Total Marketing Solutions

What does MSN’s announcement of cashback for users of its live search mean for PPC advertisers and online marketing consultants?
In a previous post, I mentioned advertisers who spend significant amounts with Google Adwords but do not use Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft AdCenter. The main reason for this is that, for most companies, neither Yahoo nor MSN deliver enough volume to make the effort worthwhile. (It’s also worth saying that neither has an interface as easy-to-use as Google’s.) And in the volume game, MSN finishes a poor third for UK advertisers.
So hats off to MSN. This is an innovative attempt to shake up a market that is at risk of becoming a monopoly. Anyone who is familiar with Affiliate Marketing will recognise the concept immediately – but instead of the advertiser paying the commission to the affiliate, the search engine will pay commission to the customer. It will only work if searchers like the concept, and more of them defect to MSN – and stay with MSN, increasing their share of the market. And they will only stay with MSN if the search results, and in the case the paid results, deliver relevant results. So it’s back to square one, because most searchers use Google because they believe that the results it delivers are more relevant. For my part, I think this cashback initiative is just the first step in the next phase of the search war, following Microsoft’s failed bid for Yahoo. I believe that Yahoo and Google will fight back, and at this stage my money’s still on Google to keep its lead in the battle.

Sustainable marketing is good, Greenwash is bad. That seems to be the gist of recent articles on this blog and elsewhere including the Sunday Times. So how exactly do they differ? How do you undertake marketing without running the risk of tokenism?
Most of the targets of activists are large corporate organisations, who generally use a product launch to boast about its green credentials without considering the company’s wider environmental strategy. Environmentalists, and many customers, find it difficult to reconcile the “green” messages with the company’s other activities or its history. One of the great rules of marketing is that you have to deliver on your promise and customers do not see these companies delivering.
So as a marketing consultant there are a few simples rules that I recommend to clients undertaking sustainable marketing :
- Try to make it more than a gimmick. Take steps to make sustainability a strategy of your organisation, not a marketing tactic. Customer s will see through anything less.
- Make sure it’s real. If you promise to offset your carbon emissions, then do it.
- And don’t let concerns about greenwash put you off from doing the right thing. That’s akin to not recycling your newspapers because you’re worried that you drive a 4×4. So if in doubt, just do it!

So you’ve given your website an extreme makeover, you’ve optimised it to the max and you’re still not getting the traffic you had hoped for. Why not get in touch with your inner journo and get writing? Submitting articles on topics of interest to your potential customers to some of the many online article directories and online PR sites like Article Blast or Expert Articles could be a further opportunity to exploit and ultimately increase traffic to your website. Once you have written your article, you submit it with a link to your website’s url. What’s more, your article may then be picked up by other webmasters for publication in their own directories, meaning that you can get an awful lot of mileage for very little actual cost. As marketing consultants for SME’s, we are constantly looking to improve and measure the impact of any marketing spend. If your sole cost is the time it takes you to write the article, then it can be an excellent investment. However, there are some golden rules to follow: 1. Use conversational copy. The relationship you have with an online reader is very different to printed material. Use words your target audience will know and be familiar with, but avoid jargon at all costs. Cheesy ad-speak will not work online.2. Get a shave. Once you have written your piece, use Occum’s Razor. Shave off all the wasted words. Keep sentences short and avoid long, scary chunks of information. Online readers do not dawdle or sift. Make sure your point comes across loud and clear from the beginning. Don’t wait until the end of the article to reveal your point - your online reader will have clicked and fled.3. Make sure your copy is benefit-oriented. Your customers don’t want to know how many Institutes you belong to, they just want to know how you can help them. 4. Simplify your ideas. It’s not that your online audience is educationally challenged in any way, but there is a lot of other good stuff out there to read. Make sure yours hits home quickly. It all sounds very easy but once you have got a good idea for an article, you’re halfway there to driving more traffic to your website. Happy writing!

Following on from the last blog, it occurred to me that perhaps - whilst it might be a case of STBO for many - with many SME’s still lacking any kind of sustainability strategy, it might be worth looking more closely at the reasons why we as Marketing Consultants are keen to ensure that sustainability is at the forefront of the work we do with our clients.  So why should we really care if our products are sustainable or not? Grab that cup of fairtrade coffee again and chew on this:

• The world’s population has doubled in the last 50 years.
• UN forecasts show a further explosion of 3.3 billion to 2050 - 90% of which will be in the developing world.  
• The predicted resulting growth in consumption of energy and natural resources is already ringing alarm bells. 
• The globalisation juggernaut is still gathering speed - creating a greater North-South divide, destroying habitats and species diversity, whilst CO2 emissions have doubled over the last 50 years.

Thankfully, it’s not all doom and gloom. Consumers are realising that their current levels of consumption are having a negative impact on the planet and are looking to change their buying behaviours to reflect a more responsible approach to being a consumer in the 21st century. Businesses are now also realising that reacting to this shift in consumer demand not only represents an opportunity to do the right thing but also is evolving into a real chance to develop their own competitive advantage.  This advantage could be down to successfully differentiating a product due to its sound environmental or social performance. Alternatively, it could be down to any cost savings due to a reduction in materials or energy usage. Either way, it’s a win-win situation that is too good to ignore. Understanding your customers’ potential appetite for sustainable products is key to deciding how to shape your strategy.

So where to start? Mentioning the Marketing Mix may warrant another slurp of that strong coffee to stave off the inevitable yawn, but it really is a good starting point. As Marketing Consultants, it still plays a valuable role in defining our customers current strategic position, particularly regarding sustainability. A quick skip through the 7P’s in the Mix can bring some real insight:

1. Product/Service - how sustainable is your product or service? What are the real social and environmental aspects of making, using and disposing of your product?
2. Price - What is the true cost of the product? Perhaps those costs are only really apparent at the end of it’s Product Life Cycle when it has to be disposed of.
3. Place (or distribution) - can your distribution channels be streamlined to reduce their impact on the environment?
4. Promotion - a tough one, but is your current product promotion encouraging excessive promotion? (Just upgraded your perfectly functioning mobile for a slicker model anyone?) Are any sustainability claims accurate, because if they are not, a bumpy ride ahead can almost be guaranteed. The aware consumer will not tolerate tokenism and any bogus claims will be quickly found out and fired right back at you.
5. Your people - are they treated fairly, paid a living wage? (That’s a good one to ask when you buy your £2 T-shirt.)
6. Company processes - do current processes actively encourage the enhancement of natural and human resources?
7. Physicals (lorries to livery) - are there processes in place to reduce excess usage and sustainable sourcing? 

This sounds like a lot, but many SME’s are now grappling with these issues as a basis for developing their sustainability strategy. They are not only starting to sleep more soundly at night but they will also start to see the improvements in their bottom line. 

Viral marketing’s ability to generate cost-effective word of mouse is undisputed. What does remain in dispute, however, is just how ethical it all is. Where do marketers now stand on viral marketing now that it has had time to evolve and develop over the past view years? When it all first started, a few companies tried their hand at incentivising a few influential bloggers who really should get out more. In many cases the plan backfired when the “independent” opinions were found to be anything but and the ensuing negative publicity undid all their good work.

Today, the ethical debate still rages. No longer the sole domain of big brands and big budgets, viral marketing has become a cost-effective means of marketing communication for an increasing number of SME’s too. But the question remains: how do we as marketing consultants and also as consumers ourselves feel about the whole spectrum of viral marketing? That spectrum ranges from total deception - i.e. sneaking into online forums to talk up the latest gizmo and infiltrating chatrooms - to full transparency via branded advertainment, which leaves no-one in the dark as to who is behind it all. The only clear issue is that, ironically, the more transparent you are, the less effective the impact of any viral marketing activity. So what to do?  

The whole area of word of mouse is now so vast that to attempt to enforce some ethical standards would be nigh on impossible, but there are a couple of things to bear in mind if one were to go down this route:

1. Any content to be used for word of mouse should have the legs to stand on its own, even if everyone knew it was destined specifically for viral marketing.
2. Make sure anything you submit is of interest and/or helpful to the online community you are targeting.  Nowadays, it’s not so much cloak and dagger and mouse and content. 
3. As everyone is becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media marketing, the messages need to be relevant, creative and transparently invisible.

 Who said it was going to be easy? 

Not many people would argue with the fact that businesses have literally driven the transformation of the modern world. From the original Bell telephone, which eventually led to the electronic information age, the list of consumer goods that have appeared in an evolutionary eye blink is endless. And it’s only getting faster. Disney produces a new product every five minutes whilst Sony launches three new products per hour. Seventy percent of Hewlett-Packard’s revenue comes from products that didn’t exist a year ago. This constant rush to market has dramatically improved and transformed human life — not only doubling our life expectancy and improving the quality of living but expanding our horizons too.

At the same time, the rush to capture more market share, propelled by the profit motive, has caused untold damage to this planet. The momentum of the corporate juggernaut is so powerful that trying to alter its course might seems almost impossible. “We are not just marching toward disaster,” says noted business consultant and author Ichak Adizes, “we are sprinting toward it.”

However, an increased awareness of the importance of sustainability is creating a new consciousness – and not just amongst the large global corporations. Companies of all sizes are now recognizing that as their customers’ views towards sustainability are growing, they now need to respond to these changes in order to have any stake in the future. And marketing stands to be at the forefront again – but this time as a force for good. As Marketing Consultants to SME’s we are now seeing an increasing number of clients seeking to build sustainability into their business.

Marketers are at the frontline in their relationship with customers and it is customers who are now driving the demand for companies to be more accountable. Britons spent nearly £26 billion on ethical goods in 2004, up 15% on 2003 – far more than a passing fad. It is marketers now who can take their unique customer insight to the rest of their company. They can have a direct impact on processing, packaging, and distribution whilst communicating their new approaches to sustainability to both the customer and the rest of the company.

Marketers now have the opportunity to lead creative responses and to encourage different, more sustainable responses. For those of you already doing the basics, how about:

• Implementing a sustainable sourcing policy – only buy from suppliers who operate sustainably.

• Introducing flexible working patterns at times outside of the rush hours to reduce idling traffic pollution and encourage working from home for some of week if possible.

• Looking at your packaging – are there any ways it could be reduced or degradable materials substituted? 

• Looking at your supply chain – could you source more locally if possible?

More radically perhaps, look at re-engineering your products and services to extend their product life cycle or remove any built-in redundancy. (How many of us have recently thrown away a perfectly good mobile phone to replace it with a fancier version?) Any step away from this current “disposable society” has to be a step in the right direction and the time for marketing to lead irresponsible and unsustainable consumer demand is probably over!

The business case for businesses to implement any steps towards sustainability is strong indeed and something which we, as Marketing Consultants, are keen to encourage wherever possible. There is real competitive advantage to be found in communicating sustainability credentials. By switching to sustainable suppliers, you are more likely to receive reciprocal business from like-minded organizations.

However, beware! In communicating your company’s green credentials you run the risk of “greenwash” – using a statement of ethical intent as a means of gaining competitive advantage, rather than demonstrating any real commitment to the cause. Only by ensuring that any move towards sustainability is real and not simply added on in an attempt to lure ethically-minded customers can you avoid an unpleasant attack of “greenwash.”

If you are serious about generating cost savings and creating competitive advantage, whilst adding to your reputation, take a long, hard look at how to adopt a more sustainable approach to doing business. It’s one of the few win-win situations out there any more and a real opportunity for marketing to shape the future.

Recent news articles have signalled some bad news for Google. The company, whose good-guy image and motto of “Don’t be evil” have helped it to survive previous bad news stories, such as the ongoing concerns over the length of its cookie to the furore over its censorship of results for Chinese users. And it’s likely that the news that Google is planning its first job losses will fall into this category, particularly as they’re a result of its acquisition of DoubleClick.

However the news that will give Google most cause for concern is that the rapid growth in advertising clicks has faltered. The Guardian reports that January 2008 saw zero growth in paid clicks, while February saw just a 3% rise. This contrasts with monthly increases of between 25% and 40% in 2007.

So what’s behind this? Are Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisers spending less or are users becoming more choosy about what they click on? My feeling is that it’s a mix of the two. Advertisers are now better at tracking results, and are acutely aware of the difference between traffic and sales. The days of generating traffic for traffic’s sake are gone. And users are aware that some paid adverts can find them just what they’re looking for – but some advertisers try to hijack traffic to sites that are light in content, perhaps in the hope of earning commission as an affiliate, which can result in a poor experience for the user.

I don’t believe that Google’s dominance is under threat, for now. As an online marketing consultant I know of PPC advertisers who spend significant sums with Google AdWords but don’t bother with Yahoo/Overture or MSN as they don’t deliver volume. As long as Google dominates search traffic, it will dominate the PPC market.

And what does this mean for SMEs? Not too much, for now. Consider your Pay Per Click campaign like any form of marketing. Keep a close eye on it and track your results. And if it’s not working to target, cut it out.

We all like to think that we are behaving responsibly and doing our bit to save the environment, but just how green are the various marketing activities you are currently undertaking? Have you ever carried out a thorough audit of their environmental impact with a view to adapting or changing the way you market your business? Well if you haven’t, you are not alone. According to Envirowise, the Governement body established to encourage businesses to improve their green credentials, 44% of leading UK companies are not taking any steps whatsoever towards embedding sustainability in their strategies. This despite the various carrots - free advice, incentives and proven improved commercial performance - that abound. As the drive to combat climate change becomes increasingly influential, those organisations lacking robust environmental credentials risk losing out to their more switched-on competitors. As legislation starts to be introduced to force us to be fully accountable for the way our businesses impact on the environment, those organisations not already ahead of the game will waste valuable time, resources and money playing catch-up whilst their competitors focus on increasing their market share. Put simply, the future health of your business is inextricably linked to the health of our planet. But where to start? As marketing consultants,  we have worked with a number of companies as part of their overall strategy development who have successfully introduced initiatives to combat their environmental impact. One of our clients, Pepper, a Plymouth-based printing company, were one of the first businesses in the South West of England to gain the BS8555, the new standard for environmental management systems. Not only have they reduced their carbon footprint in what is traditionally a very “ungreen” industry, they have also saved costs and increased efficiency.  Take a look at the Pepper website for more information on how they went about achieving green status.You could start the ball rolling by completing the Envirowise questionnaire, which will not only pinpoint where you are now but guide you towards the next steps. Not only does it make sense from an environmental perspective, but there are real, tangible benefits to adopting a green approach to how you do business. If that isn’t enough of a carrot, then you could always wait for the very big stick which is coming along!  

Every man, woman and their dog now has a website covering the whole spectrum of the good, bad, ugly and downright awful. But it’s fair to say that even some of the most beautifully designed, graphically pleasing sites may not be doing their job, which is not only to communicate with visitors to the site but to help get them there in the first place. If a website has not been fully optimised - i.e. is not exploiting every opportunity to be noticed by the spiders from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Mars and so on who crawl over websites gathering relevant information for the searcher - then it it doesn’t matter how lovely it looks, it is failing you and probably losing your company lots of opportunities for business.The good news is that to change things is neither impossible nor necessarily costly and can represent a real business development opportunity for SME’s who may have limited marketing budgets available.As marketing consultants we frequently look at overhauling a company’s website as a part of developing their wider marketing strategy. We find that our customers are often very pleased to see quick and significant improvements in traffic to their sites through even the most basic search engine optimisation (SEO). But just how easy is it to optimise a site for search engines? Here are some simple ideas that we believe work:

1. Make sure all copy is not only customer friendly but also “search engine friendly” - use your keywords (the main search terms used by potential customers) wherever you can, as long as the text still makes sense!
2. Make sure you have a site map - web crawlers can’t jump but love crawling from page to page via a site map. Take this a stage further and get yourself a Google Site Map, an XML thingy that is much loved by far and away the most important search engine. Note: if you Google the phrase ‘Google Sitemap’ you will find some ‘free’ software that will create your sitemap for you.
3. Keywords should be used in the title tags and meta tags on all your key pages - the snappier the better. Web crawlers don’t dawdle.
4. Take care with images - most web crawlers can’t read text contained in an image so make sure all images have an “alt attribute” - a text description so they do not remain invisible to the short-sighted crawler.
5. Get your finger out! Keeping your website up to date with blogs and news items will ensure web crawlers notice your site more easily.

For more hints and tips on Search Engine Optimisation, visit our Resources page. Whilst it will require time and effort to optimimise your site, it can pay real dividends quickly and effectively. A fully optimised site, even if it has been touched by the ugly stick, will prove far more effective than the airbrushed beauty. Whoever said looks aren’t everything certainly had a point!

Once upon a time the Chartered Institute of Marketing was perceived by many as the stamping ground of big brands only, with equally big marketing budgets to spend on expensive and high profile marketing activities. But the times, they are a-changing. As the number of small and medium-sized businesses and their importance to the ecomony continues to grow, particularly in the South West of England, the CIM is also growing in a whole new direction.

The recently established Small Business Group within the CIM now has a clear remit to become the ‘marketing champion’ for small businesses across the United Kingdom.  Through this group, the CIM and its members across the country are now focussing on establishing links with local Chambers of Commerce and other business support agencies and organisations to provide this burgeoning number of SME’s with access to the CIM’s expertise across a whole range of marketing issues. 

A number of targetted workshops and seminars will enable small businesses to access this expertise first hand whilst a specially-created Marketing Toolkit provides in-depth information on a wide number of marketing topics all of which are totally focused on the needs of SMEs. These include advice on how to create a website, how to analyse business sales and how to grow through existing and new customers.

Not before time, it looks like marketing consultants - like TMS - who work with SMEs everyday will now have the backing and resources of the CIM to support them in providing high quality and effective marketing help and advice. Time will tell, of course, but feedback from the pilot programme in Northamptonshire has been very positive. It will be up to the CIM members to ensure that their advice is focussed, relevant and practical, but this could be the start of a beautiful friendship where all sides benefit. The CIM gains increased credibility and member numbers whilst small businesses become better equipped to take their products and services to market both profitably and effectively.