Billboards - Old Can Be Gold FOr Offline Marketers!
Posted 26th August 2012 at 04:51 AM by PsycFa
When you are in the marketing game; specially B2B, you need to be very aware of your environment as leads are not only acquired through the traditional ways such as newspapers, magazines or even those using paid advertising online.
I was recently traveling interstate here in Malaysia and it reached a point that during my trip; I could not help but noticing the amount of billboards they have on the highways.
Given that I was bored, I requested my friend to pen down the website addresses and the company’s names. Those billboards are rented out on a yearly basis if i am not mistaken because I can still see outdated information; very ugly looking billboards if I may say.
Once I reached my destination; I took a well deserved shower and while waiting for dinner; I flipped my laptop on and started to dig in the list I made my friend wrote for me.
Surprising enough; these companies are big companies but out of 25 I managed to get(once I realized and started to wrote them down), 15 among them are completely outdated.
By outdated, let me elaborate:
1. Websites are from the 1980s by the look of them.
2. Built on blogspot, wysiwyg editors, weebly etc..
3. Most of them were just a mess with a lot of pictures and non properly formated blocks all around.
4. No social media outlets; around 9 had facebook but poorly optimized and not even a timeline cover.
5. No mobile website.
6. No on page seo at all (not even keywords optimized).
METHODOLOGY:
Based on my research; I came to realize that these companies even though they are dealing in competitive fields such as finance, trading, hotel; they are managed by Babyboomers who are quite susceptible to changes including technological ones.
So I decided to shoot a video directly now and then for each of the 15 companies in order to personalize them; very rustic as I just want to show them the urgency of the issues they have.
But before I started shooting the video; I searched for related major competitors to compare with my potentials leads. The video covered the following aspects and was around 8 minutes.
PROCEDURES:
Stage 1: Introducing Myself and What I do – Specialize in
Stage 2: Explain The reasons why I am contacting them (was travelling – saw your billboard – see mistakes – decided to contact you)
Stage 3: The extent of the issues they are having (quick comparison by switching between their websites/Social media and the competitors I have chosen before)
Stage 4: Show their ranking on google (using google keyword tool) as well as the poor SEO done and non optimization of website.
Stage 5: End – Briefly sum up the amount of potential clients they are using. And add this something along this line: "Contact Me if you need help to guide you on the right track or any more info you need more elaboration on."
After shooting the video; took me around 2 hours max to shoot and the script were pretty much the same; just I had to personalize them a bit. I edited and added my company logo at the beginning and my contact details at the end of each videos.
I queued them to be uploaded on youtube and I went on for dinner. I managed to send them all a very short email late in the evening:
RESULTS:
I completely forgot that I sent them, around 11a.m the next morning; my phone started to ring like crazy and guess what?
It seemed that offices are opened at 10 a.m here and by 11 a.m the marketing managers have already watched and discussed or showed to their superiors.
Four of the companies replied via email asking for an appointment. Whereas the others made it a must to call me for appointment.
Unfortunately 3 out of those 15 companies did not contact me at all and I did not even bother to follow up with my initial contact because I got 12/15 for appointment and they are all pre-sold leads. It was not difficult to close them at all.
To break it down out of the 15 companies:
If you have any comments or suggestion; please feel free to let me know
I was recently traveling interstate here in Malaysia and it reached a point that during my trip; I could not help but noticing the amount of billboards they have on the highways.
Given that I was bored, I requested my friend to pen down the website addresses and the company’s names. Those billboards are rented out on a yearly basis if i am not mistaken because I can still see outdated information; very ugly looking billboards if I may say.
Once I reached my destination; I took a well deserved shower and while waiting for dinner; I flipped my laptop on and started to dig in the list I made my friend wrote for me.
Surprising enough; these companies are big companies but out of 25 I managed to get(once I realized and started to wrote them down), 15 among them are completely outdated.
By outdated, let me elaborate:
1. Websites are from the 1980s by the look of them.
2. Built on blogspot, wysiwyg editors, weebly etc..
3. Most of them were just a mess with a lot of pictures and non properly formated blocks all around.
4. No social media outlets; around 9 had facebook but poorly optimized and not even a timeline cover.
5. No mobile website.
6. No on page seo at all (not even keywords optimized).
METHODOLOGY:
Based on my research; I came to realize that these companies even though they are dealing in competitive fields such as finance, trading, hotel; they are managed by Babyboomers who are quite susceptible to changes including technological ones.
So I decided to shoot a video directly now and then for each of the 15 companies in order to personalize them; very rustic as I just want to show them the urgency of the issues they have.
But before I started shooting the video; I searched for related major competitors to compare with my potentials leads. The video covered the following aspects and was around 8 minutes.
PROCEDURES:
Stage 1: Introducing Myself and What I do – Specialize in
Stage 2: Explain The reasons why I am contacting them (was travelling – saw your billboard – see mistakes – decided to contact you)
Stage 3: The extent of the issues they are having (quick comparison by switching between their websites/Social media and the competitors I have chosen before)
Stage 4: Show their ranking on google (using google keyword tool) as well as the poor SEO done and non optimization of website.
Stage 5: End – Briefly sum up the amount of potential clients they are using. And add this something along this line: "Contact Me if you need help to guide you on the right track or any more info you need more elaboration on."
After shooting the video; took me around 2 hours max to shoot and the script were pretty much the same; just I had to personalize them a bit. I edited and added my company logo at the beginning and my contact details at the end of each videos.
I queued them to be uploaded on youtube and I went on for dinner. I managed to send them all a very short email late in the evening:
RESULTS:
I completely forgot that I sent them, around 11a.m the next morning; my phone started to ring like crazy and guess what?
It seemed that offices are opened at 10 a.m here and by 11 a.m the marketing managers have already watched and discussed or showed to their superiors.
Four of the companies replied via email asking for an appointment. Whereas the others made it a must to call me for appointment.
Unfortunately 3 out of those 15 companies did not contact me at all and I did not even bother to follow up with my initial contact because I got 12/15 for appointment and they are all pre-sold leads. It was not difficult to close them at all.
To break it down out of the 15 companies:
- 3 did not contact me back.
- 2 hired me on a two years contract to maintain their social outlets only.
- 5 hired me for a complete rebranding of their websites and online assets on a yearly contracts.
- 1 hired me as an in house consultant for their branding and marketing – they already had a marketing team.
- 1 hired me just to revamp his website.
If you have any comments or suggestion; please feel free to let me know
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