Marketing

 The 1970s were a formative time for both business and marketing. Harvard Business Review editor Theodore Levitt argued that instead of producing products and then selling them to the masses, businesspeople should start with the customer in mind to find out what it is they want and then produce it from the information obtained. Obvious but true. Suddenly, the customer was driving business and instead of being told what to buy, they had a choice and were firmly placed in the front seat.

1980s

Marketing was now well and truly a crucial part of business by the turn of the decade and it was about this time that Jay Conrad Levinson coined the term 'guerrilla marketing'. This prompted a shift in thinking and the realisation that unconventional methods of marketing were worthy inclusions into the marketing mix. And still are, I would argue.

1990s

The 1990s were the 'glory days' in the US at least; increasing numbers of businesses were making lots of money selling to a booming consumer market. Direct marketing had been established and mail order shopping, commercial television, home shopping networks and much more became commonplace for business. The spectrum by the 1990s had truly changed.

Let's Jump To 2011

Doing business in the era of choice... marketing and business has changed more in the past five to 10 years than in the previous decades. There are three major reasons.

• Technology and the internet is the first and, in my opinion, the most important. From search engines to social networking, the majority of people are on the internet every single day, every hour, making it a very important way to reach people. Online shopping means people buy things without ever encountering a salesperson. So marketing has become even more important. What's more, the internet means we are now selling to a global market - and someone across the world can buy a product from you or look at your website while you are asleep.


• Communication has changed, forever. Phones are no longer simply to make calls. Word of mouth is 'Liking' something on Facebook, sharing the link on Twitter or emailing a website to a friend.


• Finally, a sophisticated market has created an incredibly savvy consumer. People know what they want and they know what it's worth and, if they don't, they have the option of being able to Google it and have the answer in no time. Information is everywhere and the consumer wants to feel in control at all times.

Perhaps this is a bit overwhelming and just writing it makes me think that. The real point, however, is that 'the new world' has made a marketer's job more important than ever. Instead of quantity marketing, it's now all about quality. Gone are the days when taking out an advertisement in the Yellow Pages and a 30-second slot on the TV was enough to win new customers. With many more ways to market than ever before, business owners need professional marketers in order to avoid feeling lost or overwhelmed and to help navigate the field.

Here Is A Practical Example

In late 2011, I am part of a group that is heading to Asia for a friend's wedding. How did we go about finding accommodation? You guessed right - the internet. We looked at travel blogs, read reviews from a number of online sites and looked at accommodation buying websites, as well as the websites of the hotels directly. Social media was also used for personal recommendations. In 1970, we would have gone straight to a travel agent. How times have changed.

This example demonstrates that there is more than one way to reach your target audience. The marketing mix, as noted above, is more complex than ever. While it is ideal to be across as many of the communication channels as possible, popping up on one or two in the right way is sufficient for consumers to make informed decisions.

The Next Wave, Daily Deals

Daily deals websites like Spreets, Groupon, Scoopon, Jump on It, Catch of the Day, Cudo have been gaining momentum since the launch of Woot in 2004. This new business model, which combines the age-old concept of coupons with the new phenomenon of online social networking, has exploded to create a unique online shopping experience.

Customers buy a deal or special offer from the deal company directly and, from a business owner's perspective, participating in a deal comes at no upfront cost. The deal company takes a percentage or commission of each sale and all the business needs to do is come up with a package to sell.

Daily deals are reshaping marketing in 2011; however, there is still some uncertainty surrounding these sites and whether they are marketing masterminds or madness. The market is in a growth stage, which means there are still teething problems. The growth though, cannot be ignored.

Hiring That Marketing Person

 First, what does the position entail? "Marketing", after all, means different things in different companies. To some firms the Marketing done entails identifying new markets, driving new product development, fielding market communication campaigns, then directing and motivating the sales force. Clearly, they envision a senior executive who would be very near the top of the organization..

At the other extreme, to other companies a "Marketing" person is someone who turns out ads, catalogs, brochures, flyers and so on and do it in-house. That's what "Marketing Manager" means to these companies.

For most companies the "marketing person" needed is less than senior executive and more than a graphics designer. If your company is in this middle category then you need to consider these questions:

1. Is the marketing need long term and ongoing? Is there a regular monthly workload and will it continue at least two years? Too many companies hire someone to tackle a "huge" volume of work only to see it completed within a year. Then they have to find more for the new hire to do or let them go. Here are a couple of hints;

A. Plot all past marketing projects. When were they completed? If you don't see an ongoing, steady output of marketing projects, chances are that you don't need that marketing person.

B. Don't hire someone just to save on agency or graphic designer costs. When outsiders aren't working for you, they don't cost you a thing. Salaries, on the other hand, are a fixed expense.

2. How will you recognize and avoid B- or C grade marketing? You want marketing that will boost sales and rock the competition but what if the new marketing person's proposals don't "wow" you? Do you run with them anyhow and hope for the best? Consider this:

A. "Creativity" isn't all there is marketing. Successful marketing is always based on an insightful marketing strategy. The marketing manager must have both the education and real-world marketing experience to not only understand the strategy but to contribute to its development.. And those credentials don't come cheap.

B. Creativity is required to implement the strategy but it must not only be attention-getting but must also reflect well on the product and on the company. Mediocre or "cute" creative can blunt the impact of the strategy. That's why marketers want to see three or more distinct creative approaches.Will you be able to recruit ---and afford---that creative a marketing manager?

C. Even creativity should be judged in a business-like manner. Younger, novice marketing managers may not take criticism, let alone rejection, of their pet ideas well. How to spot them? Go through a candidate's samples and quiz them on why they chose a particular direction. Look for answers that refer to results not design theories. If they seem defensive, you can look forward to hurt feelings and sulking.

3. What if you hire the wrong candidate? In companies that haven't a good-sized marketing department, there is no one to take up the slack when the marketing person is out, on vacation, or let go. Moreover, marketing people usually interact with only one or two others who are in a position to judge how well they're doing. That's why when that marketing person is let go, the reasons are usually not obvious to their co-workers. This uncertainty can affect employee morale. Hints? There aren't any. Just don't hire the wrong person.

At the start I wrote " the bad news is that there are other reasons why adding to your staff may not be best for your company." Well, the good news is that you can get the marketing you need without a marketing manager.

I'm not proposing that you simply go back to the ad agencies or designers you relied on before you considered hiring a marketing managers. Apply the same business acumen that you employ in the rest of your operations. While marketing services are far from being a commodity, shopping around for the right one... or ones... is easy in these internet days. And, yes, I did write "ones." Let me explain.

A lot of companies do the same things they did all along because they thought that there were no choices. They'd hire one ad agency. They'd sign a contract. And, believe it or not, some paid a monthly retainer! Wake up, pal! You're the Customer! You get to call the shots!

Why not hire the marketing expertise you need when you need it? Need a product launch plan? Hire someone who's done it over and over again. Pay them then say "adios."

Need a corporate identity campaign? Hire someone to get you that recognition then recognize that, once the mission is accomplished, you no longer need that someone.

Consider this radical idea in terms of the three questions we covered before.

1. Is the marketing need long term and ongoing? It doesn't matter. Once you've settled on the price you can "employ" an outside consultant or agency for a month or a year. Let them go and re-hire them for the next project. What about the cost? Trust me, it'll always be far cheaper than paying a salary, benefits, and for endless hours of web-surfing.

2. How will you recognize and avoid B- or C grade marketing? Simple. If you don't like what they bring you, you don't pay. You send them "back to the drawing board." No more worrying about hurting someone's feelings. No more putting up with missed deadlines. You're the Customer not the Boss. And everyone in sales knows that customers are more demanding than any boss.

3. What if you hire the wrong candidate? Fire a consultant or an agency and not one of your people will care. Best of all, you can hire a replacement before the original is out the door. In fact, you can have more than one agency or marketing mercenary working for you at the same time. The secret? You don't give anyone your account. You give them a project.

So before you fill that Marketing Manager position, ask yourself " Why not hire a "temp" first?"

Richard Koranda has driven creative strategies for American Express, Bank of America, CitiCard, Visa, Dreyfus, and Diners Club. His work earned over 60 industry awards for response and creativity. He was also responsible for the highly successful repositioning of Visa "Visa. Its everywhere you want to be", which led to the brand dominating the bankcard market.

Marketing Efficiency

 Shiny objects are things that capture the imagination. They're silver bullets that promise to fix everything with immediate gratification. As much as we like to think that there is "a" quick solution for every problem, eventually, reality breaks the spell. Shiny objects don't work as well as advertised, or at least as well as we've built them up to be in our imaginations.

Technologies are notorious contributors to the shiny object syndrome. For marketing efficiency and effectiveness goals, automation promises to replace boring manual tasks, standardize workflows, keep a running record for visibility of transactions and patterns, and provide standardized reports. And automation does these things, with caveats.

What's lacking among shiny objects are the people-and-process prerequisites and bigger picture of marketing efficiency and effectiveness needs.

• Prerequisites for automation: expected time savings from automating boring manual tasks are too often offset by time needed to manage the complexities of the system, due to inadequately defined people and process workflow requirements before deployment.
• Bigger picture for automation: extra customizations strive to bridge the gap between what was promised and what's needed, complicating upgrades and scalability as your people and processes migrate or expand over time.

And for better decision-making, standardized reports do only part of the job. Mindsets and perspectives differ, so if you want whole-hearted buy-in and decision-making you need to manage assumptions, not just look at the same data.

Marketing Efficiency and Effectiveness Needs

The bigger picture of marketing's needs, when it comes to organizational efficiency and effectiveness (also known as marketing performance management or marketing operations), includes cross-functional leadership to make a greater impact on the enterprise's agility.

• Agility: in the fast-paced, rapidly changing environment faced by organizations now, and increasingly so in the future, agility is the watchword.
• Cross-functional: one department's agility is insufficient, so cross-functional coordination and collaboration are essential.
• Leadership: as compiler of business intelligence, marketing has a huge leadership opportunity to build the company's capability for agility.
• Impact: growing revenue is necessary yet insufficient - customer-centered agility is what's needed to grow customer lifetime value for sustainable growth.

To realize the bigger picture, the scope of marketing efficiency and effectiveness must be broadened well beyond automation to include the following:

1. Marketing ROI: step back and think about how you want marketing to be perceived - if your metrics are only about campaigns, other functional areas will define you as such. Move your thinking process away from a transactional mentality to more of a portfolio (holistic) mentality. To grow customer lifetime value, think about how relationships are developed over a long period of time, and set up your metrics accordingly. For example, if you care too much about campaigns, customers may view your company as disrespectful of their time; even though you seem to be building revenue, you could be losing loyalty in the process.
2. Strategy execution: build your capabilities to coordinate between groups so that people know how their deliverables affect one another, and feel motivated to hold themselves and one another accountable. Awareness of interdependencies can motivate collaboration that produce synergies to fully execute strategies.
3. Scalability: remember that the future brings constant evolution - and sometimes significant shifts - and set your marketing organization up for success by developing needed capabilities and establishing well-planned contingencies.
4. Buyer alignment: you could think of marketing's job as ensuring that the customers' journey is managed to give them what they need at the right time in the right way (per the customers' perspective, not the company's). In B2B, make it easy for people to facilitate the buying decision among multiple influencers on your behalf.
5. Business intelligence: as marketers, you collect and analyze information that could be useful to various parts - possibly all - of the company. Make sure it's organized to guide every functional area in making their work contribute to customer lifetime value and the company's agility.
6. Customer profitability: consider the power of customer lifetime value (also known as cumulative profit over the duration of a customer's relationship with your company) as a guide for everything your organization does. Customer profitability is an eye-opening context for making sure you're pursuing the right customers (segmentation and targeting) with the right marketing. Help the rest of the company see customers' realities so you can collectively eradicate hassles and make sure brand promises are realistic, and hence, experienced as promised.

Abandoning Shiny Object Fetishes

Here are a few tips for abandoning the temptation to pursue shiny objects without due diligence to prerequisites and the bigger picture for marketing efficiency and effectiveness needs:

• Recognize that there needs to be a corresponding investment in people and processes whenever a shiny object comes into the picture.
• For every tool that's supposed to help with the "left-brain" side of marketing, you need to nurture soft skills to support the "right-brain" side of marketing.
• Pause and require more vetting before falling in love with a specific solution: are you even ready to be in the market for a shiny object?
• Think bigger about marketing efficiency and effectiveness: establish a clear roadmap and get the right people on board for the marketing ROI, strategy execution, scalability, buyer alignment, business intelligence, and customer profitability components of marketing's success.