Marketing Heaven

We love our jobs. But not for the reasons you might think.

Last month was the perfect example. A client came to us with a problem. His profits were way down and he was afraid he was going to lose his business if things didn't change. He wanted us to buy a list, do a direct mail piece and try to blitz. He wanted 10,000 pieces and, if he had a return of 1%, he would be happy.

But that 1% was going to cost him dearly. For someone who wasn't sure he was going to be able to make payroll next month, it didn't seem like the best idea.

So rather than taking the money and running, we investigated. This client had typically run a regular series of pretty high profile ads in local publications. Six months before, he had pulled out, thinking that marketing was the only part of his budget he could cut. It hadn't helped. His marketing budget simply disappeared in the overall downturn and income plunged even further.

You can never tell before you get into a project what it will take to accomplish. We know this. We needed to know more. So we got a copy of his customer list and started making phone calls.

It turns out that many of his former customers thought he had gone out of business and they had gone somewhere else. Why? Because he lost his visibility. He didn't need to troll for new customers. He just needed to let the ones he'd let slip through his fingers know that he was still there.

So we wrote a great letter to his customer base reminding them. And asking for referrals. Simple.

His profits went up 35% the next month.

That's the big payoff for us. Suddenly our client is excited about his business again. He sees a future. He has a much better idea of what of smart marketing can accomplish.

We love that.