Making a first impression...

In the sales business, we all know that finding a way to get in the door is the biggest battle of all. For our new Toshiba office in Albany, we have been looking for a way to get out sales reps in the door and straight to the CEO without giving them a goofy gift that will just get thrown out.

So my idea that I made a demo of today is a trash can. A literal metal trash can. And in this trash can there is a letter introducing the companies to Toshiba on HUGE paper. The tagline on the top of the letter says "Instead of giving you a gimmicky gift you're just going to throw out, we saved you the step and put it in the garbage". The letter talks about going green and how we can make your company become paperless. We are also going to run a contest that if you meet with our reps, you can win $2500 to donate in the name of your company rather than spending the money on gifts.

I'm writing about this because I am continuously battling with our sales department on spending money for silly gifts like mugs or pens compared to something that will make a CEO laugh and take notice.

Has anyone else used something out of the blue to get your team through the door?

No such thing as meeting expectations

I read an interesting blog the other day and the author spoke about how there is actually no such thing as meeting expectations, you either exceed or miss the mark. 60-80% of customers describe their customer satisfaction as satisfied, or very satisfied and a simple "meets expectations" is no longer an option. In order to overcome this, your goal should now be to always overdeliver and find ways to give a little extra. If the expectations of your customers are one thing, give them more. You should never settle for being a commodity and you should always seek to bring unique value to your customer.
This relates to IMC in that when we create a plan, we should always think about the customer first. In order to give them what they want, actually listen to what they want to hear/see/do, and apply it to you marketing. Once you figure out what it is they want and how to deliver it, think of something different that they might also like. This will make them very happy and eager for more!
I also stumbled across this interesting, rather edgy slideshow. Watch it if you dare, I think we are all adult enough to handle it. It is about social media and why we all need to get involved NOW!!
http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-is-social-media-one-year-later

Understanding your Buyer Personas is at the heart of great marketing

As we wind to a close and head off to learn more about marketing metrics and the infamous marketing dashboard, I'll take with me a fundamental but vital reminder -- great marketing originates from an understanding of your buyer personas and the problems they face. In good company with the advice of David Meerman Scott in World Wive Rave, by taking time to listen to your customers talk about their problems, articulate their needs, you'll be able to speak in to them in meaningful ways, using their terms, about how your product or service can help them. Your marketing becomes real, valuable and engaging in a way that influences your consumer to make a decision in your favor.
Meerman Scott offers this counsel,which some tenured marketers and big marketing machines seem to forget over time: "Targeting your work to buyer personas prevents you from sitting on your butt in your comfortable office just making stuff up about your products, which is the cause of most ineffective marketing". Now look carefully and fess up - how often have marketing campaigns from your company focused on the product calling out all the technology minutia which separates you from your competitors? Have you ever used jargon laden language and messaging like, "flexible, scalable solutions" or "cutting edge technology"? There's an endless laundry list of industry buzz words and phrases that mean little to customers. Don't fall into that trap!
Take David's challenge to "...speak with members of your buyer personas. Meet them on their own turf, their home office or where they go for fun - and listen to their problems. Then create something interesting and valuable especially for them, and offer it for free on the web". It's not your mothers marketing game anymore. What have you got to lose?
For more on Rules of the Rave, pick up Meerman Scott's World Wide Rave. It's a quick, easy, one sitting read. It may do more for your online marketing success and position you for the new ways of marketing than any other two hours you spend!
Mary

Final IMC Thoughts

In our review of the case studies of Virtual Vineyards, Erox Corporation, and Charles Schwab, we learned the importance on IMC in the sustained performance of a product or brand. Proper positioning, brand awareness, brand image, and brand loyalty play key roles in building a strong brand. Creating favorable perceptions within the market compared to the competition is also an important aspect of a good IMC plan. More importantly, and unless you have an unlimited marketing budget, to be successful in today’s hyper-competitive, over-advertised marketplace, you should be focusing your business and marketing on serving a specialized and preferably small niche market. By deciding to focus on serving a small niche market, you greatly increase your odds for business success with much less risk.

Integrated Marketing Communications is a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added-value in a program that integrates a variety of strategic disciplines such as general advertising, direct response, sales promotion and public relations, and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impact. In an integrated campaign, general advertising shines at strengthening brands and brand equity while direct marketing builds relationships and dialogue, and provides the means to build brand loyalty today’s competitive environments. Sales promotion provides short-term buying incentives for both consumers and the trade. Public relations and publicity can offer third-party endorsements and extra reinforcement for the paid advertising messages. None of the IMC elements is inherently superior or inferior; they all have important functions in an integrated campaign. Contrary to new beliefs, the campaign should still focus on a “big idea” and a graphic look that threads through all four elements. This maximizes the chances that consumers will get the message and then have the message reinforced and layered in their memories without the “cognitive inconsistency” that arises from mixed messages or contradictory graphic elements. Having a viable product concept, achieving favorable quality perceptions, and providing benefits to fulfill a consumer need will ultimately determine the short-term success or failure of a product, but a sound strategic and integrated marketing communications process will provide a blueprint for long-term product success and growth.

How are Press releases changing

The entire information stream of this thought comes by way of new media. A tweet delivered to my dashboard mentioned "How to get your press releases read, not trashed". With a tiny url directing me to http://www.ragan.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=5AA50C55146B4C8C98F903986BC02C56&tier=4&id=4BE67D25A6B74D998E946AA5178996A0&AudID=3FF14703FD8C4AE98B9B4365B978201A
The article says in a nutshell, all the rules are history, what matters is an interesting story. In 140 characters or less preferably. With the advancement of Twitter as a press release forum, emails enabling links to your own website for background info, and for that matter the ability ever more present to deliver a news release directly to your customers. The structure of press releases is falling by the wayside, with the only necessity now being an interesting story. Ragan attacks the new hire press release with a vengenance. "Why should I care the your company hired that person, I don't know who it is." With Greg Kamp just weeks ago saying he hasn't written a true press release in almost a year, I wonder how much longer any of us will be writing a true press release. Maybe we will simply be Tweeting, updating our company Facebook status, and blogging about newsworthy events and items.

The skill is good to have, but will it become a skill similar to churning butter or dipping candles. A skill learned in history class?

"Marketing Salvation"

I was listening to K-Love Radio this morning and was contemplating what I wanted to blog about when a news story came on talking about Harley Davidson Motorcycles. Since I have a love for the beautiful machines, I was intrigued and then was amazed by what I heard.

In Sturgis, South Dakota the 69th Annual motorcycle rally was held this year which attracted more than 4,200 motorcyclists and their friends. The interesting part is the brilliant marketing strategy used to draw in such a big crowd. All attendees were given a chance to win a black Harley-Davidson Motorcycle.

THE MARKETY STRATEGY

Dakota Baptist Convention and North American Mission Board for the past four years have been donating bikes to be raffled off to all those who listened to a 3-8 minute testimony and in the end this year’s rally end up having 800 profess their devotion to Christ.

Their goal was to bring the love of Christ to those who may not hear the message due to their choosen lifestyle. Volunteers for this rally know all too well about the path not to be traveled in life and some have started their own bikers clubs with the passion to serve God.

The convention’s executive director stated, “you have to start with relevance, something that’s going to get their attention, something that’s going to make them stop and say, ‘Yeah, I’ll listen to you for three minutes.” No matter the response from the participants to the testimony, the main objective was that the message was told and heard.

This got me thinking how creative we can get when we “Market Salvation.” These days people are not just going to line up and say preach to me. There are so many things in this world that have caused such temptation and what the convention did was an excellent example of creative marketing.

For you IMC junkies, you can read the full article by clicking the below link and you will notice how integrated minded the marketing team got to achieve the supreme strategy set by God.

ENJOY!

http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=31093

“What do you know about New Media / Social Marketing?”

“What do you know about New Media / Social Marketing?” This is the question Deb Mourey asked at the beginning of her presentation last Thursday on New Media and Social Marketing. What a humbling question this turned out to be, especially considering I sat among a class of aspiring marketers at the tail end of their degree program. She presented marketing from a position that shuck the foundation of traditional marketing – Social Media Marketing is not even in the same ball park with traditional marketing efforts.

Mourey dissected the 4 P’s of marketing, as they relate to today: Promotion must be where the customer is; Product must be relevant to consumer needs all the time; Price is transparent now; Place is going away. It’s true... the old relationship between consumer and advertiser is over: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3qltEtl7H8. As marketers we can no longer use the one-way communications methods with consumers…we need to listen! Traditional messaging (push messaging) results in low consumer engagement, but New Media Messaging offers the consumer a high engagement relationship with your brand and a two-way conversation. Social Media is all about the conversation and the relationship, with the consumer in control (taking the lead). The traditional marketing strategy was to control the message, but that works against consumer satisfaction and building trusting relationship in the long run. As a result, brands need to develop consumer trust in every fiber of their corporate being and communications. As Mourey stated, the 4 P’s need to be replaced by: anyplace, community (Brand), discover, engage, experience, tribe, with authenticity and trust baked into every brand experience. The P’s, in Mourey’s opinion, have been replaced by “the 10 B’s,” which are:

1. Be interested – listen to consumers
2. Be human – listen, date, share, generate buzz, create a tribe and repeat…
3. Be open
4. Be helpful – add value to your conversation
5. Be focused – remember that one word-of-mouth = 20 television ads
6. Be systematic
7. Be local
8. Be careful – no spamming your consumers with unwanted messages
9. Be able to give-up control, but monitor the feedback
10. Be irresistible – market to the Millennial’s using the tools they use…they do not watch TV ads!

Fellow Marketers, there is a serious paradigm shift in the marketing world and the strength of your message depends on your resourcefulness and ability to use the expansive New Media Tool Kit. The tools are out there you, but you need to know what they are and how to use them!

Mourey concluded with a challenging question… What does your digital footprint look like? What digital assets do you bring to your company in this changing marketing landscape?