McDonald’s is the leading franchise in the world because of its consistency and predictability. You can be on the other side of the country or around the world and when you see the Golden Arches, you know exactly what the food will taste like. There might be an independent restaurant with better food next door, but most people will never … Continued
Simplify the Complex to Increase Member Engagement and Long-Term Retention
How do you customize your marketing message to fit the variety of customers joining your program, all coming in at different skill levels? What should your offer be when some of your prospective members are head of one-person businesses while others run businesses of 20, 50, or more employees? How do you structure a new member welcome, when new members … Continued
Give Less to Increase Sales
During a Jump Start Coaching Call coaching call, a relatively new info-marketer wanted to know why he wasn’t generating any sales from his website. He asked me to review his site for him. While the opt-in page looked ordinary enough, he had five different training videos on his sales page. He wanted to prove he would over deliver, so he … Continued
When You Let Up Before the Finish Line, You Lose the Race of Member Retention
They drove 2,634 miles within 24 hours, non-stop. This is more than the distance between Daytona Beach Florida and Los Angeles California. Each team had three to four drivers taking shifts completing 740 laps around the Daytona International Speedway road course. Meanwhile, my son, Robert William, and I enjoyed watching the race from brand-new suites at the speedway. We even … Continued
The Best Type of Value to Provide
I first noticed it in my dad’s tire store. I worked there during summer vacations from high school, changing tires and doing oil changes. There were some guys in the shop who worked hard and got a lot done, and then there were others who smoked cigarettes more than they worked on cars. Because the hard workers were almost always … Continued
What’s in it for them?
As selfish people, we are always thinking about what we want. We want our customers to complete surveys, to confirm their opt-ins and to upgrade their memberships. Our customers are selfish people, too. While they may like us and may be willing to do us a favor, they are much more interested in doing themselves a favor. Every time you … Continued
Eight Goals of Your New Member Welcome Package — How Many Have You Included?
The most important part of your new member orientation system is your member welcome package. For the Auto Training Institute, a new member welcome package contributed to longer retention, increased member lifetime value, and $1.4 million in revenue the first year it was implemented. You don’t have the opportunity to have a member for 10-months or 10-years unless you properly … Continued
Your staff can create systems for you
Tammy was at her wit’s end. Not only was she trying to keep up with two jobs, but she also had to take care of two Labrador Retrievers. In 2006, shortly after starting the Information Marketing Association, Bill Glazer and I had an idea: Let’s provide training for info-marketers’ staff. Because info-marketers are preoccupied with marketing, maybe if we trained … Continued
Forging a new identity, while being yourself
I get frustrated when I hear about the social structure in high school. But then I realize it is the same everywhere else, if you let it. When my daughter, Samantha, was in high school, she had several classmates she had known for many years. They went to elementary and middle school together. But she doesn’t talk to them. Confused, … Continued
From frustration to success
My office is across the street from one of the best and biggest elementary schools in Tallahassee. It’s particularly convenient for the young moms working here to have their children in school across the street. For the rest of us, it’s a total pain. Each day for about 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon, there … Continued