Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Trends for the online advertising market
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Seth's Blog: Get rich quick
Why do I blog? What is it that draws me to the keyboard and share my thoughts with the world? It is the hope that someday, I will be welcome to participate in the discussions with you on marketing, the Indian SME space, how we can drive efficiencies and effectiveness in the way SMEs today approach marketing.
This is my own "Hyde Park corner". This is my pulpit. I do not sell snake oil, nor do I offer instant solutions to the many challenges that beset marketers, particularly in the SME space in India. My hope is that by throwing up issues to discuss, we will trigger thoughts. Hopefully, you will someday honour me by allowing me to eavesdrop into your thoughts and conversations.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Ownership of the funnel
Sales is responsible for immediate, this week/ this month and marketing looks at next month, next year and next life! Funny, but this is the kind of thinking that has ruined customer relationships, reduced sales role to deal management and restricted marketing to a role akin to a scriptwriter in a Bollywood movie; lucky to see his name featured in the credit-roll, if at all.
What is needed is a realization that both sales and marketing have long term and short term objectives/ goals and they need to collaborate in long to medium term growth in prospects, opportunities and leads. They each have a stake in ensuring the leads convert into orders and in promoting usage and thus customer satisfaction, loyalty and word of mouth.
Sales fights the battle, but today marketing is no longer just an enabler but active participant. The battle is not joined only on the day the salesman negotiates the final purchase with the customer but, on the days and months leading up to that day where the customer has moved from a state of no awareness to awareness to interest, evaluation and purchase. Marketing, sales and even customer support: they all play a role in these stages.
The engineer in me likens the various influences on a purchase process to the addition of lots of vectors. As we know, the maximum that you can obtain in a vector addition of several vectors is the sum of the magnitudes should the vectors be all in the exact same direction. Enough said.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Why marketing must partner sales
The truth is that in large B2B companies, local marketing in countries are focused on the heavy-lifting; running trade-shows, sending out mailers, placing ads. The accent is on getting things done rather than genuinely trying to listen to customers and integrate their feedback into the product or service introduction process.
So, marketing runs programs with no feedback loops. Any customer response, howsoever "raw" is passed on to sales as a "lead". There is no way of telling a good lead from a bad one and since "lead-nurturing" as a concept does not exist; sales essentially starts working with a prospect who is at the very early stage of awareness.
What is the solution? Marketing and sales need to work together on an acceptable definition of a lead. This will vary from industry to industry and company to company but the agreement needs to happen so that marketing can work to create programs that nurture the raw leads further and pass on leads that interest the sales. On their part, sales could do more to spot the micro-trends in their industries, the customer pain-points and decision making roles in client organizations and log them formally. This will help marketing to create programs that address the right customer problems, identify the right solutions and target the right communication to the right customer contacts involved in purchase.
The obsession with English
Irrespective of what data you believe, only a minuscule percentage (less than 2%) of the population in India is "connected". Even among the folks who are online, very few use the internet for doing anything other than checking email sporadically. This does not count the folks who have to log-in at work in furtherance of their company's business. I seriously believe this has to do with the lack of availability of compelling, appropriate local content. As we think of bringing internet to the villages, we need to figure about what they are going to use the internet for and what kind of education, information and entertainment can be served up to them in local language. This is as relevant for the villages as a vast majority of folks living in our towns and cities.
While the accent of all the policy directives seems to be on the "hardware"- connect more villages, make more low cost computers available etc, a strong push on local language content availability which educates, informs and entertains (a la local language television) is needed to ensure true internet penetration and usage among a much larger percentage of the population.
B2B vs B2C: is there a fundamental difference?
In a B2B scenario, the cycle is long and many decision makers play a role. Each have their own "wins" and I most recently talked about it in "Cover your bases in B2B marketing". While in both B2B and B2C the customer needs to cross the gamut of steps from low awareness to awareness, interest and so on leading to purchase and adoption which hopefully leads to repeat buys and brand loyalty, I think the B2B marketer invests a lot more post-purchase, especially if you are selling high involvement capital goods. Also, the B2B marketer understands that it is a long haul and invests accordingly. In a B2C setting, it seems the actual sale is the only act the marketer is measured by.
In a B2B setting, you have "User Groups"- both face to face and online, forums for sharing ideas, support and product improvement ideas. The higher the cost of the product, the higher the risk and more the need for reassurance from knowing "I am not the only user; there are others out there". This involvement with the customer in all stages is what separates the B2B marketing from B2C marketing, as is practiced today.
I have seen sporadic attempts in involving end-customers in creating user groups in B2C as well. Cooking utensils makers like those making pressure cookers or microwave ovens hold cooking competitions, Camlin sponsors art competition among students in schools and liquor brands sponsor events teaching cocktail mixing to corporates and individuals. I think we will see more and more such innovations powered by the internet going forward.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
How the recession is driving ad agencies to perform
SMBs Are Online Schizos: Sophisticated Consumers, Yet Neophyte Marketers | Broadband Evolved
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Cover all your bases in B2B Marketing
Facilitating conversations
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The art of listening
It does not have to be the net..
"Does it also do that?"- the need to have a dialogue
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Back to the original point..
How to Change the World: The Art of Generating Buzz
What do you want to say?
However, the marketplace is composed of micro-markets; with their own needs and benefits that they are looking for.
When you want to be all things to all people, you lose focus and your brand promise is no longer clear. So, this is a real danger and before the more sophisticated internet technologies came and changed the way we are able to target customers, marketers were either trying to please everyone or defining their market too narrowly. Either way, they were losing customers.
Today, it is possible to do very sophisticated targeting to very small audiences with a view to precisely aligning your message to their needs. But, now the challenge is creating enough targeted "message content" which can feed the lines of communication that you have opened to sharply segmented audiences.
And as the channels themselves proliferate (mobile, web, e-mail, blog, Twitter, Facebook.. in addition to the traditional TV, newspaper and roadside hoardings ) the need to customize messages to the needs of the customers and the demands of the channels increases.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Micro-markets
The same product is used by different people in the same company in many different ways. Since it satisfies many different needs by its many features, some really interesting thoughts emerge.
- most products are over-designed for the ultimate use to which they are put.
- every product-application can be potentially a "micro-market" and a product's market is a sum of all the micromarkets.
As an example, your laptop is used for your spreadsheet, e-mail, typing letters, making presentations, watching DVD, surfing the net... all these are usages to which you put the machine. You may use one feature or you may use several. All these usages are micromarkets. Some micromarkets are viable(big enough or profitable enough) to be targeted standalone. Some require to be clubbed together and marketed as a "suite".
Video watching micromarket is a very interesting case. It resides in the DVD player, laptop, iPOD and the cellphone. In case of the DVD player, it is the mainstay of the product you are selling; in case of your cellphone, it is a small adjunct.
If your product is a laptop, you are positioning it in several micromarkets. Some work together in the customers' mind but some do not.
Knowing all possible usages of your product is useful so that you can cultivate those micromarkets and deliver messages that resonate with them. And, aligning the message sharply to the market is the acid test of marketing.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Who are you talking to, again?
But, who is doing the actual buying?
Monday, February 9, 2009
Some answers and some questions
Customers, especially in a B2B setting, spend precious little time searching for a product till they have a need. The implication is that even if you spend a lot of money and creative energy getting to be known, you are pretty much wasting your time if your message reaches a customer who is not in “active search” mode. This is why the most expensive marketing campaigns tend to be for new customer acquisition.
Contrast this to the situation where you have a specific group of customers who have purchased your product in the last 6 months and your objective is to ensure continued satisfaction. Will your communication be different? Of course. What do you think would be a few things you would like to tell your user base? Would that include a short introduction to your company? I hope not!
While the customer is in comparison mode, the opportunity is in trying to get into a close dialog and close communication. Anticipating the information needs at this stage and highlighting your advantages are key. What are some of the innovations you have seen in this space?
Different strokes for different folks
Why you must tailor your message to suit your audience
I talked about the fact that customers are in various stages of awareness/ interest regarding your product/ solution or company. Let’s try and understand that a little more closely.
All customers are created equal in the beginning. They do not know you exist far less know about the existence of your product or service to solve some need of theirs. So, what causes them to change?
At any given time in your audience, there is a mix of customers in varying stages of awareness of your products and service. What tack you choose to take in your messaging to this market depends on:
- What is your objective?
o Is it making sure as many potential prospects know about your products or your company?
o To ensure that you make the “shortlist” of those prima-facie able to solve a problem?
o To ensure that you are actively being compared with other products/ companies?
o Or, communicate a time-limited promotional message to ensure purchase?
o Or, are you now wanting to build loyalty with the customer (s) who have purchased your product once?
- Who is the specific customer you are talking to (Are you addressing the contact that has the biggest potential impact on the sale of your product? Sure?)? What does he want to hear? What do you want to tell him?
Why staying in touch is vital
When you are a small business selling to other businesses, big or small what are your priorities?
Any business is run in two basic parts; one part is in charge of producing goods or services and the other part in engaged in selling and realizing revenue from those goods and services. However, you are not the only one in the market. As you (or your salesman) struggle to get attention from the different parts of the buyer organizations, you need to, in competition with the other players, establish your presence by increased awareness of yourself, your products- quality and prices and also build over time, a lasting relationship with as many buyers as possible.
Most organizations pay a lot of attention to the “make” process, especially when they are starting off. They pay some attention to the “sell” process but ignore the path from the “make” to “sell”. By this I mean that the whole process of talking to customers with a view to getting their feedback about the product, communicating the virtues of your product and the desirability of doing business with you as a company is ignored leaving the salesman with too much on his plate.
IntAer
A simple diagram of the steps in the marketing communication process
Remember, you can’t short-circuit the above process. A customer who is not aware of your product or solution or your company, will not suddenly put you in the shortlist of vendors she is considering purchasing from. You need to cross the hurdles of awareness generation (you exist) and interest generation (in your product’s ability to solve her problem) first. Knowing where your customer is in this process is the first step to advancing her down the process.
It goes without saying that the goals of communication will change from one step to the other and a smart marketer will align the maximum resources at his disposal to solving the most critical issues.
One of my favourite (good) examples of paying attention to the “intermediate” steps has been the old Eureka Forbes advertising. Anyone old enough to remember those? The ads not only positioned the benefits of the products (cleanliness and hygiene of your home) but most importantly, at a time when it was still a novelty, de-risked the sales model where the door to door salesman would actually enter your home to demonstrate the product. Eureka Forbes does not do those ads any more because today so many companies are engaged in direct marketing that it is no longer a perceived risk to let a company salesman in your home, but without doubt, the phenomenal success in market penetration of Eureka Forbes could not have been achieved just on the strength of their products and the aggressiveness of their salesmen. This was achieved because Eureka Frobes correctly assessed the overwhelming market sentiment and the challenge thereof and communicated correctly to bridge the right gap.