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Category: marketing

  • Marketing: How to step outside the ‘bubble’

    Marketing: How to step outside the ‘bubble’

    Countless times in marketing strategy meetings, I have heard sentences beginning with and/or containing “I” or “my.”

    “I wouldn’t respond to/click on that.”

    “My friends and I thought the idea was great.”

    “That’s how I would do it/buy/respond.”

    Not wanting to invalidate a personal POV, especially from a boss or executive, many stay silent. And then carry out marketing plans according to the leader’s —sometimes personal— experience and wishes. [The ‘marketing’ department is then basically relegated to the role of a Kinko’s store – taking orders and creating collateral].

    You can see the problem here.

    We’re not marketing and selling to our (I’ll borrow Kissmetrics’ term here) “HiPPOs” (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion), we are attempting to message our customers. They are sometimes two very different things.

    [Or Avinash Kaushik coined the term. See also: Digital Marketing Analytics: Avinash Kaushik]

    Jamie Oliver’s story about trying to change eating behavior outside his cultural norm is a perfect example. It took some time to get to know the customer. And, of course, so should you.

    SO the next time you hear an “I” or “My” in a marketing meeting, try to see if you can’t change the subject to the customer, based on objective research.

    Referenced article is Eat Your Peas: A Recipe for Culture Change via Strategy+Business

    Photo: First Time Bubble by Serge Melki

  • Content may be king (but maybe not)

    Content may be king (but maybe not)

    You create great content. Incredible content. You spent hours putting together your website page, social platforms, compelling photos, well written articles. In short, you’re a content genius.

    But where’s the traffic?

    Turns out content isn’t king, or at least it isn’t the whole picture. (There is more by Blog Tyrant on this and I’ll share a link to the article in a second.)

    I think most of you know exactly what I mean.

    There’s a ton of noise out there. Unless you get a kick-start, such as a spend (that perhaps you can’t afford), or a chance mention on a popular website, it’s a whole different art to get folks to visit your creations.

    [See also Outstanding Free Marketing Tools…]

    So we post and post and look at our Google Analytics and still no traffic.

    Look, I don’t resort to click bait, I don’t believe in headlines that promise one thing then lead you into an unexpected page for the sake of traffic.

    However, to get more folks interested in what you are promoting it needs to be direct and catchy without too much detail. If you’re successful in getting their attention (or, stopping the scroll, as I put it) than you just might have a little more success in directing folks to your valuable content.

    We’ll go into more detail on that in another post — your landing page is also another discussion.

    Here is the link to the article I mentioned earlier, The Biggest Myth in Blogging: Why Content is Not King

  • Use big data to create value, not just targeting

    How Can We Best Use Big Data

    Another great article on big data from the folks (Specifically Niraj Dawar) at HBR. The gist? Targeting provides a short term advantage, creating value is long term. Read more.

    Big data

    Big data holds out big promises for marketing. Notably, it pledges to answer two of the most vexing questions that have stymied marketers since they started selling: 1) who buys what when and at what price? and 2) can we link what consumers hear, read, and view to what they buy and consume?

    Answering these makes marketing more efficient by improving targeting and by identifying and eliminating the famed half of the marketing budget that is wasted. To address these questions, marketers have trained their big-data telescopes at a single point: predicting each customer’s next transaction. In pursuit of this prize marketers strive to paint an ever more detailed portrait of each consumer, memorizing her media preferences, scrutinizing her shopping habits, and cataloging her interests, aspirations and desires. The result is a detailed, high-resolution close-up of each customer that reveals her next move.

    But in the rush to uncover and target the next transaction, many industries are quickly coming up against a disquieting reality. Winning the next transaction eventually yields only short term tactical advantage. It overlooks one big and inevitable outcome. When every competitor becomes equally good at predicting each customer’s next purchase, marketers will inevitably compete away their profits from that marginal transaction. This unwinnable short-term arms race ultimately leads to an equalization of competitors in the medium to long term. There is no sustainable competitive advantage in chasing the next buy.

    Read the rest HERE

    Niraj Dawar is a professor of marketing at the Ivey Business School, Canada. He is the author of TILT: Shifting your Strategy from Products to Customers (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013).

  • Core metrics for measuring marketing’s financial performance

    Core metrics for measuring marketing’s financial performance

    On Marketing Metrics

    This is an excellent white paper on marketing metrics. It applies to any industry (paper’s focus is on healthcare). Developed by the  Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development, it’s worth your time. Below is the intro and link.

    [See also Analytics: Let’s Defer to Avinash Kaushik]

    HAVE YOU BEEN IN THIS MEETING? IT’S BUDGET TIME. Marketing says it is contributing financially to the organization. Finance asks, “How?” After 30 minutes of back and forth, the meeting ends in less than a draw. No one wins. But even with over thirty years of contributions, the marketing profession has yet to develop standard guidelines for measuring its financial performance. In this time of accelerated accountability, it is a fact that the absence of measurable standards is no longer acceptable—for any discipline. Fortunately, efforts are underway to establish both basic standards and advanced metrics for healthcare marketers. This white paper focuses on efforts to date to achieve both.

  • 8 Fascinating Must-Read Books for Entrepreneurs, Marketing and Business

    With some extra drive time, I caught up on some book reading (or listening in this case). Here are the best so far.

    The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

    Big-short-inside-the-doomsday-machineSee the movie and read the book or vice versa. Either way, you’re in for a terrific ride. In a riveting fashion, Michael Lewis describes and makes sense out of the 2008 financial collapse that destroyed almost everything in its path. The real key to this story’s success is Lewis’ attention to the eccentric cast of characters. Some saw it coming from as far as a decade away.

    Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

    Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic FutureIt really doesn’t matter what you think of Elon Musk, his story and work are amazing. Musk is one of the few extremely non-risk-averse entrepreneurs out there. He also happens to be talented, smart and not afraid to question, defy and oftentimes battle the status quo. (A LOT like Richard Branson, up next.) The biography by Ashlee Vance is honest, compelling and pulls no punches with Musk’s frequently challenging personality.  Take the time to read and get inspired by one of the biggest thinkers alive.

    The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership

    The Virgin WaySpeaking of non-risk-averse types, let’s talk about Richard Branson. His business and lifestyle motto “Screw it, let’s do it” is tempered by his thoughts on successes and failures in his career. The history alone of how Branson developed into one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time –after an unauspicious start as a sixteen-year-old dropout with dyslexia– makes one sit up and listen.

    But it’s his wise and experienced approach on how he chooses to lead with an emphasis on people/relationships and less on formality that makes the book so valuable. Another book by Branson, Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way gets a favorable mention here. Especially or the additional and very entertaining details on how Branson went from magazine publisher, to mail order record business to a recording studio/company to an airlines. And his (ad)ventures in just about every product imaginable. Virgin Cola anyone?

    Outliers: The Story of Success

    OutliersMalcolm Gladwell has critics, but I appreciate his focus and interest in areas I find fascinating. I have been a fan of his since The Tipping Point and Blink. Both books made me reexamine a few ideas I had about the world. And reshaped a lot of the thinking I bring into my daily work. Outliers explores how people become extraordinary (or at least successful in their chosen fields). It isn’t always how you might think.

    The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-But Some Don’t

    signal and noiseThe founder and editor of FiveThirtyEight.com, Nate Silver gained national celebrity status after his almost exact prediction of the 2008 and 2012 elections. This book examines the difficulty in discerning what is relevant in collected statistics. And what may be simply unnecessary and sometimes misleading information. Anyone interested in analytics, statistics, prediction, numbers, science, economics and “seeking truth from data” will enjoy.

    Thinking Fast and Slow

    thinkingfastslowIntriguing book by Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. It examines the way our brain processes information. As I listened to this, I wished I was able to do some of the exercises the book asks you to do to help discern its examples. Kahneman presents a very thoughtful and revealing view on how perspectives are easily skewed.

    Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help Not Hype

    youtility

    A recent study by Nielsen shows 63% of shoppers research products online.* Youtility mentions as far back as 2011, shoppers accessed 10.4 pieces of information before making a purchase. This provides one of the many foundations upon which Jay Baer [Convince and Convert] lays his case that objective, helpful information is appreciated more than ever before by the consumer. By examining entrepreneurs and businesses providing useful content, Baer points out the payoffs for taking the time to create collateral that may -at first- seem like a lot of effort when compared to traditional marketing tactics. I used this book in teaching Entrepreneurial Marketing. Many students enjoyed it, finding it a refreshing counterpoint to traditional marketing and business tactics. Strongly recommended.

    * Nielsen.com

    The 48 Laws of Power

    48 laws of powerI’m almost embarrassed to admit I read this one as its Machiavellian approach makes you feel as though you’re preparing for a role on Game of Thrones. It basically serves as a primer on how to manipulate your way into getting what you want. If you work in an environment of snakes (and this book assures you everyone -including yourself- is a snake) then this is the book to read. However, there is some good advice in its pages. And quite a few in business have read it, along with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. You might as well arm yourself so you can see ’em coming.

    That’s all for now. I’ll update as I come across new books worthy of note. Please leave any suggestions for books that you have particularly enjoyed in the comments below!

    ~Paul