Marketing Archives - Page 60 of 67 - McLellan Marketing Group

:60 ticks marketing tip: I spy

January 4, 2007

Grab it fast…it’s gone in about a minute. A :60 ticks marketing tip is 150 words or less…so read it in a minute and implement it in the next!

Research shows that nearly 100% of client decision makers check out the web sites of any service provider (B-to-B) they’re considering. Once a week, generate a report of the URLs that have visited your site and do a little homework in advance of their call!

That’s it….go put it into action!

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More on how companies interact with bad blog press

January 4, 2007

Isn’t it great when the planets align? If you’ve read my post, Mack’s post or Paul’s post on Kohl‘s…this is the perfect next course.

Over at brandchannel.com, they’ve posted an excellent article on how corporations/brands should/shouldn’t react when a blog slams the company and/or product.

I’ve saved it as a PDF just in case its only posted for a brief time. You can Download brandchannel.pdf here.

You can also jump into the debate on their blog. Let the evolution continue!

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Describe Kohl’s in one phrase

January 3, 2007

Paul over at Hee-Haw Marketing took some pretty damning photos at his local Kohl’s. He raises some great issues about advertising and saying one thing and living another.

Then, Mack Collier picked up the ball and posted this very interesting question: If the CMO of Kohl’s saw Paul’s post…what should he/she do?

I started to add my comment to Mack’s post and then I could hear Mike Sansone whispering in my ear “long comments should be posts on your own site.” So here we have it.

So….Kohl’s has a significant problem. There were lots of good comments on Mack’s site, suggesting what the CMO should do. I didn’t disagree with any of them.

But they all started at stage two — at the store level.

I believe the CMO needs to start at the beginning. The Kohl’s brand. That’s why I asked you how you’d describe the store. Most of us would use words like “cheap, knock offs, second runs, last year’s styles, shoddy production, disinterested employees.”

Every choice the store makes — the stock, the short-handed staff, the under trained staff, the crowded junked up retail ads…tells us that the employees who allowed that Dallas store to look like that were simply behaving as they have been taught to behave. They don’t show the store or the customers any respect because no one has taught them to respect the brand.

Punishing a store manager or answering a blog post isn’t going to fix that. That’s treating the symptom, not the cause. If an organization’s leaders are not willing to explore and uncover what their brand is all about — why they exist (and I do not believe any store exists to offer crap in a shoddy store staffed by disgruntled, short-handed staffers) then really, there is little hope. They will go down the path of K-Mart and others who thought “low prices” was enough.

If Kohl’s management could change the way they look at the chain by seeing it through a brand lens, they would change the way the employees see it. When the employees see if differently, they begin to take pride in their work and their environment. No matter how inexpensive the merchandise is. And when that happens — they change our perception.

Until then…let me recommend Target. By the way….Kohl’s tagline on their website…”expect great things.”

Yikes. They even bolded great.

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5 Things meme makes AdAge

January 3, 2007

The blog meme "five things you didn’t know about me" has been circling the blogosphere for several weeks. I got tagged and ponied my five answers and as the game suggests, tagged a few other folks.

Well, our little game has made the big time. AdAge’s Digital Media Morph has referred to the game as"bringing a human side to online chatter." You can check out the story here or Download adage.pdf .

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Could you get to Cleveland without a map?

January 2, 2007

Sure you could. You would head in the general direction and make course corrections along the way. But let me ask you about your journey.

Will you make some wrong turns?
Will you lose time?
Will you miss out on some things that happened — if only you had gotten there more efficiently?
Will you waste gas and other resources?
Will this method add to your stress?

It doesn’t sound like the smartest way to get to Cleveland does it? Why not just use Mapquest or AAA triptik?

Now, let’s refocus the lens and think about your marketing efforts. Same question. Could you reach your sales/marketing goals without a map? Sure. Head in the general direction, etc. etc.

But couldn’t you ask yourself those same questions and arrive at the same answers? That’s why having a marketing plan is so critical. You don’t have the time, resources or the TUMS supply to wing it. Yet…and this will either embarrass or amaze you — 95% of all businesses do not have a marketing plan.

Cindy Pinsonnault over at Pinsonnault Creative explores why people are so reticent to create a plan. She’s exactly right. My point is — it doesn’t matter.

Get over yourself. Get over your insecurities. Get over your time issues. Even if it is a one page matrix that outlines the five tactics, the three audiences and the timetable each tactic will follow, it beats nothing.

Get out of your car. Get to your desk. No more driving blind. Promise?

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A quick peek in the rearview mirror

January 1, 2007

Phew. You survived another year. This is traditionally when people are knee deep into planning for the upcoming year, if you’re not already done. But before we think about that, we need to make the time to look back on the last 12 months.

Pull out your marketing plan for ’06. What actually got done? What worked? Did you try to do too much and stretch yourself too thin? Did you start off great but as soon as you got busy, your marketing efforts died on the vine? Are you guilty of trying something once or twice and then declaring it a failure without giving it the time and room to bloom?

What, in your plan, never got off the ground? Is it still a viable idea or has its time passed?

What is the one thing that you’d planned on doing that you most regret not getting to?

Is the opportunity still there?

Overall, what letter grade would you give your marketing efforts this year? Be brutally honest with yourself. Did you meet your own objectives? Did you protect your brand? Did you build in marketing efforts that continued no matter how busy or over committed you became?

Use the following for criteria: effectiveness, consistency, frequency, and ROI. Grade yourself for each key audience. Make sure you don’t forget your employee base in that list. Then, average the grades. How’d you do?

Don’t get discouraged if you couldn’t give yourself an A or even a passing grade. The good news is, there is time to make an improvement as we look to ’07.

In the upcoming days, we’ll explore the three key factors you must consider as you map out your marketing plan for the upcoming year.

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Give Walt a marketing tip

December 29, 2006

Picture this.

You have saved for a couple years. You have disappointed family by saying you’re traveling over the holidays. You have revved the kids up to a frenzied pitch of excitement because they are going to meet Mickey Mouse.

This is going to be the Christmas to remember for all times. This is "Parent Hall of Fame" Christmas. Disney World.

You get everyone to Florida. You get everyone on the monorail. You walk up to the Magic Kingdom’s entrance gates, tickets in hand and the kids are so excited you think they might actually go into some sort of shock. Then, you hear the cast member say "I’m so sorry, but we’re closed due to over crowding."

It happened Wednesday and yesterday to thousands of people. And not just the Magic Kingdom but two of the other three parks as well (MGM Studios and Animal Kingdom) From Disney’s perspective, there are codes and rules they have to comply with. But, from a customer service point of view, it can’t get too much worse.

Most of the people outside your gate live a plane ride away, have sacrificed plenty to get there and may never be able to get back.

If you were the head of Disney’s guest relations — what would you do to mitigate this disaster?

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Is that your ego shouting in the background?

December 29, 2006

Boy will this one get you every time.

It’s not about you. And it never was. When marketers let their egos drive decisions, craft reactions or trigger responses — it has never been fruitful. But today, it’s worse than that. It’s fatal.

Popular is very different from valuable. We need to shift marketing from being a popularity contest to being one of providing genuine value.

It’s a noisy world out there. The consumers are grabbing at the reins. Your competitors are multiplying and geography is no longer a safety net for you. Dog eat dog. Right?

Sure. If it’s a win or lose. And it’s about you. So you’d better win. Hear that? It’s your ego shouting in the background.

But what if it was about sharing? About creating intimacy with someone before you tried to pry some money out of their pocket? What if it was actually thinking about your product or service from the customer’s point of view? Not giving it lip service — but really listening. Learning. Adapting.

We’ve all heard the phrase "the small is the new big." I’d like to modify that to "the valuable is the new popular."

It probably always was. But now the consumers’ voices are louder than ours, so we actually have to listen.

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Is your little red wagon stuck?

December 27, 2006

Your organization is like a little red wagon. You ask all your employees to give 110% to help you propel the wagon forward.

But you have not made your company’s brand (not logo or tagline…but point of difference and the promise behind that difference) something that every employee knows, breathes, believes and lives.

But, they are good people and want to give you that 110%. So each of them attaches their rope (talents and skills) to the wagon. Where THEY think it should be. Guess what?

Bob thinks it should be "give the customer whatever they ask for. Even if it’s wrong because you don’t tell the customer they’re wrong."
But Betty knows it’s "squeeze costs of goods, even if that means slow shipping" because price is king at your company.
Now John is convinced that it’s the people that make your company special, so he’s going to put his 110% of tugging behind better benefit packages so your retention rises.

See the problem? They are all pulling with all their might. But they are not pulling in the same direction. So your wagon goes nowhere. Your people get frustrated. You get frustrated.

All because you either don’t know what your brand really is or, you know but haven’t made sharing it with your employees a priority.

How long are you going to leave it stuck?

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Are you making this marketing mistake?

December 26, 2006

Do you suffer from the "everyone thinks about my stuff as much as I do" mistake? Lots of marketers do. We think that just because we know all about our product or service offerings — that everyone else does too.

Let me shatter that illusion for you. But gently of course.

No one cares as much about your work, your company, your product etc. as you do. And they never will. This includes:

Your employees
Your current clients
Your prospects
The media

Why? Because they are being bombarded with over 3,000 marketing messages a day. We all suffer from serious information overload. You’re lucky to have their attention for a nanosecond.

How do you fight against that sobering fact? We’re going to explore that over the next few days. But it starts with recognizing that having their attention is a luxury, not your privilege. And that you have to put up quite a fight to get and keep their attention.

So lesson #1 is respect your audience’s reality. Understand where they stand and where they’re trying to go. Which often times has little to do with you. But that can change…I promise. But only when what matters to them also matters to you. It is never the other way around. Never.

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