Trump Effect: Five reasons why CEO’s will become more involved in Marketing and Supply Chain

Trump Effect-5 Reasons why more CEO's get involved in Marketing and Supply Chain-StratoServe
The Trump (@realDonaldTrump) effect in Marketing and Supply Chain is that CEO’s worldwide will take more interest in the operational decisions in marketing and supply chain.

While Chief Marketing Officers (CMO’s) being rainmakers have more visibility in organizations, the supply chain folks tend to be sidelined. The CSO (Chief Supply Officer/Head of Procurement/Purchasing) typically reports to the Head of Manufacturing in manufacturing companies or the Head of Finance in service organizations. The supply management community (see our sister blog www.cpsmblog.com) strives to be more strategic and find a “seat at the table” and be treated with the respect of a Chief Officer in the organization.This might be helped  and a great example is the Trump decision in the making of pipes in the US for the Keystone pipeline project.

But why do CEO’s tend to have this “hands off approach” to Marketing and Supply Chain? A “hands off” approach to marketing and supply chain does not help create local jobs,  a priority for every country in the world.

Here are five reasons why CEO’s are shy to get involved in Marketing and Supply Chain :

  1. The overarching reason is that the professional CEO does not think like a sole proprietor whose sole purpose is to make the business great. A professional CEO is conditioned through professional training that is all about being “separate” from business ownership.  “Ownership” here is  both a financial and an emotional sense.  Consequently, there is generally a lack of “emotional ownership” in most for-profit businesses. In sharp contrast, the best “non-profit” CEO’s do firmly believe that the non-profit‘s goals are their very own life goals.  Why “ownership” has a bad feel in business and government leadership but is considered appropriate for nonprofit leadership is a topic for another post.
  2. The CEO is focused on shareholder returns and analyst perceptions. These are short term goals and involve easy cost side decisions like outsourcing and buying cheap from wherever possible.  These short term goals can frequently be job killing at the local level.
  3. CEO’s have varying degrees of comfort with personally handling social media and for the most part leave it to the PR folks. The PR folks are very cautious and continue to live in the old world where the press was the sole provider of news.  Today, if you have a question you just Google it. This means that the local jobs angle gets hidden, even when present in the company’s intentions.
  4. When it comes to marketing, things are becoming extremely data driven and mostly it is about proposals from the marketing group that is either voted up or down by the CEO or Board. The CMO tends to have wider vision as to start with “anyone can be a customer”. Call it one of the benefits of the outward facing role of the marketer. See five differences between B2B Marketing and Supply Chain Managers.
  5. On the other hand the Supply Chain folks are constantly fending off sales people. The entire RFP (Request for Proposals) process is about being fair and transparent.Although it might not lead to local jobs and frequently may not get the best service or product that the organization is looking for. For very large purchases CEO’s of the buyer and seller meet to shake hands, but rarely negotiate at the CEO level. Negotiations are left to the Marketing folks of the seller and the Purchasing folks at the buyer.

More insights on CEO involvement in marketing and supply chain operations should appear from President Trump’s address tonight.

About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Why web advertising for e-Commerce is different from Brand Building

Advertising goals matched to Sales Funnel- StratoServe


It’s useful to think about paid web advertising (eg.Google AdWords, Facebook advertising) as Brand Building vs. e-Commerce.

[ Note: This post was originally published on December 7, 2016. Due to the great interest of our dear readers the post is updated as of February 27, 2021.}

To recap the sales funnel is seen as Awareness, Consideration, Conversion in Google Search Advertising. The sales funnel before Internet was also known as the AIDA funnel. For simplicity, it’s good to think of the sales funnel as a three stage funnel of awareness,consideration and conversion. See how this three stage funnel is really quite similar to the four stage AIDA funnel and the buyer’s journey.

Advertising has three goals. These advertising goals map to the three stage sales funnel as shown in the image.

  1. Inform: Advertising informs the customer that the brand exists. Information spans both awareness and consideration in the sales funnel. The informational aspect of advertising is the first step because if customers don’t know your brand, you cannot expect them to buy it.
  2. Persuade: The persuade function of advertising attempts to convince the customer about the key features and benefits of your product. This is closely associated with the consider part of the sales funnel. Here the customer is actively researching alternative product and is at the verge of making a choice. For your brand or a competitor brand.
  3. Remind: The remind purpose of ads are to just remind you about the brand and maybe provide some incentive to buy now. These incentives could be an attractive offer like a discount coupon, added warranty etc. The remind function closely parallels the conversion part of the sales funnel. Well established brands like Coca Cola advertise because if you see a Coke ad on TV just before your grocery store visit- you are very likely to notice the well displayed Coca Cola at the store or the merchandising efforts of the local distributor. The point of display sale also works as a “remind” function for the brand.

Brand Building is at the upper end of the funnel

The purpose of the advertising is to build awareness and inform the potential customer in the target market. A great way to understand how brand building advertising works is to watch for any pharmaceutical advertising you see on the TV shows. Media buyers for pharma companies buy ads on a particular TV show based on data that that a lot of people from the possible patient demographic is watching a particular show. Such brand building also helps  reach doctors and hospitals who prescribe these medicines. Besides, the awareness building advertising makes life easier for the pharmaceutical rep who has more credibility right from the doctor’s office reception to the physician’s assistant and the physician as well. For all these people can vaguely remember the TV ad. So now when the pharmaceutical reps do their briefing and leave samples,  the chances of generating prescriptions is much higher. On the retail side, it is easier to get pharmacies to stock a new prescription medicine when brand awareness campaigns are on TV.

But not to fear if you have lower budgets to work with and can’t really afford a national TV campaign. Targeted use of social media, paid online advertising on an ongoing basis can do a great job at a much lower cost.

Particularly for global markets , digital marketing is far easier to put in place than traditional marketing. If you are a low budget advertiser, just the logistics of finding a TV station or Newspaper to carry your message in a foreign market can take several emails and phone calls.But your message can start showing on YouTube or Facebook in minutes in that foreign market.

e–Commerce transaction advertising is about the lower end of your sales funnel.

e-Commerce brands do have to work on the Awareness, Consideration. Because if your customer does not know that you exist, it’s very difficult to market to them. For e-commerce transaction or the sale though, it is consideration and conversion that needs to be the focus.

e-Commerce stores are for customers who buy online. After COVID there is huge growth of online bu

The customer is brought from your online ad  to your web store and a specific product.The assumption is that the customer has done her research and is ready to put the advertised product in their e-cart and check out.

Driving traffic to a web checkout web-page is easy in web advertising like Google AdWords. The question is:  is the customer ready to buy- now?

If the product you are selling is well known ( i.e. has been brand building for a while) its no trouble selling that product from your online store. All branded products like grocery brands, branded clothing  fall into that category. On the other hand unique artisan items like jewellery and paintings are difficult to compare between stores. Here it is useful to have good pictures and descriptions on the e-Commerce page. Also a welcoming approach to answering questions online can help.

For eCommerce advertising, if you think your offer is competitive- you must advertise. And its not always price that matters. For example, if you offer a product  that can be picked up locally instead of waiting for delivery by mail, it’s quite inexpensive to advertise online 25 miles around your store. The best part being that you don’t pay unless someone clicks on your ad in PPC (pay per click ) advertising.

As we have mentioned earlier posts, it’s good to have some form of Brand Building always going on. Web content, social media are free options in that you don’t spend money but do have to invest time. Paid online advertising including video advertising is also effective in reaching your audience at comparatively lower cost than traditional media.

STRATOSERVE

However, if you believe that your e-Commerce offer is competitive, particularly for a specific region of the world – it makes sense to advertise vigorously.

About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Trump Victory: Life is local- Business is global

Trump Thums Up
The surprise victory of Donald Trump has brought into sharp focus a  big idea for the 21st century.

Life is local-Business is global

Here are some things to think about from observing “local life” in  America:

  • Local Newspapers are alive: In the US only small town newspapers are still around. The regional and national newspapers and magazines are having a hard time. Just see how thin the Time magazine now has become. Low circulation means less advertising. The outstanding quality of articles in magazines like Time don’t seem to count.
  • Plumbing,electricians etc: Since people live local they need to hire specialists occasionally.  Generally Americans believe in D-I-Y (Do it yourself) more as  a matter of pride and self reliance.If you have reasonable handy-person skills, YouTube can today  guide you to avoid calling in a professional plumber for less complicated jobs. Most people do not hire painters ($30/hour) and try to paint as well as they can.  All this to the detriment of the local trades-person.
  • Of Wine Stores,Restaurants and Nail Spas:  Any strip mall on Main Street will primarily have wine stores,restaurants and nail spas, businesses that need the customer and product to be at the same location. All these businesses have reasonable margins but involve very hard work, difficulty in financing and very much dependent on the fluctuating fortunes of the local people. See a previous post on the growth of the nail spa industry.
  • Black Friday in-store sales decline : As consumers Americans have taken to online buying and there is sharp decline in mall sales even with “Black Friday” deals. All deals are available online today-great news for US consumers but bad news for malls. In fact-one third of US Malls are expected to close. While US consumers might benefit with lower online prices, this is not good for locals who “live local” with a local  mall job.
  • Saturday after Thanksgiving is Small Business Saturday: Amex launched Small Business Saturday in 2010 to try and promote foot traffic into local businesses just as big Malls and online stores take away most of the big purchases. The main theme is to “support” small local businesses. Is one Saturday in the year enough to support small business on main street?

Trump recognized that there were huge swathes of Americans ( including different races, ethnicity, gender etc.) who lived local.Also voting is strictly local in the electoral college system in the US. At the local level the average American has been hard hit because of globalization and technology. If you are trained as a welder, there is no local factory that can hire you for a sustained period. It’s hard to go back to college as you left studies after high school to get into a trade that paid well. For college involves learning to write and do math and also appreciate history,philosophy etc. before you can even start a professional course in say engineering or business. Even in engineering you have to be an excellent student to be able to get those high paying jobs involving say aircraft design.

Freezer pictureOn the other hand,  a US consumer is happy to buy a freezer for $148 from Walmart. This is probably a great freezer from the good Chinese brand Haier. It turns out that other competing brands of freezers are also made in China,Mexico etc. Similarly many service occupations are outsourced to technology or countries like India,Philippines.

In America, just as you prepare to eat turkey “locally” for Thanksgiving keep in mind that the turkey might some “global” components as this New York Times article suggests. It also turns out that almost everything sold in the US during this holiday season and in stores today, is mostly imported from a very efficient global supply chain. These include clothing,electronics and toys.

The challenge for the Trump Government will be to find “local” work for millions of Americans. It turns out that leaders of all countries have exactly the same challenge. Provide work for their citizens as they live and vote local.

A recent book on Re-skilling America by Katherine S. Newman and Hella Winston suggests that the Re-skilling AmericaGerman apprentice system is working. The German Government encourages co-operation between high schools, industry and unions to put large numbers of high- school students  into paid apprenticeships. Instead of trying to push everyone to college.

America has comparatively much weaker links between trade training or college education   and industry. In any case, that could be a more medium term solution. For the older workforce immediate work is probably only in re-building the run down infrastructure, till trade deals are figured out.

All in all the stock market thinks that there is growth ahead, and global sales and purchases for US businesses are factored into the record stock market levels.

We wish our dear readers a very Happy Thanksgiving! [Bonus tip: avoid talking politics this Thanksgiving dinner, just to go beyond the election !]

About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

B2B Marketing with Google AdWords

B2B Marketing with Google AdWords- StratoServe

To make AdWords more effective for B2B marketing, its useful to understand some key features of B2B marketing before setting up the campaign. Here are those key features:

  1. Why do businesses buy? No business buys a product or service for pure “fun”. All business purchases are for a business purpose. These would include buying machinery to make something that the business sells. Or it could be buying raw materials to use on the machine. It could also be buying consulting services to advise on their tax, marketing or manufacturing. Compare this with the pure fun an individual consumer feels on buying and enjoying popcorn and soda at a movie. Try to better understand why your business customer buys your product or service. This why is the business reason and is something that needs to be really clear to the marketer.
  2. The Buying Center makes the buy decision: The buying center makes the buy decision for most high value products and services. And the buying center is an informal group of people who weigh in on buying something for the organization.
  3. The current supplier has a big “relationship” advantage: The current supplier or your competitor has a big “relationship” advantage. Your competitor deals with many people across the buying organization over years and buyer and seller employees become friends. Beyond personal friendships your competitor has developed the ability to understand changing B2B market requirements well. To break in to markets where existing suppliers work- you need to come up with a more innovative solution. If there is no competitor already in place, your challenge is to educate the customer. When there is no one supplying your product the buying firm  probably is not aware that they need your product.
  4. How to reach members of the Buying Center? Every B2B marketer is challenged with being able to reach the “right” person or the “decision” maker. The problem is that in buying centers there is no individual who decides as a sole individual. There may not be a formal committee and there may not be documentation of who suggested what. A HR-Safety Training influencer might make a comment on the corridor like “we need to provide more safety training on the new XYZ machine” and the buying organization suddenly has to find a new supplier who packages safety training with equipment. Ask yourself if you are only trying to reach the VP of manufacturing or do you also have outreach efforts to folks who manage workplace safety and training in HR?
  5. The buying or supply chain manager manages the process but does not really decide: The purchase or supply department is a mystery to the inexperienced B2B marketer. In the Buying Center language this person is called the “buyer” but is merely in-charge of the process. For the supply folks it is more important to keep the internal user happy. In fact, purchase departments consider users as internal customers. The supply or purchasing department is generally organized as “indirect” and “direct” purchases. Indirect purchases are items that do not go into the main product but help the organization. These could include stationery items, cafeteria,facilities and travel.In such situations, the buyer is part of the “indirect” spend group where they regularly put out Request for Proposals (RFP’s) for indirect but regular items like stationery,travel etc. If you supply direct items that directly go into the business for its specific mission then the buyer wants to make sure that the using department is happy with your product. Yes you would technically consider them as buyers because they do the Purchase Order paperwork and make sure that you get paid. For example, a supply or purchase department cannot hire an advertising agency unless the marketing folks actually initiate the request with specific vendors in mind. The interesting part is that the CEO might be in the room when each advertising agency is invited to pitch. However, even if the CEO favors a particular agency’s pitch she/he cannot decide unilaterally to hire that agency because the marketing folks must own the decision. Therefore it’s important to start with the User in the buying center.
  6. The B2B Customer has to get the work done: At the end of the day, the customer is trying to get the work done. A top manager wants the team to be motivated and is very unlikely to push for a product or service if people who will use it – seem to hate it from the start. Unless there are huge advantages to the organization and your organization is willing to support the customer team to success. It is never about just buying and forgetting in B2B markets, at least for direct use supplies and equipment. An emphasis on great after sales support can go a long way in winning B2B customers.

Once you have figured out the general structure of the buying center for the industry you are trying to market to , it’s time to roll out your marketing strategy. Here are some ideas to use for Google AdWords and other digital advertising to reach the Buying Center members. Note that digital advertising augments all your off line outreach efforts like sales calls, trade shows etc. depending on how effective you find them to be.

  • Campaign by Buying Center role: It’s a good idea to organize your campaigns by buying center roles. Thus you could have a separate campaign for users of your product or service that speaks to their concerns (pain points) and aspirations. Within the campaign for users you can create separate Ad Groups for each pain point that you can address. Similarly, a separate campaign can pinpoint the concerns of the manager of the unit that uses your product. If existing customers tell you that there is 20% less defectives using your system then that’s a campaign and message that will go well with managers of other potential B2B customers.
  • Geographical targeting: Using geographic targeting around where your customers are and you know where they are.
  • Time of day and mobile: Do use the time of day and day of week features to target your Buying Center members accurately. And yes always emphasize mobile display of your ad.
  • Make it easy to connect: Make it easy to connect once they click on your ad.

Since you control the budget – it is easy and  important to keep advertising. When a salesperson makes a sales call and you ad is running – it can only help your sales effort.

Note: Image updated March 8, 2021

About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Brand positioning for authenticity: Focus on mission or competition?

Authentic Brand Positioning- StratoServe

But first to recap the  powerful idea of positioning in marketing.  Originally introduced by Jack Trout and Al Reis in 1973, positioning   suggests that you must be clear about what your brand is to the customer compared to the competition. Positioning is thus about identifying key variables that the customer cares about and then investigating where the competition is on these variables. Your brand should occupy a space in the minds of the consumer that differentiates from the competitor.  “We are different” is your battle cry and you expect the consumer to literally buy in to your brand. Thus if consumers are primarily looking for safety in a car they think of Volvo and Subaru at two different market price segments. However if you are looking for American made cars you think of GM and Ford whether or not many Toyotas and Honda’s are actually made in America. In other words facts don’t matter, perceptions do. And these perceptions are built over years of advertising.

Positioning is a market facing concept while authenticity is about looking inward at the organization.

The question is what does the marketer do in this fast changing Internet world? Before the Internet, if new competitors entered the field, consumer marketers would huddle with advertising agencies and work on “re-positioning” the brand. The re-positioning would be discussed with much gusto in the business press and the jury (i.e. customer) would make further choices to establish whether the re-positioning actually worked.

Today authenticity is more important than perception for enduring brand success. And how can a brand become more authentic? Here are some thoughts:

What difference are you trying to make in the world? Review your organization’s mission. We include values in the definition of mission for this post. What does the company stand for? It’s important to stand for something that is at the “soul” of the organization. When you formulated the mission you involved all stakeholders. If you are an entrepreneur you hired people based on the match of the mission. Revisit the mission and they key here is that you are trying a make a difference in the world. The millennials are less about simply making money and more about “making a difference.”  If you are looking at the millennial market now or when they get older – the time to start is now. The difference could be quite mundane yet profound. A recent example is of Pepsi planning to reduce sugar in its drinks.

How does the particular brand aid this “difference in the world” effort? Just like SBU’s (Strategic Business Units) and departments need to have a mission that helps achieve the organization’s mission- so do individual brands. Note at this time you are not focused on competition the core idea behind traditional positioning. You are really soul searching about what your brand is about. A discussion with key internal partners like upstream suppliers in the supply chain, colleagues in production,marketing,finance and market facing partners like advertising agencies, distributors can help get everyone on the same page on the brand mission. What this clarity does is to make your brand and its appeal enduring.

But the world is changing fast Customers change their preferences, competitors emerge, technology changes even faster. And you see these changes rapidly happening in all parts of the economy. Some businesses are able to change but most refuse to accept the change they see around them and adapt.

A great example is between BestBuy and Circuit City. In our local mall Circuit City closed down while BestBuy continues to have customers. BestBuy recognized that customers will use the Amazon app to check prices and store reps were authorized to match prices. Even if you had Amazon Prime and did not have to pay shipping a consumer who was already in the store would be far more likely to buy from BestBuy if they had already liked a product that a price match was being offered. In addition, you had the comfort of speaking with a store rep that tried to answer the questions you had after you read the product reviews from your mobile phone, right in the store! Instead of being shocked showrooming the store reps accept it happily,You wonder why Circuit City did not think of this simple solution. As the holiday shopping season gets underway, bigger retailers are probably more prepared to do instant price matches, but as shopping crowds become larger it might become more difficult to have enough knowledgeable sales people who are able to spot buyers who are not buying after clearly liking a product. Perhaps more upfront price match and friendlier return policies can help. Prominently displaying these policies can encourage customers to make a buying decision when they are uncertain. If you are debating whether to display your price match policy – remember that you might be missing customers who were almost ready to buy from you.

A frequent review of how your customers are changing is a great way to review your organizations’ mission. Does your cause and larger reason for existing need to change with changing times? This is the big question to ask and your customer facing people already have the answer, and would tell you, if you only asked.

So what about your brand authenticity? What about being true to yourself? Do you need to be fake? To paraphrase Gandhi, truth changes as your world changes and you are not untrue to yourself if you have the humility to understand and accept it better. About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Don’t have a mobile website? Why the new iPhone7 should make you worry

The iPhone 7 launched yesterday. The biggest buzz is about the wireless headphones and the removal of the headphone jack.One more urgent reason to make your website mobile friendly. (plug your website URL to the Google Mobile Friendly Test tool to see if you are already mobile friendly).

But first more about the iPhone 7 wireless headphones story.

To iPhone loyalists the wireless headphone is alarming on two counts. First, you have to pay for the wireless headphones ($159) and second, you are likely to lose the tiny headphones. But not to worry . Entrepreneurs in the iPhone accessory industry  are at work and many solutions to both these problems should be available by the holiday season. There was a necklace for the iPhone wired version (so that you don’t lose them) and already there is talk about an app to find my headphones for the iPhone7. But the wireless headphones confirm the trend to mobile in consumer behavior.

Apple was the first company to do away with the CD drive on laptops. And this technology shift to “wireless” is the shift to becoming more mobile and less “bound” to hardware. This Apple decision is similar to moves by Microsoft,Google,Facebook and Amazon to move to the cloud. And not have the customer struggle with hardware. In a sense, this is the high tech innovation model that spends much more money and effort in the early part of the innovation and new product development (NPD) process.  These industries invest in the front end of the NPD process so that the later launch and marketing becomes much easier and far less expensive. Customer “love” is built into the product.

Here is a graph to understand how major pharma and tech companies invest in the NPD process. (Clarification: we do not intend to offend our readers from the consumer products industry by implying that they are low-tech. This diagram is merely to help our small and medium business readers understand why they need to get on the mobile bandwagon for their websites).

Is your website mobile-iPhone7 wireless headphones-StratoServe

The high tech industry leaders (Amazon,Apple,Facebook,Google,Microsoft)  are all pushing for a wireless mobile world.

A wireless world is far easier to manage anywhere globally. Particularly  in the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America and Africa. Laying down cable is quite a nightmare in most countries. In comparison, to get a mobile phone tower up and running is much easier to execute. So one can understand the logistical reasons against wired infrastructure.

So what does this mean for small and medium business owners?

All small and medium businesses on US main street are consumer marketers and their marketing efforts resemble the blue graph  on the right.These small businesses includes hair salons, plumbers, electricians, clothing boutiques etc. They must be able to reach the local customer. And this local customer is increasingly on mobile.

If you have a website – make sure it is mobile friendly. Once again just plug your website URL to the Google Mobile Friendly Test tool to see if you are already mobile friendly.

If your website is  not mobile friendly, call your web developer today. The costs to go mobile are modest, and well worth the expense.

Many businesses we talk to tell us that they are going to re-do the whole website and will add the mobile friendly part later.

Here is the problem: we are yet to meet a business owner (large or small)  who is totally happy and think that  their website is “perfect.”Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” as Neil Patel wrote in the Entrepreneur. If you have a website up, and even if you are not happy with it, get it on mobile. You can keep improving your website over time.

Why are we promoting mobile sites, when we don’t even do web development, our readers might wonder. Frankly, the traffic data we analyze for advertising is astonishing. We turn off mobile advertising if the website is not mobile friendly to save advertising money. The loss of potential customers we miss (for our client) is so enormous that we feel the pain. Thus we thought that an advocacy for mobile friendly websites is timely. Just as news breaks of the wireless headphones for the iPhone7. About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Accept that everyone will NOT like your brand

It’s hard for mothers to accept that “everyone” will not like their child. And here is a clip from Seinfeld to explain your mom’s position.

Surprisingly, numerous businesses and marketers seem to think like Seinfeld’s mother when it comes to understanding and accepting “market segmentation”. That everyone will or must  like your brand.

It is perhaps our human condition, that makes us believe that people like us by default. Particularly if they have never heard of us, never Googled us and never met us. So with the brands we are trying to market. And brands include our “personal” brand.

In fact, accepting and “owning” the market segmentation idea is the most difficult concept in marketing. Reading about market segmentation is one thing but being ruthless about it seems to be almost impossible. And you can observe this confusion  in  marketing efforts from the largest companies on the Fortune list to the the smallest shop on main street.

We are not saying that you should not expand your market segments. You must. But it needs to start with  a conscious definition of the “market segment” you are trying to reach.

Market segments are also called “Ideal customer”, “Customer persona” but the definitions seem to be fluid in practice. The fuzzy nature of how businesses understand their market segments is a problem because:

Fuzzy market segmentation, just wastes your marketing dollars and energy

Here are two ways to be clearer and more disciplined  about your market segments:

  1. Look at your current customers: Look at your current customers in terms of all variables you have on your databases. These includes the direct mail mantra of “Recency,Frequency,Monetary Value” that gives you a first cut at bunching (i.e. segmenting) customers together by similarity on these three counts. Next look at demographic variables like age,gender,income,education. These bits of information are available freely online. You’ll find that there are clear patterns of people who are already customers and they form natural bunches. Visualizing your existing customer base does not need advanced data mining tools. A simple histogram or pie chart from excel will give you amazing insights into what  your current  customer looks like.
  2. What’s changing about your customers? -to define new segments: You might find that a) your customers are changing and b) the customer’s world is changing. Customers might be getting older and you may need to get younger customers. A great example is from Angie’s List the website to find recommended local businesses  like plumbers and electricians. Earlier,  you had to become a paid member of Angie’s list to use the service. The company realized that millennials will not pay for membership.So they have now adopted a freemium model to attract more users,particularly the millennials. If you want a warranty from Angie’s list , you can buy a paid membership. With a larger member base the company hopes to  try to and  increase its advertising revenues. 

Everything about marketing hinges on the concept of identifying the most likely buyers i.e. those who are likely to buy and enjoy what you have to offer. The better your organization becomes at focussing on  the market segments, the more your business will bloom. And its quite OK if everyone does NOT like your brand.

We wish our readers a great Labor day weekend!

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Why consumer marketers always do field visits- and digital marketers should too

Field Visit Questions for Digital Marketers-StratoServe
If you noticed, all consumer marketers do market field visits-all the time.

Let’s say that a CMO or a marketer turned CEO is in town for a board meeting. You’ll find that CMO making the rounds of retailers and distributors. This after getting all those market research and insights syndicated reports. These reports break down estimated sales down to the case level for all competitors as well. In addition, media reports give all the advanced data analytics- including key metric cockpits. For those familiar with Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft Holmes,  the parallel between the field visiting “see for yourself” marketer and the “analytics only” marketer is interesting.You would think that today with all the data, there is really no need for marketers  to do diligent fieldwork like Sherlock and get decision insights following the laid back Mycroft approach!

But just as “human intelligence”  and “boots on the ground” is so important in the military. So in marketing.

Amazingly, high powered marketers with billion dollar marketing budgets, take the time and effort to talk to a small retailer. Often in distant global markets. When asked, they explain that the insight from personally seeing how the brand is doing on the ground is revealing.

When one food product CMO saw that the brand carton was presented damaged on the retail shelf he took quick action. He instantly charged the packaging folks to review the corrugated board specs for the outer cartons. The higher packaging cost with stronger outer cartons would protect the individual “brand”cartons and help the brand image. Because no consumer really picks up a damaged carton out of choice. “Advertising can do its brand building job better, if the carton is not battered” the CMO explained.

The surprise about the above field visit is that the number of damaged /unsold cartons was getting reported anyway. Let’s say a  low number like 0.01% returns due to carton damage. Hey, that’s only one in ten thousand!  So what is the value of a field visit? Field visits gives the sense that many more cartons are “bent” and  and slightly deformed. A better outer packaging solves the problem. At pretty low cost and helps the millions spent in advertising do a better job in brand building.

Similarly, digital marketers must take the time to visit the field. Here is a confession:

Every time we do field visits we find that at least some of our assumptions about the client’s customer experience and fulfillment process were ………………………wrong!

Three questions to ask to make field visits more productive are:

  1. Is there a massive disconnect between website pictures and the “real” thing?  We have all experienced great web pictures and disappointing products when you actually get them. Exceeding customer expectations is always better for business.
  2. What is the fulfillment process? This one applies to both products and services. It’s important for the digital marketer to understand this. If it takes 5-7 days, say so on the web. If you are marketing a service (eg. construction) that takes weeks- break it down to the various phases and mention timelines that are realistic.
  3. What are customers really thinking? Just talking with customers reveals so much about their goals and aspirations. And these are far beyond what “keyword tools” can tell you in search or social media advertising.

To summarize, the digital world disconnects the marketer from the real world. A reality check through field visits can keep campaigns relevant to what matters most. Customers. About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Content marketing for : User members of B2B buying centers

Content Marketing for the User in B2B-StratoServe
The Buying Center is an informal group of people in organizations who influence the decision to buy your product or service. Members of buying centers  have different degrees of influence and things can get pretty political and unpredictable. It is therefore important to tailor your marketing content for each role in the buying center. Marketing content includes advertising content, direct mail content, trade show messaging,  and also the sales pitch. This post is about marketing content for the “User” (with U capitalized for this post) member of the B2B buying center.

You might wonder what influence can a lowly  machine operator have on the buying decision of a million dollar  factory machine? Surprisingly, quite a bit. If the machine operator has seen your working machine at a trade show. Or has seen ads online while searching for a technical problem with the current machinery then your brand has a distinct edge. Depending on your industry and country culture you can expect the machine operator to be involved in different ways. In high power distance cultures (Latin America, Asia ) the boss is always right but if the competent subordinate has a suggestion, it is always heard, if not entirely with evident respect. In low power distance cultures ( North America, Western Europe) there is more equality and the operator has a say and in fact can be both the initiator and the user. Either way bosses have to get the work done by the User, so bosses are reluctant to upset Users. Worldwide, it is important that the User is on your side from the get go.

User: In a funny way ,the word “User” can be thought of for our purposes as”used to”. Users have become “used to” whatever they are currently using. In an organizational role whether it is a machine operator operating a machine, or finance folks using software, or teachers using a particular book.

There is inertia on part of the User because of three reasons:

  1. The User  is comfortable with the current system.
  2. The User  spent considerable time and effort trying to learn the existing product.
  3. The User  figured out ways how the User’s work output will fit into inputs for other people in the organization. This last one should not be underestimated. A financial software (eg. mortgage document processing software) might have certain fields that are “frozen” i.e. the headers can’t be changed. Also there might be limitations in size of the document that can be uploaded. Who wants learn all this for a new system? And who knows about unknown glitches?

Keep in mind that, if the organization buys your software – all the “real” work will need to be done by the User. This is after you have you had coffee or drinks with the CEO and played golf with all the various VP’s.

Now think of the User writing her annual performance report one year after they buy your product. Descriptions of how the User overcame software glitches does not look great on User’s annual self-performance review. Instead of hugely improving the User’s output (number of mortgage applications processed) the User  will need to admit that mortgage applications were slower because he/she was figuring out: how the new system works.

When reaching out to the User, marketing content should do the following:

1. Build awareness: The User should become aware about your product and should hear for the first time from the bosses. Social Media advertising is a great way of building this awareness.

2. Assure and deliver easy transition: Talk about how you will ensure a smooth transition from old to new. Consider  training support . In addition, you need genuine customer success resources including a “customer success specialist.” In fact, you should be constantly building on the User experience in engineering out User problems from the design of your product . This way your “customer success ” does not become mere “customer service”.  Customer service that is telephoning in with multiple “Press 1 for tech support, Press 2 for account details…”  is a nightmare that must be avoided.

3. Ensure User satisfaction-Make the User look great: The Users are a community. Machine operators know other machine operators from other companies and are friends offline and on social media. The goal is to make the User so happy that he/she posts positive experiences online.

The User is really the co-creator of value here. If the User uses the all the great features of your product – only then will the client organization see the awesome benefits of what you provide. To appreciate the gap between “features offered “and “features used” ask some people about their smart phone features. You’ll be surprised at the large number of folks who do not use  features like apps, calendars, games, social media, navigation, email on their smart phones.

In later posts we will discuss marketing content for each member of the buying center. About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

No surprise: Content marketing offline is really about trust

Offline Marketing-Customer Trust-StratoServe
When it comes to content online, authenticity and truth matter a lot for  search engine rankings (SEO) . Surprisingly there is some confusion about what “content” really means in offline dealings.

If you think about it, the whole “authenticity online” thing for SEO really comes from the physical world. The physical world of human-to-human interactions. In fact there is a  large body of academic research on trust and commitment in buyer seller relationships. See a previous post.

So where do businesses get their “offline content” i.e.customer  trust wrong?  Here are some questions for businesses to ask about their dealings:

  1. Does the customer understand what you will exactly do? It is good to spend time explaining what you will do for the customer. Long small print contracts are fine, but its a good idea to explain at least the common points of misunderstanding ahead of starting work. If you don’t have a lot of experience, just  Google for customer complaints in your industry. And you’ll always have a bunch of things you need to address upfront. The result is that the customer knows what to expect.
  2. What value will the customer receive? All your hard work is for nothing if the customer does not value the result she gets. Before starting work try to articulate what “value” means to a particular customer when the purchase value is large. Never loose sight of ensuring that the customer is indeed experiencing progress towards the value she expects.
  3. Are you communicating regularly? Communicating on a regular basis  is absolutely required- so that the customer is updated about any snags that you may have that is delaying the project. Surprisingly, customers are very understanding and are ready to forgive many shortcomings if you simply let them know – in advance.

However the biggest thing that works to promote customer trust is:

4. Do you have your customer’s back? That is are you looking after the customer’s interests? Without compromise? In law the idea is similar to  fiduciary duty and you’ll hear financial planners and many other professionals invoke the term in somber tones. Quite simply, are you (or your product or service) doing the job to the best of your ability? It doesn’t matter if you are a plumber or advertising agency or a hospital …. are you giving your best for the customer without the customer having to look over your shoulder?

This post might seem obvious, but we do hope it helps our dear readers understand “content” marketing better in both the online and offline world. About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.