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Build A Brand, Don’t Create

Genius MarketingPosted on September 15, 2021 Posted in Marketing Strategy, Uncategorized

I often see or hear marketers write or talk about ‘creating a brand’. I prefer ‘building a brand’. Just semantics? Not really…

What is a Brand?

The brand for most businesses is the essence of the company and how it delivers its goods and services. Those things that make the company unique. For smaller companies, the brand is largely who they are and how they do their work. The customer experiences the people in a small business (so hire well!). The people make the impression of who the company is and what the company is about… much more than any graphic representation of an idea.

For larger companies, they are often known by their brand elements: the graphic, the typeface, the shape of the bottle, the logo. They often spend more time thinking about how to build an organization to meet the lofty ideas set forth in the brand concept.

Creating a Brand

Too often, it’s like wishing on a star. It might happen this way: a bunch of cool graphics, a website and really sexy tagline are created. It’s attractive and people respond. Then customers run up against the real experience with the product or service or delivery method and the result is great marks for logo… but low marks for the experience. To use an old phrase, all sizzle, no steak.

Building a Brand

Requires taking stock of who we are and how we deliver our product or service, then developing the graphics and logo and message to reflect that real experience. The brand is in the experience and reflected in the graphics and creative. Not the other way around.

Not that we can’t be aspirational in our creative, but that must be backfilled with the foundational processes to deliver on the brand promise.

Integrated Building

Building the company and building the brand are one in the same… or at least interlocked efforts. You can’t just ‘create a brand’… cool or otherwise. Build the company and how it will operate and the brand will be a creative extension of the reality of the customer experience.

Need help with your brand building? Contact us.

Tagged with: branding

Content Marketing: When is Too Much?

Genius MarketingPosted on April 9, 2021 Posted in Content Planning

Always love the Marketoonist, who can capture complex issues into a single cartoonimage. Click here to see his take on Content Marketing – several comics and a short blog that sites new research about content. His point is well taken – brands can be so taken with providing content that it ends up:

Being more content than the prospect (or customer) can consume;
Publish content that is not relevant or just plain junk;
Can open up the consumer to ideas that lead away from the sale, or
Lose focus on the main thing (providing the customer with what they need/want).

That is the part that is often missed. Yes, in the Information Age content is king. Content is critical to engage and draw prospects into the sales funnel. However, selling is fundamentally changing… because buying is fundamentally changing.

Buyers Choice

Not only does the consumer want what they want when they want it (and how they want it). They want to receive information about their proposed purchase as they need it. So marketers and brands need to provide content that engages, educates and draws the buyer closer to the sale. However, the buyer’s steps to the purchase may be very different than what the selling organization considers the steps in the sales funnel.

Price First Please

Price may not be the deciding factor in a purchase. Still it is not uncommon for that to be the first question (or click) about a potential purchase. Knowing the pricing up front may be a sign of budget concerns (“If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it…”), but it could also be a way of determining value. If the buyer knows the price up front (and from multiple vendors), it is easier to determine value as more is learned about the product.

Traditional selling techniques say marketers must use value to move the prospect closer to the sale. Uncover pain, show how the product solves the pain, show how good it feels to have the pain gone… and POOF!, price no longer matters.

Intelligent, informed buyers are simply reverse engineering that process – price is the bar, now the seller is required to build value to surpass that bar.

Providing Relevant Content

So here are a few tips when considering a Content Marketing strategy:

Find out what content is helpful and when it is needed – use research and data to understand what information is helpful to the buyer at each step of the buying process;
Create content that is meaningful to the buyer at each step – the first goal is to create content that answers the number one question or objection at each step of the process:
Make content readily available so the prospect can find it when they need/want it – that may mean repackaging content in varying forms and using various media to deliver messages;
Don’t assume inbound marketing is going to flow like a slide – prospects will jump on and off the sales process… because it is their buying process;

And finally: content must be relevant; no content for the sake of having content! Unlike more cowbell, you can have too much content!

Need help developing your content marketing plan? Contact us for a consultation.

SLEckert

Tagged with: content calendar, content marketing, content plan, digital marketing, marketing tips

Your Salesforce isn’t Marketing Research

Genius MarketingPosted on March 2, 2021 Posted in Marketing Planning

Don’t Trust Your Salesforce: That’s not Marketing Research

For small companies the idea of conducting marketing research is laughable. They barely have the resources to market at all! Still, owners and managers want to understand the market and customers. Conducting primary research, whether interviews, a focus group, or even an online survey, is too expensive or takes too much time and effort away from day-to-day operations. Secondary research is available, as simple as a web search, to understand trends in the marketplace, but this research never seems to be specific enough to be actionable.

Learn more about marketing budgeting and more in the Genius! Marketing book!

This predicament often means going to the next best source for insight into the marketplace and customers: the salesforce! It seems logical, the sole purpose of the salesforce is to learn about, engage, and serve the needs of the marketplace. Shouldn’t they understand what customers and prospects are thinking? What matters to the market? And where the market trends are headed?

Good Information; Grain of Salt

Talking to the salesforce isn’t marketing research. Basically, there are two reasons for this: self interest and limited focus.

Self Interest

Self interest is one of the great pillars that the free market stands upon. Salespeople with a strong self interest are a driving force for the good and right exchange of products and services in the marketplace. Salespeople “know” the market, and it could be assumed that a salesperson is a great source of market information. They are, but the information is biased. Salespeople hone their self interest so well that they can really only see the market through their particular lens.

That’s the perfect situation for sales. You want your sales team to always see the market as lots of opportunity for them to sell. The information they provide will be biased towards what they can sell. And what they see is what they can sell right now. This information could be helpful in strategic planning or provide insight for product development, but it doesn’t serve as marketing research.

Limited Focus

A wise friend of mine once used this axiom: “When you have a hammer, every problem is a nail.” Salespeople often live by this idea. I am selling chocolate cake, so chocolate cake is the answer to every eating need! (Yes, that is a hyperbolic statement… but at least it is a tasty one.)

Salespeople are focused on the here and now. Translate: the current prospect/selling opportunity in front of them. Some may have ideas about product development that consider the wider market and longer lifecycles. Listen to these ideas. Here’s the cavaet: salespeople often lobby for a different type of hammer. As in: If I had some cupcakes, I could make more sales. The chocolate cake is too limiting (fill in reason/sales objection of choice here). “We need something else because I’m not selling enough of what we have”… is not marketing research.

Listen Wider and Longer: Continual Marketing Research

Small businesses can conduct effective marketing research. It requires a longer and wider view. No single survey, focus group, discussion with a salesperson or lunch with a customer, will produce the desired information. However, all of these can.

What if marketing research was a continual process? Small (all) businesses can be fooled by the tyranny of the urgent: we need something new, now! Step back and take time when considering new products, services or how to better engage with the marketplace. Here’s a small business marketing research playbook. Do these things as often and as repeatedly as you can:

Talk to customers whenever you can. Ask about their business, their market, and where they think it is moving.
Listen to suppliers. While they, like the salesforce, have self interest when it comes to product development, they provide additional eyes and ears to the wider marketplace.
Meet with salespeople in a group forum solely for the discussion of the marketplace. Ask them questions that move them past their immediate sales needs. “Where do you see this company in five years?” “Where do you see the market in the same timeframe?” “How do we meet the long term needs of the market?”
Do secondary research: read, google, watch. Find out what experts are thinking. Read internationally – with the internet you can read about trends in Europe, Asia, anywhere.
Do primary research: consider an online survey of customers once per year. There are free and inexpensive tools for building a survey. Before you use them, write your goals for the survey and top three questions… don’t let the monkey in the survey template decide what your questions should ask. Or, if you hold a customer golf outing or company open house, have a smaller side event by invitation – a short customer focus group discussion about future market trends, needs in the marketplace, etc.
Think. Take time to consider your own thoughts. Pray about it, meditate on it, think about it when you’re biking or have a long drive. You know your business. You probably have a pretty good sense of the market. Take time to think about it intentionally.
Get help. We have a great way to make marketing research a prospecting tool. Genius! Marketing can also help you develop your surveys or conduct secondary research.

SLEckert

Tagged with: Genius Marketing Monday, marketing research

How to Budget for Marketing

Genius MarketingPosted on December 6, 2020 Posted in Marketing Planning, Marketing Tips

A common question from companies interested in creating marketing plans or communications is, “How much will this cost?”. A common question from designers, agencies, web firms, printers and other providers is, “Do you have a marketing budget?”. The reasons are obvious… organizations want to maximize the return and minimize the cost. Providers want to know if the way the project is being described is “realistic”.

Here’s an excerpt from Genius! Marketing: How to Brand, Target and Market Like a Genius! (click to buy now!) or watch the video on marketing budget below to learn more.

Marketing Budget

Freedom is Not Free… Neither is Social Media.

Neither is PR. That’s a fact. One of the most frustrating things for a marketer is for non-marketers to assume things can be done for free or very low cost. I have been told by companies that they want to use PR or Social Media because “it’s free”. Advertising, conversely, is “expensive”.

Not free. More difficult to track cost, but not free. There are four main types of cost when it comes to marketing:

Budget/Money
People/Time
Energy
Expertise

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Learn about marketing budgeting and more in the Genius! Marketing book!

Advertising: Expensive

If we were to talk for ten minutes while I look at your website, I could place a Google search ad for your business in less than an hour. I could write, produce and place a radio ad for your business in three hours. There would be a cost to the media – setting a budget with Google and a cost to the radio airtime. Each would show up as an invoice or charge on your credit card at the end of the month. That’s a marketing tactic that “costs” or is “expensive”.

PR: Free

To place a PR story with a local publication or media outlet, I’d need to understand your company, talking to management or key players about the subject of the news release and possibly need to have a photograph shot (some news outlets require a photo with releases). Together, we would develop a news release and list of subjects for media consideration.

The news release would be distributed electronically and possibly picked up by a publication or online news or industry source. The subjects for news stories or features are pitched to media contacts which would include email, mail and possibly phone follow up. Potentially a visit by a journalist to your site would be scheduled with an interview. A feature story would probably include a photo session and submitting resource information whether specs, logos or other graphics.

Could end up as a nice story about your company, or at least being a part of a larger story the journalist publishes. No invoice comes at the end of the month (except mine if I helped you with the news release and media pitch and the distribution service cost). Additionally, how much soft cost was spent on the project? From your time talking to the media to taking photos to staff cleaning up before the media visit?

Couple Disclaimers:

I’d like to know your company a little better than a ten-minute phone call before placing an ad. I could do it that quickly though, and it probably would be marginally successful.

Also, I’m not saying PR is bad. PR and Social Media can be a very productive part of the marketing tactic mix. This discussion is just about cost. PR costs plenty. Social Media costs some budget/money (developing content, graphics, video, etc.), but it is a substantial cost in time, energy and expertise.

Read more about budgeting in Genius! Marketing. Buy Genius! Marketing book now!

SLEckert

Tagged with: budget for advertising, market budget, marketing budget

Four Reasons to Conduct a Marketing SWOT

Genius MarketingPosted on September 11, 2020 Posted in Marketing Planning, Marketing Strategy

Today’s One Minute Marketing Minute: Four Reasons to Conduct a Marketing SWOT

Here are four reasons to conduct a Marketing SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats analysis) right now with our Marketing Coach service.

Reason 1: Reset Your 2020 Plan – Marketing SWOT Helps You Plan for the New Reality

It’s time to reset your marketing and selling. A lot has happened in 2020, a pandemic and now into a recovery begs the question, “What do you need to be doing differently now?” The Marketing SWOT helps you answer that question and understand what changes you need to make.

Reason 2: Uncover Gaps – What is Missing in Your Marketing Process?

The Marketing SWOT uncovers gaps in your marketing and selling process and informs how to think about how to fill those gaps to make your marketing more effective.

The Marketing Coach Stephen Eckert Virtual VP of Marketing Author: ‘Genius! Marketing’ and  ‘Marketing in a Downturn’ books Developed Genius! Marketing   planning process Helps business owners   Organize, Optimize and   Operationalize Marketing Reason 3: Reallocate Resources – Focus on New Opportunities

There are new opportunities for growth. Where do you put your resources – your time, your energy and your marketing dollars? The Marketing SWOT helps you uncover where the opportunities are focus where resources should go.

Reason 4: Move to Action – Prioritize to Maximize Your Marketing

Marketing SWOT is the first step to moving to action. At Genius! Marketing we are always about the action plan. What is the first priority when it comes to your marketing? What are the top one, two or three things we need to do right now to maximize your marketing? The Marketing SWOT will help you understand what the priorities are for your marketing in the next normal. You can start to develop an action plan out of the Marketing SWOT analysis.

Reset Your marketing

The Marketing SWOT helps you take stock of the current situation in and outside your organization and inform your next Marketing Plan. Contact us to learn more.

Tagged with: marketing swot, SWOT, SWOT analysis

Marketing SWOT

Genius MarketingPosted on September 7, 2020 Posted in Marketing Planning, Marketing Strategy

Today’s one minute marketing topic is Marketing SWOT

SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. It’s an old school way to quickly inform a planning process. Marketing SWOT targets your marketing to uncover gaps and ways to optimize your marketing.

When considering your company’s recovery and go-forward plan, now is a great time to tap into this analysis. SWOT can help you quickly assess your marketing. There are many questions that can be asked, but these are a quick start to a marketing SWOT analysis.

Featured Coaching: Marketing SWOT for Your Business – work with us on a SWOT analysis

Focusing on Internal Issues

Strengths and weaknesses usually focus on internal or organizational matters.

Marketing Strengths

What advantage(s) does our company have over competitors?
What unique attributes – or unique selling proposition – do we have?
What is our marketing and sales team’s strengths?

Marketing strengths should focus on what your organization does well and what is unique about your organization, brand, product or offer.

Marketing Weaknesses

What complaints do we hear from customers? Objections from prospects?
How much voice do we have in the market? Do people hear and see our message?
Are our marketing resources aligned properly? Or do we just do the same things we always have done?

Often, one of the biggest weaknesses organizations face is lack of process in marketing. Consider where your process needs improvement.

Focusing on External Issues

Opportunities and Threats usually focus on external matters such as market and competition.

Marketing Opportunities

How is the competition doing? What are they missing?
Has the market changed? Are prospects looking for something new or different?
What new means of communicating with prospects is available?

Now is an excellent time to assess how the market is changing. While not wanting to “steer the ship” based on competitor direction only, it can help guide a competitive or a niche marketing plan.

Marketing Threats

Is our target market growing? Or shrinking? Or just moving and changing?
Could predicted cultural changes and resulting buyer behavior affect our sales?
What new competitors or new offers are entering the market?

Businesses are often caught off guard by unforeseen market shifts. Now it is clear the market, buyer behavior… everything is shifting. Take the time to consider what is occurring and where it might lead.

Featured Coaching: Marketing SWOT for Your Business – low cost, quick turnaround – get started now

Marketing SWOT: a Good Starting Point

Discussion around these starting points (there are many more SWOT questions that could be asked) will help direct the development of an updated marketing plan. Now is the time to address your organization’s offering, market and sales plan to be ready to move forward. SWOT as part of that process can help you uncover issues and be flexible and responsive as an organization.

Why Marketing SWOT?

Take the time to work through your marketing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This course will include a self-assessment prior to the first of two coaching sessions.

The result of the coaching will be actionable ways to improve your organization’s marketing by finding new ways to engage your current and future customers, understanding gaps in your current plan, and more. Ready to get started? Contact us.

Tagged with: marketing planning, marketing s.w.o.t., marketing strategy, marketing swot, SWOT analysis

Display Network Advertising

Genius MarketingPosted on July 6, 2020 Posted in Advertising

Today’s one minute marketing tip is about Digital Advertising and display network advertising.

I was asked recently about online display network advertising. That’s having ads with graphics and text that are clickable to a website or landing page with an offer or more information. They appear on websites, social media, and in apps.

An Integrated Digital Plan with Display Network Advertising

Display network advertising is only one of multiple digital strategies that are effective when integrated and correctly applied to meet the advertiser’s sales and financial goals. We’ll go over a few of the digital tools here, there are others… schedule a call to discuss your situation.

Using display network advertising alone is like saying about traditional advertising: “I only use ads on one radio station”. It can be effective to a point but it is not an integrated advertising plan.

Other Digital Tactics to Integrate

A few of the other digital tactics that work in tandem with display are Pay Per Click or PPC ads (what are typically thought of as Google search results ads), re-targeting or re-marketing ads (which are typically thought of as those annoying ads that follow you around after you visit a website), Over the Top or OTT video (which is advertising through streaming services that target both cable subscribers that are using streaming devices and cordcutters with ads during video and movie content), and On-site Search Engine Optimization (which – among other things – is consistently posting relevant content, video and more to your website to move higher in Google organic search results). And there are other digital tactics as well.

Define a Goal, Budget, Message and Call to Action… a Plan!

The key to advertising success in any media is having a plan which includes a defined goal, a budget, a good message, and a clear call-to-action.

The key to advertising in the digital display space is applying the above plus having a fast fulfillment of the call-to-action once the prospect clicks the ad. The website must fulfill their interest immediately. So whether it is display network advertising or another tactic, build a solid and easy offer or step to the sale.

Learn the Ropes or Get Help to Manage Digital

It can be difficult to manage digital because of the constantly changing landscape online, but there are many resources to provide help including consultants like Genius Marketing or simply online support from providers like Google.

Schedule a time to discuss your online strategy. It’s a free consultation to help you optimize your marketing. Watch more video on YouTube.

Tagged with: digital advertising, digital marketing, display network advertising

Content Calendar

Genius MarketingPosted on June 16, 2020 Posted in Marketing Planning

Our marketing consulting revolves around the content calendar (and other planning and marketing management tools). If you follow me on Twitter, read the Genius! Marketing blog regularly, or purchased the Genius! Marketing book, you know that starting with tactics is not advised. It’s easy to chase tactics. The way to start is with the message, based on the brand and marketing/sales goals. One of the most important tools we use to help companies plan and execute marketing successfully is the Content Calendar.

Planning the Content Calendar is Marketing Planning

For publications, the editorial calendar is planned in advance. Magazines, broadcasters, and content-driven websites plan what stories they will publish throughout the year. Yes, news happens and the content calendar plan is the same as any plan – it can and will be changed through the year as warranted by changes in the market. Still, no publication editorial board would start a year without a content calendar. It should be the same for the marketer: in the age of content marketing, the content calendar is critical; scheduling when key messages will be communicated.

Your Company is a Publisher Company

Organizations are publishers. With the internet, just about everyone is in the “media business.” As described in the message section of the Genius! Marketing book, the website is where all the information about your company, brand, and products resides. However, this content is static. It is always available, but check the analytics of your website… not everyone (anyone) who visits the site reads the whole site.

The X and Y Axis

Learn more about marketing budgeting and more in the Genius! Marketing book!

The content calendar shows how you will communicate your messages over time… it schedules the conversations to have with prospects and customers over the course of the year. Every January is the opportunity to talk about “New Year’s Resolutions” or “Things to Know – Trends for the New Year” in your industry. Some messages are seasonal… whether an industry event occurs once per year or a product or service that is typically purchased during one time of the year. Some of the calendar “fills itself”: product launches, special sales, and the more important, obvious messages. The balance of the calendar permits plugging in the less obvious messages such as brand attributes, accessories, special warranty information, introducing key staff, or other messages that typically don’t make a headline in an ad. Those messages may be available on a website but are great to communicate throughout the year.

The Third Dimension

The content calendar tool is critical in my consulting because it makes sure the organization is covering the topics that matter when they matter… and when there is the time in the schedule to communicate key value propositions and other messages that are not season-oriented. Not every prospect will see or hear every message but plan the schedule as if it is an ongoing conversation with prospects that support the sales process.

Have a question about your content calendar or other marketing issue? Contact me!

SLEckert

Tagged with: content calendar, editorial calendar, marketing message, marketing tips

SWOT One Minute Marketing Tip

Genius MarketingPosted on May 12, 2020 Posted in Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tips