Strategy

Sports sponsorships have gotten completely out of hand

September 11, 2008

Or…the other title I played with….You sponsored WHAT?

I was running some errands on Saturday, so I had the radio on.  Several college football games were about to start.   Then, it began.

The most absurd sports sponsorships I have ever heard.  One right on top of the other.  No category exclusivity.  One local/regional bank after the other.  Practically stacked up like cord wood the announcers were spitting them out so fast.

"The Turf Report brought to you by XYZ Bank.  Boy, the grounds crew did a great job even though we had rain last night.  The grass is green and ready to go.  Thanks to Bank XYZ for bringing us this important information."

"The Wind Report is brought to you by ABC Bank.  The wind is coming in from the north east at about 10 miles an hour, Biff.  That’s going to have absolutely no effect on the kicking game.  This Wind Report brought to you by ABC Bank."

"The Ingrown Toe Nail Count is sponsored by GHI Bank today.  The Hawkeyes are sporting 23 ingrown toenails all total, Hank.  The Black Bears are really in toe trouble.  They’re carrying 46 ingrown nails into the game.  Thanks to GHI Bank for the latest."

Seriously people….stop it. 

I don’t care how crazy your town or state is for a sports team. (Even those fanatics in Nebraska!)  And I don’t care how cheap the sponsorship is.  It is a complete and utter waste of money.  Being one of 20+ sponsors in a pre-game show is ridiculous.  (Yes…I made up the toenail one, but the other two are legit — heard them myself!)

Unless you can be a big fish, a sponsorship is not marketing, it’s a charitable donation.   The only one who wins is your radio rep who made the commission.  I assure you — the listeners cannot remember you or any of the other 19 sponsors.

Stop sponsoring grass.  Stop sponsoring the wind.  And if anyone offers it to you, say no to ingrown toenails.

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Going from commodity to being the only option

September 9, 2008

There are certain things that I think of as a complete commodity.  I don’t care about the "brand."  I don’t really care where I buy it. 

Milk.  Gas.  And pizza.

I’m not talking about pizza that you go out to get (in that case…Ray’s in NYC is the must)…I’m talking the "bring it to our door, we have a house full of teenagers" pizza that I seem to be buying on a very regular basis.

Dominos, Pizza Hut, Godfather’s, Papa John’s — whatever.  Basically the same.  A complete commodity at the McLellan house.

But not any more.  Now, I have a very strong preference. I would go out of my way to order from one over the other.   You’re probably wondering what in the world a pizza place could do to go from commodity to only option.

A new crust?  Some wild new ingredient combination?  Free food?

No, no and no.  Dominos knows that their pizza is pretty much like all the others.  So to differentiate themselves, they didn’t focus on the pizza.  They focused on my experience.

Most pizza places let you order online now.  But Dominos has taken it to a whole new level.  They have this new pizza tracker.  I can literally watch as my pizza is prepped, baked and boxed for delivery.

Here, you can see (feed readers…click to see the visuals) that my order has been placed and Charles is beginning to prep my pizza.  Right next to the the YOU GOT IT MADE line…it outlines who is doing what when.

 

Then, Charles puts the pizza in the oven.

 

I’m skipping a couple steps here…but after the pizza was boxed, Matt, their delivery expert, left the store with the food at 7:39 pm.

 

Now, you may be thinking…"wow…Drew needs to get a little more excitement in his life" and that may be true.  But…every time the McLellan household (and many hungry teen-aged guests) need pizza — instead of poking around for a coupon or just randomly picking one — I now always call Dominos.  That did not happen before the tracker.

Figure the average bill is around $50 when I am feeding a gang.  Figure that it’s dinner at chez McLellan, on average, twice or three times a month.  $150/month.  That’s almost $2,000 a year. 

Dominos figured out that their category (pizza delivery) had been so commoditized that they could compete on price (the "I don’t have a brand or anything that makes me different" choice) or they could somehow make themselves stand out from the crowd.  They knew consumers wouldn’t buy/believe the "we taste better."   So they thought about how they could alter the buying experience.  How could they make that different for me?

Smart.  Very smart.

So how about you?  Are you in a business where what you sell (the pizza of your industry) is pretty much the same?  Or…different but not in a way that the consumer could discern it? 

Is there some other aspect of your service, delivery, packaging, pricing etc. that you could make notably different?  If they won’t/don’t choose you because of your product — why else might they make you an "only option?"

Update:  Looks like I am not the only one writing on this topic.  Discovered Cale’s piece when I was doing the feedreader thing!

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Did McCain’s speech keep his brand promise?

September 6, 2008

Just like we did last week with Barack Obama, 6 marketing pros watched John McCain’s speech through a very specific lens.

How did the speech support their brand?

McCain had a tough act to follow.  Sarah Palin’s speech has shattered expectations in terms of viewers and buzz.

He had to build on that momentum and remind us that he was #1 on the Republican ticket.  He also (in my opinion) had to continue the delicate balancing act of his duo-brand.  McCain is part Country First/War Hero (very traditional) and part Maverick (very non-traditional).

Could he capture both sides of his brand and deliver them in a memorable, believable way?

So how did he do from a pure brand/marketing perspective?  That was the question posed to six of us (CK, Ann Handley, Cam Beck, Alan Wolk, Stephen Denny, and me) over at Marketing Profs Daily Fix.  We had to (in 200 words or less) critique the speech based on message, brand delivery and relevance.  We also had to give a 0-5 star rating.

McCain got everywhere from a 0 to a 4.5 from the six of us.

Come read what everyone had to say and give us your take.

And if you missed part one, here’s our take on Obama’s speech last week.  

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Who’d have thunk it?

September 6, 2008

Many humble thanks to Caroline Melberg’s kind words as she nominated me for The Brillante Weblog Award.  award.

With proud heart and in the spirit of tradition I’d like to honor the following bloggers with the Brillante Weblog Award:

David Reich/My 2 cents:  David’s blog posts are point on. What I value about David’s perspective is that he came to social media kicking and screaming a bit.  So he looks at all the hub bub (traditional and social media) with the slightly jaded eye of a guy who has been around the block.  He’s thoughtful before he jumps on anyone’s bandwagon and we get to go along for the cerebral ride as he weighs marketing, PR and media today.

Anna Farmery/Engaging Brand:  Anna’s blog is all about employer branding and how that can change the course of a company.  What Anna’s most famous for is her superb podcasts.  They’re among the best out there.  She draws remarkable guests and her thorough prep means she always gets the goods.  You’ll listen to most of them more than once! And…she’s British so she has a great accent.  She even writes with an accent!  Love that!

Steve Harper/The Ripple Effect:  Steve’s blog and mantra is all about "Maximizing the Power of Relationships for  Your Life and Business" and with every post, he gets us thinking about how we might add even more value and build and support the relationships that mean the most to us.  He reminds us of the business applications of relationship building without ever forgetting there’s a human being at the other end.

If you want to think big….check out these excellent blogs!  They’ll make you tres brillante!

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Need to boost sales?

September 4, 2008

I hope you’ll forgive me because on the surface this seems incredibly obvious.  But I’ve found that the more obvious something is, often times the more often we ignore it completely.

Are you frustrated with your sales results?  Feeling dazed from repeatedly running into the same brick wall over and over? 

What are you measuring?

1)  Are you creating a daily sales plan?  Do you know who you’re going to call/contact when you walk in the door in the morning?  My good friend Cory Garrison says if not, you might as well head back to the coffee shop for another cup.

2)  Are you taking the time to only pursue those potential customers who would be a perfect (or near perfect) fit with your company?

3)  Are you setting and posting in a very public way, your sales goals for the month?  I have to say, I resisted this one for years.  It felt money-centric and somehow I had it in my head that it was incongruent with our client-centric focus. But the minute we defined specific sales numbers by month, we paid more attention, sped up our internal billing process and increased our average month’s revenue.  All because we paid attention.

What’s that expression?  You get what you measure.

• Are you measuring your sales every day via a daily plan
• Are you measuring who/what the perfect customer is for you and carefully aiming for them?
• Are you measuring monthly sales goals?

How did measuring what matters to you change your sales cycle?

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Are you leaving money on the table?

September 1, 2008

Many years ago, I shifted our agency from the traditional agency billing model of hourly fees to a value-based fee model.  It’s a huge departure from how 99% of all agencies charge for their time. 

But I believed (and still do) that hourly based fees undermined the work we did and actually encouraged our clients not to call us.

Think about it.  Let’s say we’re doing a project for you and the price is $5,000.  Or…on the flip side, we are doing the same project, but it’s $200/hour.

If you have a question — under which pricing model are you  more likely to call and discuss your question for 45 minutes?  Or…which pricing model allows you to build your budget and have confidence that the project will not go over?

It also allows us to do better work.  Clients don’t care how much time we invest in a project.  Until we’re billing by the hour.  Then, all of a sudden, it’s an issue.   With value-based pricing, everyone wins.  We get to spend the time we need to on a project and the client gets exactly what they needed at the price that they agreed to.  Who can argue with that?

I’ve noticed that more and  more service professionals are also beginning to shift to a value based model.  It makes sense.  Over at IowaBiz, Rush Nigut says that many attorneys are recognizing that unlike manual laborers…they are not really selling their time.  They are selling their expertise and beginning to bill accordingly.

How about you?  How are you pricing your products/services?  Want a little help in figuring out how to get the fees you deserve?

RainToday.com, which I have raved about before, is offering a free 39-page report called "The One Piece of Advice You Need To Get The Fees You Deserve."  Download it and absorb the wisdom!

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Best Practices in Social Media: Lift up others

September 1, 2008

Mitch Joel over at Six Pixels of Separation is asking for best practices for social media marketing. I got tagged by Liz and I’m in — how about you?

You don’t have to have a blog to play.  You can always answer here in the comments section. If you’re doing interesting social media stuff, specifically that you have some best practices for social media marketing, here’s how to join in:

1. Blog it or add it to the comments here.
2. Link to Mitch’s blog
3. Tag it “social media marketing best practices project”
4. And then tag someone else with the meme.

Drew’s social media best practice?  Lift up others!

I’m a very firm believer and to the best of my ability, practitioner of this philosophy.

I think we should share our time, resources, smarts, links — lifting others up and enjoying their success.  Just like in any offline neighborhood — there’s always a neighbor who’s ready to offer a helping hand.

I think we want to be that neighbor.

So reach out to new bloggers.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you’re the new blogger.  Why not give away some free books to promote a new author?  Or participate in Blogtipping to spotlight new bloggers?  Or how about inviting 200+ authors to contribute to a book you’re co-producing?

Create opportunities for others, applaud for their successes and genuinely serve both your readers and the community of bloggers and I promise, you’ll enjoy a long and rewarding social media existence.

Okay, tagging time.  Mike Sansone, Roberta Rosenberg, John Rosen, Gavin Heaton and David Reich.  Why did I pick them?  They are all expert practitioners of the give generously philosophy.

Drew’s comment:  I hope you’ll notice that this “social media” best practice is also an offline marketing best practice.  Sharing what you have and what you know….letting others “sample” you is a brilliant and too seldom used tactic.

I’ll bet if you go back and read the other best practices, (Chris Brogan, Mitch Joel, Liz Strauss) you’ll discover that most of them work in any medium.  Social Media is just another tool for communicating.  But overall, the same rules apply.

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Where should you spend your marketing budget in ’09?

August 30, 2008

I will write more about this in the weeks ahead, but for now, I want you to think about this blend of truths:

• It sure feels like we’re in a recession, even if we aren’t calling it that
• Retaining the customers you already have becomes a key strategy in these economic times
• Branding becomes even more critical as companies fight to retain the business they have
• Odds are, you are not the employee who delivers (or not) on that brand promise
• Word of Mouth/Buzz plays a larger role in consumer choice both as money gets tight and as consumers get weary of traditional push media

So add all of those up….and answer the question — where should you concentrate a good chunk of your marketing budget for ’09?

Stumped?  Come on over to Efrain Mendicuti’s blog The Daily Stuff and the Not So and check out my guest post on where I think you should be allocating marketing dollars next year.

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Muzzle that man!

August 16, 2008

By weird happenstance, my posts were popping up all over at the tail of this week.  Rumor has it, the blogosphere is searching high and low for a Drew muzzle.  Until they can catch me and shut me up….I thought you might enjoy these posts.

Bloggers, unlike journalists, are sort of hanging out there on their own, when they write about companies and business practices.  Are they particularly at risk for law suits?  Read about this $20 million dollar suit and see if you’re at risk too.  (at Marketing Profs Daily Fix)

Like it or not, you are a salesperson.  All too often, we ask ourselves the wrong questions when we approach a sale, whether we’re selling an idea to our boss or selling a service to a prospect.  How should you approach a potential sale?  (Small Business Branding)

Just because you can change your name, should you?  FedEx Kinkos is now becoming FedExOffice.  Good idea or bad?  How valuable is name equity and when does it make sense to make a shift?  (IowaBiz.com)

And for fun….vanity plates tell quite a bit about a person’s passions.  If you could have any vanity plate in the world, what would you choose?  Want to see mine?  (IowaMoms.com)

So, if you’re looking for a whole lot of Drew thought, here’s more than any one person could possibly absorb.  Why not join me in conversations all over the web?

P.S.  On a sort of unrelated note…if you ever have to search for a muzzle image…but sure that safe search is on.  Trust me.

Photo courtesy of the Mastiff Breed Supplies.

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United’s new TV campaign. Effective or not so much?

August 11, 2008

The airlines are in trouble, people complaining about flying, yours truly gets stuck in an airport or has a flight get canceled every time he turns around, and the hassle factor has never been worse.

Oh yeah…they’re now charging us for just about everything.  I expect the pay toilets to be installed any day.

We all know the airlines are struggling.  So if you were the VP of Marketing for United, what kind of commercials would you ask your agency for?  What would be your key message?

Check out these two new United spots and tell us what you think.  This first one is called "Heart."  (If you’re reading this via e-mail or RSS — click on the headline to view the spots.)

This one is called "Two Worlds."

So….what’s your take on the ads, their intent and their effectiveness?

(To see the entire campaign…)

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