The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/all/20060220075636/http://jaylipe.typepad.com:80/smart_marketing/

Consumers will increasingly lead your marketing

Yesterday's New York Times ran an article called Madison Avenue's 30 Second Spot Remover where it warned about the end of traditional advertising. The article, which profiled Robert Greenberg of R/GA, drew attention to the rising role that consumers play in interactive advertising.

Among the examples it cited were:

  • A Nike billboard in Times Square that allows consumers to enter  commands from their cellphones to actually customize the footwear appearing on the billboard above them
  • Subaru's website that lets car buyers actually "build" a car from scratch
  • Response codes that are embedded on movie posters that allow trailers to be downloaded onto cellphones

One of the core messages of the article can be summed up in a quote by Mr. Greenberg himself: "The Internet is a new language because it's not linear. The novel is linear, film is linear, but the web is not."

Keep tuned in to this development in the field of marketing. More and more consumers are driving a company's marketing efforts and this trend seems to be gaining steam...

 

February 13, 2006 in Marketing Plans | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

How to identify your marketing problems

Identifying your marketing problems is really the first step towards developing a marketing plan. If you don't know what your marketing problems are, how can you expect to solve them?

Here then are 5 questions you should ask yourself as you begin to analyze a company's marketing effort:

  • What directions are your total sales (e.g. revenues, units sold, attendance) going across a 5 year period? Are they rising? Falling? Rising, then falling?
  • What shifts are taking place within these total sales that require explanation (for example, if you are marketing an extension college, are certain campuses growing, while others are declining)?
  • What methods do the majority of your customers use to find out about your product or service? Is it word-of-mouth? Referrals? Advertising?
  • What is the purchase motivation for your product or service? Why do people buy it?
  • What is the likelihood for repeat purchase of your product or service?

This is the first layer of analysis to begin identifying your marketing problems. There will be more analysis needed later, but this gets you started.

Can anyone out there think of other key questions I've missed?

January 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Color in marketing - What do certain colors mean?

What do certain colors mean? Since 1997, Color Com has surveyed over 30,000 around the world to try to find out what certain colors mean. Here are some of the results:

Characteristic                              Color
Happy                                      Yellow
Pure                                           White
Good-tasting                           Red
Sexiness                                    Red
Mourning                                  Black
Dependable                              Blue
Expensive                                 Gold
Inexpensive                             Brown

There are lots more at the site. To see the results yourself, take the survey, and then the results will be displayed for you.

January 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Delivering the sale: Key to marketing success

My 11 year old son recently collected pledges for a school fund raiser. He dutifully marketed door-to-door and got several neighbors to contribute money in exchange for gifts that would arrive under separate cover. All in all, he raised $125 for his school.

But when the gifts arrived two weeks later, and it came time for him to deliver them to the neighbors, he dragged his feet. Maybe he thought his commitment was over after collecting the pledges. Whatever the reason, I had to practically shove him out the door to deliver the goods.

After he finally delivered the goods, I realized that many marketers suffer from the same fate: they rush to collect the order (the marketers greatest self-interest), but drag their feet when delivering the goods (the customer's greatest self-interest).

I wonder if others of you see this same phenomenon? Do your businesses or clients have an unhealthy fixation on getting the order?

January 16, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Looking for a marketing job? Try this tactic...

If you're looking for a marketing job, consider using informational interviewing as a tactic. I'll explain this tactic in a moment (and then point you towards a marketing podcast where I was interviewed about this technique), but suffice it to say this tactic will help you:

  • Expand your knowledge base about marketing jobs
  • Improve your network among people who already have marketing jobs and
  • Make you a better marketer once you find the right marketing job.

Now, what is an informational interview? It's simply an interview with someone in the marketing field whose purpose is no other than to gain information about their marketing job. You call up a person in the field and ask them if they have 20 minutes to spare so you can learn more about their marketing job.

Once you get the interview, you DO NOT ever ask for a job, nor do you even hint that you want a job. You are only meeting with this person to learn more about what they do.

Here is a podcast interview I recently gave that is found at Sue Morem's site and goes into much more detail about this marketing tactic. Give it a listen and see if you don't agree that this technique can help you land a marketing job...

January 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Integrated marketing; What exactly is it?

People in marketing, especially advertising agency folks, talk a lot about integrated marketing. But I find they often don't understand the depth of an integrated marketing campaign. How extensive can an integrated marketing campaign be?

Try answering these questions, and you'll see:

  • Do all of your company's marketing vehicles carry the same, consistent visual identity?
  • Are you using the same key messages across all your marketing vehicles?
  • Do various marketing tools "point" consumers towards other vehicles so they can learn more (e.g. direct mail that points to your website for more information)?
  • Are your prices in line across all distribution channels, so that someone who becomes aware of your product in one channel (e.g. a retail store) finds the same item at the same price in another (e.g. your e-commerce site).
  • Are promotional offers consistent across all marketing vehicles?

There are so many elements to truly integrated marketing that I'm sure I've left some out. Can you think of some I've missed?

January 9, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Open source marketing; The wave of the future?

As the calendar turns into 2006, I asked myself what new marketing trends are emerging? The answer is quite simply...open source marketing. One way to define open source marketing is by calling it a willing collaboration between a company and its customers to help market the company's products.

Firefox, just got into the act by launching its Firefox 1.5 browser version using an open source marketing campaign.  In this campaign, the company invites users to record video testimonials, enter a contest and link to video.spreadfirefox.com .

This move to open source marketing is a natural outgrowth of word-of-mouth marketing (as well as word of mouse marketing) and, in my opinion, will only gain strength in 2006.

But, what do you think? Is there something here to open source marketing or is it just another fad?

January 2, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Retail Marketing Tricks

Here's a great post called 8 Things Stores Don't Want you to Know by John Nardini that gives all retailers proven marketing tricks to increase their sales. In this post you'll find answers to marketing questions on:

  • How to use color to increase sales
  • What kind of music to play to make shoppers feel more welcome
  • Which scents put a shopper's mind at ease.

Retail marketers, remember that successful marketing is about doing a thousand little things right. Start with these retail marketing tricks and you'll be well on your way to success...

December 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Brands are NOT dead

I just finished reading an article in one of our local business publications Minnesota Business
that had the curious title "Brands are Dead". Written by an author claiming to own a "marketing architecture consultancy" (whatever that is) it quoted a CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi as saying "Brands have run out of juice. They are dead."

This is way off base. Sure, the dynamics of the marketplace are changing to a more opt-in environment, and yes competitive pressures are found most everywhere these days. But brands are NOT dead. In this hyper-competitive environment we face, you are obligated to build a strong brand; rooted in trust and customer confidence. If you don't, your customers will turn elsewhere, in the blink of a mouseclick.

My second book Stand Out from the Crowd: Secrets to Crafting a Winning Company Identity (due out  next year by Dearborn Trade Publishing) will cover all the tools a company needs to distinguish itself from its competitors. But building a company brand, is at the heart of it, and still very much alive.

Do you agree?

December 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

The Sounds of Marketing

My daughter and I srolled  into my favorite coffee bar yesterday for a Sunday morning daddy-daughter bonding event. After ordering, we took our seats and it was then that we noticed the music playing. It was a grunge/metal band, heavy on the yelling, that played over the loudspeakers at entirely too loud a level.

Since we were 2 out of just a few people in the joint at the time, I walked up to the counter and asked if there was any chance of listening to a different CD. My request was met by the manager of the place with a steely-eyed look and the words "We don't honor music requests ".

I couldn't help but notice another worker, who was far less severe in her attitude, watching with great interest, but deference just the same.

After getting our orders, my daughter and I proceeded to talk over the music for a couple of minutes. Then, I noticed,  out of the corner of my eye, the other worker turn the music down. The rest of the morning went just fine and my daughter and I had a great time after that.

But the whole incident raised two questions in my mind:
1) Do you think music influences the mood of a retail environment?
2) Is it right for customers to request a change in music? Should the owners comply?

December 5, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)