Summer Holidays

I'm on holidays for the next couple of weeks.

More content soon.

There have been technical problems with the latest edition of the podcast, but that will be back when I get back.

A slow few days

Things have been a little crazy in my life since last Thursday when the bombs here in London went off.

Family and friends here are fine, but it has diverted our attention away from the everyday. But things are returning to normal, including this blog.

Best of June

This is a little late, but here are my favour posts from June:

• Trust between Marketing & Sales
• Customer Acquisition Paths
• Branding, Harry Potter style
  
• Products Placement in TV Shows
  

Summer Marketing Activities

In this episode, Vasey on Marketing looks at how you can get your marketing ahead over the summer. Peter also looks at more ways to make the most of your fanatical customers.

Length: 17 mins 35 secs

Music: 'Monotony" by Binary Beats

Should we forget positioning?

Tom Asacker at 'a Clear Eye' has written a new book and discusses one of the key ideas late in the book - that positioning is passé.

I am not sure that I totally agree with Tom in this one but it does get you thinking. Tom suggests that we should as marketers, turn our focus away from focussing on the position of the product in the prospect's mind and focus on a memorable commercial attitude. But perhaps this is just another way of positioning the product. What are your thoughts?

Tom Asacker: W.C. Fields on attitude

Marketing is like farming...

Here's an interesting analogy from Brian Carroll over at the B2B Lead Generation blog: Marketing is alot like farming. He is referring to an article about generating leads from SalesMasterWorld.

B2B Lead Generation Blog: Improving Lead Generating and Conversion Rates

Ten tips for improving Direct Mail

Over at MarketingProfs, Steve McNamara writes about what he learnt from a recent report on what has been happening in Direct Mail over the past 12 months.

Alot of what Steve suggests can be implemented in the marketing on your website as well, especially tip #1 - Make stronger offers.

Give the visitor information that he or she are after. Provide them with a reason to contact you. That said, don't lock all the useful information behind walls forcing your visitors to jump through your hoops. Whet their apetite and have them thirsting for more from you.

Whether it is Direct Mail or Website copy, prove to your readers that your organisation is a thought leader through useful, relevant and timely information.

Read the article: Putting Spring in Your Ka-ching: 10 Direct Mail Tips

Branding, Harry Potter style

An article by John Simmons from Sunday's Observer newspaper, 'Harry Potter, Marketing Magician' suggests that Brand Managers might look to Harry Potter as an example of how to do it.

I think it also nicely adds to the story idea that Seth Godin discusses regularly.

The Joys of Summer

Summer is a great time in the business world for those who want to get ahead.

Why?

Most businesses slow down, people go on holidays and things get quiet. People take a break from the hectic business schedule. But here is an opportunity for you to get ahead of the competition.

If you have some 'quiet' time coming up on schedule it is perfect to start planning ahead. This is the time to do some reviews of your marketing systems. It is more problematic if you need to interact with colleagues and they are away, but summer is definitely time to put some effort to review your marketing and work on how to improve on what works while putting aside what doesn't.

It is also a good time to review competitors. I know I don't have enough time usually to do all the competitive analysis I would like. But summer can offer you a chance to spend some quality time reviewing the messages your competitors are sending out to the market. You can learn alot from what your competitors are saying. Put yourself in the shoes of a prospect. What elements of your competitors' marketing works, inspires you to find out more, and what elements are a miss?

If you do get the chance to go away this summer and escape from the office, do it properly. Leave work behind and rest your mind. Come back refreshed and ready to take on the competition upon your return.

What print needs to do to survive

Dana VanDen Heuvel discusses ten suggestions from Media Riff on how print can turn itself around within the world of advertising in his post 'Print not dead by any stretch, but it better shape its ass up fast'.

Do you reward loyalty?

I have been subscribing to Businessweek for the last two years. The last few months have seen me receive mailings reminding me that my subscription is coming to an end and that I need to renew it very soon in order to receive "uninterrupted delivery".

The funny thing is that the special deal on the subscription is no better than what I could find online (not on their website but through a third party) even if I let it lapse and decide a few months on that I really do want a subscription. As a result there is no incentive for me to renew NOW rather than later.

I am not sure if I am going to miss the magazine. I am focusing my reading on marketing alot at the moment.

The point of all of this is that Businessweek are not rewarding me to stay with them. Other magazine publishers have sent me mailings trying to get me to subscribe and they offer all sorts of gifts. But once you become a subscriber does the love stop?

Does your company treat customers in a similar way? Once you have them, a good deal is good enough, not a great deal. Existing customers are your best source of new customers. They spread the word about your product if you provide something truly remarkable (see Seth Godin's Purple Cow for more). But the old adage of 'treat them mean, keep them keen' doesn't work.

As I have said on more than one occasion here: Love your customers!

That means making them feel special. Be more than a provider of a magazine, or software or shampoo or whatever it is you sell. Let me know that you value the relationship.

The Long Tail in Advertising

The long tail is a concept of market size.

Wired magazine provided a good description of the Long Tail last October.

Recently I have been reading Seth Godin's Purple Cow and also have been working on a Google Adwords campaign for a relative's company. Google Adwords works because of the Long Tail. But it is amazing how many people/businesses/organisations don't take advantage of this.

The Long Tail describes the distribution curve. You have a few big hits to the left and as you move right in the distribution curve so the sales/views/success of a product, etc will be less until it becomes infinitely small.

Amazon use it with great success selling their books. They don't have to stock books in hundreds of stores, just in their warehouses. So when someone wants a rarely sold book, they can readily lay their hands on it and make a sale. But the number of rarely sold books is HUGE! You do the maths.

Google Adwords works the same way.

I have been setting up a couple of hundred keyword phrases for a campaign. Alot of these keywords will be lucky to get one hit a month. But the combined hits adds up. What's more, the cost per click is far less than going after far more competitive generic keywords. And I have no competition. Why? Most people haven't figured out how to use the Long Tail yet.

And you can use related philosophies throughout your marketing. Should you be everywhere your competitors are? Can you out-Proctor & Gamble Proctor & Gamble, out-Microsoft Microsoft, out-Toyota Toyota? Probably not, and if you tried it would cost you a huge amount of money.

Marketers tend to act like sheep. We all go in the same direction as the rest of the herd. We don't want to risk missing out on what everyone else is doing. But it is pretty rough in the centre of the herd. Lots of pushing and shoving goes on there. Get to the edge of the herd and look for opportunities there. What niche markets, advertising opportunities are available that others are missing? There is a risk that it wont come off, but if it does, you will be ahead of the herd and then they will be the ones doing the chasing!

Customer Acquisition Paths

One of the topics I discuss this week in the Vasey on Marketing podcast is that of providing a clear call to action in any marketing you do.

While providing a phrase at the end of an advertisement or brochure with a telephone number is passable, there is so much more that can be done.

In the past, as part of brochure design, I have clearly outlined a series of steps to enablement. That is, the prospect/customer has been able to read the steps required to go from their current stage to the stage of using the product.

Of course your product might not be a complex sale and not require a series of steps in order for someone to review, purchase and then use your product. But clearly defining the best way for a prospect/customer to review and then to purchase your product (because, heck, once they review your product compared to the competition, they will definitely buy your product!) will not only help you to better track marketing efforts but also optimise your chances of success (just in case they are leaning towards the competition!).

In saying that you should point your customers to the right channel in your marketing material means having your customer touch points set up in order to meet, and exceed, the expectations of the prospect/customer. Customer service is about the best service to your customer base while meeting the profit targets of your business. That means that your best practice customer acquisition methods, while turning a profit, have to be focused on the customer.

Take a look at your marketing collateral. Does it clearly tell the customer what they should do next to purchase your product, or to move a step closer to purchasing your product? And do you have the systems in place to meet and exceed customer expectations when they take that next step?

A Call to Action

This week I look at making the right call to action in your marketing, getting customer feedback and using fanatical customers' energy to promote your products.

Length: 16 mins 40 secs

Music: 'Monotony" by Binary Beats

The Power of Mass Collaboration

BusinessWeek this week is focussing on the IT Industry. In particular it has a feature titled 'The Power Of Us : Mass collaboration on the Internet is shaking up business'.

The article looks at various technology companies and how their tools bring together the collective powers of thousands of people thus creating a threat to companies invested in the status quo.

Those companies which are creating threats include Skype, eBay and Google.

54% of Permission Emailers Are Filtered as Spammers

MarketingSherpa has just announced the findings of a report by Pivotal Veracity which found that 54% of Permission Emailers Are Filtered as Spammers -- AOL, Wal-Mart, IBM and the Federal Government Included.

Read more at MarketingSherpa - 54% of Permission Emailers Are Filtered as Spammers: Including AOL News, Wal-Mart, IBM and the Feds

Apple store gets it wrong

Do you ever feel like a sales person is ignoring your needs and simply trying to sell you want they want to?

Most often this happens when you are dealing with call centre staff who are reading from a script. But it appears Apple are doing it in their stores. Aaron over at 'Confessions of a Brand Evangelist' tells this interesting story: A Bad Apple.

The strange part about this story is that Apple don't need to push hard. Most Apple users want to be Apple-ised, but they also tend to know what they want.

The lesson here is to not treat your customers as dumb users. While value-adding is important, also providing an outstanding customer experience by delivering what the customer wants and exceeding their expectations is just as important.

This story also highlights the fact that bad stories move fast. Word spreads fast about poor customer experiences and you can't control that today. But today's market also allows for positive feedback: see Amazon's reviews for items that they seel or eBay's user ratings.

What do you want from VoM?

While we are on the subject of getting feedback, I thought I would take this opportunity to ask you want you would like to see here at Vasey on Marketing.

Is there a particular topic you would like to see discussed? Or is there something that has annoyed you? Let me know!

Drop me a line at pvasey_at_gmail.com or post comments at the end of this article.

Cheers,

Peter

Learning what your customers want

Sherri Dorfman over at MarketingProfs has written a good article on learning about what your customers want from your organisation.

As Sherri rightly points out, too many organisations decide for themselves what their customers want.

Instead of getting to the point of asking yourself "where did we go wrong?" when your customers stop buying, ask them today what they desire from your company and then build a profitable plan around their answers.

What Do Your Customers Really, Really Want? by Sherri Dorfman

Online Marketing Show - London

For those of you in and around London, there is an online marketing show, being held at Royal Horticultural Halls, Westminster, today (June 8) and tomorrow.

The focus of the show is interactive marketing and advertising. I hope to get down there though I have a few things on my plate at the moment.

More details are available at the official site.