THINKing

Monologue Marketing

Monologue marketers - thankfully - are dying off, but there still are too many. What’s a monologue marketer? Here’s an analogy:

Someone comes up to you at a business event and says, “Hi, I’m Bob.”

You say, “Hi, Bob. I’m Harry. I’m 57 years old, married - have been for 28 years. I have two children, three grandsons, love hiking, canoeing, fishing, anything outdoors, really. I love music. I am a huge blues fans - Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy, Tommy Castro, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, BB Chun King and the Buddaheads.   I’m into wine. Reds are my favorites…Bob, where are you going?”

Do you get the picture? This is the  way too many organizations approach their marketing. Actually, this is a sales mentality, not a marketing mentality. This approach - dear friend - is not conducive to marketing or to sales.

Let me use an example of one of my clients to show how it should be done.

“Hi, I’m Bob. ”

“Hi, Bob. I’m Camstar. Are you in manufacturing, too?”

“Yes, I am. I work for a large manufacturer in North Carolina.”

“Really? We’re headquartered in North Carolina, too.  Does your organization use a manufacturing execution system?”

“Not right now. But we have been looking into manufacturing software.”

“Well, that is what we do. We have an enterprise platform that includes modules for manufacturing, quality, intelligence and interoperabilty. Are you involved in any of those areas, Bob?”

“No. I’m actually in sales.”

“Well, Bob it was nice talking with you. Let me know if there is anything I can help you with. Here’s our card if someone from your IT department would like white papers on the manufacturing software.”

Friendly, professional dialogue and no selling. Camstar got out of the conversation when it was clear that Bob wasn’t in the target audience. Are you a monologue or a dialogue marketer? Have anecdotes about either? Comments are welcomed.

Listening: Marketing’s Secret Weapon

Customers know you and your business better than you think, and often better than you. In the many strategic planning projects I’ve done over nearly 30 years in the business, the customer always gives me the nugget that frames a client’s positioning.

Customers will tell you when you are doing something right or something wrong. All you have to do is listen to them. This rarely happens in businesses of any size. And guess what? Chief marketing officers at 500 major corporations know this. A study by the CMO Council suggests,

…marketers don’t know how to use customer input to improve operations, products and processes. The council, whose study, “Giving Customer Voice More Volume,” surveyed around 500 senior marketers at major corporations, found that only 33% of survey respondents said their companies claim to be good at handling customer complaints. Of the executives who responded to the survey, only 23% said their companies track or measure customer emails, and only 17% use that feedback to identify potential customer advocates.

The customer “custodian” function is one of the most critical in marketing, says Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. Neale-May adds that the CMO must, 

“own every facet of listening, learning, interacting, engaging, and optimizing the relationship with the customer, and understanding where the attrition, pain and aggravation is, and doing this in real time. It is mind-boggling to me that the level of attention to this is not what it should be, and fragmented in terms of who owns it.”

If you really want to listen to your customers, you need to track and propagate positive word of mouth, as well as gather insight from all customer engagement and integrate that insight into the marketing process. So, are you listening to your customer? Tell us about it.

New Business 2009

Are you out looking for new business? Who isn’t? I wrote a series on the topic some time back. You may want to check it out if you missed it the first time around.

New Business Primer - Part 1 - Introduction to the new business primer.

New Business Primer - Part 2 - An organization’s brand identity must be a reflection of three things: market perceptions, the organization’s acumen, as well as its aspirations. Positioning is where these three elements overlap.

New Business Primer - Part 3 - My marketing mentor, Bill Loeffler, once said the the best new business program is doing great work for current clients. He was right.

New Business Primer - Part 4 - Let’s get past this strategic stuff and to the tactics that got you in front of prospects. First on my list of ways to get in front of prospects was referrals.

New Business Primer - Part 5 - Here is the best piece of advice I’ll ever give you, although at first blush it may not seem that astounding: focus. Did Harry say “focus”? Yes, he did. Wow, that’s deep!

New Business Primer - Part 6 - Let’s talk about social networks. In order to be most effective, you must select three to four networks and focus your efforts there.

New Business Primer - Part 7 - Cold calling is a waste of time and there are better ways to spend your time.

New Business Primer - Part 8 - Network It. Now that you have your client defined and you have looked at your list to identify those folks who can help you, you need to contact them.

New Business Primer - Part 9 - PR professionals know about reputation. But so often they don’t spend any time building their own reputation and brand. Step back and take a look at yourself as if you were a client.

Wordle Up

Joe Pulizzi at Junta42 wrote recently about Wordle. Like Joe, I had forgotten about it and his reminder made me go over to see how the application would “see” THINKing.

It says it right there: positioning customers is what I do.

Go Ask Alice - Part 2

In part 1, we discussed positioning and positioning statements. Today, let’s talk about how to develop an effective positioning statement.

My approach to developing an effective positioning statement and an actionable marketing plan begins with gaining a clear understanding of your business’ acumen, what truly differentiates your organization and your market. Here’s how we go about it, and you can too:

- interviews with management and employees to learn job responsibilities, current marketing practices, as well as to surface questions for customer interviews

- a review of appropriate primary and secondary research

- a series of one-on-one customer interviews

Customer interviews allow us to probe for information such as:

- how customers perceive your “product” and other products in the category. what the customer wants from the product category he is not now receiving. what is the primary customer benefit of your product

- how your customers currently position your brand. how customers perceive your competitors

- what media habits, lifestyles do customers share. what industries do they work in, what are their titles, what associations do they belong to

- how do customers want to be communicated with

Once all the information is in, you may develop a positioning statement that clearly says who you are, defines your audiences, indicates what markets you are targeting, and states what makes you different from your competitors.

Once this is done, everyone knows where they are going and then it’s easy to find the right path.

Do you have a positioning statement? Share it with us.

Go Ask Alice

One of fiction’s finest marketing minds, The Cheshire Cat, once told Alice in Wonderland something all business owners and marketers should remember:

“If you don’t care where you are going, it doesn’t make a difference which path you take.”

For businesses bent upon success, it does matter which path you take. A positioning statement helps you chart your path to success because it lets all your audiences - internal and external - know where your organization stands in the battle for your consumers’ minds.

Positioning: What Is It?

You should not confuse a positioning statement with your market position. As Harry Beckwith states in his book Selling the Invisible, “A position is a cold-hearted, no-nonsense statement of how you are perceived in the minds of your prospects. A positioning statement, by contrast expresses how you wish to be perceived. It is the core message you want to deliver in every medium.”

Your positioning statement will be found where three items intersect:

- your business acumen/aspirations
- your market
- what truly differentiates you

Of the three, it is your market which holds the key to your positioning. That doesn’t mean that your acumen and aspirations are irrelevant. You must have a clear understanding and shared agreement on these at the management level in order to develop an effective positioning statement.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about our approach to developing an effective positioning statement.

New Business Redux

Are you out looking for new business? Who isn’t? I wrote a series a few months back on the topic. You may want to check it out.

New Business Primer - Part 1 - A Primer

New Business Primer - Part 2 - Positioning

New Business Primer - Part 3 - Do Great Work For Current Clients

New Business Primer - Part 4 - Tactics

New Business Primer - Part 5 - Focus

New Business Primer - Part 6 - More Focus

New Business Primer - Part 7 - Speak Up

New Business Primer - Part 8 - Network It

New Business Primer - Part 9 - Build Your Brand

It’s About Experiences, Not Logos

A lot of marketing experts (self-proclaimed) would have you believe that a logo and corporate identity package is all there is to a brand. I know some businesses which want to change their logo regularly in hopes that it will somehow magically improve their brand and their business. Woe are they.

Smart marketers, however, know that the brand is the sum total of what people think about your organization, and that it is expressed in every contact customers have with you.

Marketing folk often are guilty of trying to make branding look more complex than it is. We come up with all sorts of branding terms: 3D branding, branding triad, brand harmonisation. Go here to see some definitions.

Branding is not complex but it is hard. It requires you to listen to customers and understand what they want from you. Discover what customers think of your brand. If they like your brand, keep delivering the experience consistently. If they don’t like it, fix it. Consistently communicate your brand message. Constantly monitor all of the above. Repeat.

Sometimes you must make a tough decision in order to protect the brand.

Consider Starbucks. It has a simple brand statement: A great coffee experience. It influences everything the company does from its logo, store design and employee selection, and even choice of toilet paper. I’m not making this up.

The story goes that some green-eyeshade-consultant found a way to shave costs significantly by changing over to one-ply TP. Starbucks’ marketers held firm for the two-ply because they knew that something as simple as cheap toilet paper can ruin the goodwill a brand has built.

Now one-ply may not degrade your brand equity, or Wal-Mart’s for that matter. But if Starbuck’s is keeping an eye on the toilet, shouldn’t you be ensuring your most basic “touchpoints” aren’t circling the drain? Your thoughts, please.

UPDATE: Jay Ehret waded into the conversation below. Here is his recent posting on getting a logo that defines your business. Worth the read.

Communications Planning 101

Developing a communications plan requires a disciplined approach. Your first order of business is reviewing your current program for impact and efficiency. Review your program by:

- Audience (employees, shareholders, in-channel audiences, consumers)

- Vehicle (personal visits, telephone calls, letters, invoices, e-mail, website, newsletters, advertising, POP, trade show)

- Subject Matter (corporate communications messages, marketing communications messages)

- Interval (daily, weekly, monthly)

- Existing programs (loyalty programs, CRM, advertising)

- Competitors (tactics, messages)

Next, as part of the strategic planning process, you need to define your audiences, and determine key business objectives that can be enhanced/supported by communications.

With the above elements completed, you now begin to develop an integrated communications plan.

- Conduct internal, in-channel and in-market communications audit

- Find and review research on audiences that were defined during strategic planning process

- If paid media is to be a part of the program, meet with media allies - editorial and marketing - to determine what programs they can bring to bear internally, in-channel, in-market

Finally, develop a complete communications program based upon the brand’s strategy/positioning that:

- garners internal support by making employees brand emissaries

- fully involves in-channel allies by communicating both corporate and brand messages

- uses a multi-media approach to surround customers with the brand message, and to bring the brand to life

Big Boy Marketing - Part 2

Another marketing lesson from the Big Boys, that is Fortune 1000 size companies.

Ask Your Customers. Big Boys do the necessary research. Customers will provide you with invaluable data, if you let them. From defining your positioning to advice on new products, every business has customers willing to wade into the discussion.

Now the Big Boys have the budgets to do every kind of research imaginable. No matter what your budget, there are a number of inexpensive things you can do to get actionable data.

Surveys. These are easy to mount with the advent of online applications like SurveyMonkey, and plug-in polling applications for blogs and websites. Or, just do simple survey cards that can be handed out at your location and dropped into customer mailings.

Focus groups. You do not have to be a research specialist to run a focus group. You just need to understand that whatever you get from the focus group is directional, not projectable.