Tag Archives: Tactics


Caution – Curves Ahead    

Curve aheadI met a woman at social event last weekend and turns out she’s the president of a well-known company  here in Southern California. During our conversation, she said that right now, the company  — and she specifically called out her Marketing Department – is probably not doing all that it could to stay ahead of the curve. We talked about all the different things that “staying ahead of the curve” might mean to an organization, from keeping the company positioned as a leader to keeping one’s eyes open for change before it happens and before it’s too late to implement innovations. In short, we agreed that getting ahead of the curve provided three primary benefits: it would take advantage of opportunities that otherwise might be missed; it would, as much as possible, stop calamities from happening; and it would allow the company to be better prepared for the future.  I can’t imagine that any decision maker or Marketing Department, especially in this new world of business, wants to be seen as a victim of events, caught unaware and therefore scrambling from one initiative to another. Right?

Unfortunately, too many companies wait too long to begin the process of change and do so only when the writing is on the wall. Alternatively, the really successful companies, the one who people see as operating from a position of strength, change before they must. There is no denying that high performing companies sense the need for market changes early, and act accordingly.

So then, what are some things that a Marketing Department could do to stay ahead of the curve and in doing so give the organization a leg up from others.

Quitting Not Allowed

I’ve seen this on more than one occasion, and the successful companies know this to be the case, which is not to quit when everybody else does. That’s how you go from successful to crazy successful, and that’s how you dominate your industry no matter what it is. You develop or take on a great product that’s different, or you take an idea further. Dominate by putting out one idea after another after another… Dominate by not quitting. Dominate by trying, failing, trying again. Take your good ideas and make them better, take them further, show everybody how it’s done… get ahead the curve and stay well out ahead of the curve.

Don’t follow Others

In business, you always want to be ahead.  Ahead of the competition…ahead of the trends…ahead of creative ideas. That said, staying ahead of the competition doesn’t always mean you need to worry about what they’re doing. Instead it’s better to do things to move your own business ahead rather than engaging your competitors in any sort of fight.  It’s critical to know your competition, but don’t follow their every move or duplicate everything they try. Trust your instincts. Be original. Be different. Be creative. Do your own research, try new strategies and new product or service offerings that you believe in. While studying competitors can be shortcut to learning what works, it can also be a waste of time. At the same time, what’s working for you today will probably be imitated by your competitors tomorrow so  it’s critical that you continue to innovate, invent, think differently, and stay ahead of the curve, including your own.

Let’s be Partners

Consider forming a strategic partnership with a noncompetitive business to grow market share and visibility. Brands are judged by the partners they keep so innovative partnerships can make brands seem cooler, more modern, more distinctive, more interesting, and more noteworthy. Innovative partnerships serve several strategic purposes such as enhancing the images of each, combining resources (financial and marketing) which result in synergistically higher levels of brand awareness for both. Not only will you have access to a completely new “Rolodex” of buyers, but you can share things like marketing, advertising, product development, sales, and branding.

Look Outward

Stay ahead of the curve by seeing what companies outside your industry are doing; understand how that idea or model might apply in your industry and be the first to apply it. Look internationally as well. How many times have you read about an interesting product that was launched in another country?  Lots of times, right? In short, be curious and ask yourself why certain companies are now doing what they’re doing. Maybe they’re seeing something that you can use for your own business. And let’s not forget about just keeping your ears and eyes open as you go about your daily business. Don’t wear blinders as you live your life.

Flex with the Times

Flexible strategies based on customer need are more successful than sticking to a plan and holding course the whole way. Adapting plans to suit the market is an essential part of getting you closer to what really resonates with the consumer. That doesn’t mean that you’re so open-minded that your brains fall out, but rather that you at least consider what the market wants and how that could be something the organization should put resources against.  If people want what you make in a different color, quantity or package, or provide your service in a different time frame or product bundle, the response can’t be “Oh, no. We just don’t do it that way.” Or, don’t be surprised when a competitor says “Sure. We can do that!”  Also, stretch your mind to learn new skills and explore new approaches. Look for learning in post-project reviews, customer meetings, research and yes, even in mistakes. Think quickly and react decisively is critical to success of business, and its hallmark for staying ahead of the curve.

The course of business is rarely, rarely ever like a desert highway where things don’t change or if they do, you can see if from a mile away. Instead, the path of business in today’s new normal will continue to be more curvy than a mountain road. Instead of driving the curves, look to take a more aerial view. It’s amazing what you’ll be able to see down the road.

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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.

There’s no room for thin skin in successful marketing

Last week, we got a copy of a readership survey related to a trade ad we ran for a client.  In the survey, the ad was among the top-ranked when it came to the most seen, most remembered and most read.  But what was absolutely fascinating was how widely the readers’ reactions varied when asked their impressions of the ad. Their verbatim responses ranged from “Tacky” to “Perfect 10/10.”  One reader commented “Poor taste, undignified, a true turn-off.”  Another reader said “I clipped it out and it is on my refrigerator now. The whole idea of standing out in a crowd is extremely important to me if your business wants to be noticed.”  Several said they were “shocked at first” but then got the message and completely agreed with the point.

Healthcare seminar ad

In fact, I’ll say nearly 25% generally disapproved of the ad and maybe another 5% very strongly disliked it.  On the other hand, the number of respondents who liked the ad and got its message was exceedingly high. And the turnout was successful.

What’s my point?  Well I have three points to be precise.

The first is, we begin by acknowledging that we’re not right for everybody.  In fact, we believe that as a marketing agency, we’re probably right for just a few percent of business operators, those who are strongly marketing-oriented and know that traditional advertising doesn’t get the attention of a disinterested public. The ad, therefore, is self-qualifying and will provoke a certain number of negative responses. That’s just fine, since again, we’re not right for everybody.  Neither should you try to be all things to all people.  Those that attempt such alchemy are doomed to blend in with all their competitors.  Be different and proud of it.  Not everybody is a Mac user.  Not everybody likes Starbucks coffee. These hugely successful companies know who their market is and they don’t try to please everybody.

My second point is, it’s so damned tempting to knee-jerk to negative responses.  One of my favorite quotes is “Everybody likes it until somebody doesn’t,” meaning the one or two negative voices often seem to drown out all the positive voices.  It’s human nature to want universal approval.  But it’s smart marketing to realize that no matter how hard you try, there will always – ALWAYS – be dissenters and not to let that veer you off course. (Just because someone doesn’t like it doesn’t mean they’re right or speak for the majority.) I’ve had clients who chose to kill a good campaign because they got a couple of negative calls and missed the tidal wave of silent support.  People seldom call in to express their acclaim about an ad they like; they voice it at the sales counter.  The trick is to start by knowing who you are and who you’re most right for (going back to my previous point), and reconcile that against the overall trend in audience feedback.

My third point is that when you commit to being really visible, you are choosing to declare your difference and necessarily you are stepping out on a limb. Strong, memorable, provocative advertising is risky stuff, not for the meek or conservative.  One has to be willing to suffer a few arrows.  Even to fall off that limb once in a while.  But in a society that’s over-saturated with commercial messages, you have to stand apart to be noticed – that is unless your budget allows brute force bombardment.  We don’t have that kind of money.  Do you?

We’re very happy to have clients who like our unique direction, and must be satisfied that most of the industry is more conservative in approach than we are.  Hey, Jaguar has to live with the fact that more people choose Hondas.

The fact that you’re reading our blogs, and have read this far in today’s post demonstrates that you’re within the segment who has the opportunity and vision to succeed against your more conservative competitors.

You just can’t do it with thin skin.

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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.

De Niro, Taxi Driver and Marketing

Taxi1It’s one of the more iconic moments in film over the last three decades.  Robert De Niro plays taxi driver Travis Bickle, who in one chilling scene looks at himself in the mirror, a pistol up his sleeve, and says to an imaginary adversary, “Are you talkin’ to me?  You talkin’ to me?”

What’s this have to do with marketing?  Well, as consumers we’re actually all asking this question whether we think about it or not.  Because the only marketing that breaks through the clutter is that in which the message undeniably speaks directly to the reader/viewer/listener/user from his or her own perspective.  The reader/viewer/listener/user knows for certain, “You’re talkin’ to me!”

Here’s what I mean:

Recently, we saw an ad for mortgage company with a photo of a man dressed in a business suit leaning backwards like an acrobat.  The headline said “Can your mortgage broker do this?”  On the surface, you might say that’s a humorous, attention-getting ad.   But really, it’s just showing a visual pun without telling any compelling story about what flexibility means to the reader. It’s just saying so and nothing more.  Compare that to another mortgage company’s ad that showed one of those toy labyrinths where the steel ball might drop through one of a dozen holes in the maze at any turn, and the headline says “We know just how you feel about refinancing your house.”   The first ad speaks from the company’s point of view, the second speaks from the reader’s.  There’s no question that in the second ad, the reader knows “You’re talkin’ to me!”

If you want your audience to connect with your message, it has to be based on their real experiences and what’s in it for them, instead of all the features you have to offer.

It’s ridiculous that I have to say this but the memo has not reached the desk of many marketers, so here goes: “It’s not about what your company wants to say but rather about what the customer wants to hear.” (I feel better having said it.) Look, if you want to market based on your personal preferences without regard for what works best with your prospects, that’s your prerogative.  But I’d suggest that your company’s marketing not be so self-absorbed. Remember, you don’t buy from you, others buy from you and they don’t care about your business and your troubles nearly as much as you do. Most people are tuned into Radio Station W.I.I.F.M. —“What’s In It For Me!” If your marketing message is all about you, then your customers won’t notice what you’re saying.  Please begin to “tune” into your customers, find out what they really want and focus your message on them.

We recently conducted a webinar about exhibiting at a major trade show that one of our client’s exhibits at.  It’s tragic how many booths fail to attract traffic simply because they don’t design their exhibits from the audience’s perspective.  They’re loaded with too much feature-based content and lack a simple benefits-oriented message.  No one passing by would stop and say “You’re talking to me!”

A shift in perspective from speaking about yourself to speaking from the audience’s point of view can be remarkably effective.  Witness a beautiful commercial for a British online content company featuring a blind man whose original cardboard sign talks about himself,
“I’m blind.  Please help.”   But when a caring passer-by changes the words to be more audience-focused, something powerful happens. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq3Dgy3Wx_0&w=560&h=315] As marketers, the symbolism of what you or your firm can offer the organization, is front and center.

No matter what you sell, manufacture or service, it’s critical that you change your marketing message’s perspective from talking at your audience to talking to them, causing them subconsciously to acknowledge, yes, “You’re talkin’ to me!”

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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.

Dead Veep Walking – the Marketing Director

VP TombThe life of a hummingbird rarely exceeds four years.  The life expectancy of a Marketing Director (or CMO or VP of Sales & Marketing) at any given company is even less than that. The typical tenure these days is a little more than 3 years and this is up from about 26 months in 2004.  In fact, as you stroll through the offices at many companies, it’s an easy bet which executive is a dead man (or woman) walking: the Marketing Director.

What are some of the reasons causing such a short tenure? What are some things a Marketing Director can do to be successful? How much of that is on the company and how much is brought on by the individual?

  • It starts before the hire is made. It’s been said that over 60% of companies don’t know what they’re looking for when they recruit a Marketing Director.  In many cases, these companies can’t spell out coherently what the person would be accountable for.  Are you and the President/CEO on the same page? I’ve heard it more than once: “I was brought in to drive change, but the organization wasn’t aligned behind the change agenda.” Whose fault is that?!?
  • There are sky-high expectations surrounding what a Marketing Director can and should do.  The best Marketing Director can’t turn poorly made or poorly priced products into marketplace winners every time, nor by themselves create a culture of innovation to make sure new, exciting products are always being developed.
  • As I written about previously, everyone in the organization thinks that they know how to do that “marketing thing,” so they have no compunction in second-guessing the marketing strategy or the creative. Everyone’s an expert even though they’re not.
  • There is an impatience in the effectiveness of marketing. People want results right away and it is probably because the economy has been in the toilet for a few years.  So there is a pressure on reporting how marketing is working for a brand and the CEO/President is looking for a more immediate payoff.  It doesn’t help that chief executives and chief marketers often have very different imperatives.
  • Some companies are finally realizing it is time to ramp things up and yet there are too many Marketing Directors ‘hiding under the table,’ relying on the same old people…internally as well as their external marketing “partners”. Think: Different horses for different courses.
  • As more is written about different ways to seize on new business revenue, you have a Marketing Director who is being forced by a company President/CEO to incorporate these “must haves” into the organization’s marketing activities.  As important as social media platforms are, for example, they are not necessarily of equal worth or equally effective for all businesses and all products.  But it is a brave and daring CMO who can resist CEO pressure to devote scarce resources in chasing what “everyone knows” is today’s “marketing must.”
  • There is more confusion than there should be between sales and marketing roles, what they can do, and how they must work together.

Ok, so how much of this is do you see or experience in the world that you live in? If you’re like the vast majority of Marketing Directors in this country, you see any of these issues popping up on a fairly regular basis. Here are a few things to consider in order to make sure you’re not having to call your executive recruiter anytime soon.

  • Do not become stale in the way that you market, from the strategy to the creative to the channels to your thinking. The status quo is a communicable disease that will infect everything you touch if you let it.
  • Become the voice of the customer. And what’s important is not just understanding the customer ….but the end user.
  • Be personally inquisitive about new technology and new markets and the social implications of new technology.
  • Be responsible and accountable for nurturing, growing and protecting the brand. Successful marketers truly must understand the convergence of product, brand promise and experience and get the company to understand that convergence as well.
  • Listen to align the rest of the organization around the need to build “our change agenda” not “my change agenda.”
  • Continue to make an investment in your own education to keep yourself exposed to things out of your comfort zone. From books and seminars to online webinars and articles you find on your LinkedIn groups. There are so many invaluable resources!
  • I would suggest, too little effort is made to educate and promote the marketing role within the organization.  It is the Marketing Director’s job (another one) not merely to develop and define strategy but to explain it – not only to customers and prospects but to employees and other senior level executives.
  • And, the need for a strategic marketing partner is imperative. Now and in the coming years, it will be more important than ever to partner with an agency that doesn’t simply fulfill projects for you, but one that offers you the advantage of broad strategic experience in the trenches. One thing is certain about the years to come: companies will have to stay nimble and adjust strategies on the fly.  Who you choose to have on your team is going to mean everything.

While the marketing landscape changes so quickly, the good news is that a Marketing Director can succeed in the face of headwinds no matter which way he/she faces. It may be more challenging than it should be, but stand true to your brand, be current and always in the know, and be bold enough to make a difference….otherwise, chances are, you might be dusting off that resume.

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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.

Blueprints for Building Your Own Crystal Ball

businessman Hand holding a crystal BallA couple of weeks ago, I was at a trade show and after walking up and down the aisles, it occurred to me just how much of the same-old, same-old I was seeing. Nothing really new (unless you consider irrelevant modifications like changing the color from blue to orange and different shaped bottles as new).  There was nothing that I can say showed me that companies were spending any amount of time and energy in looking at the marketplace with an eye toward identifying the opportunities that trends in customer purchasing or behavior would present.

With that as that backdrop, on my flight home I started thinking about the ways that the marketing department within an organization can start the process of getting out in front of their competitors in order to seize on untapped business opportunities and identify trends before their competitors do.  It’s really not as difficult as a lot of people think, but it does require that one to think more about the future by asking questions around the idea of “so what does that mean?” As an example of this, watch the video clip that stars Kevin Spacey for E*Trade.

In short, imagine if you could get a 12-18 month head-start on everyone else in your industry. Wouldn’t even 6 months be nice? Wouldn’t that make a huge difference in how your business runs? Maybe you could get the jump on your competitors every single time you make a move. Heck, this would even apply not only to products and services but also to channels, processes and even personnel hires.

Before we get into the ways that one might start spotting new trends, it’s important to understand a few things. So here goes:

  1. Don’t try to predict the future. Instead understand the longer-term trends and today’s new approaches and develop products and services that will succeed moving forward.
  2. Fads come and go. Trends emerge and evolve.
  3. Be careful about the market research you use as lots of it is backward-looking. Trends are about the future.
  4. What’s important is identifying the opportunities that trends produce.
  5. Don’t just look at trends within your industry. Look outside for possible implications to what your company produces.

OK, with that as the backdrop to trend watching, let’s walk through the process of how and where to find possible trends:

  1. Social Media – It’s a great place to track discussions on your products and those of your competitors. It also provides insight that you get from customer feedback and engage customers and prospects in a conversation. Use Facebook and Twitter to identify key influencers and trendsetters among your customers or markets. Reach out to these individuals to see if they’ll be part of a “customer advisory board” or if they’ll be open to providing you thoughts or ideas on new products or things they’d like to see in the market.
  2. Sales Department – Spend time having conversations with the sales team to see what they’re hearing and seeing. They’re out in the marketplace meeting with all sorts of people and could provide some insight into new developments regarding what customers or prospects are doing.
  3. Online Resources – There are a variety of online websites that deal with spotting trends from TED (series) to Google Trends to Trend Hunter and others.
  4. Look Outward – One way to get ahead of the competition is to see what companies outside your industry are doing; understand how that idea or model might apply in your industry and then be the first to apply it to your marketplace. Look internationally as well. How many times have you read about an interesting product that was launched in another country…lots of times, right? In short, be curious and ask yourself why certain companies are now doing what they’re doing. Maybe they’re seeing something that you can use for your own business. And let’s not forget about just keeping your ears and eyes open as you go about your daily business. Don’t wear blinders as you live your life.
  5. Be Open to Collaborations – Look at organizations that might have a similar customer base to identify how what you do might work with way they do in order to identify opportunities for both. Check out their websites and what they might be saying about the future as they see it.

Now that you’ve identified some trends, where do you go from there? First, think about the consequences if a trend continues to spread. How will the trend change what people buy? What will happen if the trend grows in strength? Here’s where you have to ask yourself a lot of questions about “what does that mean?” In short, imagine the future (and your future) if the trend plays out. After you have in your head what the trend might look like, identify what need is currently being unmet that, if created, will help customers take advantage of the future scenario. And then lastly, define what the product or service opportunity is— that being the space between what is currently available and what people who would be effected by the future trends will want.

Here’s the choice you have:  As a company, you can sit around and talk about strategies year after year. You can even hire consultancy firms to tell you what’s hot…last year. You can scratch your heads at all that new stuff that you’re seeing but end up sticking to known quantity. Or, you could wrap your mind around the potential that a new product or service has to offer.  You create your own crystal ball!

Maybe the people who are good in spotting trends and anticipating what people want are able to imagine what others can’t. These trend spotters collect relevant data from what they read and hear and can read between the lines.  Hopefully you’re one of those people.

Just remember, the sooner you spot an opportunity, the more time you have to leverage the tar out of it.  And the faster you can move on an opportunity, the more likely it is that you will score a win.   Keep your eyes open.

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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.

Four concepts that can make a big difference in your advertising

newspaper-clutterMost every time I listen to a radio spot in my car,  see a TV spot on cable or fan through the pages of a magazine (trade or consumer),  I find myself wincing.  Ad after ad tells the same sad story: money spent leading to no results.  In fact, I’d venture to say that better than 85% – 90% of the ads lay the same leaden egg.  Oh, the humanity!

If you’re questioning whether your advertising is doing what you paid it to do, odds are it’s not.  And although there are master classes you might take in advertising creativity, marketing strategy and media planning, it’s very likely the problem falls within four main areas.  Checking off each point, you can estimate your ad’s effectiveness even before you place it.  I mean it.

Here then are the four fundamental concepts that can make a meaningful difference in how successful your next advertising effort is.

1) Have a something compelling to say.  And by that, I mean not just compelling to you and your staff, but to a completely disinterested audience.  If you’ve followed my posts for any length of time, you know that I frequently observe that people don’t like advertising, and completely ignore the boring or hard-to-figure-out kind.  So whatever you have to say must go the distance to alter their indifference.  Don’t just tell your audience you’re “a leader in the industry” or that you’ve been around for three generations. They’ve heard that so many times before from you and your competitors that it means nothing to them.  Instead tell them something they don’t know, something that might even surprise them.  You can tell when someone’s ad is truly compelling when you think, “Gee, I didn’t know that!”  We sometimes call that a “sticky” message, one that has staying power after the reader has turned the page or flipped the channel.

2)  Sell, don’t just tell.  One of the most egregious mistakes advertisers make is simply laying out all the features of their product or service and expect the audience to figure out why that’s important to them.  Often that’s done in the form of five or seven bullet points, such as:

  • 85 years of experience
  • XXXXX number of customers
  • Available day or night
  • Proven technology
  • Best warranty available
  • Multi-lingual staff

or in Business-to-Business ads (snatched from the pages of a recent trade pub):

  • Proven Products
  • Superior Service
  • Implementation
  • Dedicated Staff
  • Customizable by end-user

Yikes! There’s no emotion in that.  There’s no selling.  There’s no story or connection.  Instead of praying that maybe one or two bullets might hit home with some member of the audience – or worse, trying to be all things to all people – why not focus on one point at a time and spell out why that point really matters.  People don’t buy bullets.  They don’t buy features.  But they do buy benefits and ideas that add value to their lives.  Always be thinking, from their point of view, “what’s in it for me?

3)   Be your own brand and not a clone of others.  All too often, within any given industry, I see ads in which the logos and contact information are interchangeable, one company’s with another’s. None stand out, all look alike, and thus all the players are perceived as a commodity. Here’s a question for you: If your logo was blocked out of your ad or commercial, would the audience still know it’s yours?  Take, for instance, Jack-In-The-Box. Their commercials are radically different from McDonalds’. BMW’s ads are unmistakably theirs and not Mercedes’.  It’s a matter of message but also a matter of style,  personality and consistency.  The more striking and distinctive your ads are, the stronger competitive impact they’ll make, while your competitions’ ads could be just anybody’s.  Dare to be Different!

4)  Tell the same story across all your platforms.  With all the buzz about Social Media, it strikes me as odd that most business Facebook pages and outbound Tweets have little in common with their owners’ main marketing messages.  In part that’s because the marketing messages themselves aren’t that well-defined.  But it’s also because the marketers don’t appreciate the importance of speaking with the same voice at any touchpoint.  Good marketing is a collective enterprise and an erosive processes.  For instance, if your main story is about how your company has been around for over 100 years, use your Facebook pages to talk about the early days of your firm, the companies you’ve served, etc.  Make sure your phone hold-message tells the same story.  Make sure you hold special events or promotions that support the theme. If you don’t keep hammering away at the same selling proposition at every touchpoint, then each effort conflicts with every other.

While hardly a full compendium of marketing knowledge, if you make the effort to assure your advertising and marketing is consistent with these four points, you’ll be far out in front of 85% of your competition. And that’s the goal, to create ads your customers will react to and that your competition will hate.

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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.

Pointing the finger at Marketing

Blaming_someonepointingOver the years, whether within an advertising/marketing agency or in the corporate environment, I’ve worked with people who have a distorted view of what marketing can do. Mostly these people think that all it takes is slapping together a few concepts to create an ad coupled with little bit of social media and some PR for good measure and the marketing is complete. The thought being that sales will be pouring in the door and big bonuses are just around the corner.  After all, most anyone can do this “marketing stuff,“ right?

Alternatively, when a company is not realizing their business or sales goals, we as marketers hear things like: “We’re just not getting the sales that we should because our marketing just isn’t working.” Or “It’s Marketing’s fault that sales are down!” while, in fact, there are other business issues that are at the root cause.  There’s no question a solid marketing program can increase your business, but realistically, it can’t fix everything (although ineffective marketing activities might very well make matters worse).  Below are 5 things marketing can’t do for you:

Marketing cannot overcome leads that are not being followed up. I did some consulting at company and upon seeing a couple of boxes marked “Tradeshow forms,” I asked them what that meant. They told me it was customer inquiry cards that they had received during the past 3 months of tradeshows they had attended. These customer inquiries had yet to be entered into the system which meant these prospects hadn’t yet been contacted. Which meant potential sales were not happening.  And yet, this company had hired me to help them find ways to generate more sales from …wait for it… new prospects. When opportunities like the aforementioned happen, you’ve got to act on them and quickly. If you were interested or wanting to hear from a company regarding a product or service they offered, especially after having given them your contact info, how soon would you expect to hear from them? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Marketing can’t make people buy things they either don’t want or can’t afford. It doesn’t matter how great your product or service is, if you’re selling to people who either don’t have the interest or the means to buy it, then your marketing is going to fail no matter how brilliant it may be. Yes, marketing can create messaging that ignores the problems with a product or service but with 24/7 access to information and customer comments on the web, problems or issues get exposed quickly. Bottom line: is your product or service delivering on the promises you’ve made? Have you provided the value that the customer is looking for? Basically it all boils down to this: before you decide you need more marketing, take a few moments and make sure the marketing you’re doing is really the right solution for your business.

Marketing can’t be done without a realistic budget. The fact is, if your company is spending a good deal less than the competition, you’re probably not making any significant gains in market share. Yes, there might be a competitor that’s overspending, but my experience working with companies from the Fortune 100 to small mom-and-pops is that you don’t pose a serious competitive threat unless your marketing budget is in the same ballpark with your competition….it’s just one of those “marketing truths.” Developing and then executing the marketing activities takes skill, experience and money and it doesn’t come cheap from anyone who knows what they’re doing. You get what you pay for.

Marketing can’t fix bad service or a bad customer experience. Again, in your own personal life, how often do you keep doing business with a company who doesn’t really value you as a customer as evidenced by their poor customer service? While marketing activities can bring prospects to the door, it can’t ensure that they’ll have an experience that they’ll want to repeat. Unfortunately, despite all this talk or lip service within organizations about being customer centric and “engaging” with their buyers, far too many companies see customer service as something other than what it is…a marketing opportunity that allows the customer to feel valued and appreciated. At the end of the day, when customers continue to have a lousy experience with your products or services or with your customer service reps or sales people, you and I know that’s a bad, bad place to be. Not only have you lost a customer for good, but they’ll probably go and tell others, which means you have to potential to lose future prospects as well.

Marketing can’t make you successful by tomorrow morning. Just because you start a marketing program doesn’t mean you’re immediately going to see your business explode. Marketing is about getting your name in front of your target market on a regular basis until they finally decide to give you a try. Investment in marketing communication for some brands should therefore be seen for what it is: reinforcing/strengthening favorable brand perceptions and insuring your brand’s strength and status for the future. Just as one or two workouts at the gym won’t immediately make you more muscular or leaner, you know that it’s improving your health for the long-term. Think of marketing in the same way…it takes time. That said, if pressed for new sales or new business clients right now, launching into a new marketing program may not be enough to get you where you want to be and you may want to start looking at other options.

And, we haven’t even addressed other issues such as the company not closing leads or not invoicing or collecting on unpaid accounts or it has too many expenses, etc., all issues that marketing can’t solve.  At the end of the day, while it’s easy to immediately blame marketing for lack of business, we need to remind people that marketing is intertwined with many other aspects of the organization aimed at getting and keeping customers. Yes, it’s important to judge and course-correct marketing activities if business is lagging, but we need to look at the whole organizational picture to understand why business is slipping off. Otherwise, Marketing will continue to have the finger pointed at them.

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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.

May I have your attention Pu-leeeze! 

Megaphone stockI think we can pretty much all agree that most everyone, be it on the job or in our personal lives, is  stretched thin on time. And this crunch for time has shortened our attention spans and concentration levels to the point that we’re lucky if we even remember some bits and pieces of phone conversations, face-to-face discussions, emails, etc., let alone those marketing messages that other companies put out in the marketplace in hopes we’ll act on them. Who has time for them?

With that scenario playing itself out in most everyone’s lives, marketers have a hard nut to crack when it comes to creating marketing messaging that sticks in order to counterbalance people’s shrinking attention span. Every marketer faces this reality daily. As most of us have heard, the average attention span does not exceed eight seconds (ten years ago it was 12 seconds). Comparatively, the attention span of the average goldfish is nine seconds. Capturing attention within eight seconds is a formidable challenge. As marketers, we have enough trouble with summarizing a message into a small packaging label, a web banner, a half page magazine ad, an outdoor board, or other media channels where the time or space allows for only something along the lines of a “quick bite.” Remember when the 60-second TV commercial was the norm? Then it went to 30 seconds and now we’re seeing more and more 15’s. And Vine built a platform around 6-second video posts and YouTube incorporated a “skip ad” option on their commercial videos after five seconds. Any more than that, and viewers lose interest and get really ticked off .

Oh, and let’s not forget about how the shrinking attention span has also led to people fidgeting between multiple screens (their TVs, computers, smartphones and tablets) at a rate of up to 21 times per hour, according to a recent study. Guess the average minutes a day that a person spends on their smartphone? 147 minutes. Now compare that to just under 120 minutes per day watching TV.  Boy, we are distracted!

Growing evidence blames Internet, TV and computer games for creating shorter attention spans. Bombarded daily with mind-boggling amounts of things to read, watch and respond to, most of us have real difficulty paying attention on one subject for longer than a couple of seconds. How to fight against this rapidly decreasing attention span of an average consumer? How do you market to a group of people who don’t have enough time to listen to everything you have to say? It’s hard, and it’s getting harder to get and keep anyone’s attention.

Well, some marketers are trying to get people’s attention by going where more people seem to be…on social media, the “Land Of A Million Tweets, Comments And Posts” that repopulates itself every few days, or hours…or even minutes. And then there’s special offers, sales, email blasts and just about anything else that has a slight chance of possibly working.  In doing so, I’d argue that for many companies, they’re not breaking through the clutter but instead adding to it.

It’s more important than ever to hold the attention of customers and prospects quickly and interactively in ways that weren’t possible or necessary in years past. So here are 5 messaging tips that will go a long way to having your audience stay tuned rather than drift away:

  • Simplify. Less is more. Don’t just push out content or tweets or posts like something coming off an assembly line. Have something meaningful to say and make sure that it’s different than what others are saying. Otherwise it’s not a voice people want to listen to but just white noise.
  • Don’t waste their time. Unless you want visitors to click the “back” button and switch to one of your competitors, don’t make them wait for the information they need. Include key information up front and begin with the end in mind. It’s critical that your message be on-point, easy to understand and interesting from the audience’s perspective and do it in 10-15 seconds. Which will earn you more time…if you’ve done it right.
  • Be consistent. Be around. Patience is absolutely necessary because it takes time and effort to get the audience’s attention, while consistency is essential to keep it. Wherever your messaging is appearing, online or offline, make sure your audience gets information that they can use and make sure that there’s a cadence and schedule in place for this messaging. Being present for a while and then disappearing for a while does not keep your audience interested.
  • Get Emotional. Prospects are prospects whether you’re trying to market bars of soap for their homes or selling soap dispensers on the B2B side. Market research has shown that most people buy on emotion first and intellect afterwards. Give them content that makes them feel something and they’ll stay tuned in.
  • Variety is the spice of life. Change things up. Don’t keep going out with the same ad or mailing the same brochure, etc., Once people think they’ve seen it, they’re off somewhere else. In our own lives, we don’t keep rereading the same thing so why for a moment do we think that if you keep rerunning the same material over and over again to your audience, things will get better. I’m here to tell you …it won’t. Better to change things before people get bored.

Now, at a time when attention spans are shorter and less focused than ever, you need to be more focused on making sure your marketing messaging doesn’t fall on deaf ears.  There is too much noise because too many people want to be noticed without having to say anything worth hearing. The genuine voice sounds different and therefore it can be more easily discerned.  The problem is, because of so much noise, people are hardly listening any more – expecting to hear nothing of worth anyway. Make every effort to be the voice that gets heard.

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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.

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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