A strategic marketing plan usually includes:
• The vision and/or mission of the business
• An analysis of the organization
• Information about the target audience
• Strategic goals and objectives
• Action plan for communications and brand identity
• Review Mechanisms

Simply put, a strategic marketing plan is the bridge between where your business is now and where you want it to be. The plan will express the direction of your business, and identify goals, objectives and actions that will enhance operations and improve the bottom line.

The mistake that most businesses make is a reluctance to write it all down. When plans are formed in a more formal way, business begin to use the plan as a blueprint or map to guide them through the competitive landscape. Who would build a house without a blueprint, or find that buried treasure without a map? If you didn’t plan ahead, you might end up with a house with some rooms that are too small, or some rooms whose corners and walls aren’t straight. And, you’ll just keep digging holes without marking that sweet spot that ends up being a good customer.

For more about how strategic marketing will help your business, Allegra has included some ways that will get and keep your plans going in the right direction. Think of Allegra as your marketing GPS — you’ll be happier and more successful when you know right where your business stands.

Strategy is a pretty straight forward process:  You gather facts and distill information until you come up with a collection of facts that you use to determine who your audience is, how old they are, how much they make, where they live, how they spend their money, etc. From these factors you can determine where you should place your marketing and what the messaging should be.  But once all the black and white details are determined, how do you add color to the canvas and present your message in such a way that it will appeal to your customer?

Creative is also the most difficult component to any marketing campaign because, unlike strategy, which relies of facts and figures, creative is far more subjective and open to interpretation. The creative development process is very much an exercise in interpretation and abstract thinking – a diametric and opposite approach to the strategic process, yet one that is critically important to the successful implementation of the marketing plan. Creative has been the point of contentious client meetings, the source of endless hours of internal debate, the cause of hurt feelings, a reason for clients to pursue other marketing agencies, and the pendulum on which the success or failure of advertising swings.

One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from customers with regards to creative is that the results they get from the designer are typically not what they expect – either the quality is sub-par or the concept doesn’t convey the desired message or represent the company in a manner with which they are comfortable. Another is that the designers are often defensive or outright combative with regards to any criticism. All of these complaints are not only true and valid observations, but ones that can be easily avoided and result in a more positive creative development experience for the client, the agency, and ultimately the customer.

As a client, you play a critical role in the creative development process and there are several key areas to which you can contribute to ensure that the creative result you desire is the one you receive. In the grand scheme, you are just as responsible for the creative results as the designer or agency producing the project. With that in mind, here are seven steps to help you play an active and beneficial role in the creative process.

#1) Choose your designer carefully.
When you first interview a graphic designer or an advertising agency, ask to see samples of their creative. This will give you a good sense of a variety of variables, including the following:

• Style – Look at how the visual elements play out in the samples. Are they modern? Edgy? Classic? Humorous? Technical? Are the samples diverse, meaning do they cover a wide array of styles or do they rely one or two styles? It doesn’t make sense to choose a designer or agency whose creative style does not represent the image or standards you have for your business.
• Quality – Gauge the overall reproduction of the samples. Are the graphics crisp and sharp, or are they pixilated? Are the samples smudged or worn? Look for typographical errors? Do the pieces have a flow – are they easy to follow and read from start to finish, or does your eye jump around from point to point? Is there good production value (i.e. good reproduction, high attention to detail)?
• Communication – Examine the pieces and ask yourself what message the project was trying to convey. Is the message clear? Are you confused? Do the images used support the overall image or are they contradictory or unsupportive? Can you follow the project from start to finish and gain a clear understanding of what is expected of you as a reader?

When interviewing the designer or agency, it is also important to get a sense of the personality of the individuals you will be working with. Do you get a sense that they will be reliable? Do they present themselves in a polished and respectful manner? Do they seem like they know what they’re talking about? Are they engaging and consulting; eager to learn about you and your needs, or are they more interested in talking about themselves?

If you are not totally comfortable with the situation, walk away and look for someone else. Remember, you are essentially hiring an employee, and you don’t want anyone working for you who is not up to or is incapable of satisfying the requirements you have for your marketing.

#2) Know your endgame.
An error many clients make is that they start marketing because it’s something they feel they should do; not something they must do. They enter into the marketing process with no clear cut objectives or idea for how they want to communicate to their customers. It’s all about mindset. I can preach until I’m blue in the face about just how important it is to market, but unless you are sitting across from me 100% convinced that you need to market, any marketing campaign is doomed to failure. The same is true of creative. It’s not critical – or even necessary — that you know exactly what you want the finished project will look like, but you should know where that creative will ultimately take you. You need to know what is and is not acceptable, and what you like and don’t like. Knowing this provides you a litmus test to evaluate any creative solutions presented to you.

#3) Be specific.
A designer only knows what you tell him. A frustration of many graphic designers is that clients are inherently vague about what they want.  It is very important during the initial creative development period to have as much information as possible about the intended outcome of the project.  If there are certain elements or concepts that you know must be conveyed, make sure that you provide that information in as clear and concise a manner possible. There’s nothing that frustrated a designer more than finding out mid-development or worse, after the project is completed, that there was a critical messaging element that wasn’t communicated.

The same considerations are also important when providing revisions to the designers. Too often phrases like “I don’t like it” or “I don’t get it” are thrown around. These are abstract statements and provide no valuable feedback with regards to improving the creative. Be specific in your critique; say what you don’t like – is it a font, a color, an image? Explain what it is that you don’t understand about the concept. It’s okay not to understand an idea. Sometimes clients will be shy about expressing confusion because of how they may appear to the designer. Trust me if you don’t get a concept, odds are that some of your customers won’t either.

In short, the more specific you can be about what you expect from the creative process, the more likely you’ll get exactly what you’re looking for.

#4) Be honest.
Similar to being specific, honesty is also critically important to achieving good creative. Any designer worth his salt is devoted to one thing: putting out the best possible project for his client. To accomplish this, he needs open and honest feedback. Say what you like and what you don’t like. Explain in your words how the creative makes you feel or what impressions you get. Don’t withhold comments for the fear of hurting the designer’s feelings. Doing so only reduces the chance of you getting the creative you ultimately want.

#5) Be respectful.
Just as you need to be honest with your feedback, being respectful in your communication is also very important. Tone and presentation of critiques is very important. Artists and creative people tend to be very sensitive individuals. And it’s important to understand that sensitivity is one of an array of sources an artist draws upon when developing any creative project. I’ve long believed that being a creative professional is one of the hardest jobs there is because it requires an individual to give so much of his inner-self; his being; his soul into the project and then subject his creation to open judgment and ridicule. The very thing that makes us sensitive is also the very thing that makes us good at tapping into the emotional and creative ideas so important to effective communication.

I’ve had bosses and clients who treated their designers as if they were indentured servants, or even cattle. Their comments were pointed, harsh and cruel. They were given without any regard to the designer’s personal feelings. Now, I know what you’re saying … “A designer should be professional and not take comments personally.” And I would agree that a designer should be professional and take comments with a grain of salt, but as I mentioned before, so much of what a designer is required to give of his self in order to be creative does make us more sensitive to criticism. But they way you phrase your comments can go a long way to getting the type of changes you want made. Comments like “It sucks!” or “What were you thinking?” or “I hate it.” can be particularly damaging to a designer’s psyche and cause him to second-guess himself when he goes back to the drawing board. A designer needs confidence to perform at a high level – even in the face of adversity. It’s okay to not like a project, but be sympathetic in how you provide your critique. It will benefit you in the future.

#6) Understand creative thinking.
If you’re familiar with the term left- and right-brained, then you know that analytical thinking happens of the left side of the brain and creative or abstract thinking happens on the right side of the brain. For a designer to be creative, he must heavily access the right-side of the brain. It is very difficult to rapidly switch from left-brained thought processes to right-brained. This can cause a great deal of stress to the designer and as a result, the creative side suffers as he is not able to maintain a creative rhythm. Frequent stops and starts often mean that any progress achieved on the creative process is stunted.

The creative process takes time and it’s important to give your designer the time he needs to properly access his creativity and produce the work. It’s not as if creativity were a light switch and can be turned on and off at a moment’s notice. Creativity is more of an exercise in inertia; it starts off slowly and builds momentum over time. Creative individuals need time to let ideas percolate and explore any number of concepts before the design process even begins. There is a lot of brainstorming and trial and error involved in taking facts and figures and morphing them into some sort of creative representation. Every designer is different and has different methods for accessing his creative mojo, but if there’s one constant factor it’s time.

It is often difficult for people who are not creatively inclined to understand this concept, nor the frustration displayed by ‘artistic types’ whenever their thought processes are interrupted. Rest assured if you want the creative ideas to be top-notch, it is best if you keep the interruptions to a minimum.

#7) Provide the necessary resources.
Resources can take many forms, and make no mistake that a designer does require certain resources to provide any measurable level of quality creative. Some common resources may include:

• Money – It’s one thing to work within a budget, it’s another thing to be stingy. It costs money to produce any creative project whether it is for print, television, radio or Internet. Any money you spend is an investment back into your own interests, so if you are looking for good creative output – something that will reflect well upon you and your business – make sure you are realistic with your designer and yourself about what it will cost to do the job right.
• Time – It takes time to be innovative and in addition to the actual time it takes to physically produce a project, the demands of time required to be creative and inventive are also substantial. If you want your creative to of high quality and stand out from your competition, it’s important to give as much lead time to your designer or agency as possible to develop your project. Creativity is not a conveyor-belt process and cannot be treated as such. As your designer how much time is needed to produce a project – and then let him have it.
• Materials – One are which is a common sticking point is in the quality of materials provided to a designer. Typically it takes the form of low quality or small photography, images pulled off the Internet or scanned out of magazine. The end quality of any project is the sum total of all its parts, and if those parts are of inferior quality the end product will also be of inferior quality. At the start of any project, be sure to ask the designer what materials he will need from you. Ask about file formats and resolution. You may be unfamiliar with some of the terminology – that’s okay – the important thing is to ask. The designer should be able to help you find what you need or at least point you in the proper direction.

It’s important to understand just how important a role you play in the creative process. You may not be artistically inclined or a creative thinker, but your participation and ability to provide support for those charged with developing creative solutions cannot be underestimated. It requires a lot of thought and planning on your part and a willingness to play a supportive role at a time where you are typically used to leading the charge. Remember that it’s the creative that sells your message to your customer. If you’re serious about the way your creative presents your business to the customer and tired of not getting the results you expect, consider the above steps as ways you can directly influence the process and get the creative you desire.

Invariably you find yourself rethinking your wardrobe and trying to decide whether to go with your best colors, or decide which combination of shirt and pants will portray you as both fun yet dependable. You stand in front of the mirror and work to make yourself presentable. You style your hair, maybe put on a bit of cologne, shave … everything you can think of to make that good first impression.

But you know that looks aren’t everything so you rehearse your date. You stand in front of the mirror and practice your laugh, your ‘interested’ look, your serious face … heck, you probably even brainstorm topics of conversation and respond to imagined questions with very thoughtful and sincere answers. You try to think up ideas that will present you as both an eloquent and informed person, but also an effective and attentive listener. After all, this person you’re meeting could be ‘the one’ and you want to make sure that you’re presenting yourself in the best possible way.

In many ways, advertising is just like going on a date. As a company, your marketing is trying to woo a customer; it’s trying to attract people and get them to feel like your service is exactly what they need to solve their problem or make them happy. The best way to do this is to use your marketing to help potential customers get a taste of what it’d be like to do business with you. Your marketing should generate the same reaction to the viewer as they would experience when they walk through your doors for the first time.

You need to let your personality show.

In a previous blog titled ‘It’s not me, it’s you‘ I discussed the importance of designing your marketing campaign from the viewpoint of the customer. After all, it’s not enough that your marketing says what you want it to say. That won’t resonate with the customer. Your marketing needs to say what the client wants to hear. If you can address their needs and make them feel good about choosing you to satisfy their desires, your marketing stands a far greater chance of success.

But your marketing also needs to reflect the essence and the experience of doing business with you. It needs to sell the customer not only on the informational level, but also on the aesthetic level. Your advertising should represent exactly what it feels like to do business with you.

If you are a family restaurant, then your advertising should convey a fun, comforting kid-friendly environment. If your marketing reflects a classy, upscale or romantic feel, there’s a disconnect between who you are and who you’re representing yourself to be.

If you’re a lawyer your advertising needs to command a level of responsibility and trust. But if it looks as if it were created on a typewriter and has a picture of you in a wrinkled shirt that looks as if it was taken off a cell phone, it won’t matter if you are the best attorney in the state, people are going to see that you didn’t put the effort into your advertising and infer that you’re likely not the person who will give 100% toward their case.

If you are a car dealer, you’re not just selling cars and the feeling of freedom to your customers but you are also battling the stigma that car salesmen are dishonest and/or that the cars they sell aren’t always reliable. Your advertising should reflect reliability and honesty. However, if your marketing is distracting or confusing and is replete with disclaimers, confusing jargon or features images of vehicles that look well past their prime, it won’t matterthat you are honest and all your cars are reliable — your advertising is feeding into the stereotypical car dealer cliché.

The old saying that ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’ is very important when it comes to advertising. You cannot consider any marketing effort to be an afterthought, or something that is just ‘thrown together’ at the last minute. If your ad or flier or commercial or brochure doesn’t truly represent and convey the experience of doing business with you,  you are sending an imprecise and conflicting message to your customers.

Your marketing should be a faithful extension of your business identity. Advertising is a very deliberate and thoughtful process designed to attract, communicate and persuade complete strangers that you have a solution to their needs. Reading or viewing your advertising piece should convey the same feelings and instill the same confidence as if you personally were sitting down and having a one-on-one conversation with your client. In many ways, advertising is just like getting ready for that first date. You want to like them, and you want them to like you so it’s critically important that you put your best foot forward.

Whether it is you or your agency who designs your marketing, make sure that everything is developed in such a way as to allow the personality — not just the offerings — of you business show. Customers need to feel what its like to do business with you and your marketing is their first contact point with you. If you can’t be everywhere at once (and who can?), then your marketing is inevitably going to be that initial point of contact and it needs to precisely convey exactly what the potential customer will experience once they pick up that phone or walk through that door.

Can you say that your marketing does that for you? Maybe you need to take it out on a date … just to be sure.

With that in mind, here’s a look into several of the more popular advertising clichés and some background information as to why they work and how you can use them to improve your business.

PHRASE: Think outside the box
WHAT IT MEANS: Be creative. Do things different than anyone else.

This is probably the single-most overused phrase in marketing today yet the reason it is so frequently cited is that, despite the tired, worn out phrasing, it remains the single most important aspect to marketing. The very reason marketing and advertising exist is to help a company promote itself and to distance itself from the competition. It’s ironic however, that the phrase itself has become clichéd, cringe-inducing mantra for marketing professionals everywhere; a once proud creative concept discarded to the scrap heap of other tired slogans and jingles.

Despite its overuse ‘thinking outside the box’ is a rallying cry to businesses and agencies everywhere; a challenge to be inventive, to be unique, to give a reason for potential customers to remember you and forget everyone else. Being creative and on-point is the single hardest task for a marketing professional and the most critical. It is also the single most important concept for businesses to grasp with regards to advertising, and the hardest one to embrace.

I’ve been in countless meetings with small business owners who sit down and excitedly state that they’re eager to do something different; to push the limits of what has been done before in the local market;  to go head-to-head with the ‘big boys’; to be creative or funny or even controversial. But for some reason, it never seems to happen. Daring, bold or adventurous campaigns are developed only to have the same result — the business owners love the concept, tout just how well it captures the attitude and message they wish to portray, and then they get cold feet and opt for a rehash of the same boring, bland and uninspired marketing they’ve run for years.

Truth is, the only box that exists in marketing is the one we create for ourselves. You can’t be afraid to stand out and be different. Doing the same marketing that the competition employs, or advocating a safe, conservative approach only succeeds in preventing you from realizing your potential. Businesses and marketers have to believe that the only limitations they face are the ones they impose upon themselves. There is no box.

PHRASE: To make money, you have to spend money.
WHAT IT MEANS: In order to grow, you have to invest in yourself.

It’s in a company’s best interest to market itself yet many businesses, particularly small businesses, have no formalized marketing budget. If times are good and money is plentiful, then that’s when the marketing is done … at least, that’s what I’ve seen to be the common approach.

I’m not advocating extraordinary marketing budgets which have no chance of generating a return. I promote responsible, realistic spending in the range of 5-7% of the company’s annual revenue. This amount, in combination with a sound marketing strategy, should be more than sufficient to properly reach new customers. The old adage that you have to spend money to make money is very true — even in a down economy.  You can be very effective with your advertising — even on a shoestring budget — as long as you are willing to develop a sound marketing plan and stick to it.

Most companies I work with (usually small businesses) lack a predefined marketing budget and no formalized marketing strategy; they usually market only when times are good or when they have the money, which is a counter-intuitive approach to effective marketing.  Yes, you market when times are good, but you also market when times are bad.  It’s been shown that companies that market during recessions and bad times actually make MORE money than their competition and emerge from the hardship with increased market share and more business than they had before the bad times.  I’ve referenced this particular research article before, but it’s worth including again: READ: A Critical and Synthesis of Research on Advertising in a Recession by Gerald and Kethan Tellis

Look at it this way … If you don’t advertise, you are essentially paying your customers to go to your competition.

Not advertising your company is never a good idea. If your bottom line dips, make budget cuts where you can and evaluate where and how you’re spending your money. Maybe there are inefficiencies elsewhere in your company or economies to be gained by evaluating new procedures, but avoid the knee-jerk response of cutting or eliminating your marketing budget. As long as you are advertising effectively and making sound marketing decisions, your advertising is NOT the cause of your financial downturn, so why cut it? Because it’s the easiest cut? It may be, but it is also the most detrimental cut you can make toward turning around your bottom line performance.

PHRASE: Pick one media and do it well
WHAT IT MEANS: Don’t dabble in many different advertising sources, just find one thing that works and stick to it.

This particular cliché is, in my opinion, a very outdated and ill-suited approach to marketing in the modern age. You would be surprised how many business owners I come across who have adopted this approach to their advertising.

The issue I have is that unlike any previous point in our history, humankind is more mobile, more connected and has more diversionary options than ever before. More and more we find that every one of our customers has more and more companies vying for their attention. To reach those customers a business has to diversify and invest in marketing to where the customers are and how they want to be reached as opposed to putting all their eggs in one basket and hopes that it will reach everybody.

It’s one thing to find a media vehicle that works. If it works, why would you stop using it? But it’s another thing entirely to shun all other opportunities. Yes, by all means, invest in marketing that is proven to be successful for you, but a business should have a healthy media mix as part of their marketing plan to reach as many people in as many different ways as makes sense from a strategic and budgetary standpoint. Most businesses have a wide array of customers with different interests; different lifestyles. They may not all read the newspaper or listen to the radio. They may not all watch a particular program on TV or know how to use the Internet.

The trick to mastering a multi-media advertising mix is to do your research. Find out who your customers are and what they do for fun or how they spend their leisure or professional time. Select the best two, three or four vehicles and spread your message to the world. The more touch points you can make, the more ways you can reach a customer with a consistent marketing campaign. The more ways you can reach a customer consistently, the more likely it is that you will connect with them and deliver your message to them just at the right time when they are ready to make a decision.

PHRASE: Be first and be the biggest
WHAT IT MEANS: Be the first ad the customer sees and make it impossible for them not to notice your ad.

I hear this one a lot when it comes to newspaper and phone book advertising and I agree with it … with a fairly sizeable caveat. The idea behind this particular cliché is to help the customer get noticed. And I agree. The idea of any advertising is to help a business get noticed. Where I disagree is in the method.  Here’s why…

Newspapers
With newspapers, the prevailing wisdom is to put large, full or half page ads on every right-facing page. I had the opportunity to attend a Colorado Press Association (CPA) advertising seminar a couple years ago and it’s the widespread belief among their sales staff that the right-facing page approach is best. The interesting thing presented in this seminar was a result of a survey which showed that readers preferred left-facing pages for the advertising (because people read from left to right) and preferred smaller ads which didn’t compete with the news (the real reason they’re reading the paper).

My approach for advertising is in frequency. Don’t by the big one-off full page, full color ad. In general it’s a huge waste of money. After all, what if the reader doesn’t read that particular section of the paper? Yes, you can request specific placement (hopefully as a result of research which has shown you that your customers tend to prefer one section over another), but that guarantee also typically comes with a premium price — usually an additional 10-15% of the cost of the ad. My approach calls for multiple smaller ads scattered throughout the same paper. You can still spend the same amount of money by this approach (or in some cases save money), but you will hit the reader more often with your advertising message.

The number of touches is critical in marketing. It usually takes somewhere between 5-8 impressions before the customer even realizes that they’ve seen your ad before. If you can spend the same amount money, and get all those impressions in one paper as opposed to running the same ad 8 times at 8 times the cost to achieve the same results, which approach makes more sense?

Phone book
Let me just say up front that advertising in the phone book is typically a waste of your money and here’s why…

People don’t go to the phone book to choose a company to do business with. People go to the phone book (and in greatly decreasing numbers thanks to the Internet) because they already know the business they want to use – they just want to find out their phone number or address. The phone book reps will give you tons of “facts” about how often people use a particular category or that the phone book is where most customers hear about businesses. Those facts are often misleading — especially when you filter them against common sense. Put your own experience to the test when it comes to phone book advertising. How many times do you go to the phone book?

It is a giant waste of time and money to advertise in any vehicle that stays closed up and locked in a drawer or closed 362 days a year (yes, the average phone book is only used 3 times a year). You, as a business, are paying hundreds and even thousands of dollars a month to have your ad sit amid all your competition in a dark, closed space.

The competition is another good point to bring up. Why would you pay good money to be listed right alongside all your competition? Right off the bat, you’re diminishing the chances of success because A) you have no ability to deliver your message on your own terms irrespective of the other competition and B) you have no say on where or how the ad is presented within the overall layout.

Which brings us to the ‘Be first and be the biggest’ idea. The phone book reps are the biggest preachers of this approach. They know that phone books are typically best used for ‘emergency’ type services like plumbers, roof repairs, water mitigation and bail bonds. If you in a pinch and don’t know who to call, you’re going to flip to the desired section and you’re going to call the first person you come to. This is where the first and biggest approach comes in. The phone book puts all the full page, full color ads for each section up front. The smaller ads and then black and white ads are arranged in decreasing order the farther back in the section you go. So if you can’t secure the first page of the section and can’t afford to spend the thousands of dollars a month required to secure this page, the phone book is essentially telling you that they can’t deliver performance on your advertising.

Unless you fall into the above described ‘emergency’ categories, my advice is to put your money into other advertising media. Build up your company’s brand awareness in the public eye and position yourself as THE business to call. Then go with the free listing in the white pages to address those few instances where your potential customer just needs to look up your address or number.

In closing…
‘Thinking outside the box’ may have started as being a way to describe the abstract concept of originality and creativity.  If you want to achieve true enlightenment in marketing, you must first realize that there is no box to begin with. You can choose to do your research and identify the best means to address the needs of your marketing and promotion as applies to your situation. Don’t blindly follow trends. Learn from them and adapt. Be strategic in your thinking and interpretation of available information and make informed decisions. Most importantly, be consistently different. When you choose a marketing path, dedicate yourself to that path. Familiarity and awareness come from repetition and have designed marketing that addresses the needs of the customer, you’ll find that the needs of your business are met and your advertising grows in strength the longer it is consistently reinforced to the public.

The only box that exists in marketing is the one in which you place yourself.

YOUR TURN:
What do you think are the most overused cliches, slogans and ideas in advertising? Click here to sound off on it and other topics on our Facebook discussion page!

The CEO of Apple employs powerful marketing ideas that any company can use to tell its brand story.

APPLE CEO STEVE JOBS is considered one of the greatest marketers in corporate history. For more than three decades, he has delivered legendary keynote presentations, raised product launches to an art form and successfully communicated the benefits of Apple products to millions of customers. No matter what type of business you’re in, Steve Jobs has something to teach you about telling your brand story.

1. Plan in analog. Steve Jobs may have made a name for himself in the digital world, but he prepares presentations in the old world of pen and paper. He brainstorms, sketches and draws on whiteboards. Before a new iPhone, iPod or MacBook is introduced, the Apple team decides on the exact messages (i.e., benefits) to communicate. Those messages are consistent across all marketing platforms: presentations, websites, advertisements, press releases and even the banners that are unfurled after Jobs’ keynotes.

2. Create Twitter-friendly headlines. Can you describe your product or service in 140 characters? Steve Jobs offers a headline, or description, for every product. Each headline can easily fit in a Twitter post. For example, when he introduced the MacBook Air in January 2008, he said that it is simply, “The world’s thinnest notebook.” You could visit the Apple website for more information, but if that’s all you knew, it would tell you a lot. If your product description cannot fit in a Twitter post, keep refining.

3. Introduce the antagonist. In every classic story, the hero fights the villain. The same holds true for a Steve Jobs’ presentation. In 1984, the villain was IBM or “Big Blue.” Before he introduced the famous 1984 ad to a group of Apple salespeople, he created a dramatic story around it. “IBM wants it all,” he said. Apple would be the only company to stand in its way. It was very dramatic and the crowd went nuts. Branding expert Martin Lindstrom has said that great brands and religions have something in common: the idea of vanquishing a shared enemy. Creating a villain allows the audience to rally around the hero — you, your ideas and your product.

4. Stick to the rule of three. The human brain can only absorb three or four “chunks” of information at any one time. Neuroscientists are finding that if you give your listeners too many pieces of information to retain, they won’t remember a thing. It’s uncanny, but every Steve Jobs’ presentation is divided into three parts. On September 9, 2009, when Jobs returned to the world stage after a medical leave of absence, he told the audience that he had three things to discuss: iPhone, iTunes and iPods. Jobs even has fun with the rule of three. In January 2007, he told the audience he had “three revolutionary” products to introduce — an iPod, a phone and an Internet communicator. After repeating the list several times he said, “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. They are one device and we are calling it iPhone!”

5. Strive for simplicity. Apple chief design architect Jonathan Ive said Apple’s products are easy to use because of the elimination of clutter. The same philosophy applies to Apple’s marketing and sales material. For example, there are 40 words on the average PowerPoint slide. It’s difficult to find 10 words in one dozen Apple slides. Most of Jobs’ slides are visuals — photographs or images. When there are words, they are astonishingly sparse. In January 2008, Jobs was delivering his Macworld keynote and began the presentation by thanking his customers for making 2007 a successful year for Apple. The slide behind Jobs simply read “Thank you.” Steve Jobs tells the Apple story. The slides complement the story.

6. Reveal a “Holy Smokes” moment. People will forget what you said and what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. There’s always one moment in a Steve Jobs’ presentation that is the watercooler moment, the one part of the presentation that everyone will be talking about. These show stoppers are completely scripted ahead of time. When Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air, what do people remember? They recall that he removed the computer from an interoffice envelope. It’s the one moment from Macworld 2008 that everyone who watched it — and those who read about — seem to recall. The image of a computer sliding out of an envelope was immediately unveiled in Apple ads and on the Apple website. The watercooler moment had run according to plan.

7. Sell dreams, not products. Great leaders cultivate a sense of mission among their employees and customers. Steve Jobs’ mission is to change the world, to put a “dent in the universe.” According to Jobs, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” True evangelists are driven by a messianic zeal to create new experiences. When he launched the iPod in 2001, Jobs said, “In our own small way we’re going to make the world a better place.” Where most people see the iPod as a music player, Jobs sees it as tool to enrich people’s lives. It’s important to have great products, of course, but passion, enthusiasm and emotion will set you apart.

Carmine Gallo, author of The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, is a presentation, media-training and communication-skills coach for the world’s most admired brands. He is an author and columnist for Businessweek.com and a popular keynote speaker and seminar leader. Gallo lives in the San Francisco Bay area and is a former vice president for a global, top-ten public relations firm. For more information, visit www.carminegallo.com.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Too much negativity to start a column? Sorry about that. The most powerful and valuable asset to any business is …

…. its brand.

So what is a brand? Most often, people look at a brand as one thing:  the logo. Most often, when clients approach me about designing their logo they just say “give me a logo that works like the Nike logo … or the McDonald’s logo … or the Coca-Cola logo. Give me a logo that provides my business with instant notoriety; something that will sell my product, market my company and cure cancer — all before breakfast.”

The problem to that line of thinking is that a logo is just a picture. There is no single image, that when introduced, will be instantly effective in communicating every product, service or message a business wishes to introduce to the public. Many people see the Nike, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola logos and are instantly reminded of their products, services and messages and, to put it bluntly, they see the logo as the vessel of the message and not the product of a consistent marketing and branding effort.

Truth is the Nike swoosh was nothing more than just an image when the first shoe introduced to the public back in 1971 (ironically it was just a design element on a shoe — the original company – Blue Ribbon Sports – it wasn’t until 1978 that the company changed its name to Nike). It took 7 years of branding and marketing efforts to tie the swoosh with the name Nike (founderbios.com). So even one of the most recognizable logos in the entire world took seven years to reach a point of prominence where it Nike was recognized by a mass audience.

There is more to a brand than just a logo. A brand is the product you sell and the quality of its performance; it is the service provided by the people who sell to or service the customers; it is the innovation and intellectual property that spurs the ideas the company introduces; and it’s the philosophy and approach to business. In time, a logo — like Nike, McDonalds and Coca-Cola — can come to embody all these elements, but it is not an overnight solution. A solid brand identity is the result of a quality product consistently reinforced by a thoughtful message, quality product and marketing effort over a an extended period.

Let’s briefly look at how to build a brand, and let’s start with the obvious…

THE LOGO

In my time, I have seen some beautifully created logos; true works of art. Elegant, eye-catching and creative. And I’ve seen the businesses with these logos fail quickly. I’ve also seen the most hideous, drunk-sketch-on-a-greasy-napkin logo become an iconic symbol of a successful company (Two Men and a Truck). A successful, effective logo is timeless meaning that it does not changed year-to-year, but rather is consistently reinforced and pushed into the public arena.

Every time a company introduces a new logo, it effectively destroys or at the very least, degrades any headway the previous logo had on the public consciousness. I’ve seen too many companies believe that simply changing their logo will boost their fortunes, and I’ve seen too many ad agencies advocate a logo change for no other reason than they don’t like the design.  If  a business does decide to change its logo it needs to be part of a bigger strategy; one that designed to reintroduce the new look and reinforce the existing messaging so that the new look becomes intertwined with the existing marketing message.

I could spend time going into great detail on what makes for effective logo creation, but this article is about branding so to keep us on topic, so instead I’ll refer to my personal blog entry about logo creation. It is decidedly written to help graphic designers develop effective and versatile logos, but still provides valuable ideas and information any business owner evaluate his existing logo design or the ideas provided by the designer or agency.  You can read it by clicking here.

CONSISTENCY

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make — particularly small businesses — is that they do not promote themselves in a consistent manner. Any marketing message, and advertising product (brochures, business cards, print ads, television, web sites, blogs, flyers, posters, packaging, etc…) must follow a consistent design standard.  Too often, people get caught up in looking at a brochure as being a standalone project than their business card or their print ad; each one with a different set of criteria and as a result the visual representation or messaging across an entire campaign differs from one project to another. This diminishes your brand effectiveness.

It’s important that design and messaging standards are established at the corporate level and enforce the consistent application of those guidelines to every product, every employee, every storefront and every product.  A few of these include:

• Colors – Pick specific Pantone colors or set specific color builds (your agency or printer can help with this).
• Logo size and application – Dictate the where, the size and how and your logo to be used in all applications (ask your agency or graphic designer to develop a written set of logo standards).
• Tagline – Pick a specific tagline and stick to it, do not change across multiple projects.
• Fonts – Choose specific fonts to be used in all your marketing, advertising and packaging — I recommend having a single Serif and Sans Serif font choice and the option for a Script font; once set, do not deviate.
• Images – Identify and select what time of images can and cannot be used in your marketing. If you have an artistic, hand-drawn style, do not mix in photography; if you cater to high-end clients, use quality photography, not clip-art.

Ideally, a consistent brand results in the continual reinforcement of your identity across your entire product line and marketing efforts, with each project providing support and feeding identical messaging to every other subsequent process. This is how to build brand awareness and consistently reinforce your product or service.

MESSAGING

Maintaining a consistent message is very important to building a strong brand. The easiest application of this concept is through a tagline (a short, 3-7 word phrase which sums up your service, the founding ideals of the company, or the benefit to the customer.

A recent discussion on the Marketing Design Group on LinkedIn asked for contributions as to the most overused and cliché ideas. It’s a pretty entertaining list to be sure and a good litmus test to ensure that your company isn’t recycling an overused concept employed by other businesses — or worse, your competition. Read it here (Note: You may have to create/log-in to LinkedIn to view the discussion).

It is important that a company distances itself from its competition through a unique and relevant marketing proposition. If the message is similar to that of another business, or if a company changes its message project by project, the end result is that mixed or conflicting messages exist in the public arena. That company can no longer be identified by a unified idea or thought, but will more likely be seen as a business with no sense of self-identity – and it’s hard to trust a company who is unsure of who it is, or what value it brings to the table.

EMPLOYEES

Have you ever considered that your employees are probably one of the biggest contributors to your brand’s value, or the biggest contributor to your brand’s decline? It’s absolutely true.

Your employees are often the front line defense in protecting your brand (and a big element to brand value is your reputation). If your employees are involved and take a personal investment in providing the highest-level of service and exemplify the ideals of your company, your brand and reputation is strengthened; if they provide inferior service or reflect upon your company in a negative light, your brand is diminished.

Your employees get more face time with customers than does ownership. It’s critically important that their approach to your business and delivering your message is consistently reinforced.

BRAND IS EVERYTHING

The one thing that will always follow a company is the value of its brand. It’s the most important asset a company has and contributes more over a length of time than any other factor.

Employees may leave and can always be replaced. A building doesn’t speak to the value of a company and a location can always change.  Computers and furniture can be easily replaced when damaged or broken.

Damage to a brand can take years to recover from, or may prove to be a fatal blow to a company’s success. Your brand is the heart of your company and is a vital living, breathing component which feeds all future success. Take care of it. Develop it. Nurture it and take whatever steps are necessary to protect it.

What are your thoughts on brand value? Leave a comment and contribute to the discussion.

—

Become a fan! Visit Allegra’s Facebook page and become a fan or participate in our monthly discussion topics! Your input influences not only this blog but helps us improve the services we provide.

Follow Allegra on Twitter @allegramktg for special weekly deals on the print, copy and sign services you need the most!

Does any business really need a marketing company to help them advertise?

I’ve tossed this question around in my own brain for close to a decade now. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, a “YES” answer is truly in my own best interests as far as continuing my career.  But there’s also a strong case to be made for a business having marketing professionals at their disposal.

• Yes, a company should hire a marketing company.
• Yes, a marketing company can be critical to helping businesses reach new customers.
• Yes, a marketing company can help businesses craft effective marketing methods.
• Yes, a marketing company can take care of all the details – the printing, the production, the media buys, the negotiation, the public relations, the creative, etc. – so you can spend time focusing on running your business.
• Yes, a marketing company can serve as guide toward maximizing your resources and getting you the best bang for your buck.
• Yes, a marketing company has advanced research tools at their disposal to help identify emerging industry trends, consumer purchasing habits, customer demographics – all of which you can use to tailor and refine your business to meet the needs of the market.

Yes, but…

In my 15 years in this business, I’ve seen a lot of savvy, intelligent business owners who are just as capable of developing their own marketing. I’ve seen people with a knack for self-promotion and creative thinking. I’ve seen non-marketing people come up with brilliant and clever ways of pushing their message into the public arena. I’ve had to learn that sometimes the role of the marketing company is not to necessarily come up with the idea, but to help the people with the idea bring the concept into reality.

I’ve also seen even more savvy, intelligent business owners who have absolutely no idea of how to market their product or service. Yes, they know their widgets inside and out and if you get them going on a topic related to their business and they’ll talk for hours upon hours with limitless enthusiasm. But when it comes to marketing, they have trouble corralling all that excitement and all that enthusiasm into a simple, and easily understood message. On my personal blog, I’ve written about the 5 Biggest Do-it-Yourself Marketing Mistakes. In this list, I’ve identified the most commonly mistakes people make with regards to their advertising. These errors are not a result of willful intent, or the customer loudly stating “I do not want my advertising to work!”  Instead, the culprit is actually the very enthusiasm which spurred the idea for the business in the first place, and this is where a marketing company can truly help a business realize its marketing potential.

It’s a matter of perspective.

It’s a very hard thing to do for any person  – to distance oneself from his passion – and that’s really what work is, it is a passion. People simply don’t get into (and stay in) a line of work if they aren’t passionate about it, and they certainly do not start a business around something they hate to do.  A business for any owner is truly the extension of himself – he pours his heart and soul into the company, he dedicates countless hours of education, research and hand-on experience into development and customer service, he is intimately entwined with his venture in every facet – and that familiarity, that passion, can be the biggest roadblock to successfully marketing the product or service. Personally speaking, I can market any company; any service. It comes easy to me. It’s natural… EXCEPT when it comes to marketing my company or my employer. In this case, I am so passionate, so intimately involved and invested in its success that crafting a finely tuned campaign or project is like pulling teeth; I stress about the smallest detail. I obsess over the most inane nuance. I lose sleep. I stop eating. I sulk around and grumble and talk to myself in a seemingly fruitless effort to sort out and work through all the mental blocks I’ve imposed upon myself.

My greatest obstacle in marketing my own interests is removing my own interests from the equation. And I’m not alone.

Hiring a marketing company may seem like a big expense – to take a chunk of a limited marketing budget and give it to another company to provide a service you feel you can do yourself. But the single biggest benefit is not in the bulleted list I rattled off earlier, it’s that a good marketing company will be able to provide that much-needed 3rd party perspective; to provide an outsider’s view of the situation and provide meaningful suggestions and ideas designed to communicate that very passion and excitement in a manner that is easily understood by your target audience.

Over the years, I’ve developed a list of marketing and design “rules“. This list is a fun, tongue-in-cheek compilation of certain truths I’ve found during my time in this businesses. As I blog, I’ll occasionally reference these rules as a means of supporting my argument or position. You’ll likely see these pop up from time to time. In this case, I quote rule #3:

“The greatest obstacle to an effective campaign is usually the client.”

At first glance, this rule could be interpreted as a dig toward the client, but that’s not really the intent. The rule speaks to the proximity and personal investment a client has and his inability to step back and look at the marketing from the viewpoint of the customer. Too often, the client can assign importance to one particular area or service which interests the business owner personally, but would not have any benefit or generate interest on the part of the reader.  By marketing to the needs of the customer, a business will ultimately achieve its own success.

The question still remains as to whether a business truly needs a marketing company. So what’s the verdict?

I wish I had one. I wish I could tell you without a doubt that your investment in 3rd party marketing services was the right thing to do for every business. Truth is, it’s not. I do, in most instances I feel that a company could benefit from professional marketing guidance; someone to help keep your message fresh and on-point, identify new methods for advertising and locate key areas for targeting. A marketing company can free up your valuable time; time better spent on running the day-to-day business. A marketing company can serve as an advocate for your interests and negotiate better deals to stretch your marketing dollar a bit farther. They can be a helpful resource and help you achieve your goals faster and more efficiently than if you were to assume the entire burden.

If you do decide to consider a marketing company, here are ten considerations to keep in mind:

1. Does the marketing company’s business philosophy mesh with your own?
   – Do you feel their ethics and morals are in line with the way you run your business? It’s important that both sides share compatible philosophies.
2. Do they have experience in marketing your type of business?
   – A good general-service company should be able to handle any need whereas specialty agencies might focus on a particular industry and not be suited for every type of account.
3. Does their creative product meet your criteria for quality, inventiveness and communication?
   – Take a look at their work product. Is it polished? Can you easily determine the messaging? It is engaging? Does all their creative look similar or can you distinguish one client from another?
4. Do you feel as if they will work with you, or if you are working for them?
   – Do they engage you in healthy discussion or do they speak down to you? You will want an agency that offers suggestions and helps explain their decisions, and takes the time to address your concerns. You don’t want a firm that acts as the ultimate know-it-all on every topic and acts as if they know more about your company than you do (it does happen)!
5. Can you afford their billing rates?
   – All agencies bill at different rates. Ask for generalized product costs and hourly rates.
6. Do they have a good reputation among your business peers?
   – Ask around. Do people speak highly of the marketing firm’s strategies, people and product?
7. Do they share your enthusiasm for your business?
   – If the company can’t get excited about landing your account, how can they convey excitement to your customers?
8. Does the company do a good job of setting and meeting expectations?
   – Does the company explain timelines and costs to you before any project begins? Do they deliver on their promises (for both time and cost)?
9. How responsive are they to your concerns?
   – Do they get back to you the same day, next day, next week? Do you have to continually ask for updates or are they proactive?
10. What does your “gut” say about them?
    – Your instinct about a company will usually prove right. Do you believe they can do what they say or are they giving you a sales pitch?

If you are happy about your business, its position and rate of growth, then you probably do not need a marketing company to assist you with your advertising efforts. Obviously whatever you are doing is fine.  Do not get sucked into an ego-driven belief that having a marketing company handle your account is any measure of success. The only measure of success is your business’ performance by whatever criteria you deem important. But if your business isn’t performing at a level you would like; if customers aren’t flocking to your door; if you are unable or unwilling to devote the time to marketing your company then perhaps having an advertising company assist you is the best move you can make. Having an experienced, impartial and objective partner to help you develop and create a message that truly defines your company and appeals to your customers is an invaluable and powerful tool to have at your disposal.

Absolutely.

It’s a question I know I’m getting asked more and more often by clients, friends and coworkers. They’re curious as to whether it’s a passing trend, or something that’s here to stay; something that will change the way businesses markets themselves and reach their customers. I say that it already has. I say that advances in technology have made social media a necessary element to any company or institution that seeks to maintain or grow its awareness with the public.

It’s hard to ignore the obvious truth that we are becoming a more and more mobile society – ever more connected in more ways that previously possible. This connection has had the fortunate effect of making the world a smaller place, bridging gaps of distance and culture and allows the sharing of information and ideas on a scale never before seen in human history.

Where once people relied on town criers to spread news, we now have RSS feeds.

Where people once had to stand on soapboxes or stage rallies to advance an agenda, we now have blogs.

Where we once had handwritten letters and it took weeks for correspondence to be delivered by foot, horse or wagon across thousands of miles of treacherous terrain, we now have instantaneous e-mail (and increasingly poor penmanship).

Where the daily newspaper once provided the news of the day, we have websites.

Where people once had to spend hours in the library searching through thousands of texts to prepare a single book report, research can now be done in minutes on the Internet.

Where people once huddled around the radio to listen to music and recorded entertainment, we now have podcasts and streaming audio.

Where people once tuned in to a handful of television stations for news entertainment, we now have satellites capable of beaming on-demand movies, television shows and news across hundreds of channels right to our living room.

And of course, there are the webinars, chat rooms, PVRs, internet-enabled video game consoles, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook and countless other things that vie for our attention.

The question for any business is to how to compete with all these ‘Options of Mass Distraction‘ and deliver a meaningful marketing message. The answer, ironically enough, is to embrace these changes and to make them work for the business instead of against the business.

Up until now, marketing to the population has essentially based on the ‘interruption model’ — meaning that we target people as they’re in the middle of doing something they enjoy, stop them cold in their tracks just long enough to insert a valuable message about a product or service before returning them to the bliss of their chosen diversion.  And up until recently, it’s worked pretty well. But with all the advancements in technology and the advent of social media, the power of marketing now resides solely in the hands of the consumer. The choice is his as to whether he wants to flip to another channel instead of watching a commercial.

But you have a business to run. You need to promote; to market; to advertise. You need to get people’s attention and get them into your store or restaurant or to attend your event. If they have the option to tune you out, how do you get them to want to tune back in?

Where social media has caused your problem, it has also provided the solution — or in fact, numerous solutions.

Social media is yet another step in the evolution of the way we communicate as a society. These advancements have given even the most ‘Average Joe’ a vehicle to express himself. And people have come out in droves to do just that. They want to express themselves. They do express themselves and they expect to be able to express themselves.

Social media has broken down traditional walls that normally kept us apart. No longer is there a significant boundary between the employee and management; between the population and government; between customers and corporations. The power of the people, the power of the single average voice or many voices heard as one, has more power to influence public opinion than all of the masters of industry or world leaders combined.

In short, people do have a voice and they want to express it. As a business owner, you can either hide from that fact or you can embrace it. The smart business owner embraces it and looks upon public commentary as a means to improve his product, his service and his relationship with is customers.

Businesses are coming around to this realization. Companies are beginning to understand that it is no longer a matter of delivering a message to the masses; it is about developing individual relationships and cultivating loyalty to a brand in an era where competition and options appear endless. In many ways, business has evolved to the very same place it started: With a person, a product and building awareness one person at a time.

I recently received the 2010 Digital Media Outlook survey (look for a link to this report at the bottom of this post). It shows that companies and marketing firms are planning on sinking more and more resources into social media as a means of connecting to the consumer. Social media is not going to go away, but nor is it going to replace traditional media (as some fear). It’s going to become a nice companion element of any solid marketing plan and a means for developing meaningful dialogue between business and consumer.

A former mentor and I were discussion social media and its application for marketing and his feeling is that small business owners will never adopt social media as a legitimate advertising vehicle because their only interest is to get the cash register to ring. It is a sentiment I happen not to share, because I believe that the small business owner is far more dependent on the personal relationships he has with his customers than does a big business with a far greater pool of customers to draw from. If a big business loses a customer it’s probably not going to be as big a deal (there’s always more fish in the sea), but if a small business loses a customer it’s a far more difficult challenge to replace that relationship and the loss of revenue is felt more immediately and has longer lasting effects on the health of the company.

Let me be clear. Social media is not a way to reliably make the cash register ring. That’s not where its strength lies. Its strength lies in two arenas: branding (advancing the awareness of a company, its products, its mission and services) and communication. Continued and sustained use keeps the business aware of public perception and helps establish a direct dialog with customers that can be used to improve issues and disseminate critical information to the public.

Don’t go looking for ROI on social media; it’s not there — at least not in any tangible form that can be tied to a specific amount of income. The real ROI is realized on a much more gradual, sustained scale. The benefit to the company comes through better relationships with its customers which, in combination with traditional marketing, allows for fewer lost customers and advance notice of looming issues (i.e. an ounce of prevention for a pound of cure).

So how much does a small business need to invest to make effective use of social media?

Fortunately, the answer is only one thing:  Time.  Many of the social media tools available are 100% free. Your only investment is the time and dedication to utilize these tools on a regular basis.

Start a blog. Use it to advance your thoughts and ideas on a topic just like I’m doing right now. It has the benefit of positioning you or our company as a subject matter expert and increasing the weight of your ideals or opinions. As people find your blog and find your content of interest, they’ll come back time and time again. The key is to keep your content fresh and update on a regular schedule. If you’re busy, just post once a week. If you have more time, post more often. The more information you post, the more often your blog will turn up in search results and the more often your company (and its message) will be exposed to the public.

There are a variety of providers of free blogs out there. For this blog, I use WordPress. It’s easy to use and you could quite literally be up and blogging in five minutes.

Start a Facebook page. You see it all the time “Become a Fan” visit our Facebook page. Facebook is a great, free way to provide your customers a place to gather, discuss and comment about your favorite topic — your business. Start discussion topics and encourage feedback as a means of product research and development.

The key is to interact with your customers. DO NOT censor any harsh or negative criticism. You cannot be afraid of what your customers are saying, instead look upon it as a chance to change their opinion. Embrace their critique and respond personally. If a client knows they can voice their opinion and have that challenge be answered by the owner or a person of influence within the company, the easier it will be to change his opinion and thwart a groundswell of negative publicity.

Use Twitter to blast out updates. Twitter is one of those social media tools that have a real possibility to make your cash register ring. Encourage your customers to sign up for your Twitter feed and receive special advance notice of sales or special discounts or deals. Give them a reason to follow your business on Twitter and you now have a vehicle to deliver your message directly to the people who WANT to hear from your business and utilize your services.

Authentitcity is the key.

The key to any effective social media marketing is to be genuine; be real. Social media is a vehicle for business owners to communicate with their customers in a real, authentic way. You can have an employee monitor your various social undertakings, but you do not want that same employee to be the voice of the company. That voice must be yours. It is not the voice of your secretary, nor is it the voice of your marketing or PR firm. It has to be yours. If there’s a problem, don’t throw some PR spin doctor at it and hope the issue will go away. Instead embrace the feedback and use it to positively address concerns. If you get good feedback, use that in your other marketing endeavors to advance the quality of your product and reputation of your brand.

Social media is changing the way businesses are marketing to their customers. Embracing this new media will position your company for future growth and better consumer relations. It doesn’t take a lot of time or money to use but the overall benefits can be substantial.

Below are a few links to some suggested readings, including the aforementioned 2010 Digital Media Outlook survey results (Interestingly enough, the reading links go to Amazon.com. Their use of customer ratings alongside their products is another example of social media at work. Think about how often these ratings affect your purchasing decisions).

2010_Digital_Media_Outlook

The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott

Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Anthony Robbins

Think about this: From 2000 to 2008, the population of Colorado increased 14.8% (2009, quickfacts.census.gov) which translates to roughly 79,680 new residents each year statewide. That figure just accounts for the overall growth, it does not count for the loss of residents who move to a different state or even a different community. If a company decides to stop advertising (just for one year) it not only loses out on reaching all those potential new clients, but it also loses all those existing customers who have moved elsewhere. Granted, this number reflects 79,680 across the state, so it’s not like any business instantly loses potential business with that many people. Overall, the amount of new arrivals will be far smaller and fluctuate based on the size of the community (urban area see a greater amount of new residents, rural areas fewer).  But for any business, especially a small business, how many customers can it afford to lose and fail to replace and still remain viable? Not many.

Without a marketing effort in place to attract new customers to replace the ones who have left, a business will find an ever-increasing challenging in making up lost revenue and returning to a position of financial stability.

So the question is: “How to you trim the bottom line AND position yourself for growth?”

The answer is surprisingly simple and the first step is to evaluate where you spend your marketing dollars and what kind of Return on Investment (ROI) do you receive from each effort?

Far too often I’ve found that companies don’t have any real strategy for reaching customers. Worse yet, they tend to target the wrong customers or use the wrong advertising vehicle to spread their message.  In many instances, it is very much a ‘throw it against the wall and see what sticks‘ approach. Businesses regularly allocate a certain amount of funds to marketing, but lack a detailed plan on how to utilize those resources.

Here is a list of 10 common questions to help get you market more effectively:

1. How much money should a business allocate to marketing? The typical range varies depending upon who you talk to, but generally speaking 5-7% of total annual revenue seems to be what most experts recommend. So that means $5 to $7 of every $100 in earnings should be earmarked for next year’s marketing.
2. Are there any fool-proof marketing methods out there? The honest answer is no. Even the best researched, best intentioned marketing campaign is an educated guess. Focus groups, market research and expert experience can help narrow the margin for error and increase the odds of success, but it all comes down to how the audience reacts to your service/offerings.
3. Which is the best approach, branding or call-to-action advertising? It all comes down to what results you expect from your adverting. Branding advertising is designed to promote awareness – SuperBowl ads are typically branding ads and typically contain clever messaging or positioning statements. Branding ads are designed to keep your company in the public eye, but not designed to move specified amounts of product. Call-to-Action advertising advances a very specific action and benefit on the part of the client and is designed to get the cash register or phones ringing. A good call-to-action will do the following things 1) Sum up the value of the product with a tangible reader benefit; 2) Instruct the reader as to how to go about obtaining said product and 3) Instill a sense of urgency.
4. Which advertising vehicles work best? That wholly depends on the intent of the marketing,  but each vehicle has strengths and weaknesses. What I have found is that businesses often get caught advertising because the got ‘a deal’ – a sales rep called them with a special rate on airtime, or print space. This is not a reliable approach to marketing, nor an effective use of limited marketing budgets. The goal is to pair the right message or product with the right medium. For example: Newspapers are really good a limited-time or price point offers (call-to-action). They are not good at delivering results on image or branding advertising as they don’t have a shelf-life long enough to garner repeat views; Magazines however are just the opposite. They excel at branding and are less effective with call-to-action (C2A) advertising because their shelf life is often far longer, and C2A ads tend to expire before the reader can act on the offer. The limited lifespan of newspapers works for C2A because they are most often read the same day as they’re received whereas magazines may sit around for weeks or months before they’re opened. Radio and television can be used relatively efficiently for both branding and call-to-action advertising, but production costs and achieving the frequency needed to reliably reach the masses can be very expensive. On average a person needs to see or hear a broadcast spot 7-10 times before they actually realize they’ve heard the commercial. Phone books, in my opinion are almost a total waste of advertising money. They sit up-opened for months on end (especially with the advent of the the Internet) and even when they are opened, in most instances, people are searching for a specific name (i.e. they already know what business they’re going to use) and will not be casually leafing through trying to make a buying choice based on a yellow pages ad. Websites are a good area to spend money in your advertising (your actual web site), but banner ads and pay-per-click advertising doesn’t yield a great ROI. Social media is growing and is a great tool for branding yourself as a subject matter expert, giving you and your company added weight in terms of reputation, but like pay-per-clicks and banner ads, don’t expect a significant ROI.
5. How much time is there to attract the attention of the customer? Not much. In print, you have maybe one-half of one second to attract a reader’s attention. With television and radio, you have maybe a second or two before they switch to a different channel or hit the mute button (or fast-forward their PVR). This isn’t to say that you can’t be successful in reaching the audience with these mediums, but you have to do it the right way.
   
6. What’s the right way? In my opinion, the best way is to be clever, be informative, but be brief. Get straight to the point and show that you value the time of the reader. This means you streamline your  message to only the single most important communication point – don’t clutter up the message with a ton of irrelevant facts. In short, ditch the irrelevant … lose the picture of your kids and your dog (unless they’re the ones selling me a product, I don’t want to see them); cut out all the ego statements, the company history retrospective and ditch any photos which don’t directly support A) the product or B) serve as bait to attract attention; bullet-point your copy, if someone has to read through paragraphs and paragraphs of content, they’re not going to invest their time. Help them get in, get out and then on with their lives.
7. How much is too much to spend on any one project? That depends on your project and what kind of realistic ROI you expect. It’s not uncommon to see clients freak out over a production bill and get caught up on a single number. You don’t want to overspend on any project, but you also have to be realistic about what the results will be if you underspend. If you pay too much, you’ll never achieve a decent return. If you underspend, your effort will look cheap and that can have a significant and negative impact on your brand (public perception). It’s a balancing act and there will always be a certain level of give and take. But if you’re presented a bill for $1,000 for 500 sales brochures – but one single sale from that piece will not only cover, but exceed the total production amount – that’s a good return on your investment. If you spend $10,000 on a project and it would take hundreds or thousands of clients to cover the production costs, then it’s not a good ROI. Too often I’ve seen customers not proceed a project simply because of the initial cost, even though the realities of the ROI would indicate that only the smallest response rates (1%) would more than cover any of the production costs.
8. How much money will my marketing bring in? That’s entirely the wrong question to ask of your marketing investment. I get this question a lot from prospective clients. As I mentioned in #2, marketing is a best-guess endeavor so specific dollar amounts don’t necessarily have relevance. The numbers can be extrapolated based on expected response rates, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that achieving those numbers is an exact science. No, the right question and ultimate purpose for marketing is to bring people in the door. I’m going to write it once more for clarity. THE PURPOSE OF MARKETING IS TO BRING PEOPLE IN THE DOOR. It is not to move product. That is your job as a sales person. The advertising helps promote awareness and spread your messages to the masses, but once they step foot through your door, call you on the phone or land on your web page, that’s your turf and the success or failure to sell, promote or enable action rests squarely on your shoulders. If your customer service or your inventory quality isn’t up to snuff, no amount of marketing can make up for a shoddy product.
9. Can’t I just use word-of-mouth advertising? Word-of-mouth advertising is a very powerful tool. There’s no question, but it can be used for both good and evil.  You can  network and glad-hand people until you’re blue in the face and that can help bring business to your doorstep. But how much time do you spend to win that business? Is the amount of time you spend soliciting business taking away from running your company or improving upon your product or service? What happens when the people you speak to find your service or product to be of inferior quality.  Impress a client and they’ll tell three people. Wrong a client and they’ll tell ten. Yes, word-of-mouth can be a very powerful tool, I just wouldn’t trust it as the only tool in my arsenal.
10. An old adage in marketing is to focus on one medium and do it very well. Is that still true? Not in age of decreasing attention spans and multiple options (TV, Radio, Social Media, Video Games, Movies, Music, etc.) competing for our customer’s attention. The best approach is to have a strategic and multi-platform marketing plan in place. It doesn’t mean that you have to overspend or even increase your marketing budget (it may if your budget is unrealistically small), but it does mean that to reach the most qualified potential customers just at the moment they’re looking to act requires that you try and reach them in more than one area in their lives. They may hear your ad on radio, but it’s not until they see your ad in print or online do they realize that they’ve heard of you.

It is also very important to keep in mind that any advertising effort take time to gain traction; patience is very much a virtue. It takes time for repetition and awareness to fully seep in to the public consciousness. In my day I’ve seen far too many campaigns yanked after a week simply because the phones didn’t ring the very same day the marketing hit the street. If your marketing message is topical, if your distribution method is sound, if you are reaching the right customers, your marketing will be successful. It just takes time to get the word out. Marketing very much builds upon momentum and can grow stronger and stronger over time as long as your message is consistently reinforced.

Before you cut your marketing budget, take a long-term look at what’s really at stake. It’s not the short term success of your company, it’s the long-term ramifications that will really matter. The key to marketing effectively is to use your resources in the most optimal manner possible and to have realistic expectations as to the results. Examine what you’re currently doing and identify what is effective and what is not. If it isn’t working, trim it out of your budget. You can put that money to better use; either to help your bottom line, or to reinvest it into the marketing strategies that are generating results.

There’s a saying that moving to a new home is the best way to clean out the clutter in your life. If your bottom line isn’t what you want it to be, the answer isn’t to become homeless (i.e. eliminate marketing), it’s to streamline and cut out all the ineffective marketing and move to a new strategy that is more efficient and productive.

UPDATE – EXTRA READING:
An article from the Wall Street Journal discussing a similar topic.
A really great analysis by Gerard Tellis on the topic with data dating back to 1920 — good stuff.

So what is relevant benefit? Simply put, it’s a message that speaks directly to and provides an resolution to a specific need of the customer.

When I say that relevant benefit is the most common problem with small business marketing, I mean that too often the business shapes their marketing message around how great the company, product or service is – the result is a very “me, me, me” message.

“Our product is revolutionary.”

“Our company has been around for 20 years.”

“Our president has umpteen years of industry experience.”

Great statements if you’re looking to make yourself feel good about what you do, but in most cases, it’s just excess noise to the potential customer. When I title this blog “It’s not me, it’s you.” that’s entirely the attitude a company must have in regards to its marketing. Advertising, when done right, is not an ego-centric proposition, it’s a value proposition. And far too often, especially with small businesses, it becomes a situation where a company spends more time telling people about how great it is in the hopes of building credibility, than it does telling customers about how much better their lives will be when they purchase the product or service in question.

The easiest way to accomplish this is to look at your product or service from the viewpoint of the customer.  Stop telling how good it is, and identify real and meaningful ways it can improve the lives of your customer. Every decision we make is based on an response to an emotional stimuli (‘will it make me happy’, ‘will it make my breath smell better’, ‘will it make me more attractive’, ‘will it make me more efficient’, etc.), and tapping into those needs is a great way to position your marketing message to have a tangible benefit to the customer.

As much as it may seem odd to say so, your marketing is less about you and more about the customer. Satisfy their needs and you’ll find that your needs will be met in return.

The purpose of marketing is to persuade people that you have the answers. So I ask you, what is a better way to get the response you seek? Is it to get on your soapbox and talk about your company, your staff and your reasons for being in business? Or is it to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and deliver your message in a way that directly communicates a real solution to their issues?

I’ll be the first to admit that all this seems like so much common sense. This isn’t a revolutionary breakthrough in marketing thought process; it’s been around for hundreds of years. But putting it into practice is often far harder than it seems. Over the years, I’ve seen thousands of small business (and some large business) marketing that fails to connect on a real level to the very people it means to reach.  If your advertising feels like it’s more about you than them, it’s probably time to step back and re-examine how you’re trying to communicate with your customers.

As you flip through the daily paper, watch television or sift through the contents of your mailbox, try to identify the marketing that attracts your attention. Then find the stuff that doesn’t. I’m sure you’ll easily point out a handful of advertisements that caught your attention; that spurred you to read further or open the envelope.  What’s that count look like? Five… ten… fifteen pieces? In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s easier to identify the stuff you didn’t notice. All you have to do is look at your recycle pile.

Did you know that the average American is exposed to  5,000 advertising messages every day? Of that number they recognize only 52, and of that number they remember only 4. The point that I’m trying to make is that it’s difficult to get your message heard in a noisy world. These numbers only highlight how important it is to make sure that when you do get a customer’s attention, your message is instantly understood and has value to the reader –  it has to contain a relevant benefit. Stop posing credentials and start providing solutions. After all, it’s not about you, it’s about them.

So how do go about including relevant benefit in your marketing? Comment below, or hit our Facebook discussion board and let us know what you think!