Marketing Wisdom

I’m sure many of you have read the news about how internet advertisements are dropping in value (i.e. lower cost) and the reason being that FaceBook and MySpace ad costs are so much cheaper then the rest of the advertising space on the internet, the true costs of an ad are not being reflected correctly.

Duh!!!

I run ads on FaceBook at $.05 per ad, and I get my ads shown to millions of users for pennies. Who wouldn’t do that? WHY wouldn’t they do that?

There is obviously going to be a dichotomy that is going to occur – where management and reporting of ad spend will be split between Social and ROI (Rest Of Internet); and even considering Social Media advertising, that will become split also – as Twitter enters the market with ROI ad rates vs. Social ad rates (again, Facebook and MySpace).

There is no answer and there shouldn’t be – users of FaceBook, for the first time in their lives, can run ad campaigns for as little as $50.00. When they want to open up the rest of the internet market, they will have the awakening that $50 a month won’t even touch one day on the ROI.

Don’t fall for an agency (or the media) saying that the rates are wrong – they aren’t – they are different based on what and who the market is.

As the economy worsens and companies continue to save money by cutting their work force, marketing is front & center for the first thing to be cut; be it employee’s or budget’s.

As I continue to counsel companies that marketing is the last thing to be cut, they, as usual, cut marketing as fast as possible. As this occurs, I continue to experience and see one thing in particular and that is employee’s think that they are being laid off because of their performance, not because of the economy. They can’t believe that they are being laid off because marketing is so important to any organization, but, it is not the case, it is because most management teams don’t understand the value that marketing can bring a company during tough economic times.

If you have been recently laid-off, please remember that 99% of the time is because of the economy. Keep your head up and start looking for that next job. Nine out of ten times, your employer already told you that they would give you a great recommendation – TAKE IT!

Take anything that your company is offering; put ego to the side and accept whatever is being offered. Life is not fair but you must get over this and move on as quickly as possible – you were not let go because of your performance!

What am I saying? I’m saying that you are a good worker and you do put time and effort into everything you do – it is the economy that is causing people, just like you, to be laid off. Go enjoy the two years of unemployment that you can get (or get back out there and bring your expertise and knowledge to a company that has not been adversely affected by this economy).

Talk with any CEO or Entrepreneur and you will hear them talk about how mentors helped them through difficult as well as growing times.

Unfortunately, many young CEO’s and General Managers think that having a mentor or many mentors are a sign of weakness. I cannot disagree more.

A mentor, especially during the “young” time of your company, is ideal for the following reasons:

1) He/she can bring focus when it is needed.
2) He/she can strengthen a weakness that you may have (i.e. they can bring accounting help if you don’t have any idea of how to set up your accounting practice).
3) They are a great sounding board.

The last is ideal for the young CEO. So many young managers are embarrassed or think that it is a sign of weakness to ask for help (or just brainstorm) internally in the company – a mentor cannot be seen in this light, as they are not with the company and are not linked to the success or failure of the company – they are linked to the success or failure of the individual.

Don’t believe that your “Board of Directors” or your “Advisory Board” is made up of mentors for you, the CEO. They are not. Yes, they want to help and want success, but, not you specifically. They want the company to be a success. They will just as quickly remove you from your position as they will walk away from a losing proposition.

As I have written so many times before – surround yourself with mentors that a) want you to succeed, b) help you see the forest and not the tree and c) strengthen your weakness’s. If you do this, your odds for success have increased dramatically.

As you start your marketing career, remember what you are doing, right now! Learn from your activities today. Understand what you are doing and why you are doing it – i.e. your activities in the grand scheme of things.

As you get older and move into bigger and bigger things, your experience as an assistant manager WILL come back to help you. You will understand why a tri-fold brochure is needed, when you need to ship something same day vs. overnight, or even how you will have a complete 20′x20′ booth built in less then a week for the largest trade show in the world.

What’s my point? My point is that your boss or boss’s boss won’t know or have any inkling. You may be the VP of Marketing and your CMO may have NEVER had to work a trade show in their life (I mean WORK a trade show, putting it up and tearing it down AND working the 10 hour daily shifts). Your experience will enable you to be a better manager of your staff. Of being able to talk to the CEO from experience.

So many times throughout your career you will have a boss that has not done half of the things you have. This does NOT make him stronger, nor does it make you stronger – it makes you WISER.

Being wise saves time, effort, and money – three things that are becoming more and more relevant in today’s economy.

Don’t disregard your past too easily or quickly – it has value more then you or anyone else could ever measure.

Was going through some of my old documents that I had written where I discussed brands and their power…over decades and over centuries.

Came across my positioning document on the Christian Cross. How it has changed very little over the centuries – even as it was “copied” by the many different Christian affiliations/groups throughout the world.

Most still keep it a simple black cross, but others have added the Christ figure, and others added a crown of thorns as a background, others added a hill under the cross, and so on.

My main point, as is true today, is that the essense of the brand (the main look/design) has changed very little over the centuries; enabling what all brands (consumer level) want, instant recognition as well as an instant “feeling”.

As you continue to build your brands, don’t be so quick, or shortsighted, to only look at brands in the past few years. Look at brands over the past century or longer; because we all know that the true measure of success of a brand is its staying power.

I’ve been waiting for the advertising to begin from “non-affected by the oil” states.

One, Michigan, has just introduced theirs, called “Pure Michigan”, showing the beaches along the Great Lakes, the rough shoreline, waterskiing, boating, and all the other watersports that can’t be done in a Gulf State.

Who will be next? And will any of them make the ultimate leap and say “Why go to a beach that’s covered in oil, come to our state where….”.

It will happen. There are other marketers out there like me that will take advantage of situations like this. It won’t and shouldn’t be wasted (I just hope that they do it in good taste!).

I wonder if Pepsi has any regrets about it’s logo (BRAND!) change to that of Candidate Obama’s logo two years ago?

Will there be another “change”?

So many executives say “We must have a positive ROI and a positive ROAS!”.

I’ve written about this before; so many executives that have none or very little marketing experience all think that marketing can be easily measured by running an ROI (or ROAS) formula.

Marketing managers are very adept at spinning the ROI and ROAS to their benefit, especially as internet grows and becomes more important to the spend. Is this dishonest? Absolutely; it allows them to keep their jobs.

But, the diservice to the company is also a diservice to themselves.

ROI is a simple measurement that keeps companies doing many of the same marketing practices.

Managers as well as executives are shorting the opportunity to pursue an alternative marketing strategy that could quite possibly push their company, as well as their careers, into the stratosphere. It is something that I continuously harp about here, for you and your marketing team to be successful, you MUST explore and pursue, if you can, any and all non-traditional marketing opportunities. Everyone does a tradeshow. Everyone offers $1.00 off on their next purchase.

Don’t be shortsighted – take a risk and present alternative marketing opportunities to management. The worse that coul happen is they say “No, we want to continue doing the same thing”. But, maybe, they may say “You know, we would like to increase our marketing share by 1%” and off you go.

Even if you can’t measure it, take a chance.

It matters what you offer.

Was meeting with a client the other day – a start-up. Very young but with many clients throughout the United States.

This company is getting ready to hit it big and they are concerned – once they get the next three clients, they will be recognized as a nationwide company and a force to be recognized with. What this means to them, they THINK, is that everyone (their competitors who are already huge and well-established) will copy them and steal all of their clients.

Here’s why I disagreed by using the following analogy:

There are hundreds of Analyst companies throughout the world, right? Jupiter? Gartner? etc. From firms that are thousands of analysts to firms that are just one.

Just one? Yes, just one.

Why? How? Because they specialize. They focus on a niche market. They become so knowledgeable about a single product line that a large analyst firm can’t come close to having the breadth of knowledge that the single individual has.

This is the same as my client. They will have knowledge and focus that their large competitors can’t come close to having, now or even in the far distant future.

The DANGER is to themselves, where they may start believing that they are so large that they no longer have to be so concerned, worried, or detailed oriented towards their clients – that is where they will lose their client base and go out of business.

As long as they keep focused on what they currently offer and keep offering that, they will last far into the next decade before they will have to start worrying about competition and hopefully, by then, they will be onto the next field of expertise.

Have a wonderful client that is experiencing one of those difficult times that every start-up has, change.

Start-ups have many different times in their brief lives. They start and then collapse, they start and limp along and then collapse, they start and limp and then succeed, they start and become hugely successful.

There are also other “ways” that a start-up can go. I want to speak about the one that my client is going through right now. It is the one where they start, and they focus, and then focus again, and then focus again, and then become successful.

It reminds me of Thomas Edison – he didn’t make the lightbulb on the first try, he kept trying and trying and then succeeded.

This same company, each time it “refocused”, also changed its management team. It did NOT change it sales or product team, just it’s CEO. This allowed lessons learned to be kept but also allowed the “captain who was sailing the ship to change course and head in the correct direction”. Or, in their case, to refocus on a more direct approach to their potential clients.

I have written about this many times before. A start-up MUST change its management team numerous times as it grows from being young and immature to full grown and mature. An entrepreneur – who usually starts the company, rarely has the means, the patience, or the knowledge to turn a start-up into a global billion dollar company (yes, there are exceptions).

All I’m trying to point out and say here is this: FOCUS. Always focus. Look at your market, are you focused enough on them?

My client, because of its changing of focus, is becoming more and more successful – which is GOOD!!!

To you – it could be changing focus from the world, to APAC, to Taiwan. Or, it could be from using Gold, to Silver, to Aluminum. Or, it could be from using a blond, to using a brunette, to using a redhead.

Focus is research being put to practice.