Mar 15, 2012 | Category, Collaboration, Management, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Produce marketers are not all that different to most FMCG marketers, except that the power of the retailer in produce categories is magnified by the total lack of proprietary branding, effectively insulating the consumer from the producer, making brand building and innovation a greater challenge. This lack of branding power and engagement with the consumer puts them at the mercy of retailers.
In an effort to put some parameters round the problems, the Mildura Development Corporation funded a study that sought to articulate the challenges and choices faced by producers in the Sunraysia region, particularly by drawing the comparisons with the competitive environment in the UK.
The headline elements in the conclusions are:
- The power of the retailer
- Scale of producer operations
- The role of the business model employed
- The increasingly critical nature of data, its collection, analysis and leverage potential
- Marketing choices made.
These factors are all connected in cause and effect relationships with each other, and with the customers, and consumers of produce, but most forget, or get confused about the differences in the approach, which can be summarised as:
Sell to your customers
Market to your consumers.
Perhaps the report can add to your thinking, contact me for a copy, or discussion.
There is a downloadable copy of the report in the “Sharing” pages of this site, let me know what you think of it.
Mar 14, 2012 | Customers, Marketing, Sales
Rarely does anything happen behind a desk, so why do you spend so much time there? Just like the old saying “the harder I work, the luckier I get” small business owners should say “the more customers I see, the greater chance of an order”
Most small business owners are usually specialists of some sort, they are not often sales people first, they are something else first, and it takes an effort to get out and sell.
Do the preparation, know the customer know how you can add value to his/her business, and get out there.
Mar 13, 2012 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
This is a pretty common call amongst the junior marketing staff of my clients, most of them are familiar with facebook, they use it in their personal lives to fill a whole range of functions.
When asked “Why must we be on Facebook”? there is usually an awkward silence, and the standard response is likely to be something like “just because!”
Facebook, Twitter, and all the others are just tools, they are able to deliver an outcome, but it is the outcome that matters, not the tool, used to get there.
You measure the performance of a car on a journey in many ways, petrol mileage, comfort, handling, and so on, but the reason you get in the car is to get somewhere. Social media is no different, measures of the media themselves are just measures of efficiency, not measures of the outcome.
To make it worthwhile, to create engagement, to build a relationship, there must be something for the traveler at the end of the journey.
Mar 9, 2012 | Change, Lean, Marketing
Out with the old mass market advertising and business model, and in with the new.
I shave, it costs a fortune, so much that I switched to disposable shavers without all the fatuous claims and high prices of the big brands. Each morning when I look in the mirror to shave I see a 60 year old bloke, a bit worse for wear, the square jaw rounded by too much living, extensive forehead, and none of this will be changed by using a 5 dollar blade instead of one that costs 50 cents.
However, I never saw the disruptive marketing opportunity demonstrated by this story about the Dollar Shave Club, but it is blindingly obvious when pointed out, in this case by my e-buddy Bill Waddell.
What other categories are so ripe for change?
Shampoo & conditioner, household cleaners, personal hygiene, are the three that jump to my mind, all associated with vanity.
The FMCG business model has changed, and for high value products that are easily mailed, like shavers, is breaking. A few categories are yet to have their margins decimated by a combination of house-brands and direct e-sales, but it will not be too long. Anything that can be sourced via the web, where the savings are sufficiently significant to off-set the inconvenience of having to remember to make a few clicks on your device, is at risk.
The fancy, expensive nonsensical advertising appealing to vanity rather than real consumer benefits, that support these products has had its day.
Mar 5, 2012 | Communication, Leadership
If you cannot state your mission in a very few words, perhaps less than 10, able to be expressed in 30 seconds, the time it takes for a ride in an elevator to the 30th floor, where the big boys live, try again.
I see many mission and purpose statements that are full of jargon and weasel words, that really convey little but the perceived need to make everybody happy, to conform to the latest fad management book, but by the time it gets to the factory floor, where it really matters, it means nothing.
To be effective, a mission statement should be a reflection of what all those in the business feel, what needs to be built, the answer to the question, “what are we doing here?”
So it is easy to wordsmith a statement, but it takes persistence, leadership, and determination to make any use of it.
Mar 1, 2012 | Customers, Marketing
The truth of wealth creation in the gold rushes, is that it was the blokes who sold the shovels, beds, grog, and horses who got rich, not the individual miners, with the odd exception for the really lucky ones.
It is still the same.
As markets commoditise, it gets progressively more difficult to make a bob out of selling the commodity, even the least cost supplier has trouble in the long run doing better than returning the cost of capital. However, those who sell insurance, currency hedging, heavy equipment, and the like, are all doing OK, so moving up the value chain, from the front lines to the rear supply echelons, to continue the analogy in the headline, makes more sense as time passes.
