The Marketing Plaza

Despite the obvious implication in Chris Anderson’s new business bestseller Free, there is no such thing as Free Marketing.  Not really.  I know CEOs and CFOs want low cost/no cost Marketing, but the saying “You get what you pay for,” is true across all marketing channels including social media.

On the surface, social media appears free. You can get a Twitter site or Facebook page for free. You can even set up a blog for free. But, consider this:

• Some blog services are free but limited. Free blog services don’t allow you to monitor stats to see how many visitors you may be attracting, or enter key words to maximize search.
• Facebook is free, but ads are not. If you are using Facebook for business, you should have a business page, be building a fan base, and considering targeted ads. I read somewhere that Starbucks, a leader in the use of a Facebook business page, has six people on its social media staff.  As of July 09, they were reported to have 3.5 million registered Facebook fans.  They may be closing stores, but they aren’t closing down Facebook pages anytime soon.
• Twitter is free, but your time isn’t. You have to post, research posts, and monitor inbox requests. Social media guru Guy Kawasaki has a team of 2-3 twitter ghost writers.  Ever wonder why?

Speaking of Twitter, according to WACO (the World Advertising Research Center, not the city in Texas), earlier this year Dell computer reported that it generated $3 million in sales through microblogging services, and that’s after it had to recover from previously  bad press in the blogosphere!  That kind of revenue potential deserves some investment, wouldn’t you say?

A Marketing Truth: Media costs. We always knew it costs money to take out a TV ad. Why do we suddenly think other marketing channels are free?  There are hard costs and soft costs, but getting your message in front of the right people is a science that takes talent, effort, staff time, creativity, and execution according to plan.  That science, by the way, is  called Marketing.

Another Truth: Planning Saves Time and Money. There are ever-increasing low cost (ahem free) channels for getting your message out to the right people, but the cacophony of choices means you need to wisely invest your time and resources on those outlets that maximize your positioning.  Guess what?  That’s what an executed Marketing Plan is!

Bottom line: Make sure you have the resources at your disposal to make the right choices, keep your messaging consistent in your chosen medium, and measure response.  It takes time, effort and potentially staff resources unless you really want to do it all.  But your time is valuable isn’t it?  I assume you’re “not free.”

P.S. I’m currently working my way through Anderson’s Free. It’s a must read for all business and marketing types. Lot’s of good food for thought.  In keeping with the spirit of the book, I took it out for free from the library.

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In the business world, one would assume that the concept of profit and loss is basic and easy to understand. Not true. The idea of profit is laced with subtleties.

In marketing, you first come across this when you encounter one of the famous 5 P’s — namely Price. You’re taught about price points not in terms of profit, but in terms of consumer appeal — what price will the market bear?

Profit becomes muddied in the real marketing world when you start working with a motivated sales force — motivated to create commissions. This can include selling products at a loss, or selling products that don’t have the highest profit margins, meet current company goals, or match the true growth potential for the company. I have sat through many a sales meeting where reps received public accolades for sales that I knew had not yet helped the company turn a profit. I knew, because the sales revenue had not covered marketing costs or even taken them into consideration and those costs were high.

I’m now reading the book Free by Chris Anderson, a business writer well worth following from his original book The Long Tail to today’s best seller. In it, he writes: “People are making lots of money charging nothing.” How, you ask? Well, that is the paradox of free in today’s world. As he goes on to write while discussing an historical example: “Free didn’t mean profitless. It just meant that the route from product to revenue was indirect, something that would become enshrined in the retail playbook as the concept of “loss leader.”

The real problem with profit and loss is that we’ve relegated it to our accountants, who literally take a literal look at it. It’s one of the main reasons that marketing people have such a difficult “sell” with accountants, and a reason why businesses should be supported but never led by accountants. Profit and loss are not easy concepts, short-term concepts, or as obvious as black and white. Today’s loss is tomorrow’s potential best-seller — that is if the business has vision, goals, an understanding of the product and what it will take to bring it into the public conscious. And bringing a product into the public conscious — well, that’s true marketing!

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In today’s growing social media world, the key is not so much about creating, but maintaining your presence on your social venue of choice.  This past week, I attended a webinar by Nathan Kievman on maximizing LinkedIn profiles. Yes, even something as simple as LinkedIn requires care, attention and constant updating.  In fact, Nathan has written an entire book on it and  recommends tweaking your LinkedIn profile daily.  There’s no such thing today as a simple Rolodex be it online or in a card deck.

Nathan’s advice is well-taken, but before you spend too much time updating LinkedIn daily — consider if you’re first updating your web site or blog on some frequency — preferably daily.  After all, your web site is your company’s face to the world.

A mother’s lesson: Updating a web site daily is akin to a woman putting on her daily makeup. It’s not a luxury. There are few women who will venture out into the world daily without — as my mother’s generation would have put it — “putting their face on.”  It meant putting on at least the minimal amount of makeup on to put your best face, if not foot, forward to the world.  Every day, your web site faces your prospects and customers, and if it never changes, it quickly looks old or dated and won’t do well in today’s customer speed dating scene.

Reality Check: I can’t imagine many business owners or executives who have the time to update a web site or even their LinkedIn profile daily.  However, not having the time and not recognizing the need are two entirely different things.  If your web site is not being updated daily — including checking the customer guest book and responding to it — then you are not configured for success. This is one clue that you need help either in the form of an employee or service.

Takeaway: The first step towards success is recognizing a need or problem and then solving it.  Recognize that a stagnant web site is a stale and old-fashioned web site and is not presenting you or your company as a modern player.

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