SALES & MARKETING

CLIENT'S NEED: How to increase sales to businesses in a specific geographic area.

SOLUTION: SBG devised a program based on direct mail that defined the client's targeted business customers by size, frequency of use, and location in relation to the client. SBG's program included developing internal operating systems for the client, encoding point-of-sale machines to track sales; sales training and sales support materials.

SBG created unique direct mail flyers that both educated the potential business prospects on client's products and services, and provided positive responses to potential objections from using the client's products and services. In addition, and more importantly, the program created brand awareness and immediate sales. Each direct mail flyer built upon the previous flyer to remove potential objections and to demonstrate the economic value of using the client's products and services by providing actual business examples.

SBG purchased a business mailing list and then refined that list so that it targeted only those businesses most likely to use the client's products and services. The raw list went from about 4,600 to 1,600 very targeted businesses.

SBG's follow-up plan for the sales force included scripts for telephone calling, personal one-on-one training, support materials, and contact information (owner/manager name, business name, street address, city, Zip+4, number of employees, and a brief description of what the business did). The Zip+4 allowed the sales personnel to more effectively utilize their time when doing follow-up visits to businesses.

THE RESULTS: The client's actual results were greater than those projected by SBG by 2+ times!

CLIENT'S NEED: How to create national awareness for a new product on the cheap!

SOLUTION: SBG needed to find a method to introduce a new product to an established market that was resistant to change. Using SBG's associates it developed a direct response television-advertising program to introduce the product, demonstrate its use, sell the product to consumers, and create retail store demand.

SBG and its associates elected to use direct response television advertising using low budget commercials that demonstrated the product in use, explained the features and benefits, and then asked the viewer to call a toll-free number to place their order. SBG created 3 similar low budget commercials to run for 30-seconds, 60-seconds and 120-seconds. The ready to view commercials had a total cost for all three of less than $32,000.

Using the resources of an international marketing company, cable channels were selected based upon the demographics of the target audience. The commercials were shown using remnant airtime. Cable television channels devote about 10-minutes per hour to commercials and announcements. Much of this time is not purchased and is sold as remnant airtime to direct response television marketers. Remnant airtime commercials are scheduled in 4-hour time periods, meaning the cable channel can show the commercial anytime within a 4-hour period. The price per minute varies, but for many channels it is as low as $250 per minute for national exposure!

Utilizing the demographic data SBG developed for the product and working with the international marketing company, we were able to test the commercials on various channels to determine which channels were the most effective. Then we focused commercial airtime purchases to those channels.

SBG created a totally outsourced support environment for the company. We negotiated with support suppliers to have a completely integrated solution that included telephone order acceptance, credit/debit card payment, warehousing, and delivery of the product to the television buyers.

THE RESULTS: For about $400,000 this client's product was introduced on a nationwide basis where potential users could see the product work and then purchase it. For this very modest dollar amount national interest was created generating sales and potential relationships with major vendors. In addition retail accounts were established for the company. It is not unusual to spend from $5-million to $30-million, or more, on a national product rollout if you use a conventional approach.