I have moved

Just wanted to let everyone know that I have moved my blog and made considerable updates to it.

http://orcmarketing.wordpress.com

See you there

My Marketing Sucks... Where Do I Start?

Many organizations' marketing efforts either do not exist or produce sub optimal results. There are many reasons for this.  For purpose of this post, we will start by looking at what organizations should to if their marketing efforts consist of hiring sales representatives and hoping that they have a book of business and can close deals.  Unfortunately this is a common practice and most often ends with a couple of superstar sales reps staying with the company for years and the rest falling to the wayside.

Any company (whether new or not) that does not have a real marketing department needs to start by doing 4 things:

• Identify what industry will best be able to find benefit in their product
• Identify the best list of target companies that can afford to buy the product
• Identify who within the target companies will use the product
• Define the most cost effective strategy of communicating value to the final user

Notice that I use certain words, like value, benefit, user.  Marketing is about communicating value.  Business is about providing additional value to a user.  No one will buy a product if they do not see an additional value or benefit for using it.  Great product capabilities, or functionality is not enough.  Google+ is an example that is very relevant.  Google+ offers a number of features that Facebook does not, but so far most people are not deactivating their Facebook accounts for Google+.  The issue of creating and communicating value is the most important issue to understand and master in marketing.  It doesn't matter if you are cold calling, spamming or going door-to-door, you have to provide additional value to the potential customer and communicate it well.  

The next thing on the list is identifying what industry your product will fit in the best.  If your company makes widgets designed for hospitals you may not want to be marketing to the Automotive industry. (Okay, that was an extreme example, but the lesson is the same).  Finding these markets, verticals or targets is not always easy.  I worked for a company that offered so many different software packages that it was very confusing.  Package A, with Feature D&M were best for Industry A, but Package D with Feature A&Z was best for Industry K - huh?

This was so complicated that the majority of the time the Lead Generation Reps would call a company on their list and try to talk to executives on a cold call to try and learn what they were looking for, and then find that package that best fit them - this is putting the cart before the horses!  A better way is to have a clearly defined list of features aligned with industry pains and trends.

Make no mistake about it, finding and understanding these pains and trends are extremely difficult and aligning them to your product is also hard.    If you are a small firm and just starting, you probably have an idea already and the next exercise can help to materialize what you and your team have in your heads into usable knowledge.  The Five Product Levels consists of the following levels:

1. Core Benefit:  What is the most basic benefit that my product offers?
2. Basic Product: What is the most basic form of my product that produces the core benefit?
3. Expected Product:What does the buyer expect from the product?
4. Augmented Product: How does the product exceed the expectations of the user?
5. Potential Product: What could our product be in the future?

These questions can give you a start.  Translating the answers into marketable material will take a little bit of creativity.  There are so many channels to use to push you value proposition to the world that is daunting at times.  My advice is choose one (or two), and master that.  Make sure it is measurable and produces results - quickly!  If your product is truly complicated, in a big-boy industry and selling to corporate giants cold calling can work. Just be sure to train your lead generation reps to get an interested contact on the phone with a knowledgeable and experienced sales rep as soon as possible.  Email marketing may work if you are smaller, but I would not start sending spam to corporations - their firewalls are too good to produce results.  Webinars can be fun, but it is really hard to make sure you have the right people there unless you cold call and personal invite each one.  Doing that, negates the need for a webinar because if there is any interest it is better to do a personalized one.

So, true to the nature of business, there are always more questions than answers.  Good executives are good, not because they have all of the answers, but because they can find them and figure out complex problems.  If your marketing sucks your activities and value proposition is most likely not aligned with what the market is looking for.  Figure that our (Product, Market Need, Value) and then realign and your results will improve.  If they don't, you should be working in marketing.

Stereotypes Are Bad! Or Are They???

It is generally known that stereotypes are bad. We are taught as young children and we teach our children that stereotypes are bad. As an undergrad at Keene State College, I majored in Social Science with an emphasis on Sociology. As you can imagine, I spent many semesters trying to understand the root causes of many stereotypes and how they were unfairly and unjustly applied to individuals and groups of individuals. It wasn't until I was in my fifth semester of my MBA program that I realized that the use of stereotypes were not all bad.

From my sociology days, it was apparent that stereotypes are largely true. Stereotypes are society's way of grouping (fairly or unfairly) people. There are many stereotypes that we use everyday. More importantly, stereotypes are used by businesses in almost every decision made. Auto insurance company charge a higher premium for certain drivers and even certain cars. Consumer Packaged Good (CPG) companies target certain products to certain groups of people, for a certain purpose. Marketing is notorious for using stereotypes. McDonalds is aggressively targeting the African-American population with recent ads by using a Rap song to promote their new Mango and Pineapple Fruit Smoothie (the stereotype that all African-Americans listen to Rap).

Stereotypes provide marketing people with a foundation of individuals that could possible be interested in their products. A value is then assigned to that group of people (based on the size of the market, economic demographics, spending habits, etc) which translates into how much a company thinks they can sell, or Expected Commercial Value (EVC). Many of our business processes would not exist if it were not for stereotypes. We wouldn't be able to target advertising to a specific group of people without using stereotypes. Although many stereotypes have changed, the majority of them have stayed the same. Take the recent commercials for Swiffer Duster. One commercial shows two women as dirt and mud on a kitchen floor waiting to meet the love of their life (a mop) and be swept off the floor. Another show a man as dust in between keys on a keyboard. Pretty clear where these two stereotypes are. How successful is the use of stereotypes? P&G shares rose 130% in Swiffer's first year.! P&G is the largest CPG company and reported $78 billion in revenue last year - I would say that is pretty successful.

Because of the negative connotation that goes with the word "stereotypes" it is politely relabeled as "Market Segmentation" in the marketing world. In Business-to-Consumer (B2C) as well as the Business-to-Business (B2B) markets segmentation is hugely important. Marketers are rewarded and more valuable depending how much knowledge they possess about their markets. This starts with getting a deep understanding of who your existing customers are:

• What do they buy 
• Why do they buy 
• What are the motivators (drivers) for purchases 
• How do they buy (bulk, on credit, impulse, planned and evaluations) 
• When do they buy (seasonal, life-events, delegated) 

The answers to these questions (and there are thousands more) are extremely important. These answers are then applied to existing stereotypes that are common in the market and products are marketed to those groups of people that fit the buying habits as well as the stereotypes. Get these wrong and your new product will not be successful. This is a huge challenge for marketers. A challenge that extends to new product innovation (NPI) as well as advertising and product launches.

Even before a product makes it to market, millions of dollars are spent on a concept that marketing is saying customers (or potential customers) want and R&D is saying is feasible (see my post in InnovAAAAAtion!). Add on millions of dollars in marketing, test case, product positioning strategies, graphic designs, packaging, distibution and many other complex functions of launching a product to the wrong market - you'd better get your resume ready!

Make no mistake about it, marketers are masters at understanding and using stereotypes to position products to the right groups of people.

Facebook is Bigger Than You Think -Part 2

In the last article I talked about the difference between advertising your business via "Traditional Media" versus "Social Media".

So...now what?

Well, one thing I learned from the the young entrepreneurs in Kenya is that they use Facebook to tell stories about their lives. Pretty much the same thing we all do with our profiles. We all post photos of our kids, our birthdays, our vacations, our new cars...everything! We talk to people and comment on their posts. They comment back. So why wouldn't we promote our businesses the same way?

I'm going to use muffins as an example again because I love'em. What can you do if you own a muffin shop? Come up with a new flavor and post it your Facebook page. Get someone to take some nice photos of your store and some of the muffins on the shelf and put it up. Offer a baker's dozen for the price of a dozen. Believe me, I will go in and buy a dozen muffins for a free one. You get the point. You can start being creative with your offers and updates.

The best thing that can happen is a little conversation with a customer. If I loved your muffins so much I'd become a fan and even might post something on your wall (or on my wall) about your muffin shop and how its the best thing to hit planet earth since the invention of the muffin itself. Now, if I post something like this, I'd like to hear back from you. And it doesn't have to be much. Just a "thank you for coming in" will do just fine.

I'm not going to lie, maintaining your Facebook page takes time and effort. It's grassroots marketing on the digital level. Truly. What you put into it, you'll get back. This also means that your business is "all out there". For everyone to see – good or bad.

We've looked at the good. Now what about the bad? This was one of the only questions the young Kenyans had. They told me there are "jokesters" out there who will just write bad things on your wall. This definitely, might possibly, could very well happen. Maybe. But it probably will. As I told them, you can do one of two things:

1.) You can delete the post.

2.) You can hit it head on.

It might seem crazy, but number two is your best bet. Someone is going to go into your muffin shop and have a bad experience. Who knows? Maybe the person at the register is having a bad day. Maybe someone accidentally put salt in the muffins instead of sugar. Maybe the customer was having a bad day and the muffin just wasn't enough to turn it around. So he or she goes back to the office and posts your worst nightmare.

"New muffin place on the corner...worst muffin of my life. Don't go there."

This is an opportunity to turn that customer around. Comment on his or her post, offer them a free muffin or cup of coffee. Ask what was wrong. Get that customer back. Put yourself out there. It's not impossible. Believe it or not, this is the kind of thing that particular customer is looking for. You know your muffins are the best thing on the planet. Don't let one bad experience bring it down.

A good friend of mine became the social media director at a fairly good size business. In the third week she was there, a customer had a bad experience at a particular branch. He immediately posted about how bad it was there and that he didn't want any part of going back. She got wind of this and took action - within 24 hours. She simply asked him what happened, apologized and let him know that they cared very much for his business. He responded immediately as well. He couldn't believe a business that big listened to him and responded to him so quickly. He posted his gratitude, took back what he originally said and even took the time to write a positive email and send it to corporate, which eventually reached the CEO.

Now thats the ultimate turnaround. That guy is probably still telling his friends to go there. There is no advertisement in the world that can make that kind of impression.

In the world of media, the best and biggest form of advertising is, and always has been, word of mouth. Today we live in the digital world, and social media gives everyone the biggest platform the've ever had to say whatever they want. Even on a global scale.

And who knows...they might be commenting about how good their muffin was this morning.

What the (bleep) does "Business Development" actually mean?

I recently read and participated in a discussion about the difference between Business Development and Sales executives. Although I responded, I did so in passing and did not really take the time to lay out what a clear definition is for each of them and how they integrate and overlap. I stated quickly (bad grammar and all) that "Business Development develops business and sales closes business." Seems simple enough I guess. But I think everyone would agree that there is a hell of a lot more that goes into Developing Business and Closing Business.

Even companies that enjoy recurring revenue from existing customer (I have heard of companies northward of 80%), have to to find new customers. There is only some much you can sell existing customers. In a perfect organization there are three types of activities that have to happen in order to obtain new customers. To obtain new customers you need to:

1. Understand your markets and the needs of non-customers 
2. Develop new relationships and become a trusted adviser to new prospects 
3. Close new deals! 

Ideally, these three aspects should be separate roles and in some cases departments. For now, let's leave marketing out of this (refer to my post I Work in MARKETING, not Advertising!). Let's assume that we already understand points 1 and 2, ready to go to market and start creating relationships. This is where Business Development comes into play. Business Development professionals should be experts in four things:

1. Identifying the right people to talk to 
2. Making initial contact with executives and gaining their trust 
3. Navigating an organization and understanding its structure 
4. Finding hot button issues and common pains across the organization 

These are the ends. There are a million means. What is important to remember is that this is not time to sell! During the business developing part of the sales process the potential customer is not ready to buy If they were, they would have already contacted you (as long as marketing is doing their jobs). Business development is about doing the research, working with executives that now trust you to better understand your industry. These executive are busy but very smart. They are experts in their industry, not yours. A VP of R&D may be knowledgeable about the ERP industry, but not like you are. It is your job to help them to understand the landscape. Who you are, what you offer, who your competitors are (and for pete's sake, don't say "we don't have any")? The more information you share, the more they will trust you, talk openly about their pains, concerns, and more importantly, help you to understand and navigate their organization (steps 3 & 4).

Business development is not about selling your product or service. It is about selling yourself, your company and your industry. In today's complex sales' process, it is impossible to call someone and end the call with a commitment to buy. That should not be your goal. The call should always end with sending information and an agreement to follow up at a later date. If you get an appointment scheduled with the prospect one of two things has happened: 1) You pushed too hard and will waist an hour of time for him and your sales rep or 2) you got lucky and found some one that is ready to buy. The prospect should hang up the phone and think "that was good, knowledgeable and looking forward to their info!" This is the foundation that will lead to further understanding whether or not they have a need for your product or service.

Later on when the sales rep is trying close business, the work that business development has put into questions 1-4 will make it much easier to close business. Closing enterprise deals (6-7 figure deals) has only gotten harder. Now companies are more strapped for budgets, more people are involved and decisions are more political. Getting in good with the VPs and C-level employees helps, but doesn't seal the deal. Plus, with more competitors in every market trying to sell similar or the same functionality can make it a nightmare for evaluation teams. Companies now have more buying power than ever before (thanks to the internet) and usually have a preconceived idea of who you are before they even contact you. Sometimes you may be behind before you even start. Most companies have become great at portraying themselves as the leader in a particular market by spending more money on marketing than they do on their product. Not a bad strategy if you are finding deals 10-to-1 over your competitor that is spending more on their product and less on marketing.   In this environment, business development has to be the bridge between sales and market. Business Development does both, has to be involved in both and has to own the process of finding new customers and entering new markets. Sales should not being doing this - they should be closing deals that they have in their pipeline. Marketing should not be doing it - they should be creating killer content and quit honestly, most marketing people lack the people skills and determination to be on the front lines! 

Additionally, please do not make the mistake of compensating your business development people according to revenue contributions. This is unfair and isn't the right tool for motivation. If business development reps wanted to be compensated and judged by revenue, they would be in sales. Instead, pay them well and put a great lead scoring process in place and reward them for great leads. Give them bonuses when things close. Get them involved in the development of the content as they are the Voice of the Prospect. Get them involved deep into the sales process with the sales representative. This will provide them additional experience, knowledge and confidence about how to control a good conversation with senior executives as well as provide support the sales representative while he/she gets comfortable and builds rapport with the project champion.

Make your business development representatives the bridge between your sales and marketing groups. I guarantee you will not regret it.

Google's Solution for Non-Apple Users!

With the release of Google+, Music Beta and the ChromeBook, we the people that don't use Apple can rejoice.  Adding these products to the existing web-based and Android-based products all of us that do not use Apple for one reason or another (yes, there are people without an iSomething) could possible have a complete solution to manage our lives as well.  Integrating all of Google's products into one platform, has provided everyone a free way to manage the most important things in life - Friends, Documents, Calendars, Emails, Music and Pictures.  What else is there to ask for!

I have never been an Apple person.  I am the hip PC in the Apple commercials.  I had an iPod for a while and it was nice. It was just another thing to carry around with me until I lost it.  I have always been a Google guy (as my wife calls me).  I am always on edge trying to figure out how to use Google's free products better.  I was using Google Docs about 3 years ago, and would not have finished my MBA program without it. Now with the release of Music Beta by Google I finally have a real (and better) alternative to iTunes.  I have had everything in my Google Cloud for years now.  I pride myself is my Googleness and brag about not having anything on my PC.  With the new ChromeBook, which I can not wait to buy, I will have a Faster way to access and use it to manage my multi-functional life.

It is very interesting to me that Apple and Steve Jobs are the poster children for Innovation.  Through out my MBA program, many people used Apple for their case studies on their ability to innovative.  My sense is that Google has always been much more innovative and slowly but surely setting themselves up for a larger technology revolution that is finally taking shape, without the psycho Steve Jobs leading the charge (Yes, I called Steve Jobs a psycho!).  Yes, Google has had some near failures (YouTube) and some complete failures (Google Wave) but all in all - Google works and works well!  They may not have always been first to market, but who is these days?  Apple's iPod was not the first MP3 player on the market, but it was better.  Google Maps was not the first website to get directions from (for those of you who do not know, it was MapQuest), but it was better.  Google has provided us all with innovative and free alternatives to costly products (MS Server, Sharepoint, MS Office and even CAD software).   And now they are taking on the 3 giants at the same time (Microsoft, Apple and Facebook).  What other company out there in the Silicon Valley has the resources, talent and BALLS to pick that many battles and succeed?  None!

Jeff Jarvis explains how Google is able to innovate so quickly and effectively his book What Would Google Do?   He makes that point that Google is the master at launching products that people need and want, and letting the users decide how to improve them - hence everything is Beta.  Having the idea or a framework of what a product is going to do is one thing.  Letting the users use it, report on it, and suggest improvements is something entirely different.  Marissa Mayer (VP Customer Experience) created this strategy and has changed that game for every software product manager out there.  We now have a new vision.  A new plan on how we should go about starting new initiatives.  Follow the Google approach there are no longer missed launch dates and  embarrassment of bug-ridden releases.  What is also gained in return is a group of faithful and eager users (numbering in the thousands or millions) that are dying to try and test the new Google product.  Customer loyalty at its best!

Jason Fried's  approach (Rework) is parallel.  Doing something is better than doing nothing.  Starting is is the most important and hardest step.  Making it great is the easy part!  Getting your users' feedback is essential in your efforts to give customers what they want and not selling your customers what you have!  These approaches creates an entirely new culture of employees that now have to fight the old guard to get better products and services to market - faster.  Many companies struggle with this new approach.  Many companies see that there is a need, a weakness or a better way to do something.  They know it is there, they know it has to be done and they have to resources to do it.  "We need to look at this further!" is the response.  Time is wasted and opportunities are missed.  Fried's message - do it, do it well, and be ready to adapt to changes to new market requirements.  This is the new approach to innovation!

It is clear that Google knows exactly what it is doing, the balls to do and the resources to make it successful.  And I couldn't be happier that I finally have an real alternative (and better) to Apple's products.  One that does not control your content, provides great functionality, flexibility and is COMPLETE!

Thank you GOOGLERS!!!

I Work in MARKETING, not Advertising!

It is almost without fail that when I tell people that I do marketing for a software company there are two assumptions placed on me; 1) I am a technical person and 2) I do advertising, and send out spam.  This could not be further from my realty - I am not technical at all :) 


So, I decided to set the record straight on what Marketing really is, as a profession!  Marketing is a very important function of business,  maybe the most important.  In small organizations, marketing is confused with sales and in large organizations it is confused with advertising.  There are a lot of overlaps, but according to James Henley  and the MARKETING CONCEPT AND PHILOSOPHY, marketing has a very simple focus - meet the customers' needs at a profit.  As such, marketing is truly a function of every function in business.  


More specifically, there are a  number of activities that the marketer people have to be able to do - effectively:

1. Know who the customers are
2. Know what they want
3. Know what you can offer (products or services)
4. Know what you and the customer can afford
5. Communicate that you understand 1 through 4 in a way that adds value and gains attention

This is the core function of marketing, in its simplest form.  For each of these activities there are a lot of people and even professions that only focus one or two of them.  The most important aspect of marketing for any company is 1 and 2.  If you are a sales person an executive or anyone else and do not know who your potential customers are and what they want - FIND OUT and fast.  This knowledge it priceless.  You have to know your markets. 

David F. D'Alessandro makes a very clear point in his book Career Warfare.  To be indispensable, at any company, make sure that you poses some knowledge about how to do something that no one else knows how to do as well as you!  What else is more valuable than knowing who your potential customers are and what they need.  That is information that the CEO, VP of Sales, Chief Marketing Officer, R&D people and other functions in a company will want to know. If you play your cards right, they will ask you what you think! 

Going back to "advertising" for a minute. Advertising, Pay-Per-Click, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and email marketing (spam) are all functions of communicating what customers want.  Imagine if the customers desired a new widget that did ABC and you spent millions on a TV spot, a new website and a Facebook page offering DEF... would you sell anything?  NO!  

Marketing is simple and it is not spamming people.  Marketing helps the R&D and Innovation groups understand what people want.  Marketing is not responsible for selling people things they don't want or don't need.  Marketing is the most strategic of functions, making sure that the company is going in the same direction as their potential customers.  Understanding what people want is hard work.  Making sure that you can offer them what they don't realize they will need in 5, 10 years is even harder.  


The solution, learn who your potential customers are and what they want.  Learn it well, and communicate it even better!  Be the Voice of the Customer!