As I was preparing my Mary's free range turkey for the oven I saw this notice on the wrapper:
"Even the most experienced cooks get worried when it comes time to prepare the holiday turkey. To ease your worries, call Mary at 1-888-666-8244."
Then there's the Butterball Turkey hotline, whose motherly agents have been featured on every national news broadcast I've seen in the last two days. How much would that advertising have cost?
I'm not worried about cooking my turkey, but I'm tempted to call these hotlines anyway just to thank them. These companies are thinking like their customer and executing a marketing campaign at a time and place that it will be really appreciated. Maybe it's just the holiday mood or that I'm still recovering from the political ads of a few weeks ago, but it makes me kind of sentimental to know that a surrogate mom is just a phone call away.
Adele, thanks for reminding me of one more way to get closer to my customers.
For several months, I've been meaning to add a simple sentence to the homepage at my website that says something like "Confused about which of my products and services will best help you with your particular publicity problem? Call me at ...."
As an Internet marketer, I've come to realize that far too many Internet marketers rely only on the computer and miss using one of the most valuable marketing tools at their disposal: the telephone.
I get many calls from people who visit my website and have questions about what to buy. Others, I suspect, might get so confused by my more than 150 products that they just give up and leave the site. Hence, the need to add the sentence above.
I love getting phone calls because it gives me a chance to form a relationship with the caller, find out what they need and explain how I can help. I have converted many of these "freebie calls" to longer telephone consulting assignments and even my mentor program.
Hotlines are a super idea. Thanks again for the reminder.
Posted by: Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound | November 26, 2006 at 09:32 AM