a few of the marketing components to running a successful reseller program. Hope you found them useful.

Jill Bynon has worked with several organisations on authorised reseller programs, providing templates, scripting, promotional activity collateral and communications. Contact Jill at CraftWrite if you’re looking to create or improve your reseller sales and marketing materials. jill@craftwrite.com.au

Managing Direct Mail Campaigns

Direct Mail (DM) is still an underdeveloped sector in Australia, when compared to the US or UK. This means the direct mail, when done well, has a good chance of standing out in the mailbox and getting you results.

There are three main components to direct mail:

1.       Data

2.       Offer

3.       Creative

Of these three, the data and the offer are the most important elements. After all, if your letter never reaches its intended recipient, then the rest is just a waste. And similarly, if the offer is not something that appeals to the target, all the fancy creative in the world is not going to make them respond. The creative element plays its part too. Clever use of headlines, call to action and envelope design can lift your response rates considerably.

DM is a numbers game

Direct marketers are all well aware that 95-99% of their hard work ends up in the bin. It’s important to do your sums, and work out how much your campaign will cost. Then work out a realistic response rate together with the revenue this will bring. Subtract one number from the other and if it’s coming out positive, then you’ve got a business case to proceed.

Never start a direct mail campaign on a hunch. Always, always crunch the numbers before proceeding.

Buying a list

There are a few important things to know when purchasing data. Ask your supplier how it was sourced and how they keep it up to date.  You must use a list of people have agreed to receive offers from third parties. Privacy laws are strict and fines for breaking these laws are steep.

Most list suppliers will categorise their data for you and you can refine your selections to ensure you are targeting the prospects most likely to respond. For the consumer market, lists can be categorised by lifestyle and can give you quite an accurate picture of your prospects. Business lists are often categorised by market sector and job title.

Remember to wash your data list against your existing customer database if you’re trying to attract new customers.

If you’ve purchased lists before, remember to take out prospects that have already requested no further contact from you.

Developing your creative

The more your creative agency understands about your campaign, the more in-tune their creative designs will be.  Ensure you share your objectives, data selection and total budget with them. If you can only afford to print and post a DL envelope and A4 sheet, you must let them know as this will dictate the limitations of the design.

There are a number of areas you can test with your creative including:

·         Headlines

·         Envelope designs

·         Imagery

·         Call to action

Even if you’re just doing a one-off campaign, it’s always worth testing at least one element. For example, send half your list a creative envelope and the other half a plain envelope and see which performs better. Remember to split your data evenly and make sure you are comparing like with like.

The Offer

Consider your direct mail offer carefully. It needs to be attractive to the prospect and not too complicated to understand. Think about testing different offers to see what works best. Provide the prospect with all the details to make a decision and options on ways to respond. Mail, telephone and web cover most preferences.

Managing the mail house

You will need to give your mail house a very detailed brief, particularly if there are several test cells and if there is more than one item in the mail pack. Provide all the details on a briefing document, and include mailing date(s), contents of each pack and the number of recipients. You should also provide details of when and where the printed items will be delivered from.

Ensure your mail house receives your data around 2 weeks before your first lodgement date. This will enable them to run set up files, produce test runs and live proofs for you to approve. You will need to allow for about 10% extra in your print runs to allow for testing and spoilage if a machine jams.   

Undelivered mail

Undelivered mail will come back to you, so consider what return address goes on the envelope. You can expect anything up to 5% of the addresses on your mailing list to be undeliverable. Consider having return mail sent to your mail house to handle for you. Details of undelivered mail, and deceased records need to be fed back to your list supplier. There is a handling cost involved, but better than trying to sort through thousands of mail packs at your desk and having to placate a disgruntled mail room manager.

Weather issues

If you’ve ever collected your mail from the mailbox after a day of rain you’ll know that only the essential pieces are hung out to dry and the rest of the soggy pile goes in the bin. There’s nothing you can do to manage this except for staggering your mailings during rainy periods to lessen the likelihood of being ruined in the rain. Be aware of natural disasters too, and cancel DM to areas ravaged by fire, flood, cyclone or earthquake. There’s little chance of mail deliveries in such times.

Handling responses

Ensure your call centre is aware of the direct mail campaign and is set up with scripts to handle incoming calls. Similarly, make sure your internet site or landing page is ready and has been tested. If customers are likely to reply via mail, then make sure your order processing and fulfilment teams are briefed and ready for action.

Handling complaints

The majority of complaints arising from direct mail are in relation to privacy. Inform your call centre of how the data was procured and how your company will handle “do not contact” records. When targeting consumers, inevitably there may be a few deceased people on your list, triggering distressed calls from relatives.  Equally, prospects will demand to know how you got their details. Equip your call centre to handle these calls respectfully. Capture the “no further contact” records in a list and ensure this is washed against future campaign data.

An overwhelming response

It’s a nice problem to have, but a situation that needs to be handled correctly or else it will leave you with dissatisfied customers. There are a few ways you can manage customer expectations when a direct mail campaign has a larger than expected response:

·         Advise customers via a recorded message when they dial the campaign number

·         Put a note on your internet site, or landing page

·         Divert calls to an overflow call centre

Measuring success

Once the campaign has run its course and all the orders are fulfilled it’s back to number crunching again. There are many measurements you can gather, including:

·         Number of calls

·         Number of sales converted from calls

·         Number of web visits

·         Number of emails

·         Comparison of test cells

It’s essential that you record what you learnt, what worked, what went wrong and how you could do better.

As any direct marketer knows; it’s all about test and learn, then test and learn some more!

CraftWrite applies years of campaign management experience to direct mail copywriting. Contact Jill Bynon today about improving your response rates with better DM copy: jill@craftwrite.com.au