Marketing.
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Sounds important. So why is this department always getting its ass kicked during economic downturns, when product problems occur and being accused of not contributing to the bottom line.
I’ll tell you why. From my experience, marketers are not a “numbers” type of people. They’re creative. They often fail to demonstrate that the money spent on marketing helps financial performance. That’s a problem; because in the end they have to prove themselves to the finance department.
Marketers have to prove that programs they engage in will increase sales. To do that they have to differentiate between plans that will perform the short term and long term. If it’s a long term strategy, lay out reasons, goals and benchmarks.
Marketers need to make their activities understandable by finance. If not, they’ll be considered a cyclical expenditure. Many companies grow by acquisition. Marketing is about growing organically. It’s easier to measure the financial performance of an acquisition……for some reason it’s more difficult to measure marketing’s contribution to the bottom line.
Here are some pointers to get marketers the reputation they deserve:
• As I said earlier, marketing is the process of convincing a prospect that your product is the better buy. To do this you must identify your customer and segment them into groups. Now you must create a message that will draw a response from that group.
Are you a marketer for a low cost menu chain of restaurants? Then you know what messages you need to tell your prospects. Are you part of BMW’s marketing team? You know exactly what your prospects need to hear.
Messages should emphasize customer benefits…..not the product features.
• Does your company understand the competition? What benefits do they offer? Are they cheaper? If they are cheaper, don’t look to battle it out on price. You could lose even if you are cheaper. Possibilities in this case include developing a product line just for a price conscious customer. This allows you to continue serving your higher end customer.
• If sales are lagging and consumers are complaining, then marketing needs a head butt. Complaints to customer service shouldn’t end at the poor rep with a pair of headsets. Marketing should monitor this feedback and do customer research. There are many types of tools to get this information. Pissed off customers don’t buy again.
Finding new customers aren't the only job of a marketer....keeping them is just as important.
Does most of your sales revenue come from new business or repeat? If it's repeat, then you better butter that bread.
• Is it necessary to develop entirely new products that hyper-fragment your market? Of course I’m going to say ‘no’. Where can you find ideas to shake up your offering? One place is to examine what your competition is doing.
But only do that with a grain of salt. Unless they’re Google, they may not know their rear end from their elbow. Look at what your customer wants. What does your customer want to help them make money, be happy or be better?
For example, magazine publishers sell advertising. If you're a B to B magazine publisher, do you know what your customers wants? You might think, your customers want to advertise so they can drive traffic to their web site or 1-800 number.
You’re partly right. A business advertiser wants leads for their sales staff. If you can offer a product that will generate warm, interested, fuzzy sales leads for your client you’ll win the business. Direct mail campaigns to your subscribers......webinars that capture lead information are a good start.
And guess what? You’ll beat Time Warner, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! for that customer's business. All you have to do is think in terms of what your customer really wants.
• Got plans? I may have said this before somewhere in this site, but here it is again. There are two departments that should hang out together…..but don’t. No, it’s not legal and shipping. It’s sales and marketing. C’mon boys; get it together. Sales uses the materials and pricing that the marketers come up with. Has marketing ever solicited suggestions from the sales team?
You need long term plans that build brand equity. You want your company name to elicit a message like Wal-Mart or Gucci. Customer perception of your product has value. It allows you to continually price high……or drive droves of customers because they know they can buy low.
Short term plans include helping the sales team generate revenue......now. That mean going to a trade show…doing an email blast…..coming up with a special promotion…you always must be thinking on how you can help drive sales.
Now that’s measureable.
• Get it out there. What is your distribution method? Some products can only be sold in stores….some must be face to face. There are ways to expand your channel.
I know it may not be easy, or rather I should say it could be political. If you have a sales staff that sells directly to other companies, the sales staff won’t like having to compete with other channels.
Alternatives may include only selling remnant inventory through third-parties or having your sales people set up their own reseller channel and pay them on it.
• Publicity. Powerful and free. Publicity works different in the B to B market than consumer. Capturing a picture of Paris Hilton using your digital printing press and submitting to Printing Press Monthly may or may not create the desired results.
Most likely there is a business magazine that caters to your industry. Their web site will most likely list the editorial contacts. These editors want newsworthy stories.
If your company has a new technology……closed a huge deal with a well known firm…..acquired a competitor…..enquiring minds want to know about it. Email your newsworthy story to the editors. PR is powerful. Get your story out there.
The most important part of a marketing strategy is having a plan. But you probably knew that. Who are your customers? What are they using now? What will it take to make them change?
If you believe there is potential in China….how can you reach it? This is a job for…..marketing.
Some projects marketers engage in are tough to measure: consumer perception, product awareness and solidifying a reputation. Nonetheless, they are all important aspects of a long term strategy.
Marketing and sales should work together and share information. The sales people are in the field and know why customers are buying or not. And if they're not buying from you, who are they buying from & why. Marketers have access to great real-time information. The sales people.
A close relationship will lead to Ca-Ching! And that’s measurable.
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