Sep 9, 2011 | Marketing, Small business, Social Media
A while ago I wrote a short post about QR codes, saying I thought they had the potential to change the way we think about marketing.
Subsequently I came across this post and video on the Social Media Examiner site, that adds to that view, and having seen them work at a trade show a week ago, as a means to capture information off the name tags of attendees, I am even more of the view, that here is something genuinely new, not just a refinement or divergent use of an existing technology.
An update from July 2013. QR codes seem to have stalled, the potential seen by marketers, myself enthusiasticly has not come to p[ass. This post by Marketing Charts details a report that looks at the numbers, and concludes that QR codes are perhaps a failing tool in the marketing arsenal. I for one am having a bit of trouble with the conclusion, somewhere, we have missed an opportunity.
Sep 8, 2011 | Customers, Management, Marketing, Operations, Small business
The mulitnational Heinz has been in the news a bit recently.
First, they announce a restructure, which means closing plants, and consolidating production, in this case to NZ, and to a remaining Australian plant that will get a bit of a kick-along. Wonder how long that will last?
Then the worldwide CFO Art Winkleblack took aim at the retail duopoly in Australia, citing it as a reason for the difficulties Heinz has had, and as a basis of the restructuring decisions. I bet the local sales management loved him for it, the next time they had to front Coles and Woolies!
In a short period, the challenges of the industry are laid bare, the $A making imports cheaper, the power exercised by the retail duopoly, and the necessity of manufacturing and marketing scale to counter it.
If Heinz, a global business turning over close to a billion dollars in Australia, and many more globally has these problems, put yourself in the position of the SME, with little marketing leverage, a plant that needs capital, banks that are so risk averse, and so stripped of people who understand small business they simply choose not to engage, how can the little guy hope to sustain his business?. Pure bloody mindedness and determination is about the only answer you will come up with, mixed in with a spirit of being prepared to really have a go, and screw the buggars!.
We wonder why we have more imports of packaged food products into this country than we produce, the position Heinz finds itself in demonstrates why.
Sep 7, 2011 | Collaboration, Communication, Customers, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Chatting to a very successful distributor during the week at Sydney’s Fine Food trade show, he said he simply did not “get” facebook and Twitter as marketing tools. “I will wait till my 14 year old daughter gets interested in the business, and does it for me” he said, “but I guess I should be doing something, just too busy to think about it”
Pretty typical in my experience of SME’s and their relationships with social media, just something else to do, and no more time to do it in!
So here are a few thought starters, simple things to do with facebook to turn it from something else to do, to the most important tool ever put in your hands to engage with your customers.
- Change the “face” regularly, the picture on the landing page, the animation, put up some simple recipes of the day, week, or season, just make it interesting. Even Google changes their landing page almost daily, putting up some design that is topical for some reason .
- Have a page where visitors to your site can engage, you just become the facilitator. In the case of food marketers, a place to exchange recipes, cooking techniques, photos of finished dishes, and people enjoying them seems like a sensible idea.
- Make sure you have a spot where other platforms that may be of interest to visitors can be reached, allow them to add their own links to spots they like.
- Have good quality, relevant content, and make sure you keep it fresh.
- Have a range of incentives rolling through, these might be anything from samples and deals, to points type accumulation programs for a prize.
- Make giving easy. If we are talking food products here, and I am, create seasonal hampers and gift to a friend offers, a Xmas hamper delivered to a customers friend with seasons greetings will always go down well.
- Enable Q & A pages, and conversation streams. This may be on the page, or in a linked blog if the topics are a bit more serious. In the Australian food game, SME’s are struggling for survival in a retail oligopoly where housebrands are being pushed by retailers, and imports are growing on the back of the high $A. There is plenty to talk about, some of it commercial and perhaps not engaging for consumers, so keep it linked but separate and do not be afraid to tackle serious stuff, just be a bit careful.
- Be responsive to posts fans put up, engage in the conversations yourself, just don’t try to dominate it.
- Make sure you have a strong call to action, not too overtly commercial, but the point of it is ultimately to get a sale, so find creative ways of asking for the order.
- Ask for visitors ideas, views, and thoughts. Where better to test a new product idea, and do some focussed qualitative mrket research than with those already engaged.
- Watch and learn from what others are doing, the web is a great big learning experience. Social Media Examiner is one site that often puts up very useful information, here is a list of the top 10 SME sites from around the world they have just judged, some good pointers in there.
- And last of all, make it fun, and never let down someone who visits and engages!
This is all pretty easy stuff technically, it just takes time to plan, assemble the content, and make it happen. My distributor friend can probably get his 14 year old daughter to do it for fun, you don’t have to pay someone big bucks, you just need to engage in the conversation as you would over the back fence to your neighbour.
Sep 2, 2011 | Branding, Communication, Marketing
The link here is to the Social Media Examiner site, probably the best commentator on things “social media” amongst the thousands out there, offering 9 reasons why content does not get shared, emerging from some useful research.
Thing is, as I read the list, it is not just about the leverage offered by social media, it is about marketing generally.
All the 9 reasons can also explain why your brand has little relevance to a consumer, refuses to “stick” despite the huge advertising budget, and just gets missed by busy consumers.
Make sure you have a look at the Volkswagen ad in the post, sure to bring a smile to the face of anyone with a heart, it also ranks in the top 10 viral ads, according to the number of on-line views.
Aug 31, 2011 | Innovation, Marketing, Personal Rant
The retirement of Steve Jobs last week has prompted a blizzard of comment, even a cartoon, from my favorite Tom Fishburne, and at the risk of just adding to it, it seems appropriate to simply state that a bloke I have never met, who has never even heard of me, about whom I know nothing more than has been published over the 30 years of his extraordinary career, has changed the way my life is lived. His commencement speech at Stanford is now one of the web classics, with millions of views.
We all have ipods, or their substitutes, connected phones have revolutionised the way we communicate, tablet computing has just been changed forever, and my kids insist on a Mac at double the price of a technically comparable PC, and that is not to mention the huge impact the original Toy Story movie had during Job’s forced sabbatical from Apple.
It will be truly fascinating to observe the transition of power at Apple, can the innovation and marketing machine he built survive in its current form without Jobs?
Aug 26, 2011 | Change, Management, Marketing, Small business, Strategy
The decision yesterday by the federal Court to allow Metcash to purchase Franklins from Pick n Pay, then onsell, presumably with tied supply agreements is another nail in the coffin of competition in the retail trade, despite the interpretation of the law by the courts.
Now you have Coles, Woolworths and Metcash with a share above 90% of the supermarket trade, limited choice for consumers, a nightmare for suppliers, particularly the decimated local suppliers who have struggled against the increasing power of the retailers for 30 years, and have largely failed.
Several things will emerge that will accelerate change in the supply landscape.
- Scale should dominate the strategic thinking of suppliers. You need to be a gorilla to play with gorillas, so get big or get out. The only alternative is to back off and be a small specialty producer, concentrating on the small share of retail trade not controlled by the 3 gorillas.
- It will be increasingly difficult at the smaller end of the size scale. The businesses left that turn over between a couple of million, and 50 million, many of them regional, with extreme pressure on their finances at a time when banks are not being helpful despite their advertising, will struggle. There are only a few left, and many of those will go to the wall.
- Competition between supply chains, from growers through to retailers will increase. Soon, if you supply Coles, you will not be able to supply Woolies, without risking your position with Coles. Suppliers will need to make choices, and gear up to integrate themselves into a supply chain system, losing their independence, and closing off options. This may not be a bad thing, but it is a substantial change from the current practice and way of thinking, and it limits the scope of customer base available through which to reach consumers with your product.
- The move to housebrands will accelerate, further enabling global sourcing by retailers, squeezing local suppliers. The $A has punched this process along over the last couple of years, adding more pressure to local suppliers who, having lost shelf space for their brands, were relying on contract packing to stay afloat
- Retailers are lousy marketers, good at sales, but lousy marketers. With housebrands coming to dominate categories on price, attractive to consumers in tough times, where will the innovation come from? Where is the incentive for local suppliers to risk their limited capital in doing something different?.
The ACCC, governments at all levels and the courts implicitly decided years ago that the SME end of the food industry was fair game, the survival of the fittest, and all that, and from an economic perspective, it may be the right thing to have done, but at what cost in human terms. The old question I have used in many seminars to make the point about retailer power:
Question. “Where does the 400kg gorilla sleep?”
Answer. “Anywhere he bloody likes”
