Mr. Congdon utilizes direct response marketing in his approach to designing marketing automation solutions for his clients, once in place they provide a nearly immediate return on investment (ROI.) He will begin accepting new clients starting April 4th 2016.
-Michael Patrick
When speaking
with Mr. Congdon he offered the following story to demonstrate what he meant by
tested and documented. On July 27th of last year he met with Mary,
the owner of an Italian restaurant. She found him through a desperate web search
as she was beginning to fear her third year open would be her last year open. Mary
reached out via phone and after emailing to setup an appointment, Tracy and his
executive assistant went to her location. They listened to her concerns and
needs as she seemed to be holding back tears. Mary informed them it was her
dream to open a restaurant in her community, but with each passing month there
were fewer and fewer customers coming in. Her dream was slowly slipping away.
Like many business owners she invested in expensive ADs out of desperation with
no measurable results. Mr. Congdon says, “He always stresses the dire
importance of testing and measuring. If it can’t be measured, how do you know
if it is working?” He ended up modifying marketing strategies he designed
initially for a previous campaign to bring in new customers for a spa that
offered massage, chiropractic, weight loss services and more. He then discussed
the importance of knowing exactly what it costs to acquire new customers, what
each one is worth, and how to determine the lifetime value (LTV) of a regular
customer. This allowed them to assist her in determining what the ROI needs to
be when investing in advertising, and why holding advertising accountable is
critical to businesses’ success. After fully laying out how this marketing
strategy would drive new customers to her each month, Mary still seemed a bit
hesitant. Milling over their proposed solution, Mary finally said she was about
to say “not sure I can afford it… when a quote popped into my head. Successful
people don’t ask what it costs, they ask what it is worth. Successful people
invest in themselves and their education and that’s why they’re successful.”
With that Mary was on board and said, “What do we need to do to get started?”
Seven business days later on August 5th, her first new customer from
this campaign came through her door.
Early this
March Tracy received a phone call from Mary stating she uses the systems and
processes they put in place to track and measure every dollar that comes in
from the marketing strategies they put in place. Hearing some clicks of her keyboard
she then said, “To be exact over the last seven months we brought in
$115,024.00 that we can trace directly back to that campaign. An average of
$16,432.35 in operational funds each month since, we put those marketing
strategies in place. Thank you Tracy!” During her call they setup another
appointment with her to put multiple customer retention campaigns in place and
calculate her next targeted increase. She gave them a referral they are working
with now. Feeling confident with the successful testing and measuring, they feel
they have the needed tools in place to begin bringing on new clients as of
April 4th 2016.
When Tracy was
asked why “The Marketing Soldier?” His reply was, “After 12 years in the US
Army and over 15 years studying and implementing marketing strategies it seemed
appropriate. Running a veteran owned company, he is asking, “Please give us a ‘like’
on Facebook www.Facebook.com/TheMarketingSoldier and a ‘follow’ on Twitter @TGJCongdon!”
Congdon admits
his website www.MarketingSoldier.com,
is in need of an upgrade which he plans to have done later this year; for now
it serves its purpose. His contact information is there for business owners who
wish to consult with him.
Business owners
and sales professionals that decide to consult with The Marketing Soldier can
expect:
- To start by clearly defining who their ideal target market is.
- Craft a powerful message that speaks to them and gets them to respond.
- Discover what media works best to deliver this message to their target market.
- Put systems and processes in place to automate as much of their marketing as possible, including follow up and customer retention programs.
Along with
rolling out his upgraded program in April, he plans to begin a subscription
based service mailing out a physical newsletter along with a monthly cd. This
will include interviews with others in advertising and marketing, with in-depth
discussion of techniques from their combined years of creating campaigns for
different businesses.
If interested
in subscribing to The Marketing Soldier’s email newsletter, please visit this
Google shortened web address https://goo.gl/OBgnXB.
