MacInnis Marketing Blog

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2009-05-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

More tips, more resources, and valuable information for small businesses try to get there marketing off the ground!

Subscribe or visit by hitting the orange icon. Once there, on the right hand side you can choose to have the blog delivered to your email or to your favorite web browser.

Hope to see you at my new site soon!

5 ways to capture customer insights

2009-05-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

When I first visit with a new client the first thing I ask is, "Do you talk with your customers?" I am often surprised to hear that many don't. This is one of the first check points or pulses in marketing as this insight is pivotal to how you can strategically manage your business. This feedback shapes everything and so here are 5 ways to capture customer insights.

1. Ring your customers for a chat. Every one likes to be made feel valued and so to ringing your customers and asking them how everything is going and if there is anything they need or you can do to improve your service is a no brainer. Most small businesses don't do it. Make a time in your diary for every month to call at least 5 customers and ask them these questions. You will find the answers shape your business and open up opportunities.

2. Have a database. This is a crucial investment. Once central place to collect information about your customers. The more you know about them the more you can tailor your services to their individual needs. There are lots of great CRM products out there to hold your customer information but a simple excel sheet with their details, name, phone number, email address and what they have bought from you is a good start. You can then begin to segment your customers based on different criteria, how much they buy from you, $ value, products or services they buy. This information can then be useful when you start talking with your customers using other social medias including, blogs, newsletters, or lead generation campaigns.

3. Ask your staff for customer insight.I was chatting about this the other day with a client and we decided to put a big whiteboard in the middle of the open office space with Happy Customers, Upset Customers and then people could come and write down what they were hearing and seeing. This gave the CEO much greater visibility to customers and gave the staff some ownership over the customer satisfaction of their clients. So set up some forum where staff can discuss customer issues, good and bad.

4. Do some research. Research these days can be very quick to do and economical. There are a lot of free survey tools that allow you to create surveys quickly ie surveymonkey. When you need to test and idea, get some feedback then perhaps try a survey to your existing cliental. Very quickly you can get a feeling whether you are on the right track and as long as the survey is not too long, they can feel good that they were consulted.

5. Invite customers to your planning and brainstorming sessions. It is sometimes worthwhile to have a customer or a a customer advocate like a marketing consultant involved in your planning sessions for the business to ensure that the customer remains central to the focus of your buisness. This holds the business accountable and by having an actual voice at these forums ensures that the customer is really represented. Other option is to hold a focus group just with your customers around an important decision that you are going to make with the business, to test the concept or pilot it before you commit to it.

So there you go, 5 simple but effective ways to talk with your customers. Get started today, and let me know what you uncover...

10 tips on how do we get qualified traffic to our website or blog or other social media

2009-05-03T00:59:00.000-07:00

May 3, 2009
Tips from Ty Downing.

1. Good content - original content. Authoritative content. Your ideas, your words, your audience. No matter where you are writing this, website, blogs, e-zines, ads, social media (twitter, facebook, Linkedin). All of these are getting index and crawled by search engines.

2. Don’t copy. Check this on www.copyscape.com. If you do Google will abandon your site and you will rank lower.

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/wordpress/dCcq
3. For every 100 words you would use your key word or phrase. Google looks for these things and will list you on the search engine. This helps promote your ranking within the engine.

4. Images - tag them. Put a key word phase in this Alt tag under the image. So the key word would be on topic. This also helps search engine rank your content higher in their list.

5. Blog is a potential source of referral for your other communication methods. Search engines loves fresh content. So a blog is a great idea. Within your post link back to your main website. So you can cross market and you can anchor this link into both of your sites and that stream helps you get greater visability on the search engines. You can benefit from your hyperlinks not just others.

6. Track what is working with Googleanalytics and run it on each page. Then you can tweek things in real time. See if your conversion pages are working. Are people bouncing off your page immediately. Bounce rate: land on a page and then how long it takes them to leave. If your bounce rate is high then you are ranked lower in google search engine. So measure and review. Average bounce rate is 40%.

7. Track key words. SEObook is a free tool that allows you to do this. Word tracker - paid service. $59 key words in your content. Another one is googlesktool

8. Title tags and meta tags. Title tag is the title words at the top of you site. These should keep to your key message (70 characters). This is the most important text on your page as this is what the search engine uses first. Meta tag -(160 characters - your positioning or description). This should be done on each page for the best indexing and thus finding by search engines.

9. Backlink - this is a website is linking to you. You can return the favour by doing some outbound links. Backlicks - the more you get the higher up you go in the search engine crawler and ranks you higher.

10. Need a consistent home page address. Keep it consistently represented, one version of your key page. You can fix this by visiting Ty blogsite. This effects your search engine ranking.

Go to my new blog and subscribe today! Much more information and tips.

Treat Customers Like Family

2009-04-20T02:17:00.000-07:00

Really liked this article on the Service Excellence website http://www.serviceexcellence.com.au/

After a careful marketing strategy, your customers are finally pursuing you. They want your goods, they want your services – but how do you know you have a stable relationship and not just a bad blind date? You want your customers to return in droves, if for no other reason than because, according to the Better Business Bureau, gaining the trust of a new customer is five times more expensive than continuing a relationship with a current one. The best way to maintain a successful relationship is to stop treating your customers like customers and start treating them like…well, like family.

Let’s say your customer walks into the store for the first time. Do you remind them of a shark pursuing its prey? Or are you friendly and helpful? Customers will respond better if you take the time to learn a few things about them – their name is a great start – and create a human connection before moving on to business. Compliment their clothes. Ask about the sports team whose logo they boast. Even a comment about the weather will help move you out of the rank of the greedy salesperson and make you more of a person. Remember details they mention – their kids, their spouse, their goals. Are they purchasing the product because they are tired of fighting with their teenagers? Can you sympathize with a brief sentence about your own? Make the customer an individual, treat them like someone important. Actually listen to them, the way you listened to your uncle at your last family gathering. Then, when your customer leaves, take a few quick notes for future reference.

Once the transaction is complete, do what any polite family member would do after a party – write ‘thank you’ notes. I’m not talking about a bland, one-size-fits-all printout, though this will still outperform most of your competition.. Take a few minutes to scribble a handwritten note, only three to five lines long, thanking them for choosing your business. Remember those personal notes you took? Mention one. For instance, “I hope your children really enjoy your new Tivo, and you finally get to watch your own shows!” Or, “I hope the fishing rod you purchased helps you bag the biggest one on the dock when you go to the lake this weekend.” Individualize it. Ideally, once you have made the sale, you can take a minute or two to scribble the note, while things are still fresh in your mind. Your customer will remember that you went the extra mile, and will most likely feel the thanks are sincere – making them not only more inclined to return, but also more likely to spread that good karmIf you really want to take them by surprise, give them a call. I don’t know about your family, but my mother loves to hear from me – and she especially loves to tell me what I did wrong. After a few days, ask them a few brief questions regarding your service. The key phrase: “What could I have done to make you more satisfied?” Make sure you remember what they said and learn from it, too. If there was a serious complaint, make sure you follow up on it to solve the problem quickly and efficiently, with the ultimate goal of customer satisfaction. Outsource it to your company care department if you must, but imagine how your customer would feel if you called and really did follow up by asking how many fish he caught. He would think, wow, that salesperson really does remember me and really did listen!

Next on your list, maintain a file your customer. Make a note of when they return to your store, what they buy, and any other comments they made. Then, cater to their interests. If your fisherman said that he would be looking for a part for his boat in the future, keep an eye out for when an appropriate one would come in. If your Tivo buyer mentioned he would have to get a DVD burner to permanently record their favorite shows, give them a call or send them a letter when the item goes on sale. Better yet, give them a discount before you give one to the rest of the general public – and let them know it. After all, wouldn’t you give your brother first crack at saving money?

Periodically, send them a letter – again, handwritten is best. Remember all those letters to your grandparents? Enclose a flier with a brief note: “I thought you might be interested in this new kind of bait being developed, since you don’t like the sliminess of the other brands.” Touch base with them once a quarter. In this high tech world, databases abound that will alert you when you haven’t contacted someone in three months. Keep your name and your concern at the front of their mind, and when they shop, you will be at the front of theirs.

People would rather buy from someone they know, someone they believe genuinely cares about them and their needs. I’m not talking about forcing a relationship to increase your profits, although that will certainly happen. Instead, try to genuinely meet the needs of those you come in contact with. Help them solve their problems. Don’t forget about them once you have their money. Foster a good relationship, rather than a sales pitch. You will find that your customer will share his positive thoughts with others, creating an extended family of customers for life.

How to attract visitors to your site?

2009-04-17T02:54:00.001-07:00

Great practical article of how to attract visitors to your website.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/ebusiness/ebusinesscolumnist/article80220.html

74% of small business have no marketing plan!

2009-04-06T23:33:00.000-07:00

Carolyn from Connect Marketing did a recent survey of small businesses with some interesting results.

The survey highlighted that 89% of small business owners considered marketing as either their first or second priority, yet an astonishing 74% said they did not have a marketing plan! Failing to plan is planning to fail and a well thought out plan that has at least six strategies working in tandem is the only way to generate a consistent flow of quality leads, month in and month out.

Here are the findings:

The survey was completed by 149 small business owners with a breakdown as follows;
53% were solo operators
13% employed 1 other person
30% employed between 2 and 20 people
4% employed 20+ people

TOP 10 FINDINGS ON THE ‘STATE OF MARKETING’ FOR SMALL BUSINESS
62% of people associated the word ‘marketing’ with either selling, advertising or branding.

44% said marketing was their FIRST priority and
45% said it was their SECOND priority.
In total, a whopping 89% place marketing in their top two priorities in their business!

Yet… 74% said they don’t have an up-to-date written marketing plan that is regularly followed!
Of those that don’t have a plan, 65% said they feel they need one with many stating they don’t know how to go about it.

44% said they don’t have enough KNOWLEDGE of marketing.
40% said they take a scatter-gun APPROACH to marketing.
Only 14% said they get the RESULTS they would like from marketing.
64% said they don’t have enough MONEY to do marketing properly.
56% said they don’t have enough TIME to do it properly.
50% said they don’t have good PEOPLE or resources to help them with marketing.

MORE DETAILED FINDINGS
What are the three most common words that come to mind when people think of marketing? Sales 25%
Advertising 20%
Branding 17%
Other 38% (all one off words where no pattern could be identified)

Other less common words associated with marketing were; promoting, money, cost and creativity. For me these findings confirm that there is generally a misperception about what marketing is. Marketing is traditionally about the 4 P’s - having the right Product at the right Price at the right time, in the right Place being well Promoted. Advertising and selling are but one component of the last P of marketing. More recently I have defined marketing as the ability of a business to generate a consistent flow of quality leads which ultimately comes from getting the 4 P’s right and through having a clear customer value proposition and points of difference.

What priority would you currently give marketing in your business?
First priority 44%
Second priority 45%
Third priority 9%
Minor priority 1%
Not a priority 1%
It’s not a surprise that marketing has come up as such a high priority for business owners in today’s slowing economy. I suspect businesses that have traditionally just relied on word-of-mouth referrals without having to focus on marketing as a ‘true function’ in their business, are now finding that it has become of much greater importance due to a slow-down in new business enquiries and sales. Given all the other functions that a business has to perform (ie HR, IT, Finance, Sales, Service etc) the fact that a whopping 89% placed marketing as one of their top two priorities says that we need to focus on giving small business owners practical, low-cost, consistent solutions that can be easily implemented - and NOW!

Do you have an up-to-date written marketing plan that you regularly follow?
No 74%
Yes 26%

If you don’t have a plan, do you feel you need one?
Yes 65%
Maybe 27%
No 8%
Many people stated they didn’t have the time, money or resources to get a plan and that they didn’t really know where to start to get one.

Respondents were asked to rank the current state of marketing in their business.

Do you have enough knowledge of the best ways to market your business?
No - 44%
Yes - 21%
Maybe - 35%
Knowing what marketing NOT to do, is as important as knowing what to do. Successful business owners are knowledge seekers in all areas of their business, especially marketing.

Do you tend to take a scatter-gun APPROACH to your marketing?
No - 40%
Yes - 40%
Maybe - 20%
A marketing plan helps avoid the scatter-gun approach. It just needs to be simple and focused with a minimum of 6 prongs working together to generate required leads.

Do you get the results you want from your marketing?
Yes - 14%
No - 46%
Maybe - 40%
Marketing is a numbers game. We need to be completely aware of the cost per lead and conversion rate so we can measure the ROI of every marketing activity.

Do you have enough money to do marketing properly?
No - 64%
Yes - 13%
Maybe - 23%
I recommend investing between 7% - 10% of your target revenue in marketing.

Do you have enough time to devote to marketing?
No - 56%
Yes - 30%
Maybe - 14%
If you can outsource the non-revenue producing areas of the business to focus on the revenue producing areas such as marketing, selling, servicing clients and product innovation, that would be a good start. I recommend spending at least 6 to 8 hours a week on marketing.

Do you have good people to help with marketing?
No - 50%
Yes - 26%
Maybe - 24%
There are many innovative ways to source good marketing and business development support. Consider establishing formal distribution alliances or employing commission sales people and agents or getting some University students on work experience. In summary, it appears there is a fair degree of pain around marketing, with people consistently feeling they don’t have enough money, time or resources to do it properly ultimately resulting in a huge degree of disappointment in return on investment. Working to a simple plan and annual marketing calendar and then dedicating some resources and time to it, is a good start. Then the key word is PERSISTENCE to generate a steady flow of new business leads, month and month out, rather than having the peaks and troughs so many businesses experience.

When it comes to using online resources or websites to help with marketing which ones do you regularly use?
No-one 28%
Connect Marketing 18%*
Google 18%
Flying Solo 8%
Twitter 6%
Facebook 6%
Other 16% (family, friends, business associates and other e-resources etc)
The findings indicate there does not appear to be one single trusted source where small businesses can get all the education and tools they need when it comes to helping them market their small business.

Five steps to building brand equity for the small business

2009-04-03T02:23:00.000-07:00

by Mike O'Toole

Instinctively, every small business owner understands the importance of brand equity, even if they may not be able to define the idea. Marketing-speak aside, brand equity is how your customer recognizes why you are different and better than the alternative.

Brand equity is built on that customer's direct experience with your product or service. This experience, repeated over time, creates equity or value in your brand. And it serves as a shorthand in the buyer's mind that separates you from everyone else.

Brand equity is what creates loyalty that carries beyond price or the occasional product or service bump in the road. It is the quality that motivates your customers to recommend their friends or colleagues to you.

Everyone wants brand equity. But building it, when you are more likely to qualify for the Inc. 500 rather than the Fortune 500, can be a puzzle. Particularly when the role models for brand equity are global icons like Coca Cola, Volvo, or Sony—hardly your peer set.
The good news is that the path to building brand equity is clear. Here are five simple steps you can take to get started:

1. Clarify your position
The first step to building brand equity is to define your positioning: the single thing your company stands for to your customers. Single is the operative word here. Good positioning forces hard choices.
To define your brand position, get the key leaders in your company together. Decide what makes you different and better than your competition. This might sound blindingly obvious, but most small businesses are too busy responding to customers or making payroll to do a lot of introspection.
You don't need an agency or consultant to get started. There are a couple of good exercises out there that you can do on your own. A simple one that I like is the Positioning XYZs:
"We are the only X that solves Y problem in Z unique way."
Where...
X is the category of the company, product, or service or other offering you've chosen to own.
Y is the unmet need of your target audience.
Z is the differentiation, advantage, or key positive distinction you have over your competition.

2. Tell your story
Clear positioning is critical, but positioning statements are internal touchstones, not external expressions. Your next job is to make it interesting, to imbue the rational positioning with emotion.
All brands are stories, and a good way to get started is to document and share your best corporate stories: the founding insight of the company, the times you went to extraordinary lengths to take care of a customer, or the background behind the big product breakthrough.
The good news is that with ubiquitous broadband access and Web-based applications, it is within every company's grasp to share these stories more broadly through rich-media video and audio.
B.Good (http://www.bgood.com/), a small restaurant chain in Boston, has done this well. It's a burger joint that promises "real food," positioning itself against the typical fast-food burger and experience. The real food story begins with the stories of the "real people," the founders whose corporate values are based on their experiences growing up at their uncle's restaurant. You're reminded of these stories when you're in the restaurant or checking store hours online.

3. Bring it to life
Once you have the story, you need to bring it to life. Make sure that the way your company looks and feels to the outside world matches that truth. This leads to questions about your corporate identity: Do the basics (starting with your name and logo) make the impression you want? And your broader system for communicating to the market: Web site, brochures, your retail environment.
A client of mine talked about his Web site as a "corporate veil" that obscured what made the company special. Does your corporate identity reveal the best truth about your business, or does it hide it?

4. Start building brand before they buy
Think beyond the transaction. Brands begin at the transaction level, but the brand experience goes much deeper. The opportunity to create a brand impression starts long before the buying decision. The principle is a simple one: Give away an artifact of your brand for free. In the professional services world, this means a taste of your service or your intellectual property. Here are two creative examples:
Igor (http://www.igorinternational.com/) is a naming consultancy based in San Francisco. It has built a methodology—and a client list that rivals those of much-larger branding agencies. That methodology is laid bare in a 100-page guide to naming that it gives away—without any registration requirements—on its Web site.
This move is both generous, in the spirit of Web content "wanting to be free," and also incredibly shrewd. The naming guide is rich, detailed, and outlines a very clear process for naming. Igor understands that giving away IP (intellectual property) doesn't cost it business—but it is its lead business generator.
It doesn't have to be just IP. Peet's (http://www.peets.com/), the coffee retailer, allows customers to send their friends an "eCup," an email redeemable for a free cup of coffee. This is an ingenious way to enable the fiercely loyal customers of Peet's to promote the brand themselves.

5. Measure your efforts
Here are a few direct ways to measure the progress of your brand:
Ask your customers. Survey a subset of customers, prospective customers, and (ideally) people who chose a competitor over you. You'll be surprised at how candid people will be about your strengths—and your weaknesses. Make sure you ask the most important question in any customer research: Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague? Research (check out www.netpromoter.com) has shown that the willingness to recommend is the most important indicator of brand health. This research can be done quite cheaply online, using free or near-free tools like KeySurvey (http://www.keysurvey.com/) or SurveyMonkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/).
Check your search rankings. I don't know all of what Igor measures, but I do know it fares very well in what is perhaps the most important measure of them all: organic search results. Type "product naming" on Google, and chances are you'll see Igor come up in the top three listings (the earned ones in the middle, not the paid ones on the top or side).
Monitor the social media conversation. In most categories, consumers are holding a very active and candid conversation about the brands they love and hate. Check out what they're saying about you in blogs, bulletin boards, and vendor-rating Web sites (http://www.technorati.com/ or http://www.yelp.com/ are good places to start).

Top Five Lead Gen practices

2009-04-03T01:13:00.000-07:00

Jon Miller in a recent post at Marketo.
Top Five Lead Management Best Practices:

1.Be everywhere. "Cast your marketing net wide so customers will find you no matter where they are searching," he advises. (as long as they are within your target market profile).

2. Build prospect profiles. Create a lead database to manage and store all your leads, and then make sure you have a strategy in place to keep that database clean (e.g., lead de-duplication).

2.Automate lead handoffs. He offers an example: "Define different lead status values to indicate whether someone is a qualified prospect but still nurturing, or a true sales-ready lead." Then update their lead status in the CRM system.

3.Provide sales-lead insight. Give the sales rep the prospect's history, and offer insight about the "interesting moments" that caused that person to become a lead.

4.Recycle leads as necessary. If your sales rep can't follow up right away, or the prospect isn't available, don't let a lead just sit and turn stale. "[H]ave a process in place to reassign the lead or escalate the issue," Miller advises.

Internet Marketing - A viable marketing strategy in a down economy

2009-03-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

Laura Lake explains some good ideas when it comes to internet marketing ideas and strategy.

We are watching our pennies and slashing our marketing budgets so where can we market that provides us the most cost effective vehicle as well as gives us the efficiency we need in this economy? It's the Internet.

Why is internet marketing the most cost effective and efficient? It's the only marketing vehicle that allows you to make tweaks and changes to your campaigns on the fly. When was the last time you ran a marketing campaign and realized it wasn't pulling the results that you had hoped for? Do you remember the hopeless feeling you got when you saw the campaign was going to be a flop? Of course you do. If you had used internet marketing you could have made the changes at the first sign of failure. The changes could include tweaking the text, modifying the graphic or strengthening the message.
I'm not saying internet marketing is easy, but given some effort and even guidance you can make internet marketing a viable option to sell your services and products. I've provided you a few resources that will help you understand the importance of internet marketing strategy as well as guidance that will help you get started.

Internet Marketing Strategy: What Can it Do for You?Having an Internet marketing strategy gives you a measurable and definitive way to target your market and position your business so that those looking for what you have to offer are finding you easily. Learn what it can do for your marketing efforts.Read more

Internet Marketing Strategy : Why is it Important?An Internet Marketing Strategy is just as important as a business plan. Find out why it is important and the risks and problems you can face if you proceed without one.Read more

ABC's of Creating an Internet Marketing StrategyThis can often leave marketers confused and wondering where to start. Learn a formula that will help you experience internet marketing success in 2007.Read more

Five Levels of Internet Marketing and the Sales ProcessCreating a successful online sales process can be accomplished by making sure that you represent and court your visitor through the five levels of the sales process on your site. You can do this by meeting the psychological needs that your visitor has. Find out how in this three part series.Read more

Top 10 Internet Marketing Strategies Internet Marketing can attract more people to your website, increase customers for your business, and enhance branding of your company and products. If you are just beginning your online marketing strategy the top 10 list below will get you started on a plan that has worked for many.Read more

Five Myths of Internet Marketing for Independent ProfessionalsThe vast majority of what appears on the Internet about marketing is designed to help you market products and services sold and delivered exclusively on the Internet. What does that mean for the independent professional whose web presence is primarily aimed at selling his or her own personal services? Learn how to identify and avoid the five myths of Internet Marketing for independent professionals in this guest article by C.J. Hayden.

6 Ways to weather an economic downturn

2009-03-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

Robyn Haydon from Flying Solo has some great ideas about how to survive as a small business or sole practisioner in this economic climate.

A wise business mentor once told me ‘the best job security is the security you create for yourself’. I think this is true in any economic environment. So what is the answer for solo businesses? I think it’s planning. If we establish defensive measures now, we will be ready if and when this wobble turns into a full-on slump. Here are a few ways to weather-proof your business against the looming clouds of an economic downturn.

1. Review your target markets Geoff Kelly, a leader influence consultant I spoke to, believes that not enough of us “spend enough time targeting the right niche”. Kelly has shifted his focus from small-to-medium clients to those “more medium” sized. The risk-averse could consider government clients, if the offer suits, as government will always pay its bills.

2. Adjust to short-term thinking Expect prospects to be tight with time and cash and don’t take it personally. Try improving something they already have or do, rather than selling something completely new. Accept smaller projects.

3. Adapt your offering to what customers want now Talk to your customers and find out how the economic downturn is affecting their business. Come up with ideas, products or services that will solve the new set of problems. Always be relevant.

4. Be smart about keeping your customers Turn that long-term handshake agreement into a monthly retainer for regular work. Incentivise repeat business by offering extras without devaluing your core offer.

5. Widen your new business net Sharpen up your market presence - revamp your website, or get one; revisit your customers for testimonials; talk up the value customers get from you as opposed to competitors. Shelve brand-building in favour of marketing campaigns that get an immediate return. Ask existing customers to refer new ones. Think about how you could do business with customers based interstate or overseas.

6. Know and respect your value Shawn Price, an independent career management consultant, points out that we ‘independents’ can be attractive in an economic downturn because we can offer more expertise, more flexibility and a lower risk and level of commitment than full-time employees.

The Amazing Power of Growing a Big List

2009-03-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

by Wendy Maynard, Marketing Maven

You may think your biggest business asset is your equipment or your inventory. But, you have two assets even more important than these. Your first big asset is your expertise: your unique knowledge and the specific way that your company helps your clients.

Your second asset is your list of satisfied, loyal customers, as well as your pool of warm prospects with whom you are building a relationship of credibility and trust. Building this list and keeping in touch is your ticket to an ongoing, steady stream of income - no matter what the economy is doing. And this is true regardless of the type of business you run. These individuals will develop a fierce brand loyalty and they will spread the word about how much they love you.
Here are some tips to build your list of leads and prospects:
If you have a website, make sure you have some kind of name capture mechanism. In exchange for people's contact information, offer a subscription to an ezine, a free report, an e-course, coupon, sample, or some other perk.
Make sure you have an effective online system to collect the names of your customers and prospects. The best program I've found for managing my lead generation and follow-up activities is MavenMerchant.com. This program allows you to set up a name capture form for your website or blog, as well as autoresponders to automate the process of communicating with your list on a regular basis. Set it up and let it work for you as your online salesperson - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
If you have a physical location, place a sign-up form in an obvious place for your visitors so you can stay in touch with them on an ongoing basis. You can offer an incentive to sign up such as special coupons, discounts, or a print newsletter with tips. For instance, one of my clients owns a retail boutique and she offers special VIP Customer Discount Events.
When you give speeches, presentations, and attend trade shows, collect the names of people you interact with! In exchange for their contact information, offer people a prize like a free product or a discount. You can do the same thing if you offer telephone seminars or online courses to your clients.
Grow your list by conducting a joint venture with a like-minded business. This is one of the most powerful ways to grow a list of qualified leads. For example, a mortgage broker and Realtor can offer a free seminar on home buying. Both businesses can collect the names of the attendees.
Submit articles to various websites, ezines, and industry publications. Make sure each article has a resource box with information about your business and a link to a name capture page. Submit Your Article is a powerful service that will send your articles to numerous websites. For a fre.e online service, try EzineArticles.com
Good 'ol phone calls can also do the trick. They often say something like: "Oh my goodness, I am so glad you called! Getting in touch with you has been on my list for weeks now. Let's set up a time to meet because I have this great new idea for a project..." And off we go!
Direct mail is a relatively inexpensive way to keep in touch. There are so many different types of direct mail you can send to your list. But you can keep it simple. All you really need is a regular postcard to remind people of your presence. If you want to get more complicated, you can send a printed newsletter, thank-you card, or special letters with gifts inside.
Anyone and everyone who has ever purchased from you should go on your list. It is much easier and cost effective to cross-sell and up-sell to past, satisfied customers than it is to convert a prospect into a customer. Regularly keep in touch to ensure your company stays in the forefront of their awareness.

Be sure to track your marketing activities with your customers and prospects. This includes direct mail, phone calls, estimates sent, and meetings. You can use something as simple as Microsoft Outlook, which has client relationship management (CRM) functions. You can also use software with more robust CRM capabilities such as ACT! or Goldmine. If you don't need to have the latest version of these, look on Ebay for great deals on an earlier release of the software.

Action Item: Take a look at your current system for collecting names and following up with prospects and customers. How do you store your contact data? What actions will you take in the next three months to improve the list-building aspect of your marketing, and how will you reach out to them on a regular basis?

Funnel Vision - How to build a great business (from a good one)

2009-02-24T17:59:00.000-08:00

Great article by Hugh Macfarlane

Standing out from the crowd is tough when your competitors are also working towards the same end. Occasionally, though, a business that has been doing 'fine' suddenly starts doing better than fine. In fact, it goes from being good to great. For some, this success is temporary and they soon slink back into the pack. A select few make a significant shift and go on to achieve sustained greatness.
How does a good business become a great one? Hot on the heels of his groundbreaking work with co-author Jerry Porras on the bestselling management book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, researcher and author Jim Collins set out to answer this question. As a result, he produced an even better book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap & And Others Don't.
Collins' team of researchers drew up a list of extraordinary companies that met three criteria - they had to have performed at or below the rest of the market for 15 years; then undergone a change; and then significantly outperformed the stock market for 15 years or more.
Collins wanted to understand what these businesses had done to transform themselves into market leaders. His findings suggest there are seven keys to creating a great business.
Disciplined people
1. Adopting level 5 leadership: build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
2. Considering who first, then what: begin by getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off it) and then work out where to drive it.
Disciplined thought
Confronting the brutal facts (yet never losing faith): all good-to-great companies began their transition by analysing the facts of their reality while being determined to rise above that reality.
4. Embracing the hedgehog concept: this entails getting clear answers to three questions:
· what are you deeply passionate about?
· what do you know you can be the best in the world at?
· what drives your economic engine?
Disciplined action
5. Fostering a culture of discipline: getting sustained great results requires self-disciplined people who take disciplined action.
6. Using technology as an accelerator: good-to-great companies avoid technology fads, but become pioneers in carefully selected technologies.
7. Creating 'flywheel momentum': sustainable transformations follow a pattern of build-up and breakthrough. Like pushing a flywheel, it takes effort to get things moving, but persistence builds momentum and breakthrough.
In our experience, the final idea needs further examination. Momentum is a great outcome, but how do you get it?
In business-to-business (B2B) marketing, organisations often come up with a great idea, try it once and then go looking for another great idea. This is fatally flawed. Not only is it hard to get good at anything this way, but the market becomes confused.
Consumer marketers know that perceptions take a long time to build. They create ads and sell their message consistently. As B2B marketers, we have to do the same. Create campaigns that last for years, and execute them again and again. Refine those plans when necessary, but only after robust measurement and testing.
Adhere to these rules and you'll soon hear that flywheel humming.

Measuring Marketing - trends

2009-02-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

Quality Metrics Enable Marketing's Ability to Influence Strategic Directionby Laura Patterson
Published on September 18, 2007

Various studies for the past several years from the Association of National Advertisers, Frost & Sullivan, IDC, and the CMO Council, among others, have found that CEOs are demanding more accountability from marketing. While most marketers are measuring something, survey results indicate there is room for improvement regarding metrics and the quality of these metrics.
In fact, results from VisionEdge Marketing's 6th annual Marketing Performance Survey found that only 17% of the 136 executives and marketing professional indicated that their CEO would give marketing an A.

In addition, this study and others continue to suggest that a gap remains between a company's business goals and the metrics marketing uses to measure their impact on these goals. Companies continue to struggle with the contradiction between priorities and action.
The need and opportunity remains for marketing to improve the linkage between marketing expenditures and delivered results.

"Marketing must improve its value to justify its existence as a centralized function," according to Elana Anderson, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. If we don't make our case and develop and communicate quality metrics, we may find the days of marketing as a standalone department numbered and instead find ourselves absorbed into sales, finance, or some other function.

It's not like this is a new phenomenon. The concept of measuring marketing has been around for a long time. The question is what should we measure and what metrics are best?
In 2001, James Gregory's article in the Journal of Brand Management shared a proprietary model that linked various financial factors and corporate images to stock prices, sales, and market share. Research at VisionEdge Marketing has found that most companies fail to measure such things as cost to acquire, order value, share of wallet, churn rate, brand equity, and other key business variables that marketing impacts. Rather, marketers have a tendency to measure such things as response rate, demo participation, event traffic, number of new contacts or leads, number of press hits, cost per lead, and lead aging.

While these metrics offer some insight into the results of specific programs, they do not link marketing to the business objectives. In fact, our studies indicate that only about one in four marketers measure marketing's impact on the business and nearly two-thirds of marketing plans do not even include metrics.

A Five-Point Continuum
Forrester Research, Marketing Management Analytics, and the Association of National Advertisers conducted an online survey to find out how marketing professionals leverage marketing analytics. Some 50% of the respondents indicated that measurement remains the hardest part of marketing and 51% are dissatisfied with how they measure marketing ROI. Yet nearly all of the respondents realize that measuring marketing is important and influences senior management's confidence in Marketing personnel and programs.
To make progress on the marketing-measurement front, marketing professionals must shift from tactically based metrics to metrics that are more linked to business outcomes. The measures must include both financial and non-financial goals.
This figure illustrates the continuum of marketing metrics and how marketing metrics are evolving:

Starting at the bottom left and working up and to the right, we can use this illustration as a framework to explore how marketing metrics are evolving from tactical to strategic. Activity-based metrics refer to those things we can count. This was marketing's first foray into the world of measuring—looking for things we could count, such as press hits, click-through rates, CPMs (cost per thousand), and so on.
Most marketing plans today consist of activity lists, such as the number of ads to run, the number of tradeshows to attend, the number of new product brochures to produce, the number of research studies to conduct, and so on. Marketing then reports on the status of these activities—ads ran and responses per ad, Web site visits and downloads, contacts per tradeshow, etc. These are then turned into charts in an attempt to present the marketing dashboard.
Yet with activity-based metrics all we have is a colorful status report and no information on the impact of these activities on the business. The company cannot make any key business decisions or determine whether strategies are working.
Operational metrics, the next level, is a step forward. These metrics focus on improving the efficiency of the organization. Typical metrics in this stage include cost per lead, lead aging, leads per sales rep, and campaign payback. The goal is to squeeze out any inefficiency. While this is a noble pursuit and an important one, marketing efficiency alone will not make a company successful. What really "moves the needle" in terms of business performance is how well its marketing identifies product opportunities, positions these products, builds market traction against the competition, and fosters customer loyalty. Performance outweighs efficiency.
Both activity-based and operational metrics are a good place to start, but neither serves as an accurate indicator of strategic effectiveness. Neither enables the organization to determine which efforts are having the greatest impact; neither provides a quality control process, focuses on marketing's contribution to the company's overall valuation, or serves as a good way to demonstrate marketing's accountability.
To address those issues, marketing executives and professionals need to evolve to outcome-based metrics to develop quality measures. Outcome-based metrics focus on three specific and common business outcomes: market share, customer lifetime value, and brand equity.
Once we accomplish a systematic approach to outcome-based metrics, we will have the basis for advancing to leading indicator metrics—those that help us determine the likelihood of a particular outcome and eventually creative models to use metrics to predict outcomes.
And once we've mastered leading indicator metrics, we're only a few financial models away from predictive models—those that allow us to predict a business outcome.
Creating Your Marketing Executive Dashboard
Marketing performance management and metrics tracking would be incomplete without a way to capture and report the metrics—that is, a dashboard. Ideally, metrics indicate the business health of your organization. A dashboard is the visual representation of a firm's health and provides a snapshot between actual performance and the goals. A good dashboard facilitates action. It not only reports on the metrics being monitored but also serves as a vehicle to help decide on what actions are required and their priorities. Yet, according to a 2005 study conducted by CMO Magazine, three-fourths of marketers have no formal scorecard.
Creating a dashboard is more than just producing a few charts and graphs. A good marketing dashboard serves as a visual and diagnostic vehicle that communicates marketing's effectiveness and impact on business goals. Every metric provides a specific perspective on the firm's business. Some metrics indicate whether there is a problem today, and others help alert marketing to a potential problem down the road. The status of the marketing organization on the metrics continuum will impact what kind of dashboard it can create. As the business goals change, it will be important to revisit the dashboard to make sure the dashboard metrics are still in alignment with the business needs and goals.
As companies progress along the metrics continuum from activity-based to outcome-based, the dashboard will also evolve. Outcome-based metrics involve a dashboard that hones in on the primary business outcomes: market share, customer value and shareholder value. Because these metrics tend to be more market centric, the dashboard begins to provide more strategic insight and direction.
The greatest challenge for the marketing organization is how to capture the metrics. Manual aggregation of data across multiple spreadsheets comes with potential issues, ranging from error-prone reporting to poor utilization of internal resources. Moving from a spreadsheet-based system to an automated system provides greater benefits to the organization as a whole.
A mapping process helps with defining the metrics and ultimately the dashboard. As a result, most companies select metrics and a dashboard that reflects the following six categories:
Market growth
Customer value and net advocacy
Profitable deal flow
Opportunity pipeline
Competitive health and market value index
Product innovation pipeline
Regardless of the metrics you ultimately choose or the categories represented on your dashboard, a good dashboard provides insight into performance, fosters decision-making, and aligns strategy with implementation.
Measure What Matters
We began this discussion about the need for marketing to be more accountable and to develop quality metrics. Hopefully, you have some new ideas on how to focus marketing metrics around business outcomes and how to develop quality metrics that will help you provide insight into how marketing is making a contribution to the company and how to demonstrate that contribution to senior management.
As you continue on your marketing performance journey we hope these ideas lead you to...
Focus marketing metrics around business outcomes.
Develop quality metrics that will help you provide insight into how marketing is making a contribution to the company.
Demonstrate that contribution to senior management.
And we hope your journey will include the following three actions:
Start making active progress on improving marketing performance and accountability.
Even if you don't have all the data, start with what you have, define your data gaps, and develop a plan to close these gaps.
Stop reporting on activities and tactical data around campaigns and Web traffic, and focus on climbing up the metrics continuum. It may still be important to track campaign results for an internal functional dashboard. The more you can link marketing to business outcomes, the more you can influence your company's strategic direction.
If in doubt about what to measure, select those measures that help your company make decisions and take action. When used this way, marketing metrics enable a firm to seize a competitive advantage, and they position Marketing as a strategic member of the team. MarketingProfs.com

Five small business email customer lifecycle tactics

2009-02-03T17:34:00.000-08:00

This article is by Kara Trivunovic and Andrew Osterday
Published on January 27, 2009

I thought it was insightful so I thought I would share it.

It's probably no surprise that the process of acquiring new customers comes with one of the higher price tags of any of your marketing initiatives. The value of growing your customer base is obvious: the potential to sell more products or services. Moreover, increasing customer loyalty will reduce your marketing costs by providing you with a growing number of prospects and customers that can be easily and efficiently communicated with.
Accounting for the following five basic lifecycle tactics for the coming year will help identify areas of focus when laying out your strategy and setting goals.
1. Target and Acquire
It's not only about a customer database with the most amounts of records. The key is to fine-tune your targeting tactics to grow your customer database with those individuals who have a true interest in your products or services. Adding 50 new and engaged customers or prospects can have a better positive net effect on your bottom line than adding 500 prospects who might not be as interested in what your organization has to offer.
Look to add to your email database with those potential customers who have the most relevant connection with your organization. In short, poor leads equal lackluster performance and added costs.
Targeted growth provides you with a database of motivated customers who are not only ready and willing to open your email messages but also less likely to opt out of communications and less prone to mark your communication as spam.
In an email world where your Email Sender Reputation is critical, avoiding increased complaint rates with ISPs means better in-box penetration. Those spam complaints not only harm your email reputation but also limit the number of messages that individual ISPs will actually deliver to your customers who want to receive your message.
2. Onboard the Correct Way
An onboarding program that reflects your brand, sets expectations, and confirms the appropriate customer information needs to follow industry best-practices as well.
Interested prospects and future customers who desire to be a part of your marketing program are willing to share information regarding their needs. This information can be used to help grow your relationship with your customers as well as increase the trust in your brand. Create clear and easy forms that allow your customer to quickly tell you the information that they are interested in.
The more you know about your customers (not just their email address) the better. Crafting email program enrollment forms that ask the information you need to execute the most relevant communications back to them is not merely desirable, it is a necessity.
Keep enrolment forms easy to complete and available on every page of your Web site, and follow industry best-practices using a double opt-in confirmation method and welcome message. These messages need to be timely and reinforce your brand.
Waiting too long to send an enrollment confirmation or your first message can be the difference between your prospect's staying engaged or forgetting about you and moving on to your competition.
You should also take the use-it-or-lose-it approach with collecting information during the enrolment process. Collect only the information that you will use to help get the right message to the right recipient at the right time.
3. Deliver on the Promise and Serve up the Right Content
Your email marketing programs should have a clearly defined purpose that your future email recipients will easily recognize in communications that they have requested.
"Sign up for our monthly newsletter" means that the future recipient is expecting an electronic issue every month. Inform your recipients about when they can expect your communications—and show them examples. Providing a link to your most recent communications for them to peruse may limit the number of records that you add to your database in the short term, but as noted in the Target and Acquisition section, the value in growing your database is based on acquiring customers and prospects who are unquestionably interested in you communications.
Providing the right message, to the right person, at the right time does produce results. One study over a five-year period showed that when marketers provide relevant product and service offerings to engaged customer segments, they reported an annual profit growth of about 15% as opposed to 5% for those marketers that did not take into account engaged customers and relevant content.
4. Grow the Relationship
Learn more about your customers by analyzing purchase history and Web site traffic. Satisfied customers will most likely account for a larger portion of your sales. Being able to identify the attributes of your most-engaged customers will allow you to leverage those attributes on a growing customer database.
Your best customers shouldn't necessarily be getting the same message that you are sending to your entire database. These individuals are more familiar with your brand, knowledgeable about your offerings, and amicable toward receiving targeted promotions and tailored marketing messages.
Say in tune with the marketing strategies of your competition as well. You are all vying for the attention of that same customer. Knowing what your completion has to offer allows you to tailor messages that that can compete. Timely offers, tested frequency, and clear product differentiation afford your customers the ability to make purchase decisions quickly.
Good customers make great advocates. You customers share common likes and interests with friends, family members, and colleagues. Relying on these advocates is often one of the easiest way to organically grow customers and subsequent sales.
5. Retain
Retaining a customer has a much smaller price tag than acquiring a new one. Growing customer loyalty by 1% can be the equivalent of a 10% cost reduction, according to Bain & Company. "Catch-and-release" marketing tactics may not provide that top-of-mind ability to keep your brand as your customer's first choice when contemplating a future purpose.
Communicating with your customers using messages that go beyond marketing offers keeps them engaged with your brand. Take into account birthdays, anniversaries, or holiday greetings. You communicate with friends and family with these types of greetings, why not with your customers?
Complimentary products or services that enhance previous purchases or are aligned with customers' previous purchasing history demonstrate that you understand them as customers and can identify what is important to them.
Providing tips and tricks to help your customer's use your product or service in more efficient ways also helps to strengthen the relationship. Keep your customers up-to-date on new products, upgrades, and updates.
Reach out when your customers become unengaged. Test the way you communicate with those individuals who stop opening or interacting with your communications. Are you sending too many or too few messages? There could be many reasons that your once engaged customer acts less interested in your communications. Monitor your reporting for cues that a change may be needed. Test your theory, and apply your learnings.

Ten top ideas for marketing in a recession

2008-10-29T13:38:00.000-07:00

Here are some good ideas from C.Edward Brice Marketing Gimbal.

Top Ten actions for recession marketing.

1. You will live or die within your customer base: In times of economic uncertainty, when budgets are getting cut back, people buy from who they know. This means you’ve got to engage with the customer base more frequently and deeply than ever before. Might be a good time to start a customer community or referral program.

2. Customer marketing content becomes king: Content relating to customer ROI, success stories, problems solved etc becomes vital to your messaging success and sales support.

3. TCO & ROI are Mandatory: Understand how you reduce your total cost of ownership and what the ROI is for your solutions, and quantify these. See point # 3.

4. Measure Everything: Know what works, and what doesn’t, and stop what doesn’t.

5. Invest in Communications: Communications becomes a high ROI tactic in tough times. Use it! Make sure your PR firm is using all the social media tools at your disposal to get your message out. To this end if you don’t have a PR firm then start a twitter page, start a blog, brand a You Tube channel, and develop some viral content. Its low cost and it works.

6. Data is king. For push marketing make sure you have good enriched customer data so you can segment by multiple criteria. The more targeted you get, the more effective your message and conversation. In answer to your next question, Yes we still need some old school push marketing. I would not bet my career on hoping my blog generates business in a recession.

7. Use the phone. If you have a good inside prospecting and customer database and have access to tele-sales/marketing (insoruce or out) use it to keep engaged with customers. Work with sales to programatize blitz days, identify reasons to call, prospect within your database, and use your calling resources to do the initial selling before handing off to outside sales people (could lower your cost of sale). Be careful where you use tele in the demand funnel. Note I said “inside prospecting database”. Pure outbound cold calling is very expensive, and not very effective unless your value proposition is incredible.

8. Stay close with sales. You’re in this boat together and you will either join forces or sink. Work with sales; understand what is and what is not working. Develop strong joint measures.

9. Have a Strategy. Strategy is about sacrifice and if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority. If you have no priority then you will sprinkle your marketing dollars all over the place and have no impact. No impact says good bye to your job in the next round of cost cuts. Ask the hard questions. Is segment x more important that segment y? Is Country B more important that Country C?

10. If you have “Social Media Strategist” as a Title change it: Call yourself marketing, customer marketing, installed base marketing etc. Most management is old school and unless you can show revenue generation coming from Twitter then reposition yourself closer to revenue generation.

10 top marketing mistakes small business make - how to avoid them.

2008-10-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

Carolyn Stafford from Connect Marketing has a great report and the 10 top marketing mistakes small businesses make.

Report on Marketing Mistakes as pdf.

In summary however:
Mistake #1 they lose sight of the big vision – for their life and their business. Carolyn recommends:
Stop spinning your wheels. If you have lost sight of the vision for your life and your business, I
recommend you get up close and personal with yourself. I think you need to spend some time working on your business and not in it. Schedule this time in every week or it won't happen.

Mistake #2 they don’t follow a plan and take a ‘scattergun’ approach to marketing.
Remedy
Follow this simple Step Process to get yourself a simple marketing plan as a starting point:
1. Get some marketing know-how
2. Do a marketing audit.
3. Get a marketing plan.

Mistake #3 they slash (or even wipe out) the marketing budget.
If you are a solo operator, I suggest you seriously consider employing someone so you can focus on working ‘on the business’ instead of ‘in the business’. The day I employed my first staff member was the turning point for my business. Suddenly I had to generate the new leads and business to fund their salary and it inspired the growth of the business.

Mistake #6 they communicate poorly with the people that matter most to their business.
Remedy
Spend a few days going through your database of contacts. Apply the 80/20 rule and identify the 20% of people (include clients, suppliers, business associates) who are likely to give you more business or are advocates for you in some way. Then don’t wait. Call them up. Invite them out for a coffee. Don’t make it a sales pitch. Ask them for feedback on how you can improve your service to them. This is by far the best way to get honest feedback.

Mistake #7 they don’t seek professional support or help until it’s too late.
Remedy
Review your business vision and make a list of all the kinds of professionals you could use to help you in your business. List the top three you need to achieve your goals for the next 90 days. Think aboutwho you might know who does good work in these areas. Ask your friends in business who they use for their marketing (provided of course you like the way they market themselves and they are getting good results). Do some research on the internet too.

Mistake #8 they stop networking and building business relationships.

Mistake #9 they stop being creative and innovative and are slow to adapt to the environment.

Mistake #10 they reduce investment in technology and the internet.
Remedy
Make sure that a web strategy is part of your overall marketing strategy and budget. Look for an emarketing strategist to work with on your website – do NOT simply get a designer or an IT person to work on it in the early stages.

Seth Godin - online presentation

2008-10-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

For anyone in marketing this video is a must.

Seth Godin Spread good ideas utube vid.

Nuture Marketing...

2008-10-02T13:35:00.000-07:00

I was at an offsite and heard the term nuture marketing and it was one that I hadn't heard in a while but nuturing customers is key to establishing a long term commitment both ways, between you and your customers. Karin Schaff has a good article explain the process.

Nurture Marketing: Always Being Connected

by Karin Schaff Glazier

The concept of nurture marketing has been around for a long time. However, with narrowing customer markets, fierce competition and an abundance of consumer purchasing options, nurture marketing is changing from a want to a critical need for survival. Much of nurture marketing involves basic common sense: Treat others the way you would like to be treated to keep in touch with prospects (new and existing customers) and develop and cultivate relationships to generate new business. Here are just a few highly valuable but simple tips you can use to begin developing your nurture marketing game plan:

Know your ABCs (and Ds)! Before jumping headfirst into nurture marketing activities, dissect your prospect base into A, B, C and D accounts. Typically, the A and B accounts are where most of your revenue will come from in the near term, per your sales plan and ideal client profile. The C and D accounts are those that hold potential to become revenue-generating accounts, though not necessarily in the near term. The As and Bs typically receive personalized communication when possible. The Cs and Ds tend to receive more of what the industry calls "drip" marketing, which means activities are more general rather than highly personalized by account and contact type.

Become the trusted advisor. Nurture marketing helps to establish you as a trusted advisor in the minds of your prospects—and therefore puts you at the top of their list when they are searching for or trying to make a decision regarding your type of offering. Ask yourself what you need to provide so that they will see you as a trusted advisor. Remember, your product/service information is important, but it isn't everything. Industry reports, case studies (industry case studies as well as your own), articles, Webinar invites, etc., can also be powerful tools. These tools eventually build your nurture marketing tool kit.

Execution is key. Once you have developed your nurture marketing tool kit (which should grow continuously to keep information fresh and new), start to assign activities/materials to specific prospect types (the A, B, C and D accounts). Record specific dates in your calendar when materials should be sent out to each prospect. You may not know what materials you will send two months from now, for example, but you should at least note that you will be sending something on X date. And, don't forget about the in-person visits and outings; they are great tools to add to your nurture activities. You may also have multiple contacts per target account which value different information sent in different ways--and possibly at different times. The information sent to the A and B accounts should be personalized. Sales should lead this effort (i.e. sending an article, highlighting the important concepts, adding a handwritten note, mailing in hard copy format). Be sure to explain why you are sending the information, otherwise prospects may not understand how the information pertains to their business objectives and functional needs. The C and D accounts may receive the same information but in more of a canned/ongoing campaign type approach through mediums such as monthly e-zines or direct mailers. These activities tend to offer the same information to the same people at the same time, and the marketing department tends to oversee these efforts.

Track your activities. It's important to know what you are sending, when and why. Using technology (i.e. customer relationship management and/or sales force automation) to track all your nurture activities helps give you and others visibility into what is working, when and with whom. This allows you to continually improve your approach for better results.

The tips above are only a handful of the things you can do to proactively connect with your prospects. Nurture marketing is a forever commitment that needs some basic ingredients, such as common sense, strategic planning, consistent follow through and passion for getting close to your prospects, so you can reap the many rewards it offers.

Brand Repositioning

2008-07-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

THis is a good article on the how and why of brand positioning.

How to Unleash Power of Brand Repositioning: A Four-Phase Processby Gregory J. Pollack
Published on May 20, 2008

Many brands and companies today are constantly reinvigorating their businesses and positioning them for growth. There is a constant need to innovate, reinvigorate, update, recalibrate, or just simply fend off the competition in an effort to better explain "why buy me."
To move forward, companies and brands need to first take a look at their current brand positioning. But for a moment, even a brief moment, it would make sense to go back to the brand drawing board to answer the question, "Just what is brand positioning, anyway?"

Simply, brand positioning creates a specific place in the market for your brand and product offerings. It reaches a certain type of consumer or customer and delivers benefits that meet the needs of key target groups and users. The actual approach of a company or brand's positioning in the marketplace is determined based on how it communicates the benefits and product attributes to consumers and users. As a result, the brand positioning of a company and/or product seeks to further distance itself from competitors based on a host of items, but most notably five key issues including price, quality, product attributes, its distribution, and usage occasions.

As companies and brands today look to brand repositioning, they first have to ask, "What are the reasons to reposition my brand?" The answer might be declining sales, loss of consumer/user base, stagnant product benefits, or the competition, including such issues as increased technology and new features.
After having identified the reasons for pursuing a Brand Repositioning, you might now ask yourself, "What do I do?"

A four-phased brand repositioning approach will help guide you through this process and allow your company and brand group to best calibrate based on timing, budget, and resources to get the job done.
Phase I—Determining the Current Status of the Brand
The purpose of this phase is to understand the company and brand, including exploring key issues, opportunities, and challenges. The reason is to obtain a clear snapshot of the company and brand in present terms, which will offer a clear insight to opportunity identification and assessment.

Understanding the brand includes reviewing the complete history of the company and brand, including its current brand positioning, the original positioning, how it has evolved—and, most important, what the company and brand stands for today. Key questions to ask and answer:
What differentiates our company and brand from the competition?
What are the equity drivers of the company and brand?
What are the historical ways to communicate the company and brand equity to consumers and customers alike?
As we dive deeper into the current status of the company and brand, we also need to get a clear understanding of the company and brand, including a review of the current brand customer. Key questions to ask and answer:
Who is the current target customer base?
What is his/her profile?
What are the reasons for purchase?
What are the buying patterns?
What are the user patterns?
Once we better understand the current brand customer, we can then review the company and brand sales history, including revenue, growth, and industry and category market share. Also important to look at are the specific core product or service offerings.
This review should include a review of the current product strategy and mix, with specific emphasis on understanding the current SKU product strategy, if you are a company and specifically a manufacturer. If your business is in the service-offering or professional-consulting arena, this would include a review of the total service offerings and programs offered.
A key questions to ask and answer: "Do all products live under the same brand strategy, or are there different product strategies that fall under one brand strategy?" Here, you'll need to consider whether your business is a category leader, or a player as a secondary brand.
This phase should also include looking at production capabilities and constraints, distribution strength and strategy, top key accounts, key selling points, along with a careful review of all sales and marketing promotional materials.
Finally, review the competitive landscape: the number of competitors, keys to their success, and what they are doing right and some of their key challenges. Key questions areas to look at are market share, industry strength, customer profiles, consumer buying trends, and a review of the industry and category trends and forecasts.

Phase II—What Does the Brand Stand for Today?
With a solid understanding of your company and brand, we now need to understand how consumers feel about your company and brand today. In the consumer packaged goods world, this might mean talking to kids and moms and other user groups, to determine what your company and brand stands for among consumers.
Obtaining a clear insight into the way consumers feel and relate to your company and brand will provide the starting point of the repositioning work. First we need to gain parameters, including the following: identifying key growth areas for your brand, marketplace, and industry opportunities; looking at your brand positioning in the competitive landscape; measuring the current equity of your brand; and determining opportunity areas of where to take the equity of your brand.
Your clear objectives are to...
Understand current consumer perceptions and needs of your brand.
Determine how far to move your brand without alienating customers and loyalty base.
Identify how to position your brand to attract new users and ultimately convert them into loyal purchasers/users/buyers.
The first path to travel on the course of brand repositioning is to hold brand equity groups, which will directly ask consumers and users of your brand key questions, including "Why do they select your brand" and "What was the key decision-making element?"
Beyond these general questions, the brand equity groups will seek to understand users' and consumers' reasons for purchase, determine their hierarchy of needs and what your brand currently delivers, understand usage occasions and patters, and showcase brand-equity dimensions.
In addition, one of the most important functions of brand equity groups is to identify similar affinity groups and lifestyle and behavior patterns among your consumers and loyal customers that can translate into better understanding your customer profiles.
From a logistical perspective, the brand equity groups could take place over the course of two days with about four groups total. To ensure a good program read and reach, it would be best to run these groups in three to four cities.
Through this process you will identify needs, both unmet and met, in category and industry, determine the delights and dissatisfiers of your brand, as well as determine current brand equity drivers of your brand. In a sense, it will provide you with a current measure of the value of your brand to consumers or end-users. It will provide not only a snapshot of today and where your brand sits but also an immediate look of where you can take your brand tomorrow.
The end-goal of the brand equity groups is to identify opportunities, including looking at growth areas for your brand as well as unmet consumer and user needs.
Once we can find the current equity value of the brand, the next step would be to run brand-positioning workshops.
Phase III—Developing the Brand Positioning Platforms: Where Can We Take It Tomorrow to Grow the Brand?
Now that we have a good, solid understanding of where the company, business, and brand sit within the overall marketplace, as well as a good understanding of its value to consumers, the next step is to find out how far to grow, expand, and stretch the brand.
The purpose of Phase III is to use all marketing research, brand, industry, and consumer information to reposition what your brand should and can stand for. The key reasoning is that determining effective and successful brand repositioning will help retain current customers and acquire new ones. As we look to begin brand repositioning, we need to keep in mind that it needs to capture "How we want consumers to think and feel about your brand."
This process will develop and create several key "brand positioning platforms" to showcase how far your brand can move to retain customers and acquire new ones. Accordingly, you will answer "Who do we want our brand to be?"; "What benefits will it deliver to the consumer?"; and "How will we promote The Brand product purchase, collection and user patterns?"
The most important guidelines to success will be to ensure that all aspects of where to take your brand are carefully reviewed to ensure that it maintains the core values and essence of your brand. With this in mind, as a general guideline, there are four key ingredients as part of the brand repositioning work. The new brand positioning will be...
Ownable: Unique to the brand
Leverageable: Important and relevant to the target
Sustainable: To other categories in the future
Extendable: Partnership marketing and other marketing programs
There are two key components to the brand positioning workshops—strategic and creative—and should involve two sessions.
The first session would be "Developing The Brand Vision," which includes where the brand is and what it should become tomorrow, as well as mapping out where to take the brand in the short and long term.
The second session would be "Stretching The Brand." Essentially, we would take everything we have heard and learned, and review consumer insights with the goal taking your brand where it should go. This process should include exercises to stretch your brand into the future.
For instance, you might develop different marketing positioning platforms that can take key dimensions as far as possible. For a toy or consumer brand it might include such parameters as fun, mystery, anticipation, taste, usage occasions. However, this process should really center on what consumers think we should explore.
As a result, the brand positioning workshop should determine four to five key benefits and potential platforms that are agreed upon by the entire group. Then it is up to every member of the group to refine and validate each positioning platform. These workshops review key marketing research information and consumer attitudes, and most important... the current purchase patterns. The overall purpose is to determine which areas and brand positioning platforms to pursue.
The final output of the brand positioning workshop is "Developing the Brand Vision," "Developing the Brand Drivers for Future Positioning," and "Developing Brand Alternatives."
Now that we have developed new brand-positioning platforms, we need to test and validate with consumers as well as key customers. The ultimate purpose and goal is to refine the brand positioning platforms.
So, we go back to the focus group format and again talk to key consumers and customers with the purpose of checking back with them to validate the new brand positioning. This essentially allows for refinement of the new brand positioning. It will also help us determine just how far your brand can be stretched. It is also essential to develop visual concept boards to position your brand and its products in a new light in front of consumers and customers.
The final output of this phase includes a concise and clear understanding of consumer views on key new brand positioning platforms as well as the final brand positioning. This will provide and deliver an overview of consumer attitudes toward the new brand positioning, with a focus on retaining existing brand customers and acquiring new users.
Additionally, it will also showcase the final "New Brand Positioning Statement," explaining in detail the reasoning behind the new brand positioning.

Phase IV—Refining The Brand Positioning and Management Presentation
Now we have a great start, a new thinking, and most important the beginnings of the New Brand Positioning for your company, business, and brand. The purpose now is to review and refine the new brand positioning and communicate to all function departments in order to align efforts.
The main reasoning is that it is important that everyone on the Brand Team and all function areas understand, buy into, and support the New Brand Positioning. Essentially, this will become the umbrella strategy for the brand group dictating marketing programs and tactics.
As part of this final and very important phase in brand repositioning, we need to refine the positioning. This includes finalizing the brand by incorporating all feedback from consumers, customers, vendors and agencies, as well as the brand group, to ensure achievable positioning vs. aspirational positioning.
The ultimate final stage results in building a strong team to carry the message to senior management and leaders within your company. This includes developing and presenting to the brand group and senior management the new brand positioning.
Once the entire senior management and leadership buy into and endorse the New Brand Positioning, there is still much work to be done. The main focus now shifts from research and development to solidifying, marketing, and communication.

Therefore, we need to create a "Brand Identity Manual," which provides a clear direction on the New Brand Positioning. Most important, it describes how the New Brand Positioning will deliver growth for the business. The "Brand Identity Manual" showcases industry, competitive trends, and consumer attitudes that resulted in the New Brand Positioning.
Its purpose would be to communicate all marketing research and findings, the reasoning for the New Brand Positioning, as well as deliver clear and concise brand messaging for all subsequent brand function areas, support groups, agencies, etc. The result is that the "Brand Identity Manual" ensures unifying and agreed-upon brand positioning for the entire company and support groups and functions.
The final output for Phase IV is the production of a "Brandscape." This includes a visual imagery and musical score combined to bring the New Brand Positioning to life. It can be shared with entire brand group and brand support groups to communicate new brand positioning and is a core way of communicating the New Brand Positioning to anyone in the company or anyone connected to the brand group.
The reasoning is that the "Brandscape" could be used by all future brand departments as "Brand Communication Guidelines," including packaging, marketing, sales, communications, etc. The overall purpose is to ensure consistent communication of the brand equity across any medium and by any partner.

6 top reasons why you need a marketing plan

2008-07-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

I read this on the web the other day and I liked it because it put marketing in layman terms. I thought I should share it.
The Top Six Reasons - by Jap Lipe e-merge Marketing

#1 A marketing plan formalizes ideas
Nothing is more forceful than committing your ideas to paper. If you say to yourself “Gee, I’d really like to upgrade our website this year”, that’s just an idea, without any course of action.
But, if you write on a piece of paper the:
Objective (“We will upgrade our website”)
Rationale (“because our site is looking outdated versus our competition.”)
Project leader (“I will take the lead on completing this project”)
Timeline (“by December 31, 2003”) and
Budget (“for under $3,000”).
Now you have a plan that commits time, people and dollars to the project, and its likelihood for success has grown exponentially.

#2 You can hang it in front of your nose
After you’ve finished your marketing plan, I recommend taping parts of it up all around you—on your cubicle wall, on a computer monitor or over your phone. The goal is to hang it where you’ll see it every day. There are two reasons for this. First, seeing it every day serves as a conscious reminder to accomplish this week’s tasks. Yes, it’s a subtle form of nagging, but I guarantee you’ll get more done because of the subtle pressure you feel.
Second, having your plan in plain view helps sink the plan into your subconscious mind. As your eye passes over the plan, your subconscious mind notices and starts converting your plan into action. You don’t consciously know it’s happening, but it is.

#3 A plan breaks down tasks
After completing your marketing plan, you’ll know every Monday morning exactly what needs to be accomplished to stay on track. If written correctly, your marketing plan breaks down seemingly huge tasks (e.g. develop a website) into smaller, more manageable tasks.

#4 A plan gives you hope
With a completed marketing plan guiding your efforts, you’ll be amazed at how much more confident you feel. Now amidst all the day-to-day fire fighting, you’ll know you have a plan, a path to follow, and a quiet assurance that you’re building momentum for your business. That positive attitude alone goes a long way towards steering a company in the right direction.

#5 A marketing plan sifts ideas
Over the course of 12 months (we’ll assume you’re writing an annual marketing plan here), you’ll probably stumble across a marketing opportunity you didn’t foresee when you wrote the plan. Maybe you field a call from a magazine offering you discounted advertising rates. Or, you meet the president of a call center who offers its telemarketing services to your company. Should you do these things?
With a written marketing plan in place, you can sift each idea through it. If you’ve spent thoughtful time developing your marketing strategies and committing them to paper, you’ll know quickly if any of these ideas are on-strategy.

#6 A plan gives you something to go back to in slow times
If your business is like most others, it has a seasonality to it. That is, some months are traditionally slower than others. During those slow months, instead of wringing your hands and worrying about slow sales, you know what to do. Crack open the plan, and review it cover to cover. Are your assumptions about the market still valid? Do your strategies still make sense? Which tactics do we need to implement?
At a glance, you’ll know whether you’re ahead of schedule or behind, and turn passive statements like “I don’t know what I should do” into active ones like “We planned for a newsletter in the 2nd quarter, now I’ll get started on that.”

How long does it take to write a marketing plan?
How long it takes to write your marketing plan depends on these factors in your business. Its:
Revenues
Geographic scope
Distribution channels
Markets served
Number of products or services offered
Number of employees.
The larger the number for any of these variables, the longer it will take. As a general rule of thumb, a sole proprietor can write a marketing plan in one to four weeks. A larger company will need eight to twelve because it must account for more input.
Whichever company type you are, budget for enough think time—that is, time away from the planning process itself where you can ruminate, cogitate or (if so inclined) meditate about the major questions you face.

A marketing plan lays the foundation for well-thought-out action. If you are serious about your marketing, start with a plan.

Touchpoints a key to understanding how to shape your brand.

2008-07-08T03:10:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a consensus that we need to understand how a brand is build today to help manage it. To do this we need to understand that the process begins with identifying each point of interaction, or brand “touchpoint,” between the company and its customers. Here, a company can uncover the various opportunities for its brand to be positively upheld or negatively represented.

As Mark Ritson explains in Professional Marketing Magazine July Sept 2008, touchpoints for a bank can have many more negative impacts on a customer's perception than positive. ie statement of account, letter from the manager, out of work cash dispensers, and long lines to speak to a bank teller. If you think about it from the customer's view how many opportunities does your brand have to disappoint them?

Ray George from Prophet.com explains: each activity falls within the three touchpoint experience categories: pre-purchase, purchase (or usage), and post-purchase.
Pre-purchase experience touchpoints represent the various ways potential customers interact with a brand prior to deciding to do business with a company. Some typical pre-purchase touchpoints include Web sites, word-of-mouth, direct mail, research, sponsorships, public relations and advertising. Cymbic.com adds that most marketing dept of B2B companies spend most of the marketing budget on the pre-purchase part of the customer interaction when most of the customers experience is spent in the other two areas.

Each pre-purchase touchpoint interaction should be designed to shape perceptions and expectations of the brand as well as heighten brand awareness and drive its relevance, while also helping prospects understand its benefits over competing brands and the value it brings in fulfilling their wants and needs. As the pre-purchase experience for prospective customers is examined, the focus should be on refining those touchpoints that most effectively will drive customers to put the brand into their consideration set.

Purchase (or usage) experience touchpoints are those that move a customer from considering a company's brand to purchasing a product or service and initiating a brand relationship. Examples of purchase touchpoints include direct field sales, physical stores and contact with customer representatives.

The main objective of these points of interaction is to maximize the value that prospects see in offerings and instill confidence that they have made the right decision in choosing the brand. During these interactions, it's critical to instill trust in the minds of prospects by demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that a company's product or service offerings are better than those of the competition.

Post-purchase experience touchpoints come into play after the “sale” and maximize the customer experience. These can include loyalty programs, customer satisfaction surveys and warranty and rebate activities. These touchpoints are frequently under-leveraged or ignored as brand-development opportunities, even though they offer the potential for businesses to drive sustainable and profitable growth. Three goals of post-purchase experience touchpoints are to deliver on the brand promise, meet or exceed customer performance and usage expectations and increase brand loyalty and advocacy.

The long-term benefits of assessing a brand's touchpoints are tremendous. This knowledge can help build a strong, powerful brand that keeps its relevance in the minds of customers. But even more important is how this exercise fully equips an organization to better control the most important interactions customers have with the brand.

Here's what typically emerges as a result of a touchpoint assessment:
New Opportunities. Many of the identified touchpoints won't fall in the category of typical “brand-building” activities, but if they're aligned with the company's current brand message, they can instill strong customer preference and loyalty. By demonstrating how they impact customer perceptions, they can be used to give the company a fresh perspective on its brand-building activities.

Control. It's a common misconception that brand development is the sole responsibility of the marketing department; in reality, the responsibility for the development, execution and ongoing maintenance of each touchpoint may fall within several different functional areas of the company. In fact, some touchpoints—word-of-mouth, for example—may seem to be impossible to control altogether. In such instances, analysis of what's driving word-of-mouth exposure may reveal a greater degree of control over this touchpoint than initially thought. The tactical importance of minor touchpoints
that are not typically considered within the marketing domain. The automated phone answering experience. The product User Interface. The monthly invoice. However you can see the potential impact they can have on the perception of the brand of a company.

Complexity. Managing all the different points of interaction customers have with a brand is a multifaceted and interdependent responsibility.

Ted Mininni is president of Design Force adds: It really is about all the intangibles around those products and services that form customer perceptions, thoughts, emotions and attitudes based on repeated, interactive experiences with corporate brands. This mix of intangibles transcends actual products or services—all of which can be purchased from a number of competing companies. Meaningful brand experiences are unified experiences; that is, they are corporately designed, properly managed and aligned across all customer touchpoints.

Examples:

Pre-Purchase: Borders, smell of coffee,quiet, sections of books to easy to find. Information centre, large variety, cafe to enjoy while reading. Entertainment value. Meet friends.
Purchase: Quick and streamlined, discount for valued customers. Staff all dressed in borders black t-shirt, easy to identify.
Post-Purchase: Follow up with email offers, vouchers in your black bag with logo - status bought book at borders or CD or whatever.

From within the offices of Starbucks, a branding guru had summarized the Starbucks brand into an extremely concise brand statement: A great coffee experience.
This brand statement encompassed the Starbucks store design, bean selection, barista personalities… even its toilet paper. 2 ply for Starbucks.

A lousy experience with one touchpoint can negate all the brand equity you build in other touchpoints. When Microsoft releases a security patch that creates more openings for hackers, its brand is diminished.

They are marketing the experience and the brand as much as the products they sell and doing it effectively through every touch point.

What are the distinctive, heritage elements of your brand that resonate with customers?

Once all current and potential customer-experience touchpoints have been identified, the next step is to determine which are the most important, and why. Trying to control every touchpoint can be an overwhelming and costly endeavor. However, prioritizing the touchpoints and identifying which have the greatest impact on customers ensure that customers are being spoken to where and when most relevant. Additionally, prioritizing the touchpoints maximizes the use of corporate capital and human resources.

Consider the following factors in prioritizing the touchpoints:
Value in decision-making. What impact will the touchpoint have on the overall customer decision-making process? Ability to control. To what extent is the touchpoint within an organization's ability to control?
Degree of misalignment. How is the touchpoint diluting or contradicting the brand message, and how quickly must it be aligned?

Achieving business objectives. Does the touchpoint support the underlying business objectives?
Companies across the board are facing numerous challenges that require leadership to take a hard look at how well their brand strategies position them with customers. Competition is fierce and growing and customers are both wary and confused, particularly in the face of largely undifferentiated products, services and messaging.

Businesses that intend to successfully stand out from among the competition would be wise to scrutinize the core of where and how they interact with customers and communicate the essence of their brands. That sort of thoughtful and measured assessment is what will lead to brand investments that are most likely to create powerful results.

If you want to do some touchpoint analysis for your company here is a good url
www.marketingdriven.com/userImages/touchpoint_analysis.pdf

Branding for small business

2008-07-02T00:38:00.001-07:00

Think branding is only for large multi-national corporations? Think again. Here are 9 easy tips you can use to grow your brand with your customers. by Nick Rice.

The design of your logo really doesn’t matter. Would you choose MSN as your search engine over Google because of their logo? No, having a nice professional logo is great, but it very rarely increases sales. I’m all for a professional logo, but don’t think you need to spend a fortune on it. It’s more important to include your logo on every piece of communication. Put it on business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, yellow page ads, building signage, newsletters, etc…
Have a professional website. It’s not just good enough to just have a website, you must reflect your brand image. If your known as a top notch photographer, the last thing you want is a website designed 10 years ago. It doesn’t reflect well on you. Everyone, yes everyone, uses the web today to check references. If someone recommends your service, you can almost guarantee that they will go online to look for you. Your website design should be updated at least every two years to stay current.
Blogs are good. Blogs help your business on multiple levels. First off, valuable content on a consistent basis will make you look like an expert. People are looking for experts, not apprentices. The software that powers blogs has multiple advantages. It’s very easy to publish. It’s a database driven environment where style is separate from content so you will not need to go back to your web design agency for every little change. And use of tags and sitemaps make basic search engine optimization easy. But the real reason blogs are great is that they enable conversation. Two-way dialog is much more valuable than a company that just dumps messaging and collateral on their customers.
Blogs are good, but they’re just one tool. A blog should not be your sole marketing strategy. You should have a comprehensive multi-touch marketing plan to get your value proposition in front of your target audience. This can take many forms. You can launch a direct mail campaign, email campaign, host a webinar, sponsor a local event, attend a trade show, attend networking events, cold call prospects, win awards, etc… There are a thousand different ways for you to be noticed. You have to find the best combination of methods for your strategic goals. Data shows that people need to be exposed to a brand at least seven times before they buy. If you simply do one touch and stop, you’re wasting valuable budget dollars and probably wondering why your efforts are not successful.
Prepare a one page corporate overview. This one pager will be vital as a leave behind when you meet a prospect. Use short sentences in short paragraphs - people like to read quickly. Also make it very conversational; it’s not a white paper. Your one page overview should include your value proposition, target audience benefits, previous audience experience and a mini-case study - and don’t forget your contact information.
Participate in local business events. And by participate, I mean be on a committee. Just showing up at events is great, but you’re just a face in the crowd. Ask to be on one of the committees. Believe it or not, it’s as simple as just asking most of time. Groups are looking for volunteer help and it’s a great way to elevate your status and visibility among the entire organization.
Do what you say you’re going to do. I know it may sound like common sense, but one of the primary drivers of brand loyalty is a consistent experience. If you say you’re going to have the photographs ready on a set day, be sure they are ready. Nothing leaves a bad taste in someone’s mouth like missed expectations. Positive experiences lead to good feelings which lead to telling their friends. But don’t forget that bad experiences spread much faster and are harder to overcome - if you get a chance at all.
Stand for something. People latch on to something they can understand and appreciate. If you’re trying to be everything to everybody, chances are you’ll attract no one. If you think it’s too controversial to choose a niche, remember the power of being seen as an expert. Experts are not good at everything, they’re awesome at one thing. This allows you to better position yourself and charge more for your services. People seek out experts, not generalists.
Realize that you’re not in control of your brand. That’s right, you only set the direction for your brand. Your actual brand image is determined by your audience. You can use these tips to ensure alignment between your desired brand image and your actual brand image in the minds of your customers. Branding isn’t a one shot deal, it’s an on-going juggling act of marketing, research and conversation. If you’re not tapping into those conversations with your audience, how do you know what their real impression of you is? How will you know how to address it? Brand growth comes from alignment. You have to ensure that your actions, stationary, website and marketing efforts put out the right image. But you cannot stop there; Those are pre-sales activities that get you noticed and hopefully bought. You also have to ensure that all actions and engagements during the sale and post-sale are positive and in line with your desired brand image. If your audience has a different view of you than you’d like, then you need help. And it’s probably best to bring in an outside perspective.
BONUS TIP #10: Branding is as much about your people as anything else. Never forget that the best interactions come from one-on-one conversations between executives, employees, suppliers, and customers. Employees that want to help and do the best job possible go a long way.
Proper branding is critical to your long term success. A lot of people think of branding as logo development. But in reality, branding is managing the thoughts and feelings of your customers to ensure that you are what they desire. If your desired brand image isn’t what’s in the minds of your target audience, you’ve got to figure out where the gaps are and how to address them. And fixing those issues is hard work because the old adage still rings true - the customer is always right.

Get the scoop on the CRM close loop tools

2008-06-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

I have been investigating a number of CRM tools that will do what I call close loop marketing for my clients. These tools enable you to put in a database and then create campaigns to nurture a lead. The two I am favoring at the moment are OfficeAutoPilot(OAP) http://www.officeautopilot.com/ and FirstWave (FW) http://www.firstwave.net.au/.

Both have their benefits but I think Officeautopilot has a slight advantage in functionality at the moment. Firstwave is more practical and easier to navigate so I guess it depends on your need and who will be driving the marketing effort.

Firstwave is around $500 upfront and $395 per month US with up to 1000 emails a month free and Officeautopilot is no set up fee and $597 for basic tool and $195 for the marketing tracker with 1000 at .01cent.

Summary of the tools:

1. Marketing tracker tools - track traffic via url coding to web pages, google ads and online campaigns. - Both

2. Lead scoring; both - and routing with OAP

3. Outlook integration - OAP

4. PURLS - personalised urls coming soon for both

5. Tags for segmentation - OAP

6. Phone tracking and integration for call centres - both

7. Templates for direct mail campaigns - FW

8. Reporting on campaigns, customised reporting - both

9. Customisable database - both

In the age of 1:1 marketing companies will be developing their own CRM tools or buying into a software vendors vision. I guess the benefit of outsourcing is you aren't putting all your resources into the R&D and you can focus your energies and time on the business you do best. One thing is for sure, the intimacy that you have with your customers is related to the loyalty and value that they provide you, so it is worth investigating in a system that will give you that sort of relationship.

Marketing Mistakes that impact your effectiveness.

2008-06-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

Wendy Maynard talks about the 5 Biggest Marketing Mistakes That Hurt Your Profits and I have added my dialogue to her five key points.

1. Thinking You Can Be All Things to All People
Don't try and be all things to all people or you will dilute your marketing impact, confuse your customers and make your marketing spend less effective. A target market allows you to talk to your audience making them feel you really identify with their needs. Once you have your niche you can tailor solutions and become an expert in your customer eyes. You can make your advertising spend more effective because you will understand what they read, what websites they visit and what issues they are facing that your product or service can overcome.

2. Doing Business without Quantifiable Marketing Goals
If you don't measure how can you know if it is working. There is always a way to measure. Now days there are such good tracking tools for the web, email, blog and direct mail campaigns. It is important to measure the effectiveness of campaigns so you can adapt and make them more and more successful. You need to set in place a goal of a marketing campaign from the outset so you know what you are aiming at. Otherwise what is the point? Just to have a website because your competitors has one is not a compelling reason and frankly a waste of money. But to use it as a way to build your customer base a referral tool and a knowledge centre is a good set of objectives that can be measured.

3. Not Realizing the Lifetime Value of Your Customers
It is far more important to keep a satisfied existing customer than to go chasing new ones. A satisfied new customer who is loyal will choose your brand over others even when there is special offers, will refer others to your product, will buy off you more frequently and can be a great source of testimonials. To do this requires effort on your behalf. You need to treat them well, with respect. Communicate regularly, understand their needs and delight and excite them by exceeding their expectations every time. I would put every marketing dollar I could behind this marketing strategy before I would spend 1 dollar on attracting new customers with advertising spend.

4. Trying to Market without a Unique Core Message
What a confusing irrelevant and mixed message you could be sending out to the marketplace with out identifying and educating customers on your unique proposition. Without a clearly defined marketing message you are making the barriers to customers understanding and then buying your product or service too great. Can you tell someone you meet what you do in one sentence? Can your employees If not start working on it. Everyone in your value chain benefits from a well defined value proposition. T
his is what we do... What problem do you solve? Talk about it in customer terms that meet a need. What results do you produce?Provide evidence and it reduces the risk the customer sees in terms of buying your product/service. Offer proof. Use testimonials, differentiation from your competitors, what are the differences? What is in it for them?

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself." ~Peter F. Drucker

5. Having Inconsistent, Unprofessional Marketing Materials

You marketing collateral is your face to your customers. It says something about your professionalism, reliablity and consistency. If you have produced your business cards, website and brochures in-house chances are they are not professional enough. Make the first impression a good one and invest in a brand presence that resignates with your customer base addes value to your value proposition and can be replicated consistently through your marketing tools.

Strategic marketing materials will reward you again and again by driving more customers to your company and help you to make a great first impression.
Professional, high-quality marketing tools will move your prospects closer to making a purchase. Remember, if a prospective customer views your materials as unprofessional or confusing, you will lose them to a competitor. If you want more business, make sure your materials are remarkable!

"Marketing is everything you do to make sure your customers find out about, and buy, your products and services." ~Bob Serling
"Create remarkable products that the right people seek out." Seth Godin

Great marketing plan

2008-06-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

Clients often ask me what makes a great marketing plan. The below information put together by MarketingAngels a marketing firm and is a good start. The key to a great marketing plan however getting the services of a marketing consultant to ensure you are leveraging all the marketing elements and able to populate the plan with great ideas. A plan is a living document that changes and grows with your business.

A_great_Marketing_Plan.pdf
Here is a good article on creating effective marketing plans.

Enjoy!

Whisper marketing...what's the buzz?

2008-05-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

If you are on the ball you will have heard of whisper marketing by now. That is to plant a person in say a shopping centre and recommend a product to a fellow shopper. This "word of mouth" is constructed yet could have the same effect as a viral campaign, spreading the idea to others.

The issue seems to be that it is a misrepresentation because it is a constructed scenario, however creative it is. I just wonder what in marketing isn't constructed, ie ad campaign, direct mail, website, and sometimes even the way testimonials are edited.

I guess the unsavoury thought for consumers is that something they might think is a normal social interaction is actually being sponsored by a company and that does leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Tim Pethick from Nudie I think might have the solution: Word-of-mouth is fundamentally important to our entire strategy. I think consumers feel like they're over-advertised to at the moment. They're immune, in a sense, to the messages that they're getting. Well, what about if we got consumers to be our evangelists? When we were doing sampling events and were interacting with consumers, we gave them brochures that said, 'We want Nudie'. Go and visit the store you want to stock Nudie in. Give this to them and ask them to stock Nudie for you. It worked. People went out and did that." (ABC Mondo Thing epi 12)

Or Ross Honeywell points out whisper marketing is similar to virual marketing and be warned. "Viral marketing is perfectly ethical if what you're doing is communicating a fabulous idea to other people who are happy to spread it. People who spread it most are these neo-consumers. They're savvy. They're really smart. They really get it. And anybody who tries to market them in unethical ways will, A, be spotted very quickly, and, B, be rejected." (ABC Mondo Thing epi 12)

Food for thought.

Protecting brand equity

2008-04-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

Is it necessary to compromise your business objectives short term to protect your brand equity? Well, I say yes.

I was listening to a webinar on brand yesterday and the outcomes of the webinar were interesting. At some point when you are doing the creative for your next ad, direct mail campaign or blog you may need to change your focus from just asking for something from your audience to giving them more and developing a deeper understanding of your brand.

Dove does this well in their latest campaign for Real Beauty. They could keep the same focus of providing an alternative cosmetic in the marketplace but instead they have shifted focus to develop a new strategy based on the idea that all women are beautiful and that ageing is part of the process. By doing this they have created more depth to their brand. They have developed campaigns to each target market and then build valuable resources to show that they care and are invested. From a self esteem fund for young girls to taking on those model stereotypes head on, they are offering a real point of difference to the other cosmetic brands out there.

This investment of developing a brand position that has depth is a large commitment and protecting this stand will mean that in the short term, Dove will have had to set aside their business objectives of immediate revenue while they build this positioning. However, the pay offs are huge. By being brave and taking an alternative position (that is long over due) Dove are likely to have more loyal and a broader audience and start to vote with their dollars when buying their next bar of soap!

www.campaignforrealbeauty.com.

What is a value proposition?

2008-04-10T00:24:00.001-07:00

Sometimes we marketers forget that there is a whole language that we use just and this jargon is confusing for the novist. Value proposition is one such term. What does it mean?

Well to me a value proposition is the unique offering that a product or service has that is hard to replicate by competitors and what sets it apart from other offerings in the marketplace.

A value proposition is the positioning of this unique characteristic and communicating it is such a way so that the target market (key audience for the product or service) can understand the value that it offers them.

The 3 key elements to creating a great value proposition are as follows:

1. Understand your customer: in detail describe them and if you can define them in detail you are on your way to be able to communicate to them effectively.

2. The second element is to understand why your customer would buy your product/service. What is in it for them? What makes it so special?

3. The third element is being able to position your offer against the competition and be able to defend your claims. What are the key proof points that helps the customer understand your offer well.

Lets look at my favorite brand. Nudie. www.nudie.com.au . They have a target market of young healthy hip people probably between 18 and 40 years that have a good sense of humour, like the healthy option and are conscious of the environment.

Why do I buy off Nudie, well I know what is in their juice. They make it perfectly clear that some of the fruit is of a multicultural nature (appealing to my sense of humour, plus they let me know in my language ( 2 apples, 1 carrot, etc). It is fresh, but not as expensive as a juice from a juice bar and it has no preservatives or additives and it fits my budget as well.

They have differentiated themselves . They are fun. Their packaging is honest and simple, their language and marketing is all focused on the audience they are appealing too.

So when you are thinking about developing a value proposition, maybe you need to think of a company who has done it well and follow their example.

Why do you need a marketing plan?

2008-04-06T23:33:00.000-07:00

I was talking with a client today and there was an underlying idea that a marketing plan may be a waste of time. Why did their organisation need one? I think the real issue was that this client didn't see the value in a marketing plan because she didn't understand it's purpose.

1. Marketing plan has to have an objective - what is the aim of the business and make it measurable, over the next 12 months. Is it to grow the database, increase the sales coming from existing customers, build awareness, launch a new product, relaunch a brand, etc, etc

2. You need to do your research. The whole point of a marketing plan is to understand your market/s and then plan out your activities. Makes sense, doesn't it!

3. You need to understand your competition so you can position yourself against their offering/s. Show your points of difference, making it easy for the customer to decide the options.

4. You need to profile your markets so you understand their needs. Once you have done this you should be able to identify your ideal customer and with this information comes great power. This understanding allows you to tailor your offerings and ensure that you are able to focus your energy in the right areas.

5. Brand promise is the key to any good plan. What is your point of difference or value proposition?

6. Tactics for the marketing plan, the action plan.

7. Track to see progress and refine.

8. Communication plan to target markets.

9. Work your plan, it is an evolving ever changing, active document.

10 Congratulate yourself on being organised and have a long lunch!!

Brand or the Marketing Strategy, which comes first? Chicken and egg or real marketing dilemma

2008-04-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with a colleague the other day, in fact we often have the same conversation over and over. Which comes first, the brand development, logo, what the shining soul of the product or service stands for or the marketing strategy....

Well the truth is they are inseparable. The brand and the value that it creates is directly linked to its value proposition (the value that is has, the uniqueness that it offers the target market/s it serves).
Great brands for me are Nudie http://www.nudie.com.au/
Virgin http://www.virginairlines.com/ they have a uniqueness that is hard to replicate and maybe the ideas came to them and then they built the strategy to ensure that their customers/market knew what they had to offer with a marketing plan. Or maybe they saw a gap in the market, developed a strategy and then built the product to fit the demand.

True marketers would like to think that the best way to create an effective product or service is to understand your customers and then build a product or service to their needs. In fact exceed their expectations and you would really be on a winner!

Anyway it is an interesting discussion and there are probably several approaches that work.

Good websites should ....

2008-04-01T22:52:00.000-07:00

My top things a website should do:

Engage with an audience from their perspective
Establish trust and authenticity - the right messages
Provide something of value so it’s “sticky” - come back to this site over and over
Organize navigation according to the audience’s mindframe and interests - you can find all you need
Provide interactive components - participate
Show, don’t tell: use story and compelling messengers to get your point across

These are the basics but many sites just don't do this. It seems so easy and natural to think like your customers when building communication tools but many get it so wrong. They focus on the look and feel and forget the content and reason for the customer going to the site in the first place.

Not For Profit Organisations - They just don't get marketing?

2008-04-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

Marketing Not for Profit organisations is a interesting Business. I have found the managers of these organisations are not really able to visualise their business as one that is able to leverage marketing. The very nature of not for profit almost precludes them thinking of themselves as a business and yet of course they are. They still need members, they still have target markets and value to offer that they need to communicate.

This is a largely untouched marketplace that is only now coming to realise the potential that having a strong value proposition and marketing strategy can have to help shape their potential appeal and thus financial contributions.