Rational Marketing

Category: Marketing Strategy

  • Strengthen Your Brand

    Andrea Syverson recently asked some great questions for readers of Target Marketing Magazine.

    Questioning is the precursor to innovation. Alfred North Whitehead, a British mathematician and philosopher, said, “The ‘silly question’ is the first intimation of some totally new development.” After years of questioning, there really are no silly questions.

    Even Jerry Greenfield’s (of Ben & Jerry’s fame) lighthearted question, “If it’s not fun, why do it?” is one of utmost importance to its brand. Fun is an attribute at the top of Ben & Jerry’s brand and product fit charts. It is even a tab on the Web site.

    In 2003, Frederick F. Reichheld wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review called “The One Number You Need to Grow.” His research showed if brands concentrated on improving just one measure, it should be the answer to this question asked of their customers: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”

    Author James Thurber wrote, “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” What other questions is your brand grappling with, or perhaps should be grappling with, these days?

    Try these steps to get things going:

    Create an Environment for Questions. First, do you cultivate a question-asking environment? Without the freedom to raise questions or question decisions appropriately, your brand may have a blind spot.

    Question to Build Loyalty. Secondly, can you handle the answers to tough questions? Many brands have solid customer loyalty programs in place. These are indeed important parts of retention strategies. But take a moment to turn that question around for your brand—just how loyal is your brand to your customers? What have you done for them lately?

    Listen Up. Thirdly, what are your customers’ pain points? What makes them mad, frustrated or just plain tired in relation to your product, service, category or overall brand experience? If you spend time uncovering these issues and then creatively addressing them, both your customers and your competitors will take note.

    There are many examples of product/service/experience rage out there. Are companies listening? Do they care?

    So, take some time to question your culture, your customers and your results.

  • Pay It Forward

    Trendwatching.com posted an extract from The Globe and Mail discussing the trend of helping consumers “feel good”.

    “Paying it forward” is an old idea with new life lately. Many different major brands have launched promotional campaigns that blur the line between business and philanthropy.

    Benjamin Franklin pioneered the idea more than 200 years ago when he lent a colleague some money on the condition that it be repaid not to Franklin but to someone else in need. Franklin wrote at the time: “This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.”

    Maybe the idea caught fire because news of Feel Good Ripples spread due to what Wharton School professor Jonah Berger calls “social contagion,” a mechanism by which consumers and media decide what to pass along. “People like to talk about what is surprising, remarkable and unexpected,” Berger says. “They also like to talk about what makes them look good. Self-interest is a big driver.”

    For more hedonistic brands, the experience has been mixed. Starbucks received some positive feedback in the mainstream press, but bloggers sniffed that the whole thing felt contrived. Starbucks customers reported feeling good about themselves when in 2006, news of a pay-it-forward phenomenon at Starbucks drive-throughs began to make the rounds. Customers pulled up to the window only to be told the driver ahead had already paid for their coffee. The cashier then asked if they would like to pay for the customer behind them. These chains of benevolent coffee purchases reportedly carried on unbroken for hours at a stretch (and still do, by some accounts). And that may be the real dividend from initiatives of this type. Berger’s assertion that acts of generosity are driven by self-interest may not be so cynical after all. In other words, if your company can make customers feel good–even in such an oblique fashion as facilitating their philanthropy–the customers are likely to transfer some of that goodwill back to your brand. That’s a “trick” of which Benjamin Franklin might have approved.

    Here is a random act of kindness: Dean’s Mailing is offering a free marketing consultation to your favorite charity. This is valued at over $250.00 and will help save money and increase response.

  • What does your brand stand for?

    Deliver Magazine provided some thought provoking questions for many organizations and their marketing teams.

    You spend hours crashing through strategy documents, pulling out nuggets of customer insights, determining differentiators in the industry and understanding what it is that makes your corporation unique. And in the end, you have a vision of who and what your company is about. It’s that vision that helps establish relationships with customers, win over prospects and get your company noticed in this increasingly chaotic and fragmented world.

    Then, after all of that strategic work, comes the execution part of the marketing plan and you decide to go digital. You send an e-mail — which looks just like any other e-mail in your best customer’s inbox.

    Oh, we know, you finely tune the colors to match your brand (despite the fact you can’t calibrate how that color appears on any one monitor) or you include photography and graphics (which don’t download until the users request them) or you include the all-important link to your heavily branded Web site (although fewer than 10 percent click through).

    So, maybe it’s not the optimum branding experience, but it’s cheap. Boy, is it cheap. And it’s efficient — you can reach hundreds of thousands, even millions in a single blast — and really, you’re getting the word out there.

    Then the economy picks up, but your sales don’t jump as much, and at the next marketing meeting, as you’re puzzling over the numbers, someone asks why your customers aren’t so loyal anymore. What’s happened to that great relationship your brand used to have with them? And there’s a lot of this and that around the table, mutterings about “empowered consumers” and “everything’s a commodity,” and the meeting rolls on. You shrug your shoulders and concentrate on the next campaign. There’s work to do.

    We understand. It’s not an uncommon problem. It’s just that, well, you could stand for something. You could put something in your customers’ hands, something branded. Imagine that: those finely tuned colors, the carefully selected images, the perfectly worded summation of what your brand is all about sitting right there in the hands of the people you most want to reach. It’s right there at their fingertips.

    And inside that package, something amazing — something they could never get digitally. A sample, a tchotchke for their desk, a magnet for the fridge, a baseball bat, a brick, a salami — who knows? Something that’s amazing and brilliant and relevant, just like your brand. A piece that says “Hey, I know you,” and reminds that customer why he or she came to you in the first place and what your brand is really all about.

    You could do that. But that’s direct mail, and some say that is old. No point in doing that, right?

  • Advertising as Charity or Charity as Advertising?

    Trendwatching.com posted an extract from The Economist discussing a new trend by major advertisers: they are “doing good”.

    The 107 million Americans who tuned in to watch the Super Bowl on February 7th did not see any advertisements for Pepsi. Instead of spending $20m on a handful of 30-second spots, the firm decided to give that amount away. Under the slogan “Refresh Everything”, the Pepsi campaign asked the public to vote online for charities and community groups to receive grants ranging from $5,000 to $250,000. A few days before the game its arch-rival, Coca-Cola, was also bitten by a charitable bug. It promised to give $1 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America every time someone watched its Super Bowl ads on its Facebook page, up to a maximum of $250,000.

    Other recent examples include Chase Community Giving, in which small charities competed to win $5m in donations from JPMorgan Chase, and American Express and NBC Universal’s “Shine A Light” program, which awarded a grant of $100,000 to a small business chosen through its website.

    Marketing people say consumers are increasingly trying to do good as they spend. Research in 2008 by Cone, a brand consultancy, found that 79% of consumers would switch to a brand associated with a good cause, up from 66% in 1993, and that 38% have bought a product associated with a cause, compared with 20% in 1993. Rather than try to make products that can be marketed as ethical in their own right, such as “fair trade” goods, firms are increasingly trying to take an ordinary product and boost its moral credentials with what one marketing guru calls “embedded generosity”. The fad for online competitions to award the handouts also appeals to another trend, so-called “slacktivism”, whereby people are turning to the internet to give their consciences a boost without doing anything more onerous than clicking a mouse a few times.

    Do you want to try something like this on a local scale? What about using direct mail to lead your customers to support your favorite cause?

  • Which Came First?

    We did a study and analysis of our customers and sales over the last 14 years. We found a few surprises.

    Even though we have a passion for helping new businesses get started and grow and love watching people realize their dreams. The average number of years that one of our customer organizations has been operating was almost 20 years. Are organizations more likely to spend more on direct mail the longer they are in business or are they still in business because they spend more money on direct mail?

    The larger a company is in terms of employee size also correlated with average sales. In other words, the more employees that work in a firm, the more the firm spent on direct mail. Again you could ask did the organization grow because they used direct mail more or are they more likely to use direct mail because they have more employees?

  • Function for All

    Trendwatching.com’s February 2010 newsletter highlights products that are simple, small and/or cheap. The products and services are designed for low(er)-income users in emerging markets, but manage to appeal to buyers in mature consumer cultures too.

    Goods and services especially designed for emerging markets often incorporate one or more of the following characteristics:

    • Smaller and/or limited number of features, to keep prices low.
    • Simpler, or easier to use, for inexperienced consumers.
    • Energy efficient (or not using any traditional energies at all) and/or easy to repair and/or waste-reducing.
    • Robust, as some of them are used in rugged conditions.
    • Well-designed (the democratization of design is a global phenomenon).
    • Aimed at helping owners to generate income, or allow users to create self-sustaining systems.

  • Simple Sells

    BNET recently shared this great post about simplicity. Marketers at Starbucks, Kraft, and Campbell have discovered that “simple” sells. Products that stress fewer ingredients – food, drinks, cosmetics, even pet food – are outselling rivals, as this USA Today story explains.

    Is this a trend with traction? Will this “marketing megatrend” extend beyond consumable products? Leading consumers with creative marketing is one thing. Is ’simple’ something we should all be considering in our marketing, branding, and positioning? The answer to that is yes. Here are …

    Five Reasons Why You Should Keep It Simple:

    1. Communication. Regardless of whether your organization is Business to Business (B2B) or Business to Consumer (B2C), high-tech or high fashion or non-profit. When it comes to positioning, the simplest and easiest to understand way of getting across your unique value proposition (the reason why customers should buy from you and not your competitor) is always the best way.

    2. We’re All Consumers. You, me, the CEO, even the seemingly unflappable finance and IT people. We’re all consumers and we’re all subject to mega-marketing trends that invade our subconscious day and night.

    3. Stress and Overload. We’re all stressed-out on media, product, and “choice” overload. Too much choice can be a bad thing. We are all overloaded with media and product choices. Moreover, technology adds complexity that takes time to learn. It’s nice to have one less thing to analyze and worry about. “Simple” is calming, relaxing … for a change.

    4. In Management and In Life, Keep It Simple. That simple rule goes a long way to explaining why Apple’s Mac continues to gain market share over PCs.

    5. Left-Brain And Right-Brain Appeal. Emotionally, we associate “simple” with easy, quick, controlled. While we make left-brain decisions based on the perception of quality and performance, in many of those metrics – defects, moving parts, size and weight – less is more. These days we just want things to work the way they’re supposed to – no instructions, no drama, no returns.

    Direct mail is a really great way to communicate “simple” in a clear-cut and easy to understand way. Call us at 602-272-2100 for some fresh ideas in graphic design or just let us mail your simple idea.

  • How to Save on Printing

    Use postcards when appropriate. They’re fast, easy and affordable to produce.

    If you plan to mail a series of postcards or self-mailers, print all versions at the same time, then mail them over time. The larger your print run, the lower the cost per printed piece.

    Consider printing a year’s worth of four-color “shells” or basic templates (lower cost per piece for printing), then go back and do one-color imprints of specific messages or offers in smaller quantities throughout the year.

    Consider one-color printing on colored or textured paper stock or other methods to save on printing.

    Try two-color printing with screens to add visual interest.

    Recycle an existing brochure or catalog by using a sticker, overwrap or other way to call attention to a specific product, service or offer inside.

    Reactivate interest in a catalog that’s already in your customers’ hands by mailing out a postcard with a photo of the catalog cover on it and making a special limited offer.

    Reduce printing and inserting costs by making your letter double as the reply device. Print the response information at the bottom of the letter and ask for the entire letter to be returned to you.

  • Branding

    Now is a great time to take advantage of direct mail and other underused marketing channels.

    Many businesses have shifted advertising to online efforts. Maybe this is the time to see our current economy as an opportunity. What a great occasion to increase brand advertising!

    Successful brand advertising is all about building a connection with your customer, this establishes your business or product as something which is known and trusted. Brand marketing helps us trust a company and buy when we see their ads later on. One of the greatest challenges for smaller businesses is to establish a name for themselves, and a downturn actually provides an opportunity to do that because it tends to suppress brand building advertising. What a great chance to be able to jump over your competitors, especially if the market leader has curtailed their advertising spending during the downturn.

  • Thrive in Turbulence

    Deliver Magazine (the marketing magazine published by the US Postal Service) interviewed Philip Kotler, Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and here are some highlights. He was talking about his book, Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence. I remember reading Kotler’s books in college, it is great that his new ideas are still so relevant.

    Eight ways to flourish despite widespread uncertainty and upheaval

    1. Secure your market share from core customer segments. Your first priority is to get your core customer segments firmly secured. This is no time to get too greedy. Be prepared to ward off attacks from competitors attempting to take away your most loyal and profitable customers.

    2. Push aggressively for greater market share. All companies fight for market share and, in chaotic times, many have been weakened. Slashing marketing budgets and sales travel budgets are sure signs that a competitor is buckling under pressure. Add to your core customer segments at the expense of your weakened competitors.

    3. Research customers now more than ever. Everyone is under pressure during times of turbulence and chaos, which means all customers are changing their habits — even those in your core segments whom you know so well. Stay close to them. You don’t want to find yourself relying on old marketing messages that no longer resonate.

    4. Seek to increase — or at least maintain — your marketing budget. This is the worst time to think about cutting anything in your marketing budget that targets your core customer segments. In fact, you need to add to this budget, or take money away from those forays you were planning to go after totally new customer segments. It’s time to secure the home front.

    5. Focus on all that’s safe. When turbulence is scaring everyone in the market, there is a massive flight to safety by most consumers. They need to feel the safety and security of your company and its products and services. Do everything possible to communicate that continuing to do business with you is safe. Spend whatever it takes to do it.

    6. Quickly drop programs that aren’t working. If you’re not watching your spending, rest assured that someone else is — including your peers whose budgets couldn’t be protected from the ax. Cut out ineffective programs before someone else calls attention to them.

    7. Don’t discount your best brands. When you do this, you instantly tell the market two things: Your prices were too high before, and your brands won’t be worth the price in the future once the discount is gone. Instead, consider creating a new, distinct product or service offering under a new brand with lower prices. This gives value-conscious customers the ability to stay close to you while not alienating those still willing to pay for your higher-priced brands. Once the turbulence subsides, you may consider discontinuing your newly introduced branded value product line — or not.

    8. Save the strong; lose the weak. In a turbulent economy, you need to make your strongest brands and products even stronger. There’s no time or money to be wasted on marginal brands or overly fragile products that aren’t supported by strong value propositions and a solid customer base.