Developing powerful marketing strategies
April 30, 2008
STEP ONE - Research, research research
This is where you find out what you do not know. The more you know, the better your marketing strategy will be.
Be certain you define the following:
Your customers
* What is their age?
* What is their income?
* What is their level of education?
* What is their marital statues?
* Do they have a religious preference?
* What is their comfort level with technology?
* Where do they live?
* Where do they work?
* What do they drive?
* How far do they drive?
The list goes on and on. You just cannot know too much about your customers.
Your competitors
* Who are your competitors?
* Are they only in your industry?
* What is their USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?
* Why do their customers choose them?
You may be surprised to discover your competition may not be another business after all. Consider the car wash chain that discovered their biggest competitor was their own customer! Instead of looking to annihilate the other car wash facilities, this chain began focusing their marketing efforts on educating their customers on the benefits to bringing their car to them instead of washing their cars at home. Sales increased significantly once this chain realized where to point their marketing strategy.
STEP TWO - Determine the problems your customer has and the solutions you offer.
Everyone has problems. Marketing is merely the act of bringing your solutions before the people who need it most and are ready, willing and able to pay for it.
Once you know everything about your customer, you already know the solutions he or she is seeking.
STEP THREE - Determine the emotional triggers that will ignite your sales.
The act of buying is a complex and emotional decision. The reason your customer is making a purchase is not always readily apparent. While you may think that you are selling candles, your customers may actually be buying:
* Emergency lighting
* Aroma therapy
* Ambiance
Notice, not once above is the customer buying candles. They are instead, purchasing a function of the candles.
Find out why your customers are buying and you will be on your way to marketing success.
STEP FOUR - Creating a marketing strategy and THEN choose your marketing tactics.
Now it is time to take the information gathered in the first three steps to create a precise marketing strategy for your business or product.
Branding Myth: Branding is All about YOU!
April 29, 2008
My colleague Rosemary Davies-Janes of Miboso.com does a LOT of work in with clients on developing their authentic personal brand. Rosemary works with independent service professionals… sometimes referred to as “solo-preneurs” who need an “outside eye” to help them see what is unique about them and how that uniqueness translates into an authentic personal brand.
Dan Schawbel also works on personal branding, except he works with job seekers, because in today’s workforce, even wage slaves have to worry about developing a personal brand.
Both Rosemary and Dan agree… Personal branding is not all about you. Developing a personal brand is really an exercise in defining
- Your USP (unique selling proposition)
- How that USP translates into benefits for your customers or clients.
What gifts do you bring to the table? Once you’ve identified those, then the next step is to discover how to package those gifts into a product that other people, be they clients or employers, want to receive.
THAT is the basis of personal branding… packaging yourself to present to others.
Marketing Tactics vs Marketing Strategy
April 28, 2008
Why the best marketing tactics may have failed you up until now….
Ever wonder why some marketing tactics work for some businesses but not others? Maybe you heard about a business that paints their company website’s URL on the top of their delivery trucks and increased sales by 25%, yet when you try the same tactic, sales remained flat.
The reason most marketing tactics fail is that they are not part of a comprehensive marketing strategy. A comprehensive marketing strategy helps you to choose which tactics will work for your business and keep the sales coming in like clockwork no matter what the economy.
When I begin working with individual clients, one of the first things we discuss are the various marketing tactics that the business owner has used in the past.
Many of my clients are in the business of making Major Sales. Often, these clients have attended many free online classes with various marketing experts. They listen, they takes notes and they faithfully set out to implement the marketing tactics offered by these classes as a way to promote their business.
One of the first topics for discussion is to help these business understand why they can try tactifcs that are successful for other businesses yet when they put those same tactics to work in marketing their practice, they failed to see results.
The overwhelming reason these marketing tactics have failed for my clients is that these tactics were designed to be successful for a business making the MINOR SALE. Since these business owners were making a MAJOR SALE, it was possible for them to do everything “right” and still not achieve success.
Creating a marketing strategy is essential to marketing success.
Let’s begin by defining marketing strategy. Marketing strategy is very different than marketing tactics. To help illustrate marketing strategy, I use the following illustration.
Marketing your business is VERY similar to process of going fishing.
If you’ve ever fished, you know it’s possible to sit with your line in the water for HOURS without so much as a single interested “nibble”. What’s even more frustrating is to watch nearby fishermen pull in fish and fish as you sit just a few yards away. The question which BEGS to be answered is this…”What is the successful fisherman doing that I’m not?”
Of course, you can ask the fisherman… but people who fish are sometimes weird about sharing that type of information. If they tell you, then EVERYONE will know and their “secret spot” or “secret method” won’t be secret anymore! (By the way, this isn’t too terribly different than the mentality that affects many successful business people!)
When the successful fisherman heads out on the water, he (we’ll assume a male, though I know women fish too!) knows EXACTLY what kind of fish he is “targeting. ” While the newbie threads a worm onto the hook and tosses it into the water, the experienced fisherman as carefully chosen the bait he is going to use. He then carefully positions himself water where the fish are so you can “present” the bait to the fish in the course of their daily living.
The experienced fisherman know that the type of fish you’re targeting determines your choice of fishing pole, line, the size of your hook and even whether you take your boat into salt or fresh water!
So as a business owner, it’s important for you to determine IN ADVANCE who your customers are.
Marketing TACTICS are the kinds of bait you’ll use. Marketing STRATEGY is where you’ll position your boat!
Create Your Own Niche Market
April 24, 2008
Sarah over at 37 Signals is inspired by a show on Fine Living called “Quit Your Job“. The show focuses on average people who left the “rat race” to pursue the joys of self employment.
“[These people] didn’t leave their careers to make millions, they just made a lateral change to a job that is more fulfilling and makes them happier.
Life is too short not to love what you do, and it’s much, much too short to wait around until someone hands you a billion dollars.”
One of the featured businesses is Pet Camp. According to the web site…
Pet Camp® has completely rethought the traditional boarding kennel. Since the beginning, one vision has shaped everything we do: what would our pets like?
In keeping with that vision, Pet Camp now offers two great adventures to choose from – our main campground for both dogs and cats and Cat Safari, our strictly-for-cats “outdoor” adventureland.
America’s love affair with their pets has increased exponentially during the past decade. Pet Camp’s founders Virginia Donohue and Mark Klaiman recognized that traditional “boarding” where a dog or cat is confined to a cage and allowed moderate breaks wasn’t good enough for people who think of their dog or cat as a member of the family. So they created a Pet Camp®… where … well, I’ll take it from their web site…
At Pet Camp®, your dog enjoys a heated, private run, comfortable bed, and tasty meals and snacks. We provide regular exercise in individual or group settings, as well as Very Individualized Playtime for that Very Important Pet.
Camp play areas and private runs are always clean and well ventilated with soothing music playing 24 hours a day. We dedicate ourselves to making sure your camper’s stay is comfortable, stimulating and safe. The biggest problem you’ll have is coaxing them to come home again!
This is a perfect example of a couple who “created” their own niche market. There are lots of options when it comes to boarding your pet in San Francisco… but there’s only one Pet Camp®.
Oh, and because the founders RECOGNIZE the emotional investment made by the humans who pay the bills… so they’ve created a blog where they feature “camper cameos”… so pet parents can see snapshots of the day’s activities via the web.
By putting slight “spin” on their services… and keeping their clients in mind… Virginia Donohue and Mark Klaiman have created their own niche market and can truly sing the praises of quitting your job and pursuing your passion.
Taking Your Website Seriously
April 21, 2008
If you take the time to peruse the web offerings of your local merchants by simply following the URL’s listed in traditional advertising, it won’t take long before you’re asking yourself the question, “Why don’t these businesses take their web site seriously?”
Ok, maybe you won’t ask yourself THAT question… perhaps for those without a “marketing mindset” the question you might ask would be along the lines of, “Why did this business spend MONEY in/on/with [insert traditional advertising venue here: radio, television, newspaper, billboard, direct mail] to send me to THIS website?!?!”
When it comes to the web, keep one thing in mind: no where are users more likely to be managed by expectations than on the web. Read more
The Real Reasons Your Customers Are Buying Your Product or Service
April 18, 2008
If you ask most business owners the reason their customers purchase the goods and services offered by their business, you’ll probably get a list of FEATURES.
“Well, my product does this.” “My service does that.”
Over at Word of Mouth Marketing, Martin Russell in his post Understanding Buyers hits the nail squarely upon the head….
Customers (of any age) are buying an emotion! Safety, security, social status, power, comfort, confidence, yes even just plain old fun.
Think about your own business product or service, and dig behind the list of features and practical benefits. Discover the emotional reasons for buying, and deliver on it.
In other words, the REAL reason your customer is buying has little if ANYTHING to do with the FEATURES of your product.
In my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results, I use one of my favorite illustrations to show the difference between features and benefits…
“Buying is a complex and emotional process. Your customers make purchases, both Minor Sales and Major Sales, for reasons that are not always readily apparent. Often times, they will make buying decisions that seem to have no basis in fact. These decisions are based solely upon emotion and that’s why it’s important to try to tap into the buyer’s emotions as you create your advertising message.
An example that illustrates this point is the sale of candles. On the surface, this appears to be a simple Minor Sale transaction. However, when we look beneath the surface, we see that in reality, our customers are not buying candles, but something else. In fact, three different candle buyers can actually be “buying” three different things.
- One customer may be buying “security” because s/he is buying candles to use in case of a future power outage.
- The second customer is buying “romance” because s/he is buying candles for a special evening.
- The third is buying “odor removal” because s/he is needs the scent of candles to cover up odors in the home.
Three different customers and yet not one of them are purchasing candles.
Have you taken the time to figure out the emotions at play when customers walk into your store or log onto your web site? The reasons they buy are NOT silly… and are instead the real life blood of your business. Maybe your customers are buying because you treat them like the Pope is coming… now isn’t that a nice thought!
The Biggest Marketing Mistakes Made by Small Business Owners
April 16, 2008
When Jeffery Fox wrote his book How to Become a Marketing Superstar: Unexpected Rules That Ring the Cash Register, he spent the first half of the book addressing what goes on INSIDE of your business. This is probably a huge disappointment to many book buyers, because I’m sure most didn’t want to know that the “unexpected” rules for marketing success involves making sure you are getting repeat customers before you issue invitations to strangers to visit your business.George Lane a U.K. based consultant has compiled his own short list of theThe 5 Deadly Marketing Sins of Small Businesses
- Not having a marketing mindset.
- Failure to fully leverage assets.
- Marketing to Everyone.
- Same and Lame.
- No Lead Generation Systems.
NICELY DONE!!! Although I will quibble with the first one which is “not having a marketing mindset.” I don’t think that qualifies as a “mistake” in my humble opinion. I mean, I don’t have a bean counting mindset… a fact that drives my CPA to scold me once a quarter. Try as I might, I just can’t get “excited” about book keeping issues so I “get it” when someone is equally mystified by marketing. The “mistake” would be in not possessing such a mindset and then not hiring someone who does have a marketing mindset!
Alan Boyer guest blogges on Evan Carmichael’s site and has his own list of The Top 6 Biggest Marketing Mistakes. Number one on his list is the misconception that advertising is not predictable. Alan writes:
Marketing done correctly will provide consistent, predictable results. As a guideline, the national average for direct mail marketing is 0.5% to 1.0%, meaning that if you send out 1,000 letters, postcards, flyers, etc. And IF you are even average, then you should have between 5 and 10 people contacting you.
I went through this step with my client in the review of his results. The problem is that most small business owners don’t have ANY idea of what “success” means when it comes to advertising. I know my client was surprised to learn that I never expected each and every visitor to his web site to call his office and ask for an appointment.
Another BIG surprise for most small business owners is that of the 5-10 people who contact you as a result of the direct mail, only a small percentage of them will go on to become customers.
When you ask small business owners what their close rate is… you’ll often be greeted with a blank stare. Phrased another way, if you’re a small business owner and you have 10 people contact you, how many of those 10 will become your customers?
Knowing the answer to that question is ESSENTIAL to your marketing success.
Focus Your Energy Upon The Marketing… Grasshopper
April 14, 2008
I’m working with a client who is brilliant and creative. Those are traits that most of my clients share and I consider myself fortunate to have the privilege of working with them.
This client in particular is working on developing a niche product… which is a wonderful foundation from which to develop a product. See, instead of tossing together a product that is EASY on her, instead she is developing this product with the end users in mind. The time and effort required on her part aren’t nearly as important a consideration for her as to whether or not her TARGET AUDIENCE will find this product useful. She’s magnificent and this kind of thinking is the FOUNDATION upon which successful businesses are built.
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo for my brilliant and creative client!
However, today I’m going to have to broach a delicate subject with her. Over the past two weeks, her efforts in developing this product have been literally non-existent. In her mind, she’s taking necessary steps to “perfect” her product offering… and that is the problem. She’s trying to create the “perfect” product.
So in our phone conversation today, I gently introduced her to the concept of “good enough”.
Seth Godin wondered a while back on his blog whether “good enough” might be actually become a new trend in business. Now, in response to Seth’s post, there was an outcry amongst blog authors, most of whom cite the iPod as a SHINING example of “good enough” not being nearly good enough. Even though this thread is long dead… I totally understand and defend what Seth is talking about and it comes from working with entrepreneurs who become hyper focused on creating the “perfect” product. This obsession with “perfectionism” leads many brilliantly creative people down the well worn path of the endless search for the perfection.
So today, in my conversation with my client, I gently pointed out that her idea for her product is definitely “good enough”. The “magic” will be in the marketing and promotion of the product.
I have another client who has already created multiple products and lives quite nicely from the sale of said products on the internet. The other day, she and I were talking and I was admiring her ability to avoid this “perfectionistic” trap. Her response surprised me. It went along the lines of, “Oh, I still pursue perfection. I just invest my energies into perfecting the marketing content I create. That’s the only place where the pursuit of perfection pays dividends. ”
BINGO!
She’s right. The second client will spend a single day creating an ebook and then spend 6 weeks fine tuning the copy on the web site to sell that particular ebook. Many, many frustrated entrepreneurs spend their time in reverse. They’ll spend 6 weeks creating the “perfect” ebook and then spend a single day setting up the marketing for said ebook.
I too struggle with perfectionism which is probably why I’m so quick to diagnose it in my clients’ dealings. In an email I wrote last week to my client in pursuit of perfection I said:
“You’re an incredibly talented and creative person. This is both a blessing and a curse.
It’s a blessing because your creativity has inspired you to create this incredibly well defined product which not only appeals to a tightly targeted niche market, but also has incredibly potential for additional products for a distribution channel that is literally STARVING for just such a product.
It’s also going to be a curse because that same creative genius is going to come up with 50,000 ways to improve upon your original idea over the course of the product development. The curse being, if you stop to incorporate each “improvement” into your product, not only will your production costs soar but you’ll also be in danger of never getting the product to market.”
When I was banging my head against this same brick wall in preparation for publishing my book Beyond the Niche… my coach uttered words of wisdom that enabled me to move forward rather than remain mired in the muck of seeking perfection. Those magical words were, “Revisions are what 2nd editions are for.” The freedom of being able to IMPROVE my book later on enabled me to get the book published… which is surprisingly much tougher than it would seem from the “outside”.
The best thing about version 1.0… is version 2.0 will be even better!
Can Accountability and Advertising Co-exist?
April 8, 2008
There is a quote that goes “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” It’s attributed to John Wanamaker (1838 - 1922) and is widely used because often, advertising expenditures are done with the “spray and pray” method. The reason I wrote my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results was because of a conversation with a television media rep.
The conversation with the media rep went along these lines:
Me: “This client needs to see new patients walk in the door. It’s not going to be enough for people to pat him on the back at church and tell him that they saw him on telly-vision. He’s played this game before and that’s just not good enough for this buy.”
Media Rep: “Ahh… uhhhh… um… well, oh… oh my … Well, you know… we can’t guarantee anything…. we especially can’t guarantee your client will see results.”
I could literally HEAR the beads of sweat forming on his brow over the phone.
It made me laugh.
It made me laugh because when I was a media rep, I would have stepped up to that plate and sent that ball SAILING over the fence.
Because I know the secret to creating advertising message that get results.
I’m not bragging… it’s a statement of fact. A fact I share openly with readers of the book. In a nutshell… here’s the key to creating advertising messages that work:
- Tightly target your audience
- Define their wants and needs
- Write copy that describes the BENEFITS of the product or service and how it meets the prospective customer’s wants and/or needs.
- Position this marketing message in places where your tightly targeted audience will see it.
When you target everyone and you’ll end up reaching NO ONE!
I’ve watched these principles work a thousand different times with a thousand different clients. The biggest challenge I face is getting my clients to NARROW their focus.
Waltzing dancers don’t sell tires… GI Joe didn’t sell Nissans…. but when Apple computers started talking to average every day people about the advantages of Macs over PC’s… the world stood up and took notice.
The other day, I was on the phone with a colleague who made the leap from independent consultant to corporate executive as the result of a messy divorce. She was literally flipping out because she had just come from a meeting where they were discussing a $48,000 two week marketing “push” which was to be launched sans marketing objectives in place.
My reply: “You don’t understand… the business that spend $4800 a YEAR needs to carefully establish marketing goals so they can measure the effectiveness of their advertising dollars. The business that spends ten times that amount in a two week period… well, they have the luxury of being able to launch campaigns that may or may not have a positive effect on the bottom line. They most certainly don’t have to worry about “goals” or “objectives”…. and no one wants to put their head on the chopping block by using such hate speech in the board room.”
I’m currently dealing with just such a situation with a client of mine. This client began his television campaign in January. We launched the campaign on a RAZOR slim budget. Production was done on a shoestring….. but the message was tightly targeted and concise. The call to action was simple: Visit the web site for more information.
The reasons for the call to action to be a visit to the web site was two fold.
The first and biggest reason is because this client is making a Major Sale. The biggest element in the Major Sale is establishing TRUST!!! As a provider of a Major Sale Service, on the one hand, you’re assured of a long term relationship with that customer or client. On the other hand, it takes a LOT to get those customers to pick up the phone and call.
Since my client is making a Major Sale, that means that his potential customers aren’t going to pick up the phone and make an appointment based on a 30 second television spot. So, the call to action in the television spot is “come visit the web site”. Bringing interested visitors to the web site is the PURPOSE of the commercial. Then, the web site has the “job” of closing the sale by providing LOTS of great information.
However, there’s another reason to make the web the destination…because small business owners NEED to see the results…especially when the phone isn’t ringing off the hook.
At the end of March, we took a look at his log files to track the results. As we looked at the first quarter log files, it was apparent that the ad was “working”. Over 60% of visitors to the site came without benefit of a search engine or web link and there was a noticeable “spike” in visitors corresponding with the ad buy. It’s rare to see the 800 lb gorrilla “Google” send less than 10% of the traffic to a site, but there it was!
However, those visitors who took the time to visit were not picking up the phone to call to complete the sale.
I give my client HIGH PRAISE… his response to hearing that the web site copy needed revamped was simple: “DO IT!” He said, “I’m not a copy writer. Get me a copy writer to write this copy!”
So, I’ve got the go ahead to change the copy on the web. I contacted a colleague of mine who does a GREAT job of writing for this particular demographic. However, instead of embracing the job, she began peppering me with questions regarding the media buy and production quality. It took several email exchanges to realize that my colleague may be afraid of the accountability inherent in this job. I mean, the traffic is coming to the site… the call to action is working. All that’s left is to tweak the copy on the site. Instead of giving me a quote, she skirted the issue… and she never did give me a quote to take to my client.
The talk with my friend who has returned to “corporate” has reminded me of what it was like inside the hallowed halls where accountability is viewed as a dirty word. My conversation with my copy writing colleague has reminded me that the syndrome is not confined to big budgets and big spenders.
It’s a shame. I wouldn’t have asked her to do the job if I wasn’t CONFIDENT that her writing would deliver. Wish she had half as much confidence in herself as I have in her.
GM May Be Creating A Watershed Moment in Advertising
April 2, 2008
Imedia Connection’s Michael Estrin reports that a watershed moment is occurring in the history of advertising and marketing. In the article Why GM gambled $1.5B on digital he reports on the recent decision by General Motors to shift one half of its total advertising budget to digital over the next three years.
Part of the thinking driving GM’s move is the web is the ULTIMATE tool to tightly target niche markets. Take for example, the car shopping site that targets female car buyers: Car Tango.
When you arrive, you’re greeted with a distinctly feminine design and the opportunity to take a Cosmo-style quiz to help you choose the car of your dreams. You’re asked questions about your fashion preferences, your vacation preferences and which celebrity you’d like to hang out with for a day. When you finish the quiz, you’re presented with your “car soul mate”. (Mine is a 2008 Volvo S40… which surprisingly enough is one of the models I am considering when I trade in my mini-van for my next car.)
Now that I’ve found my “soul mate” vehicle, I’m able to invite a dealer to “tango”.
Right now, Divine Caroline dominates the ad space at Car Tango… which brings up the biggest problem GM faces as they move their advertising dollars to digital. During the Car Tango survey, one of the questions asks about your preference as to your car soul mate’s origins. I chose the “I don’t care” option and in the end, not a single GM product made it into my “soul mate” list of 6 cars.
GM’s problems run deep… so deep that a new attitude when it comes to promoting their products may not be enough.
For an GLARING example of GM’s problems… back in July, the blockbuster movie Transformers hit the big screen. I came home from that movie PUMPED and ready to buy the new Camaro I’d seen in the movie. I wrote about the experience in “Transforming Your Business by Targeting Your Niche.” It was a GREAT marketing move by GM. There were reports of people putting down deposits to secure their own Camaro as seen in the movie. The only problem? The car wasn’t available…. it still isn’t. All that buzz… all that excitement… down the drain.
Hopefully GM won’t be investing $1.5 Billion in hyping products you can’t buy when they take half of their advertising dollars to the web.
