customer experience

Is Your Marketing the PITS?

When I took my marketing degree back in 2001, part of the course was learning about the?Four P?s of Marketing???Product, Price, Place?and?Promotion.

These terms have been the mainstay of marketing since the 1950?s, when Neil H. Borden published an article called?The Concept of the Marketing Mix?, although the actual phrase The Four P?s was coined by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960.

Marketers have used the Four P?s to plan marketing campaigns, measure and gauge how well something will be received. Without using at least one of the Four P?s, you can pretty much guarantee that any marketing initiative will go tits up.

Yet as much as the Four P?s are still relevant when it comes to any kind of marketing (or advertising), one of the ways I like to create marketing plans is by something I call the PITS.

Persuasion

No matter how great a product or service you have, it won?t mean anything unless you can get people to buy it. Same goes for ideas ? unless you get folks to buy into your ideas, they?ll fizzle out.

Not only that, but unless you have a physical product to show then you?re going to have a harder time getting that all-important buy-in (and this can be from an internal point of view as well). That?s where Persuasion comes in.

The best marketers know how to persuade people that their ideas are worth listening to. This isn?t just down to charisma and a nice suit, though ? the best persuasion comes from solid information. Here?s just some that you can/should provide.

The unique selling point?(USP) of the product or service (you better have one, otherwise just let your competitors continue winning).

What it means for the end user?(ease of use, reliability, the ?want factor?, loyalty).

Manageable logistics?(what do I need to do and how will I have to do it).

Timescales and expectations?(gestation period, launch period, return on investment period ? and make this information realistic).

Having information that answers the questions you?will be asked?goes a long way to persuading your audience, whoever they may be. It?s not always money that nixes new campaigns.

Intent

Customers can usually be broken down into two camps ??Consider?and?Intent. Those in the Consider camp will often look at a product or an advert and think, ?That looks nice?, but never actually do anything else. Those in the Intent camp, however, are the ones that are more likely to move to the buying stage.

The trick is to make Considers into Intents.

How you do this depends on your business and audience, but each method you use should be one that tips the balance from Consider to Intent.

A strong call-to-action.?This can be replying to a text SMS message for more information or signing up for a newsletter.

Time-urgent details.?Make a close-off date for an offer and stick to it. No-one?s fooled by ?this weekend only? anymore.

The nature of desire.?Sex sells. It doesn?t need to be physical sex ? turn your customer?s mind on and make them desire you.

Relevance of the offer. If your product isn’t relevant to the audience, it doesn’t matter if you have the world’s greatest marketer in your employ – the product won’t ship, or your efforts will backfire. Just ask Shutterfly about that.

Every single thing we do, either in life or business, is a consideration. Even automatic reflexes happen because at one stage we had to consider whether we needed to react or protect from an action. Intent, though, happens because of the after-effects of consideration.

Show your customer there?s an after-effect worth having and the intent to discover it will be there.

Traction

If you look at some of the most successful products or services, it?s for one simple reason ??traction.

The ability to take something new and ingrain it into the hearts and minds of customers and competitors alike is where real success lies. Traction in your customers relates to sales; traction in your competitors relates to being ahead of the game.

So how do you build traction?

Don?t always reinvent the wheel. It takes time, research and money to build from scratch. Can you take an existing product and add something that?s sorely missing?

Support networks.?Regular readers of this blog know how much I love the Livefyre comment system. Yet it’s not the cool features that keep me coming back to Livefyre whenever I revert to native WordPress, or try other systems – it’s the stellar customer support that Livefyre gives to every single one of its users. Too many companies only offer that support to tiered accounts; treat every customer as important and you’ll see the traction build.

Open your gates.?One of the most successful video games of all time is?Half-Life. Released in 1998, it?s a first-person shooter with a great storyline too. But what set Half-Life apart is the level builder that developers Valve released, allowing gamers to build their own levels and share across the web, leading to a?thriving product?years after the first shipment. Adaptability is key to any success.

A solid engine room.?The iPod isn?t the success it is because of design or geek love ? it?s because of iTunes. No matter what system you have, iTunes just?works?? allowing it to change with you as your product preference changes too. It?s the iTunes engine room that makes the front-end so sexy.

Gaining traction is one of the Holy Grail?s of any business. How to get it should be one of your priorities in the planning stage.

Sketchability

When I was a kid growing up in the U.K., one of my favourite TV shows was by a guy called?Tony Hart. Hart was an artist who took the scholastic approach to art and turned it on its head, allowing anyone to use any product and sketch something cool.

The great thing about Hart?s art was its ability to be changed on the fly and made into something completely different. It?s this sketchability ? the ability to sketch an idea and then have the option to erase/amend and sketch a new approach ? that turns a good marketing plan into a much better one.

Give everyone a pencil. Too many marketing plans silo themselves from other company inputs. But real insight can come from many places.

Customer service?could offer great insights on frustration factors;
Distribution?on realistic budgets and scale;
IT?on network stability and how your site will handle extra traffic; and so on.

Simply put, give everyone a pencil and see what pictures get drawn.

I?m a huge fan of the Four P?s of Marketing. I know they work; I?ve used them for years. But I also know you need to adapt and have more than just the existing to compete in any market.

The PITS is one of these adaptations. How about you – how are you adapting?

image: loopoboy 2.0

Why Influencers Deserve To – And Should – Be Paid by Brands

Ever since sponsored posts were made popular by the likes of Izea, the question has remained: should influencers be paid for their promotion of your brand?s message, product or service?

On the one hand, you have those that say paying an influencer removes the validity of the review of promotion, since you can?t possibly remain non-biased when there?s been an exchange of money.

On the other hand, you have those that say it?s no different from any other marketing channel, and you pay for that, so why should influencers be any different?

As someone who?s on both sides of the coin ? I?m a marketer who uses influencers for client campaigns, and I?m fortunate enough to work with brands as an influencer for their campaigns ? here?s my take on the topic.

Time is Money

How long do you think the average blog post takes to create? If you, the marketer, don?t blog yourself, how long do you think it takes to put together what you?re reading now?

10 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? More, less?

The truth is, blog posts take as long as they need to be ready. This might sound clich?d, but it?s true. There?s much more to a blog post than just stringing some words together (or images and sounds, if you?re a video blogger or podcaster).

Ideas and research;
Content;
Format;
Links and attribution to relevant topics;
Images and media;
Proofreading.

That?s just the creation part. Then you have the marketing of a post, along with replying to comments and encouraging further discussion. All told, a blog post can easily take up a few days of your time, if you were to add up all the components.

And that?s just one post, where the blogger knows the topic inside out and can create content on the fly. If there?s a brand message involved, there needs to be further research into the product, testing any giveaways, liaising with the brand, etc.

So that single post has now turned into a mini-campaign. And you want that for free? Um??NO.

Trust Can?t be Bought ? But It Deserves to be Rewarded

When I started this blog, the one core tenet I made it my mission to adhere to was to never break the trust of whatever community managed to grow around the blog.

That meant all opinions would be treated equally, as long as they were respectful and on topic, and I would never promote or recommend something I hadn?t used myself, or didn?t 100% believe in.

It?s a big reason there have been very few ads on my blog, with the exception of the WordPress theme I use. It?s also why there has been very few sponsored posts on my blog ? perhaps two in five years plus of blogging here.

Simply put, if I?m going to recommend something to my community ? whether as a non-paid fan or a sponsored ?influencer? ? it needs to be right for my audience. There?s no amount of dollar value you can pay to erode the trust that?s built between a blogger and his or her community.

Money comes and goes; trust and a legacy doesn?t.?That can never be bought back.

If you, as a brand manager or agency, want to connect an influencer?s hard-earned community trust to your client, you need to understand what it?s taken to build that trust. It?s the ultimate endorsement, for that influencer to introduce your brand to the community, and not only introduce, but honestly recommend.

You can?t buy that kind of advertising ? but you can reward it.

Relevance Equals More Effective Outreach and ROI

There?s a reason today?s definition of influence ? social scoring platforms like Klout, etc. ? have been very slow at sharing public success stories when it comes to their influencer outreach campaigns.

While generic influence as offered by these platforms can help brands gain share of voice and brand amplification, the fact is the identification process of influencers to use lacks true context and relevance to an audience.

While a lifestyle blogger with 10,000 subscribers and demographics of 25-44 year old women might be attractive to a brand looking to promote their latest healthcare product, how many of that 10,000 is right for the brand?

Let?s say the product is for women with sensitive skin; that might be one-third of the audience. So what about the other two-thirds? A generic target by score ???this blogger has a score of 72 in women?s products, they?re perfect!??? will immediately reduce your brand?s success rate.

However, get in touch with the blogger that?s 100% right for your brand, and who has a higher engaged audience around that topic, and you?ll immediately see both financial benefits and more positive sentiment around your outreach campaign.

It?s why?InNetwork’s solution of filtering out the true audience size is a welcome addition to the influence software marketplace.

Instead of wasting time and resources on partnering with bloggers with 10,000 subscribers but only 900 actual interested readers,?you can connect with a blogger with 1,000 subscribers and 900 interested readers.

Considering you’ll rarely – if ever – have a blog that has 100% of its readers engaged, the 90% engagement of the latter example compared to the under 10% of the initial example is much more rewarding, especially given the probable cost to work with the former over the latter due to “audience” size.

That?s a big difference in relevance and the ratio for success is much bigger. It?s the smarter way to market, and paying the influencer for connecting you to that more engaged audience means?less risk, more return, and better campaigns.

Influence Marketing is a Key Business Strategy ? Don?t Treat It Like a Cheap Date

At the end of the day, the old adage??you get what you pay for??has never been more true when it comes to influencers and how they can really help turn a promotional campaign into a loyalty-driven customer base.

There?s a reason people are ?influential? in their community: expertise, respect, trust and the ability to make things happen.

You have the choice to pay or not to pay what they?re worth ? in reality, though,?if you?re serious about your campaigns, there?s only one choice to make:?how much is true influence and what it can offer your brand worth to you?

Don?t be cheap with your answer.

A version of this post originally appeared on the InNetwork blog.

image: H.Michael Karshis