Branding and search engine marketing morality Business Feet, UK - One search engine marketing technique is to bid on a competitor's branded terms, so that a search for their name will bring up your company in the results ... |
Friday, August 15, 2008
Branding and search engine marketing morality - Business Feet
Council OKs $60K for Visitor Promotions (Brookings Daily Register)
By way of a 7-0 vote, the Brookings City Council this week approved giving the city Visitor Promotions Committee an extra $60,000 for 2009, most of which members say will be used to pay for a community-branding project.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Google CEO Tells Jim Cramer “I never worry about Microsoft” [Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim]
Just days after we suggested that Google should perhaps hire financial guru Jim Cramer, who should turn up on Cramer’s Mad Money show? None other than the Google CEO Eric Schmidt!
No talk of a job offer for Cramer, but Schmidt did answer a bunch of questions. The VentureBeat guys have a great summary and transcript [...]
Distribution channels for services: Big ideas, big payoffs
Last week James talked about the unglamorous but important topic of distribution channels. It’s one of the “4 Ps” (“placement”), but many marketers and smaller companies don’t think about it as often as they should. And it’s potentially the most important strategy in your arsenal.
When you sell a physical product, it’s easy to keep distribution strategy and channels at the top of the priority list. You may have a direct sales team, a network of resellers & VARs, a retail presence, a catalog and/or an e-commerce website.
But what about distribution options for intangibles like services?
Most service firms in the U.S. are small businesses under $1 million in revenue. Many are caught in the E-Myth -- the founders are working in the business with little time to work on the business. And when you’re stuck in the E-Myth, it’s tough to find time to lead your company to hyper-growth.
For these businesses, a new distribution channel can be just the ticket. The opportunities may not be obvious, but they’re there when you apply your creativity.
Here are some key questions to get you started:
1. List other products or services your customers use.
- What problem are your customers trying to solve when they buy from you?
- Are there complementary services or products that come before or after they join you?
- What else may be on your decisionmaker’s plate at the time they buy from you?
2. Find organizations who already have access to your prospects. Think broadly about
- Media they consume (online content, podcasts, industry publications, newspapers, etc.)
- Services they subscribe to
- Consultants or vendors they work with
- Companies they buy from regularly
- Organizations they belong to
- Events they attend
The organizations you’ve listed are potential distribution partners or channels for you!
Here are a few case studies to inspire you as well.
Strategy #1: Buck tradition
Logoworks uses a non-traditional distribution strategy for their industry with enormous success.
There are thousands of graphic designers & firms in every city. They compete for the same business and it’s difficult to gain leverage over their time.
Instead of setting up shop and knocking on local doors, Logoworks distributes their design services via the internet. They use search engine marketing (both organic and paid search), online ad campaigns and ongoing online publicity to gain clients all over the world. It’s possible for them because they also distribute their product – logo designs – via the web.
This distribution strategy also gives them a more compelling value proposition: operational efficiency. By using a pool of virtual designers, Logoworks is able to provide clients multiple design options at a much lower cost than a traditional firm.
Their internet distribution model has been extremely successful, and this spring, H-P acquired the company. Why? H-P wants to use the Logoworks offering as a value-add to their small-business customers.
That’s a smart distribution strategy.
Strategy #2: Hang out with your customers
Here’s another distribution option: partner with a company whose customers need your service.
Let’s say you’re launching a new tech support service. You could knock on doors and market your services locally. Or you could raise millions and spend it on marketing, physical locations and overhead.
Instead, Geek Squad partnered with Best Buy to offer their services right inside their stores. When Best Buy sells a computer, customers know that Geek Squad can service it if they have any problems. They even promote the Geek Squad brand in the parking lot.
This partnership was so successful that Best Buy acquired Geek Squad in 2002.
Companies that create software widgets can find great success partnering with bigger software companies that have a critical mass of users.
Jigsaw founders Jim Fowler and Garth Mouton were a pair of high-tech sales pros frustrated with the amount of time they spent searching for contact information. So they created Jigsaw, an online directory of more than five million business cards.
Now they needed access to salespeople, so they joined Salesforce.com’s App Exchange program, offering their service to any Salesforce user.
Salesforce.com is a major distribution channel for Jigsaw, giving them access to tens of thousands of potential customers.
They’re now one of the 10 top App Exchange applications.
How about a non-technical case study? Consider all of the vendors who provide service via Home Depot.
When you hand over your credit card for granite countertops, flooring or a new garage door, you don’t have to DIY. Home Depot will sell you installation services if you need them, but they don’t provide those services directly.
Instead, they have teams of subcontractors in each market to perform those jobs. Home Depot is a distribution partner for those contractors, giving them access to a large pool of customers who need their services right now.
Get serious about distribution!
Developing a new distribution strategy, then creating and managing the program can be tough work – particularly if you’re a service company with limited resources.
But if you’re looking for new ways to gain leverage and build your business, take a serious look at your distribution strategy. You can start small with a single partnership and work up from there.
Still reading? I must have hit on something valuable! How does your company think about distribution? Have you considered new strategies in the last year? What’s worked and what hasn’t? Please share your thoughts in the comment area below.
Technorati tags: marketing | sales | distribution channels | B2B | business
SmartTalk Media Announces New Investors, Major Corporate Re ... - MarketWatch
SmartTalk Media Announces New Investors, Major Corporate Re ... MarketWatch - The Menkes will roll out SmartTalk's new branding initiative designed to strengthen the brand identity. Notably, due to the huge demand of the previous ... |
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
SC junks petition vs refusal to summon Arroyo on NBN scandal (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines -- Branding it “premature,” the Supreme Court dismissed a petition to order the Office of the Ombudsman to reverse its refusal to summon President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to its investigation of the scandal-tainted $329-million national broadband network (NBN) deal.
72 Hours Only! 30% Off ANY MarketingSherpa Report [Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim]
MarketingSherpa is moving offices and they don’t want to move boxes and boxes of handbooks and guides. Instead, they’re offering Marketing Pilgrim readers 30% off any of their reports!
For the next 72 hours (clock started at 8am EST) you can pick up great reports at a huge discount.
Definitely worth considering:
B-to-B Lead Generation Handbook
2008 Email Marketing [...]
How Do You Drive Offline Revenue With Online Services? Build a ... - MarketWatch
How Do You Drive Offline Revenue With Online Services? Build a ... MarketWatch - "The Golden Tee Community Toolbar was the missing link for Golden Tee's branding strategy. We love this tool because it helps us increase interaction with ... |
How logo designerslose their marbles (Bangkok Post - Thailand's English news)
They are at the centre of branding. They are used to brand companies, countries, cults and religions. They build relationships with consumers. They are the most valuable properties in the world.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Distribution channels - not sexy, but smart
Distribution channels have become the least glamorous strategy in the B2B marketing portfolio. Who writes about building channels, nurturing partners and channel performance?
I feel grizzled just tackling this subject. Social media, search marketing and new media are the topics with heat even in the B2B crowd (a small group compared to consumer marketers, I might add). Frankly, there’s been nothing new or exciting to say about distribution strategy for many years.
Many marketers in established companies don’t give much thought to distribution strategy. Maybe it’s because they think of distribution as the movement of a physical product from one place to another.
Or maybe it’s because distribution is a strategy that’s only discussed in the executive suite, and marketers often don’t have a seat at that table. Maybe it’s just because it’s rare to find new case studies and stories about innovative channel design and management.
A key marketing strategy
But distribution strategy (one of the “4 Ps”, BTW) is perhaps the most important weapon in your arsenal. Great distribution strategy and execution can dramatically boost your top line. A poorly-performing channel can do the opposite.
For many B2B service firms (including SaaS companies like us who don’t physically distribute a product), “channels” are somewhat intangible and take creativity to apply. For example, you can create a private-label version of your service and offer it to large partners to offer to their customers. Or you can create a packaged offering where you join forces with other companies to offer a larger suite of services.
We’ll write more about creating channels for service companies in our next post. Today I’m focusing on improving an existing channel using H-P’s PC division as an example.
H-P versus Dell
While H-P used to own the #1 spot in the PC market, Dell took over the top spot in 2003. Dell’s direct distribution model became the envy of all PC manufacturers and made them a darling on Wall Street (and a case study for all MBA students). Christopher Lawton’s post for the Wall Street Journal provides great detail about H-P’s fall and strategy to regain the top spot.
It started in 2005 when H-P CEO Mark Hurd hired Todd Bradley to run its PC business. Bradley quickly found out that H-P was concentrating resources where Dell was strong: in direct sales over the internet and phone.
More importantly, in focusing in head-to-head competition with Dell, H-P was neglecting its retail stores. Bradley found a slew of problems:
- Late and incomplete deliveries
- Strained partner relations
- No marketing focus (the printer division handled PC marketing)
H-P’s research also showed that 58% of PC buyers had no preference whether they bought a PC in a store or online.
Let the plum tree wither for the peach
So instead of fighting a losing battle online, Bradley shifted H-P’s focus to a battle it could win: in the retail distribution channel.
Bradley immediately began repairing relations with retailers, freshened designs to appeal to retail buyers, formed the PC’s own marketing group, upped his retail outlet marketing budget, and designed new campaigns targeted to the retail buyers.
Some of his campaigns such as “The Computer is Personal Again” with rapper Jay-Z and fashion designer Vera Wang alarmed H-P employees, who felt Bradley was too focused on consumer PCs, ignoring corporate business.
He shrugged off the criticism. “I wasn’t holding an election.”
The results? H-P’s retail outlet strategy vaulted it back to the undisputed world lead in personal computer sales.
When you’re losing marketing share, shifting the battle to one you can win might work for you. (It’s one of the 36 Stratagems of ancient China: Let the plum tree wither in place of the peach.)
Six ways to improve your channel’s performance
If you need to improve your channel performance like H-P, here are six things you can do to improve your top line.
1. Make it a priority. Devote resources to channel management – preferably at least one dedicated manager whose sole responsibility is to manage those relationships and build the marketing programs to drive revenue through the channel.
2. Develop measurements and track performance. Know who your best sales performers are at each point in the channel. By tracking orders, volume and total revenue at each point, you can identify and improve underperforming partners and keep your top performers happy.
3. Communicate! Build relationships at each step of your channel. If you’re not talking with your partners, how can you identify problems and solve them? And how will you know whether your programs are working and how to make them better?
4. Drive revenue through the channel. Take ownership of the marketing campaigns that will drive revenue at all levels through the channel. Your partners have to focus on building their own customer base, not marketing just your product (remember that you’re not the only solution they offer).
5. Avoid pricing conflicts. Establish a pricing strategy and stick to it. If channel conflict arises because of price, attempt to resolve it ASAP.
6. Address conflicts swiftly. Since distrust and channel conflict is common, it’s important to address problems quickly to find a solution.
After writing this, it’s even clearer to me why there’s no buzz about channels. Building and managing traditional channels isn't glamorous and requires a lot of elbow grease. But even though channels have little sizzle in the marketing mix, they’re a big piece of the steak.
In our next post we’ll share ideas for applying the channel concept in a B2B service business. And as always, please share your thoughts and questions via the comments below!
Technorati tags: marketing | sales | strategy | B2B | business
Successful Brand Repositioning - Branding Strategy Insider
Successful Brand Repositioning Branding Strategy Insider, FL - You follow the same steps and address the same brand design components when repositioning a brand as you do when first designing the brand. ... |
Monday, August 11, 2008
Report: Longview branding evaluation (The Daily News)
The cities of Longview and Kelso recently hired a Seattle-based marketing firm to evaluate the cities through the eyes of a stranger.
Logic + Emotion, In Your Pocket. [Logic+Emotion]
I've optimized this blog for mobile consumption. If you're interested in getting it on your phone as something you can bookmark, point your mobile browser to http://armano.mofuse.mobi. One of things that consistently amazes me about the evolution of digital is...
Getting talent on the bus
It’s always challenging to recruit top talent for your team.
If you’re an early stage company, it’s even tougher. You need extremely talented people who share your passion and vision, are willing to work longer hours, carry more responsibility, in a less defined position, and for less cash than your established competitors.
Even if you’re an established small or mid-market company, you still need to differentiate yourself against well-known companies.
In Good to Great, Jim Collins explains that great companies get the right people on the bus before they decide where to drive. When you have the best people on your team, you have more opportunities, experience and insight on where the bus should go. And even if you take a wrong turn, the right people can help you turn around and find your way.
Finding extraordinary talent takes special effort. You’re looking for the best and you have a lot of competition for their time and talent. You need to position and brand your company to your prospective employees.
Yes, recruiting is all about marketing! And Simona Covel of the Wall Street Journal ran a piece last week about an incredibly creative recruiting campaign that should inspire every company looking for top talent.
Red 5 Studios, an online videogame startup in southern California, was frustrated with traditional recruiting strategies. So CEO Mark Kern decided to market directly to his top prospects.
They started by creating a list of 250 top videogame developers (“It starts with Google, and then you branch out from there,” said Kern). Then they spent 4 months whittling their list to 100 of the best and brightest.
Red 5 created five Russian doll-in-doll-style nested boxes and put an iPod Shuffle in the smallest box – and it was engraved with the candidate’s name.
Even better, Red 5 had loaded a custom message from Kern. He spoke directly to the candidates about their past work and invited them to visit the Red 5 website to learn more about their “golden ticket” opportunity.
Needless to say, candidates were blown away, and three of them joined Red 5 within four months (another one is interviewing). And Red 5 got a lot of attention for their campaign, raising their profile in the industry, landing them in the Wall Street Journal, and increasing their total resume flow tenfold.
Total cost for this campaign? $50K. And while you may not have that kind of budget, you can use a similar creative approach to find your next superstar:
1. Define your target market. A good list is the greatest success factor for any campaign. Why not create a list of potential candidates for your position?
2. Craft your message. Why should candidates get excited about your opportunity? What’s in it for them? Create messages that will make them feel special and want to talk with you.
3. Design your creative. You don’t need to create a five-piece Russian box with an engraved iPod, but do think of another creative execution that will grab attention and convey your brand in the process.
4. Budget based on your projected return. Any form of recruiting is expensive, particularly when you need to engage a specialized search firm. So project your response rates and expected number of hires. Then determine what each hire is worth to you. This projection will tell you how much to budget for the campaign.
Consider the additional long-term and publicity benefits you may gain as well … remember that Red 5 increased their total resume flow tenfold and got worldwide press coverage, which will produce returns for years to come.
5. Shape your call to action. Make sure you end with a strong one – get prospects to contact you now. And make it easy for them to respond quickly without major commitment. If you make them send an updated resume with a cover letter to your HR team, prospects may not respond quickly. Remember that you’re going after them for a reason, so get the dialogue rolling!
6. Execute! Make sure your interviewing process lives up to the promises you’ve made. You want to maintain the enthusiasm and momentum, then make offers and close deals.
Finding great people is no different than finding great customers. This time you’re selling your company, your vision and your opportunities, not your product.
This time, you’re selling a ticket for a bus ride. All aboard!
PS – Check out these 10 great recruiting tips from Guy Kawasaki, including how you should hire better than yourself to avoid the Bozo Explosion!
Technorati tags: marketing | recruiting | sales | B2B | business
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Look Who's Talking (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
About a year ago, the only people clicking onto Eisenmanagementgroup.com to hear founder Rodger Roeser's Webcast interviews with marketing, branding and public relations experts were friends and family. As "That Marketing Show" enters its third season, listenership is about 20,000. Another 40,000 people have asked to be alerted by e-mail when the next show airs, he said. Roeser, who plans to ...
Dr. J Takes His Dr. Pepper on the Rocks [Adrants]
Dr. J puts a little throwback spice into Dr. Pepper with "Drink it Slow" by Deutsch/LA, part of Dr. Pepper's just-launched campaign, "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor."
Your brand lives in your sales team
Have you ever considered firing your star salesperson??
I thought not.
Yet that’s just what the CEO of Anthropologie did. It’s one of the great stories in “Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win” by William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre.
We’ve talked about hiring sales reps that live & breathe your brand. They connect with your market every day. And when they don't personally convey your brand personality, they negate your entire brand strategy and competitive positioning strategy.
Great companies are original and different, say the authors. They have a strong purpose and cause that they live and breathe every day.
CEO Glen Senk has helped grow Anthropologie (a women's apparel and accessories retailer) from one location and $2 MM in annual revenue in 1994 to 77 stores and $500 MM in 2005. He’s achieved this success in part by focusing on their passion and sticking to their cause.
Here’s how Senk describes their brand:
“Our customers are our friends, and what we do is never, ever, ever about selling to them. It’s about helping people put together a wardrobe or create an eclectic home. It’s about helping someone look great and feel good about themselves. It’s never about the quick sale.”
Back to the star salesperson. She consistently sold $6,000-$7,000 of merchandise daily. Her store had an incredible day whenever she was on the floor.
But Senk watched her in action and made a discovery: she didn’t really care what she was selling. She just wanted to make the sale.
“She let people walk out of the dressing room with things that simply didn’t look good,” Senk explained.
He fired her immediately. She wasn’t treating customers as her friends.
Anthropologie has a clear brand personality and believes their employees must radiate that brand. No exceptions. And it’s hard to argue with their success.
In many B2B companies, people are the brand and the ONLY differentiator. Sales reps, account managers, customer service and support teams all shape the customer experience. And that makes it even MORE important to hire team members that live & breathe your brand promise!
Have you experienced this in your business? Any recommendations or thoughts for our readers? Please share your thoughts in the comments lbelow.
For more great ideas, here’s the book on Amazon. You can also download a free manifesto at the Mavericks at Work website.
Technorati tags: business | marketing | sales | Mavericks at Work | B2B | Anthropologie
Advertising, Branding and Interactive Agency The UXB Wins 12 ... - MarketWatch
Advertising, Branding and Interactive Agency The UXB Wins 12 ... MarketWatch - The UXB is an integrated advertising, branding and interactive agency specializing in addressing both specific strategic and tactical techniques to build ... |
Saturday, August 9, 2008
A fresh start in the Highlands (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Though it might seem an odd coincidence that La Que replaced another herb-infused eatery, the Lemongrass Cafe, it's no coincidence at all. Whatever the reason for the change, it's all for the good. So far the re-branding has heralded a return to form. The new restaurant offers dirt-cheap but nicely executed Chinese-American, Thai and Vietnamese food.
Pagealizer Helps You Monitor and Improve Web Page Effectiveness [CenterNetworks]
Pagealizer is a new startup that aims to help create more effective Web pages by providing details on how site visitors are currently utilizing specific pages. The service reminds me of CrazyEgg for the click heatmaps and ClickTale for the time and scroll analysis.
Pagealizer tracks time spent on a given page, where users clicked on the page, and how far down on the page users scrolled. Pagealizer points out that Nielsen is now using "time spent" as a metric and by optimizing pages to increase the time users spend on them, you can increase your reportable metrics.
I found Pagealizer easy-to-setup and the charts (shown above) easy to read. I like the comparison of time to click with page visit length. Page scroll distance can give content creators an excellent view into whether users are reading the full content. For ecommerce sites, the page scroll can tell you whether vital information needs to be shifted on the page.
Pagealizer offers a freemium pricing model and while normally I think startups give too much free, Pagealizer has a good mix of free and paid. The free model allows you to track 200 visits a month. Pricing ranges from $9-49/month depending on usage and SSL options. One interesting note, no matter which plan you select, Pagealizer will always show you the most current users for the selected plan. Most other services give you the first x users until you hit your limit.
More CN Coverage:
-- Docstoc
-- Scribd
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