Marketing - 6 Big Mistakes That Will Get You In Trouble!
5 Marketing Strategies to Create a Killer Service Sector Brand
Marketing a service can be complex but it is good to remember it still takes the tools and strategies many top branded products employ. The service sector really has the upper hand with customer loyalty because they are providing the service while it is being consumed, meaning they are face-to-face with the customer. With a service, gauging customer satisfaction can be more easily done because you have the ability to make sure the customer walks away satisfied.
However, along with customer satisfaction are the basics of marketing that if done correctly can define your position, escalate your brand awareness, and create preference amongst the customer segments you serve. There are lessons to be learned from some of the most well loved brands – use them!
Define your Brand
Great marketing starts with great research and a clear understanding of your customer. Uncover the meaning of your services in the mind of the customer and define your brand position. What do your services do for the customer? A brand is the sum of experiences. What do your customers experience?
Apple is consistent with the user experience whether it be product offerings, in-store, or on-line. Apple customers want innovation and Apple continues to be at the forefront of innovation and in demand by legions of fanatical customers.
Create and Maintain Your Value Proposition
What are you offering that your customers can’t get anywhere else? No matter what industry you’re in, your customer has choices. Competition is everywhere and in order to win in the market place you have to do something differently? What do you have that no one else has?
In the service sector your value is in the people who provide the service. Perhaps it’s a unique skill set, superior education, superior process, or differentiated pricing structure. Create a value proposition as to why customers should choose you. Don’t be the same as … be different than.
Through their secret formula, Coca-Cola offers refreshment. Customers ask for the refreshment by name because they know they can rely on the taste of Coca-Cola.
Be Where Your Customers Are
Know your customer. What are their media habits? What are their touch points? How do you get their attention in a crowded marketplace? If you are going to be at the top of mind in their consideration set you have to know exactly how to reach them. At 9:00 in the evening, are they watching Game of Thrones or are they scrolling through Facebook on their mobile phone?
Nike wants the sports enthusiast, so they show up to the sporting events. They are the sports apparel for many a top athlete. They know where to find their customers.
Showcase Your Expertise
Whatever it is that makes you different – flaunt it. The success of a service organization is based on how well the service is provided. If you are a law firm and you have a winning trial record, let people know. Create the information that showcases why you are the best at what you do. Find the thing you do better than anyone else and showcase it to your customers.
Louis Vuitton is expert at luxury. If you want one of the world’s best made handbags Louis Vuitton has been making them for over 100 years – their craftsmanship is legendary.
Set The Experience
What is the ideal experience for your customers? Walk in their shoes as they encounter your service. Understand the experience continuum. Know what you do well and what is lacking. Figure out what is most crucial and important to your customers. Make the experience exceptional and continually strive to improve it.
Microsoft, Google, Apple, BMW, they all have continuous improvement and new models. If you aren’t making the experience better someone else will.
Whatever your service – build your brand, guard it – make it stand for something extraordinary.
Why Marketing and Sales need to be BFF's
Too often when we meet with clients for the first time and get to know more about their organization, it is rarely discovered that the marketing and sales functions are on the same page with the company's goals. Sure, everyone likes to say that Kathy in marketing and Michael in sales talk all the time and work together well, as if they know it's the right thing to say but do they truly understand how important this relationship is to the revenue equation ?
Traditionally, sales within an organization is viewed mostly as "transactionally" based and motivated towards "making their number." Marketing on the other hand has been responsible for branding, advertising, and creative collateral and is often characterized as an "expense." While the two functions are both rooted in revenue growth, all too often they operate in separate silos. Companies that have not become more in tune with today's customer journey will be at a distinct disadvantage versus their more progressive competitors that have realigned their sales and marketing functions to become more congruous.
Ever since the explosion of information, made available by the internet to anyone with a computer or smartphone, today's consumers are much more discerning towards what, when and how they buy. In fact, much of the buying cycle has been completed before a customer makes any contact with a sales person, if at all. Buyers are no longer at the mercy of a salesperson (good or bad) to learn about products or prices. This information is plentiful and readily available thanks to the internet and search engines. NOW more than ever before, sales and marketing need to work together to be competitive and achieve growth objectives.
For today's consumer, marketing has much more of a direct impact on sales. Companies that invest in digital marketing (internet based) are focused in lead generation, credibility, reach, strategy and engagement geared towards converting a prospect into a paying customer. Isn't that pure sales? Furthermore, shouldn't sales leadership and personnel want and need to know how many people are visiting the website, responding to social media content, emailing for "more info" about products? Absolutely! Similarly, wouldn't marketing managers want feedback from their sales reps on what their customers like most about their products, who they are and how they found out about what is being sold? The answer is yes, of course! Anything short of this ideal will limit a companies ability to maximize the benefits afforded to them from aligning their marketing and sales.
If your company hasn't taken time to invest in how to align their sales and marketing efforts, do so now and watch your business soar!
Why do I need Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
If you've every had a website or dealt with anyone that knows anything about marketing, you have undoubtedly heard the term "SEO". It's likely in fact that you've had your fill of "experts" wanting to help you with it, audit your site, tell you why your results are lacking and a myriad of other tag lines attached to these three letters. Well, so what's the big deal about it and why is it important to me?
Marketing 101: What Every Business Needs to Know
Whether you are a start-up or a 100-year-old company, there are some basic principles of marketing that every business needs to know. Marketing tactics may change but the principles are tried and true.
Many companies are doing an amazing job and others are trying really hard. Marketing isn’t rocket science but it is part art and part science. It does require a certain amount of business savvy and a whole lot of knowledge about the marketplace. Get the foundation right and you are doing better than most.
Marketing is not sales and it is definitely not advertising. Both of these promotional elements are critical to marketing but the sooner you realize they are not marketing the more quickly you will be able to identify and incorporate functional “marketing” strategies. Many promotional elements happen sooner than they should. If you haven’t laid the groundwork, chances are good your promotional elements are costing you far too much in both $’s invested and lost opportunities. Promotion – advertising, sales, direct marketing, public relations, social media – are all intended to educate and engage your customers, not “misinform or misguide” them! Make sure you’re getting the right information to the right people in the right way that will resonate with them.
Know your customers. Good marketing starts with a very clear understanding of your customer. Knowing your customer is the essence of providing good products, great service, ideal delivery, spot-on pricing, and a message that will get a response. One of the best ways of gaining this invaluable information is through market research. Too often companies get off track by incorporating “their own opinions” on their prospective customer wants and needs. A measured, unbiased and relevant research sampling from your targeted prospects is an absolute essential but often overlooked step. Having no information about your customers but trying to connect with them is like trying to date someone you’ve never seen, never talked with and don’t even know their name. All your efforts will fall flat.
I’m working with a business in a new development. The person they hired to do the marketing lives several hours away and has little or no relevant research data, which is proving to be a major barrier to the development of effective marketing. Without customers there is no product and therefore nothing to market. Know your customers and you have the keys to creating an effective and efficient marketing strategy that will produce results.
Develop a Compelling Brand. Just the other day I had a conversation with a gentleman claiming to be a branding expert. As he was telling me that branding is marketing and that branding drives marketing, I began to fear for the customers he had already fooled with his “expertise”. Branding is a component of marketing and all good branding should come as a result of carefully developed marketing. Your brand is the sum of experiences a customer encounters when doing business with you. The brand is developed through great marketing strategy. How does your marketing strategy help to set and define your brand? How does your brand deliver in the market and against your competition?
Be Easy for Your Customers. I think everybody has heard it said in real estate…location, location, location. Well, it also applies to marketing. How does your delivery of the product help your customers to buy from you? Are you easy to access? This goes for everything. In a world that is 24/7 how do you serve your customers? Are you where they want you to be? You may need multiple options for your market segments. As an example, Colleges and Universities are approaching this ideal with both online and on-campus options for the populations they serve. This represents a real change in traditional thinking – especially for an industry very deep in culture. What do your customers want?
Know Your Costs and Your Price Threshold. One of my first marketing jobs was working for a lady looking to make it big in the toy industry. Unfortunately she didn’t understand this marketing basic about cost and price. Her costs were high but her customer price threshold was low – she was operating in the toy industry, not too many parents want to spend a lot on a toy that will be discarded after a couple of weeks. Sometimes you may have a good idea but if it can’t be implemented it may forever be just a good idea. The implementation will come when there is a big enough market that demands your product and is willing to pay the price that will actually provide you with enough profit to be viable. Understand the market when setting your price.
Obviously these basics can run deep, but understanding and knowing of their existence will help you avoid high costs with low results. Operating your business with these “basics of marketing” will save you money, time and avoided heartache down the road.
5 Reasons Why Your Medical Practice Needs A Digital Marketing Strategy Now
Ideas are great, but where is the strategy?
In a phone conversation with a potential new client we discussed strategy alignment with implementation. I mentioned how important it is to have marketing strategies that align with objectives and goals as well as the market research. The client said, “We don’t need strategy, we just need ideas.” I knew then that this was not a potential new client, this was a potential new disaster.
Ideas are great, don’t get me wrong, but what most businesses need are ideas that work. I’ve rarely seen companies that lack for ideas but they do have a significant lack of focused strategy. Generating ideas and developing innovation is fun, but does it generate business success? Chasing new ideas can create a cycle that ultimately ruins a perfectly good idea. Companies that chase after every new and innovative idea quickly run through resources and rarely end up with any measured success.
A 2017 Innovation Benchmark Report published by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), points to a need of most growth companies to focus on sales growth as a measure of innovation success. While many companies may be more interested in generating new products and focusing on new ideas, those metrics don’t necessarily align with strategy.
Don’t stifle innovation, rather balance it with good strategy. So, how do you sift through the ideas and get to the strategy that aligns with objectives that foster business growth? Simple: Start at the beginning and ask the careful questions. Where are we? Where do we want to be? How will we get there?
In a 2015 Entrepreneur article 7 Key Steps to a Growth Strategy That Works Immediately, Rob Biederman reminds us of what it takes to get results – a carefully crafted strategy that has ideas that work towards company objectives. The key drivers of good marketing are also what works to create a profitable business. Every business must evolve and change but the evolution requires research, consideration, and planning. Chance is a big gamble in business. Make a plan and work the plan. Turn your ideas into working strategy.
How Much Marketing do YOU Really Need?
So, you’re approaching the season of most businesses financial calendar’s calling for the reflection, review and planning for your year-end budgeting. If you’re like many companies, this means pouring over financials, projections, estimates, forecasts, facts, and figures to basically determine where your revenue came from, what your expenses where and how those numbers might need to look for the next financial term in order to meet your company’s goals and objectives. If your company is large enough, you may have a CFO or accountant that can have all this information available for review. If you have a smaller business, that person may in fact be you. Whatever the case, businesses periodically need to evaluate, measure, and plan for their financial “playbook.”
Without argument, revenue is “KING” within most “for profit” companies, but how those dollars are actually acquired and attributed will vary from company to company. A presumption within this article assumes your company understands the importance of a sound strategic marketing plan. With that said, I’ll provide an overview to consider on how YOUR company might approach investing in their marketing activities. While there are many views, “black-box” theories, and opinions determining how capital should be earmarked toward “marketing”, I will furnish a reasonable, quantifiable, and streamlined interpretation of how you could arrive at what your bottom line investment should be.
Past results – Future Goals – Market Research – Marketing Strategy
Objective and Task Budget Method
Before any true marketing activities can produce results, it would be very wise to establish some realistic goals and objectives and invest in quality marketing research. Good market research should precede any changes or additions to your existing efforts. This is where many companies short themselves and get off to the wrong start by “thinking” they know all there is to know about their customers; who they are, what they want, where and when they like to buy…..the customer journey.
Another common error – implementing a promotional activity (social media, digital advertising, video messaging, etc.) as the key to their growth strategy. To be clear, these items are extremely valuable tools to help grow a business, but it’s often misdirected as a one-size-fits-all approach. Invariably, most new clients start the marketing discussions with “we’d like to grow our business and customer base” or something similar. With the goal of “growing my business” as a starting point, most companies guess as to what messages and channels will be most effective in reaching this desired result.
My first question- “tell me what you know about your current customers and target markets.” Few have sufficient knowledge to really move forward to the next steps of the process. Good research will take into account what the challenges and objectives are and the types of research data and information needed.
Let’s assume you have taken the time to gather the requisite marketing research data. It is now time to craft what your marketing strategy needs to accomplish (from goals and objectives) based on the findings of your research data. This is where an experienced marketer can make it rain. The combination of market data and your goals should provide some insights towards which types of marketing assets, activities, and programs to consider. The takeaways from any such strategy should be actionable and measureable. While there are many different scenarios when considering goals, challenges and objectives, the following methodology will work well as an overview when establishing your marketing budget.
The first critical piece of information, what is the value of a new customer, i.e., how much revenue does a new customer bring to the bottom line? Equally important, is to determine customer Lifetime Value (LTV). These are extremely important metrics when determining your investment in marketing strategies for revenue goals and customer growth. For example, your average customer spends $500 buying your product or service. Assuming you have a budgeted revenue goal of $100,000, you would need to acquire 2,000 new customers, which will need to be generated from your marketing strategy. In this example, your marketing plan (and marketer) should have lead generation and retention strategies built-in, which will support the targeted growth objective. That’s the science part of it. If your company’s product or service is more geared toward reselling, upselling or cross-selling opportunities, then a more robust retention strategy will be needed.
A second critical piece of information is an understanding of how best to reach your market through the appropriate media channels and the necessary frequency required to meet your growth targets. This will require a significant amount of data and an experienced marketing strategist to set the optimal media with the appropriate reach and frequency. With the thousands of media choices available, getting the right mix of outlets is critical to effectively reaching your market with the right message. Once this information is assimilated, you should arrive at what amount of investment will be needed to reach your goals (based on your researched balance of marketing initiatives). Assuming you have gained some meaningful insights acquired from marketing research, it is determined your demographic will engage best from certain social media channels and a new promotional message and email/retargeting campaign. From here, you should be able to estimate the amount of investment needed to achieve your goal of 2,000 new customers. Of course, this number becomes more qualified if you know your conversion rates. The objective and task method will provide guidance to what the right amount of marketing (task) should be for a given situation (objective), while easily determining your ROI.
Knowing your objectives and identifying the tasks needed to reach them will help you set a budget that will move your company toward optimal growth. Setting a well-planned marketing budget is critical to a successful marketing strategy as there are many variables to consider and important information to gather. Strategize for success!
Authored by Derek Duhame, CMO/COO – Impact Strategic Marketing Insights
*Look for the next article in this series which will cover some additional ways to sensibly budget and plan for your marketing strategy.
For more information on marketing strategy or budgeting, contact Impact – www.impactmarketinginsights.com. Or call for a consultation, (770) 375-7594.
CMO vs Outsourced – Take a Look and Decide
Your company is growing. The great idea you developed has begun to flourish and with that comes the marketing, which creates the growth. As a CEO you are pulled in every direction – Financing, Operations, Accounting, and Human Resources. Everyday you get calls for sponsorship or opportunities for ad space, social media posts are either forgotten or robbing you of time spent elsewhere and as you know everyone is a social media expert. If you don’t pay attention to the marketing you won’t recognize the potential of your idea. If you do pay attention to marketing everything else will crumble. Should you hire a CMO or should you outsource your marketing functions?
Knowing when you need a dedicated employee and when you can rely on outside help is a critical juncture for many companies. Here are some things you should consider:
Return on Investment
As an entrepreneur you have perhaps unwittingly been doing all of the marketing functions – customer research, product development, distribution strategy, pricing, and promotion. Some of the functions have probably received more attention than others. Nonetheless, it is important to give them all equal significance. For most entrepreneurs you find there are not enough hours in the day and therefore some of the critical marketing functions are getting glossed over, not done at all, or not done correctly because you aren’t sure.
It’s important to take a look at each of the marketing elements and have a plan for how they are being addressed. Understand what you are good at and what you have time for. You can’t be an expert at everything and when it comes to marketing the landscape changes almost daily. Another pitfall of the “do-it-yourself” approach is the susceptibility to biased-thinking contaminating the strategy. This can lead you down the wrong path faster than anything else and is a critical variable to consider. The encompassing question is…do you have enough work for a full-time person – salary and budgeted hours? What is your ROI on a full-time employee vs. hiring a consultant?
If the marketing function can pay for itself through company growth as a result of the work, then a CMO makes sense. However, many smaller companies might find that the CMO salary is robbing them of valuable marketing activities that would produce more growth for the company. In this case it makes sense to outsource the CMO function. Get the most bang for your dollars and as the marketing activities bring in more business re-evaluate the CMO position in another few years.
Skill Set
Perhaps the bigger question is…can you find someone with the right skill set? Often a CMO comes with expertise in one area over another, but you need it all. Your social media is being ignored. You have no one in charge of the CRM and key customers are falling through the cracks. Customer service is non-existent. You need a new distribution strategy but you have no idea where to start.
The overwhelming amount of work and diversified functionality of a great strategic marketing plan means you will never have “enough” staff to do all the work. What happens when you hire that perfect person? They end up having strengths in one area and huge deficits in others.
Just because your new person is the CRM expert does not automatically qualify them to develop your content calendar and start posting to social media channels. What it does mean is that you need diversified capabilities. You need outside expertise and an agency with a breadth of knowledge to establish your foothold in marketing. The CMO function may need to wait until you have an established marketing strategy that is working for you. Then find a person who is qualified to do the activities that are producing the best results for your company.
Management
It’s easy to forget that even a CMO needs management and oversight and so does an agency. If you outsource to an agency, do you have a company point-person responsible for gathering necessary information and making decisions? While managing the outsourcing processes, having the fewest number of “company” people directly involved will improve the overall work process, communications and end results.
Perhaps your most important first step is a clear picture of your corporate structure and organizational chart. Where would a CMO fit? Who would they report to? Conversely, if you outsource to an agency, how will your company work with the agency?
Companies can get bogged down having too many people involved and not being able to make decisions. In this instance, the worst decision is making no decision at all.
Competitive Landscape
Understanding your competition is crucial to effective marketing. What position do you want to occupy in the mind of the customer? What position do you occupy in the market? Are you the leader, follower, or niche player? Utilizing a qualified CMO or agency can be extremely helpful in determining your “un-biased” competitive landscape. After all, your level of competition and your market position will most likely dictate how aggressive you are with your marketing.
Knowing the landscape for your industry will help you determine the type of marketing program you need. With your marketing goals in mind you will be able to develop a plan that will either include a full-time CMO with a specific skill-set or an agency that has strengths in the tasks you’re needing to accomplish.
Whether you are already committed to a full-time CMO or you are considering an agency as your go-to marketing department, knowing your strengths and goals is a crucial first step. It may even be ideal to outsource initially as you work through your first years of growth. If you decide on an agency, developing a very specific RFP is a necessary step to finding the right fit for your company. To get help with hiring the right CMO or to develop an RFP for an agency – contact Impact at www.impactmarketinginsights.com or call 423-991-3244.
Is the rush to social media killing your brand?
I’ve seen far too many poorly created social media posts and I’ve heard far too many companies scared about social media. Yes, social media is an important platform. Yes, social media can be helpful to your business. However, it is important to lay the groundwork and consider your audiences before you start posting.
I sat in a meeting just this week with a company wanting desperately to start a social media campaign. They were correct in the belief that they needed social media since their target market is almost exclusively a millennial generation. Their incorrect thinking was that they were ready for a social media campaign.
When we started talking about their product and their brand is was apparent that they were miles away from being ready to post anything on any social media platform. This company didn’t have a clear position in the market. They did not have a defined brand and thus no brand story. And, it seemed that the processes for delivery of their product were in need of some fine-tuning.
There is no better way to kill a product than to drive customers to the product before it is ready. While social media can be an incredible platform to get your message across to your audience it is also an incredible platform for your customers to tell the world your product is bad.
So before you start posting, consider these basics:
Define Your Brand
Make sure you have a great brand that fully represents your product and distinguishes you in the market. This may require some work to understand how your brand is currently viewed vs. how you want your brand to be viewed. If there are gaps – you need to work to fill them. Because there are a lot of components to your brand you may need to conduct a through assessment and then begin the hard work of making some changes to your product, systems, and people.
Know Your Customer
Understanding your customer is key to effective social media. Your goal is not just to post a lot, you want to post with engagement. It is very difficult to engage with an audience you don’t understand. So, to be engaging it is critical to know your target demographic and know what moves them. Find their points of interaction and how they engage with other brands. Reach them with the social media that matters to them and define your brand in ways that engage them to comment, tweet, post, and share. Through social media your target audience can carry your brand story.
Have a Plan
Remember, it’s not about how often you post but rather what you post. Just like any other media platform social media is crowded. To cut through the noise and clutter you must create meaningful content on a consistent basis. Create a plan that conveys your brand and creates pathways for your customers to engage. Part of your plan should include crafting the right messages for the specific social media site, understanding the habits of your target market so you know when to post and how often to post. Spend time developing careful messaging that reflects, personifies, and promotes your brand.
Social media shouldn’t scare you but it should move you get busy strategizing for your brand. It’s time to get social!
Make It Rain! Get the Most From Your Marketing
Is your marketing all about advertising and sales? Successful marketing needs a more comprehensive plan founded on good insights.
When I speak on marketing I always ask my audience the most basic question, “What is Marketing?” The answers are always the same – Sales or Advertising. And unfortunately for many people that is their marketing. But they probably aren’t getting the results they want and need by only looking at one tiny aspect of what should be a much bigger program.
To keep things simple, lets look at marketing as a big umbrella. Under the umbrella are your customers, products, distribution, pricing, and the promotions. The handle that holds up the umbrella is the research needed to determine the best mix of all the marketing variables
Understanding your customers through solid market research will take the guesswork out of determining the marketing variables. When you know and understand your customer you can achieve much more targeted and effective marketing through strategies that work. It’s easy to come up with great ideas but great ideas with a positive return on investment don’t just happen.
I always love the question, “What do you think I should do?” This is usually prefaced with a very cursory overview of a marketing conundrum. This is similar to asking your accountant how much tax you owe without giving them your financials. Or asking your physician to give a diagnosis without running any tests.
With marketing we have a lot of strategies and tactics, but wouldn’t you rather use the right strategies and tactics to achieve your marketing goals? This is only done through good research, insightful planning, and measured results.
Marketing is part art and part science. Do it correctly and make it rain without getting all wet!
Does your content engage your customers?
While the methods of promoting products are changing, the principles of marketing remain unchanged. Customers still want to know how the brand provides a benefit in their lives. Define the brand benefit for the customer and you can begin to create content that matters to them.
The world’s most valuable brands provide a clear benefit to the consumer:
- Apple –Technology to make life easy
- BMW – The ultimate driving machine
- Disney – Family entertainment
- Coca-Cola – Beverages that make you smile
Apple can tell the story of a consumer doing their banking on an Apple phone and suddenly consumers want that phone so they can get the same easy benefit. Apple content may encourage the consumer to download a free app or share the story of how an Apple technology enhances lives.
BMW fans and customers can leave stories about their BMW experience on the BMW Twitter feed. Shared experiences make the BMW customer part of a connected community that helps to increase loyalty.
Disney creates one-to-one content and provides opportunities to engage with the brand through touch points that allow the customer to build an ultimate vacation experience that is uniquely theirs.
One of the many ways Coca-Cola engages with their 90+ million Facebook fans is through encouragement to share a smile. The Coca-Cola bottle cap Valentine campaign was a way to send a Coca-Cola Valentine to a Facebook friend and in the process, share a smile.
The goal with your content is to tell the brand benefit story in a creative and compelling way and by doing so move the customer to either inquire, share socially, or go purchase – and in some cases, all three.
Does your content marketing strategy create consumer engagement?
