Marketing-Gimbal

Good video from Mike Michalowicz of the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

Start & Grow a Healthy Business in a Recession from Toilet Paper on Vimeo.

Ten Ideas For Marketing In a Recession

I have to believe that just about every marketer (maybe except those in the green energy industry) are being ask to cut back, become more efficient, and more effective with their spend. I know we are always asked to do that , but this time it’s serious. It hasn’t been this serious since the 2001 Dot Com bust.

So what are you doing about it? TopRanked Online Marketing recently ran a poll where they had over 400 business marketers respond to the question “What three internet marketing tactics will you emphasize in the next 6 months? Here are the results of the poll:

• Search engine optimization (36%, 149 Votes)
• Blogging (33%, 134 Votes)
• Pay per click (26%, 107 Votes)
• Email marketing (22%, 89 Votes)
• Social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn) (21%, 86 Votes)
• Blogger relations/blog PR (14%, 56 Votes)
• Microblogging (Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku) (11%, 47 Votes)
• Affiliate marketing (11%, 47 Votes)
• Advertorial (NewsForce, AdFusion) (10%, 40 Votes)
• Video marketing (7%, 29 Votes)

Not surprisingly, the top three are all related to getting more optimized search rankings. If I can improve my organic search (i.e move up my page position and keywords in various search engines) I can investment less in non-organic search i.e pay per click, and potentially attract more inquires overall. Truth be told these all seem like top priorities in any business environment, recession or not.

What else should we be thinking about? After living through the Dot Com experience I thought I would share my Top Ten actions for recession marketing.

1.      You will live or die within your customer base: In times of economic uncertainty, when budgets are getting cut back, people buy from who they know. This means you’ve got to engage with the customer base more frequently and deeply than ever before. Might be a good time to start a customer community or referral program.

2.      Customer marketing content becomes king: Content relating to customer ROI, success stories, problems solved etc becomes vital to your messaging success and sales support.

3.      TCO & ROI are Mandatory: Understand how you reduce your total cost of ownership and what the ROI is for your solutions, and quantify these. See point # 3.

4.      Measure Everything: Know what works, and what doesn’t, and stop what doesn’t.

5.      Invest in Communications: Communications becomes a high ROI tactic in tough times. Use it! Make sure your PR firm is using all the social media tools at your disposal to get your message out. To this end if you don’t have a PR firm then start a twitter page, start a blog, brand a You Tube channel, and develop some viral content. Its low cost and it works.

6.      Data is king. For push marketing make sure you have good enriched customer data so you can segment by multiple criteria. The more targeted you get, the more effective your message and conversation. In answer to your next question, Yes we still need some old school push marketing. I would not bet my career on hoping my blog generates business in a recession.

7.      Use the phone. If you have a good inside prospecting and customer database and have access to tele-sales/marketing (insoruce or out) use it to keep engaged with customers. Work with sales to programatize blitz days, identify reasons to call, prospect within your database, and use your calling resources to do the initial selling before handing off to outside sales people (could lower your cost of sale). Be careful where you use tele in the demand funnel. Note I said “inside prospecting database”. Pure outbound cold calling is very expensive, and not very effective unless your value proposition is incredible.

8.      Stay close with sales. You’re in this boat together and you will either join forces or sink. Work with sales; understand what is and what is not working. Develop strong joint measures.

9.      Have a Strategy. Strategy is about sacrifice and if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority. If you have no priority then you will sprinkle your marketing dollars all over the place and have no impact. No impact says good bye to your job in the next round of cost cuts. Ask the hard questions. Is segment x more important that segment y? Is Country B more important that Country C?

10.  If you have “Social Media Strategist” as a Title change it: Call yourself marketing, customer marketing, installed base marketing etc. Most management is old school and unless you can show revenue generation coming from Twitter then reposition yourself closer to revenue generation.

I’m sure there are lots of ideas about marketing in a recession.  Please share a few as I could use all the help I can get. Nuff said.

In The Age Of Social Media Are PR Firms Still Needed?

I was recently at a small event held by Lois Paul and Partners (I am a client) in San Antonio. At this event the PR Firm had assembled a distinguished panel of experts to discuss communication trends of the day. On this Panel we’re Doug Newsom, Ph.D., APR, Fellow PRSA of Texas Christian University, Bryan Simmons VP Communication of IBM America’s, Neal Boudette, Detroit Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal and George Dearing, Evangelist For Telligent.

As I listened to each panel member extol the virtues of social media I asked the question: In the Age of Social Media Are PR Firms Needed? The discussion was most interesting, and I hope I captured each panelist’s true context.

Bryan Simmons felt that even in the age of Social Media people still need professional communication firms. His point was twofold. One is that communication channels will continue to evolve, and to have an outside in point of view on how to leverage these channels is still of value. His next point was that the role of PR professionals is not just delivery of the message but that the real value add was in crafting the message, and that this was of added value from a professional firm dedicated to communications. He proved his point by referencing all the bad messaging going out of the current political campaigns of both parties.

Bryan went onto add that B2B PR was less about introducing products, but rather focusing on solutions to business problems, and communicating in a global environment where local context was more important than ever. To this he added that human relationships are just as important, in fact more so, and that one intrinsic value PR firms bring to the table are a network of relationships that can be leveraged across many focused topics and messages.

Neal Boudette question if we really needed PR Firms in that he noticed that more and more he was being contacted directly by companies these days. However he also noted that very few companies are taking the time to build a relationship and that the relationship is the real driver to good company communications. 

 Neal also stressed that you can’t overestimate the sophistication of the media outlets. Just because companies are using Twitter doesn’t mean the journalist is. In fact he reckoned that very few journalists have ever used Twitter as most reporters are too busy. He also added that PR Agencies will have to reinvent themselves to bring new value to clients. One added value firms can bring is insight into best practices across multiple clients.

 George Dearing added that agencies have to reinvent themselves and have an ongoing commitment to learning. One benefit PR firms can bring is to take best practices from several companies and bring this insight into each client. However the PR Agency must be committed to continual learning. George went onto add that Social media starts by listening but you need a programmatic way to address your messaging. Smart companies look at real business problems and map that that back to developing relevant messaging, and view the new tools such as Twitter as just another form of communication channel. Smart companies will need to view social media as not just a technology but rather as communications.

Doug Newsome added that people running business don't take time to see how new channels and approaches can work for them. Companies still need help in building relationships with their key audiences and that outside expertise is still of value in helping companies do this.

My Take

There is no doubt that communications has changed with the advent of the Internet, and the evolution of new tools, and communication channels the web has given us ala web 2.0. However the tried and true principles of sound communication holds true in that you must know the needs of your audience, and craft a relevant message that addresses that audience’s need. It is also very apparent that you need more than just a blog, Twitter feed, Or Jinga network to build a relationship with the mainstream media outlets and key influencers that still provide the communication scale you’re looking for.

All one needs to do is to look at the low value add communication on new outlets like Twitter (Do I really care if you took your dog for a walk?) deliver in mass. Just because one tweets or blogs doesn’t mean that good communication is happening. At the same time tools like Twitter hold enormous potential for a brand looking to build a direct connection to it’s’ audience.

So do I think the days of PR Firms are numbered? For the vast majority of firms the answer is yes. Most PR Firms still focus on traditional communications of press releases and metrics that relate to the # of mentions etc. Yet a few of these firms will be able to add to new practices relating to guiding a company on how to use these new tools to build a new dimension to the message communication and look to measure the overall quality of brand conversation and engagement. However just bringing on a guy and giving him the tile of Social Media strategist is far from enough.

Today you are what you publish and everything you publish has an impact on your search engine rankings and can either add to the brand communication or take away from it in the blink of an eye. A few PR Firms will realize this and bring on the skill set required and leverage experiences across several clients to deliver true value add for their clients in message development, ecosystem relationship development, and conversational channel development and optimization. If all your PR firm does is press releases and byline pitches start looking elsewhere. You need message development more than ever in the age of frictionless two-way communication, and a relevant PR firm can help with this. Nuff said.