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  • 5 Ways To Waste Your Firm’s Marketing Budget On Research

    5 Ways To Waste Your Firm’s Marketing Budget On Research

    Alexandra’s hit it on the head with this one. Precisely what we’ve been telling our clients for years.

    Top 5 Ways to Waste Your Professional Services Firm’s Money on Research

    By Alexandra Marigodova

    More and more firms are discovering the extraordinary power of strategic marketing research. In fact, Hinge’s own research shows the firms that conduct systematic research on their current and potential clients grow from 3 to 10 times faster and are up to 2X more profitable.

     

    Faster growth and more profits – that’s the power of research. But in order to work, it needs to be done right!  This blog post lists some of the most common, budget-murdering mistakes that are easy to avoid.

    1. Use Research Designed for Consumer Products

    The truth is, marketing research started in the consumer sector in the 1920s. Client research built on consumer product research is truly the “mullet” of professional services research. It’s out of style, it doesn’t quite fit, and it makes us cringe here at Hinge.

    Think about it. Trying to figure out how to sell accounting services using methods designed to market baby formula just isn’t the best strategy. Purchasing a product at the supermarket involves less risk and different decision makers. This is one sure way to waste your firm’s hard-earned money.

    Instead: Use research designed for professional services. One thing for sure, professional services buyers don’t purchase on impulse. To design the right research, you first need to “pilot test.” Ask open-ended questions, then turn them into categories. First explore, and only then narrow down.

    1. Ask Little Questions

    By nature, people are greedy. Many try to pack very granular, nitpicky questions to get the most bang for the buck. Our mind tells us to add, when we should be subtracting. Asking little questions is one of the easiest ways to introduce bias and get meaningless results.

    Instead: Focusing on the big questions will yield the most results. Think of it as removing layers rather than adding more to get to the real truth – what’s most important for your firm. Think more along the lines of how your clients would describe the real value that your firm delivers, rather than how they feel about a specific service.

    1. Use Quantitative OR Qualitative Questions

    More often than not, we come across research studies that ask “what” without asking “why.” This is especially common for times when quantitative data tells us what we want to hear. Imagine you got this finding: “80% of our clients are very loyal to the firm.” And… full stop. We don’t need to know more, right? Wrong. You just missed an opportunity to find out what makes you so unique that the clients want to stay with you.

    Instead: Use BOTH quantitative and qualitative questions. “What” should always be followed by “why.” Understand the reasons behind the numbers and listen to what your respondents are trying to tell you.

    1. Poison the Pot with Judgment Words and Phrases

    What’s wrong with the question below?

    “On a scale of 0 to 10, how important are the awesome services that firm X provides to you?”

    I spoiled the question on purpose, so it’s an extreme example. As you can tell, it explicitly tells the respondent that the services are, in fact, awesome. We can’t both ask for an opinion and give our own. Freedom of expression to all of our respondents!

    In all seriousness, surveys often use descriptive adjectives and add unnecessary leading information. Dictate the results of your research and lose money.

    Instead: Use neutral language and phrases to let the respondent make the call. The questions themselves can impact the objectivity with which people respond to them. Be mindful of word choices and put extreme care into the wording of your questions.

    1. Talk to the Wrong People

    Another way to pour money down the drain is to ask a whole bunch of wrong people. Even with the right set of questions, the wrong set of people will not give you meaningful results.

    There are really two predominant ways to mess up your sample – trying to ask each and every person or only talking to clients you have the best relationships with.

    Instead: Use smaller, highly targeted sample groups. Ask yourself, “What does the client I want to do business with look like?” and “Who are my most desired prospects?” Interview them.  Ask your internals, too. It’s important to see how well your employees know their clients.

    The growing investment into research in professional services also exponentially increases the amount of blunders. But don’t worry! Now you know how to avoid the common mistakes. No need to risk your money. It’s time to get actionable results from research to grow your firm and become more profitable. For a more comprehensive overview of best practices, download our free Professional Services Guide to Research.

  • Battle For The Bucks: Big Data VS. Good Data

    Battle For The Bucks: Big Data VS. Good Data

    With marketers, retailers and web pundits delving into the topic of Big Data, studying their Google Analytics report like it’s the Zapruder film and studying up on their compiler language, how does all that information translate into creating products that people love and that fly off the shelves?

    I contend that there are two elements of this, one is Big Data, which shows you a tranactionally-based road map of what’s popular, what people like, what they prefer given an unlimited number of choices, and can show you how people’s purchase decision gets made; and Good Data, which is gained through other means than digital, but has a digital internet component, and can show you WHY people prefer one thing over another, WHY they gravitate to certain elements or items, WHAT MAKES things popular, WHAT their needs might be in their daily lives BEFORE its been created and marketed.

    The two are different and both are extremely useful in putting together a cogent innovation program that can generate the new things we all crave and to marketing them effectively and making them popular and successful. One is only “better” than the other under specific constraints and circumstances. I tend to use both depending upon the project, Good data being the best and most useful to drive new product or service innovation, and Big Data the most useful for gathering and testing theorems and intelligence on applications and market positioning for the product once it’s been developed.

    True innovation is a brand new, never been seen before element, and therefore Big Data will not be able to provide you with any comparative data because there’s nothing to compare it to. I doubt the folks at Apple tried to sift through transactional data to see if anyone wanted an MP3 player the size of a lighter with a thumb wheel selector, but if you had asked individuals (primary insight research, Good Data), how they listened to music, where they listened to music most often, and how they WANTED to be able to listen to music (while running, exercising, swimming, in the car,), and why they couldn’t do those things with the current gear, those answers might have lead you to create the iPod.

    The wealth of Big Data spawned by tracked internet traffic, and the dearth of Good Data based on ineffective feedback loops, automated CS phone trees and do-it-yourself web-based customer service devices have isolated the bigger more established brands, those with a solid customer base, and a culture often lacking in specific innovation paths beyond incremental improvements f the current product line. That isolation will likely have a dampening effect on those firm’s ability to innovate over the next several years and beyond, if internal structural changes to the organization are not made and a comprehensive, skin-thin customer facing transparency established so that consumer input can be distilled into actionable intelligence quickly and efficiently.

    Those firms without an effective “Data Loop” to constantly feed the development teams a source of Good Data will slowly stagnate and become copy-cat innovators, while those closest to their own customers will clear a path to new product development that is facile, smooth and relevant on an ongoing basis, fostering innovation in search of customer happiness. Expensive? Not really, when considered against the cost of lost customer base, eroding market share, lack of attention to pirated technology due to inattention to customer need, defense of intellectual property infringement and a host of other ills facing a stagnant brand.

    If you think like I do, and want to help your company become a place that fosters innovation, comment below, or contact me via e-mail at dpoulos@granite-part.com or on LinkedIn.

  • Sometimes, a Frontal Assault Loses The Sales Battle

    Sometimes, a Frontal Assault Loses The Sales Battle

    I was speaking with a top marketer and high-powered sales professional (yes, the two skills are not mutually exclusive), and the conversation drifted to how he made approaches to prospective clients and how HE liked to be approached. The two were the same, and clearly it’s lead him to experience fantastic success, based upon his story and current situation.

    He shared with me that “once I discovered this secret, I quit “selling” and just had a conversation.” He related how he had been approaching clients with qualifying questions, asking them about their business, and subsequently telling them and showing them how his expertise could provide solutions, how they had helped others in similar situations, and here were the reasons why. The is a common approach, one most sales people take to generated leads, warm calls, those they have no real personal relationship with prior to the initial conversation. It’s a frontal assault, based on the ABC (Always Be Closing) school of sales, which works great for high volume, turn-and-burn, broad-based consumer sales. It’s high-pressure, high speed, high-volume approach that will, with some minor tweaks, meet the numbers goal almost every time if enough approaches are made. But it doesn’t usually lead to the most loyal clients, or the most profitable, and certainly not the longest term clients, those who provide life-time value which is 10-20 times higher than the initial transaction value.

    For long-term, relationship-based, loyalty-rewarded business-to-business sales, this type of approach is less successful, and can be annoying and offensive to the executive to whom it is directed – it’s disrespectful to think that such an individual is going to make a quick, ill-considered purchasing decision, on his own, without due diligence, without internal consultation, right in front of the salesperson. Not happening.

    Sometimes a more subtle, staged approach is more appropriate – and more successful! This is not a style issue, it’s a functional reality. People want to do business with those they trust, and to come straight at someone without knowing anything substantive about them, and put pressure on them to make a purchasing decision, on what usually is a fairly high-ticket spend, does not inspire trust – someone worthy of my trust would know better . . .

    Now, for the secret my colleague imparted. His conversations don’t revolve around benefits, features, cost, product production schedules, arcane back-office technology, or even specific results. His conversations center around discovering the nature and often the source of the problem, the pain point the prospect is suffering from. Once that is established, no promises of a solution are made, but a commitment is asked of the prospect to explore a couple of ideas further, and see if the relationship is likely to work. That way they can both see that the steps recommended are sensible and effective, but also that each side has at least an emotional skin in the game, they’ve both committed to give TIME and EFFORT to solving the problem. Cost is not the central focus, indeed it may not even be mentioned.

    In a nutshell, the secret is to solve problems that both parties have agreed are problems and have agreed to work together to solve. It’s a common path, not a push-down strategy, and it works to “knock down walls” and reduce resistance, and craft a reasonable, fair and honest business relationship.

    Try this with your next solid prospect, and see what the results are. We all have to give to get, and with this simple secret, you get both.

  • And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor . . .

    And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor . . .

    Are you really getting as much value from your sponsorship activity as you were lead to believe when you entered into the agreement? Have you ever tried to measure the gains, results, or revenue generated from a sponsorship opportunity?

    It’s tough, isn’t it? It’s difficult because there were no metrics or measurement tools built into the sponsorship, and likely no real activation point with which to leverage the value of that sponsorship into more sales opportunities. Sounds like gobbledegook, but there’s a fundamental truth buried in all that jargon: You can’t elicit or assess value if you don’t have a way to measure the return, and you can’t take advantage of visibility unless you find a way to make it turn into action by the viewer.

    Let’s take the activation portion first.

    Creating activation for a sponsorship, be it a meeting, a sporting event, a team, a radio program or other media opportunity is not easy, and it’s often not just a one-step process. Companies who’ve had success with sponsorship have found ways to really turn that awareness generated by this type of activity into action on the part of the viewer.

    Modern technology can help. The QR code is one way, the photo submission contest is another, with cell phone cameras being nearly ubiquitous in the US. The idea is to give event attendees or viewers a reason not only to interact with your brand, but to extend that interaction beyond the context within which it started to outside the venue, to incorporate it into their daily activities. Technology helps you give viewers a channel through which to interact with the brand that is new and fun and engaging, and if you do it correctly, they will become evangelists for your brand and pass their experience along to the others in their personal network, extending your reach even further.

    Now with modern technology, viewers have a method to engage, but you still have to provide a motive. They’ve got to WANT to interact with your brand, hopefully in a positive way. Motivating emotions for sponsorships tend to be the need for individuality (only people who attended in person get this shirt), aspiration to be an early adopter (be the first on your block to have one), greed (something for nothing), and the need for attention (winner gets his picture on our product box) these can take many forms in terms of the offer and the audience.

    Clearly, the brand/venue/activity/audience match-up is critical to making the most of your sponsorship, always has been, and technology hasn’t changed that much. Making smart selections based on your brand character, and your goals for the sponsorship are still critical exercises. But the need to engage, not just raise visibility for a short time, is higher than ever as message clutter has risen and attention spans have shortened.

    Now, on to measurement. Not coincidentally, engagement and measurement go hand in hand. The more actively engaged your audience is with your sponsorship activity, the more easily measured it is. Engagement involves action, and actions can be recorded, measured and assessed. If you put up a banner in a sporting arena as part of a sponsorship, that doesn’t inspire much engagement. But if you put that banner at eye-level in front of the entrance to a famous venue gate, and ask people to take a picture in front of the gate and send them in to your website for a prize, now you have engagement. The more photos you receive, and the wackier they are, the higher the engagement and the more value you get from the sponsorship.

    More sophisticated measurements can be taken if you have the need and the use for the data. There is tracking technology, built into ticket stubs, bracelets, and the like that can track attendee movement and dwell within a venue passively, over time. The readouts in aggregate can show you roughly how much exposure your physical representations got that day or that week, and give you a target number to benchmark against for future events in that venue. Connect the two methods, and you set up a sort of Where’s Waldo scenario that can lead to an avalanche of engagement, at least within the venue, for more bang for your buck.

    However you choose to do it, the basics are the same: Give them a reason and a way to interact with your brand in a positive way, and then measure the activity and benchmark it against the cost and the value of the sponsorship to assess ROI and renewal decisions. With a little extra effort, you can reap huge benefits from your sponsorship opportunity.

  • The Best “Big Data” is The Invisible Kind

    The Best “Big Data” is The Invisible Kind

    Anyone who hasn’t listed their domicile as “rock, lower level” in the last five years knows that the biggest mega-trend in marketing is “Big Data.” As with most of these media-dubbed monickers, this means different things to different people, but in general, “Big Data” refers to the use of customer information, some of it public, some of it mined from social media, some from transactions, appending services and overlays, to market more effectively to those customers. We’ll use that loose definition here as a basis for discussion.

    Most consumers see evidence of big data in use either in their mailbox or their e-mail inbox. Personalized postcards, membership cards, letters, e-mail messages etc. are visible evidence that big data is in use. For better or worse, this type of evidence is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to data, and can indicate a less desirable and more clumsy approach to data use. We contend that the best use of data like this should be virtually invisible. It’s like the movies – if you can see how the special effects are done, the movie becomes about them and not about the story. Poor usage draws attention to the mechanics and diverts interest from the bigger message.

    Big data can be an incredibly useful and effective tool for creating an outstanding customer experience, as we’ve seen with companies like Amazon or Zappos. The use of transactional and preference data to enact an algorithm to “suggest” logical and related purchases the customer might find of interest is a tremendous customer retention tool. If I know that my transactional data is being saved and used for this purpose, I’m comfortable with that, knowing that they can only really use the information I give them. Plus, if there is a problem, I know they have a vested interest in keeping that data for longer periods of time, and keeping it accurately and privately. I can reference an order and have a really good chance of them being able to access their records, see what the problem is, and correct it immediately – the data and it’s access empowers their customer service staff to solve problems quickly and completely.

    For outreach marketing, lead generation, membership recruiting and the like, the use of big data gets trickier. You may or may not have any transactional data to use, so often the underfunded marketer falls back on extensive and repeated use of the data they have, by over-personalizing their outreach materials. It’s like the insecure guy trying to prove how smart they are to the pretty girl, it looks obvious and a little desperate. If I receive a piece of correspondence with my name or address liberally sprinkled throughout the piece, I get the feeling they don’t know me and are trying to fake it.

    Brilliant use of big data is unseen by the recipient. Big data is behind the fact that you are receiving the message at all. But that’s just the beginning. Modern computing power is such that each message can be customized to the recipient in a vast array of ways, either printed or digital. Keying photographs, imagery, copy, messaging, offer and other elements to appended data makes for a powerful and effective marketing punch that gets results. Outreach marketing is about triggering an emotional response, and one thing we know reaches our emotional triggers is things we’re familiar with and comfortable with. Seeing an ad served to you on your favorite social media platform from a site you recently did some shopping with shows the marketer’s hand, but is effective because you’re familiar with the shopping site and know how it happened. A personalized postcard for a national swimwear marketer with my name all over it, featuring beach clad models sent to an address in Minnesota announcing a sale in February is not likely to resonate as well. The data could have been used to swap out the image for one of Eskimoes in swimwear, and change the headline to “Coming Soon. . . ” just based on the zip code and the date. Let us know you at least gave us a moment’s thought . . .

    The best bet is to put yourself in the shoes of the recipient as effectively as possible, for as long as possible, and to use the data to effect the outcome, not to show you have the data. Use that data you have cleverly and wisely, rather than show how much data you have. Show us you thought about us, not that you know about us. Invisible data speaks the loudest, and contributes the most to the bottom line.

  • 3 Ways NOT To Fall for a Clever Headline

    3 Ways NOT To Fall for a Clever Headline

    In a routine scan of my e-mail inbox, the discussion pages of my 40-some LinkedIn groups, various news sites and marketing sites, I counted over 100 headlines like the one above, promising everything from business lead generation to building up my profile, to keeping my windows from sticking, to where to go in Ocean City. All tempt the reader with a memorable number of simple solutions, neatly encapsulated in a short, easily digestible list, suggesting that if you compile enough lists about all the elements of your life, you’ll have all the answers and your life will run smoothly.

    Is this what content marketing practice has distilled itself down to, a clever headline offering quick easy solutions to life’s tough problems? I certainly hope not, because if your life is like mine and those of my colleagues here, it’s never that clean and neatly arranged – life is just plain messy!

    Marketing is a difficult, complex and widespread discipline, vastly misunderstood by the rank and file and by many of it’s practitioners. It takes YEARS of experience to master even the rudimentary elements in a coherent fashion, to be able to apply them in some fashion to a company or organization’s challenges, to identify and isolate the problem, and devise a strategy to combat it with well-thought-out tactics that do more good than harm, won’t break the budget and will return many times their cost. That’s a tall order for any single discipline, but marketing covers roughly 20 different disciplines within it, all of which can and should be considered when assessing and formulating a plan of action. If you can fit that in a list, I’d love to see it.

    Don’t get me wrong, lists of reminders can be very helpful and useful as a memory joggers of the various rough spots and pitfalls that can befall the forgetful. But I think the use (and overuse) of the catchy tip-laden headline is the lazy way to go. If our business attention span, our ability to learn new concepts, to absorb data and information, has sunk to the level where lists of tips guide your operative day, we are truly in a crisis. From the outreach side, they are a crutch for the lazy man, a cry for attention in the digital wilderness, where solid, impactful and dense information are traded away for quick thrills and easy clicks, screaming “Hey, look at my stuff, not that guy from the learned institute over there, I’m faster and easier.” They are the cliff -notes of a practice and a discipline that takes time and effort to learn, trial and error to master, and guts and determination and discipline to apply.

    Next time you see a list headline with 10 tips on anything, see if you can guess what at least five of them are before you open it. If you’re right, skip the list and it’s author and move on. I’m off to write the next entry, “10 Ways to Be Labeled an Old Curmudgeon Without Really Trying.”

  • Is Advertising Dead?

    Is Advertising Dead?

    Marketers, retailers and their agencies have been relying on advertising and it’s relatively high cost and low return to drive revenue for 75 years or more. Is the time of the ad behind us? Will banner ads and social media posts fill the void? Somehow, I think not . . .

    When we approach small businesses about increasing or even originating their marketing budget, their first thing they tend to think of is “Are we doing new ads, they didn’t work too well the last time” and the ears turn off and the eyes glaze over and the rest of the conversation is spent educating them on the value of other forms of marketing. Marketing and advertising have become so irretrievably intertwined in the minds of small business executives, that any conversation about one inevitably drives toward the other. While frustrating to our consultants, it tells us something about the perception that “only big companies can afford advertising,” which seems to pervade the landscape. With 500 cable TV channels, unending YouTube channels, and enough niche and general interest blogs and print publications to choose from, anyone can advertise. But can they afford to advertise in enough places enough times to break through the clutter and actually reach a select audience often enough and well enough to effect sales? That’s the real question.

    One element that will forever dog traditional advertising is accountability. No agency exec actually went into a meeting with a client and honestly said, “These ads that ran 60 times last week on all three networks and the Superstations, gave you directly a 5% uptick in product sales” – doesn’t happen, no matter how much they try. They talk around the results, talk about branding support, about number of impressions, audience reach and Q score of the spokesmen in the ad, but direct, 1-to-1 sales accountability ascribed to specific ads is the white Rhino of the advertising establishment – it’s been bandied about, but no validated sightings can be found in the literature.

    So with no direct accountability, why is something you can’t accurately measure, that costs a fortune, that can’t be tied back to the top or bottom lines, so hard to let go of? Perhaps because nothing else has come along that gives retail products the visibility, the bragging rights – “did you see our new spot on American Idol last night?” – and the complicit permission from the media outlets and media industries to charge based on demand, like a bushel of corn, driving both media and agency revenue ever skyward, that can replace TV ads. Social Media doesn’t do that, Search Engines don’t do that, E-mail campaigns don’t do that. Nobody ever turned to their neighbor at a barbeque and said “Hey, Bill, did you see that great e-mail from Purel yesterday?”

    Until something highly visible, ubiquitous to each household, device agnostic, easily monetized and publicly recognized comes along to replace it, advertising is here to stay. It’s utility may shift, it’s usage wax and wane with budgetary support and be temporarily dampened by the next shiny new thing that comes along, but I dont’ think it will disappear altogether any time soon, no matter what the digital pundits say . . .

  • Association Member Engagement Mountain

    Association Member Engagement Mountain

    Written by Dan Varroney

     Dan at Potomac Consulting has hit this right on the head, we fully believe and recommend to clients that the engagement puzzle be solved so that true growth can be achieved that is sustainable and manageable, not just a quick promotional bump in the numbers. This shows why . . .

    It’s important that in this day and age that Associations not “leave well enough alone.” The Stay or Go Imperative could impact an Association’s financial health and well being. If membership is a distraction instead of ROI, Corporations vote with their feet and instead invest in a different solution.

    Yes,  Corporations have smaller corporate staff, in some instances one executive may wear multiple hats. However, if this executive makes the dues decision, then a strategy or a change is  necessary.

    Read the Tea Leaves

    Companies look for the connection to business objectives as part of their membership evaluation process. If these connections don’t exist, it’s difficult for any Association to execute an effective strategy to engage members. Metrics are like tea leaves they both paint a picture and they tell a story.

    If Associations observe that conference attendance is equal or less to prior years, educational meetings and fly-in attendance is significantly lower, and member retention is down for three consecutive years,  it is time for an intervention. The marketplace could also signal one or more of the following: 

    • Negative view of the culture and overall effectiveness of an Association.
    • The Association is perceived as not being as impactful in educational, policy or advocacy programs.
    • Other solutions including coalitions, conference providers or other Association programs deliver greater value.

    Never Hit The Panic Button

    Associations should embrace the challenge and convert the situation into a strategic opportunity. When diagnosing, member participation and revenue fall-off rebuild the path to engagement: one company at a time, obtain clarity on business and policy objectives, and understand what members really must achieve from participation achieve.

    CEO’s can keep in mind that success and failure are never final, the road forward offers hope, and a more definitive path to member engagement.

    Develop Data Driven Strategies

    Associations need to build a data set to help them understand why participation and revenues have fallen.  However, it’s key to put heavier weight on relationships; in a complex world the human connection matters. One member at a time, collect the following information:

    • Is the Association perceived as staff or member driven?
    • Does participation help executives achieve company business objectives?
    • Why do executives participate in other Associations or Coalitions?
    • How important is networking?
    • Would Social Media engagement on platforms such as LinkedIn reflect an attractive alternative?
    • Are educational and or certification programs relevant to career advancement?

    While Associations may develop additional or different questions, these open the door to constructive dialogue with disengaged members. Tally the responses, create internal task forces of senior managers and key staff, develop solutions and new strategies, assign performance metrics and then execute.

    Association Member Engagement Mountain

    For Association CEO’s who have or who are looking into the abyss, there is light at the end of the tunnel. An Association Executive confronting the worst dues loss in decades once reported record gains in member participation, advocacy effectiveness and revenue growth. Stepping back, building an Association wide member focus with data driven strategies proved to be a year long process worthy of the effort.

    Yes, the participation, retention and growth outcomes were record highs but the data really reflected stronger member connectivity.

    Climbing the Member Engagement Mountain is vital and necessary for every Association. It can also be the determining strategy helping Associations achieve revenue growth.

    How does your Association drive Member Engagement?

  • Big Brands Use Big Data To Engage Customers

    Big Brands Use Big Data To Engage Customers

    Recent economic indicators describe a consumer climate that is different than virtually any in recent history, and consumer product and service businesses are having a tough time closing sales and encouraging sales traffic, both brick-and-mortar and online. This enforced stinginess on the part of consumers is wide-spread but not universal. Some products fly off the shelves and some companies are wildly profitable, while the majority seem to be pushing a rock uphill.

     

    Consumers are caught in a vicious cycle economically, have been since 2008. Profit is down on a per unit basis, write-downs and charge offs notwithstanding. Employment is down from knee-jerk reactive cost-cutting measures trying to stem the tide of red ink, the unemployed numbering in the many hundreds of thousands, and the underemployed doubling that. Equities in general have been stumbling along the bottom of the trough for the last two years, with a 3% growth number putting them back at break-even since before the crash. Spending is down, savings are flat, foreclosures are restarting their relentless march, debt is way too high, both consumer and governmental, and consumers are cautiously nervous.

    For retailers, this is the perfect storm of nightmares. Consumers are too scared to make those bigger purchases due to income uncertainty. Retailers won’t or can’t hire due to low margin, and can’t add jobs, reducing the unemployment numbers. Investors get lousy returns, and therefore can’t invest in riskier companies, so they can’t expand and add jobs. Consumers who have jobs are unsure they will keep them, but are doing the work of three and trying to keep their own head above water, cutting back on discretionary purchases. So, as a marketer, how do you break through the fear and engage consumers?

    In a word, “Trust”.

    If you scan the list of most profitable or growing consumer product corporations*[1], you’ll notice that they don’t have a common theme in terms of product offering, or price point or position in the marketplace, although they all tend to be number 1-4 in their category. The common thread among them won’t likely jump out at you from the list itself, but if you dig a little deeper, the theme becomes clear. These growing, smart, stable companies have been conservative in their growth plans, aggressive in defense and development of their brand, and firm believers in keeping their brand promise, leading to outstanding customer loyalty. They make products that people want and need no matter what their economic circumstances, and maintain loyalty through consistent quality assurance, product development speed and flexibility. In short, they give their customers what they want, and have done so long enough and consistently enough to have garnered long-term customer loyalty, and more importantly, trust.

    As marketers, we can’t often affect many of the attributes listed above that these firms have in common, but the few that we can, need to be the very best expression of the brand promise to establish that trust. We can’t affect QA directly, for instance, but we can certainly pitch the promotions to the correct consumer level and keep public perception on the right aspects of the product if QA is spotty or suspect. Product development is sometimes seen as Indian territory for the marketing department, but in these high-profit companies, our studies show that marketers are deeply involved in not only accumulating consumer data to feed product development, but provide assistance and expertise on consumer preferences, brand extension and alignment, and even assessing product features and elements, to be sure they meet consumer preference and demand. Perhaps this characteristic above all others may be the critical element in the continuing romance between these companies and their customers. In almost every case, companies that get the marketing staff involved early in the development process and have a defined process for creating, developing and launching new products are more nimble, responsive and profitable than those who simply launch and market products after the fact.

    That’s great for companies that create a range of new products regularly or update their flagship product routinely. But what about some of those firms who have been riding the same product year after year? How do they engage their customers and engender such loyalty to the brand?

    Many established and older brands that have let research and development languish, either through lack of resources or short-sighted thinking, find that they need to create or establish a new angle, a new application, a new extension of the existing product to create interest from new customers and renew interest from existing customers. Clorox might be an example of this, especially 10-15 years ago. Household bleach is a staple, has few innovations or moving parts, and aside from updating the package, and not much of that, it is basically unchanged since the 50s. Recently, they have innovated within the category, created new applications for the product and formed partnerships with other products to bundle or reinforce their products. Adding their product to other cleaning products gets the brand into households that might not welcome them otherwise, and sets or reinforces the expectation that bleach is an enhancer of cleanliness.

    Making the product “portable” in the form of a stain removing stick was a recent innovation that was launched in response to consumers’ increased mobility and need for instant gratification. Yet despite it’s age, Clorox continues to move off the shelves in predictable and growing fashion and avoid becoming a commodity, despite strong shots from competitors, generic versions manufactured overseas, and reduced profitability from price increases on raw materials and distribution challenges. A marketing team that can come up with a new angle for a 50+ year old product is a strong, flexible one indeed. What has kept them going is strong customer loyalty, and trust in the quality and integrity of the product to perform as advertised day in and day out over many years.

    But engaging customers doesn’t always mean product innovation, or even marketing innovation. Sometimes it has more to do with taking the appropriate approach based on customer’s expectations. One of the companies on this list, Harley Davidson, is a champion at delivering it’s message in the most appropriate medium for it’s audience’s digestion. But that hasn’t kept them from being innovative in order to engage the customer. Over a century old, Harley’s target customer is also getting older, and that demographic is populated by notoriously slow adopters of new technology. Harley does much of it’s marketing through the dealer channel and through event and sponsorship presence. They host rallies, rides, and other gatherings of product users through an extensive network of dealers and repair facilities coast-to-coast, and know their customer well. They have a huge array of licensed products and aggressively protect their brand in each of these arrangements, selecting only the highest quality materials, workmanship and designs to put their name on. This is one of the most traditional marketing models out there, and it still works very well. You would not expect them to have a huge online presence or use internet resources extensively to reach a 50+ age audience. Yet they have taken advantage of the social media phenomenon to help spread their message via word of mouth among their vast network of customers, creating Twitter accounts, a strong presence on Facebook with nearly 2 million friends. Other efforts include each dealer’s own FB page and own website, all of which have access to the manufacturer’s site, news, product info, dealer locator and more, plus license holder sites. All of this is used to promote new products, showcase product innovation, and get customer feedback, monitoring the electronic conversation and reacting quickly to customer input, engendering even greater loyalty and trust. It’s the message, not the medium that counts.

    Engaging customers also has to do with relevance. Being relevant to your customers may seem like everyone’s goal, and indeed it might be, but these profitable companies seem to have it innately present in their corporate DNA. These companies constantly seek ways to enrich their customers’ lives, and find new ways to be part of them. Coach, Inc., might be a good example of this. The luxury brand has innovated a number of approaches to meeting the needs of its niche market’s need for upscale handbags and accessories, leveraging their brand strength over a series of related products. If you purchase a Coach bag, with its famous lifetime warrantee, and it’s likely you’ll be informed about other Coach accessories, and often buy them, with the assurance that each product, either direct manufacture or licensed, will be made with the same level of care and quality, and at the same price point in the market. If you are a Coach-level consumer, you make it your business to show it, by buying the branded products that prove it. This elite, exclusive approach works very well for them, as it ramps up the relevance in their customer’s lives.

    As marketers, we have a huge volume of information and research data available to us regarding consumer trends, preferences, and behavior. It is up to us to responsibly use this data on OUR customers, to craft innovative, trustworthy, relevant outreach messaging to engage our customers to create brand trust, and drive sales and profits to where they need to be. Most of that trust and relevancy comes from the correct and appropriate use of that data to craft messaging that resonates with the target consumer. Transparency, honesty, relevance and trustworthiness are key to achieving these goals, and you can see the results of such activity reflected in the marketplace and the bottom line.

    If you found this insightful (or frightful) be sure to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

    [1] List compiled by Seeking Alpha, copyright 2010
  • Research Data Drives Effective Creative Strategy

    Research Data Drives Effective Creative Strategy

    It’s that time again . . . time to get the ball rolling on your new membership recruitment campaign, or your seasonal ad campaign, or your annual meeting promotion. You need an idea, a direction, an inspiration to guide your creative mind to a result that will be executable, will reach and resonate with the intended audience, and come in within budget. Where do you turn? Hopefully, you turn to the potential customer, in the form of primary research.

    The more you know about the audience for any marketing effort, the more effective that effort will likely be. You know the challenges they face, you know the mindset they use on a daily basis, you know what they need, and can make your concepts, copy and offers sing to the audience in a way that creates action, but only if you have the information you need. The way to get that information, in a reliable way that you can use to make decisions, is to be in regular contact with the audience. One of the most effective ways to do that is with periodic in-depth phone research.

    Get a Reality Check

    In-depth phone research, when combined with some written survey work on a periodic basis, can help you get an accurate feel for your members or target audience on an ongoing basis, unfiltered by the “pick the middle choice” phenomenon of printed surveys. Done in a truly blind fashion, where the audience has no idea your organization is behind the questions, customers feel secure enough to answer honestly and directly. Even so, most respondents in a small, highly specific prospect pool, especially in a member-based organization, figure out that the word will filter back to your organization eventually, so they feel that this may be an opportunity to air their gripes and get something done on their behalf without complaining directly to you. You can also gather information on the positive side as well, as compliments are far more rare then complaints from customers or members of the organization.

    Customer service benefits aside, true primary research generates not only anecdotal information on your current customers or members, but if you include ex-customers or former members in your scheme, there is quantitative data generated that can be projected accurately over the entire audience or prospect pool. And in that data is where the creative inspiration hides.

    Draw Comparisons

    Inspirational data often comes from the most unexpected numerical comparisons. Most marketing data mirrors the expectations that were built into the questions in the phone survey. In the face of that effect, there is often one set of data that stands out as an unexpected result, either very positive, or extremely negative compared to your own “feel” for that issue.

    The other comparison that lends itself to driving a creative “hook” is the comparison between the data from your current constituents and your former constituents. Not only will this comparison show you what facets of your organization are working well and retaining customers, but it will also show some of the reasons why the ex-customers left. Those are the things you can address in your creative strategy to shore up those perceptions that could be discouraging potential customers from doing business with you.

     

    [pullquote align=”left or right”]The more you know about the audience for any marketing effort, the more effective that effort will likely be.[/pullquote]

     

     

    Often an issue you feel is of little consequence turns out to mean an awful lot to the constituent audience. If you find that unexpected “key to their heart”, that should inspire a creative approach that will yield considerable success. Both in the concept and in the copy, hitting that high note repeatedly based on solid research is usually a home run. Careful reading and interpretation of that collected data is key to going in the correct direction. Sometimes some additional follow-up research with a small but representative audience to drill down on that unexpected issue can generate some additional, more leading data. That clarification can mean the difference between a home run and a wiff.

    Occasionally, the opposite scenario plays out, and something you’ve been promoting as a benefit all along turns out to have little importance to the audience. That lack of “resonance” is a disconnect that you now know you can avoid in your copy. That frees up some room to play up the positive aspects you’ve verified with the research data.

    Use The Data You Gather

    Without the underpinnings of that research, there is little basis for decision-making in the creative process. The data can give you a more sturdy brand profile, it let’s you make a persuasive case to senior management, and gives you something to backstop your creative direction. The temptation is often to take the data and twist it to meet the “gut feel” that exists in the collective mind of the organization. Ignore the data at your own peril. If the study is conducted by professional researchers, and there are no clear flaws in the list of respondents and its reflection of the audience is accurate, then let the data drive your decisions.

    The data doesn’t lie. It’s very easy to discount research data when you compare it to your own perceptions, or the preferred perception of the organization, and it doesn’t match. It’s tougher to stick to your guns, believe the data and act upon it. Once you see it work predictably and successfully, you learn to trust the numbers.

    Prioritize the Issues

    Once you have the data collected, and the analysis done, how do you make the leap to a creative direction? The secret is in the numbers. The basic strategy is that you determine the type of approach based on the read of the top 5 factors in the survey in order of importance. If the top three involve emotional issues, rather than the rational, or intellectual, then the creative approach leans toward a more emotional appeal.

    For example, if the survey indicates that your organization is not producing results for customers in a particular area, maybe customer service or responsiveness – those are largely emotional issues, as no one likes to feel ignored or not served adequately, but they are not functional issues or operational issues within the organization’s functional mission. The creative approach in that case might involve imagery and copy that plays upon the warm, service-oriented nature of the organization, a one to one approach that is more welcoming and almost apologetic. Of course, you can also pass the info on to the customer service department and improve there operationally as well.

    If you uncover among your top five factors that numerically your satisfaction level among customers is 3 times higher than your ex-customer dissatisfaction ratio, there’s a set of numbers to crow about, and you can take a more rational, numerical approach to the concept and the copy – show you’re keeping customers happy and keeping them longer than ever before. The data still drives the point home, and works to provide you with a creative direction, a springboard toward a winning concept that resonates with the audience.

    Use A Metaphor

    One of the simplest ways to make the leap from data to concept is to use a metaphor that explains what the data reveals. If you’re trying to illustrate that your company grew its customer base by 200% in the last quarter, or that your customer satisfaction rating improved by 3x over the last year based on some changes you’ve put in place, showing images of outrageous growth – beanstalks, elephants, Cyclops giants, etc.; or show images of size disparity – big bones with little dogs, big sandwiches with little kids, an Oreo cookie so large it won’t go in the glass of milk. The metaphor gives you a way to explain the concept that the data revealed in a way the audience can relate to easily.

    Now, on to those meeting ads, or those membership recruitment ads. Let the data be your guide in these cases as well. If your data shows that 80% of your members don’t go to your annual meeting because it’s too expensive, takes too much time away from the office and the same people go every year and it’s turned into a good ole’ boys club, its time to break out the big guns. They are not finding the value in your meetings. Time to fight the perceptions with your own reality and show the members in your ad or brochure that there are benefits to spending the money, taking time away and meeting those good ole’ boys face to face. Imagery in this case should be very rational, practical, businesslike, and copy should be extremely benefit-laden, addressing those concerns head on in a way the audience can relate to. In many cases, if you get one good lead, one good tip, meet one solid useful connection at a meeting, you’ve made the trip a worthwhile endeavor. Now multiply that by the “possibilities” of the number of typical attendees (some latitude allowed here, no accountants in the wings), and show how the value multiplies with the number of participants – sort of a “you have to show up to win type of approach”.

     

    [pullquote align=”left or right”] It’s tougher to stick to your guns, believe the data and act upon it.[/pullquote]

     

    Destination “X”

    Ads focused on the destination are destined to fail for at least a portion of the audience, yet they persist and even proliferate in the member organization landscape. Everyone knows it’s great to go to a meeting in “X” city, if you like that city, and if it has something inherently beneficial or relevant to the meeting’s purpose. If not, you’ll lose the folks who are farthest away and those that are the most cost conscious, almost automatically. No matter what city you pick, those two audiences are lost if the content isn’t up to snuff. You can’t have a meeting good enough to get them to go there. For those who are having trouble finding value in the content, the city is irrelevant. If the content is good and the results beneficial, you can have the meeting in a train station and people will attend.

    Use Testimonials

    For those organizations hunting for new members, there are many approaches where the data can give you some insights to follow. Testimonial approaches are a very strong framework from which to build value for prospective members. They humanize the organization, provide benefits the audience can relate to easily, and put a face to the issue of keeping members involved and active. Your research data sets showing the biggest challenges members or customers face are the key to crafting solid testimonials that answer these challenges. You can use the top 3-5 problem areas the data reveals and create a series of ads or brochure pages featuring members explaining how their involvement in the organization helped them solve the problem or meet the challenge. They would be highly credible, they would show the organization at work, and they would outline very relevant benefits that would resonate with the audience to a high degree – all driven by a few questions in your phone research survey.

    Use Everything Available

    There are many creative approaches buried within your primary research, and there are many sources of data that can be used to augment, support and reinforce your primary data and the subsequent analysis. Member application data, tradeshow or annual meeting attendee data, industry atlases or SIC code studies published by the U.S. Department of Labor, can all shed light on your target population. There are other kinds of research as well that will generate data, including focus groups, written or e-mail surveys, web surveys, live interviews at meetings or tradeshows, and live long-form personal interviews at a research facility equipped with one way mirrors and camera equipment. All these are viable forms of information gathering, and each has their place in providing you data you can use to form a creative approach to your outreach marketing.

    The key is to believe the numbers and use them in conjunction with your internal organizational knowledge to drive an effective creative strategy.

    If you found this valuable, don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”