Total Marketing Solutions

Following on from the previous post (Time for marketing to drive growth?) which shows that marketing becomes even more important in difficult times, it’s interesting to see how businesses are reacting in different ways. Marks & Spencer have announced that they’re cutting their marketing spend by 20% following a huge drop in profits. Elsewhere it appears that many companies are shifting the focus of their marketing even if budgets aren’t being cut; according to this report by Gyro International, 83% of Marketing Directors are focusing on their current customers more than ever in the weaker economic climate and 51% are focusing on loyalty marketing.

Now this might seem like common sense - it’s a lots less risky to invest in marketing to customers who have already bought from you that to attempt to acquire new customers - but for many the ‘glamour’ of marketing is in the exciting advertising campaigns that they often generate.

It looks to me that what Marks and Spencer are actually announcing a cut in their advertising spend; we will surely find that the opportunities that Sir Stuart Rose is talking about - such as growing M&S Direct and investing in international business - will lead to increases in marketing in these areas.

One of the never-ending jobs of a marketing consultant is to reassure clients that marketing is more that just advertising. Given that so many marketing directors are investing in customer marketing and loyalty marketing, the message is clearly getting through to business. All that’s left is to get through to the headline writers.

A recent article pubished by Deloitte has highlighted the fact that more and more CEO’s are now turning to marketing to deliver growth in this difficult economic climate. Malcolm Williamson, head of Deloitte’s marketing effectiveness team, stated:

“As market conditions deteriorate, growth is like gold dust. Our research has found that organisations believe that marketing is the driver for growth through its role as a generator of demand. It is now time for marketing to rise to the challenge.”

A total of 81% of all CEO’s contacted by Deloitte identified marketing as a key driver for growth and 85% identified it as crucial to devising corporate strategy. At the same time, only 20% of senior marketers surveyed by Deloitte believed that marketing in their organisation was truly effective. So whilst those at the top regard marketing as key to future success,  it continues to be one of the first budgets to be cut when the going gets tough. Why? Deloitte’s findings show that this is down to a lack of shared understanding of the role of marketing. Sounds familiar? It’s certainly an issue that resonates with us, where we find that all too often “Marketing” is seen as a tactical “cost” - rather than necessary element in defining the future direction - and success - of an organisation.

Those companies who are able to understand where strategic marketing fits into their organisation are those who are then able to fight for growth. Making sure your organisation is fighting fit is never more important than in a tougher ecomonic climate. As marketing strategy consultants, we not only help our customers define where marketing fits within their organisation we then help them develop effective marketing strategies to achieve their objectives for growth.

Time will tell if those companies who were able to use marketing to drive growth weather the storms ahead, but is it really worth the risk? Is it better to be a sitting duck or to come out fighting? To read the full and excellent article from Deloitte, click here.

When was the last time you took a good, long look at your website? It’s a process we’re undertaking ourselves at TMS, having realized that our own site was in need of a little attention. So we recognize that we aren’t perfect, but when did you last visit your own website from the perspective of a potential client?

It really is worth taking the time to walk through each page, following the “persuasion pathways” your customers are following - checking that you are persuading them to do what you want them to do along the way. If you’re website is feeling a little unloved and lacklustre at the moment, it’s time to bite the bullet and get stuck in. Try some of these ideas to get you started:

1. Take your time. It’s not a quick fix. Taking one page at a time will give you time to approach it as your customers do.
2. Does it hold my customers attention and stimulate interest? Don’t bore them with long paragraphs and wordy descriptions. Make sure they can find what they want quickly, without having to click their way to a well-hidden page only the most tenacious of customers can be bothered to find.
3. Does your website talk to your customers? When visitors come to your site, do they get a sense of who you are and what you’re about? Or do you just blend into the background like so many other faceless, bland websites? It’s important for customers to get a feeling for your company, who you are and what you stand for. It builds confidence and forms the basis of developing a relationship.
4. Get to the point. Don’t waffle on about stuff that just isn’t relevant to your customers. Keep it simple - flashy graphics and clutter detract from the message. Keep to the bottom line of what benefits you are able to provide. It’s easier said than done but Occam’s razor is a powerful tool when wielded correctly.
5. Take a look at your site map too, because too many clicks lose customers along the way. Make sure your pathways are clear and well-marked - only the truly bored can be bothered to spend time faffing around dead-ends and are far less likely to be real potential customers anyway.
6. Can your customers actually understand you? Sounds obvious, but even the most technically-minded consumer might struggle with some terminology known only to your inner sanctum. Revisit your site and make sure you have not only spelt out your message to your customers as clearly as possible but also that you hit them over the head with it.
7. Make sure your customers quickly understand what’s in it for them. You know you’re fantastic, but you need to communicate this in benefits for the customer, otherwise you will lose them at the home page.
8. Keep your blog up to date. If your last blog was three months ago, how is a customer going to feel about your company? Not that you should fill it with inane drivel (ahem!) but try to vent your spleen on matters of interest to your customers. It shows a commitment to your website and also provides another opportunity to communicate with your customers.

So pencil in some time to revisit your website - if you can’t be bothered, then why should your customers? A little time spent rekindling your relationship with your site will soon start to pay and you might fall in love with it all over again!

What’s the one thing really worth keeping when you’re in business? Yup, your customers, of course. It might seem blindingly obvious but this small yet rather crucial point in our experience is surprisingly overlooked by many companies, both large and small.In a recent post by John Jantsch of Duck Tape Marketing, he argued that there are four ways to grow a business, namely: get more leads, close more deals, increase your average transaction and/or add products or services to your current offering. He was quite right to also point out that a fixation on lead generation as the only way to grow a business inevitably runs your resources dry.But there is one more element to growing business that is not included in his list: stop losing customers - plug the leaky bucket!Many companies continue to win new business, close the deal - and then head for the hills! To get long-term value from all your marketing efforts you have to do all you can to hold onto those precious customers once you have got them.Frederick Reichheld, in his book “The Loyalty Effect” (Harvard Business School Press, 1996), states that a 1% increase in retention will amount to a 17% growth of the bottom line.  Compelling, isn’t it? Even if Reicheld is wrong by a factor of 50% it still demonstrates the value of looking after your customers.By ensuring that customer attrition is reduced as much as possible, all your efforts to secure that hard-won business won’t have been in vain.  As marketing consultants we have worked with a number of customers who have had startling results, simply by turning their attention to addressing their customer churn.  This is truly an effective use of marketing resources as a “lost” customer knows the company and products or services and was prepared to buy from you in the first place.The key to slowing your customer churn is to identify the reasons why customers stop buying from you - and then do something about it. When we looked at our customers’ leaky buckets, we found holes relating to poor customer service, inflexible payment terms and lack of ongoing communication. All these issues can be easily resolved by being focused on the customer and treating them as if they are worth more to you than the value of their last transaction. Keep in touch, keep them interested, make them feel loved and they’ll keep coming back for more.

There are still a great many people even within the marketing community who have not yet really grasped why social media should now be an essential and integral part of the way in which they ‘go-to-market’ with their business. In the following ‘colourful’ presentation, Marta Kagan makes the argument quite convincingly that social media is relevant to us all - that is if we want to continue to thrive and survive in our businesses!!!

Take a look & see what you think - please address any comments on the language used directly to Marta!

Whilst we are not ones to jump on the next marketing guru’s bandwagon, having read Seth Godin’s “Meatball Sundae - Is your marketing out of sync?”, we felt it had some nuggets in there of particular interest and relevance to our clients at Total Marketing Solutions. As marketing strategy consultancy we have regularly helped our clients with their online marketing strategy and it is clear to us that the whole area of Web 2.0 and how to make it effective is still little understood so here we try and learn from the ‘master’ himself.

The title of the book alludes to how companies undertaking traditional marketing activities [the meatballs] can’t just add cream, chocolate flakes, raspberry sauce [web 2.0 marketing techniques] on the top of what they do to make it into a sundae that is going to work and people are going to like - unfortunately it isn’t that simple!

The book tracks the decline and fall of some traditional marketing activities and outlines the need for companies to use new marketing techniques. But the fundamental message is about authenticity and how web 2.0 can quickly and easily find you out if you don’t act with integrity, honesty and try to create genuine products that give people what they want. The key barrier to this in the most part is the nature of the organisations that are trying to make this change from ‘old marketing’ [ie. TV advertising] to ‘new marketing’ [ie. social networks].

Seth goes on to identify some key trends, including:

The need for an authentic story as the number of information sources available increases: Telling true stories is the only way to spread messages on the unforgivable medium of the internet. Those being economical with the truth will be found out and their brand will suffer or be destroyed.

Extremely short attention spans due to clutter: This speaks for itself - organisations have to get over the fact that they can’t engage individuals unless they are totally relevant at a specific moment in time

Outsourcing: The internet has delivered a global supply of resources, skills and talent and enables all companies to outsource the stuff they can’t do or don’t do well enough.

Google and the dicing of everything: Search engines have enabled consumers to buy everything they need in component form, such as holidays, ultimately eliminating whole service sectors.

Infinite channels of communication: With new platforms and web sites being developed almost daily it is key to keep abreast of what is going on, what works and what doesn’t. Internet experiences will need to become entirely tailored to the individual [web 3.0].

Direct communication and commerce between consumers and consumers: Customers now gravitate towards each other via social networks, sharing experiences and creating communities of interest who can exert pressure on organisations.

The shift from “how many” to “who”: One of Seth’s previous work, Flipping the Funnel, covered this subject. The use of technologies like Google Adwords have put individual consumers in touch with companies rather than companies having to find them through uneconomical techniques.

New gatekeepers, no gatekeepers: The rise of the likes of YouTube has broken down the barriers to communicating with audiences and blogging community are becoming influential in the spread of messages.

The book is meant as a warning to organisations expecting the new marketing techniques to just replace traditional communication channels and effectively just ‘plug and play’ into their marketing strategies. As ever with Mr. Godin, there’s a good range of case studies, reference sites and examples to explain and support his argument, including one of his own companies, Squidoo, which features quite heavily.

If you’re already employing web 2.0 marketing techniques, or “new marketing”, with some degree of measurable success then this book may well inspire you to build what you’ve learnt into other aspects of your business. If you haven’t started yet you may well find the premise of the book quite daunting, in terms of how your organisation may have to change before you can exploit these techniques.

Either way, it’s well worth taking the time to explore how best to plot your future route through web 2.0.

Over the years Cadburys have made a number of memorable TV ads, for those of us old enough to remember who can forget the flake ad of the 70’s, but recently they have been somewhat forgettable - until now!

If you haven’t seen it yet, follow the link below to see their latest ‘Gorilla’ ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKdQC-hbY7k

I know a lot of people are questioning what has it got to do with chocolate and wondering whether people will remember the monkey or the brand but my view on this simple - who cares!

This ad is just great fun, it made my kids and I laugh out loud when we first saw it and I suspect that if Cadburys keep it going long enough kids like mine (the target audience for chocolate sales?) will remember this well into their dotage just the same way that people of my vintage remember the Milky Bar Kid with such fondness.

This is a great piece of marketing for its fun and silliness and it is a great piece of brand positioning for Cadburys designed to develop a long-term affection for the brand - well done Cadburys.

There have been many attempts to produce the definitive list of the ‘best’ TV ads and to identify the ‘best’ ad of all time and there are undoubtedly many worthy contenders for this coveted title - for what it is worth this is my favourite: The Carling Dambusters Ad

Its my favourite because not only is it very funny but beneath the humour it also a great piece of brand marketing. Sit back, click the link and enjoy!