Not So Smart Marketing
| In the globalized world of the Internet, what you do in Poland can be instantly known worldwide. |
|
Microsoft turns a black man into a white man.
« July 2009 | Main | September 2009 »
August 31, 2009
August 30, 2009
Friendly and Professional
No matter what you sell, or who you sell to, there are two words that should be the starting point of your branding.
This is as close to a universal as you'll find in marketing. We've verified it by market research in different industries and areas of the country and these always come out high on the list of what buyers care about.
Friendly and Professional. Professional and Friendly.
1. Friendly: Why would someone want to do business with someone who is unfriendly, cold or impersonal?
They wouldn't.
You may think that other factors such as price, convenience and product features, trump friendliness. In many cases, if everything about your company and it's offerings DOESN'T say "friendly", you'll never even get to the point of telling your prospect about your prices or what's special about your product. And you'd be amazed at how often someone will pay more because they liked you.
This isn't just consumer marketing either. After all, if you are selling to a business, you are really selling to individuals in that company, aren't you?
By the way: You can't fake being friendly. If you don't actually like people, don't go into business. And don't hire people who don't like people. But even if you and all your staff are the friendliest people on Earth, you can still have a website or other marketing that doesn't communicate it.
2. Professional: Who wants to purchase from an amateur? People want competence, quality, good service, prompt delivery as promised, and so on - everything that differentiates a professional from an amateur.
Whether or not your business is a profession - such as dentist or attorney - your practice or firm can communicate professionalism in every aspect. Or it may not.
Your office decor, the way the phone is answered, the look of your website - every point of contact between you and your prospective customers, clients or patients, either says "professional" or it doesn't.
Examine your company's touch points with the public. Do they all communicate that you are friendly and professional? If not, you have work to do.
August 29, 2009
It May Not Be a Good Idea.... But It's The Law!
Unfortunately there are quite a few businesses where laws or regulations severely limit or prohibit the use of testimonials. Dentists in most states are prohibited by their state boards from any promotion stating they are better than any other dentist. We can't have that!
SEC regulated activities (financial planners and investment funds for example) are also severely regulated in that regards.
Many states have laws requiring specifically worded notices when offering free or discounted items in advertising.
The U.S. federal CAN-SPAM law has requirements for any commercial email, such as including your company name and address.
Sending un-solicited faxes is a violation of federal law.
Telemarketing to home phone numbers on the "Do Not Call" registry is illegal.
Know the laws and regulations that apply to your marketing efforts.
August 28, 2009
Third-Party Endorsements
One of the most powerful tools of marketing is third-party endorsements. This is anything coming from someone other than yourselves. It can speak to your effectiveness, professionalism, great customer service, fair-pricing or any other positive attribute. Sometimes all it communicates is their enthusiasm.
The point of course, it's not just you saying it. It's someone else and that enhances the credibility.
If you know your customers' buttons (what motivates them) endorsements that mention or refer to them are particularly effective. "Finally an auto dealer I can trust!" "I couldn't believe how low their prices were" "Thanks Joe for showing up on-time and doing a great job on my plumbing!"
All of these act as third-party endorsements:
TestimonialsEndorsements (recommendation from some authority, not a client or customer).
Press
Awards
Certificates and Degrees
Acknowledgment Letters
Rankings
Ratings and Reviews
Go for them all. This is an area that almost can't be overdone.
August 27, 2009
Pick Any Two...
Quality, Speed, Price.
Applies to marketing too.
Unattended Children
August 26, 2009
Geography
One key to improving your marketing ROI (Return On Investment) is targeting. The more precisely your marketing is targeted to prospective buyers, the less money is wasted on people who aren't going to respond.
With almost any business, geography is a key factor in this.
For example, in our business, 90% of the prospects that find us on the Internet, and end up becoming clients, are located in Tampa Bay. So we run click ads only to the Tampa Bay metropolitan area.
The geographical point-of-diminishing-returns - where it is no longer cost effective to market - varies widely and wildly from industry to industry and in some cases within an industry and in different locales.
For example, for general dentistry, the vast majority of your patients are going to live or work within 10 or 15 minutes of your office. But in rural areas, that can increase. It can also increase if yours is a specialty practice, such as natural dentistry or high-end cosmetic work.
You can often find out where to concentrate your marketing simply by examining where, geographically, the bulk of your past customers come from.
It isn't that potentially you can't market or develop a market elsewhere. It is that would be experimental, maybe wishful thinking. The best first place to concentrate marketing to, is almost always where your customers have been coming from.
August 25, 2009
Inspired Language
Words: Inspired, trite, vacuous, noble, holy. What thoughts we must seek to jam into such a small vessel!
What miracles they've worked.
"When, in the course of human events....""To be or not to be, that is the question."
"April is the cruelest month...."
"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's."
"Frankly my Dear, I don't give a damn."
"Mikey likes it!"
"We try harder."
"When it absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight."
August 24, 2009
The First Thing
So you're starting a new business.
Or you decided to expand your business, and that means marketing.
Or you're suffering and need to do something to generate more leads and customers.
Too often in these situations we don't see a well-thought out marketing plan.
A realistic marketing plan inevitably confronts the very first thing your marketing has to accomplish:
To get prospective customers to find out, in large numbers, that you exist.
IIf you don't have a way to make that happen, your marketing - and indeed your business - will fail.
August 23, 2009
Baby Steps
Effective marketing has to lead potential prospects through a series of baby steps.
Only with low priced items - within the so-called "discretionary spending" band, usually considered to be around $15 or less - can you go from informing a prospect of the existence of your product, all the way to a sale, all in one step.
Of course there are the exceptions. The NFL draftee who just got his signing bonus, walks into a Mercedes showroom, falls in love with an SLR Mclaren and plunks down the $500K on the spot.
That misses the much higher percentage who have to be walked up to purchasing bit by bit.
Repetitive exposure through ads and mailings.
A good website.
Free offerings such as DVDs or info packs.
Free estimates. Self-assessment questionnaires. Newsletter signups.
Demonstrations. Free trials.
Low priced "first services" or products.
Any effort to improve your new business development efforts should involve a careful analysis of where this process can be improved. If a step is weak or missing, a large percentage of your prospects are going to be lost right there. Instead of making it to the top of the stairs, they'll end up in the basement. And you'll have wasted a lot of your marketing investment in "first contacts."
We call this the marketing chain because, like real-world chains, it is only as strong as its weakest link.
Something to think about.
August 22, 2009
Persistence
How much persistence does it take to succeed in a business venture?
As much as it takes.
The more brilliant you are, the more resources you have to get it off the ground, the luckier you are, the more you are in the right place at the right time with the right product or service, the faster it'll be.
But it always takes as long and as much as it takes.
If you have any other thought in mind, don't bother starting a business.
August 21, 2009
Big Agency Marketing
In case you are ever tempted to think the big ad agencies must know what they are doing: Ad Age article.
Sometimes they do. Usually they don't.
Sorry.
August 20, 2009
You Can't Be Too Careful
|
Another reminder to step back and cast an independent eye on your designs - in their actual environments. It'll prevent lots of embarrassing moments. I guarantee it. |  |
Helicopter Taking Off at Night
August 19, 2009
Synergy
"Synergy" means two or more things working together to cause a bigger or better effect. It's "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" and it is very true in marketing.
So a direct mail campaign, ads in trade magazines, a website with good Search Engine Optimization, email broadcasts to prospects and clients, and a good trade show display, can add up to effective business-to-business marketing in a particular niche.
Door hangers, billboards and small ads in local papers, plus a good website, can add up to effective consumer marketing.
It's a major reason that we constantly preach consistency across all marketing materials, items and actions. Only if the prospect can recognize the different elements as coming from the same source do you get the synergistic effect.
Otherwise they are likely to tell you "oh yes, I saw one of your competitor's ads the other day" - when they are actually talking about your ad.
Enough said?
August 18, 2009
Guerilla Marketing
Jay Conrad Levinson, author of Guerilla Marketing, is a lousy writer. Also about half of what he says is filler and half the rest is baloney.
He does make important and valuable points. And his book, besides the catchy title, was a breakthrough book on small business marketing.
You've seen me write about differences between marketing at the Fortune 500 level and in the typical small business. That's what Guerilla Marketing is all about. It's about being fast and flexible, innovative and smart.
One thing he says that I disagree with and have disagreed with often: That the small businessman can't afford to guess wrong in his marketing.
The chances are small that anyone is going to hit a home run the first time at bat with their marketing. So let's not set an impossible goal.
The small businessman can't afford marketing that HAS to work.
If you have to get something working RIGHT NOW, you'd better do half a dozen things at a small level. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. See which of them works, then pour the coals on that.
It's common to have an approach that's highly reliable, but requires time and refinement. Internet marketing is like that. You take your best shot at the website design, construction and content, and at the search engines.
Then you spend anywhere from a couple of months to a year, tweaking things to a point where it is really humming. So best if you have some time to make it all work, not that you are going out of business if it doesn't succeed RIGHT NOW.
August 17, 2009
Choosing Marketing Channels
I wanted to simplify the whole subject of picking marketing channels.
The choice really comes down to a small number of key factors:
1. Repetition. Only pick channels where you can afford enough repetition to get noticed. This is why television commercials are a bad idea for most small businesses.
2. Targeting. The more targeted a marketing channel is, to the market segment (particular people) you are trying to reach, the more cost effective it will usually be. The right trade show can get you almost 100% targeting - everyone attending is a prospective customer.
But if you're selling products aimed at deaf senior citizens, running a newspaper ad, you are paying for every copy of that newspaper that's going to someone who isn't deaf and isn't a senior.
3. Believability. Some marketing channels aren't going to be useful because the target market just won't believe a message coming to them in that fashion.
This isn't always what you would expect. We found for example that door hangers were a believable channel for delivering a message about non-traditional treatments for allergies.
Whereas ads in a Podiatry magazine were NOT a believable channel for a message about a new product for foot doctors. Their consideration was "it's just an ad."
4. Reach. It doesn't matter how many theoretical impressions you get if the people you are trying to reach aren't going to see them. You can mail postcards to Podiatrists till you go bankrupt. Which you will, because by survey, Podiatrists receptionists all have instructions to throw away all "junk mail."
Now that's easy isn't it?
Follow these four points and you'll be MUCH more likely to come up with an effective way to market your products or services.
August 16, 2009
Favicon
You ever notice those little icons symbols that appear in the address bar of your browser, on the browser tab and in your favorites list?
Ever wonder what they are called?
It's "favicon", from "favorite" + "icon".
They are tiny so you can only do so much with them, but it's one more way to get your brand out there.
August 15, 2009
Crystal Ball
What's going to happen in the marketing world over the next months and years?
Even the best don't get it right every time. When Al Ries made a bunch of predictions in 2002 on the future of the Internet, the word Google doesn't even appear (Google started in 1998). He also predicted that search engines would decline in importance.
Of course, he got a lot of other things right, such as the decline of print Yellow Pages and other printed catalogs and directories.
So. What's in store for us?
I predict it will be interesting.
(Is there a lesson in this? Of course: Stay alert.)
August 14, 2009
Lemmings
There is an enormous tendency for people to do what other people are doing in marketing.
There are several forces driving this, not the least of which is, an assumption that someone else knows what they are doing.
A lot of the time it just isn't so.
The fact that it is being done by a multi-billion dollar corporation doesn't mean it is even vaguely sensible.
There's another point.
If everyone is doing "A", how are you going to be noticed if you also do "A"?
The success of a Steve Jobs in repeatedly revitalizing Apple and launching blockbuster products, comes in part from NOT doing what everyone else is doing.
Come on people. Let's get a little adventurous.
August 13, 2009
Strategic Thinking
"But the highest form of strategic thinking is to first look at your situation with a cold eye." - Al Ries, "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding."
A lot of companies are in difficult economic, sales and marketing situations right now.
Don't despair.
We see businesses shutting their doors left and right. Just in the last couple of weeks, one of the larger printers in the area, Evatone, gave up the ghost.
What does that mean? Opportunities for others!
Like the man says, dealing with the current scene starts with a cold hard look at what exactly that scene is.
It usually takes hard work, smarts and persistence to thrive in a tough economy.
Many are doing it.
And hear is the plug: Effective marketing is usually a vital part of it.
August 12, 2009
Picture Sizes
Clients frequently need to send us photos, or to pick photos as from iStockPhoto for us to use.
An issue that comes up is whether the picture is large enough for what we are going to use it for? Or how large does an image need to be for the web, print, or for a trade show display or billboard.
Here's a short rundown. First of all, this applies mainly to photographic images. Logos and illustrations are normally in "vector" format where size doesn't usually matter.
Photo image sizes are in terms of "pixels" which is one little dot of a particular color, that the image is built up from.
The first thing you need to know is that different resolutions - pixels (px) per inch , or dots per inch (dpi) - are required for different applications. For the web, it is 72 dpi. Of course that depends on the screen size but if you are working on a website that is 1000 pixels (px) wide, that is the largest an image file could possibly need to be.
For most print applications it is 300dpi. That includes everything from postcards to letterhead to magazine ads.
For large format printing such as trade show displays or billboards, it is usually 100 to 150dpi.
The formula then for how large an image needs to be is the required dpi times the size in inches.
Both height and width need to be considered. So the orientation (portrait versus landscape) comes into play.
So, for an image to be used on an 11 by 6 inch postcard, the maximum image size needed would be 11x300 by 6x300 or 3300 by 1800 pixels.
In choosing an image you need to consider if it will be used ONLY on the web. If it is also going to be used in print, it needs to be large enough to be used in that situation as well.
We always prefer the original, unedited image file. Any sort of editing usually reduces the amount of detail. And often, a picture needs to be cropped (a piece of it cut out for use) so that requires a larger file to start with. We do have tools that can artificially increase a picture size and sharpen it up - but there are limits.
Hope that helps clear up this subject.
August 11, 2009
Names
I keep referring to the writings of Al Ries because the guy really is a marketing genius.
And he has a lot to say about names.
One point he makes over and over is that a name can doom a product or company.
If your name means or stands for one thing, but you are selling something else, you have no hope of getting people to buy into that.
We went through this with one client, handling a major situation by establishing a second name. They needed to retain their original name because that was still a huge part of their business, plus they were extremely well known in their immediate geographical area. The new, second name was related to the first, which made sense in this case.
Most of the time, where you have a going concern, and another, related business area or product to establish, the new name should be completely distinct from the first. People think they can translate the familiarity and popularity of the one product or business area into the other. It usually isn't true.
This is something that really needs to be carefully thought out. Ries gives numerous examples of disasters that have happened that way - and the successes are few. We applied this with a new, related venture for a client with an established business. The new name is unique, based on positioning surveys, and says what the product does.
The third type of situation is illustrated by another real company we know of. That company's name gives people (by survey, over 90%) a wrong impression of what the company is and does, but they have very little brand equity (less than 10% awareness in their target market).
There's no reason why they simply shouldn't abandon the current name and establish a new one that is more appropriate to what they do. Or, come up with a name that doesn't mean anything ("Smith and Associates") and use a tagline to say what they do. Either one would be better.
If you're marketing's a flop, you might start by looking at the name.
August 10, 2009
Colors and Branding
Probably the first thoughtful choice in marketing is a color scheme.
There are certain color basics which pretty much any graphic designer will handle well - which is to make sure the combination of colors used work together. This is easy because digital color palettes are so easily available and everyone knows about them.
But there are several other aspects to choosing a color combination which are equally important.
One is appropriateness. Primary colors (bright red, blue, yellow) work for material aimed at younger children - but not when targeting any other age group. Cool colors like blue and green don't work when you are trying to communicate excitement. Certain colors are associated with certain industries - like green with health care and with the environment.
But another consideration is so important that according to at least one marketing guru, it trumps appropriateness. That is, if you are #2 (or trying to be) in an area dominated by one main competitor, your color scheme should contrast with theirs. Likewise, if you have a fragmented competitive environment, but most of the competition are all using the same color scheme, it would probably pay off to use colors that are in sharp contrast to theirs.
August 09, 2009
Small Business Marketing
Certain subjects I keep coming back to. One is the contrast between marketing for small businesses versus large corporations.
Most of the important books on marketing were written with large corporations in mind.
The small businessman is prey to every marketing shark that comes along, peddling smoke-and-mirrors. That's not just some new Internet marketing scheme. Look at the local commercials coming over cable TV. Most of them are blatantly terrible. They were produced by the cable companies or TV stations as part of some deal that sounded great, only $3000 a month for a year. The advertisers might as well have tied that $36,000 to a brick and tossed it in the Gulf.
You don't have to become a marketing expert yourself. But the average small businessman really does need to know more about the subject.
Al Ries, marketing god that he is, virtually all of his writing is addressed to how the world looks from where the large corporation CEO sits. You need to understand branding and positioning, and there's no better starting point than straight from the horse's mouth. But you have to understand how to apply it in your situation! It's not going to be the same.
The Guerilla Marketing books are terrific. If you haven't read any of Jay Levinson's books, they can be a real eye opener on how to market without a big budget.
And of course, read this blog.
The small businessman doesn't have to be a marketing sucker or a marketing failure.
August 07, 2009
ROI (Return on Investment)
ROI is a finance concept which is under-applied in the marketing world.
Money you spend on marketing should return more in profits (not just sales) than what you spend on it.
There are two reasons it's often a neglected concept:
1. It can be difficult to measure. For example, how do you determine ROI for a billboard, when it is just part of your marketing mix?
2. Incompetent marketers discourage metrics by exaggerating the problems of #1.
Yet there is no path to long-term growth and prosperity for a business, that doesn't involve cost-effective marketing, good product or service quality and smooth customer service and delivery.
August 05, 2009
MicroHoo
| So Microsoft and Yahoo finally worked out a partnership to take on Google together. Not that it'll do them much good. But it's good for some jokes. Do we call them YahSoft or MicroHoo? |
|
August 04, 2009
I've restrained myself from commenting on Twitter until I had something I thought would be useful to say about it.
For those who may have heard the term but not know what it is, Twitter is a free "microblogging" service for posting text+links messages of up to 140 characters only. Each post is called a "tweet". Subscribers are called "followers." Because of the short messages, sending and receiving tweets from cell phones is popular. It also makes it a friendly medium for rapid updates.
Initially it was used by teens and twenty-somethings to stay in touch with all their friends at once. Like telling everyone you are now at the grocery store.
When it exploded earlier this year, and people started raving about it as a marketing tool, my first question was "What percentage of this is pure hype?" And the next question is how would it be actually useful to a business.
Answer to the first question is "a lot of it is hype."
But on the second, there are a couple of ways it can be VERY useful:
1. As a way of keeping customers and other interested persons informed, if you are in a fast-moving business.
We have a client who has two large fishing boats, and this is a huge town for fishing. In fact, Tampa Bay is really the fishing capital of the U.S. So there are zillions of people who would like to know where the fish are biting - TODAY.
Twitter is perfect for that kind of thing.
2. As a way of developing business.
This is of course what people really are hoping to gain from Twitter as a business tool. And it certainly has potential that way, depending on the type of business you are in, and how creative you can be.
Developing business using Twitter is totally dependent on getting followers. I'm not going to get into how to get followers, but I am going to point out one important fact:
The fact that someone is following you doesn't mean they are a potential prospect - or even that they are interested in you.
This stems from the fact that people follow others as a marketing action. If you log into Twitter and click on "followers", you'll see recent tweets from your followers. So, many people follow thousands of others in hopes those people will see their tweets and be interested in what they offer.
It's the same as with visitors to a website. You can get thousands of visitors to a website who are never going to turn into customers.
And, as with all marketing methods or channels that are new - brand new, or just new to you - no matter how good they sound, they are experimental until proven out - FOR YOU.
So tweet away - just don't put all your eggs in one basket and count on it to save the bacon or make you rich. Maybe it will - so give it an honest try - but put the emphasis on the "maybe."
August 03, 2009
Quantitative versus Qualitative Research
Market research is usually categorized as "quantitative" or "qualitative".
"Quantitative" research, as you would expect, is research that gives you numbers - percentages, rankings, etc.
So what is "qualitative" research? Research that doesn't give you numbers?
Well, exactly.
But any really usable research is going to have a numeric aspect. What are the most important search terms for my website, on a scale of 0 to 100? What percentage of potential customers get the right idea from each of these 3 different possible product names? What percentage of likely voters prefer candidate A to candidate B?
Qualitative research is useful as a preliminary to quantitative research. A great example is combing through testimonials for phrases used repeatedly: "great customer service" "best product for the best price" "got more than I expected" and so on.
THEN you can take those phrases and survey them on a prospective market to see what resonates the best - a quantitative result.
Unfortunately, qualitative research is often used as an end in itself and as a masquerade for ignorance.
A great example is focus groups. That's where you get a bunch of people together to talk about a product, a company, candidate or an issue. These are often presented as a final research result, even quantified ("43% of the participants agreed candidate X is an idiot").
Whereas they are nothing of the sort. Focus groups are called that because they were invented as a way to help focus research. A necessity because when you are starting out on a research project, especially for a new product or company, you often don't have a clue even what direction to go in.
Focus groups are one such tool. Competitor research is in large part about the same thing. One good starting point for keyword research, for example, is what terms competitors seem to be targeting.
There are lots of minefields in market research. Mis-used or misinterpreted qualitative research is one of them.
August 02, 2009
Positioning - Size Matters
I wanted to focus on one of the first things you need to consider when contemplating your marketing.
Size matters.
The entire approach to marketing depends on budget.
It also depends on the size of the market and your share of it.
Proctor & Gamble, with almost infinitely deep pockets, has a many times repeated pattern of success with new products. They don't trade on their name. They do heavy market research, then develop a positioning to exploit what they determine to be a hole in the market. That dictates the product name, ads, everything. They then test it all in a few representative areas, with heavy advertising expenditures. If it works out, or after refinement, they roll it out nationally - again with heavy exposure.
Now contrast that to the common small business situation. First of all, you don't have the budget. Secondly, you are probably competing in a business where there is no market leader to position yourselves against. Quick, name the three most well-known website design companies in your town. Or dentists.
So you can't and don't try to position yourselves in relation to competitors. You have to find something to compare to that makes sense, that will be immediately familiar to your prospective customers, is memorable and will instantly react on them with the desirable association. In that case, the position is often not "against" (as in "7-up, the Un-Cola" or "We're No.2, We Try Harder"), but is more often "like" what you are comparing to.
We're positioned using Mona Lisa - which expresses the aspects of class, beauty and unforgettableness we try and achieve with our work.
We positioned a client of ours, who sells computer backup and recovery software, with EMT's - the guys who roll out with lights flashing and sirens screaming when someone is having a heart attack.
It's worth thinking about.
August 01, 2009
Childish Enthusasiasm
Childish enthusiasm has a bad rep in the world of adults.
Yet almost everyone who has become a huge success is guilty of it.
Why else would someone try and try and try again until they succeed? And what else would make it fun to do so? "It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game" may be an exaggeration but it has more than a grain of truth to it.
Because very rarely does someone strike it rich on the first try. There are many stories, how It took Edison 1000 tries to come up with a practical light bulb, Abraham Lincoln lost several elections, etc. etc.
It's true in marketing too!
It didn't work? So what! Get another idea! Try again! Enjoy yourself!
©2009 Fast Forward Marketing. All Rights Reserved. | www.fastf.com