Marketing in a Down Economy

Official "recession" or not, there's no question that many industries suffer from continued malaise. I'll be delivering a presentation on Marketing in a Down Economy at the upcoming Business Growth Conference, sponsored by MANTEC (an affiliate of the National Manufacturing Extension Partnership), on March 14, 2013. The number of attendees registered to attend my presentation suggests a heightened level of interest in this topic - at least in our corner of the world.

Companies that continue to market during an economic downturn often realize measurable market share increases when conditions improve. But increasing or even maintaining the marketing investment during a downturn can be a challenge. During a time of uncertainty, consider the fact that one or more of your competitors will cut or eliminate their marketing budgets. This results in opportunity for the smart marketer who commits to maintaining awareness, demonstrating value, and cultivating customer relationships – new and existing. If you’re committed to long-term, sustainable growth, here are some tips for smart marketing during a soft economy.

Commit
Smart marketers use current dynamics to their advantage. Maintaining a results-oriented marketing program during a downturn requires commitment and a solid team.

Survey Customers
During and after an economic downturn, your customers’ buying dynamics and motivators will change. Don’t assume that you still understand what customers value. Survey the market and tailor your messages to these needs.

Survey Competitors
To the best of your ability, understand what your competitors are doing in terms of positioning, value messaging, and sales strategy.

Survey Your Positioning
Is your customer-centric value and positioning in the marketplace relevant to today’s buying dynamics? Reposition yourself if necessary and remember that positioning and branding are not the same.

Build Relationships
Replace any broad-based tactics with relationship-based programs that demonstrate your understanding of and communicate your unique value to target audiences.

Customer Retention Programs
Develop customer retention programs to prevent attrition and promote up- and cross-sell.

Align Sales and Marketing
Make sure that sales and marketing teams are aligned in terms of message, current positioning, and timing to improve the customer experience and help prevent attrition.

Proactive Marketing
Engage in a targeted, proactive marketing program that is strategically-oriented and results driven. Find an agency partner that is experienced in your company’s unique dynamics.

Messaging
Messaging that communicates your company’s value in terms that resonate with buyers is more important now than ever. You may have up to 5 buyer types to communicate with during your sales process. Each one requires a customized message.

Develop a Lead Conversion Strategy
A Lead Conversion Strategy, similar to a Customer Engagement Strategy, reviews the communications and tactics within a lead funnel from point of entry to the point of conversion – or drop off. It identifies areas of weakness that may result in low conversion rates. A sound Lead Conversion Strategy categorizes leads by role, communicates your company’s value offering in a corresponding manner, uses tactics and timing that mirror the buyer’s preferences, and is integrated with sales activities. A Lead Conversion Strategy can help you improve your conversion rates and provides a measurable impact on your bottom line.

If your company still feels the effective of a lagging economy - or you are ready to use the current conditions to your advantage - get started today. Commit to taking action. Assemble a team. Plan. Budget. Act. Measure. Evaluate. Commit again. It's a fact that marketers that maintain or increase marketing spending during a soft economy reap rewards when the market rebounds. What are you waiting for?

Blogging: Measuring Your Efforts

Boost your blogging efforts through measurement

While Wavelength is off site training a client on blogging best practices, now is a good time to look at the other side of the coin: measuring the fruits of your efforts.

Stating the obvious: the point of applying blogging best practices is to attract the right audience (vs. any audience).

Tone, relevancy, keyword integration, industry commenting and monitoring are designed to attract potential customers to your blog where you have the opportunity to engage, educate and activate.

For many B2B and B2C marketers, blogging is a critical program element within an integrated marketing communications strategy. With increasing adoption rates due to the associated value, few marketers with enough resources to execute a blog have to ask themselves "why do this?".

Rather, they find themselves asking, "What are we getting out of it?".

Some simple measurements to consider:

Customer Engagement

Reviewing actions taken is an easy place to start. Did the visitor click on embedded links, register to follow future posts or share your content with his or her community? The amount of in-blog activity you see will help you determine the relevance of your content.

Reviewing your site stats in tandem also provides useful insight. How long do people stay on your site? Where are your most common drop off points?

Keywords

Reviewing the keywords that drive traffic will help identify the appropriateness of your audience. If there is a mismatch between the keywords that are being used to find your site and the keywords (or phrases) that are appropriate to your product and audience, an adjustment is required.

Remember not to guess at keywords and don't just rely on your internal team to develop a list. The most effective keywords are those that are identified using customer data.

Referral Sources

A robust blogging program includes commenting on or referencing industry sites and blogs. How many referrals are you receiving to your site from relevant industry web sites? If the answer is few -- or less than you'd like it to be -- this is an area you may want to shore up. Your best customers are likely to be referred from relevant online industry resources (such as publications).

If you don't have a strategic plan for your blogging efforts (within the context of a larger social media plan), develop one. If you don't have an editorial calendar, it's time to get started. Not only will a plan and a calendar improve your abilities to blog efficiently, they will also improve your ability to measure your efforts.

Is it Copy? Or is it a Content Marketing Strategy?

It's not that long ago when I had clients who saw so little value in copy that they took all content generation in-house to be written by product managers and sales professionals. (12 years, in case you're wondering)

Now, industry research states that 91% of B2B marketers from companies of all sizes use content marketing to grow their business.*

We’ve come a long way baby.

Good copy attracts customers who have “pain” and are looking for a solution. It builds relationships and communicates a competitive advantage. It can connect brands to buyers – even in the B2B marketing world.

What I hear from clients today is: What’s the difference between "copy" and "content marketing?" It’s a valid question.

Copy, while often crafted within the framework of an integrated marketing communications strategy, functions as a creative element rather than a strategy unto itself. It's an important part of the whole.

Content Marketing is a strategic approach to developing and deploying customer-centric content that:

-- Engages the customer at each touchpoint throughout the life cycle, from awareness to engagement to brand advocacy. The goal of the strategy is to use content to attract, inform, engage and connect.

-- Is relevant based on where the customer is in the buying cycle;

-- Delivers custom messaging targeted to the buyer’s role in the organization and is more valuable and educational as the customer progresses through the funnel.

Generating custom content that targets your customers and prospects throughout the life cycle sounds like a large task, particularly to small or medium sized businesses that must manage financial and human resources carefully.

But considering what a sound Content Marketing Strategy can deliver you may want to get started sooner rather than later.

Some thoughts on getting started…

1. Create a Map
Where do your customers turn to research solutions such as yours? Consider delivery method, timing and competitive voice. What does the "funnel" that transforms your target audience from unaware prospect to engaged prospect to customer look like? Where are the highest impact communications opportunities? What messages are needed and do they support top-level corporate goals? What is your current marketing strategy and how will a Content Marketing Strategy alter or improve what you’re doing?

2. Prioritize
Based on your map, what can you reasonably accomplish given your time and financial resources? What can you execute well on a consistent basis? If you'll be executing a partial program (there's nothing wrong with doing so), make sure that you are fully integrated with corporate objectives (new lead generation, greater share of wallet, etc.).

3. Craft a Plan
Help ensure that once you've started, you'll maintain momentum by identifying a series of messages in advance. Identify (through prioritization) what elements you’ll add to your campaign after you’ve reached certain benchmarks of success.

4. Establish Key Performance Indicators
How will you measure the effectiveness of your content strategy? Are the program results that you plan to report meaningful to other internal stake holders? Will your KPIs provide insight that is valuable enough to take further action, tweak program execution and make effective decisions?

Content Marketing can help your company create awareness, generate leads, build relationships and more. Most organizations have the knowledge base to drive an effective content marketing program. The challenge is in getting started and in keeping momentum. Don’t be afraid to start with small chunks and evolve as time and resources allow!

*B2B Content Marketing: 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends (MarketingProfs and Junta42 in Association with American Business Media, BMA and CMI)

Lead Nurturing for Measurable Success (Sales!)

If you've read our blog before you'll know that I'm a proponent of customer-centric messaging.

Today, I find myself in the midst of my own customer-centric messaging project as it applies to a new client. The manufacturer is based in Shanghai and establishing an office in Jersey. We're tapped to establish their U.S. brand.

So what. What does MY business development have to do with YOUR marketing needs?

Just this: The value of understanding and aligning your messages and value proposition to the true needs of the prospect cannot be overstated. Company/customer alignment will make a measurable difference in sales. By measurable I mean you make the sale or you don't.

Many companies understand the value that their prospects and customers are seeking and effectively communicate these benefits throughout their marketing communications. Many of these same marketers still find themselves asking not for more leads but for better conversion numbers.

Where's the opportunity for success? In mapping, analyzing and improving the prospect experience. Then in identifying ways to personalize the conversation and provide customer-centric value messages throughout the chain of communication. This can be done for customer retention initiatives as well of course. It simply involves reviewing a different set of communication methods with different objectives in mind. (upsell and cross sell)

As I head into my meeting on Monday, I'll be thinking about:
-- Based on where we are in the buying stage, what do they expect to hear from me in terms of my value and offering?
-- What are the individual motivators for the parties at the table? For example, at least one will be concerned with "mianzi," (saving face) and will be responsible for the decision to work with my Agency.
-- Have I accurately assessed what it is that they value in my service offering? If so, am I prepared to communicate my value in their terms, so they experience alignment that leads them to be fully comfortable with our relationship.
-- What next step can I anticipate? What will each person need in terms of personalized and value-driven communications at that next stage?

This is lead nurturing = Taking the time to understand the buyer's role, crafting communication to align with his or her needs, selecting communications methods that are appropriate based on their preferences and where they are in the buying stage.

Whether you manufacture heat pumps or are a politician the lead nurturing concept can be applied and used to increase conversions. Ultimately, it can be used to increase the lifetime value of a customer.

Don't wait to review your communications process, identify gaps and ways in which you can personalize the conversation. Even if you can only implement a portion of the improvements identified, you'll be on your way to increasing conversions or customer lifetime value.

Now Why Don't He Write? (Or, Where are all my leads?)

As a marketer of a product or service have you ever had that thought with respect to your prospects (or customers)?

"We have a high-quality, value-added fill in the blank. We're marketing it. Why don’t we have more business?"

There could be lots of reasons. Maybe your competitor has a better offering. Maybe you aren’t marketing in the right places (where your prospect is seeking your product). Maybe you aren’t using the right messages (we often find this to be the case). Maybe it’s a combination.

Even if your marketing efforts are working, it’s likely that you have sales goals to reach and that “someone from above” is asking you to improve performance.

So how are you going to improve marketing's performance to increase sales, improve customer retention, drive new customer acquisition (or another top-level objective).

Some thoughts:

• Scan and evaluate your competitors. In addition to considering their tactical execution, what relationship are they attempting to develop with your customers and prospects? Marketing messages and content can be as revealing as tactical selections.
• Consider your call (or calls) to action. Is it compelling from the prospect's point of view? Is it role specific? Does it promise something of value?
• Review your metrics. It's possible you aren't reviewing the right metrics. Customers may be responding but not in the way that you anticipated.
• Prospects are responding. You just don't know about it. It's an ugly truth to uncover, but a worthy one in the end: Are leads coming into to your company via a selected mechanism (phone, web, etc.) but not being properly parsed to the correct internal respondent? There may also be a disconnect between internal departments. Either way, you can't measure and improve upon what you don't know about.
• There is a serious disconnect between sales and marketing. This can be an issue of message being out of synch, lack of timing/orchestration between the two departments or something -- anything else -- that represents disparity between these two departments. Whatever the issue the result can be damaging: dissonance between sales and marketing can confuse prospects and prevent them from responding to your offer.

There are countless ways to improve the performance of your marketing program. We've offered just a few for consideration.

If the marketing strategy you've deployed in the past is not delivering the results you're expected to deliver, by all means don't replicate what you're doing! Before 2011 begins, re-visit, re-think and re-set your strategy so you can deliver improved -- and measurable -- results.