Whether you’re doing guerrilla marketing or advertising on the radio or television, the more accurately you target your ideal customer, the better your success will be. There are two habits most business people tend to fall into.

1.         Grab all the sales you can get.

This is completely understandable and only natural for an aggressive sales person or business owner. But, what it does is distract your targeting efforts away from the customers who will ultimately be most profitable. In order to make your marketing efforts as efficient as possible, take the time to really identify your “platinum customer”. How much do they spend? What is their life-time value as a customer? What do they buy? What common thing causes them to buy? How easy are they to deal with?

Sure, grab all the sales you can get. But, if you concentrate on grabbing all the sales you can get FROM YOUR PLATINUM CUSTOMER, you will pick up sales from the rest. And, your marketing dollars will give you a better return over time.

2.         Target your primary demographic.

This is a good start, but not good enough. Demographic refers to age and gender. Consider the following audiences based upon age and gender: a 35-year old female.

1. She’s in a business suit with a briefcase and occupies a downtown office making 6-figures a year.
2. She’s single, on a bus with two kids and food stamps.
3. She’s married with three kids and she’s in a minivan full of little soccer players.
4. She has orange spiked hair, a nose ring and works at an art studio.

As you can see, all of these women are the same demographic. But, they are vastly different audiences. In order to target your customer in a meaningful way, you must know more about them than age and gender. You need to know their education level and income range. You need to know what their values are. Do they value function over form like an engineer, or form over function like an artist? How do they spend their discretionary income? What are their leisure time activities?

The more you know about your best customers, the more efficiently you will be able to find them. The more accurately you will be able to deliver a meaningful message to them. And, the more valuable you will become to them because you are providing exactly what they need.

Rob Charlton

When creating a marketing plan, the very first thing that should be done is to write a situation analysis. It’s easy for business owners to gloss over this step because they are so deeply involved in their business it doesn’t occur to them that there is anything to learn by writing it down. The fact is, however, this step is often the most important element of your marketing plan because it allows you to reveal and prioritize solutions to specific challenges.

Here is a starting point of  20 questions you should be answering. Some of these may seem simple and obvious. But, seeing the answers written down in context with other information provides clarity that can reveal relationships you haven’t noticed before. Likewise, as simple as these look, you’ll be surprised at how difficult it is to answer some of them.

1. How long have you been in business?   
2. What does your annual sales curve look like and how has it been trending over the past three or four years?
3. How many competitors do you have? (list them)
4. How big is your business compared to theirs?
5. What are their hours? What are yours?
6. How do your competitors attempt to differentiate themselves? What is their primary image? (quality, price, exclusive lines, service, etc.)
7. Are they fulfilling their claims?  
8. What unique benefit do you provide that competitors don’t?
9. Where is your business located in relationship to customers and competitors? 
10. What does the customer landscape look like? (growing, diminishing, why?)
11. Describe your best customer.
12. What does the broad cross-section of your customers look like? (demographic, psychographic, social, income, geographic)
13. Are there enough customers to go around? 
14. What have you been doing to market yourself? 
15. How has it been working? (quantify as much as possible)
16. What are your competitors doing to market themselves? 
17. How much are your competitors spending on advertising annually?
18. How are they presenting their strengths?
19. Does your business have a weakness or bad public perception in any area that must be overcome? (ie: poor quality or service from previous owner, old facility, etc.)
20. How has your industry changed over the past few years, and how is it expected to change in the future?

All of the 20 questions listed above may not apply to your particular business. But, for those that do, be sure to explore the answers thoroughly. Some of the questions may at first sound simple, but when you really get into it, can be quite complex. The more detailed and honest you are in defining exactly where you stand in terms of competition, market size, industry trends, past marketing results, and anything else you can learn, the better equipped you will be to determine your strategy.  

Rob Charlton

 If you own a retail business that relies upon customers coming to your store, one of the most fundamental things you need to know is where your customers are coming from. Many business collect zip codes, but that’s not detailed enough. You need to identify the neighborhoods and business districts they are coming from. Do that, and you can target your advertising and marketing with much greater efficiency.

The Dot Study is a simple and inexpensive marketing research tool you can use to gather this information.

Go to your nearest map store and buy two fairly good sized maps of the area around your store. The maps should be big enough so they include the areas around your store outside of where you think your customers are coming from.

Mount each map on a piece of foam core or some other rigid backing. Mark one AM and one PM and then switch from the AM to the PM map at the same time (of your choosing) every day. The reason for this is to distinguish your source of sales during the day from those during the evening. Often, people will shop from work or some other place during the day. But, will shop from home in the evening. This is important to know, especially if you have a business such as a restaurant where you need to target lunch versus dinner messages. 

Instruct your sales staff to ask each person they wait on where their shopping trip originated from. In the evening it is a little more important to establish that the originating point is their home. They don’t have to give you an address or anything specific. All they have to do is point to an area on the map. Your staff will then place a colored dot on the map with a felt pen where the customer has indicated.

It is important to do this consistently and long enough to get a distinct visual representation of where the dots begin forming clusters. After a week or two, you will begin to see patterns emerging that will provide a great tool for future marketing.

How would you change your marketing if you could see on a map exactly where your customers were coming from?

Rob Charlton

Crowdsourcing is a term that refers to the act of presenting a problem to the public at large, and then letting anyone and everyone submit solutions. Some crowdsourcing for problems that require specific expertise may be limited to a qualified group. But, the same principle applies. The term was first coined by Jeff Howe in an article he wrote in Wired magazine in June of 2006.

 This is a tactic that has been made possible by the evolution of web 2.0 technologies, and brings with it the exciting prospect of finding creative solutions that would otherwise never be known, or, at least, not discovered for years. When a company hires a team, whether in-house or contracted, it draws from a limited pool of brain power, and then turns them loose to solve a problem. As talented as the team might be, it’s only logical to expect the existence of solutions they never thought of.

Crowdsourcing, on the other hand, broadcasts the problem to a vast, unknown group of individuals who are free to provide their best ideas. The entity seeking a solution gets the brain power of anyone who wishes to participate, from professional experts to undiscovered geniuses. In some cases, the solvers can become collaborators and work to refine divergent answers into one final solution. The final solution is then owned by the entity who broadcast the initial problem.

Sometimes the people who collaborated on the solution are rewarded with money or prizes. And, sometimes the only reward is recognition, which is the other side of the coin, and is causing a good deal of controversy about the practice.      

For examples of crowdsourcing visit Wikipedia. You’ll find several there. Jeff Howe also writes a blog on crowdsourcing which can be found at http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/cs/ .

If you have any experience with crowdsourcing or have an opinion about it, please leave a comment.

Rob Charlton

In the advertising agency business, one of the most difficult things to do is acquire new clients without lying. This is because when two or more agencies are presenting to the same client, it is often the one that makes the biggest promises that wins the business.

Most ad agencies stay within the ethical boundaries of truth, even if it’s embellished in a “dog and pony show” presentation. Some, however, willingly cross the line.

The question then becomes, why does a smart, successful business person buy into false promises and what can he or she do to avoid it? Here are four reasons why blatent exaggerations are believed and what you can do to keep from falling for them.

THE FORTUNE TELLER SYNDROME
The advertising category is the only consulting service a business uses that deals with the future. Everyone else: the attorney, accountant, even the insurance agent, is a historian. The entire premise of using an ad agency is built around shaping a better tomorrow. Therefore, the client is already in a state of mind to accept predictions before a single word has been uttered.

What to do
Go into your agency review knowing that these people are mere mortals. A good agency will be able to explain the fundamentals of good marketing and why it works. But, combine an unkown future with the variables of human behavior and no one can actually predict an outcome. There are industry expectations for response to marketing. Ask what the avearage response rate is and resist the temptation to believe anything outside of those standards.

I CAN GET IT CHEAPER
One of the most effective ways to win a client is to convince him or her that the agency can buy media cheaper than anyone else. This line of reasoning fits perfectly with a business person who is fine tuned to getting the best wholesale prices on products they sell. They understand the concept immediately and very little explanation is required.

What to do
There is no other business where manipulating numbers is so easy and convincing. To illustrate this, we recently presented three plans to a client, all with the same rating points per week. But, at the end of the year, there was more than a $100,000 difference in actual cost. The difference was not based upon the ability to buy cheaper, but was based upon a multitude of other variables when making the buy. Your best tactic with regard to this claim is to completely ignore it as a reason to choose an agency. Rather, ask them what their media strategy would be for your particular business.

THE MISTIQUE IS GONE
Like it or not, this business carries with it a certain cachet that others find a bit fascinating. When an ad agency has been around too long, what they do becomes so familiar that it’s like knowing how the magician does his trick. The bit of mystery that makes ad agencies different isn’t there any more. In a client’s desire to “see what’s out there”, there is also an expectation that there is something special they’re not getting.

What to do
This expecation sets the stage for believing claims that are lofty or just plain false. To complicate things, we are in a period of time when on-line marketing is being integrated into agency capabilities. Because of the different levels of competency agencies have in this fairly early stage of on-line marketing, you may find actual differences. The key here is to remain objective with regard to actual capabilities. If one agency can provide Facebook ads or keyword search and the other can’t that’s cut and dried. But, if it gets down to how one agency can do it better because of some secret forumula, that’s the time to stop listening.

POOR SALES
If a company’s sales are lagging, there may be many reasons why. And, if an ad agency is involved, I guarantee that it will be called into question. The client may not even blame the agency directly. But, there is the desperate hope that a new marketing approach will save the day. And, it is in that desperation that the business person clings to the belief that what is being said is worth taking a chance on.

What to do
This is the hardest one of all to deal with. Low sales can cause panic in the best of us. In a situation such as this, it is best to bring in a trusted third party who has some experience in marketing, or choosing an agency. Having a sounding board to modify your instinct to go with the biggest promise can help to keep your emotion from overruling your logic. But, you must be willing to listen and question your motivation.

If you find yourself in a position of hiring a new ad agency, be careful about what you believe. Don’t get distracted by colorful charts and shallow claims. And, check yourself against the four states of mind listed above before you believe something.

Rob Charlton

Social Media is the newest darling of marketing. But, for all the buzz it’s generating, there is very little hard data on how or why companies use it, or how successful it is. However, that is beginning to change.

The Aberdeen Group recently concluded a study that shows seven specific reasons why companies choose to use a social media strategy. They separated their respondents into three categories, based upon four key performance criteria. The categories were Best-In-Class (top 20%), Industry Average (middle 50%) and Laggards (bottom 30%).  Of all companies questioned, the top reasons for implementing a social media initiative, in order of their reported importance are:

• Increase customer advocacy / word of mouth        37%
• Protect brand reputation                                                35%
• Improve customer research capabilities                   33%
• Increase product / brand awareness                          32%
• Increase customer loyalty                                               31%
• Increase customer acquisition                                      23%
• Increase customer retention                                          21%

What is interesting to note is that these results were taken from all respondents. However, when looking at Best-In-Class respondents, the number one reason, at 47%, was increasing customer loyalty. The argument might be made that increasing customer loyalty can be seen as an umbrella that includes most of the other categories, so it was just a matter of wording. Or, it might speak to a more refined understanding of Best-In-Class companies that in today’s economy, customer retention is a much more important strategy than in normal times. And, that customer loyalty is a deeper level of customer retention.

Regardless of the relative importance of reasons to engage in a social media strategy, it shows a growing realization among companies that a significant part of their effort to connect with their customers must now take place on this new two-way communication platform. And, it provides the beginning point for quantifying  those efforts.

Best-In-Class companies showed an average of 11% increase in their ability to generate consumer insights that drive new product/service developments. Laggards decreased 10%. Best-Of-Class companies showed an average decrease in customer service costs of 7%. Laggards showed an average increase of 5%.

When companies have to struggle for every sale it’s hard to justify the time and expense for a new, unproven marketing strategy. But, evidence is beginning to grow in support of what many marketing professionals instinctively saw as an important new tool.

Not every company is a candidate for social media. But, if you are wondering what a social media campaign might do for you, a good place to start is the above list. And, if you interview a social media professional, be sure to ask questions that are wrapped around the appropriate reasons that drove you to consider it in the first place.

Rob Charlton

International advertising isn’t something we get to do very often. So, when we were given the job of placing an ad in an Israeli newspaper by Figaro’s Italian Pizza, we were anxious to do it. We had never done business in Israel before and we love doing something new. And really, how hard could this be? Well, what  looked like a simple enough task turned out to be quite a challenging experience.

It started out OK. A couple hours on the Internet was all it took to track down a short list of newspapers that looked like what we needed. And, with just a little more research we narrowed it down to the correct publication.

So far, so good.

Our next step was to contact the advertising department of the paper to get rates, deadlines, mechanical specs and payment procedures. That’s when the first little challenge became evident, and it wasn’t a language barrier as we expected. As it turns out, most speak English quite well over there. It was the time difference. Every e-mail, no matter how insignificant the subject, takes an entire day to get a response. That’s because their work day begins about 10:00 pm our time, and ends about 6:00 am. While I’m e-mailing, they’re sleeping, and vice versa. On a number of occasions I got up early to call them on the phone in order to speed things up. But, at this newspaper they don’t answer their phones. They let their phones collect messages that they listen to at their leisure. Add to that, my first three e-mails were not answered. My only hint that they were going through was that I was not getting a bounce-back notice. But, three unanswered e-mails equals three days of time.

For fear of looking totally incompetent to my client, I started sending several e-mails per day, so if there was anyone on the other end, they could not miss my messages. In fact, they would have to respond or continue to be annoyed by me forever. Thankfully, I finally received a polite e-mail along with an apology for not responding sooner.

Things were starting to look up.

After another few days of back-and-forth messaging, I was able to size the ad and identify a budget. I had asked how they wanted to handle payment and was told that the ad had to be paid three days prior to publication. Payment could be either by bank transfer or credit card. No surprises here.

I spoke to my banker and was told that the most practical way to handle this transaction was to use the credit card because it wasn’t very much money (it was a small ad). And, the bank guaranteed the transaction and safety of my account. So, I e-mailed my account information to the newspaper along with the art and insertion order, happy that it was done.

However, the Friday it was supposed to run, I received an e-mail saying that my card had been rejected and the ad could not run. I was embarrassed and shocked because our card was in good standing. I called my US Bank contact and he was also baffled. He could only advise me to call the service number on the back of the card. I called the number and was told that because it was from out of the country, their computerized fraud protection system had denied it. I then asked them to override the system because it was a legitimate transaction.

I was told that they could not do that. Once the computer decided to reject the transaction, they could not manually override it. They had to provide a manual security code which the Israeli newspaper must get verified when making the transaction. Only then could the payment go through. So, I asked for the code so I could give it to the newspaper.

Nope.

They could not give it to me. The newspaper had to call for it, then include it in the electronic transaction. So, I summarized all this as clearly as possible and sent it off to the newspaper. The next day I received an e-mail from the newspaper explaining that they could not call and get the manual security code because their billing department was completely computerized, and there was no provision for such an action. Great. Two computers who cannot or will not talk to each other and who have control over their human counterparts. 

Exasperated, I finally dug out an alternate credit card and sent the newspaper all new card information. Then, immediately called the number on the back of the new card telling them to expect a transaction from Israel. Miraculously, a couple days later I received an e-mail from the newspaper saying that the transaction had gone through and the ad could run. So, I asked that the ad run in the next Friday’s edition.

On about Thursday, I received another e-mail from the newspaper saying that the Friday edition I wanted had already been sold out to capacity, and the ad would not run. Over here they just add another page and keep selling space. That one really surprised me. They did include in their note that  it would run in the following Friday’s edition. Thank goodness this was not a time-sensitive ad.

I’m happy to report that the ad finally ran, I think. You see, I asked for five tear sheets after the ad ran. I was informed that they could only provide three. OK, so I’ll take three. That was about two weeks ago, and I still haven’t received any tear sheets.

Believe it or not, I actually expect to receive my tear sheets eventually. This whole experience has made me appreciate the efforts of international business people everywhere. And, no, I don’t consider myself an international businessman as a result of this. But, I got a very brief peek into their window and got a quick tutorial on how complicated things can get.

Would I do it again?

Oh yeah.

Rob Charlton

What is your company’s brand promise?

If you cannot answer that question quickly and confidently, then you have some unfinished work to do. Don’t feel bad. Most business people fail this test. A brand is a complicated, multi-faceted concept that is still misunderstood and over simplified  by many. The brand promise is just one element of branding, but a very important cornerstone upon which all else is built. Your brand promise is, in a nutshell, the one thing of value that’s uniquely yours that you deliver every time with no exceptions. This is a heavy burden, so what you promise must be both authentic and honest.

Your brand promise begins with examining your own core values and why you are in business in the first place. Deep inside, you must hold a belief that you have something of value that you are bringing to the marketplace that wasn’t there before. And, that belief was strong enough from the beginning to make it worth going into business (which is no small investment or gamble). Whatever that value was, start there and work outward. How does it affect your customers? How can you articulate that value in a way your customers will recognize?

Your brand promise can be short and to the point, or several sentences long. It can be a statement of customer benefit or a more philosophical committment to deliver a benefit. But, one thing I want to make clear. A brand promise is not a tag line. Sometimes it can be used as one. But, they are two different things. Here are some examples of brand promises of different lengths and approaches.

IKEA:  
Stylish furniture at affordable prices.

FEDEX:
Your package will get there overnight. Guaranteed.

Best Western:
We do not shirk our responsibilities.

McDonald’s:
An inexpensive, familiar and consistent meal delivered quickly in a clean environment.

College of Charleston:
At the College of Charleston, you will live and study at one of the Nation’s best universities for quality education, student life and affordablility. You will have extraordinary choices in what to study, what to learn and what to explore. You will work with exceptional professors who love to teach. You’ll change. You’ll grow and you’ll succeed. You’ll learn how to build your life.

As you can see, all of these are vastly different. But, they all have an element of authenticity. They are believable, and the companies behind them are delivering the promise. Contrast these statements to promises such as “Lowest prices guaranteed”, “World class quality” or some other generic sounding claim that we all hear every day. It’s believable compared to not believable. Authentic compared to hollow.

Once you’ve figured out what your brand promise is, write it down. You’ll be surprised at how energizing it is to be able to read a well articulated summary of that core value you’ve always held. But, more importantly, you will then be able to share it with your staff, customers and all others so there will be no mistake about what you stand for.

If you’ve been holding off marketing your business in order to save money through the recession, you’d better change your strategy now, or face losing market share. It’s not a secret anymore. Any savvy business person knows that maintaining an aggressive marketing strategy through a recession strengthens sales and increases market share. And, they typically get that extra market share from their competitors who are not as aggressive.

A problem with this recession is that it was so bad even owners and managers who knew the right thing to do were hard pressed to execute it due to lack of cash flow. In some ways, that leveled the playing field a little. But, we are now entering an interesting time of great opportunity for any business owner who is able to step up ahead of his or her competition.

Consumer Confidence is most important to retailers.
Consumer confidence is a significant factor in the recovery, but is particularly significant to retailers. Consumer spending represents about 70% of the US economy, which has a direct effect on retailers.

The Consumer Confidence Conference Board  has been surveying houseolds since 1967. A score of 90 represents a healthy economy. 100 equals strong growth. The recession low score was 25 in February, 2009. In August it measured 54.1, up from 47.4 in July. And, it is the highest it’s been since December of 2007.

Consumer confidence is increasing.
The latest survey strongly indicates that consumer pessimism is lifting. The job market, while still weak, is stabilizing. People aren’t as afraid about losing thjeir jobs. And, as a result, they are more confident about spending.  The evidence lies not just in this report, but in what we’ve seen with our retail advertising accounts. Business is picking up. It’s slow, sometimes in fits and starts. But, it is picking up.

With consumer spending beginning to shake loose, now is the time to craft the most agressive marketing strategy your budget will allow. Lean into it with all your might. It’s not too late to push yourself further toward the front of the line while your competitors are still waiting to see what’s going to happen.

Truth is the most powerful marketing tool in your bag. I don’t mean truth in advertising, as in not making false claims and being ethical in your communication practices. That’s an obvious given to anyone with an ounce of common sense.

I’m talking about being transparently honest with your audience with regard to who you are and how you relate to your public. Companies are so obsessed with putting a positive spin on information, whether its about the company itself or its products, that the public has become numb to it. You, I and everyone else out there can spot a whitewashed PR statement or an exaggerated product claim in an instant. But, too many corporate executives and business owners continue to believe they are somehow camouflaged from their lack of authenticity.

One of the best examples of a radio commercial that embraced truth was for a telephone company some thirty years ago. It had a reputation for providing poor service. So they made a number of internal adjustments to improve their service and then ran a radio campaign to promote themselves. The commercial began with the predictable statement about how good their service was. But, then, the announcer was interrupted with gales of laughter. By poking fun at themselves they immediately identified with the listeners beliefs, which laid the groundwork for presenting their message. The campaign was a huge success.

There are other examples of unexpected truths being used to provide powerful advertising messages, such as:

• Orville Redenbacher:  The world’s most expensive popping corn
• Avis:   We’re number two, so we try harder
• Listerine: The taste you hate twice a day

There is something about being flat-out honest about something that not only catches people’s attention, but leaps out at them from the crowd. It’s not what we, as consumers, are used to. And, that’s only one of the benefits.

When you say something that might be considered potentially uncomplimentary, you create credibility. If you’re willing to say something negative about your product, then you are obviously truthful, so can be trusted when you say positive things.

I’m not suggesting that companies should go out and start advertising negative things about themselves. But, you should not hide behind canned language that contradicts commonly held perceptions. It actually hurts you more than it helps.

The truth is powerful. The funniest jokes are the ones that are based in truth, the most memorable quotes are the ones that strike our deepest sense of truth, and the most powerful advertisements are the ones that are truthful.

And, that’s the truth.