Jul 7, 2023 | Branding, Marketing, Sales
A hundred years of practical experience and academic research proves that cutting marketing budgets during tough times is the worst thing you can do. Most do it, simply because it is easy, seems sensible to the uninitiated, and often prevents yelling from the corner office.
This provides great opportunity for those who hold their nerve.
Brands are built by having a ‘share of voice‘ greater than their market share over time. Brand building is a long-term exercise, which becomes cheaper in a recession, as others cut their expenditure, demand for advertising space drops, so does the price as a result, and your customer is more likely to see your ads in a less cluttered environment.
This is a strategic investment.
You should reduce the existing tactical, promotional deals if you can, as they are costs to the bottom line, not investments in your brand. You might get a short-term volume bump, but the added volume rarely replaces the margin lost from the discount.
Do the maths before you agree to the discount.
How much extra volume do you need from the promotion to recover the margin surrendered? Consider also the customers perception of the ‘right price’ for your product. Have you just lowered it?
You can cut yourself to oblivion, easily, while being clapped from the sidelines. Usually those clapping control access to consumers, as do supermarkets, or are those customers who would have been happy to pay more.
Do not miss the opportunity to build your brand while your competitors are hunkered down giving discounts in an effort to maintain volume, while destroying long term commercial sustainability.
Header credit Tom Fishburne at marketoonist, who very effectively pokes fun at marketing hubris.
Jun 28, 2023 | Branding, Communication, Marketing
No business I have ever seen has enough in their marketing budgets to do all they would like to do. Therefore, they often start cutting bits off ‘willy nilly’ to reach a budget that can be managed.
There is a better way: Basic marketing 101, which most SME’s ignore to their detriment.
What problem do you solve.
The more specific the problem you solve better than anyone else, and the more specific you can be about those who are likely to have that problem, the more able you will be to focus your limited resources productively.
It appears easy at first glance to articulate the problem, often it is way harder than it seems. The key is to articulate it the way a customer would, rather than the way you speak about it internally. That way you have a chance to avoid the drill or the hole confusion.
Your brand.
Those who have the problem and may be inclined to pay someone to solve it for them, need to be aware of your brand, and the offer you make that will solve the problem for them. You must figure out the best way to reach these people in such a way that you may be able to at least add your brand to the list of options they have for consideration. Preferably of course, your brand is the only one they consider.
Trust.
There must be a reason for someone to pick your solution in preference to others that may be available. If that reason is price, then in most cases you have already lost by winning that race to the bottom.
Trust is hard won, and easily lost, but plays a crucial role in any sales process.
For most SME’s doing more than one thing at a time is challenging, so they tend to throw money at all three without adequate consideration of the best options they have to leverage their small budgets. There are many service providers out there who have all sorts of creative and verbally attractive ways to spend your money, but very few will go to the trouble of walking through this minefield with you.
It is easy to be overwhelmed, most are.
However, thinking about the process in these three buckets offers the opportunity to weed out a lot of the ‘noise’, although it is not easy.
The line that trips many up, even those who spend the time to deeply consider these three buckets, is the breakup of the budget between the two very different types of expenditure inherent in the whole process.
First. The resources you spend to build the brand, such that when someone is aware of the problem and is in a mind to consider solving it, your name comes to mind.
Second. ‘Activation’. The tactical means you use to swing the choice your way at the point of the transaction.
The first is long term, and very hard to measure except with hindsight, by which time the horse has bolted. The second is more immediate and subject to at least a modicum of quantitative measures.
The starting point should always be your objective.
Is it to generate leads, is it to build brand awareness, is it to build trust, and where do all these, and other points in the customers decision processes overlap?
Playing cards by yourself is usually a way to win, but it does not translate into a real game. For that you need a real appreciation of the barriers to winning, and often partners.
Call me when you need a partner who inderstands the game.
May 8, 2023 | Branding, Marketing
It seemed impossible to ignore that piece of luxurious marketing content being rammed down our throats over the weekend, after a build-up over previous weeks. After Christianity, the British monarchy is the most successful, long term marketing program on the planet, and what a show they produced on Saturday!.
Like most, I watched bits of the coronation at a mates place, conveniently happening on a Saturday evening. Along with a large and sometimes noisy bunch of friends, piles of delicious nibblies and a mountain of spicey BBQ’d sausages, the debate over the relevance of the occasion raged. There may have also been a few lubricants. My friend and his wife were born in England but came here to escape to the good weather and to dodge the crushing burden of just being English. It was however a big relief when Charlie stepped under the big hat, indicating the excruciatingly boring but for some compulsive watching was nearing an end.
To some it may be interesting to recall that if it were not for deed polls (or the royal equivalent) Charlie Windsor would have been named Charles Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. That mouthful was the family name of his mother Elizabeth, changed to Windsor by her great grandfather King George V in 1917. That change was probably prompted by the fact that London at the time was being bombed by King Georges first cousin Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, using the first heavy bomber capable of such a mission, the ‘Gotha’.
It seems a bit slow to change your family name from a German one to a British one after almost four years of war. Perhaps it was that Georgie did not want to upset his cousin any more than he already was.
I wonder what the Murdoch press would have made of that at the time. Ruperts father of course had been sending false reports back to George and his cronies from Gallipoli just two years earlier. Fake news reporting must run in the Murdoch family.
Families are often difficult, especially when the tree has grown in an environment insulated from any sort of genetic diversity, which perhaps explains a lot. It is however somewhat pleasing to see that apart from the inheritance of wealth and position at the tip of the artificial British social hierarchy, they are pretty normal. Broken marriages, sibling rivalry, affairs, seedy personal practises, the odd visit to barristers, grifters, and social media advisors, and the never-ending demands from people they do not know to donate money.
All good fun, and we finished the night watching ‘The Windsors’ on Netflix. If you haven’t caught up with it, hurry before it goes away. Satire to some is a documentary to others.
Vive le Republique!
Mar 22, 2023 | Branding, Communication
‘If you want to change the world, change the metaphor‘. Joseph Campbell
Every storyteller knows how powerful metaphors are, we all use them to describe to ourselves and others, the complex situations and challenges we face. The tales our parents read us as children are all metaphors, almost always describing desirable behaviour. I remember my father telling me the ‘angry bee’ metaphor on several occasions as a kid. Once when I was losing a tennis match, and my temper, he said, ‘An angry bee stings, and dies. It was therefore better not to get angry’. (I later discovered it was a metaphor Seneca had used to try and persuade Nero that being a murdering pyromaniac would not be good for his legacy)
Metaphors can also be subtle uses of language that go largely unnoticed, but which can have a significant effect on the way we think about a situation. For example, ‘crime wave’ is an emotive term that may lead to someone reading the term conclude that there was more crime than if the numbers were simply stated. The latter lacks the drama and emotive impact of the former.
Similarly, President Reagans ‘war on crime’ drove a military type response to drugs that resulted in a huge increase in incarceration rates, but no reduction in the availability of drugs. The ‘war’ was won when the ‘enemy’ was stopped, while doing nothing to address the causes of them becoming enemies in the first place. (Americans seem to be very good at this sort of self- delusion)
There is a substantial body of academic evidence surrounding the proposition that the use of metaphors counts for much more than we would naturally assume.
A former client, an SME whose lifeblood was being able to get to the senior people in target businesses in a B2B environment, found themselves struggling.
Many of those he needed to speak to, build a relationship with, and persuade that his solution was one that could be deployed easily, were increasingly protected by personal assistants in various forms.
He referred to them as ‘gate-keepers’ which they were. Their job was to ensure as far as possible that their bosses time was not wasted, that distractions were minimised and that they only saw the most important things.
My clients product did not necessarily fall into the ‘must see’ category, and he was therefore often frustrated.
After several conversations, we changed the metaphor in his mental model of the PA as ‘gate-keepers’ to one where they were ‘enablers’. In other words, he took the view that his task was not to get to the MD through the gatekeeper, but to engage the gatekeeper and turn them into an ‘enabler’ and even an advocate for their product.
Once this approach was understood and implemented, the results were spectacular.
Consider for a moment the impact of the current usage of the words ‘War’ and ‘China’ in any political statement from proponents of the AUKUS submarine deal. The language and the resultant frame through which most will consider the merits of this project will be influenced by the usage of those two words. Had anyone in power used the term ‘industrial development catalyst’ or ‘nation building’ it would have significantly changed the nature of the ‘debate’ surrounding this decision.
Metaphors are a natural and very important component of our communication. We learn to understand them as children, using them automatically to communicate effectively.
What metaphors are you using in your communication?
Feb 15, 2023 | Branding, Innovation, Strategy
Bing and its sibling ‘Edge’ have been coming third in a one-horse race for a long time now. Suddenly the emergence of the AI equivalent of a plutonium battery powered race whip in the form of ChatGPT has delivered a proper kick up the arse.
The world has changed, pivoted on a dime as they say, as a result.
No longer will Google search be the only game in town, and Chrome the default browser housed on 98% of devices. The new race has begun with a wider field, and no doubt some roughies hiding in the wings.
Microsoft announced 2 weeks ago that it has extended OpenAI’s models across their Azure services, widely used by developers, so who knows what might spring out of that. Last week Microsoft confirmed ChatGPT is being incorporated into Bing and Edge.
Google have the most to lose here, so have scrambled to announce they intend to incorporate their version of OpenAI’s google-killer ‘Bard’ into search making it more ‘ChatGPT like’. It is just a pity the horse stumbled at the first hurdle by failing to answer a simple question, leading to a share price nose-dive into the turf.
This is a must win race for Google, as 80% of their revenue comes from advertising. With hindsight, they have bet the farm on the one horse, never a great strategy in a volatile environment.
It is going to be interesting!!
Feb 3, 2023 | Branding, Demand chains, Marketing, Small business, Strategy
Woolworths last week announced they would close 250 of their current 300 in store butcher shops. Clearly, centralisation and opacity of the supply chain that serves customers via Woolworths is geared to the lowest common denominator, price.
At the other end of the scale is Wolki farm in Albury. This is an integrated farm to retail supply chain that innovates at every point. Rather than just trying to do the same job as always for a lesser cost, they re-engineered the whole chain. From their website: ‘We are the connector between the conscientious consumer and quality produce’
Their 24/7 retail outlet in Albury is just the end of the chain, but full of innovation. I do not normally inhabit TikTok, but this video of owner Jake Wolki’s view of the future was referred to me by a (younger) friend, who knows my views about agricultural supply chains.
The challenge both retailers are setting out to address is the core challenge of marketing: how to create and communicate value that motivates customers to a transaction facilitating longer term engagement.
Woolworths (and Coles, Aldi, et al) do it by price and convenience. They might mumble about quality, but it is at best a second order priority. As long as it is edible, legal, and delivers the category target margin, it is OK. By absolute contrast, Wolki’s (I do not know them at all, had not heard of them until last week) are clearly focussed on quality, product provenance, and integrity. The price they charge for their produce will reflect all that, but no consumer who is looking for the cheapest cut of meat is likely to find it at Wolki’s. What they do get in detail is supply chain transparency that delivers the provenance and guarantee of quality of the product they are about to buy.
That may interest only a small proportion of the market, but that proportion is significantly larger than it was just a couple of years ago, and will continue to compound.
It seems to me that Woolies are repeating the mistake they made with Thomas Dux 6 years ago. They are ignoring the messages being sent by consumers from the ‘edges’ of their customer base that ‘Mass’ was not acceptable. More probably, they are choosing to ignore those consumers in favour of low cost supply chain control, and reluctance to rock the competitive ship by innovation. Perhaps they will prove me wrong, and use the remaining few in store butchers to experiment?
Photo credit: Wolki Farm from the website
