The Marketing Plaza

In sales and marketing, lead generation is an ongoing hot button – and, no wonder. According to one data set, the top 20% of customers yield 150% of a company’s profits. Who wouldn’t want more of those?  The proverbial struggle is not just to find customers, but the right ones who can be in your top 20%.

The same data set, reported in a 2009 AMA webinar on customer growth, noted that the bottom 20% of your customers usually cost you money.  In those cases, you might be better off without the added customer base. And that’s the moral of the lead generation story: you never need to find or generate those customers who won’t be profitable.

Timely Leads

Marketing Sherpa reports that “an estimated 70-90% of leads generated by marketing are never followed up by sales.” One reason is that leads are frequently turned over to sales before they  have been fully qualified. That’s not an indictment of marketing. It’s an indictment of the process. It likely took an enormous marketing effort to get the leads and prepare them in a way that they could be seen, sorted, and sent to sales in the required timely fashion.

Time is the enemy of all leads, but time is also exactly what leads need in order to be developed into full-fledged prospects.  Loren McDonald of Silverpop, a marketing engagement firm, notes that there’s a “7 times improvement in sales if leads are responded within 48 hours.” But the flip side of the time equation is that sales generally won’t follow-up on leads that haven’t been qualified more thoroughly. They also don’t have the time.

The Missing Step

There’s a missing step between classic marketing and sales that is too rarely defined or assigned – lead incubation.  Some call it lead nurturing.  Whatever the term, the key is to find a safe haven for all leads where they can be tested, nurtured, warmed and then adopted out to sales.  Part of the problem is short-term sales thinking — a request to marketing to get leads no later than “tomorrow” for a new sales burst effort.

The real problem in lead generation is a lack of planning and process. If either one is missing in a lead program, there will be wasted time, or worse – wasted leads.

Put Time on Your Side

Silverpop and other firms would argue that the solution to the time problem is software. New and improved software solutions score data to prioritize hotter prospects from colder ones. Others argue that the answer lies in creating lead midwives – real people either on the marketing or sales side who can engage the leads earlier enough to establish preliminary relationships and determine their fit with a company’s services.

Neither is an exclusive solution.  Progressive firms are known to use both — scoring software and assigning staff dedicated to lead development. The problem with both is that they frequently miss the point. Both may be geared toward looking for the short-term sales potential of a lead rather than the greater opportunity of developing a loyal and long-term customer.

Some call this “customer equity.” In essence, it’s a move to get away from meeting the short-term goals frequently desired by Wall Street for the benefit of the longer-term health of the company and its other stakeholders. In the new digital world, it is simply called “building community” or “relationships.”

It’s a New Social World

All social media today is about community building. It’s a nicer label for someone who follows you on LinkedIn,Twitter, or Facebook as part of your lead group.  Social media is based on the premise that there’s value in the time spent developing a community. In fact, if a sale pitch is made too soon, or too obviously in the social media realm, the community will literally shun or cast out the participant.

As the world is getting increasingly digital, the need for community relationship building is also increasing. Savvy sales and marketing people were among the earliest adopters of LinkedIn.  They quickly realized the rationale behind building a digital Rolodex. And, the successful ones also saw the value in answering questions, joining groups, and leading groups rather than just “fishing” for a quick close.

Change Partners and Dance

Fishing, in general, is a horrible analogy for sales and marketing programs. Whether you believe in Catch & Release or landing the big one, no customer wants to be likened to a wet fish.  Instead, lead generation, nurturing, incubation and development can be likened to a long, slow dance with sometimes difficult dance partners.  It sometimes feels like a hip hopper paired with a ballroom waltz partner.

My recommendation for any organization – change the music.  Find a drum beat everyone can live with, and determine the dance steps in advance. That’s called setting a process in which everyone knows who’s leading, who’s following, and when specific moves are required.  Then, it’s time to Tango. If specific dancers still can’t cut it on the dance floor, it’s no longer a lead problem. It’s the dancer, and time to change partners.

Tweet This Post

Is your company long-term greedy, or short-sighted for sales?
A clue may lie in your  definition of  marketing.

Great marketing, according to best-selling author Joe Vitale, is inspired. Perhaps that’s why most marketing isn’t all that great.  For most companies, marketing tends to be out of desperation rather than inspiration.

It’s part of the problem American businesses face, in general, with short-term versus long-term thinking.  In the short-term, the business needs a sale – badly.  Hence, a CEO calls in a marketing team to help facilitate a sale  NOW!  It’s what causes confusion between marketing and sales promotion. I call it Desperation Marketing.

Better marketing is long-term based — building reputation, relationships and community over time.  Inspired marketing draws people to a product, service or business because they want to be affiliated with what that company has to offer.

I recently met with a business planning professor from a local college to discuss business planning. He used to work for Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. He told the story of one of his mentors — a great Goldman Sachs leader of his time– who decided to retire a few years ago when the company became, in his opinion, too short-sighted. By short- sighted, the retiring executive meant ‘in search of this year’s sales.”  Goldman Sachs had been known, he said, for being “long-term greedy,” a positive attribute that differentiated the company for greatness and fostered  building long-term wealth over short-term gain.

I have no way to test if the story is true, but it rings true because this week Goldman Sachs is all over the news in terms of its outrageous bonuses for 2009. The company claims that its executives deserve the bonuses due to outstanding performances during tough economic times.  Even if  true, it’s  insensitive to the marketplace – defined as the rest of us.  It also positions Goldman Sachs as self-centered and  greedy – short-term greedy.

I’m not here to bash Goldman Sachs.  It’s just a story that was told to me this week. But, I am here to say:

“Think about your marketing and positioning.”

Remind yourself that, unless you’re a venture capitalist or a real estate house flipper, you’re likely in business for the long haul.  Use your marketing dollars and efforts accordingly.

Tweet This Post

Starbucks Five Ways of Being are a roadmap for
creating a great brochure in addition to a great coffee experience.

This week on The Blogger’s Bulletin, I wrote a piece on why the Starbucks Five Ways of Being are appropriate advice for bloggers. Here, I’m continuing the analogy with how we can take tips from our local baristas and learn how to improve our brochures and marketing material.  There’s more than coffee that you can take away from a Starbucks encounter.

In The Starbucks Experience (2007), author Joseph Michelli reviews what has made Starbucks not just a new product or service, but part of our current cultural experience. Starbucks has had some trips since then, but likely its strong corporate credos have allowed it to be flexible in better responding to market changes. At Starbucks, they are called the “Five Ways of Being.”

• Be welcoming
• Be genuine
• Be considerate
• Be knowledgeable
• Be involved

It’s a great map for great marketing, particularly a brochure.  Here’s how:

• Welcoming – I recently saw a brochure where the first page was solid type.  It wasn’t a letter or designed as part of the brochure.  It was intimidating to read, heavy on the eyes and not welcoming to the brochure. It made you want to close the piece rather than dig deeper — kind of like a huge Victorian novel with tiny type.  You likely won’t approach it unless it’s assigned reading. Make sure your opening brochure material is just that – open with welcoming content enticing your reader to enter and linger awhile.
• Genuine – Don’t use flamboyant language, make promises you can’t keep, or statements that don’t ring true. Advertising and marketing materials already have a bad rap for puffery.  Not everyone is the best, brightest, cheapest, highest quality.  The trick to real marketing is being real and finding your true unique selling proposition. If you don’t know it, don’t spend money on puff pieces.  The reader can see right through it.
• Considerate – Be conscious of your customers concerns and address those rather than your ego.  No one likes meeting people at parties who just talk about themselves and yet we think marketing is a business resume letting the reader in on all the wonderful things they need to know about us.  It’s not.  Marketing is your introduction. Tell the customer a little about yourself and a lot about themselves.  If they self-identify, they’ll know you’re the right match for them.
• Knowledgeable – Give some information away for free. You’ve already paid to send people the brochure, so give them some value. Read Chris Anderson’s Free, or link to my post about him and think about what you can already provide for free to give prospects a taste of what you have to offer.  Consider Anderson’s Jello example, where free recipes entices people to want to buy Jello as an ingredient.
• Involved – Show how you are up-to-date and involved with your area of expertise.  Is it a passion?  Why would we know?  Bring us into your story and show us how you evolved and are involved.  People like to work with people they feel they want to know.  Get involved with your customers and give them a behind the scenes look into who and what you are.

There they are – the five ways of being and how you can use them in your next brochure. So before you start your next marketing endeavor, slow down, get a cup of coffee and ponder how you want your brochure to come into being.

Tweet This Post

The name of today’s marketing warfare game is Search and Be Found. It’s counter-intuitive to those of us brought up on the old game Battleship, where the goal was not to be found while you uncovered and destroyed your opponent’s ship. The game was based on the Cold War mentality that subterfuge keeps you alive; being open about where you are will get you sunk.

Fast forward to today’s world. Marketing Warfare is very different from Battlefield War Tactics.  Your primary guru should  no longer  be Sun Tzu, author of  The Art of War,  but perhaps Chris Anderson, Seth Godin, or even wine merchant Gary Vaynerchuk.  Google them.  Then, Google something about your company.  Can you be easily found?

In the military, camouflage is still an important and vital tactic.  In marketing, tactics have changed. It’s not about boldly going where no one has before — although that’s not bad.  It’s about bolding letting everyone know where you are from being found to being found frequently and being found whenever the consumer chooses to seek you out — not just during the hours you happen to be open. The web world no longer supplements, but leads all other marketing efforts. Find the new warfare gurus and learn from them … fast.

So why are so many companies so far behind in the web arena? Ironically, the more entrenched a company is either with a strong IT department, politically timid (meaning has a board of directors), or is from an industry that is trained to be close-lipped (read legal and health), the more likely it is behind the times in web marketing.

Here’s a case in point: This week an associate wrote me to to ask why a local newspaper never showed up on Google alerts about a famous and well-known local politician. Certainly the newspaper had more news items online about the politician than any other site except perhaps the politician’s own web site. The answer likely lies in many places – keywords, page branding, site mapping – but one place, for sure, is the IT (Information Technology) department.

Assumption: Many companies, newspapers included, still believe that everthing computer-related belongs with the IT department — web sites among them. Wrong.

Truth: Web sites belong with the marketing department.  Why?  For one reason — only marketing people care about Search and SEO.  And here’s the real conundrum – SEO is largely a programming function, but a function that even though technical should report to marketing.  It is not an operational concern, but a marketing issue. The website can run without it, and run well from an operational standpoint.  It’s just that no one will ever find it — failure from a marketing perspective.

IT people are trained to keep people out — from hackers to hucksters.  Marketing people and the web are geared to let people in.  If you want a web site that gets you listed, lets you get found, and is invites participation, think long and hard about who controls your website.  If it’s your IT department, you have a problem.

Tweet This Post

Newspapers are crashing and burning. I’m not talking about in their own medium — although there’s sad news on that front.  No, I mean in the social media world.  Why?  Because they refuse to modify their message to the medium. It’s an odd commentary for a medium built solidly in the communications world, but one thing newspaper publishers, editors and writers don’t understand is how to use a blog to their best advantage (not to mention Twitter and other social media).

Publishers. Publishers care about publishing. They want the funds to print another day.  Hence, they are concerned with revenue.  Guess what? Blogs are not great revenue producers — at least at first — and publishers are not patient people. They want the ads in today for tomorrow’s edition.  The result?  They are looking for posts that will bring in advertisers. They keep trying to develop content that the Advertising department can sell, rather than content the community wants to read or engage in.  It’s not a good model and it hasn’t worked.

Editors. Editors are a bit better, but also don’t understand the medium.  Great editors understand the need for personality and the public thirst for the news behind the news.  One of my favorite Sunday columns was a local editor’s post on how his reporters got the latest, greatest story — literally the story behind the news. However, the insights were saved for the precious Sunday paper and not posted on the paper’s website.

Another young editor at a different local paper, started a community blog. She inherently understood the need for community voice on the paper’s website, but didn’t understand that community in the blogging world means individuals not organizations.  She approached non-profits in the State with the opportunity to post on a blog set up for local causes. The result is a series of mini-press releases on golf outings and benefactor and grant news rather than insights into the causes.  I can guarantee you that the only people reading the blog are the marketing folks at other non-profits.  The real community isn’t interested.

Writers. Writers understand writing and followings, but newspaper writers are in competition with themselves. They are saving their stories for the paper, hoping to get in the Sunday edition. Their blog posts are bland and again, tend not to tell the story behind the story.  Why was it a difficult story to write?  How did they get a crying mother to admit her son had gone sour? How did they learn about the story in the first place?  Don’t just tell me you wrote a great story. Tell me why you felt it was worthy of the newspaper. Then, you might draw me to your story in the paper, but mostly, I’m not going to bother to read your current blog. It’s not giving me any insight into your craft.

Newspapers are built for blogging.  They just haven’t realized it yet, or approached it in the right way. I wish they would. I’m a news junkie at heart and would eat it up — as would a huge segment of the online world.

Tweet This Post

No matter where I turn, I bump into Charles Darwin.  Today, a friend sent me a link to a New York Times article on how the publishing industry has been affected by evolution. Then, I stumbled on a SlideShare presentation by another Charles — Charlie Hoehn, a recent college graduate making his mark on the world.  He quoted Darwin while providing his peers with job hunting advice.

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.  It’s the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin

Is your marketing Darwin proof?
Is your business?
Are you adaptable to change?

Really?  I kind of doubt it because change requires more than just changing tactics.

Today’s marketing pros have to be true Change Management artists.  I’ll continue to argue that the fundamentals of marketing remain the same, but the techniques have clearly changed.  One by one, clients are finally admitting they have to learn how to communicate in the social media age, and want to go from 0- 100 in Superhuman speed. It won’t work unless the companies fundamentally change the marketing behind the communications techniques not just the communications channels themselves.

A TV ad doesn’t work in print. A print ad doesn’t work on a billboard – -not without some changes. They are fundamentally different medium and require different approaches within a campaign. The same is true of social media. If you are planning on just repurposing existing material on a social media platform, abandon ship before you leave port. The tone, value and approach in social media are all inherently different from traditional mass market messaging.

I encourage you to enter the social media world.  Just don’t do it without changing yourself first – from the inside out.  That includes corporate culture, marketing plans, and studying a bit of Darwin and Marshall McCluhan. After all, the medium is still the message.

Tweet This Post

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.

Tweet This Post

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.

Tweet This Post