Aug 14, 2023 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
When my kids dropped a piece of toast, or bread on the floor (almost always spread side down) we used to invoke the ‘3 second test’. This was simply that the bugs took three seconds to wake up and realise there was a feed nearby, so if it was retrieved inside that time, it was OK to eat.
Same with a website, almost.
We are all busy, our attention is stretched beyond reasonable limits, and we have no time to waste. So, when your potential customer is researching, or just loitering on the web, you have perhaps 3 seconds to engage them, such that they have a closer look.
In those 3 seconds, you must communicate three things if you are to get them to pay you any of their scarce attention:
- What problem you solve.
- Who do you solve it for. In effect, a written ‘elevator speech’, what you do and why they should listen.
- Call to action. What you want them to do next.
Pretty obvious?
Give yourself 3 seconds to look at most websites, and ask yourself those three simple questions.
How does yours fare?
PS. For my readers outside Australia, ‘Vegemite’ is a spread for bread and toast we Aussies are brought up on, which the rest of the world thinks looks and tastes like old axle grease.
I bet every ‘Matilda’ has it almost every day!
Jul 20, 2023 | Change, Customers, Innovation
Contrary to the myth, the customer is not always right.
However, the customer should always be heard.
You learn a lot from customers, particularly the ones who leave, are dissatisfied and complain, or who exist at the fringes of your market, or even in a market you had not considered.
As a marketer I have always advocated the notion that the good stuff happens on the fringes. As the saying goes, ‘every good idea starts as a heresy’, so hearing the heresy is a core part of being able to respond to new stuff.
There are a lot of tools the hear what is being said on the fringes, tools to track every interaction with your brands, good and bad, and everyone should be heard.
Years ago, I tried to persuade the people in the pork industry’s peak body that they should be spending some time and marketing resources engaging with those growing organic, and heritage breeds of pigs, and got laughed out of the place. They noted that 99.9% of the pork grown was the result of intensive farming, where cost was the absolute driver.
The real competition to the domestic industry was located in those well-known cheap labour countries of Denmark and Canada, and these fringe Australian organic and heritage growers were irrelevant. Besides, the existing major Australian producers were contributing most of the industry marketing funding via matched levy.
Those few loonies with different ideas out on the fringes with tiny volumes only contributed a dribble to the kitty funding advertising and a nice lifestyle for employees in Canberra. This is close to the sources of part of their funding, and political power, but totally removed from growers and the markets they served, but very comfortable.
As a result, an opportunity for growth and profitability has been missed.
Or has it?
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.
Jul 3, 2023 | Marketing, Strategy
When building a marketing plan, one of the key choices that must be made early is a deceptively simple one that most fail to recognise.
- Are you setting out to serve existing demand?
- Are you setting out to generate new demand?
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when I look at a marketing program, I have no idea which the marketer has chosen. Usually this is because they have jumped the early and challenging question of translating the strategic objectives back into the planning of marketing activities. Marketing is simply the means by which the strategic objective is translated into a series of actions which are communicated to those who might be interested in paying you to consume your product.
There is of course a third option: attempt to do both. However, to do both effectively requires a specific strategic choice. Allowing the ‘do both’ option to become the default of not deciding where the priority lies is commercial cowardice. It leads in most cases to sub-optimal allocation of the limited available resources.
Header cartoon credit: Dilbert demonstrates that choices must be made for clarity.
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.
