Manhattan Marketing Maven

How to Survive the New Business Stampede

The layoffs of 2008 will soon give way to a manic new year’s scramble for new business in 2009. Marketers, agencies and consultants of all sizes, shapes and specialties will madly chase a shrinking pool of new assignments and do their darnedest to seduce customers away from their current providers.

What’s new is that business is “out there for the taking” because half of all buyers will be open to switching according to “How Clients Buy” :the 2009 Benchmark Report onProfessional Services Marketing produced by RainToday.com with survey help from the Wellesley Hills Group. The full detailed report is for sale on their site.

Evidently professional relationships aren’t what they used to be. High and changing expectations, a financial crunch and the ready availability of alternatives makes the business development landscape much more fluid that’s it has been before. Add the continuing need for service and reduced ranks of internal marketers and there are more potential openings than most of us might realize. The real question is are new business seekers willing or able to do what it takes to snag the newly available switchers?

So what’s a sales guy to do?

Make it Personal. The top tier methods for getting access to potential switchers are referrals from colleagues or other professionals and providers and/or personal recognition by your prospective client of you or your brand. You have to be out there, visible and know to get your foot in the door. The second tier of access is through presentations or in-person seminars. Again the direction is clear. You have to have something new or different to say and you have to get physically in front of potential customers to say it. The benchmarking data validates the old adage – “people buy people first; then goods and services are transacted.”

You are Your Website. If you are real you have a website explaining who you are and what you uniquely do. Your website is the embodiment of your brand in the customer’s eye. Eighty percent of potential clients look at your website before they decide to contact you. Customers search for you or look at your site to verify your claims, assess your bona fides and/or do the background research on you and your competitors. If your site sucks, so does the perception of you and your offering.

Proactively Reach Out. Too many marketers are afraid of the phone. The digital world is antiseptic and unintrusive. But the response rates and the engagement rates reflect this. The bench mark data suggests that potential switchers are much more open (almost 2 times as open as they were when surveyed in 2005) to phone and webinar contact than ever before. This means you need a good list and have to have something of genuine value to say or offer to entice further conversation.

Blogs and social media are just coming online as sales tools. They are worthy of experimentation but aren’t yet proven vehicles to engage potential new clients. You might get a few ideas by looking at the 14 agency blogs cited by Michael Gass on his Fuel Lines blog.

Focus on Buying Criteria. Way too many marketers get caught up in the features and never sell the benefits. And even more get way too caught up in chest beating and never listen closely enough to prospects to properly tailor the pitch. The reality is  --- clients want you to service them, solve their problems and make them look good. Your entire mission is to convince them that you and your guys can do this faster and better than anyone else.

For eight out of ten buyers, the critical information for sustaining this claim is your brand and personal reputation, your category or vertical industry experience, your task or functional experience and the price you quote. Every other piece of data, every other claim, all those awards, all that other blab is extraneous.

Focus on and clearly demonstrate what you know about their business, which tasks they need that you’ve done successfully a hundred times and be sure to logically show what they will win, in terms of business results – cash, profits, new customers, market share, market penetration – by picking you.

Listen Closely. If you can check you ego at the4 door and discipline yourself to let the prospects speak four words for each one you utter, most clients will sooner or later really tell you what they want. In the bench mark survey almost 4 in 10 complained that potential service partners didn’t listen to them, didn’t understand them or didn’t respond in a timely manner. If you can’t do these basic things, don’t bother to suit up for the sales game because you’ll never win.    

Good Luck and Happy New Year.

Ten Things NOT to Do in 2009

 

Don’t Panic. The earth will keep spinning on its axis and marketers of all stripes will need to communicate and persuade customers and prospects. Focus on the meat-and-potatoes issues in your business. Invest extra time and energy to find new ways to conceive, craft and transmit messages that better differentiate and more clearly communicate the value and the urgency of your brand.

 

Don’t Get Distracted. The economy is in a free fall. Most of us hope Obama knows more than we do. We pray that he and all those new appointees have a really good plan. He might. But whatever he’s got won’t make things better on January 22^nd. So focus on the stuff you can affect. Ignore things you have no control over. We all have to assume an  AA mentality by grasping the notion that most things are out of our control so we have to use our time and energy wisely to impact the handful of things we actually can exert control over; mostly ourselves. Take a short term focus. Cover each month’s bills. Take one step forward after the next. Try to ignore the daily doomsday screeching and then endless warnings that the sky is falling down.  

 

Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. Great relationships are forged in adversity. Now is the time to stick close to your clients and your people. Mine and harness the energy, the goodwill, the advocacy, the insights and the and ideas that often go uncollected or unexploited during the normal course of business. Invest in each other. Hold up your value proposition to a 360 SWOT analysis. Find new and better ways to reach out your customers.

 

Don’t Ignore Your Network. Social networking demonstrates that we are linked together. We are navigating this life together. So leverage your connections. Reach out to others. Ask questions, share ideas and share resources. The whole is stronger than the sum of the parts, so leverage the whole. Remember that the value of a network expands exponentially with use. An unused network degrades rapidly.

 

Don’t Bring Coupons to a Party. Social media is evolving, emerging and morphing everyday. You wouldn’t come to a party at my house and pass out coupons. We’d think you were rude and gross. Facebook, MySpace and others are the digital online equivalents of that party. Understand the milieu and enter cautiously recognizing that the brand is NOT in control, consumers are. Take your cues from them and respect their sensibilities.

 

Don’t Stop Experimenting. We are in the “wild west” phase of social, mobile and online video media. There are no ideas that are too crazy especially since our technologists are inventing, extending and mashing up new things daily. The recession makes these platforms and the creative content to fuel them affordable and measurable. So get below your competitor’s radar and play around with images, messages and media. Who knows maybe your nutty idea will become the new “best practices”?

 

Don’t Ignore

Mobile

Media. The new generation of Blackberries and the iPhone are important steps on the evolutionary path toward a single multi-purpose device that combines, integrates, synchronizes and aggregates computers, the Internet, telephony, credit and debit cards, digital photography, Swiss Army knives and who knows what else. And while it might take a few years for the number of daily users to reach hundreds of millions, this phenomenon will be upon us before you can say “Tim Berners Lee.” That means now is the time to get familiar with mobile media. Begin thinking about the idea of constant access to the Net and constant consumer motion and communication. This development will forever change they way we stimulate brand awareness, preference and purchase and change shopping expectations and behavior in ways we can’t yet predict..

 

Don’t Write Off Direct Marketing. When marketing money gets tight, bean counters rule. Direct marketing continues to enjoy great public acceptance, strong ROI, measurability and an under-exposed degree of creativity and inventiveness. Direct mail, DRTV, telemarketing and other DM tactics are proven result-getters which can be pulsed or turned off and on at will. Expect smart marketers to default to direct marketing and look for smart DM players to do well in hard times.

 

Don’t Forget to Measure What Matters. Most marketing is assessed two ways. We measure effectiveness in returning profitable business results and we count efficiency in terms of the value received compared to the cost, usually expressed in some form of ROI calculation. There are millions of other distracting and partially relevant things to count, sort and calculate. But in a recession focus on two simple questions; “How much profitable new business did this drive?” and “Was it worth it?”

 

Don’t Abandon Customer Satisfaction.  Acquiring new customers costs a multiple of delighting and retaining existing ones. In tough times you need the efficiency of happy customers referring their friends. Focus on customer service. Talk to customers. Listen to them too. Solicit their ideas and feedback. Institute loyalty and reward programs. Do whatever you can to encourage them to buy more. Emphasize customer service and include the voice of your customer in your product and marketing plans.

Getting Started Using Mobile Marketing

Prudent forward-looking professionally paranoid marketers should get started and get smarter about mobile media and marketing now. During the ascent phase (especialloy during the recession) prices are low, content and merchant partners are flexible and open to experimentation. The trick is to get an oar in the water before anybody gets a lock on a killer app, rolls out a game-changing technology or corners critical markesegments.

Here are 5 tips to get started in framing your own mobile marketing program.

Focus on Core Apps. Lead with your long suit. Decide which of your core products or services are most useful while customers are on the go and start there. Don’t try everything at once. Try one thing. Start with the service most in-demand by customers or prospects, the items that is most closely identified with your brand identity or your unique selling proposition.

Start Small. The first step puts you squarely in test-and-learn mode. Ask customers to do one thing. Ask them to choose, vote, get a coupon, set an alert, or take an exclusive offer. The idea is to validate the channel and test your ability to influence incremental changes in behavior. You want to get them to do one thing, easily and quickly so that they like it it, appreciate the effort and add to their warm and fuzzy feelings about your brand.

Market Across Platforms. Prepare for a range of phones and systems. Also prepare to have responses to mobile creative on the web, in e-mail or even by phone. Mobile apps are critical for a few but the real value-add for customers or prospects is rounding out the brand experience. Use a mobile test to get customers to respond to an e-mail or to an ad, to view and vote or to offer opinions about something they see or hear in another media channel. The idea is to associate your brand with your customers’ lifestyles in a way that they can easily interact with you.

Make an Time-Sensitive Offer. In return for taking a mobile action within a fixed time frame customers should get a reward. Rewards can take the form of contest entries, discounts, and exclusive access to people, places or things or things of value like freebies or coupons. Mobile media is a direct response platform. Many customers come to it with expectations set by DR marketers.

Ask About It. Do a post-action customer satisfaction survey using e-mail and mobile media to gauge customer reactions and gather customer input and feedback. Mobile marketing is evolving and who better to help you plan step number two than the folks who responded to your initial foray?    

 

Marketing Yourself in a Recession

Layoffs are a daily occurrence in this recession.  Too many of my friends and colleagues have found themselves involuntarily benched. If thousands in each industry are on the street finding a new job requires a personal Zen that’s comprised of patience, routine, sustained confidence, steady action and considered risk-taking. 

To effectively seek work – you have to think like a marketer and market yourself as a brand.  Identify your unique selling proposition, carefully target your potential new employers, craft persuasive messages and determine ways to get the attention and consideration you deserve.  But be realistic. The toughest part of job hunting is managing your nerves and marshaling your resources. 

The good news is that thousands of others are in the same boat.  There’s no embarrassment to being out of work.  But that’s also the bad news; thousands are competing for hundreds of jobs.  It’s a buyers market where some employers are trading up.

Here are ten must-do steps to keep you sane and on track toward your next job:

Create a Routine.  Job hunting isn’t a full-time job, especially when the jobs you want are few and far between.  Set up a daily routine.  Check email, surf job boards, then walk the dog, exercise, meet friends for lunch and watch Oprah. Structure your day so that you do what you need to and reduce the likelihood that you’ll obsess about your circumstances.

Prepare Your Pitch. You’ll need a killer resume with several variations, cover letters summarizing your greatest hits, references and selling points to acquaint headhunters with your strengths. These are messages you can control and shape. Writing and rewriting them gives you a sense of control and comfort and is something you can actually work on while you are waiting for the right opportunity. Anticipate the questions an interviewer might ask and prepare the answers. Make a list of people you worked with and your role in each assignment so you can quickly cite an example of how you fit the job specification. Spend time wordsmithing, be introspective and write like a journalist -- don’t bury the headline. You’ll have 5-10 seconds to grab somebody’s attention so pick your words carefully and be sure you are accenting your strongest selling points.

Don’t Pitch Every Job.  You are anxious with one eye on bills and the other on your savings account.  But restrain yourself.  Many of the jobs posted aren’t real.  Many aren’t right for you no matter how much you’re worried about cash flow.  Pick your shots.  Take the time to craft a short, punchy cover letter that translates and matches your experience to the job requirements.  Doing this math for an HR person will dramatically improve your chances of making a short list.

  

Stutter Step Your Submission.  The vast majority of online applications come in during the first 24 hours after a job is posted.  Huge numbers of people are applying automatically to all kinds of jobs that they aren’t remotely qualified for.  Many employers can’t handle the numbers so they dump the first response wave because nobody is willing to wade through 500 or 1000 resumes.  So pick your shot, wait a day and then apply.  There is a reasonable chance that patience and timing will earn you more consideration.

Set Alerts.  Let jobs find you. Do a search using the keywords that fit your ideal position or your dominant skill set.  Save the search as an alert.  You can do this in 45 seconds on Craig’s List or at www.indeed.com, www.simplyhired.com, www.trovix.com, or www.jobster.com.  Each day the jobs most interesting to you will end up in your Inbox.  If you like, set more than one using keywords for different titles or different industry sectors.  All you have to do is sort out the duplicates and decide where to click to apply.

Surf Social Networks.  Let you r Facebook and MySpace friends know you are looking and sign up for professional groups or forums on Ning, Naymz and LinkedIn where many jobs are posted and many recruiters are lurking.  Also check trade association and trade publication sites and industry newsletters many of which either have job listings or report on openings, new positions and employer’s plans.

Don’t Be Bashful.  You can’t win if you don’t play.  Tell people you are looking and what you are looking for.  Most people assume that friends and family know their situation and will do the math for them. This is usually NOT true.  And, while it might make you blush, you never know who knows whom.  Tell your maiden aunt, your cousin in Boise and your neighbor. Be specific about what you do and what you are looking for because who knows? Maybe their cousin, high school BFF or sister-in-law just might be hiring.

Publish.  In an interactive world, employers will search the web or prospective employees either to identify people in companies or industries of interest or to check out candidates they’ve heard about or talked to. In some cases the players they want to poach from the competition aren’t there anymore so publishing helps them find you. So while you’ve got the time share your expertise by publishing a blog or positing thoughts, comments, opinions or advice on blogs, portals, professional communities, media sites or job boards. You never know if your clever response to a news story our your nuts-and-bolts advice to an industry peer will send an employer in your direction.  Remember many more people read this stuff than write posts, so consider it a form of advertising.

Engage Recruiters Gingerly.  Most recruiters are actively trying to find the needle in the haystack; the perfect candidate that meets all the requirements and nice-to-haves that employers fantasize about.  These guys work for employers. You are just fuel for their revenue stream. If you fit the profile, these guys become your new best friend. If you connect on a real job prospect immediately find out if they have an exclusive retainer or if they are pitching you on contingency. Their status with the hiring organization will drive their behavior towards you.

If you don’t, they don’t hate you, but don’t expect a return call.  Every recruiter keeps some kind of database and almost everyone remembers individuals with interesting stories, unique expertise or even odd-sounding names.  Many allow you to upload your resume to their sites, others are happy to collect resumes by e-mail and many post openings on their own sites and larger job boards trolling for candidates.

Try to find the recruiters who specialize in your industry or your functional specialty. Expect that recruiters will be a mixed bag ranging from skilled, understanding conversant professionals to half-wit jerks looking to score a quick commission.  And you never know… tomorrow they can get a new assignment where you fit the bill and you go from being a nobody to being the leading candidate.

Seek Out Context. Every job you get considered for is at a different stage in the search process. In some cases you are the first person they’re seeing. In other cases they already love somebody else and you are search chum or a comfortable second string player. And more times than you can imagine, the one they truly loved turned them down so they’re back in the market reluctantly fishing again.

Get as much information as you can about where the hiring managers are in the process, their style, their formal and informal process and the culture of the organization. This will require you to dig, ping your network, ask around and to push the recruiters; who often don’t know this stuff themselves. But be persistent. These critical elements vary widely within industries and even under corporate or holding company umbrellas. Understanding how and when you intersect with the on-going search is the most important piece of intelligence you can get because it will shape the way you position yourself and cue you about how to persuade them to hire you.

 

 

Why CMOs Snub Social Media

Millions of people have started using social media in the last year. 49 million visited MySpace or Facebook in October 2008. But more than half (55%) of 180 Chief Marketing Officers from medium to giant brands aren’t interested.

What’s up with that?

Could it really be that the marketing leaders of top consumer and B2B brands really don’t care that Facebook and MySpace have aggregated huge audiences which are can be targeted using a range of psycho-demographic criteria or are these the guys who are so out of touch they can’t hold the job for more than a year and a half?

My hunch is neither.

I suspect that the survey, done by GfK Roper Public Affairs on behalf of Epsilon, a leading direct marketing services company, reflects more caution and uncertainty than outright stupidity. It’s not a stretch to guess that CMOs are skeptical about these large looming communities. Here’s why:

They’re Too New. There’s no track record, only anecdotal results. There are no proven strategies, no best practices, no brands claiming victory, no clear buying tools or metrics and the weenies who typically become CMOs won’t do anything that somebody hadn’t already pre-chewed and pre-digested for them. There isn't any agreement on what marketers should use social networks for. Are the awareness, preference or sales building  vehicles? Remember these are the same guys who are just beginning to recognize and cautiously test the Internet as a viable media channel. And their doubts are probably nurtured by the sites themselves who are immature at packaging, selling and merchandizing the audiences they’ve attracted.

Nobody Wants Ads. The primal attraction of these sites is the absence of advertising and the joy of connection, sharing and communication between friends. Marketers don’t know how to join the party and have few organic connections with which to “friend” customers and prospects.  Gaining entrée, framing the message, devising creative executions and knowing how and when to communicate are all open questions.  And while a brand like the New York Times can collect 183,000 Facebook fans and send 400,000 virtual gifts, most CMOs don’t know what to make of it. Is this a good, so-so or bad result? The social networks haven’t sufficiently answered the “so what” challenge.

Not Sure Whose There. CMOs are asking the question Butch repeatedly asked Sundance, “Who are those guys?” The preliminary answers aren’t encouraging despite the fact that 57% of users log in daily and spend more than 30 minutes per session, according to IDC. Steve Cone, Epsilon’s

CMO

says “the sites narrowly appeal to high school and college students.” But he’s a year behind the power curve and has a vested interest in selling CMOs other digital assets.

A P&G executive was quoted as asking “who wants to put our message on a site where somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?” And Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff really pooped on MySpace users saying they are “poor cretins” none of whom “has beyond an 8^th grade education.” CMOs used to relying on and hiding behind refined demographic and psychographic data won’t buy a pig in a poke.

No Control. Social networks are party lines. Anyone can edit, review or comment on almost anything. It’s the antithesis of advertising which has for decades carefully placed well-crafted and well-researched messages in precise pages and in precise time slots to meet well defined audiences. You can’t interrupt programming with an ad or push a message to people on social networks. This is the exact opposite of 60 years of advertising practice and experience. Few CMOs have a risk appetite to take a flyer or to potentially associate their brand (by design or default) with an uncontrolled range of ideas, associations, images or messages. Don’t expect mainstream marketers to break with tradition or inertia easily.

Limited Metrics. Cookies don’t work on social networks. Measuring anything is a leap of faith. Whole Foods distributes coupons. BlendTec circulates wacky product demonstration videos, and Reebok encourages runners. But we can’t calculate the ROI, measure media efficiency or gauge relative effectiveness using the media metrics we’ve come to know and love. Absent numbers, few media buys get made.

The really message in the survey results is that we are clearly in the early adopter phase where mainstream marketers watch the early experimenters and try to gauge value and effectiveness. Advocates of social media need to develop a different marketing paradigm to either translate or replace the lens used by marketers to assess and buy media channels.  Assuming that Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others will last and become a regular or preferred part of consumers’ media landscape; we need to find new ways to help established and insurgent brands make new friends.

       

5 Ways to Jumpstart Mobile Marketing

The prudent forward-looking professionally paranoid marketer will get started and get smarter about mobile media and marketing now, during the ascent phase while prices are low, content and merchant partners are flexible and open to experimentation and before anybody gets a lock on a killer app, game-changing technology or critical market segments.

The holiday appeal and uptake of smartphones should be enough to convince you to try a mobile marketing test Here are 5 tips to get started in framing your own mobile marketing program.

Focus on Core Apps. Lead with your long suit. Decide which of your core products or services are most useful while customers are on the go and start there. Don’t try everything at once. Try one thing; the service most in-demand by customers or prospects, the items that is most closely identified with your brand identity or your unique selling proposition.

Start Small. The first step puts you squarely in  test- and-learn mode. Ask customers to do one thing. Ask them to choose, vote, get a coupon, set an alert, or take an exclusive offer. The idea is to validate the channel and test your ability to influence incremental changes in behavior. You want to get them to do one thing, easily and quickly so that they like it it, appreciate the effort and add to their warm and fuzzy feelings about your brand.

Market Across Platforms. Mobile apps are critical for a few but the real value-add for customers and prospects is in rounding out the brand experience. Use a mobile test to get customers to respond to an e-mail or to an ad, to view and vote or to offer opinions about something they see or hear in another media channel.

Make an Offer. In return for taking a mobile action within a fixed time frame customers should get a reward. Rewards can take the form of contest entries, discounts, and exclusive access to people, places or things or things of value like freebies or coupons. Mobile media is a direct response platform. Many customers come to it with expectations set by DR marketers.

Ask About It. Do a post-action customer satisfaction survey using e-mail and mobile media to gauge customer reactions and gather customer input and feedback. Mobile marketing is evolving and who better to help you plan step number two than the folks who responded to your initial foray?