Face Today"s Challenging Economy Using Creative Thinking and New Approaches
2008 promises to be a challenging year.
With the economy in a recession, marketing dollars are certain to be tight.
But don't hide behind a full calendar of meetings, planning sessions, and budget reviews.
Use this economically-challenged environment to stimulate creative thinking and new approaches to your marketing efforts.
Replace reach with relevancy In the past, businesses spent their advertising budgets trying to buy reach.
"Hit them over and over"...
that was the name of the game.
The rules have changed now.
Americans have gotten really good at tuning out unwanted messages and our kids are even better; they've been multi-media tasking since they were practically in diapers.
It's pretty common to watch my daughter working on homework on the computer, a YouTube video waiting in another window, the iPod in her ears, her right hand texting a girlfriend and her left hand instant messaging on AOL.
Ring, ring..
..
and there goes the phone.
Now more than ever, your message has to be right on target with what your prospect is interested in seeing, hearing, or reading about.
You have to spend considerable time, learning about the market and crafting a message that will break through their wall of distraction.
How do you do it? See #4 below.
Get outside the box Traditional media still holds a place in my heart.
But it's not the only game in town anymore.
Yes, you'll probably do a radio spot to promote an upcoming event or new offer and sometimes you must use a traditional media piece to drive prospects to your web site.
But stop and think, it's much less expensive to drive them to your site when they are already on the Internet.
And what would you rather have them do? Spend a second on your direct mailer or a few, solid minutes reading your web pages? Pay per click, search engine results and on-line ads are relatively inexpensive compared to larger mailers and print ads.
With over 1 billion people on the Internet, you can bet some of your customers are regular users and if not...
just think...
today's teenagers are only five or so years away from being your future customers.
Focus on the brand experience In a tight economy, your customer is going to focus even more on the experience they have with your brand.
They'll ask, "Was the money I spent really worth it?" Now's the time for you to take a moment and reflect on whether all the aspects of your product or offerings are really top-notch.
Can your packaging be improved and made more convenient for the customer? How efficient is your call center, or the "front lines" in your CRM model? Are there processes in place to ensure that all callers can speak to a live person and get their questions answered in a timely manner? Is your website just simply an electronic brochure or does it create an outstanding user experience? Does it capture valuable data to improve your marketing efforts and future dialogue with the customer? There is nothing more important than your brand image.
Make sure you are continuously exploring new, improved ways to better the customer's experience.
It's really rather simple...
just ask.
Beyond expensive marketing research, find efficient and effective ways in everyday customer interaction to ask how you can do better.
Then, just make sure you listen.
Use your data Granted, data isn't the most exciting topic for a marketer.
But it's not fool's gold either; it's the real thing.
Your customer or contact data such as their e-mail, phone, address, past purchases, etc.
is now a coveted treasure.
Don't lock it away on the accounting department's server.
Hook it up with some state of the art data analytical tools.
Discover the characteristics that make up your most profitable customers.
How often do they buy, what type of services do they buy, how do they buy? Use your data to discover what your next big opportunity may be and link your data with other systems: CRM, ERP databases, content management, campaign management, and other data systems.
Work the entire sales and marketing funnel Too many times, I see marketing and sales departments operating as separate silos, each trying to blame the other for the lack of business.
If only the marketing department would give us better leads.
If only the sales force would follow-up on the leads we give them.
Those accusations are not useful to anyone and just end up fostering bad blood between the two groups.
Make sure your marketing and sales teams are working from one, integrated database.
Marketing should involve sales in the upfront planning of their campaigns; it's important that sales people feel like they have some skin in the game early in the process so that they feel ownership when it's time for them to manage the leads.
One action that has helped my teams in the past was to identify a sales liaison to stay involved with the campaign design, implementation, and review process.
When it's time for the campaign kick-off, exhibit a unified team from marketing and sales management.
Throw one big party so that the marketing and sales staff mingle and build tighter relationships among themselves.
Finally, campaign results should be reviewed and discussed together, determining what worked well and what should be improved upon next time.
Our marketing environment will continue to be more and more difficult as customers hold the upper-hand in how and when they receive marketing messages.
Tough economy or booming economy...
the customer is now in the driver's seat and has no plans of giving up the wheel.
To reach your customers effectively, a savvy marketer must use creativity and the technical capabilities of your staff and trusted vendors to leverage both the data you have and the relationship-building tools of the Internet.
Most importantly, you'll have to continually listen, read, and learn about what your customers are thinking.
With the economy in a recession, marketing dollars are certain to be tight.
But don't hide behind a full calendar of meetings, planning sessions, and budget reviews.
Use this economically-challenged environment to stimulate creative thinking and new approaches to your marketing efforts.
Replace reach with relevancy In the past, businesses spent their advertising budgets trying to buy reach.
"Hit them over and over"...
that was the name of the game.
The rules have changed now.
Americans have gotten really good at tuning out unwanted messages and our kids are even better; they've been multi-media tasking since they were practically in diapers.
It's pretty common to watch my daughter working on homework on the computer, a YouTube video waiting in another window, the iPod in her ears, her right hand texting a girlfriend and her left hand instant messaging on AOL.
Ring, ring..
..
and there goes the phone.
Now more than ever, your message has to be right on target with what your prospect is interested in seeing, hearing, or reading about.
You have to spend considerable time, learning about the market and crafting a message that will break through their wall of distraction.
How do you do it? See #4 below.
Get outside the box Traditional media still holds a place in my heart.
But it's not the only game in town anymore.
Yes, you'll probably do a radio spot to promote an upcoming event or new offer and sometimes you must use a traditional media piece to drive prospects to your web site.
But stop and think, it's much less expensive to drive them to your site when they are already on the Internet.
And what would you rather have them do? Spend a second on your direct mailer or a few, solid minutes reading your web pages? Pay per click, search engine results and on-line ads are relatively inexpensive compared to larger mailers and print ads.
With over 1 billion people on the Internet, you can bet some of your customers are regular users and if not...
just think...
today's teenagers are only five or so years away from being your future customers.
Focus on the brand experience In a tight economy, your customer is going to focus even more on the experience they have with your brand.
They'll ask, "Was the money I spent really worth it?" Now's the time for you to take a moment and reflect on whether all the aspects of your product or offerings are really top-notch.
Can your packaging be improved and made more convenient for the customer? How efficient is your call center, or the "front lines" in your CRM model? Are there processes in place to ensure that all callers can speak to a live person and get their questions answered in a timely manner? Is your website just simply an electronic brochure or does it create an outstanding user experience? Does it capture valuable data to improve your marketing efforts and future dialogue with the customer? There is nothing more important than your brand image.
Make sure you are continuously exploring new, improved ways to better the customer's experience.
It's really rather simple...
just ask.
Beyond expensive marketing research, find efficient and effective ways in everyday customer interaction to ask how you can do better.
Then, just make sure you listen.
Use your data Granted, data isn't the most exciting topic for a marketer.
But it's not fool's gold either; it's the real thing.
Your customer or contact data such as their e-mail, phone, address, past purchases, etc.
is now a coveted treasure.
Don't lock it away on the accounting department's server.
Hook it up with some state of the art data analytical tools.
Discover the characteristics that make up your most profitable customers.
How often do they buy, what type of services do they buy, how do they buy? Use your data to discover what your next big opportunity may be and link your data with other systems: CRM, ERP databases, content management, campaign management, and other data systems.
Work the entire sales and marketing funnel Too many times, I see marketing and sales departments operating as separate silos, each trying to blame the other for the lack of business.
If only the marketing department would give us better leads.
If only the sales force would follow-up on the leads we give them.
Those accusations are not useful to anyone and just end up fostering bad blood between the two groups.
Make sure your marketing and sales teams are working from one, integrated database.
Marketing should involve sales in the upfront planning of their campaigns; it's important that sales people feel like they have some skin in the game early in the process so that they feel ownership when it's time for them to manage the leads.
One action that has helped my teams in the past was to identify a sales liaison to stay involved with the campaign design, implementation, and review process.
When it's time for the campaign kick-off, exhibit a unified team from marketing and sales management.
Throw one big party so that the marketing and sales staff mingle and build tighter relationships among themselves.
Finally, campaign results should be reviewed and discussed together, determining what worked well and what should be improved upon next time.
Our marketing environment will continue to be more and more difficult as customers hold the upper-hand in how and when they receive marketing messages.
Tough economy or booming economy...
the customer is now in the driver's seat and has no plans of giving up the wheel.
To reach your customers effectively, a savvy marketer must use creativity and the technical capabilities of your staff and trusted vendors to leverage both the data you have and the relationship-building tools of the Internet.
Most importantly, you'll have to continually listen, read, and learn about what your customers are thinking.
