Strategy

Are you a speed and sputter marketer?

September 30, 2011

Are you guilty of speed and sputter marketing?

I do a lot of driving.  Between work, providing my mom (3.5 hours away) with computer support and fetching my daughter every so often at college (2 hours away) — I’m on the road quite a bit.

I found myself wondering if I’d make better time if I used my cruise control on those longer drives so I decided to experiment with it.  (I know, I’m a wild man!)

I set the cruise 5 miles over the speed limit, which if you’ve driven with me, you’ll know is a little slower than I tend to drive.  So I thought it would take me longer to get to my destination.

Long story short — I definitely shortened my drive time when I used the cruise as opposed to me manually controlling the speed of my vehicle.

It makes sense — it’s easy to get distracted by other cars, something along the side of the road, the book on CD I’m listening to, a phone conversation etc.  And if nothing else, no doubt my speed is varying throughout the journey.

But with the cruise on — I’m absolutely consistent and incredibly steady.  It turns out – that’s the winning combination in terms of making good time.

Since this isn’t a car blog, you’re probably wondering why I’m sharing.  Well — it occurred to me that the same is true of marketing.

Most companies are speed and sputter marketers.  They get a great idea, have a lot of energy around it and blast it off.  But then they get busy and things get stalled.  That monthly enewsletter becomes a sort of quarterly piece.  The print ad series never actually runs.  And the customer survey is drafted or even deployed but no one got around to crunching the numbers.

Their marketing success is very hit or miss and is greatly influenced by lots of outside factors.  There’s no consistency.  And as we’ve talked about before — consistency breeds trust which is what leads to a sale.  (I know, like and trust you)

But if your marketing is on cruise control — that is to say there’s a process that keeps chugging along no matter how busy you are — your consistency will speak volumes.  You will be able to take advantage of the DRIP method of marketing that allows you to just keep a nice, steady stream of connectivity and relevant communication out there — tethering you and your audience to each other.

I can hear you now — how can we do that?  If it was easy, we’d never speed and then sputter.  I’ve got some ideas around that so stay tuned next week.

But for today — think about how your marketing/company is perceived when you stop and start all the time.  Is that who you want to be?

 

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The smaller you are, the better Facebook is

September 26, 2011

 

Facebook lets you actually talk to people!

A comment made on my blog post about Facebook’s dominance which basically said… “Facebook is only for people who care about social media and media types” had me shaking my head.

He’s not alone in his opinion. Check out this recent study that looked at why many small firms don’t utilize it.

I am not suggesting that every single business on the planet needs to have a presence on Facebook, but especially for many small businesses — it can be a game changer.  In fact, I think it’s much more potent for the little guys than it can be for the Cokes, Mini Coopers and Disneys of the world.

Why?

The human element.  If I tweet Disney or post something on Coke‘s wall — I may or may not get a response but it’s certainly not going to be a very personal one.  But if I write something on the Des Moines Playhouse’s page…a real person is going to give me a real response.  And we might even get into a conversation. (see the screen capture to the right)

Isn’t that what we’re all hungry for — more conversations with customers or potential customers?

Here are some of the perks of Facebook for small businesses:

• Built for local and hyper local.  It allows you to spend your time talking to people who can actually become customers or already are your customers.
• Supports and encourages word of mouth with the share and like buttons.  Odds are most of your page’s fans have a high percentage of friends who are also local.
• It’s a great way to gather testimonials, get customer feedback/input and answer customer questions.
• With their hyper targeted ads, you can very cost effectively deliver your message to exactly and only the people who might care.
• Your audience shows up every day.  Facebook is part of their social experience.  What better place to connect with them?
• You can use Facebook’s different message vehicles — your business page, ads, events, groups etc. to share different types of news, events, tips etc.
• You can share your work in other media (TV spots, radio commercials, blog posts, enewsletters) to bring in your multimedia campaign elements.

Again…not going to say it’s for everyone.  But I am hardpressed to think of a small business that wouldn’t benefit from a well strategied Facebook presence.

I’m curious — what small/local businesses do you think use Facebook well?  I’d love to find some examples.

 

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Is your business really different?

September 25, 2011

It may be the greatest of all business cliches — you have to differentiate yourself.  I’ve said it myself more than once.  While it is certainly true… many businesses struggle with how to bring the idea to life.

And even when a business believes they have achieved that level of uniqueness — their customers can’t see or describe the difference.

Many marketing books push you to be different but very few tell you how.

That’s what’s fascinating about Youngme Moon’s best selling book Different. (click here to buy it*) It was just released in paperback and I finally got around to reading it.

The book’s basic premise is that we humans subscribe to a herd mentality and tend to categorize everything into little boxes.  Which is originally unique is quickly copied and becomes the norm.

So, if that’s how we are wired — how do we ever truly stand out from our competition?

Moon offers three ways to disrupt this herding pattern.

Reversal: The first way to be different is to use the “reversal” concept. Back when you hadn’t yet heard of Google, the online portal kingpin was Yahoo. Yahoo’s home page was crammed with news, stats, photos and links.

If you wanted to compete with them — you’d most likely be trying to fit even more features on your homepage, not less. That’s how things were done. But Google decided to look at it in a new way. They completely redesigned the search engine experience for billions around the world by having nothing on the home page but the search box.

They reversed the norm.

Breakaway: What breakaway brands do better than anybody else is leverage this fact by asking you to replace one mental model with another.

Kimberley-Clark created an entirely new marketplace by creating the “Pull-Up”. It’s a cross between underwear and a diaper. It’s still just a diaper put on a different way. But they completely remove the stigma of wearing diapers past the age two, and parents are now routinely keeping the kids in these “Pull-Ups” beyond the age of four.

Hostile: This method takes some courage.  It’s basically when a brand takes its most significant weakness and accents it.  A hostile brand  “doesn’t lay down the welcome mat, they lay down a gauntlet.”

It isn’t marketing, it’s anti-marketing. Mini is the perfect example of this. It took it’s biggest possible wart, and made it even bigger. All of its advertising seems to say “it’s even smaller than you think.” In one famous example of this type of branding executed flawlessly, Mini put one of its cars on top of an SUV and drove it around a busy downtown core for all to see. Where you were used to seeing a ski rack, you saw an entire car.

The book has plenty of examples to learn from and will definitely get you thinking about your organization in a new way.  It’s well worth the read.

*Yup, an affiliate link.

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Why Facebook matters to every business

September 21, 2011

 

Why Facebook matters to every business

 

I’ve heard all the reasons, especially from B2B companies…but the “our customers aren’t on Facebook” excuse is just that, an excuse.

We buy radio stations and send direct mail hoping to hit some of our target audience.  Why do we look at Facebook so differently?

With statistics (thanks to HubSpot for sharing this slide) like these… every business owner and marketing director should be figuring out how to leverage the Facebook crowd.

I’m not saying you need a fan page.  Or have to do a contest or create a game.  I’m saying you’d better understand what happens there.  You’d better be monitoring what is being said about your company there.

You need to decide HOW to be there.  But you can’t ignore it simply because you have a preconceived idea of who hangs out there.

Odds are… it’s your customers.  And they hang out there a lot.

 

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How much should you spend on marketing?

September 15, 2011

How much should you spend on marketing?

I know I need to do some marketing but how much should I spend?  How much do other companies my size spend?

This is probably one of the most asked questions of marketing agencies and consultants.  If you google the phrase, there are 17+ million results.  And yet, we keep asking.  So let me see if I can drill down to the heart of it.

One of the reasons why it’s on everyone’s mind is because there is no magic answer.  No one solution.

Before we get into the methods of determining a right answer, let’s be very clear about these two points:

1) 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.

2) 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?

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Is social media right for your business?

September 10, 2011

…is social media right for your business?

There are a lot of social media “experts” out there who will tell you that every single organization on the globe should be participating in social media.  They will point to the cool Facebook fan pages they’ve made or the funny videos their clients have on YouTube and say “see, you can do this too.”  And they’re right.  You can.

The question is:  Should you?

The real answer to that question is “it depends.”  It depends on whether or not it can do one of two things.

1. Save you money
2. Make you money

If it isn’t going to accomplish one of those two goals, then you have no business engaging in it.  Why?

Participating in social media is expensive.  I know everyone talks about how cheap it is…but that’s because they are not thinking like a business owner.  They’re thinking like someone who knows how to open a YouTube channel account or sign you up on Twitter.   It’s true, creating an account on many of the tools and networks is free.  But that’s where free ends.

To integrate social media into the rest of your marketing, which is an absolute if you want to consider it a business tool, you are going to have to expend some resources.  Social media requires care and feeding.  It requires brand integration.  And it requires a well-conceived strategy.  All of those are going to cost time and money.

Don’t misunderstand.  I believe in the power and reach of social media and most of our agency’s clients are using social media tools as part of their overall marketing strategy, but I am not bullish on the belief du jour that everyone must do it and it’s free.  Neither is true.

Here are twenty questions to ask yourself as you consider melding social media into your existing marketing strategy.

How will it save us money?

1. Will it allow us to stop doing something we’re currently doing?
2. Will it allow us to extend/expand something we are currently doing?
3. Will it lower our customer acquisition costs?
4. Will it connect us to existing customers in an efficient way?
5. Will we be able to use social media to create a community specifically for our customers?
6. Will it be easier for our customers to rave about us/create positive word of mouth?
7. Do we look behind the times to our customers if we aren’t there?
8. Will it introduce us to new potential customers at a low lead generation cost?
9. Will it make us more findable (either within the social network or on search engines)?
10. Will it impact our search engine results? (so we don’t have to buy results)

How will it make us money?

1. Will it shorten our sales cycle?
2. Will it create credibility/trust faster among prospects?
3. Can we establish ourselves as the expert?
4. Will it shorten customer service response time?
5. Will it create a sense of accessibility for our customers?
6. Will it increase trial of our product/service?
7. Will it allow us to connect with more prospects at once?
8. Will it increase repeat buying?
9. Will it increase up sells?
10. Can we collect/use testimonials?

If the answers to those questions indicates that social media would be a smart investment for your company to make, then you should be there.  But now you will enter into it knowing that there’s a return for that investment.

Now we’re talking smart marketing, not marketing hype.

 

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With all due respect, what are you waiting for?

September 4, 2011

…what are you waiting for?

I’m all for having a plan when it comes to marketing.  To just start flailing around is usually a waste of money and opportunity.  But for many businesses, the need for a plan and the “right” time is just an excuse to do absolutely nothing.

I’m also absolutely positive that there is one marketing tactic that you KNOW you should be doing but for some reason you haven’t started it yet.

Maybe you don’t have the perfect name for your newsletter.  Perhaps you aren’t sure if you have the stamina to blog.  Or something might happen in the 4th quarter that would negate the momentum of the initiative (translation = you’re scared).

Just start.  Don’t put it off for another minute.

You are letting your head get in the way of your marketing gut.  Maybe you can’t explain why you know it’s the right choice or you have never done it before so you’re worried you’ll do it wrong — whatever is stopping you —  get out of your own way.

Call it a pilot program or a test run.  In your own head, make it sound like it’s no big deal.  However you have to psych yourself out/up — do it.

Marketing is an every day thing.  Not a special day thing.  It’s not the Thanksgiving china — it’s the Corelle dishes you use on Mondays (and Tuesdays…).  So get over yourself and just make this happen.

How can you actually get this done?

1. Starting right now — create a list of what you need to have/do to launch.
2. Set a date.  A firm date that you’re not going to miss.
3. Tell someone (your team, your boss, your customers) that you’re going to do it and when (i.e. We’re launching our company Facebook fan page on Oct 1!)
4. Create a reward for yourself/team to celebrate the launch (it can be as simple as ice cream cones to as big as a day off)
5. Start chipping away at the list.  Now.  Today.

You have 4 months left in 2011.  There’s always going to be a reason not to start.  Isn’t it time that you just did it anyway?

 

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Marketing tip #83: You really can’t make the horse drink

August 26, 2011

You can’t make a customer buy!

Here’s an uncomfortable marketing truth:  With few exceptions, you cannot control potential buyers.

No matter how great your product, how spectacular your price or how unparalleled your customer service reputation — if they aren’t ready to buy, they just are not ready to buy.

Yes, as the old adage says — you can lead them to the water.  But once you get them there, you only have two choices.  Try to force their head into the water or entice them to hang out by the water trough until they’re actually thirsty.

And trust me, if you’ve spent any time around horses or a stubborn prospect, you know that you cannot force their head into the water.  No matter how badly you’d like to!

Sadly, to stay with the analogy — most companies don’t have any carrots or sugar cubes at the ready.   Which means their “horse” wanders away.  And by the time they’re ready to buy — probably has wandered to someone else’s watering trough.

I see so many companies that can get a prospect in the door but if they don’t buy that instant, have no way of staying in touch, creating a relationship or keeping under the prospect’s nose until it’s the right time for them to buy.

Imagine this scenario: Someone who would be the perfect sweet spot customer called today and chatted with you on the phone for 15 minutes but wasn’t ready to buy — what would you do/say to keep them connected to you until they were ready to buy?

Could you hold their interest for a month?  6 months?  3 years?

If you didn’t have an answer or don’t think you could keep them around the water trough for as long as you need — you are letting sales walk out your door.

So…now what?

 

 

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Content marketing playbook

August 22, 2011

...get a playbook to help you create content that matters

The idea of creating content to establish your expertise, influence the search engines and create a community has been an evolution of one of the oldest marketing tactics out there — sampling.

If I share with you what I know and you learn from it, value it, want more — then in theory, you’ll eventually move from the sample table to the real deal and hire me to give you the full benefit of my expertise.

In the good old days, we might have done that through demonstrations, speaking at conferences or printed newsletters.  (All still viable methods, by the way).

But today — we have lots of new avenues, thanks to digital media and our ability to produce and publish content in a much wider variety of ways.

Every year or so, the Content Marketing Institute (brainchild of Joe Pulizzi) puts out a very informative ebook that outlines some of the best and most effective ways to create content that will connect you with customers.

The best thing about this ebook is that it’s loaded with examples that you can study, learn from and of course, adapt to work in your marketplace.

The 2011 version is out and you can download it absolutely free by clicking right here.

 

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Are Smart Phone cameras your new marketing partner?

August 18, 2011

 

Are you leveraging your clients’ technology?

The smart phone is literally changing our world, bit by bit.  It’s changing how we accomplish everyday tasks, how we get our work done and how we communicate with/to the world.

Let me give you an example.

Fact:  Mobile devices have replaced cameras for 44% of consumers

How does that impact your business?  Every day, the majority of your customers are walking around with a camera in their pocket.   How have you adjusted your marketing/thinking to take advantage of that?

Odds are, your answer is… I haven’t.  Begin by asking yourself these questions:

Can I integrate photography/photos into my core offerings?

Example:  EBay has now added the functionality of being able to scan a bar code and click a photo (all with a smart phone) and with two quick uploads, your sales listing is complete.

Is there something you could add (customers text you photos of their car accident from the scene, clients inventory stock for their quarterly financials with some photos, etc.) to how you support clients that their phones could make easier, faster, cheaper?

Do my policies need to be updated?

Example:  It used to be that bridal shops wouldn’t let you bring a camera into their store, for fear you’d steal the design and run home and make it yourself.  Now… anyone can snap photos in the dressing room without lugging in a camera.

Maybe the bridal shops should have you text them photos (from magazines or wherever) of dresses you like so they can pull similar dresses for you to try on, when you arrive at their store?

Do you have policies and procedures that smart phones make obsolete or worse — silly?

How can I get my best customers to share photos that tie to my work?

Example:  There’s a production studio here in my community that in the good old days, used to snap poloroids of the people in studio and then display them all over their walls.  Today’s modern version of that should be — they grab a quick digital shot on their phone… and upload it to their Facebook fan page, tagging the people in the photo.

Now… not only will their fans see the pictures, but so will the Facebook network of each person in the photo.  How can you leverage your customers’ love for sharing, their smart phone and their network?

What other questions, in terms of the smart phone’s ability to capture photos, should we be asking ourselves?

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