Marketing Rant

No, this post is not about high gas prices (and I know they’re high).

Last night, I was filling it up at the new Esso gas station a couple of blocks from where I live. And while I was doing that, there was an LCD TV going louder than at the movies. Yes, they installed that flat screen fancy tee-vee right on top of the pump! So while you’re holding that hose and normally would be waching the numbers on the display roll up calculating the damage to your wallet, this thing now just goes off and burries you in a tidal wave of advertisement. And there’s nowhere to hide.

With so much advertising hitting your prospects’ eyes and ears everywhere they go, it is any wonder your message can’t make even a small blip on their radar screen?

I spoke with a dentist the other day. His flyer used to bring 10 to 12 new clients every every time they’d send it. Now it only brings 3 to 5.

Hmmm. I think I know why.

If you really want to know what’s going on in New Orleans, traditional media won’t be of much use.

Michael Barnett and several other folks from DirectNIC keep the entire world riveted by their reportages directly from the city devastated by the hurricane. If you haven’t been to their blog yet, you should. It’s as up, close, and personal as it gets. http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/.

Goodbye CNN. Hello blogging.

Today I had a meeting downtown and parked by the Hummingbird Centre, the main Torontonian ballet and opera venue (that is, until they complete the new and smashing The Canadian Opera building) that they routinely sell out.

The multi-level parking was packed so I had to leave my car on the very top, on the “roof”, which was level 6. As I took the stairs down, I just couldn’t help noticing a little touch they added to make it easier for the patrons remember where they left their car. Each level and exit was named after a particular ballet! So on my way down, I passed Madame Butterfly, and the Magic Flute, and the Swan Lake.

Would this trick alone produce more customers? Well, possibly. If I’m a ballet buff, I’ll remember that parking the next time I go there to catch a show. Every little touch like this, combined with other little touches, can tip the decision scale in your favour.

… is back on June 27, 2005, which is a Monday. This time at the Herb’s Private Lounge.

I love Herb’s. It is a place setup for business networking. Clean and stylish, not too fancy and definitely not opulent, it exemplifies business casual in venue design. The food alone is worth the trip.

Same drill as the last time: networking, dinner, workshop. And yes, I added a lot of new content and made it even more interactive. After you register, I will even send you your homework to complete prior to the event! You will want to get the most out of this event, right? That’s why the homework. But don’t worry, it won’t be much.

Here’s the registration link:

http://www.jumpstartcommunity.com/workshop.aspx?ID=75

Hope to see you at Herb’s.

My friend Geordie Allen (no relation to Woody mentioned in the last post), when explaining blogging to someone not familiar with the topic, says, “First of all, it’s legal.” (And invariably, he gets a laugh.)

Blogging is also profitable, I might add.

So profitable, in fact, that P&G had to include blogging into their marketing arsenal.

Since March, P&G has been using a blog to market their new Secret Sparkle Body Spray targeted at girls. Four fictitious characters, Van, Tiki, Rose, and PK (short for “peachy keen”), engage themselves in a careless chatter sparingly using teen jargon and WeIrD CaPiTaLiZaTioN, putting “like” in every sentence, dabbling into bad poetry (“I’m one girl/ In a big world…”), but never failing to promote the spray to their blog “sistahood”.

I can venture a guess that behind this thing is some smart male copywriter in his mid-forties, with receding hairline and back problems from too much work at his computer: Phrases like “carefully regimented exercise program” are a give-away. It’s actually fun to read! Check it out for yourself: http://www.sparklebodyspray.com.

If anything, it’s going to be an interesting experiment. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more such blogs in the near future. And kudos to P&G for being so un-corporate in their thinking and so bold in their moves.

Woody Allen in Small Time Crooks says, “I always wanted to learn how to spell Connecticut.” Well, I personally have no touble with Connecticut, but Kierkegaard is a different matter. And since this name has a lot to do with our today’s marketing lesson, I had to figure out the spelling.

Sören Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher who is considered the father of existentialism. This is not a lesson in philosophy; it’s a lesson in marketing. One (of many) Kierkegaard’s ideas should be of particular interest to us marketers and savvy entrepreneurs.

Kierkegaard maintained that every human beeing lives in their own universe.

Ta-da!

Every human being lives in their own universe! I live in mine. You live in yours. Your best prospect lives in hers.

When it comes to your marketing message, it has many important jobs to do, and the first one is to get your prospect to notice it (the message). And where does your prospect live? That’s right, in her own little universe! (Hey, great job! You’re catching up fast!)

So if you ever wondered why it was so difficult to get your prospects notice your marketing message, a Danish guy with a hard-to-spell name gave you an answer some 200 years ago.

I am afraid that in the last post, I didn’t really give you an answer that would leave you happy and satisfied. You asked me about marketing media.

“Use what works,” said I.

“Huh?” said you.

No worries. I got an answer! (Now, please understand I’m not saying that this is the only medium you should use. I am just saying that this is the medium that attracts the most advertising dollars of them all, and the one that has it’s share growing year after year. )

Ok, I won’t keep you in suspence any longer.

The number one marketing medium is… (drumroll, please!)…

Direct Mail! (a.k.a. “junk mail” that I love so much and most people resent.)

“Direct mail? Says who?” and might ask.

Many people. AdAge, for example. And they have hard numbers to back it up. Just take a look at this chart (click on the picture to expand it):

The AdAge folks measured where advertisers spend their dollars, where they spent them last year, and where they spent them a year before. And from that, you get these charts.

These numbers really tell a story. Not one - many stories.

Notice how direct mail keeps carving out a bigger slice for itself every year? That’s because a lot of advertisers are starting to use direct reponse techniques, those that we teach our client at bizLeverage.

Direct reponse is not the same as direct mail. (You can create a great direct-respnse TV ad, and you can create a lousy image-centric direct mail piece.) But it is a lot easier to be smart, know your ratios and stay profitable when you use direct mail.

The Internet is the fastest growing medium. Why? Again, because more people realize that it’s an ultimate direct reponse medium, if you know how to use it.

And who’s the biggest loser? It’s TV advertising.

Did I hear you say “A-ha!”?

Thank you to all of you who sent me your BBQs (your Big Business Questions, that is). You got questions — we got answers.

Most of your questions revolved around two themes:

- What is the best marketing strategy to use in business today?

- What is the number one marketing medium to use?

The first question was easy to answer. The answer is this: direct reponse. Direct reponse marketing in all of its living forms. There were no two opinions in the group. Whether you do space advertising, Yellow Pages, Internet, TV, direct mail, or any other type of advertising, you need to use direct reponse techniques – always. Image advertising is a huge waste of money (and that’s your money we’re talking about).

Now, the second question did not draw a concensus: Everybody had their preferences and would present solid arguments as to why their favourite marketing medium was the best. I figured the right answer is to use what works for your business. The one-size-fits-all answer simply does not exist. Just find what works in your business and use it. As simple as that.

And speaking of BBQs (those with a grill), I’m going to use mine tomorrow, for the first time this season.

I have just a few minutes left before having to dash out and leave for the airport. I’m going to Phoenix, AZ this morning where I and 5 other business development and marketing consultants from different cities (some guys I met before and some I’ll see for the first time, but all are very able marketers) will spend 4 solid days brainstorming some cool marketing ideas and work on our clients.

Contrary to what what has become a good blogging tradition, you won’t see a “travelogue” here, because I won’t really have any time to see anything while down there. The schedule is simple: home – plane – hotel – business centre – hotel – plan – home. The goal is to lock ourselves in a room (not literally, but almost) for 4 straight days and accomplish as much as possible.

Last time we did it 8 months ago we had some real breakthroughs, so this is something I’ve been looking forward to doing again for quite awhile.

I have a special offer for you, the reader of this blog. Do you have a big burning business or marketing question that you’d like a panel of experts to answer? If so, send you question to this special email address: BigQuestion@bizLeverage.com. I will table it in Phoenix in front of these guys, we’ll come up with an answer, and I will post it on this blog.

See you in a week!

A friend of mine who is a fledgling real estate agent, has recently confided to me his thoughts on how he should be marketing himself. “Alex,” says he, “I think I need to advertise on the TV. See, paper advertising is dead.”

He was excited I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was making a mistake, and if I did he wouldn’t understand me then. (I simply imvited him to my marketing workshop and sent to him some information on other people in his industry whom he should model his business after.)

Now, his mistake wasn’t really about TV vs space advertising vs Yellow Pages vs whatever. The mistake was, he was starting in the wrong place! And so do many other entrepreneurs – both fledgling and veterans. Here’s what I mean.

The “Three M” marketing formula is:

Market -> Message -> Medium

Your starting point should always be defining who your prospective customers are (gender, age, profession, income, hobbies, family status, ethnic background, etc.) The better you define the market the greater your marketing (and business) success will be. Most importantly, all these people (or companies, if you’re b2b) should have common “pains” that you need to identify. That’s the first “M” in the formula.

The next step is the message. What do you say to this market? Which particular “pain” do you solve? That’s the second “M”.

And now only the third, and the last “M” is the medium. Which medium (or media) should you use to deliver your message to your target market in the most effective and efficient way? Whichever media you pick, the message should be constructed and delivered in such a way so as you could measure how much business – in dollars and cents – you get per each $100 spent on advertising in each medium.

Where most people get it wrong is they start with the medium whereas it really should be the last step in their marketing plan.

Don’t take this formula lightly. It’s simple to understand but requires work (== thinking) to actually follow it. It’s a lot easier to say “Oh, this medium is not working, let’s try that one.” 99 times out of 100, the medium is not the real problem. It’s either the market or the message. Or both!

Go back and do the homework. Don’t cut corners and business success will find you.

Promise.

P.S.: As for my friend, it’s been a couple of months since that conversation and he has never brought up this subject since. I think I can hear gears turning in his head.