For the C-Suite: 5 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Some of these may seem so fundamental to you and if they do, congratulations. Unfortunately, these mistakes at the C-Level are all too common…

Flip Flop – We are living in lightning speed times and the good thing about that is if you really make a blunder, you can pull the plug, reverse positions or reframe strategy very quickly. With that being said, the worst thing to do is to use this as a management practice.

 If your team has researched a position and developed a campaign strategy, let them execute it. Don’t dictate that email marketing is the Holy Grail because someone told you it was successful for them and when you don’t get the same results after the first week, switch to traditional ad placement as your new Holy Grail next week. This approach will not only continually fail as you are not giving any tactic long enough to take effect, but you will drive your marketing and sales team crazy. It is a fast way to go broke, lose good people and a sure straight line to never finding out what your businesses’ true marketing mix should be.

Go Back to Old Tricks – For the same reasons as above, “we are living in lightning speed times,” when you find yourself in a slump, don’t revert back to what worked when you first opened your doors. Many young businesses hit a slump somewhere between 7-10 years into business. What this usually means is that it is time for the leadership to assess, re-strategize and try a new approach. However, at this time many make the mistake of thinking that their business will be revived if they go back to the approach they used when they started the business. What many fail to see is that their business is not what is was when they started, their customer is far more sophisticated than when they started (and so is the competition) and the tools today are more vast than ever.

Let me relate this for a moment to raising a child. What worked to guide them as a one year old does not work when they are 13! In my own case, I can remember that only 12 years ago, I gave my young child a pager so we could keep track of her. The thought of using this tool in today’s world makes me laugh. Although it was a step up from the school bell my mother rang through the neighborhood when it was time for her flock to come in from playing and get washed up for dinner and do homework, it is an archaic electronic leash in consideration with what is available to parents today. Times have changed, the tools have changed and the market is more complicated.

Micromanage Creative Thinkers – If you are micromanaging marketing, creative or sales staff, you might as well fold up the tent now. Read, listen and learn what makes creative thinkers thrive. Even say the words out loud, “CREATIVE THINKERS”. They need to think – for themselves! Telling them what and how to do every aspect of their job will stifle them and short change your business from solving problems. It will also choke the organization and if you can’t get on board and embrace the positive in your creative thinkers, at least be smart enough to get out of their way and let them be creative, solve problems and make money for you. Most micromanagers are control freaks and I don’t mean that to be disrespectful. I want my accountant to be a control freak and maybe even have a little OCD ;) – so if you have ever been accused of this, step aside and exert your control by holding your creative thinkers  accountable for results. Success is what matters not micromanaging every step along the way.

 Management by Consensus – Listen, we all have our opinion and sometimes it is based on experience, words of wisdom past down from others or just our own deductive thought process, but there comes a time to voice it and move on. If you run the C-suite with the expectation that “nothing moves forward without consensus” then you are putting a huge cork in your company’s trajectory. Stop it! Allow everyone to voice an opinion. Input is healthy, good and often new ideas spin off of feedback but when decision time comes, let the most knowledgeable person on the topic be the decision maker. After all, they have to fly or die by the outcome of their decision. If you can’t trust them to make a decision in their area of expertise, then you have the wrong person in the job.

No Plan/No Budget – Many start ups, entrepreneurial environments and some corporate halls are run without budgets, plans or long term strategy. Fly by the seat of your pants is their MO. This might work and I have seen it work in the very early stages of a business. If you have success with this approach, it is luck. When you are at the point of hiring professional marketers, require and use a plan and budget. Don’t induce an “ask as you go” budget approval for each project or email campaign as you go. It is an inefficient and ineffective way to manage. At best, you will clog up decision making. At worst, you will not approve something that you should because you don’t understand the context in which the expense falls and asking your marketer to explain it to you , EACH TIME, is a waste of everyone’s time. Get a strategy and budget up front, approve it and hold your marketer accountable to produce against the expenditures. Demand ROI – don’t demand begging to spend every dollar.

Is Your Marketing Strategy Stuck in 2010? WARNING! It is almost Q2 of 2012

At times, I feel like a broken record, “Follow the data. Follow the data. Follow the data.” However, recently, this became so clear to me that I not only need to keep repeating this but perhaps I need to get a megaphone and blast it from the rooftops! “FOLLOW THE DATA!”

While reading a few articles, I ran across an old one in the related articles section that is often underneath blog or article postings. The topic was Digital Marketing Trends for 2010. On the top five recommendations were:

<!>SEO

<!>Paid Search

<!>Email Marketing

<!>Social Network Marketing

<!>Blogging

First of all, if it were only that easy... follow this recipe and you will be successful. I wish I could tell you it was that simple.

Secondly, not one word of the article referred to analytics on the front or back end of these activities. NOT ONE WORD!

Thirdly, I sadly realized that so many clients I talk to are STILL busy spending time, money and resources JUST STARTING to implement these strategies or at least becoming consistent with using them. And the DIY Email Marketing SaaS Providers make it look so easy, don’t they? Sigh….

So many caution alarms went off when I came to the realization of how prevalent and dated most businesses are in their Marketing. And, I am not bashing any of the above tactics as they all have their place and can be effective for some businesses. But they just ARE NOT a one-size-fits-all solution. Businesses continue doing them because of their perceived cost effectiveness. But, everyone wants an easy 1-2-3 Marketing Plan and Email Marketing and SM are deemed to be cheap - so a lot of focus is being spent on these two areas, regardless of whether or not it is currently producing results or not.

Please be warned that the above list is two years old and your customer, whether B2B or B2C, has become a lot more savvy and has much higher expectations today. Not to mention the C-Suite expects bottom line results – or else.

While poking around and doing research, I also read a fascinating article that offered information relaying that most buyers are 60-70% done with their buying research by the time they contact you. What does this mean? They are doing the DIY! They are looking through data, customer feedback, consumer reports, etc. before they decide who to contact to fulfill their needs.

So how do you influence this? Content and Data.  Provide content for the “DIYers” to devour about your product or service. Keep ON TOP of your SM outlets and take care of ANY negative comments/remarks as soon as they are posted. Praise and thank the positive posters.

Use the tactics above from 2010, there is nothing wrong with them; just be sure you are analyzing them and they are providing you the exposure, leverage, branding and ROI that they should.

It is almost Q2 of 2012 and you need to Market like it is. Are you stuck blindly following two year old advice and wondering why your sales are falling? Take charge and keep up with the current and upcoming trends in Marketing. Got mobile?  Never before have we lived in such an exciting time when technology can deliver us such exciting tools and possibilities. Embrace them - if the data shows they pay off ;)

Happy Marketing!

I could Not Have Written This Better... Bozo Alert

Is the company's management incompetent?

By

Margaret Heffernan

DEFINITELY READ THIS (link below).
IT COULD SAVE YOU AND OR YOUR COMPANY A LOT OF HEART ACHE AND POTENTIAL FINANCIAL DISASTER.

Bravo Margaret!

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57374500/is-the-companys-management-incompetent/?tag=nl.e713

What’s the Best Recession Strategy? Ostrich? Gimmick? Fold The Tent? Analysis?

What’s the best Recession strategy for your business? I can’t give you a one word answer, but I can tell you how to get to the exactly correct answer for your business.

Here are a few scenarios that I have encountered recently with several (rightfully so) frustrated entrepreneurs. Take a look and see if you can identify with any of these scenarios or traits and what you can do to help your business through these frigid waters.

The High End Product Start Up – As a person with higher educational degrees, this entrepreneur did all of the right research on his industry. He made all of the right supplier connections, developed smart and memorable branding and established the highest quality of customer service standards to cater to his high end clientele. With a (then) booming market, the target market for vanity/high end products was quite large. Then the market changed.

This entrepreneur is now struggling. As many providers have experienced, the  market for his product shrank (virtually) over night as the middle class found that they couldn’t afford the million dollar plus home they were living in, the cars they were driving, the clothes they were wearing nor the vanity products offered by this entrepreneur.

With the coffers of the business dwindling, this entrepreneur looked for the cheapest quick fix --- email marketing. This is a pattern many businesses , large and small, run to under situations like this. It seems to be the one size fits all alluring elixir that many count on when in trouble.

Having signed up with one of the many DIY email providers, this entrepreneur bought a large list and started emailing product offers. The product offer emails then turned into product “deal” emails and some sales came but the infrastructure established to cater to a high-end clientele was time consuming and costly and therefore the margins on the meager sales flipped the P&L upside down faster than you can say, “We’re in trouble”.

As illustrated, the Start Up Entrepreneur took the Gimmick route and as you can see, it did not pay off.

The Right Time, Right Place and Right Product Success Model – Looking for a way to make a living, a detail oriented woman started tinkering with some ideas from home and in the garage. Through hard work, building a network of others who were doing the same thing, this woman quickly moved from the garage to her own facility. Due to the “ground up” and “built from scratch” involvement from the beginning, this entrepreneur built a methodical manufacturing environment to ensure that her product came off the assembly line with an extremely low level of “rejects”. The product quality was very high.

Along with intimate knowledge and being the driving force in developing the product and manufacturing process, this entrepreneur entered the market place very early. Being a pioneer in the industry helped in building relationships, customer trust and a good symbiotic relationship of a feedback loop for receiving customer and colleague feedback.

Another benefit in favor of this entrepreneur was timing. There was (and is) a “green” element in her business and as Al Gore and others were beginning to really saturate the media with societies' need and responsibility as Earth’s citizens to be less wasteful and look for little and big ways that each of us can daily reduce waste. This entrepreneur was able to ride the wave of these high cost and impactful media campaigns launched by others without spending a dime. The beauty of scenarios like this is that in this example, the “sell” for this entrepreneur was made much easier as she pitched her product because of the millions of dollars spent by others impressing people to “go green”.  Had these millions of dollars not been spent and the road paved for buyers to be open to “green” products, the road to success would have been much harder. But as luck would have it, she was able to make the most of the “spend” of others and build her business faster than may have happened without the “Al Gores” of the world making us think about being more “green”.

As often happens, even though this entrepreneur had the idea before the “green” movement campaigns were airing everywhere, others saw this opportunity to exploit the situation and therefore, in entered the competition. Thankfully, due to her intimate knowledge of her industry, product and a deep commitment to quality, she was able to outlive many of the competitors. Today, she is one of the few early entry players to still be in business.

So far, this is a great success story as the business not only survived, but it thrived and grew. But then, as often happens in profitable niche markets, a big player with big backers entered the marketplace. Instead of knocking out the competition, they began buying them up. Many of the pioneers were beginning to struggle and the offer to sell and get out was a pleasant relief to them so they took it.  

Now the game has changed. Whereas before the financial playing field was relatively even with the competition. Now the playing field was uneven. It was a David and Goliath situation. The entrepreneur recognized this competition and was aware of its maneuvers but was certain that her successful strategies in the past of delivering a high quality product, continuous product development and caring relationships with their customers and vendors would continue to keep this business from being impacted by the monster sized competitor. Simultaneously, more start ups entered the market and the economy fell into a Recession. Now what?

Her response to this complicated situation was to continue to do what she had always done. She worked day by day, focusing on building and delivering products and the result was a superior product but a drastic decline in sales. The Ostrich had entered the building.

 Stay the Same or Expand?

A small town tavern with “comfort foods”, those found mostly at amusement parks, wasn’t thriving but they were servicing their customers - who by the way came to this facility to do sports activities. The tavern was not losing its shorts but it wasn’t thriving. Could they improve it – YES! Could they leave it alone- YES! The owner entered into an agreement with a partner who specialized in the food business. This partner had their own vision of what she wanted the “tavern-style” eatery to evolve into. As the “new vision” was implemented, it was not supported by the mainstream customers nor the surrounding neighborhood. The reasons for that were complicated, but the bottom line was a round peg was being shoved into a square hole. All of the things that the past patrons enjoyed about the tavern disappeared and they were swiftly replaced with unreasonable customer un-friendly policies and procedures that left a poor taste in patrons’ mouths (in more ways than one). The sales never went above the red line. It never even reached flat-lined. This business was a corpse now.  They deployed both techniques above, Gimmicks and Ostrich. Through legal maneuverings, the deal was nullified and the tavern control came back to the facility management. As it stands now, the tavern is limping along. It is not as it was and it is not what it was tried to be turned into. In effect, they have Folded Up The Tents and are not fiscally where they were before nor in the red as they became, so I will leave it to you to decide if they “won”.

Now What?

I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, by I haven’t posed a bad scenario for Analysis. Now, believe me, I have been in bureaucratic establishments and I know ALL too well about analysis paralysis and I’m not a fan. I am a fan of thoughtful, well organized and key indicator business reviews which often lead to a business re-set so that the business can face the new challenges that it is currently dealing with as well as be flexible enough to adapt to the changes to come.

Please keep these lessons in mind:

·        Your original business plan may have produced success but it may not carry you through market changes.

·        Quick fixes and Gimmicks rarely work. They are designed to have a very short LTV (lifetime value). By design they use a blitz media and advertising approach, make their money and then Fold Up the Tent and laugh all the way to the bank – until they come up with the next Gimmick.

·        Reach out to a third party who only has your best interests in mind. Don’t hire a “yes person”. Expect to hear things you don’t like, but if the business plan is sound, the proper analysis was done and the key success indicators were reviewed – Go ahead and re-tool your business for continued success. All long-lived American establishments have done it so it might be good enough for you too ;)

I’ll give you one example who missed the boat…Sears. They will sadly go by the waste side because they didn’t monopolize the Holiday market as they once had with the Wish Book. This was something ever kid in America waited for to come in the mail. Millions of kids dog eared pages, circled items for their wish list with crayons, pens and pencils and hoped they’d been good enough that year to get at least ONE THING from the Wish Book. Instead, they eliminated it. They never really embraced online shopping and they  buried their heads in their brick and mortar buildings. They underestimated the Wish Book and the love  that kids have developed for technology. Had they re-tooled their business to build an online “Wish Book” and put it online for a sign up audience only, they may have had Black Fridays that kept them afloat. (Disclaimer: this is just an educated guess as I have not reviewed or analyzed their business model thoroughly*wink*)

Take a step back and be open to someone who cares about your success as much as you do.

If I can help you at all please contact me at mary.mussard@yahoo.com.

  

Do You Have Enough Sensing and Intuitive Types in Your Business to Succeed? An Important Question Every Business Leader Should be Asking Themselves as We Face Daunting Challenges in 2012

A very good writer, technologist and a real smart guy who I am just very lucky to call a friend wrote a very compelling blog titled, “What Happens When You Put 1 and 1 Together?”  

With his permission, I am reposting it below for your reading,  contemplation  and hopefully some assistance as you plan for the formidable issues facing our world, our country, our economy and our businesses as we have known them in the past.

Before and after you read his blog, ask yourself, “Do You Have Enough Sensing and Intuitive Types in Your Business to Succeed?”

Enjoy!

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2011

Q: What happens when you put 1 and 1 together?

A: Depends on the type of personality you ask.

To my observation there are two types of people in the world. The first type conceptualizes that when you put 1 and 1 together, you get 2. The second type accommodates the notion that put 1 and 1 together, you get 11.

If you bang around a Meyers-Briggs lexicon of psychological types, you'll find that the first type is called a Sensing type. These folks rely upon the concrete facts to understand the world. The second type is called an Intuitive personality. For them, reality is a Big Picture in which the given experience is but an episode in a larger story.

For Sensing folks the role of language is to describe the world. For Intuitive folks the role of language is to express the world. Sensing folks ask, "How does it work?" Intuitive folks ask "Does it work?" For the Sensing folks, the beauty is in the balance sheet. For the Intuitive type, the beauty is.

When it comes to commerce, the Sensing type understands a very important fact: A business that does not make money,  ain't. If the dollar amount attached to Accounts Receivable is not greater than the dollar amount of Accounts Payable, even the mightiest of businesses has a problem. And, if the problem goes on long enough, the business has a Big Problem. Profitability is acutely describable, always has been, always will be. As any Captain of Industry will tell you, profitability is best handled by Sensing folks.

Still, there is a whole world out there that cannot be described with words: explaining the color, red to a blind man or the sound of a chirping bird to one who is deaf. The only description is the experience itself. This is the world of the Intuitive. One just knows what it is.

Intuitive people experience a thing as part of a past, present and future whole. These are the people that see a ski and motorcycle and imagine a snowmobile. They see two cans tied together by a string and imagine computers talking to one another via an Ethernet cable. Give an Intuitive person a good cup of coffee, put him or her in front of sales force and you have a chain of Starbucks.

Businesses that last need both Sensing and Intuitive folks. Yet, it seems that as a business matures, the power bias moves to the Sensing. Profitability, while essential, becomes paramount. Success is known more as a measurable quantity rather than a state of experience. Creativity, the de-facto realm of the Intuitive folk and the indescribable soul of an enterprise, becomes a transient commodity purchased from Ad Agencies that have a proven track record of staying on budget while increasing sales and market share. The transformation is not one of nefarious premeditation intent on sucking the life blood of originality from the corporate environment. Rather, to paraphrase an often used term, "it's just Sensing being Sensing." 

So what's the point here? My point is this: If you are a reader that happens to have hire and fire power in your enterprise and also happens to be very good at understanding and defining profitability, when you look about your direct reports, how many people do you see that can accept that when you put 1 and 1 together, 11 is a plausible, if not useful result? If it's not half, you might be in some very real trouble.

CMO? CDO? - Unfilled Senior Posts Because of Role Confusion or Lack of Understanding?

I read an article yesterday that stated that there are six major American Companies with CMO openings that have remained unfilled for over six months and in some cases up to 18 months. 

Say What?

The primary reason cited was that the CEOs and/or Boards of Directors of these various companies were wrestling with the concept of, “What is a CMO in today’s multi-media world?”  And, in some cases, the debate goes so far as to suggest that the CMO position could be outdated?

Say What?

In this day of ever growing use of Digital Media, there is apparently a debate in Corporate America whether Marketing is still a primary component of senior leadership. Some are even asking if the Marketing Role has been replaced by a more digital one, now coined a CDO?

Huh?

I help my clients who are mostly medium sized businesses utilize the best practices in the digital world. Often I find myself explaining (repeatedly) that digital tactics: email, paid search, analytics, etc. ARE NOT the end-all-be all answer to successfully marketing a company with a guaranteed high ROI.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy?

By the nature of this position being a C-Level role, it requires leadership, knowledge and specialized experience that no other leader in an organization possesses. So this is where I get confused -- Why on earth would a CEO, Board of Directors or any other non-Marketing executive try to define a role that is so specialized, especially in light of the influx, inclusion and  full impact of digital tactics on the palette? But I want to be clear that it is a palette. As similar as a variety of colors are to an artists, the variety of tactics available to the CMO are critical to leading an organization to success. A multi-channel approach always has been and always will be the healthiest and most agile formulation for a successful marketing program; regardless of the type of company. I’ve never understood why anyone would think that limiting their company’s options is a good idea. So why would you say that marketing is now only to be done via Digital Channels?

Say What?

I’ve addressed the Marketing role and its fundamental relationship and responsibility with Operations and Technology. If you’ve read them before, you might find them interesting to peruse again with this new info about the confusion of Digital tactics and whether or not they replace Marketing. If you haven’t read them before, you might see why I feel so strongly about Marketing as an integral C-Level position that must remain intact for businesses of all sizes to succeed and flourish.

CMO and CIO Mutually Exclusive Until Recently? Really? I Say Look Up A Ring in the Ladder! http://justaskmary.blogspot.com/2010/12/cmo-and-cio-mutually-exclusive-until.html

CMOO – Fad or Fabulous? http://justaskmary.blogspot.com/2011/03/cmoo-fad-or-fabulous.html

   

Are You Managing your OB? Or, is it Managing You?

There are many things a leader has to worry about, especially in today’s business climate. What I encourage you not to overlook is your OB – Organizational Behavior. It can literally get out in front of you and if it does, it has the power to “make you or break you”. (This kind of reminds me of that saying, “I’m not afraid of what I know. It is what I don’t know that scares me to death.”)

I have worked for so many organizations that I have seen a lot. I’m never going to say that I’ve seen ‘it all’ because occasionally I am still shocked, but I’ve seen enough. (And later, I will write about the categories of these cultures and the pros and cons to each.)

With most leaders focused only on the bottom line these days, often the ‘softer skill set’ of business activities can fall to the back of the line. And, I understand this situation, but I caution you to incorporate thought, planning and most of all sound, well thought out communication to your employees about how much they matter to everyone’s success – the business’s and each individual’s success. Study after study show that the majority of employees want to do the right thing. Set an environment where they can.

 Job satisfaction is the number one reason employees stay with a company. And, even though the economy is rough, employees have long memories and you don’t want the best you have to go the minute the opportunity arises and the job opportunities gate floods open again. (In some regions, this is already occurring.)

Also, if you are currently in a position to be hearing nothing: no grumbling, no praises, no nothing from your workforce, don’t be mistaken and think you are in the clear. Quite to the contrary, you are probably in deep trouble.

Design communication and activities both formal and informal that portray your organization’s appreciation and desire for feedback on how things are going in your business. Many companies tout the age old adage of an “open door policy”. Then when a brave employee does walk through that door and either gets blasted for their feedback or ideas, receives defensive justification for why things are the way they are and/or gets placated to, the employee will share their disappointing experience with others and it will spread like wildfire through your organization. Then, that open door will stay open and no one else will dare walk through it. (And by the way when I say that the employee gets blasted, you all know I mean the subtle blasting or blackballing that goes on after the employee leaves the room *wink*.)

Instead, if you have an open door policy, truly listen, take notes and ask for the employee’s ideas on how to solve the problem (if problems are the topic.) Then promise to get back to that employee. And when you do, it doesn’t mean you have to do whatever they say or suggest, just follow through with courtesy and get back to them and truly thank them for sharing their ideas and concern for the business with you. Let them know you appreciate their ideas. This too will spread like wildfire.

There’s so much more to cover on this topic but the main message I want to get across, based upon a recent conversation with a client who has neglected her OB too long, is to don’t let it slide. Get ahead of your organizational behavior planning and execution. Listen, I know it is hard – but it is truly imperative to your success. If you are foreign to this topic, take a class and learn more on the topic. It is powerful and it can not only help you survive this recession but it can help you to thrive once it is over – some are thriving through it because of it.

I have often mentioned one of my two very favorite professors at UCLA Anderson Graduate School before, but if you need help in this area, this is THE GUY to contact. Dr. Eric Flamholtz.

Good luck to you and remember as the leader, you have a vast and large role to play but you are up to the task.

Mary