Drew McLellan, Author at McLellan Marketing Group

Three things to remember when you write a marketing plan

October 18, 2007

Last week we explored how to set a marketing budget and in that post, I emphasized that every marketing budget should be tied to a measurable marketing plan. So it makes sense that we should talk a little about some key do’s and don’t’s in creating your marketing plan.

Do less, but do it better: Most business owners make the mistake of being too ambitious with their marketing efforts. Which results in starting many things, but never doing them consistently and well.

You’re much better off to do fewer things but do them more often and better.

Balance your audiences: It’s a natural urge to invest all of your marketing resources on getting new clients. But, that’s shortsighted. The two most important audiences are your employees and your current customers. Be sure your marketing plan gives them enough attention.

At least half your budget and effort should be aimed at these two critical groups of people.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket: One of your goals should be to deliver a business’ key messages through a variety of mediums. No matter how much you believe in word of mouth, direct mail, e-newsletters or an interactive website – don’t land on any one medium.

Stack up impressions by varying the media that carries your message.

What do’s and don’t’s would you add to this list?

Ready to show off your marketing smarts?

October 17, 2007

Think you’ve got what it takes? Are your marketing ideas usually the ones that are greeted with a hallowed hush of awe?

If so, then step into the ring with other marketing virtuosos.

My friend Gavin Heaton and the fashion mavens at The Bargain Queen have cooked up quite the contest. The entries will be voted on in round-robin style — being narrowed down until there is only one left. This means that no one and everyone is the judge of what makes a great campaign. This should be fun!

What’s in it for you? If you win, you get bragging rights, get to stretch your mental marketing muscles and the grand prize is an Apple iTouch.

Before you scoot over to Gavin’s blog to get all the details, ponder this.

For the cost of an Apple iTouch — do you suppose this little contest will drive traffic, links and subscriptions at the Bargain Queen? Seems like quite the bargain (no pun intended!) doesn’t it?

How could you harness this idea for your own?

Now that we’ve decided blogs are potential PR engines…

October 15, 2007

Ah, the good old days. PR pros bombarded reporters, news directors and radio jocks with their pitches, releases, and freebies.

But it’s a new day my friends and suddenly PR firms, publishers and business owners have decided that blogs are as viable as the daily paper, when it comes to getting out the word about a new product, book or idea.

All that is well and good. When it’s done right. But most often, I get e-mails like this:

Hello Drewsmarketingminute,
I found your site http://www.mclellanmarketing.com/ and I wanted to
know if you could Blog or write an article about XYZ (changed because I am a nice guy)! You can write your own article; alternatively you may use this recent press release below. You also take a look at the XYZ samples and information on our site at http://www.XYZ.com Thanks!

This guy has never read my blog. He found me on a list or technorati search. He didn’t use my actual name (unless I have become Drewsmarketingminute) and he insults my integrity, suggesting that I would just run his release verbatim.

I get several of these a day. I ignore several of these a day.

Ogilvy PR has the right idea. They’ve created a bloggers outreach code of ethics. I, and many other colleagues think they’ve got the right idea. I hope that all of us who live in the marketing world and may be pitching bloggers take note. If you want to reach out to a blogger…this would be a fine primer to study before you make that first contact.

We reach out to bloggers because we respect your influence and feel that we might have something that is “remarkable” which could be of interest to you and/or your audience.

We will only propose blogger outreach as a tactic if it complements our overall strategy. We will not recommend it as a panacea for every social media campaign.

We will always be transparent and clearly disclose who we are and who we work for in our outreach email.

Before we email you, we will check out your blog’s About, Contact and Advertising page in an effort to see if you have blatantly said you would not like to be contacted by PR/Marketing companies. If so, we’ll leave you alone.

If you tell us there is a specific way you want to be reached, we’ll adhere to those guidelines.

We won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t.

In our email we will convey why we think you, in particular, might be interested in our client’s product, issue, event or message.

We won’t leave you hanging. If your contact at Ogilvy PR is going out of town or will be unreachable, we will provide you with an alternate point of contact.

We encourage you to disclose our relationship with you to your readers, and will never ask you to do otherwise.

You are entitled to blog on information or products we give you in any way you see fit. (Yes, you can even say you hate it.)

If you don’t want to hear from us again, we will place you on our Do Not Contact list – which we will share with the rest of the Ogilvy PR agency.

If you are initially interested in the campaign, but don’t respond to one of our emails, we will follow up with you no more than once. If you don’t respond to us at all, we’ll leave you alone.

Our initial outreach email will always include a link to Ogilvy PR’s Blog Outreach Code of Ethics.

What do you think?

Thinking of using a globe in your logo?

October 14, 2007

I was standing in Office Depot this weekend and noticed their "let us design your logo" display. And there they were. The painfully trite visuals that business owners seem to be drawn to when designing their own logo.

You know the ones — globes, shaking hands, the outline of your state, or the very popular paw print (you pick the animal of choice).

If you want your business to be perceived as unique — don’t use the same, tired visuals that everyone else has already used. A logo does not have to be a literal translation of your business’ name or deliverable.

Think beyond the expected. Think abstract. Think about building a brand by being fresh and different.

Think anything but a globe.

Dr. Marketer?

October 13, 2007

Sometimes, we get so caught up in discussing tactics or crunching numbers that we forget we’re in the human behavior business. At the very root of marketing is this reality:

Our job is to get people to do something. Believe something. Care about something. Our job is to affect human behavior. And to affect it, we must understand it.

I’m not saying we all need to run out and get our doctorate in psychiatry. But I am suggesting we’d better be avid students.

On any given day, a marketing professional might have to:

Understand what motivates a 33 year old suburban mom
Talk a client down from the figurative ledge because their boss is demanding instant results
Ask questions that get people to think in a new way
Write in a way that’s native and comforting to a person facing their death
Motivate employees to do superior work for a client who nitpicks and changes direction mid-stream
Take a furious customer from screaming to calm and feeling heard
Guide a group discussion to help a client unearth an uncomfortable truth about their company’s service
Figure out how and why three 19 year olds react completely differently to a new product
And so much more

I don’t believe a person can be successful in marketing if they don’t understand and care about how people tick.

Of course, the couch is optional.

What do you think? Am I placing too much importance on this aspect of marketing?

How much should I spend on marketing?

October 11, 2007

This is probably one of the most asked questions of marketing agencies and consultants. If you google the phrase, there are almost 17 million results. Guess it’s on peoples’ minds, eh?

I think one of the reasons why it’s on everyone’s mind is because there is no magic answer. Before we get into the methods of determining a right answer, let’s be very clear about these two points:

The exact amount matters less than having an amount. In other words, having and tracking a marketing budget, even if your initial number is off, is much more important than getting the number exactly right.

You can have the right budget and spend it on the wrong things. A marketing plan should always be tied to a strategic marketing budget.

Now, let’s tackle the question. Here are some of the more effective ways to set a marketing budget:

Percentage of gross sales/revenue:

This is probably the simplest method. Most experts recommend somewhere in the range of 2-8% of gross sales. McKinsey & Company is often quoted at 5%.

Most small businesses (less than $5 million gross revenue) should shoot for at least 7-8%.

Industry-specific:

Many industries have their own standard. For example:

Consumer package goods: Up to 50% of projected net sales to launch a new product
Industrial B-to-B: 1% of gross sales
Retail: 4-10% of net revenues
Banks/Credit Unions: 2-5% of assets
Law firms: 1-4% of gross revenues
Pharmaceuticals: Up to 20% of net sales
Hospitals: 1% of net revenues

Lifetime value of customer:

The idea is simple. You identify how much profit (on average) you make during the lifetime of that customer relationship and determine how much you are willing to invest per customer acquisition. If you choose this method be very careful that your numbers are accurate.

Goals/Plan driven:

The thinking behind this method is really a blend of some of the others. Identify measurable goals (# of new clients, % of revenue increase, etc) and then determine your sales equation.

For example: For every 100 prospects approached, you get 25 initial meetings. From those 25 meetings, you can expect to get 12 invitations to present a proposal. From 12 proposals, you will score 4 new clients. If your goal is 20 new clients, you now know that you need to approach 500 qualified prospects. You build your marketing plan to accomplish that and assign the costs accordingly.

Again, this method requires very accurate numbers to make the equations viable.

So what do you think? Which method do you currently use? If you don’t have a marketing budget, which method do you think would serve you best?

Do I need a marketing budget?

October 9, 2007

"How much should we be spending on marketing?" This is probably one of the most common questions we get asked. Or, on the flip side of that, we hear, "oh, we don’t have a budget. We’re just a small business. We just go with our gut."

No, no, no, no, no.

Let’s get to the most important message first. Every company, even a one person consultancy, should have a defined marketing budget. You absolutely, positively will mis-spend, over spend and wrongly spend if you do not have a budget. I promise you that.

Think of a budget as those bumpers you can use in a bowling alley. (even if you don’t have kids!) They keep you from getting too deep in the gutter. You can still get a little off center, but you can’t completely skip the lane. With the bumpers in place, you’re bound to hit at least a few pins.

You need a written marketing budget that is tied to your sales goals. Now that we know you need one, in the next post we’ll talk about how to create one.

For those of you who have ventured into the waters without a budget, any war stories we can learn from?

BrandingWire: Why are we losing business?

October 8, 2007

This month’s BrandingWire offering asks an interesting question. A B2B consultancy that works primarily with high-tech and health care clients is losing market share. What should they do?

Here’s their current situation:

They are losing contracts to lower pricing and bigger firms.
They’ve stopped growing.
If they do land a client, they usually only buy one project and don’t return.

Here’s how they describe their client profile:

Revenues: $1 million to $25 million
Employees: 150 or fewer
Verticals: High-tech and health care
Location: North America

Sometimes the best advice we need to offer a prospect or client is — you shouldn’t market anything right now. To jump into marketing tactics at this stage with this particular client would be putting lipstick on a pig.

There are questions that need asking long before we pull the trigger on any attempt to help them attract new clients. They have problems that marketing cannot fix. And it would be irresponsible of us to encourage them to spend money that’s just going to perpetuate the problem.

This is a classic mistake many businesses make. They’re struggling so they throw more marketing dollars at the problem. But what if the problem has little to do with marketing? Here are some harsh realities that this client needs to face before they launch any new marketing initiatives.

Your target market is too big

The range between $1 million and $25 million is huge. Companies on each side of that size spectrum behave completely differently. My guess is that our client needs to drastically narrow that range to find their sweet spot. Right now, they are aiming at much too wide a target.

You don’t know how you are perceived

We need to have some in-depth conversations with past clients, current clients and those clients who opted for a competitor. We need to understand, from their perspective, how this company is coming across.

The biggie: You can’t sustain business

But, without a doubt the most glaring problem we need to solve is the company’s inability to keep current clients happy and coming back for more.

If you can’t earn a current client’s trust and more business, then you are destined to fail. No business can be profitable with a revolving door or clients. The costs of acquisition is just too high.

Bottom line:

This year’s marketing budget is going to be dedicated to identifying and fixing the problems that have gotten our client into this situation. We can’t market them out of the hole they’ve dug.

As is the BrandingWire tradition, there will be several other marketing pros who will weigh in on this scenario. Check out their posts as well!

Olivier Blanchard
Becky Carroll
Derrick Daye
Kevin Dugan
Lewis Green
Gavin Heaton
Martin Jelsema
Valeria Maltoni
Drew McLellan
Patrick Schaber
Steve Woodruff

Win Jill Konrath’s book: Selling to Big Companies

October 5, 2007

Boy, this is a sweet deal.

Jill Konrath e-mailed me right around the time we were celebrating the blog’s first anniversary and generously offered to give me a copy of her book as a giveaway during the anniversary hoopla. But, I just couldn’t pull it all together so she graciously let me wait a week or so. Here we are.

I just finished it and it is excellent! I found some take aways that I know are going to make MMG more successful.

In the comments section — leave a sales tip, horror story, lesson learned or struggle. That’s your "entry fee" for being put in the drawing. If you’re too shy to comment, e-mail me.

Here’s a little about the book:

Stop struggling to get into big companies. Learn practical strategies to crack into corporate accounts, shrink your sales cycle and close more business in Jill Konrath’s new book.

In Selling to Big Companies, you’ll discover how to:

Target accounts where you can succeed.
Find the names of corporate decision makers.
Create breakthrough value propositions.
Develop effective account entry campaigns.
Craft enticing voicemail messages.
Overcome obstacles to getting in.
Have powerful initial sales meetings.
Differentiate yourself from other sellers.

Don’t forget that Jill is also throwing the sales conference that’s a not to be missed for women who want to take their sales skills to the next level. Minneapolis. November 5-6. You’ll learn enough within the first hour to cover the investment and more.

So come on….share your sales savvy or angst. Either way, you can be the big winner!

Have you seen the branding periodic table?

October 4, 2007

So….I get an e-mail from Tanya, an intern at the Kolbrener agency in Pittsburgh. She loves my blog and wanted to share something her employers created – the branding periodic table.

Note: It’s cool, I am not knocking that at all. Very inventive and visually appealing. See….

But here’s my observation. ~~Tanya likes many marketing blogs~~. (An update — I had a conversation with Brandon Fritz of Kolbrener and he assured me Tanya only e-mailed a handful of bloggers she really does like. She likes me! She really likes me!) And like Pavlov’s dog — we all jumped up when she rang the bell. And then we each told ten friends, who told ten friends…

Have we contributed to the pollution of sameness in the blogosphere? Do we as blog authors have a responsibility to try to differentiate our copy if we’re going to jump on someone’s bandwagon and all write about the same thing? (Which some did)

Or is it a "no harm, no foul" deal. Who cares if a bunch of blogs all point at the same thing in relatively the same way?

What do you think?

Here are some of this week’s links to the interactive table:

Peep the Technique
Doug Karr
Orbit Now
Ryan Moede
Techy News Blog
Passionate Manager
Clever Think
Bloggermacha
Debbie Millman
The Branding Blog
Uwe’s blog
James & Joe
BrandUnited
Brand Autopsy

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