It's Not About Me

about a company’s products, they would usually fill out “bingo cards” or postage paid reply cards in various monthly trade journals to request info on a product release or advertisement they saw in the magazine; this process could often take up to a month to go through all the various steps: 1. Trade publication received the postage-paid request card from the inquirer 2. Trade publication key punches data into their computer and generates the inquiry listing which they then mail to the manufacturer who had the ad/product release 3. Manufacturer then sends out the requested info to the inquirer and the smart manufacturers add the new inquiry names to their mailing list for future follow-up with their sales department and for future mailings 4. The inquirer finally receives their requested information In a good year, we would generate as many as 50,000 sales leads at our relative small Westinghouse Division. We would quickly send out the requested product or literature along with our condensed product catalog, a cover letter and a postage-paid card to sign-up for our mailing list for future communications based on the customer’s specific product or application interests. This system was the foundation of our marketing communications efforts. • Customer Newsletters – Most successful companies depend on repeat business; therefore, it is essential that they build a lasting relationship with their prospects and customers. At Westinghouse Semiconductor, we generated a quarterly newsletter that went to our entire customer mailing list. The mission of this newsletter was to inform the reader about industry news, company news, new products, new applications, user tips, etc.; it always contained a message from our Division General Manager. It was not intended as a “hard - sell” promotion vehicle but more a means to keep our customers and prospects aware of current activities. • Employee Newsletters – Employees are sometimes “an after - thought” in many companies when it comes marketing and sales functions, but we felt that employee communications should be taken just as seriously as communications to our customers; thus, we also published a quarterly employee newsletter to every single employee. This was NOT an HR or Human Resource authored document but generated by Marketing Communications for the expressed purposes of sharing our marketing an d sales efforts about our customers with each employee. While not every employee’s job will be in direct contact with a customer or prospect, they will at least indirectly impact your company’s ability to serve the customer or to make a good impression on them. The more your employees know and understand your customers…the better position they will be in to serve their needs! serve your industry. John DeFazio, my Marketing Communications mentor and friend at Westinghouse taught me many things, but this was one of the most important ones. Build and maintain a relationship with the trade press; we would take annual tours across the U.S. every year to the major publishers … McGraw -Hill, Penton, Cahners, IEEE, etc. We would visit their editorial department, their creative/art departments and, of course, their advertising departments. The key was to become acquainted with their personnel, get a copy of their annual editorial calendar so you would know what they monthly features would be that they are planning so you can dove tail your product/service offering to accommodate THEIR needs as well as YOURS! It pays to spend time • Trade Journal Articles – One of the most powerful ways to get recognition for your company as well as for its products and services is to be featured in the various trade journals or publications that

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