Buzz!Words

Reinvest and Reinvent Marketing

Summary:  New York Times discusses a new trend, consumer package goods (CPG) companies re-investing significantly in marketing spending.  Reinvesting in tired brands is critical, but, without reinventing those brands, it's only a short term fix.  CPG companies need to reinvent the industry.

No kidding CPG brands are getting tired and old.  CPG companies have a lot of rules about marketing.  Unfortunately, many of these rules don't fit the world of marketing today. 

"Bite and smile" advertising just isn't believable anymore, and if anything, it's just more wallpaper for the consumer to ignore.  These brands need a shot of investment, that's for sure.  But they also need a new approach, whether its with the marketing tactics, or with a complete re-think about how to compete in the industry.  Maybe it's time for a reinvention of the CPG world. 

Attempts to make marketing spending more efficient, such as merging brands, line extending and creating sub brands has just confused consumers.  New marketing approaches seem to have fallen flat with both consumers and marketers in CPG.  Markets of one may work well on lower volume, higher profit products, but they are very challenging for high volume, low margin businesses like CPG.   At the same time, most of North America is over-stored with grocery retailers, creating fierce competition.  In turn, retailers are squeezing manufacturers.  And the Charmin is pretty much squeezed out. 

So, what's a marketer to do?  Well, maybe part of the answer is in Seth Godin's comment in the NY Times article, to create new things that will compelling for consumers.  One answer may be to consider "micro targets" very small niche targets for products, as compared to mass markets or to one to one marketing.  Or maybe, it's time to reinvent the industry. 

Perhaps manufacturers need to get closer to the consumer.  Develop a small retail chain to test new product ideas and create a new way for people to shop for specific micro targets.  Can you imagine the Campbell's Wellness Centre?  A place where people can shop for healthy food, make an appointment with a dietician, buy cooking magazines and books, sign up for a healthy cooking class, or weight watchers group?   A Cheerios Child Development Centre, complete with healthy food, a daycare centre, books on childhood development, seminars on parenting, family activities?  Food for thought. 

Marketing 101 - Writing for the Web

Today's post is a mini tutorial on writing for the web.  These ideas come from 3 sources:  Dr. Jacob Nielsen, a web usability expert; MarketingProfs.com, a marketing knowledge portal and the Stanford Web Credibility Project. 

Make it concise:

• Half the word count of normal writing
• Start with the conclusion
• One idea per paragraph

Make it Credible:

• Outbount links to credible sources of information
• Always reference your sources
• Always have contact info and detailed background of website owner

Make it Readable:

• Bullet lists
• Clear subheadings
• Short paragraphs
• Lots of white space
• Summary paragraphs

Make it Objective:

• Use neutral language
• Don't exaggerate or boast

Make it About the Visitor:

• Understand your readers needs
• Write the site about the reader, not about you, your company or your organization
• Get feedback from your visitors, engage them
• Make sure you update your material regularly

Using the Web to Create Communities

Looking for ways to involve a group of people in a cause?  Many non-profits and government organizations have underutilized the technological tools available to create and support communities. 

Technology is affecting the basic fabric of our community.  In an article on Clickz News, A.C. Nielsen presented a recent US study that shows that people are now creating communities online over shared interests or "affinity", rather than creating communities around geography. 

People in 30% of online community participants interact daily, while offline community groups, assocations only 7% meet daily.  Online communities have shared interests, including:

• Hobbies
• Health care
• Public issues
• Business networking
• Sports
• Alumni
• Commerce

Tourist towns now have an effective way to reinforce their relationship with visitors across the world, by creating online communities to reach their visitors when they are at home. 

Lesson Learned:  Using the web, blogs, enewsletters and forums are a great way to build shared interests and personal commitment to a place, cause or hobby. 

Marketing 101 - Marketing Planning

Last week I met with the President of a medium size business.  She had many employees, a good share of her market, and has been experiencing double digit growth for years.  She is very good at what she does. 

Now, it's time for her to move into the next stage of her business.  And that means she needs a marketing plan.  In fact, I believe that everyone needs a marketing plan.  (Even me, which means that I actually have to write one!)

Okay, here is a marketing plan:

1. What you are trying to accomplish (objectives)

2. What's unique about your product or service? (positioning)

3. Who you are going to market to (target)

4. How much you are going to spend (budget)

5. What you are going to do (activities)

6. When are you going to do it? (timing)

7. Did it work? (evaluation)

lLesson Learned:  As Dr. Phil says, you can't work the plan, if you don't have a plan.

Tell Customers Who You Are, and Aren't

Great post from Brand Autopsy today on telling customers who you are.  They argue that if you show people the shortcomings of your product or service, that you will reinforce the negative choice. 

I'm not sure that I agree with them.  Yeah, of course your main message should be about who you are as a business.  But, if you aren't honest about your shortcomings, customers will figure it out anyway.  Being honest about your shortcomings, and what you are doing to fix them will buy you a whole lot of goodwill, and tolerance from your customers.  I guess I've been reading too much of The Naked Corporation. 

Simplify Your Advertising

Great post from the Duct Tape Marketer on fluffy copy, from Alex Mandossian about copywriting.  The major prescription, fewer adjectives and more verbs.  I'd add a couple of thoughts:

• Quality over quantity - cut the word count, don't try to jam all kinds of features and benefits into the copy
• Drive customers to your website or the telephone to get the details
• Identify their problem, then give them the solution (see previous post on persuasive copy)
• Don't be boastful.  Stay low key.

Lesson learned: Simple and concise messages are remembered better than a lot of detail.  Traditional media like print, out of home and signage are best used with limited information.  Use the web, and information dense media, to share detailed info.  And make sure that info is there.   

Business Customers Use Search Engines Differently

B2B (business to business) customers use internet and internet search differently than consumers do, according to a recent study posted on Marketing Sherpa.  Here are the highlights:

1. B2B customers predominantly use Google (almost 83%), while only 34% of US consumers and 62% of Canadian consumers use Google. 
2. B2B searchers are planning as much as 2 to 3 months ahead of the purchase decision.
3. Paid ads aren't noticed as much as the natural (organic) search results.
4. Result ranking counts, but so does your copy.
5. Almost 19% will go directly to your site, before using a search engine.  Then they will do a search.  Marketing Sherpa's advice is to invest in a high quality site so customers don't head to the search engines.

Apparently B2B users also very quickly scan search results:

"Turns out that search users (especially Google users) have A.D.D. in a big way. Their eyes skitter quickly across the page. 27% quickly scan looking for words to jump out. If nothing does they leave or try another search immediately. An additional 57% scan quickly, and if they find nothing obvious to click on, then they actually settle down and carefully read titles and descriptions.

So, if your title, description, or URL has a word or words that are expertly crafted to catch that skittering eye and tell it "Here! This is the right place!" you can win the click up to 84% of the time."

Online Holiday Shopping

According to CNN Money, online shopping in the US for the upcoming holiday season is expected to increase 29%, as compared to total holiday retail spending, which is expected to increase 4.5%. This represents over $16Billion USD purchased online, out of a total $212 billion holiday expenditure.

So, what does that mean for us? Likely that 1) Canadians will follow suit; 2) Most retailers will develop websites that allow consumers to shop online.

In one of my earlier posts, I talked about the power of cross channel shopping. Even if consumers don't buy online, they research their purchases online. It's critical to have an electronic presence if you are a retailer.

Competing on Price

It turns out that price isn't everything. As I stated in a recent post on Trust and Relationships, price is a relatively small driver of customer loyalty. Only 13% of customer loyalty is determined by price, while relationship is 30% and experience is 20% of the loyalty puzzle.

So when I came across a HBS Working Knowledge article on the Cheap Chic strategy at Target, a major US discount store player, I was interested in how Target is competing with the godzilla of price, Walmart.

It turns out that Target has successfully competed with Walmart by being different, and having a strong communication strategy, even though they are perceived to be worse than Walmart on pricing.

In another article in HBS, Your Customers, Use them or Lose Them, a case study of Commerce Bank, shows that competing on service rather than price can be very successful. Some people are willing to pay more for better service.

Lesson Learned: Price is important, but it's not everything in the competitive arena. If you can differentiate on service, quality or experience do so, but make sure you deliver against that promise, or you'll be charging more for the same thing -- which really alienates customers.

Getting to Yes - Again

Look for shared interests when negotiating. That's what a recent article in the Harvard Management Update, "What Lovers Tell Us About Persuasion" says.

Apparently, when lovers were discussing a disagreement, the most successful at resolving that area for change were the ones that appealed to the personal relationship, rather than coersion or logic. Appealing to a shared relationship or shared interest improved the quality of the dialogue.

Additionally, British research shows that successful negotiators were 400% more likely to look for shared interests than were average negotiators.

Lesson learned: Perhaps this concept applies to more than negotiating. Whether in person, through marketing intiatives or during sales calls, maybe we should focus more on our relationship and shared interests with our customers?