“Today’s Marketer, Tomorrow’s Growth Leader?” was the topic of the BMA St. Louis luncheon in last week. The speaker was Scott Davis, author of several books including “The Shift, The Transformation of Today’s Marketers into Tomorrow’s Growth Drivers” which was released in May 2009. Scott is an adjunct professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and has over 20 years of brand, marketing strategy and new product development experience.
Scott’s presentation was how marketers are missing the boat when it comes to board room discussions because they don’t talk about what the board is focused on which is mainly increasing profits. Davis explained how marketing is really made up of what most traditionally trained marketers refer to as the “Four P’s of Marketing” which include product, price, promotion and placement (a.k.a. distribution). When it comes to marketing, most only see it in terms of promotion. Even in the promotion area marketing is often split between “marketing departments” and sales.
I agree with Scott. After graduating from the University of Missouri – Columbia with a B.S.B.A. in Marketing I was surprised to see that most “marketers” totally ignored all aspects of marketing and only concerned themselves with promotions. I worked at an advertising agency as an account representative and then in management. The agency only focused on creative and ad placement – hardly ever strategy or how it relates to price, product or placement. But in reality, you have to follow the money. Ad agency’s revenue comes from billing for creative and ad placement. So naturally, they are going to be focused on this rather the big picture.
In my other marketing roles within other industries, I found it to be the same problem: people equate marketing with promotions and only promotions. My theory is that traditionally trained marketers only have themselves to blame. First, they don’t educate others on marketing. Next, as Scott said in last week’s meeting, marketers really don’t talk in terms of revenue and profits.
Many people that I have run into are in marketing positions but don’t have a formal education in marketing. They are trained in communications, journalism, advertising or sales. Others come from disciplines that don't study business such as engineering and graphic arts. When they land in a key marketing position, these marketers need to train themselves on such things as profits, loss, and revenue. They need to know how to calculate gross and net profit and be familiar with a balance sheet, income statement and equate how all aspects of marketing affect these reports.
With the Internet it is much easier to quantify a return on investment. It’s easier to measure key marketing tactics, spending and results. However, integrating your entire online and offline marketing and knowing how it affects PL is critical in proving its value to the bottom line.
However, marketers need to be involved with the other marketing P’s. They should be asking tough questions. What is the pricing strategy and how is it working? Can the product be improved or altered to affect sales? What stage of the product life cycle is your product in and what is the proven strategy for that product stage? How can you improve profits with different distribution channels? Marketers need to know how to ask these questions and be in the forefront of answering the questions.
Will there be a shift so that more marketers become growth leaders? They can only if they fully understand and participate in an organization’s growth in terms of numbers and strategy by utilizing the four P’s of Marketing.
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Monday, October 12, 2009
Target Audiences Change
Before we undertake any project we first conduct research and analysis. Skipping this step means that you are basing your project on instinct rather than facts. One of the elements in this step is examining the target audience. Analyzing the target audience and clearly understanding who they are and why they buy is critical in the success of your marketing strategy.
In most cases we ask our client to describe their target audience. What separates us from most companies is that we don’t assume anything. Lately we found that several companies were going after the wrong target audience. Their sales where sluggish at best and the company’s marketing efforts had poor returns.
My previous post on the presentation by Aimee Davis of Solutia, is an excellent example of going after the wrong target audience. The post talked about branding but what made a huge difference in Aimee’s strategy is that they focused on a different target audience. Prior to Ms. Davis’ work at Solutia the target audience was the final consumer of the end product rather than the direct buyer of the material who then produces the final product. Changing the focus to the direct buyer plus changes in the brand strategy resulted in the best quarter ever at Solutia.
Recently, one of our clients hired us to completely re-vamp their entire marketing strategy. This company wanted to reach the top marketing person at large (45 plus million in sales) corporations. However, upon examining the situation including the product, the offer, and the buying cycle, we found that that while they may want to attract large corporations it was not their target. The target audience - on average- no longer had a need for their product. Our client has a great product and there clearly is a need for the product, but the need is within mid-size and smaller companies.
Over ten years ago the target audience to the larger firms worked. However, this audience’s needs were being met with new technology and new players. These changes did not register with the client and sales were slipping. They thought they were keeping up with the times because they added new selling techniques, a new Website and utilized new technology but they never re-examined the need of their target audience. They were getting a few sales and continually thought they didn’t have good sales people and/or their marketing “creative” wasn’t good enough.
Changing the focus from who they wanted the client to be to the target audience that really had a need for their product made all the difference. With a change in the target audience and tweaking the message and offer made a huge difference in the success of their marketing.
Target audiences change and keeping an eye on these changes can make a significant impact on your marketing dollar return on investment.
In most cases we ask our client to describe their target audience. What separates us from most companies is that we don’t assume anything. Lately we found that several companies were going after the wrong target audience. Their sales where sluggish at best and the company’s marketing efforts had poor returns.
My previous post on the presentation by Aimee Davis of Solutia, is an excellent example of going after the wrong target audience. The post talked about branding but what made a huge difference in Aimee’s strategy is that they focused on a different target audience. Prior to Ms. Davis’ work at Solutia the target audience was the final consumer of the end product rather than the direct buyer of the material who then produces the final product. Changing the focus to the direct buyer plus changes in the brand strategy resulted in the best quarter ever at Solutia.
Recently, one of our clients hired us to completely re-vamp their entire marketing strategy. This company wanted to reach the top marketing person at large (45 plus million in sales) corporations. However, upon examining the situation including the product, the offer, and the buying cycle, we found that that while they may want to attract large corporations it was not their target. The target audience - on average- no longer had a need for their product. Our client has a great product and there clearly is a need for the product, but the need is within mid-size and smaller companies.
Over ten years ago the target audience to the larger firms worked. However, this audience’s needs were being met with new technology and new players. These changes did not register with the client and sales were slipping. They thought they were keeping up with the times because they added new selling techniques, a new Website and utilized new technology but they never re-examined the need of their target audience. They were getting a few sales and continually thought they didn’t have good sales people and/or their marketing “creative” wasn’t good enough.
Changing the focus from who they wanted the client to be to the target audience that really had a need for their product made all the difference. With a change in the target audience and tweaking the message and offer made a huge difference in the success of their marketing.
Target audiences change and keeping an eye on these changes can make a significant impact on your marketing dollar return on investment.
Monday, October 05, 2009
Branding from the Experts!
Last week I attended a wonderful presentation at the Business Marketing Association. The presenter was Aimee Davis, Global Marketing Communications Manager at Solutia. The topic was on branding and how in 2006, Solutia’s performance products division was suffering from brand confusion. Undeterred by these challenges, our speaker, Ms. Davis, helped bring these product brands under the branded house of Saflex, increasing brand recognition worldwide.
Aimee talked about how, with research, they discovered the problems associated to their brand which included: there was a lack of consistency and focus in market-facing activities, spreading their message across multiple brands with unclear relationships and promoting products and not a clearly defined “company” brand.
She then reminded us what a brand means and outline that a brand is:
• It’s what we stand for; it’s a promise!
• Must be aligned with business strategy.
• Helps position offerings in the minds of the market, customers and employees.
• It’s a company asset containing long-term equity.
And she outlined the benefits of a strong brand:
• Brand loyalty drives repeat business
• Creates preference > “premium pricing”
• Instant creditability with new product introductions
• Customers will be more loyal to you in a time of crisis
• People want to work for / work with brand leaders
To many professional marketers this outline is straight from brand strategy 101. However, what many marketers do is forget about the fundamentals and glance over the obvious. Going back to the fundamentals is essential in marketing. The first activity Solutia took was research. This is the least appreciated, often over looked activity in marketing. However, research is the lynch-pin to a successful marketing strategy. Without research a marketer is basing their activity on assumptions and guesses rather than facts.
Then Aimee outlined the common misconceptions about branding. Among the list is what I feel are the two most common misconceptions:
• Branding is simply a name and logo
• Brands take care of themselves.
I constantly see companies hire design firms to do their branding. And design firms boost of branding when all they really do is design a nice logo and letterhead. An “identity package” from a design firm is not branding. They never mention research or brand strategy they just keep posting logos and call it "branding". These companies are missing the boat. Now it is perfectly acceptable for a company to hire a design firm to design a logo and indentity materials after the research and brand strategy have been developed. But "indentity materials" without a true brand strategy is just a pretty design.
To many professional marketers this outline is straight from brand strategy 101. However, what many marketers do is forget about the fundamentals and glance over the obvious. Going back to the fundamentals is essential in marketing. Ms. Davis’ presentation confirmed that the fundamental brand strategy process is crucial in developing a strong brand.
Brand strategy is not just for large companies that can afford extensive research and brand strategy specialist. There are excellent professional marketers who not only have the education but have the experience who can help mid-size to small business owners develop, implement and maintain a highly valuable and profitable brand.
Ms. Davis’ presentation was outstanding. She walked us through the logic and strategy of developing a strong brand, implementing an internal and external strategy and concluded with the outcome. As a result of her work, Ms. Davis and the Solutia team have experience in 2Q09 the best quarter in the history of the company. Now that's a brand stratgy with straightforward results!
Aimee talked about how, with research, they discovered the problems associated to their brand which included: there was a lack of consistency and focus in market-facing activities, spreading their message across multiple brands with unclear relationships and promoting products and not a clearly defined “company” brand.
She then reminded us what a brand means and outline that a brand is:
• It’s what we stand for; it’s a promise!
• Must be aligned with business strategy.
• Helps position offerings in the minds of the market, customers and employees.
• It’s a company asset containing long-term equity.
And she outlined the benefits of a strong brand:
• Brand loyalty drives repeat business
• Creates preference > “premium pricing”
• Instant creditability with new product introductions
• Customers will be more loyal to you in a time of crisis
• People want to work for / work with brand leaders
To many professional marketers this outline is straight from brand strategy 101. However, what many marketers do is forget about the fundamentals and glance over the obvious. Going back to the fundamentals is essential in marketing. The first activity Solutia took was research. This is the least appreciated, often over looked activity in marketing. However, research is the lynch-pin to a successful marketing strategy. Without research a marketer is basing their activity on assumptions and guesses rather than facts.
Then Aimee outlined the common misconceptions about branding. Among the list is what I feel are the two most common misconceptions:
• Branding is simply a name and logo
• Brands take care of themselves.
I constantly see companies hire design firms to do their branding. And design firms boost of branding when all they really do is design a nice logo and letterhead. An “identity package” from a design firm is not branding. They never mention research or brand strategy they just keep posting logos and call it "branding". These companies are missing the boat. Now it is perfectly acceptable for a company to hire a design firm to design a logo and indentity materials after the research and brand strategy have been developed. But "indentity materials" without a true brand strategy is just a pretty design.
To many professional marketers this outline is straight from brand strategy 101. However, what many marketers do is forget about the fundamentals and glance over the obvious. Going back to the fundamentals is essential in marketing. Ms. Davis’ presentation confirmed that the fundamental brand strategy process is crucial in developing a strong brand.
Brand strategy is not just for large companies that can afford extensive research and brand strategy specialist. There are excellent professional marketers who not only have the education but have the experience who can help mid-size to small business owners develop, implement and maintain a highly valuable and profitable brand.
Ms. Davis’ presentation was outstanding. She walked us through the logic and strategy of developing a strong brand, implementing an internal and external strategy and concluded with the outcome. As a result of her work, Ms. Davis and the Solutia team have experience in 2Q09 the best quarter in the history of the company. Now that's a brand stratgy with straightforward results!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Email Pet Peeves
One of my biggest email pet peeves is email signatures.
What’s an email signature? Did you ever notice that at the end of some emails you will see not only the email creator’s name, but their phone number, cell phone number, company name, logo, Web site address, etc. It’s amazing how easy this is to do and how many companies simply over look it.
Why is this so important? I’m out of the office a lot. I use my Blackberry to stay connected. I’ll receive an email from someone who wants an immediate reply. It would be SO EASY just to click on their phone number after their name. But do they bother to add their phone number? No. If they’re not in my system they are going to have to wait until I can get their phone number and call them back.
The interesting thing is that the same people who do NOT have an email signature with phone number OR even bother to type it in the email are the same ones that are annoyed that they don’t receive an immediate phone call. When I do return the call I politely tell them that I was out and mention that I could have quickly responded if they would have added their number to the message. The really annoying thing is they repeat the same old habits.
Having the company’s contact and Web site information makes it easy for the recipient to contact you or visit your site. This email signature should be standard for the entire company. Having everyone use the same font, style and format helps build your brand awareness. Adding your phone increases the response time with phone calls. At least with me anyway.
What’s an email signature? Did you ever notice that at the end of some emails you will see not only the email creator’s name, but their phone number, cell phone number, company name, logo, Web site address, etc. It’s amazing how easy this is to do and how many companies simply over look it.
Why is this so important? I’m out of the office a lot. I use my Blackberry to stay connected. I’ll receive an email from someone who wants an immediate reply. It would be SO EASY just to click on their phone number after their name. But do they bother to add their phone number? No. If they’re not in my system they are going to have to wait until I can get their phone number and call them back.
The interesting thing is that the same people who do NOT have an email signature with phone number OR even bother to type it in the email are the same ones that are annoyed that they don’t receive an immediate phone call. When I do return the call I politely tell them that I was out and mention that I could have quickly responded if they would have added their number to the message. The really annoying thing is they repeat the same old habits.
Having the company’s contact and Web site information makes it easy for the recipient to contact you or visit your site. This email signature should be standard for the entire company. Having everyone use the same font, style and format helps build your brand awareness. Adding your phone increases the response time with phone calls. At least with me anyway.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Invited to Speak at St. Louis BMA Luncheon
I've just been invited to speak at the BMA luncheon meeting this Thursday. It's a panel discussion on ROI (return on investment). Ellen Sherberg, Publisher of the St. Louis Business Journal is moderator of the discussion. The group will discuss ways to improve your marketing ROI.
I constantly tell my clients we are NOT a Web company. We're a marketing company here to get you results. If you want a Web company there are plenty in town and I give them a list.
What's the difference? Well if you're focusing on design you're going to get great design. If you're focusing on results you're going to get results. Why not focus on both you say? Well, you do want great design but if from the bottom up you don't start with understanding a return on investment how do you expect to get a return.
First thing to consider is the organization that is in charge of your projects. Look at their background and accomplishments. Case in point I have a BSBA-Marketing and MBA. Plus, our clients see a minimum of 3:1. For every dollar they spend with us they get three in return.
Our best example is how we took a Website from $8,0000.00 in gross profits a month to $900,000.00 in gross profits a month. Yes, that blows out of the water the 3:1 but return but not everyone is going to achieve the same results.
After Thursday we'll be posting more on ROI and how to increase it.
To read more about the event go to our news story on the BMA and increasing ROI panel discussion.
If you're in town, I hope to see you there!
I constantly tell my clients we are NOT a Web company. We're a marketing company here to get you results. If you want a Web company there are plenty in town and I give them a list.
What's the difference? Well if you're focusing on design you're going to get great design. If you're focusing on results you're going to get results. Why not focus on both you say? Well, you do want great design but if from the bottom up you don't start with understanding a return on investment how do you expect to get a return.
First thing to consider is the organization that is in charge of your projects. Look at their background and accomplishments. Case in point I have a BSBA-Marketing and MBA. Plus, our clients see a minimum of 3:1. For every dollar they spend with us they get three in return.
Our best example is how we took a Website from $8,0000.00 in gross profits a month to $900,000.00 in gross profits a month. Yes, that blows out of the water the 3:1 but return but not everyone is going to achieve the same results.
After Thursday we'll be posting more on ROI and how to increase it.
To read more about the event go to our news story on the BMA and increasing ROI panel discussion.
If you're in town, I hope to see you there!
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