Apr 3, 2010 | Marketing, Small business
One of the huge barriers to success in many small businesses I see, is that they tend to think that because they have a great product, produced with care and attention to detail, they should be successful, that customers will find their way to them.
By default, they believe marketing is not necessary, or it is a lesser priority than maintaining the product integrity and operational efficiency of their plants.
Hello!
Finding, engaging and satisfying customers who care about your great product is the game, marketing is the name. Producing a great product, at a value price, and providing the backup necessary to be competitive, is just the entry price.
Mar 30, 2010 | Communication, Leadership, Social Media
How do companies harness the power of social networking to the benefit of their businesses?.
It is simply a fact that employees will go into facebook, twitter, and so on, using company time and resources, rather than trying to stop them, which King Canute found hard to do with the tide, figure out how to harness it.
In many cases, this will be confronting, and require a change of attitude in the executive suite, but employees will rarely publicly dump on their employer, unless it is really deserved, in which case you should thank them for bringing the issue to your attention, not belt them for telling the truth. Employees are always your best advocates, (and conversely, harshest critics)let them advocate!
Here are a few thoughts:
- Encourage employees to post and link back to the companies site
- Provide a forum for their comments, on your intranet, a free newsletter site, or a facebook group location
- Ensure senior management engagement in the process, they are in a position to make the changes called for, but on line, are just another offering commentary, so not as threatening as in the normal course of events
- Reward good suggestions, and follow up on failures that are highlighted, and address the causes, and be transparent about both.
- Engage, motivate and lead them, so the time spent on social sites at work is not sorting out their personal calendar, and reviewing the Saturday night shenanigans, but adding value to the business.
When you are doing all of the above, the time employees spend on the web will be an investment from which you will receive a great return.
Mar 30, 2010 | Marketing, Small business, Strategy
Trader Joes in the US is not a huge chain, but they are one of the ones to watch to see what the others will be doing in the future.
Joes has a rich history of being different, and their customers love it.
The latest move is to announce that they will be rapidly changing seafood supplies to sustainable sources, of seafood, and if history repeats, this will be the first of many to follow that line. It is probable that Woolworths or Coles in Austalia will follow closely, there may be an opportunity emerging for aquaculture suppliers to gain shelf sapce, and for the retailers to lift the poor performance of their seafood counters.
Mar 29, 2010 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
There are lots of web site optimisation tools around, including the free ones from Google which do a pretty good job, and there are many people around who will promise you the world by next Sunday. However, the tools are best used in selectively, conjunction with the situation. Remember the old saying, “to a hammer, every problem is a nail”
To optimise a site is a process of continuous improvement, starting with the objective of the site. One that is dedicated to sales will be subtly different to one that is there to spread an idea, or point of view. So, a simple process:
- Have a clear site objective, and be unambiguous about :
- How it adds value to you
- How it adds value to your “target” web browsers.
- Determine where your “visitors” are coming from
- Determine where they land
- Make sure the landing pages have the beginning of a trail that leads further into the process you have set out to achieve.
- Track how long they stay, and where they go, both on the site and into links you may provide
- Establish performance measures
- Continuously improve by experimenting and tracking outcomes.
- This is a creative process before it is a mechanical one, so don’t just leave it to the techos.
- In this connected world, site optimisation is also a window into your business, so make sure the visitors you get are the ones you want, and they like what they see. There is no point attracting those to whom you can add no value.
Mar 28, 2010 | Branding, Management, Marketing
Building a brand is a “one bit at a time” exercise.
Most aspiring brand managers look at Coke, Google, Microsoft, the local leader in their market, and think about how they can take them on, and win.
The process is useful, but the reality is that you can’t do it in one big bang, it is one brick at a time.
There are many metaphors, I like thinking about the process as a bike race. You need to be in there and fit, and have the support team all pulling for you, there will be ups and downs, opportunities to go faster downhill, and hills you have to really work at to get over, but over the distance, you if build up momentum, experience, consistency, manage the risks and take the opportunities, you may earn a place in the peloton, and if you are good enough, and your timing is right, you can get to the stage finish first. Then, there is just tomorrow.
Building a brand is similar.
Mar 22, 2010 | Branding, Marketing, Personal Rant
Australia rode on the sheeps back in the 50’s, but in the 70’s & 80’s the sheep turned nasty, and we mostly got off, having lost our pricing power through the competitive growth of synthetics, and strategic stupidity.
When we dismounted, looking for an easier way, superfine wool was 19 microns, now, the leading edge of the few that left are approaching 11 microns, and there is now a substantial volume of wool in the 15-17 microns range, an astonishing achievement.
When Australia unwittingly “outsourced” the many processing stages in the wool value chain, largely to China and India, it was driven by the commodity pricing mentality, that still widely exists. Now, as we chase our tails to the bottom of the price curve, we are paying the price for that short sightedness, as we have no capability left in any stage of the value chain past —-growing the stuff, to leverage the leading position of the best growers, and to supply markets with a sustainable fibre with deep capabilities to meet and shape consumers needs .
Australian Wool Innovation, the current iteration of successive industry bodies charged with the responsibility to “market” the clip is in disarray again, as they try and treat symptoms they do not understand with medicine that did not work 40 years ago.
There is no point being on the leading research edge, unless you can commercialise the output and generate a return from it by reshaping demand, rather than just taking a small premium because you are marginally better at doing what everyone else does. AWI and its predecessors have done a good research job over the years, bit a very poor marketing job.
