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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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 is a verb.  Seth Godin points it out in his book Tribes, but the fact is any dictionary will tell you the same thing.  The point is that, as a verb, marketing is about doing something. 

As with anything in life, action creates reaction.  It's a basic law of physics that also applies to marketing. Not all marketing gets the reaction you want.  Some seems to fall on totally deaf ears, but in reality, may be softening a final sale. It's what makes marketing maddening.  Sometimes you can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what works, but you do know what doesn't.  Doing nothing doesn't work.  

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