The Gray Horse that Delivered

A long-time retailer in our Greenville-SC market recently closed after nearly 50 years of serving customers well. As a feed and seed store, they succumbed to the competitive pressures that our beloved big box retailers have been known to apply to the small guys out there.

What's interesting about this store as noted in the Greenville News eulogy, is the legacy they left. Rather than going down with the sunset, the former owner reflected back on the good times - the times that made great memories because of great customer service.

For years, everyone in town knew the store by it's gray, life size horse that stood outside the store marking it's location. If someone called the store, the staff would simply tell them to look for the gray horse and instantly people connected with that image. What a powerful brand icon!

But, the store wasn't just known for the familiar and stately gray horse. Once you entered the establishment, you were treated like family and nearly always returned. The brand experience was powerful and that's what we'll all miss. The personal service, the ability to get whatever you needed even if they didn't have it and the warmth of a place that felt like home.

That's what having a powerful brand can do for you. It isn't just some logo, icon or clever tag line. It's the experience that satisfies a need. Does your business have a gray horse that delivers for you?

Marketing Measurement

Demonstrating marketing ROI presents plenty of challenges, but it isn't impossible. If companies will take the time to determine what they want to measure and what is reasonable, then the process will make a lot more sense to everyone involved. One of the misconceptions is that ANY marketing tactic will result in significant sales - immediately. Well, we all wish that was the case, but marketing is a process that paves the way and provides the tools for effective selling.

The best way to measure is to implement the proper tools that can provide meaningful data. For instance, a CRM solution integrates both sales and marketing activity so that you have a single view of all initiatives. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a good example and an implementation expert like Customer Effective is worth considering who has a sole focus on making CRM effective. Other tools help measure web site traffic and important statistics related to campaigns where site traffic spikes should be tracked. WebTrends has a fantastic web analytics solution for that very purpose. And, WebTrends is integrated into CRM so you have a seamless reporting capability for all data points.

Obviously there are other ways to measure - some are intangibles like name recognition and market education. The point is to have some type of ROI component in place to measure your marketing effectiveness. Having the right tool can make this process a simple one and eliminate the pain-staking task of manually pulling your data together.