PEZ* Strategy - Path to Increased Profits

If you have followed my writings, you know that I am a very strong proponent of the process of media convergence, integration and engagement. Engagement, to me, is a more important result than the immediate or impulse sale, since the term engagement defines a long-term relationship that under the correct conditions will provide marketers/advertisers with long-term sales.

The main source of obstacles to establishing engagement are the prospects themselves (your clients and potential customers)—they will put up multiple barriers, mislead and miss direct any marketer that they have found to be unworthy to engage with them. The aware and engaging publisher, printer, marketer, advertiser or creative person will look to enter what I call the prospect engagement zone, or PEZ.

Entry to the PEZ is a highly restricted and carefully regulated process that involves defining the media trail, offering customer/product/service relevance, providing ease of interaction and achieving brand integration.

PEZ is a multi-level and dimensional zone of profit that once established can become the Holy Grail of the sales process. It is the red carpet of red carpets, the last minute touchdown, and a gateway or portal to a prospect’s long-term and ongoing spending habits.

How do you enter the PEZ?

In this complex world of media convergence, you need to identify what I call the enabler media. Recent consumer research indicates that an individual prospect may have a favorite medium, or the vertical you are targeting may be best reached by a defined medium (or media).

Once you have identified this enabler media (and it may change over time), you need to establish an engagement media/process and link it to the correct medium or combination of media. Your call-to-action or sales-based media/process will also need to be defined and ready to go.

For example, to achieve greater results when asking for donations, the first step for engaging a prospect should be to send a direct mail piece, but the enabler media for existing contributors is a digital approach. The same holds true if you are looking to introduce your product or service to a new audience—print, direct mail or other “off-line” technologies work the best.