Monthly Archives: January 2015

Committing Malpractice of the Marketing Kind

MalpracticeAs a marketing firm that’s always looking to engage in new business relationships with interesting companies, we continue to have more than our share of new business meetings. These companies run the gamut from small to “you’ve heard of this company before” and while they’re sometimes far removed from one another in terms of sales and recognition, a surprising number of times there’s not that much of a difference in their approach to their marketing initiatives which, as my business partner puts it, “borders on marketing malpractice.”

How am I defining “marketing malpractice?”  Well, while it might take form in a few different ways,  it’s primarily about a breach of duty that does harm when another course of action, as performed by a reasonable person, should have been taken. In short, it’s about negligence.  While malpractice is commonly associated with the medical, financial and legal world, it could also be readily applied to the marketing world as well.

With that in mind, let’s look at 5 ways that companies and marketing leaders could become guilty of marketing malpractice:

Not having a full grasp of the marketplace

Too many companies assume that there is absolutely no need to substantiate their beliefs about the marketplace, about what their prospects want, about why their customers are buying, about what people think of their brand, about most anything having to do with those whom they want to purchase their products or services.  Generally the thinking is that no one can know the marketplace as well as the company and the market will accept whatever you offer. Are you pretty darn confident on how your specific industry is changing and what is needed to get out in front of the competition?   Understanding the marketplace as a whole will create the opportunities that bring with it the sales, visibility, prominence, trust, etc., that you might be looking for. And you get there by doing some research…the right way.

A lack of focus

The “We have to be here, there and everywhere” thinking is a sure way to squander the limited budget that you have. And who said that you need to be all over social media platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest? Heck, you’ve got your product literature online, and your Web site has a blog and videos. Not to mention all the offline activities ranging from tradeshow activities to advertising to PR, etc. Why did you believe you need to be in ALL of these media locations in the first place, and, just as importantly, who is making sure that all of these activities work together?

Inconsistency or mixing of marketing messaging

When different aspects of your marketing messages don’t reinforce each other, the inconsistencies alienate prospects and current customers. Inconsistent marketing distorts clear expectations, makes potential customers unsure of the characteristics of your products and creates unhappy customers who don’t get what they expect. These inconsistencies affect businesses by reducing both initial sales to consumers as well as repeat sales from dissatisfied customers. Throwing stuff up against the wall to see what sticks is a clear path to wasting resources and confusing people/organizations that you want as customers.

Being just like the other guy

How many times have you read or seen something from one company that looked just like what one of their competitors has or is currently saying? For an example, go online and look at professional services firms and tell me why one is different from the other. The fact is that there is no relevancy to what you’re saying if you just keep repeating what others have said already. Your company/products/services only has value if you’re different and if you can find a way that you can take who you are, what you make, and what you offer and create a relationship with prospects and current customers that is instantly captivating. Striving for differentiation rather than being a “me-too” allows for the organization to seize on new sales-producing and revenue-generating opportunities. Otherwise, you’re just a lazy copycat…two words that don’t leave the minds of the customers and competitors anytime soon.

Confusing strategy with tactics

Maybe, just maybe, the most common marketing malpractice occurrence is not having one over-arching marketing strategy – and ensuring its implementation through all your tactics.  Executing marketing tactics without having a well-developed integrated strategy is a recipe for disaster.  It’s easy to start with the “how” but if you haven’t identified the “what,” you may find yourself spending a lot of time executing tactics that don’t take you where you want to go and in so doing, you’ll be wasting time, resources and losing out on sales-producing opportunities. What is needed is one single integrated strategy that looks across all delivery platforms whether online or offline, print, broadcast, or mobile. Your customers don’t have an online self and offline self and neither should you. Think holistically about all your marketing initiatives.

At the end of the day, both the short-term and quite possibly the long-term prospects of the company could be affected as a result of marketing malpractice. Whether done because one doesn’t know better or because of expediency, it happens and the organization will have to live with the results. So, while you won’t be brought into court (unless you did something very egregious), one question that a marketer has to ask oneself and answer honestly, is: “Have I breached my duty as the marketing leader for the organization so much so that it has caused harm to both short and long term sales, visibility, prominence, market share, and trust for the company?”  Hopefully, the answer today and in the future will remain a resounding NO.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

 

Rallying Up for Success

BraveheartOver this past weekend, I went into a store that’s part of a 15-20 location chain, and upon entering, this place made sure that I understood that for them “It’s all About Exceeding Expectations!”  Now as a line, it’s pretty pedestrian but it set the tone for what I was going to experience. And they were true to their word. But you see, it wasn’t just 5 words strung together. Instead this was, after speaking with the staff, their rallying cry for the first quarter of the year.

That got me thinking that not enough companies use rallying cries (or sometimes referred to as “battle cries”).  After all, these rallying cries have been used for thousands of years to unite individuals into a collective identity and to emotionally charge them up before rushing forward to accomplish their mission.  So let me ask, has your company instituted a rallying cry? And I don’t mean for a second a “mission statement,” which most companies have; because of group think, these mission statements lack originality, they’re as uninspiring as possible, and which 99.99% of employees couldn’t recite it to win a million dollars.  Instead, what I mean is a short and catchy phrase that can inspire a company and fascinate your marketplace. A rallying cry will tell employees how to act and consumers what to expect.

When you institute a rallying cry, everyone knows what it means. Rallying cries are huge. They’re single themes that everyone connects to and rallies around. That theme ends up creating this “mini-vision” for individuals to focus on… a clear direction for the entire organization for a specified period of time which speaks to “this is what’s important to our organization right now!” And so this doesn’t come across as a theme line or slogan but rather an understandable call-to-action to employees and customers, one needs to define what the goals to be met will be. It can be your big goal for the year or your most important annual metric. Regardless, the rallying cry should be specific and measurable. This could take the form of something like “3x in 2y” (Tripling business in 2 years) or “500 in 2015” (500 new accounts in 2015) or “Quick Start 50” (making contact and setting presentation appointments with your Top 50 dream clients). You get the idea.

For some clients I’ve worked with, this rallying cry provides a reason for the organization to start working as a team rather than in siloed departments.  There’s a tremendous power in this kind of focus as it helps the company achieve better results faster and gets them ready for the next team effort.  It also keeps the people in the organization engaged because they know what their company’s goals are and how they fit in.  Some companies have annual and quarterly and monthly rallying cries. I’m more of an annual/semi-annual guy.

To get started, here are a five elements to creating your own rallying cry:

  1. Keep it short…in the 5-8 word range. No long 10-12 word sentence. It isn’t supposed to summarize your entire strategic plan but rather reflect your aspirational future.
  2. Try and make it memorable or “sticky.” Use words or acronyms that make it easy to remember and interpret. Nothing sucks the life out of a rallying cry more than when people can’t recall it.
  3. It’s to be about ONE goal. ONE priority. Don’t dilute it by adding more objectives.
  4. If communicated externally to customers, make sure that it’s believable and relevant so that the customer says, “That’s something I know they can deliver on and it’s what I want.”
  5. It’s fresh, original and  imaginative. Think creatively, not something uninspiring like “Increase sales by 10% this summer.” We’re looking for a rallying cry not a ho-hum announcement.
  6. BONUS: Get people within the organization (or your marketing agency) involved in coming up with some options to consider. And get 20-30 ideas from which to look at. If you end up not being satisfied, get some more.

Once the rallying cry is chosen, pledge eternal allegiance to it. The new rallying cry should be continually infused into sales meetings, customer presentations, press releases, collateral, the company website and all other marketing communications. And if appropriate and possible, its spirit, if not the actual words, should be communicated in your advertising activities. And then if or when the goal is achieved, it should be celebrated with the same enthusiasm as it was when first initiated as it’s important to show people that their hard work is much appreciated.

Think about this: If everyone in your company were to rally around a single inspiring theme, what kind of wonderful magic would be achieved? What kind of game-changing results could be achieved?  A rallying cry is an amazing way to get people aligned. Whether your company’s goal is one that applies to all departments or relates to one specific department, a strong rallying cry can serve to unite the entire company to eagerly move toward the new destination created by that vision.

So, as the marketing champion within your organization, what better way to have people unite under an inspiring marketing message and create excitement throughout the ranks rather than with a rallying cry? “Onward and Upward!”…oh, I think that one has been used before.

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Rolf Gutknecht is vice president, director of account services for LA ads. To discuss your thoughts with Rolf on this blog or any marketing matters, email via this link, or visit www.LAadsMarketing.com.  You can also connect with Rolf on LinkedIn.

 

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