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Rethinking Lead Generation

July 15th, 2010 by Heinrich Marketing

Rethinking Lead Generation

Heinrich Marketing helps clients maximize lead generation results. One thing we’ve learned along the way: You can increase conversions and grow your business simply by applying new approaches to basic lead generation principles.

Here are just a few ways to shift your perspectives and maximize the efficiency of your lead generation strategies.

Align your sales and marketing teams.

Successful lead generation must delicately balance brand, marketing and customer needs. So clarity is essential. Is the brand message concise? Does the marketing strategy support it? Most importantly, are both relevant to the customers? To find a shortcut to all of these answers, start on the front lines of the business. Take the time to listen to account reps or any customer-facing team, and make sure they and the marketing team are on the same page.

Communication is key. It sounds so simple, right? But days are long and departments are busy. Be sure to take the time to bring your teams together to catch up, share ideas and see the big picture.

Tailor your message to the consumer’s buying stage.

When a sale is a process, timing is everything. Talk to your future customer the right way, and at the right time. A communication can feel more meaningful and memorable if it comes at just the right moment.

Consider CRM tools like print on demand as a way to maximize the effectiveness of your messaging. It’s a cost-efficient way to both personalize a message to a moment in time and track the potential customer reading it, and it’s all in one tool. Learn more here.

Keep content fresh and relevant across communications.

Prospects across numerous categories spend time researching online before they purchase a product or service. So, search marketing might have already led your potential customers to your online or social media efforts. A website, a blog, a newsletter, Facebook — they’re all places to demonstrate your value, state your brand message and start (or continue) an engaging dialogue. Even better, an enthusiastic reader can forward these on to others, and generate even more leads.

Be honest and direct. Promotions and sales-speak can sound crass in a blog or newsletter. Talk straight to the potential customer at this level, to reinforce that you’re legitimate, relevant and worthy of an emotional connection. Learn more here.

Grow leads from your own garden.

Utilize your marketing database to look at current customers with fresh eyes. Through segmentation and targeting, you can evolve your relationship, and point them in the direction of other parts of your business. Your new perspective should also lead you to revisit potential customers who have expressed an interest in previous lead generation efforts, but didn’t act.

Explore cloud-based CRM tools. Great for segmentation, reporting and managing the sales cycle, tools like SalesForce.com can simplify the path from lead generation to sale. Contact us to learn more.

In all, these approaches to lead generation facilitate multitasking: You can cultivate the relationship in each stage and stay one step ahead of the consumers at all times during the sales cycle. That’s the key. When you always have a plan for the next step you want them to take, be it as small as watching a webinar or as big as the sale itself, you can more quickly guide consumers down the path that turns them into a customer.

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Category: Business Development, Lead Generation, Segmentation | No Comments

Planning a Post-Recession Marketing Campaign?

July 15th, 2010 by Heinrich Marketing

Find the Right Marketing Strategy to Support Your Brand and Your Plan.

Now that the economy’s picking up, there’s the temptation to entice customers any way possible, with any offer, any tactic. Don’t do it! Now more than ever, you need a well-thought-out strategy, one that employs smart tactics to solve your specific business problems, and that stays true to your brand message.

When it comes to strategy, the quickest way there is with a brief.

At Heinrich Marketing, we begin every marketing program with a thorough creative brief process. It’s like a road map that helps guide us toward a marketing strategy that can quickly solve our client’s business problems. While they may seem to take extra time and slow the timeline, the payoff is big. A well-written brief will:

Reflect your brand personality

Speak to your target audience

Define a key single insight that will drive response

Clients reap benefits from a creative brief.

Taking the time to complete a creative brief, or respond to one that’s been completed for you, can help rally support for a more measured marketing approach in the face of tight schedules and internal marketing demands.

Brief benefit #1: An answer to the “need-results-now” crowd.

A well-thought-out strategy that supports the brand includes built-in benefits:

Retention. When customers see that you understand them, and that you used a well-thought-out approach to determine their needs, you earn their trust and time. See this month’s case study as an example.

Acquisition. Consistent messaging will more efficiently express your value propositions, and communicate who you are and how you can help potential customers.

Brief benefit #2: An easier way to stay on brand, anywhere.

Bring your strategy wherever your campaign appears, including online. Technology evolves so fast, it might feel like there are no rules on the Web. Don’t believe it:

Strong, simple brand messages do better online. Customers scan online content. They glance at banners, they skim emails. The brands with clear, strong, concise messages breaks through.

Creativity + brand thrive online. The need for “short and sweet” messaging online sets a perfect stage for a well-thought-out, visual concept that supports your brand.

It all sounds simple, right? But for companies of all sizes, brand consistency in the face of economic downturns and overly-ambitious (and anxious) campaigns can be the biggest challenge.

Now more than ever, it’s time for a well-thought out campaign that solves your business problem and supports your brand message across every medium. Then, when the economy runs at full steam again, your brand will be in the lead.

Want to craft a brief to fit your business? Call Sandi McCann for more ideas.

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Category: Copywriting / Creative, Marketing Strategy, Segmentation | No Comments

Personalization: Responding to Consumers with Relevance

June 9th, 2010 by Heinrich Marketing

The “R” word is pretty hot these days. Whether it’s your blog, your book or your tweet, it’s gotta be relevant to today’s consumer. But when it comes to marketing, it’s about getting it right on multiple levels. The right message, the right channel, the right timing and the right features. When you do this, consumers feel like your offer has been designed specifically for them, and that’s real relevance.

Credit cards are a perfect product to lead the charge, so to speak. Consumers are spending again, albeit cautiously. Mintel Compremedia, a direct-mail tracing company reported that lenders sent out 398.5 million credit card offers in Q4 of ’09 — a 46% increase over the third quarter.

As you start marketing again, keep in mind that consumers are calling the shots in a whole new way. In an age of choice, they know they can find a product to suit them perfectly. Amidst economic chaos, they know they can demand a deeper level of communication and trust. But perhaps convenience is their highest priority — keeping it all at their fingertips with smart tools is absolutely crucial. Because if you don’t deliver, someone else will.

Three Points to Personalization

1. Crack customer intelligence. Whether it’s an urban single who buys dry clean-only suits and organic dog food, or an empty-nester who relies on your line of cosmetics, anticipate their activities and be there when they buy.

2. Identify benefits in a new light. Make features and benefits speak more directly to your customers and deliver rewards in a more meaningful, relevant way. How can your tools work for the engaged girl who needs a low interest rate on her gown, text message alerts reminding her about the deposit for the caterer and rewards points to cash in on for the honeymoon flight to the Poconos?

3. Create a connection. This means marketing to a smaller set of customers, but when it feels more 1:1, they’re more likely to listen. This is where innovative CRM tools such as print on demand come in.

Recognizing Your Customers. Responding to Your Customers.
Like putting a face to a name, personas translate numbers into needs. They inspire genuine empathy for the people who buy your products and force you to prepare multiple approaches. At all levels, your response says: We know you, we understand you, we’re there for you. Three personas here show you the way:

Frugalista: Ready for Benefits, Rewards and Real Value
This hip chick is still shopping, but she’s now far more attuned to maximizing rewards. She avoids annual fees, but earns points like a pro. Frugalista puts energy into finding the best price-value match. For her, there’s even a sense of pride to her task. When making a decision, she breezes right past the standard messages in search of bonus benefits. We know she shops. Make her want to shop with you.

Watchful One: Prudent and Waiting for the Perfect Offer
Like a late adopter, this consumer is cautious, but observant. He’s focused on keeping his credit score, building his savings account and staying smart, so he’ll likely respond to a low interest rate and honest, direct messages. A solid sign-up discount or first-purchase reward presented at just the right moment could help him ease into smart, yet steady card usage. Slow and steady wins this consumer. He will spend again.

A Couple of Leisure: Liberated and Living Well
These two have worked hard and feel like they deserve the rewards, vacations and an occasional splurge that come with retirement. They pay off their credit card monthly, so low interest rates aren’t important. But purchasing power is huge. Miles, points and access to upscale spas and hotels encourage the Couple of Leisure to choose your card. If luxury at a low cost is available, they’re interested.

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Category: Copywriting / Creative, Customer Acquisition / Retention, Integrated Direct Marketing, Payment Card Marketing, Segmentation | No Comments

The What, Why and Wow of Marketing to Women

June 9th, 2010 by Heinrich Marketing

Woman

In case you’ve been living under a rock — and so far, there’s no app for that — you’re probably aware that women are still America’s taskmasters of choice. According to She-conomy.com, they influence 85% of all purchasing decisions. That means they run the household financials, make the doctor appointments and decide if it’s Myers or Method that pumps out the soap at their kitchen sinks, among so much else. Yet the numbers from She-conomy.com — which touts itself as a guy’s guide to marketing to women — speak loud and clear: 66% feel misunderstood by health care marketers, 84% feel misunderstood by investment marketers and 59% feel misunderstood by food marketers.

Women are not shy about shouting out their opinions either. Through blogs, feedback forums, Facebook and physical meet-ups, women’s voices are louder than ever before. Sites like JaneNation.com and She-conomy.com are collecting opinions and oodles of enthusiasm from women who have found a mouthpiece for their messages.

Now that we know women are the decision-makers, what’s stopping marketers from crafting the right messages?

Mary Lou Quinlan’s book What She’s Not Telling You: Why Women Hide the Whole Truth and What Marketers Can Do About It gives some insight into the mysterious female mind.

“The Half Truth is what women are willing to admit,” says Quinlan, who is founder and CEO of Just Ask a Woman, a strategic marketing consultancy aimed at marketing to women. “But you have to get at the Whole Truth – what they really believe, do, and buy.”

How to Reach Them and Wow Them

Choose the Right Channel. As brands continue to push out their messages, blogs have become women’s credible forum for fast answers and reliable solutions. According to a 2009 study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners, 23 million women read, write or comment on blogs weekly. In addition, women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information and advice. Bottom line: Are you listening? Are you reading? Are you going where the women are?

Speak Softly and Stay Abstract. Keep your target market’s beliefs, values and life stage (not age) in mind. Align your brand’s essence with the social causes she cares about and focus on ideas rather than using a product-centric approach. Bottom Line: How can your brand help a woman feel like she did the right thing today?

Find a Fit. Blogs have been phenomenally successful, particularly among the underappreciated and overworked mommy set, because they fulfill multiple needs, feel warm and fuzzy and fit seamlessly into a mom’s life. Bottom line: What problems must women solve? How can your product make that process easier? How can your service make it less stressful?

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Category: Customer Acquisition / Retention, Marketing Strategy, Marketing to Women, Segmentation | No Comments

Connecting to the New Consumer

March 22nd, 2010 by Heinrich Marketing

Simultaneously, customers are gaining a louder voice. They crave a connection – to be viewed as individuals instead of as a mass audience. They know that their opinions matter, and they want to be heard, recognized and spoken to as equals. How can marketers connect?

With a more casual approach. In 2000, usability expert Jakob Nielsen explained the Internet’s demand for a different messaging style. A television commercial, he said, is instrumental. It hits you over the head and speaks with authority. It doesn’t wait or care for a response. But online messaging should be constructive. A conversation. A two-way street with equality. Now that compelling theory applies everywhere. It’s time for traditional media to communicate constructively, and level the playing field. The consumer already has.

With surprising swiftness. With a short attention span and zero tolerance for low usability, consumers today are cycling through applications, networking tools and gadgets faster than we can say Google. Blogs become outdated in days. Content gets old even quicker. That means you need to refresh design and messaging more frequently. “You must be able to shift rapidly to consumer taste and behavior,” says George Eddy, president and CEO of Heinrich.

With unabashed transparency. Author Elizabeth Gilbert begins her best-selling book, Eat, Pray, Love, with advice from a friend: “Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell the truth.” Being honest resonates with people and leads to credibility and trust. It’s what any married couple will tell you. It’s why blogs and social media have found so much success. Zappos.com achieved legendary status by, among other things, encouraging their customer service reps to abandon call scripts and just be honest. Toyota’s new PR campaign is all about owning up to their mistakes. Domino’s recently compared the taste of their pizza to cardboard, and launched a new product. It takes some guts, but it works.

With empathy and understanding. Consumers just want a little TLC. In 2009, Hyundai’s Assurance program offered 90 days of payment relief or a full refund if a buyer was laid off within the first year of vehicle ownership. A month after the program was announced, Hyundai’s sales had increased by 14.3%, while almost every other automaker was down. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign addressed women’s negative self-image with a campaign that celebrated models of all shapes and sizes, increasing women’s confidence and comfort with their own bodies.

By embracing the new world order. Just ten years ago, companies would market their brands, win customers and then build trust and credibility through superior service and high quality. The process has nearly reversed. We must now begin by developing trust and credibility through relevant and timely services, solutions and rewards. Then we’ll acquire customers, and if we’re good, we’ll keep them.

With multichannel methods. Mobile is just one example and it is posed to dominate and mature. Fast. It will become the “third screen” before 2011, and according to Millenial Media, the U.S. mobile web will soon reach 100 million unique users per month. Even now, supermarkets, retail and drugstores are testing point, click and purchase technology. It’s time to adapt. And don’t think the onset of mobile gets you out of the social media mandate. It’s all connected, and it all matters.

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Category: Marketing Research, Marketing Trends, Mobile Marketing, Segmentation | No Comments

How to Win the Women’s Revolution

February 2nd, 2010 by Heinrich Marketing

How to Win the Women’s Revolution

Gary Becker calls women our society’s “Chief Purchasing Officers.” As a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, he knows what many marketers know: Women control 85 percent of household purchase decisions and most families’ finances.

But that statistic is so last-century.

Beyond increased economic power and financial freedom, “Women also experienced a great deal of social and psychological change in the past 50 years,” writes The Power of the Purse author Fara Warner. “Even as women gained access to more money and power, their sense of self and self-worth has been transformed.”

That coupled with continued upticks in women’s levels of education and the age at which they become mothers are among the societal shifts making today’s women’s segments more complex than back in the “I can bring home the bacon” days.

In the Advertising Age whitepaper ‘The New Female Consumer: The Rise of the Real Mom,” NBC Universal’s women’s networks president Lauren Zalaznick points out that “It’s not enough to understand that women are the principal shoppers, that women have the ‘power of the purse.’ It’s that [marketers] need customized ways of reaching these women.”

Bravo, Oxygen, iVillage, the Today show join NBC’s Women@NBCU initiative as a collective example of how major brands are tailoring marketing to much more segmented audiences than in decades past. Each network caters to different psychographics and purchase drivers. Bravo aims for “upscale, cosmopolitan” women in their 30s and 40s with successful careers, while Oxygen goes for the 20- or 30-something woman who is closely connected with her friends and the leisure activities she shares with them. NBCU has even created a Women@NBCU advisory board — a think tank on trends and ideas about marketing to women, led by experts including Marketing to Women author Marti Barletta — to keep its female-targeted sales and marketing initiative on its toes.

Dig deeper than demographics

For many marketers, it’s time for a head check on what they think they know about marketing to women. They need insight into life stage, values and mindset, because what’s true of today’s rapidly evolving Hispanic markets in America (see our article Is Your Hispanic Message Lost in Translation?) is equally true of women’s segments: It’s all about relevance. Customer research that clearly defines your target sub-segments is paramount in connecting with women today in a way they’ll perceive as genuine and trustworthy.

Newer stereotypes are no better than the old ones

Ready to shoot some holes in your strategies for marketing to women? Think about how you can crank up relevance and ROI by making these three key shifts:

Stop targeting supermom. “For younger generations of mothers, having it all doesn’t mean doing it all,” notes the Advertising Age whitepaper. “Increasingly, Gen Xers (ages 30 to 44) and millennials (ages 18 to 29) are not beholden to perfection. Having seen their predecessors exhaust themselves trying to achieve an elusive ideal, today’s mothers aim to be pragmatic, efficient and rooted in reality. To reach this demographic, marketers need to do more than communicate that the goods and services they offer are practical and convenient; they also need to empower these female consumers to delegate to others (spouses, children, brands) so they can have more time to be who they want to be — at home, at work and on their own.”

Don’t assume mature woman = tech-averse granny. Leverage integrated multichannel marketing campaigns, including social media. The number of women over 55 using Facebook has tripled since 2008 and represents the social networking site’s fastest-growing age group.

Get up to speed with the sixty-and-fabulous mindset. “Although marketers seem to persist in their beliefs that women agonize about their advancing age,” observes Barletta, who coined the term “PrimeTime Women™” for women aged 50–70 who are in the prime of their lives and are the prime target opportunity for marketers, “PrimeTime Women love the advantages that aging brings, such as experience, wisdom, a greater appreciation for life and time, and the freedom to pursue their passions”. The terms middle-aged, mature, and senior carry all this drab, gray baggage. That’s not who the PrimeTime Woman is at all. “She keeps moving forward, living life in drive. Even overdrive! Her greatest achievements really are ahead of her.”

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Category: Marketing to Women, Segmentation | No Comments

Is Your Hispanic Message Lost in Translation?

December 17th, 2009 by Heinrich Marketing

The U.S. Hispanic market isn’t just exploding – it’s evolving. Is your marketing strategy keeping up?

Hispanics are the largest and fastest-growing minority group in America, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. People of Hispanic origin make up about 15 percent of the U.S. population; and that ratio is expected to grow to 30 percent by 2050. But here’s the real truth in these numbers: The market is now so substantial that it’s also much more diverse — and many marketers are getting left in the dust because they’re still working from old models and assumptions.

We asked Heinrich Hispanidad Account Director Rafael Rodriguez for insight on these seismic shifts in the Hispanic market, and how you can make your campaigns more relevant to Hispanic audiences.

Q. What’s the biggest mistake you see marketers make when targeting Hispanic customers?

A. Viewing the market in a stereotypical fashion. Many are still defining Hispanic marketing simply as marketing in Spanish, and many base their campaigns on outdated traditional values.

For example, a financial services brand may assume Hispanics are an “unbanked” segment — meaning they can’t qualify for traditional monetary tools like credit cards. But the majority of Hispanics are not unbanked. You have to approach Hispanics with a more sophisticated message, not just assume an entry-level product is right for them.

Some companies certainly are doing the research on Hispanic customers’ decision-making influences. But there are still a lot of marketers simply translating marketing materials into Spanish — then wondering why that doesn’t work.

Q. What’s the best way to tap into the Hispanic market opportunity and generate new business?

Look beyond the numbers. Just like in the general marketplace, you have to look at “Who am I targeting? What are their decision-making influences? How does my brand and value proposition resonate? What can I do to make it resonate?”

Marketers invest all kinds of resources into qualitative and quantitative data to better target the general U.S. population. You have Baby Boomers, young adults … you market to them differently based on all kinds of factors including their media consumption patterns. The same kinds of segments exist in the Hispanic market. Make sure you understand which segment your value proposition fits with. You may have a different media-buy strategy, a different communication strategy, a different message …

What’s the smartest thing you’ve seen a brand do to connect meaningfully with Hispanic U.S. customers?

Colorado Ski Country U.S.A.’s campaign to the Hispanic market stands out. Skiing is a pastime that’s been historically foreign to Hispanic markets. Individual resorts had tried simply translating marketing messages into Spanish, but we could see that recent arrivals to the U.S. weren’t the best target segment. The ski resorts weren’t set up to serve those customers; they had no Spanish-speaking ticket agents or lift attendants, for example, and no Spanish-language signage.

Instead, we targeted two other Hispanic demographics: acculturated families and acculturated singles. And we looked at it psycho graphically to reveal the motivating factors that make the ski industry’s value proposition more relevant to each target segment’s lifestyle.

It wasn’t about explaining why skiing is such a great leisure activity. The message was that to participate in skiing, they don’t have to go outside of what they normally do with their leisure time.

The families tended to spend their leisure time doing family activities together, such as sports events. Our marketing strategy was to position skiing as a family activity.

For the younger, single Hispanics who tended to spend more leisure time going to clubs, we showed that they can do that in a setting that’s more dynamic — at a ski resort. We took a concept that might otherwise be foreign to them and made it resonate.

This segmented campaign generated a lot of excitement within the Hispanic community – after so many years, the ski industry had finally decided to target and welcome them. If you speak to them correctly, they’re going to go up there and make skiing a part of their lifestyle.

Use of social media sites among English-preferring Hispanics is double the usage rate among whites. How can marketers leverage this insight?

It doesn’t surprise me that English speaking Hispanics over-index for use of social media. Traditional media hasn’t been providing for us effectively. Latino TV, for example, tends to be a limiting cultural outlet as it predominantly targets Spanish-dominant Hispanics and recent arrivals by emphasizing novelas (soap operas) and variety shows. For an acculturated Hispanic, this type of programming isn’t as relevant to their bicultural experience.

Social media is more relevant to their specific culture, language preferences and media consumption patterns. It offers a sense of ownership; you make it what you want and communicate in the languages you prefer. A Hispanic may speak or write in Spanish or English and listen to Shakira and Britney Spears on the same playlist. If there isn’t a traditional media outlet that speaks to you, through social media you can find other people who have the same acculturation as you do. You’re not out there in the world on your own.

Another reason Hispanics gravitate toward social media is that they prioritize family and a sense of community. Social media expands on that, letting them stay more connected with family and friends both here and abroad.

Many Hispanics also seek out a balance between the traditions of their heritage and the contemporary culture they’ve adopted in this country. In my social media accounts, I have friends in Columbia where my father is from, Dominican Republic where my mother is from, and friends in the U.S. I can be on the fence in terms of language, references … It depends on what I’m feeling on that particular day, who it’s relevant to or who I think is going to be reading it.

Social media will continue to play a growing role in integrated marketing campaigns to Hispanic market segments. It’s one more way that marketers need to update their thinking and bring their Hispanic marketing strategies into the 21^st century.

Contact Heinrich Hispanidad for help getting your Hispanic marketing program up to speed with the changing picture of the Hispanic market.

Category: Hispanic Marketing, Segmentation, Social Media Marketing | No Comments

5 Steps to Making Prepaid Cards Work for You

December 17th, 2009 by Heinrich Marketing

Learn why the time is right for prepaid cards vs. credit cards — and get a five-step guide to dressing your prepaid program for success.

Looking for a game-changer? The prepaid card transaction market is expected to reach $257 billion this year, up from $63 billion in 2004. Prepaid is where the growth is when it comes to payment methods —and it’s not just for gift cards and phone cards anymore.

Whether you’re a retail chain, a bank or a service organization, prepaid cards hold huge new revenue and profit opportunities for a wide range of industries and brands.

We asked prepaid card expert Keith Rose, Heinrich’s strategic partner, president of Peak Results Marketing, to share his best advice to marketers looking for innovative ways to generate new revenue streams.

What is a prepaid card?

From gift cards and reloadable Visa and MasterCard credit-alternative cards to transit-fare cards, there are as many types of prepaid cards as there are industries reaping their benefits today.

Also known as a stored value card, a prepaid card is “a trackable alternative to cash that’s less expensive to process than a check,” says Rose. And unlike a credit card, it’s easy to get. “Anyone can have a prepaid card. You just go to a store to pick it up.”

That’s a big reason reloadable prepaid cards have begun attracting more attention over the course of the recession — even though the concept has been around for about a decade, its benefits have new relevance for consumers whose job and credit options have shrunk.

According to the 2009 prepaid cards industry forecast report by the Center for Financial Services Innovation, more than one-third of the 40 million underbanked individuals in the United States would rather use a prepaid card than a checking account for basic financial transactions if costs were equal. Defined by the FDIC as the 10 million households in America without an account at a financial institution, underbanked and unbanked consumers say they appreciate the convenience, transparency, and privacy of prepaid cards.

How Wal-Mart turned a profit on reloadable prepaid cards

When Heinrich and Peak Results developed positioning strategy for the Wal-Mart Money Card, “We were challenged with increasing awareness, acquisition and reloads,” says Rose. “But the first hurdle was, how do we articulate a very complex thing in a very simple way?”

“We helped Wal-Mart come up with the Money Card concept that took a lot of confusion out of a very complex product,” says Rose. “We built messaging and creative using very straightforward language and graphics that focus on the core benefits — especially the fact that you can reload this card, putting money back in and reusing it.”

Another key to WalMart’s success with prepaid cards: a maverick fee structure geared aggressively toward incentivizing ongoing usage.

Some brands have struggled with the profitability of prepaid cards because the fees to use and reload the card were so prohibitive, many consumers would toss them after one use.

“But Wal-Mart really streamlined the pricing,” says Rose, noting WalMart’s low transaction fees and simple, automated pricing structure — every reload costs $3. “The strategy is, reloading brings people into the store every time.”

5 steps to success with a reloadable prepaid card

“The numbers are going up,” says Rose, pointing to the overall growth of prepaid card transaction volume. “And there’s going to be a shake-out in the industry as to who’s providing the service.” The key to being one of those providers, he says, is starting with these five strategic moves — the keys to making your prepaid card program stand out, take hold and make money.

1. Define your segmentation plan.

“Who are you going after and how do you want to connect with them?” Rose asks. “Travel, gifting, reloadable credit card alternative? People who can’t get credit?”

“Prepaid cards serve different purposes for different consumers,” notes a Center for Financial Services Innovation report, underscoring Rose’s advice. “Developing a successful prepaid card program requires segmenting the large, diverse underbanked market and matching the marketing and distribution strategy to the market segment.”

Within the reloadable prepaid card market alone, Heinrich Marketing has identified nine sub-groups to target — from the underbanked and credit-challenged to students away at college and families looking for practical gift options and ways to help support family members financially.

2. Make user education a top priority.

“User education, especially via point-of-sale signage and direct marketing, is crucial,” says Rose. He advises clients interested in prepaid card programs to keep messaging in point-of-sale signage, direct mail and other touchpoints simple, visual and straightforward. For example, while the benefits of the prepaid concept are numerous, Heinrich guides new prepaid clients to prioritize the best three benefits in creative messaging and graphics.

“Many brands are also getting away from paper,” Rose points out, “using text messages and email to increase ongoing usage, retention and reload rates.”

3. Sidestep sticker shock.

“It’s crucial that you automate and minimize reloadable card fees to increase total usage,” says Rose. He advises taking a cue from Wal-Mart by setting up a fee structure aimed at maximizing reload volume and lifecycle. “The longer that card gets actively used, the more profitable it becomes for your company,” Rose explains.

4. Customize your creative and messaging by segment.

Positioning, imagery, messaging and offer/pricing should all be uniquely targeted to specific segments. Rose says this is your ticket to higher cumulative revenue and profitability of your prepaid card program.

For example, to make the benefits of a prepaid card crystal-clear for a multilingual customer base, Rose and Heinrich developed point of sale signage versions emphasizing iconic graphical representations of reloading the card and reusing it.

Keep in mind that while your creative should be tailored, format and templates can be common across the segments — that’s one way you’ll gain cost-efficiency, though multiple uses of each card should still form the core of your ROI logic.

5. Get your team up to speed before you launch.

Consider this a hand-in-hand aspect of customer education — it’s essential to train your retail and customer-facing employees on exactly how your prepaid card program works, and how it’s different from other payment methods. Market the card to your teams with materials that highlight the benefits in clear, simple terms. All your representatives need to a) understand the product and program, so they can quickly and clearly answer customer questions; and b) get excited about it, so they’ll suggest it to customers.

Heinrich Marketing can help you optimize a prepaid card strategy for your brand and find the best ways to communicate its benefits to distinctly different customer segments. Read our case studies or contact us for more information or a prepaid card program scenario tailored to your goals and audiences.

Category: Payment Card Marketing, Segmentation | No Comments