The Marketing Plaza

Too much of marketing is stereotyped by our used car culture.  We’ve all grown up on  late night cable TV commercials of our local car dealers telling us why they are the most reliable, trustworthy, best resource for our next vehicle. They drag out the kids, grandmothers and cousins to show that they are a family-run business, implying that because they have a family they are the local “good guys.”

Here’s a revelation. Everyone has family. Even the bad guys. Bonnie & Clyde had grandmothers.

Another revelation. Being a family run business doesn’t mean you’re the best. It may only mean you’ve hired your idiot cousin because your mother made you. You may, in fact, not have the best service, just the best employed family.

Last revelation. Sometimes being a family-run business can be a plus, but only if you have a story based on tradition.

If I’m sounding a bit cynical about family businesses, keep in mind I’m a Jersey Girl. We’re the land of  hot cars and bad family aka The Soprano State and Jersey Boys.  Just this week, we had 44 arrests of politicians and rabbi’s in a Dirty Money laundering scandal.  Based on a long, sad political history, we don’t trust easily, and yet we have more Fortune 500 companies near us, receive more ads, and  have more family-owned used car commercials on our cable networks than anyone else!  Where’s the disconnect?

The disconnect is in the marketing.  We’ve lost the ability to discern the real story that needs to be told about why a company is great, what makes it different and why someone would love to do business with it.  Instead, most companies revert to ego-driven platitudes.  That’s the “we give great service” used car part. The owner seeing himself on late night commercials and suddenly feeling like a big shot feels his money was well spent because at least one person, likely his aunt, says she saw him on the TV.  This is not to knock TV ads.  I’ve used them. It is to knock ego-driven marketing be it on the small business used car level, or the corporate level.

In The Batrachian Chronicles, Amod Munga, a blogger and copywriter from S. Africa, talks about dropping the “best in breed” lingo from corporate speak.  He’s right.  It reads like sales copy and, particularly in the U.S., it’s overly prevalent as we, more than others, are completely driven by our car and sales culture — looking for the next great ride or sales at the end of the hour, or the day.

No one likes to be sold. We all like stories.  What’s yours?  Is it in your marketing? If not, your collateral is likely all sales promo material and you need to start thinking about marketing in addition to sales.

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Is Marketing for Dummies?  I think not even though there is a book by that name.  Tom  Marin, A Reed Business writer for Converting Magazine, started the conversation and it got me thinking.  Marketing is for smart people who understand the need to reach out to customers, understand the market and provide the right mix of business services to be warrant market attention.

I’m not embarrassed to admit that I love “for Dummies” books and have several in my library including one on marketing. Friends made fun of me when I bought the marketing title some time back, but I purchased it for a few reasons:

1. I wanted to see what the Dummies series felt was required in a basic marketing text. I’m sorry to say that it still talks about the 5Ps of marketing — Product, Price, Place, Promotion and People — even though these are no longer valid and generally muddy the marketing discussion into an academic exercise.  Modern marketing talks more about 3 Ps and 5 C’s (but that’s another post entirely).

2. I believe marketing basics remain the same even though we’re in a new Internet world. The basics?  I have to repeat my sentence above — understand the need to reach out to customers, understand the market and provide the right mix of business services to be warrant market attention.

3. There are more than one Marketing for Dummies books including one on Small Business Marketing. Not surprisingly, it is more practical than the more generic Marketing text.  Chapters are devoted to why marketing and sales are not synonymous and the dollar and staffing differences inherent in small business marketing.

4. No one, particularly field experts, should ever think they “know it all.”  Hopefully, an expert is the first to realize that a field is always changing. There’s always something new to learn. When I bought the Dummies book I wanted to check myself.  Was there something in the book I needed to brush up on?  I’m happy to report that the book was very basic and didn’t really have anything of value in it for me — but if you’re a business person and not a marketing person, I can still recommend it.  It’s a great way to get started, and in marketing — it’s important to get started rather than sit still.

Nevertheless, as a marketing person, there is much to learn from the Dummies books. In a nutshell:

A. Branding. When you see a black and yellow cover you know you’re getting a Dummies book.

B. Branding. When you get  Dummies book you know what to expect — basic information to get you started down a specific task be it knitting, web site development, or even writing a marketing plan.

C. Branding. When you fork over your $25 +/- on the cover price, you know you’ll get help in simple English that won’t talk down to you.  You may need professional help over and above the book, but the book gives you the lingo to start to talk to the pros with confidence. It’s a basic roadmap to get you in gear down your latest road of engagement.

Here’s an idea to consider: What if you constructed your business as a business for Dummies?

• How would you build customer confidence?
• What could you do to make customers feel comfortable working with you when they are still low on the learning curve?

That’s smart marketing!

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Marketing is an elusive discipline with lots of definitions.  I’ve created a few of my own over the years and just when I think I have it nailed, I realize  I don’t.  Here’s my latest definition of marketing:

Marketing is those thing you do to touch customers and feed their desire to do business with you.

I like this definition for a number of reasons:

1. It implies that marketing is a sum of many different things. No one outreach effort is marketing. Marketing is the sum of a many tactics based on a strategic campaign.
2. It puts “customers” front and center as your raison d’etre. You market in order to present yourself in an attractive way to prospects and current customers.
3. It talks about “feeding a desire.”  Great marketing makes people want to do business with you.
4. It separates marketing from sales.  This part is subtle. Again, it notes that marketing is feeding a desire not closing a sale. If the customer is primed to want to do business with you due to on-target messaging, closing the sale should be easier for the sales force.

Let me know what you think.  Is it  a definition you think might stand the test of time? Do you have a better one? Let’s hear it!

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What excites you about your business?
What is exciting about your business?
What would make a client excited about your business?

These are three similar but very different questions.  If you can’t answer them, you’re not ready to market your business. Let’s take them in order.

1. What excites you about your business is your passion. This should be “why” you’re in business and has only a little to do with marketing.  A great marketing person can take your passion and turn it into a campaign, but that would be a residual bonus.  Your passion is your reason for being in business. Don’t confuse it with a marketing message. If you choose to make it part of a marketing message, do it consciously and for a good marketing reason.
2. What is exciting about your business is the value add it provides to your customers, consumers or clients.  It’s why they want to do business with you.  This should be a key part of your marketing message, but not a headline. This is a key benefit that people receive for being aligned with you.
3. What would make a client excited about your business?  Well, now we’re into serious marketing — how to reach a prospect and turn him or her into a client!  This takes some research, listening, intuitive understanding of how customers engage with you, and pure objectivity.  Here’s where Voice of the Customer research can really be beneficial.  You may think that a customer values your on-time delivery, when what they really value is your special sauce (if you’re a pizza place), your special gloss coating (if you’re a photo house), or your local take on the news (if you’re a regional newspaper).  In each case, I can guarantee that on-time delivery is important, but it may not be the key reason current clients do business with you, would recommend you to others, or future clients might be inclined to give you a first or second look.

Don’t wait to ponder these three questions.  Start asking employees, key customers, and anyone else you happen to meet during the course of the next day what they find exciting about what they do, what you do, and what they think others would value in doing business with you.  You might be surprised by some of the answers.

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Even if you don’t have a marketing budget, you probably have an ad budget.  Or, you’re somewhat willing to spend some money on advertising, even if it’s a directory listing, because somewhere you bought into the idea that you have to get the word out on your business.

True:  Marketing budgets usually contain some allocation to advertising.

False: Having an ad budget does not mean you have a marketing budget. Do not confuse them.  More on this in a future post.

For this post, take a close eye at where you are spending any ad dollars. Here are 3 places to avoid:

1. The Yellow Pages.  Unless your business is extremely local, and unless you’re a plumber — this is no longer the vehicle it used to be.  Most people searching for local businesses use internet directories, many of which are free.  And, if your business is extremely local, unless you are a pizza parlor, I’d ask why you’ve put limits on your own geographic reach.

2. The Trade Press. Advertising in your own trades is just an ego boost.  Trades advertising is best for vendors to your business — manufacturers, supply chain vendors and services who cater to your business.  Small businesses who advertise in their own trades are largely trying to look bigger to their competitors. There’s a place for this type of campaign, but it’s not for the majority of small businesses with limited marketing budgets.

3. The Local Baseball Field. There’s some  value to having your name as a sponsor on local playing field. However, it’s not all that much and it’s largely community service.  I’m not saying don’t put your logo and name on playing field, but if you do –realize you are doing it for 2 reasons.  One, again is ego.  Ego has no place in marketing. The second is to be a good community citizen, and there’s great value in that.  However, then you should have the dollars allocated from the community service side of your marketing budget or plan and not from the ad budget. After all, you are not largely reaching your key target audience and your ROI is likely to be low if measurable at all.

There are many crazy places to advertise these days from urinal stalls to stadium turnstiles.  Most are not recommended.  Unless you are a BIG GUY (in branding not in personal height or weight), don’t consider the crazy notions until you’ve got basics covered.  What are the basics?  That’s a difficult question that varies by company, goals and plan. But, I can tell you the three above are not part of anyone’s basics unless they are living in the 1950’s.

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Marketing measurement now has its own acronym — ROMI, or Return on Marketing Investment. It has hit the big time with its own detailed explanation in Wikipedia.  The key to the Wikipedia definition is the differentiation between short and long-term measurements and this is also what separates the amateurs from the pros.

Short-term ROMI is exactly what you would expect — the ratio of  what  you spent on a single tactic versus the increased revenue.  It’s a bit more complicated, but that’s it in a nutshell.  But, if you’re good at marketing, you likely have a campaign running, not a single tactic, and you’ll need a more sophisticated method for measuring return. That’s what the pros are calling long-term ROMI.

Long-term gets into the issue of branding, brand awareness, and the ultimate marketing mix.  How can you decide if you’re in the pro leagues?  Here’s a simple test: Are you concerned with brand and market share or just chasing more sales?  There’s nothing wrong with more sales.  It’s the reason to be in business after all.  But, if you’re only measuring sales, you’re in the minor leagues. The pros are looking at brand equity and market share in order to build towards the future.

And, of course, even this academic discussion on Return-on-Marketing-Investment pre-dates the effects of social media on the marketing mix.  If you bother to check the Wikipedia bibliography on the term ROMI, you’ll see the most recent reference is from 2006.  It’s safe to say that the use of social media in branding is just beginning to hit its stride. Branding giants — from Kodak to Zappos — have embraced it. These companies don’t take marketing lightly and they wouldn’t be in it just for the fun of it.  There ’s no question that marketing’s future is in today’s social media — at least as one growing leg of the marketing mix stool.

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Do testimonials have any value? Sure, they do, but that’s the wrong question. When evaluating the worthiness of testimonials, here are questions to ask yourself:

1. Is it a celebrity endorsement? OK, most of your customers aren’t celebrities, but are they well known in your industry or among your customer base?  If not, their words may have limited “credibility”. There’s a reason soap opera mass marketers used celebrities in their ads.  A well-known testimonial carries weight.
2. Is it tied to proof of performance? This can be a case study or something that gives the testimonial (here’s that word again) “credibility”. Does the testimonial just say you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, or does it say you helped increase results by X% in a matter of days?
3. Does it help position you? If it just says you’re great but doesn’t help position the unique value of your services, it’s a platitude.  You don’t need platitudes (most testimonials) but better positioning.
4. Does it take up valuable space? Is it pushing or crowding something else off your page, thereby stroking your ego but not helping get a more important message point across to your audience?

Bottom line: As I wrote on a LinkedIn Group post – Testimonials should not be medicinal in nature, “Do no harm.”  All marketing, including testimonials,  should be designed to help — your message, your positioning, your credibility, your perceived value.  If the testimonial can do that, use it.  If not, reconsider your options.

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