Category Archives: Marketing

Where Do You Fit in This Marketing Fable?

Business Mistakes, Marketing, ,

Once upon a time,  there was a (hypothetical) Mary who built a business around her love of gardening. She used to be a gardening columnist in newspapers and magazines. StoryShe had written a couple of books on gardening. She developed a couple of software applications related to seeds and the care of plants. She has a website where she shares her knowledge and sells her books and software along with gardening tools, books, seeds, and related items.

Are you the one who sends her emails suggesting that she sell your books instead of hers? That she adds your content to her website to compete with her content? That her readers and customers would be better served by your stuff rather than her stuff?

Don’t be that one. I’m amazed at how much marketing time and effort is wasted like this. If you’re not in Mary’s situation, you wouldn’t believe how much of this happens.

Think about it first. Why in the world would Mary put your stuff into her marketing mix? She owns hers. She doesn’t have to ask, attribute, or share.

Here’s the point: If what you do is different and complementary to what she does, so that she can offer her customers a broader range or more products, and make a margin on it, then offer it to her. Don’t take her time, or insult her intelligence, suggesting that she use competing content, from competing sites, instead of her own.

On this one I can’t help sharing a past moment standing on the side of a soccer field, watching one of my kids play. I was standing next to a friend who also had a kid on the field. A guy neither of us knew walked up to us and talked for a while about how great his kids was. We listened. Finally the guy walked away. My friend said, quietly, to me only: “Yeah, but I still like my kid better.”

As the classic blues song says: ”God bless the child that’s got its own.”

Moral of the story: don’t be that marketer. Be smarter.

(Image: feng yu/Shutterstock)

Does Anybody Believe in So-Called Special Offers?

Marketing

I can answer my own question (in the title here): yes, they do. It’s annoying, really, but they do.

It turns out that promoting something with “special offer” language still works for some people. You don’t get me, I’m afraid. I always assume that’s just hype. And my advice to you is that they shouldn’t get you either.

“Special offer” means to me that they couldn’t think of anything else to put in a headline.

But then, what would I know? I’m the one who once decided to go to print with direct mail pieces offering something for $100 instead of $99.95. “That $99.95 baloney is insulting,” I said, to the direct mail expert, back in the heyday of direct mail marketing. “Let’s call it $100 so they know we’re up front.” Bad idea.

And what happened, of course, is that the response rate went down to less than a third. Live and learn.

So, keeping that in mind, if you look at the search results shown here, “special offer” is up there 29.9 million times (no, not 30 million, just 29.9 million). So it probably works.

But not for me.

Is It Hooray for Social Media or Goodbye to Privacy or Both?

Business Ethics, Business Research, Marketing, Weblogs,

Speaking of paradox and contradictions (as I did with my post here last month), how about the good news/bad news mess of mixed-up emotions with the increasing personalization of advertising.

1984The good news (well, sort of) is less of the traditional shouting and interrupting types of advertising we all grew up with. Nobody really likes the ads that interrupt the flow of television and radio shows. We tolerate ads where we can just not click, or turn the page.

I’d like to think that this is happening because of the gradual growth of the business impact of social media and similar phenomena, in which word of mouth multiplies organically, replacing advertising with relationships and authenticity. That seems like a relatively pleasant scenario.

The bad news is more of the personalization that smacks a bit of 1984 and Big Brother and paranoia. This is what the New York Times called Ads Follow Web Users, and Get Deeply Personal:

“The result is a sea change in the way consumers encounter the Web. Not only will people see customized advertising, they will see different versions of Web sites from other consumers and even receive different discount offers while shopping — all based on information from their offline history. Two women in adjoining offices could go to the same cosmetic site, but one might see a $300 Missoni perfume, the other the house-brand lipstick on sale for $2.”

I have mixed feelings about privacy, particularly when it’s “Privacy” as political motivator and campaign slogan. I’ve seen it used as justification for all kinds of crazy ideas, such as somebody ringing my phone in my house being able to block caller ID (if you don’t want to be identified when you intrude, don’t intrude. Seems simple to me). By the way, have you asked yourself the relationship between privacy and authenticity? In social media?

I also have mixed feelings about our national confusion between ideas, speech, and commerce. I don’t think commercial messages (much less corporations, but that’s a different matter) need to be protected by the Constitution. I don’t think the Constitution gives a damn about which perfume the women see on the commercial site.

And this 1984 queasy feeling… does it still hold when it’s not an evil government controlling thought, but a cosmetics vendor optimizing sales?

Which brings us to the simple discussion of business. Is it good business to customize messages, even business offerings, to match very carefully defined and tracked consumer characteristics?

Free is Fashionable, But Still, Beware of Free Lunches

Current Affairs, Economics, Marketing, ,

I’ve been thinking about this Free business a lot. There’s Chris Anderson’s book Free, and the debate around it. There’s free content everywhere. I find great free photos on Flickr. And I read free blogs every day.

It’s not like free is all that new. I grew up with free radio and television, funded by advertising. And the free prize in the Cracker Jack package. And free weekends for people naive enough to think they weren’t just an opportunity for sales pitching the condos. Free drinks, free lunches, and free seminars were never really free.

I compete against free. Since 1995 I’ve made my living with software that’s for sale, not free. It gets pirated a lot. And it competes with a lot of free stuff.

And I market with free. My company’s business plan resource site  Bplans.com is free. My last book, which sells in bookstores and Amazon.com as a book, is also free for reading from start to finish at PlanAsYouGo.com. I’ve done about 2,000 blog posts since 2007, all for free.

Still, today, in this new world, you have to be able to distinguish real free, like a great photo on Flickr, from fake free, like a free seminar that’s a veiled sales pitch.

  1. Some kinds of self expression, like writing, photography, art, music, and performance, will always compete against free. The greats, I hope, will continue to make money because they’ll stand out enough to generate some economics; but the almost-greats, and the greats-but-undiscovered, will do it for free. I’ve seen great writing and great photography for free on the Web. People do this; they create because they want to create, and they often do it for free. Sure, we all hope to be the commercial successes with our self expressions, but few of us are.
  2. Some professions are diluted by free contributions. This isn’t new either. I was a professional journalist, full time, as my means of making a living, for almost 10 years. One thing I didn’t like about it was that it was so much fun, and so basically interesting, that there was always somebody new willing to do it for less. That was in the 1970s. Earlier this month I read this Los Angeles Times piece about the difficult plight of freelancers, which is really the same thing as in the 1970s. There’s more of it, but it’s the same thing.
  3. You’re in a tough spot if you’re competing against something a lot of people will do, and reasonably well, for free. Like writing articles, for example, in my previous point. People will do it for free because they want to. I think that’s why there are so many fabulous musicians playing for tips or nothing at all, actors acting for free in local theaters, and photographers offering freebies on Flickr.
  4. As a consumer of free stuff, such as free content, you have to look for the business model. One thing I really like about advertising is that it explains free content. One thing I like about Web advertising is it doesn’t (usually) interrupt either. You don’t have to click. Where there isn’t advertising, you have to look behind the curtain for a driver. Sometimes it’s pride, sometimes establishing credibility, sometimes just honest free expression; but there’s also a ton of modern-day equivalent of the cynical seminar as sales pitch. Don’t be naive about it. Free is a legitimate marketing strategy, but don’t confuse free as a marketing strategy with free as free.

So sure, there’s occasionally a free lunch for a good reason. Free samples make for future customers. But don’t take it at face value. Figure out why it’s free.

(Image: Sergey Peterman/Shutterstock)

You Probably Mistreat Your Best Clients

Marketing, ,

PR people, social media experts, marketing experts, not to mention lawyers, accountants, and consultants: do your long-term loyal clients get the worst treatment? Do they pay the highest rates? Do you take them for granted?

It’s not an idle question. I’m not trying to make trouble. It’s just that I think this happens a lot. I think it’s a natural result of efforts to generate more business and new business.

I confess that I did it at least once that I know of. Very early in the on-my-own portion of my professional service career, I had a retainer arrangement with a large textbook publisher. They paid me $1,000 a month to have me on call, while the rest of my business planning clients paid me a negotiated amount for each engagement. I built the thousand dollars into my sales forecast, but I hated it when they called. I wanted to deposit the money without any work. I took it for granted.

Telephone companies do it, don’t they? Give the new customers better rates than existing customers? The longer you’ve been with your provider, the more you pay? And don’t the cable companies give new customers better deals?

How about this: review your client lists. Make sure your longer-term clients get the best rates and the best treatment. In professional services, repeat business is golden; but there’s a temptation to focus on recruiting new clients instead of keeping existing clients.

(Image: istockphoto.com)

Do You Undervalue Marketing You Can’t Measure?

Marketing, , ,

Measurability and accountability in marketing is a luxury we pretty much have now but we didn’t always have. Before the Web, we often guessed what would work, then spent the money to place the advertising or do the event or distribute the collateral. Then we waited, and hoped it was working. Then we’d guess again afterwards about whether it had worked or not.

Sure, we’d ask customers where or how they’d heard of us, but most of them didn’t know. Less than a third would even be able to answer that question. Of those, half would answer wrong (like mentioning a publication that we’d never advertised in).

That was pretty much it in the 1980s and early 1990s. We didn’t have clicks, click-through, search terms, conversion rates, and all that. Metrics. Direct mail, which is used so much less these days, was the best for measurability and accountability; some companies used it more than other marketing tools because of that advantage.

But nowadays, here’s the rub: do we now devalue marketing efforts we can’t measure?

For example, getting mentioned in a major publication. Or being included in somebody’s book. What if those marketing wins produce a value we can’t measure? We don’t know how many people have purchased because of them. We’ll never be able to tell how many people saw the mention and then visited the website, or, better yet, bought the product. Does that make those marketing efforts less valuable? Do we start underestimating and under-using these parts of the marketing mix because we can’t produce the metrics?

Verizon and AT&T Lessons in Marketing

Marketing,

One thing I’ve seen forever is the power of a strong simple reason to buy (if you like buzzwords, call it value proposition, or USP, for unique selling proposition) in advertising. Don’t be funny. Make a simple obvious point.

True, advertising is struggling to change as fast as media splinters. But the simple point is still very powerful.

This goes way back. “You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.”  “Colgate cleans your breath while it cleans your teeth.” A lot of us grew up with those advertising slogans. We only had three television networks. And research showed they worked better than cute, funny, or subtle.

Flash forward to AT&T vs. Verizon in their recent ad battles. I don’t like the mud slinging or bad-mouthing of competitors element in this duel, but I think they’re demonstrating something important about making marketing points. Watch how well they focus in on making the single point:

  1. Verizon assaults AT&T by showing us vastly unequal coverage maps. It’s Verizon’s 3G vs. AT&T’s 3G. Notice how their “there’s a map for that” strikes straight at the iPhone commercials. And makes a single point.
  2. AT&T strikes back by comparing its total map to Verizon’s total map. That one glosses over the 3G vs. all other distinctions. Strong point, single point.
  3. AT&T strikes back again with the browse-the network-while-still-on-the-call commercials. There too, those commercials (nice stuff, I like how they tell an actual story) make a single point.
  4. AT&T strikes back yet again with a list-of features ad. Not so powerful, in my opinion. Too much information.

I’m not suggesting that major league advertising for national audiences isn’t declining in importance. I’m not suggesting that bad-mouthing a competitor is often a good idea. I am suggesting, though, that this well focused advertising, each ad making a single point, is a lesson on marketing.

(Image: Knights Duelling, by Eugène Delacroix via Wikipedia)

Pricing IQ Test You’re Sure to Fail

Marketing, Productivity Software, , , , ,

I admit it. Pricing is often baffling to me. Test your pricing IQ by answering these 10 simple questions.

1. Why is an iPhone application expensive at $4.99 but a magazine can sell for $6.95, and a no-frills 20-ounce cup of coffee for $2.50 without anyone getting up in arms?

2. Why is a gallon of gas expensive at $3.00 when a gallon of bottled water costing $4.00 isn’t an outrage ?

3. Why is a Sunday newspaper just fine at $1.00 and up but a news website way too expensive at $2.99 per month?

4-5. Why are great applications like Google Earth or Evernote free? My generation was taught to mistrust the man in the trench coat offering free candy. Should we worry?

6. Why do we accept advertising without question in newspapers and magazines and most television, but not in an iPhone app we paid $2.99 for?

7-10. Why do we assume email is free? Why do we pay hundreds of dollars for one productivity suite, or nothing for another? Why do we assume content has no value, and why do content providers give it away? Why do we assume anything we can copy has no value, or that copying isn’t stealing?

Pricing is magic. And baffling. And to score this test, make something up. I have no idea.

Did you Miss the Online Train? Is it too Late?

Marketing, Technology, Web/Tech, Weblogs

Even if you don’t have a website, blog, Facebook page, Yahoo! or Google listing, it’s still not too late. It really isn’t. That’s what they said in 1999, and again in 2005, and every day. The future just keeps on coming, day after day. Jump on now, and you can look back later.

Seth Godin, one of my favorite bloggers, has an excellent post titled is it too late to catch up?  He suggests some things to do about it, and one very interesting thing not to do, which is (quoting):

Don’t have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve.

That’s pretty aggressive, but it makes sense in context of the rest of his suggestions. Seth has suggestions like putting the president’s real email on every invoice, giving bonuses for blogging, getting Gmail email addresses for everybody. Good stuff.

And even this one, which, despite my years as a consultant (and maybe that’s because of) I also like a lot:

Refuse to cede the work to consultants. You don’t outsource your drill press or your bookkeeping or your product design. If you’re going to catch up, you must (all of you) get good at this, and you only accomplish that by doing it.

However, there’s this irony: Seth’s writing it in a blog. I read it in a blog. I’m recommending it in a blog. And the people it’s intended for, those who don’t have websites or blogs or Facebook pages, probably aren’t reading blogs. Sigh…

(Image credit: schlaeger, via Flickr cc)

Business Plan? Marketing Plan? Compensation Plan? Oh My!

Business Planning, Marketing, Planning Fundamentals

I like this post. Compensation Plan? Business Plan? Marketing Plan? Which is it? It makes sense. I don’t know the site — realnetworkmarketing.com — but I couldn’t resist reproducing the business plan and marketing plan art, with links back to the original post, of course, because this isn’t my work. Nice touch, though. This is the business plan:

businessplanfromrealnetworkmarketing

And, following that, this is the marketing plan:

marketingplanfromrealnetworkmarketing

The compensation plan, by the way, is completely different. Like a stock plan or retirement plan, it’s about how to pay people with a combination of wages and salaries, bonuses, and benefits. It’s a completely different animal.