By now you almost certainly know what I do as a medical device marketer.
I plan marketing strategy.
I write good.
I make websites.
These come first.
Why? Because unless you’re telling your story well on your website, there’s little point in attracting visitors to it.
Company and Cheesecake
Not my house.
First, if you’re having company come over, don’t you want to clean the house first? You don’t want them seeing your mess. Well, your website is your digital house. Is it clean or would you be embarrassed if they came over, unannounced?
Second, I sold JELL-O Cheesecake Snacks at Kraft in 1997. These refrigerated ready-to-eat cups were so popular at launch we were out-of-stock so we cancelled our TV ads and delayed our coupon drops. We didn’t want to invite people over the house (their supermarket shelves) to see us, because we weren’t at our best.
Okay, website’s ready. Now what?
Most clients want to jump right in to lead generation mode. Logical. Nothing wrong with that.
We run campaigns (they are usually done over email) and the responses come in.
It’s what happens afterward where I add the most value.
It’s inexpensive.
It’s tedious.
It’s easy.
Answering every email personally.
You can almost stop reading now. That’s it. I answer every email that comes in for my client, ImaCor.
We made up a title for me (VP, Customer Engagement) and I got a company email address, jhage@imacorinc.com.
Emails go out from Joe Hage @Imacor and replies come back to me. (I shake my head in disbelief when marketers use “no-reply@company.com” as the sender. Why would you ever say no to a customer wanting to talk with you?)
Messages sent from the “Contact us” page come to me too.
I’ve had to write variations on the same messages so many times I created a swipe file of my best thought-out answers.
I spent the time using the precise shades of ImaCor blue for hyperlinks and ImaCor purple for headlines.
Oftentimes, I include a link to our public calendar so doctors can select times convenient for them to meet.
And the responses have been fantastic.
Dr. Wilson, are you going to SCCM?
We ran a campaign to ask our subscribers if we’d see them at an upcoming event. This is what the email looked like.
If Dr. Wilson hit “reply,” I replied back.
If Dr. Wilson hit “yes,” we sent him here (clickable):
If Dr. Wilson hit “no,” we sent him here.
We got 87 “yes” answers.
On the first day of the event, I sent a follow up to those 87. The subject line was simply, “Meet today/tomorrow?”
No links. No promotion.
I didn’t even sign it.
We got a 65.5% open rate. And I personally received 12 replies which resulted in five on-site meetings, one with a doctor who never replies to ANYTHING we send. (He’s been impossible!)
But we had a positive meeting and insight on what obstacles he might face in buy-in and adoption.
At least now we can work with him to overcome those obstacles!
“I don’t have time for that.”
You know when you have this long to-do list and the day goes by and you’ve crossed nothing off it?
And you say, “What the hell did I do all day?”
You never “get credit” for answering emails – because “answering emails” is nowhere on your things-to-do list.
And yet, these “insignificant” email replies are better than any campaign you’ll run because the subscriber read, considered, and wants to talk more.
There’s no cost but time, which makes email the highest ROI thing I do.
You can find the time for that, right?
For fun
I’ve made 50 of these. This is one of my favorites. Enjoy.
If I get enough love back, I’ll share some other ones in the weeks ahead.
Fast Round
- A viral video I made. Somehow this 12-second video racked up 15,398 views, 241 comments, and 30 likes. Do you know why it got so much engagement? Can you make one for your business?
- Voice search. For all the talk about SEO I’ve done on this site, I’ve never talked about (never knew enough) about voice search. It’s the next big thing; I’m using it more and more often, are you? A good article to get your wheels turning.
- The Naked Truth About Laundry. I found this video so compelling (and such a great case study on selling your benefits in an entertaining way), that I signed up for a free sample. Let’s see if Beth likes it.
Thank you for joining me on The Journey.
See you next week – or sooner – if you choose to reply to this email,
P.S. Your collective response to last week’s post, “Someone saved my life tonight,” was overwhelming. A whole bunch of us drove down to greet “Charlie” as he was discharged from the hospital and I’ll see him tonight. He promised he’d be at rehearsal. I know about 50 men who will be happy to see him.
