Tuesday Marketing Notes (Number 31—May 2nd , 2006)
A B2B Marketing Newsletter for BMA Members
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In Praise of Your Humble Rolodex Card
by Eric Gagnon
In marketing, we usually get so focused on the big picture ideas, like market segments, ad campaigns, and mailings, we forget about the little things that can make a big difference in making it easier for our potential prospect to buy our products. This week, let’s talk about one of those “big little things.”
When Alfred Neustadter invented the Rolodex in 1958, he also created one of the best B2B marketing devices ever—the Rolodex card. Yes, even though we’re using computers and electronic organizers to store our business contact info, I’ll bet that most of us still have Rolodexes on our desks. The basic element of this useful device—the Rolodex card—is still the fastest way to look up business contact information.
If you’re using a Rolodex, you can bet your prospects, customers, and potential prospects are, too. Newell Rubbermaid, the company that sells the Rolodex, sells about 10 million of them a year—and that’s about the same as the combined number of electronic organizers and PDAs sold annually, by the way.
The Marketing Power of the Rolodex Card
When used as an element in your mailings, as part of a sales kit brought to a presentation by one of your company’s sales reps, or as a bounceback sales information kit sent to prospects who reply to your ads or mailings, the Rolodex card is the ultimate “leave behind:” For example, a prospect receives your mailing piece, will glance at your brochure and cover letter, and picks up your Rolodex card as it falls out of your mailing piece into his lap. He may throw your sales materials away, but it’s more likely he’ll keep—and file—your Rolodex card.
So, after all of your promotional materials are gone, the Rolodex card remains as the sole reminder of your marketing contact with your potential prospect: A small but very powerful marketing tool for your company, lying in wait on your prospect’s desktop, ready for the time they need a product like yours.
For this reason, you can produce mailings where one of your goals is to get Rolodex cards into the hands of your company’s (or client’s) potential prospects, knowing that while these prospects may not have an immediate need for the company’s product, if they save and file your Rolodex card, you’ve just made it easier for them to find you when they are ready to buy.
Do You Have a “Rolodex Card Business?”
In B2B markets, many companies are what I call “Rolodex card businesses.” That is, they sell products and services that are needed by prospects either frequently or infrequently, but, when needed, must be available “on call” by prospects from your company.
Here are some examples of “Rolodex card businesses:”
Service businesses: Technical and engineering services, consulting services, specialized information research, maintenance, and repair services;
Specialized products: This includes just about any specialty manufactured product, component, product line, or system needed by prospects in B2B markets;
Commodity products: Rolodex cards for companies selling raw materials, supplies, components, and other “commodities” put these products in front of the prospect when they need them.
You can make your company’s Rolodex card play a very important role in getting the prospect to contact your company, if you produce your Rolodex card to make your product stand up and sell to your prospect when they need your product or service.
Using Your Company’s Rolodex Card as a Marketing Tool
You can include a Rolodex card in your direct mailings, in sales kits, and in most any other printed marketing deliverable. Rolodex cards can be perf-cut into printed pieces, or—and this is the more effective way to use them as a marketing tool—die cut and insert your Rolodex cards as stand-alone items into these mailing and bounceback pieces and sales kits.
Rolodex Card Elements
Here are the main elements of a Rolodex card for B2B marketing applications:
The Tab Header: The top tab is the most important part of the Rolodex card. The information you print on this tab determines where the card will be filed in your prospect’s Rolodex, and—most important—how your prospect looks up your company’s product or service when they need it.
Whatever you do, don’t put your company’s name on the top tab. When your prospect needs a product like yours, and dives for his Rolodex, they don’t care who you are, they only care about the product your company makes or the services your company offers—because that’s what they’re looking for.
So, help them find you by using the word or phrase which most commonly describes your company’s product, just as if you were asked to list your product or service in the Yellow Pages.
For example, if your company sells industrial conveyor systems, then print “Conveyor Systems” on the tab. If your company makes aluminum extrusions, print “Extrusions” here.
Tab subhead: Below this tab header, print another line that expands the meaning of your product. For example, tell the prospect who your product is for, or what other products you sell, like so:
Card headline: Below the tab subhead, along the top edge of the card, print the main description or benefit of your company and its product. Tell your prospect what’s unique about your company’s product or service compared to your competitors.
Card benefit bullets: Next, use three or four bulleted benefit lines to expand your product description. Organize these benefit points from most important to least important. You can often use the same bullet points you’d print on a small sign in your company’s trade show booth:
Address, phone number, Web and contact info: Print your company’s phone number and Web site big and bold on the card. Obviously, interested prospects have to find you, so make it easy for them to do so.
Other elements: If your company is known by its single, flagship product, include a product shot on the card, too. To give your prospects more information on your company’s product lines, you can also print additional information on the back of the card. Print this information upside down on the card, so your reader can see it when they flip the card over in their Rolodex.
Long after your potential prospects have discarded your color brochure and other deliverables, your Rolodex card is often the only printed piece that remains with the prospect. By making it clear what you are selling, and making it easy for the prospect to contact you, your company’s Rolodex card becomes a powerful selling tool that keeps on selling, by making it easy for your prospects to find your company and its product, weeks or months later, when they’re ready to buy.
Comments? Questions? Send them to me at: eric@realmarkets.net
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Eric Gagnon (eric@realmarkets.net), is president of GAA (www.realmarkets.net), a sales and business development consulting firm, and is the author of The Marketing Manager’s Handbook, the master study guide for the Business Marketing Association’s Marketing Skills Assessment, Skill Builder, and Certification (MSA/B/C) programs.
For more information on The Marketing Manager’s Handbook, available to BMA members at a special discount, link to:
http://www.businessmarketinginstitute.com/book.html
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