Strategic Marketing Planning

As the president of the Indianapolis marketing firm, Element Three. I get lots of direct mail. This week, I received a postcard from a very prominent state university trying to get me to sign up for a program designed to "provide intensive study and experience in both the elements and contexts of leadership."

Sounds interesting.

There is no way for me to respond.

There is no phone number, no email address, no web address to visit. No informational session to sign up for. There is absolutely no call to action.

When you're designing direct marketing tactics as part of your strategic marketing plan, don't forget the call to action.

Here are some ideas for CTA's that you can use to better calculate your return on marketing investment. I'm guessing the ROI on this piece I received will be $0.00. 

• Download a white-paper
• Access a survey
• Phone Number
• Email Address
• Special Landing Page
• URL
• Free Trial
• Sign up for a demo
• Webinar
• Complementary tickets to a special event
• Enter to win a drawing
• DVD with more information

Happy marketing - and don't forget the Call To Action!

 Element Three has recently been involved in its share of new business pitch meetings. We've done our homework, made proposals and responses to requests for proposals and choreographed presentations alongside our strategic partners. But how does a smart client actually pick the right marketing/branding/creative partner? Here are the things clients usually look for:

1. Experience in their industry: this seems to give clients a sense of comfort. And it can help you ramp up quickly when you know the industry well, can speak the lingo and are familiar with the players and the issues. But don't be drawn in by this alone. The very best firms are fast learners. Firms that only work in one industry may get stale or be lulled into standard solutions.

2. Onboard capabilities: again, clients like knowing that the things they need are readily available. Again, this is changing as are the creative industries. No longer can most agencies and marketing firms afford to keep a full staff for every sub specialty because fewer clients are willing to pay the high fees to cover this overhead. So agencies are increasingly using the Hollywood model in which the agency is part of a web of trusted partners upon whom they call when specific needs arise. So rather than expecting all the resources to be on staff, ask who the strategic partnerships are and how much work they have done together successfully.

3. Integration: this is becoming a buzzword amongst clients, and for good reason. As marketing budgets get squeezed, all marketing touch points must work together and support each other. Ask for examples of integrated marketing efforts and find out how they work rolled out into the market.

4. Strategic creative thinking: not all clients have figured out this one yet but I think it separates the men from the boys. You can do all the strategic thinking you want but if it's the same as everyone else, you'll likely have a "me-too" brand or a marketing plan that's a lookalike with your competition's. Creativity and innovation is key to success in strategic brand and marketing strategic work as is strategic thinking key to successful creative work. Though your creative may be wonderfully fresh, if it's saying the wrong thing or speaking to the wrong people, you're wasting your money.

5. Return on marketing investment (results): many clients ask this first, especially in our tough economy. Ask for examples of their work along with the results they caused. Even if they can't state a number figure (private companies sometimes will not release this data, even to their agency partner), you can still ask for any evidence that the work succeeded in reaching its goals. (new customers, successful product acceptance, entrance into new market, broader share of market, etc.)

5. Good chemistry: many clients don't formally ask this question but in fact it is probably the most important unconscious factor that either makes or breaks the outcome for the agency. Do you enjoy meeting with the agency team? Do they seem sincere and enthusiastic about your business and your market? Do you trust them to do what they say they will do? Check out their references, especially clients they have worked with long term, whether they are in your field or not.

Happy hunting!

 Indicators at Element Three are that pent up demand for brand identity development, brand positioning strategy, strategic marketing planning, design and advertising creative services are on the upswing. We're hopeful that this is a sign that business is finally picking up and markets are recovering from this long, hard time in our economy.

Businesses that continue to invest in their brand and marketing outreach in tough times are the ones that historically recover more quickly and build their businesses long term.

We'd like to hear from you. Have you been experiencing upward trends in your business?

I have a meeting with a prospect tomorrow, and I'm nervous about it.

Let me tell you why.

1. They have a successful business
2. They have money to spend
3. They know they need our help
4. They have a new product to launch

Why am I nervous? because of #5
          5. They don't have a business plan

Too many times we encounter this situation. Everything is in it's place, client's have money to spend, but they have not clearly articulated where they want to arrive.

Marketing is about taking you somewhere different than you are today. It's about creating a magnet that attracts the type of customers you are equipped to serve well. It's about creating growth at a pace the organization can support and sustain. It's about building a brand that attracts employees with similar values. Without a business plan, you are leaving the destination up to the marketing partner/ agency or team you are hiring. Think of the business plan as the map. Marketing's job is to help you determine the appropriate strategic marketing efforts to help get you there.

Without a clear destination, all of the brand strategy, marketing integration, strategic marketing planning or best brand strategy agency in the world will not get you to the desired result. The best thing you can do for our Indianapolis Ad Agency, Element Three or other partner you select is to give them your business plan. That way you know you'll arrive at a place you intended.

I recently researched the new Apple iPad's capabilities against other e-Book readers and, not in keeping with my usual Apple mania, I didn't end up buying an iPad. It looks beautiful. The color screen is enticing. I wanted to love it. But what started to make my Brand Chemistry for Apple crumble just a tiny bit?

It's insular book purchasing platform. I ended up going with a competitive e-Book reader that allows me to buy books from their e-Book store (with a free wireless hookup compared to Apple's hookup that comes with a monthly fee). But here's the kicker. I can also borrow books FREE online from my local public library and read them on my reader or go go the GoogleBooks site and download any of a million public access books online, also FREE. Plus, the store where I buy e-Books offers package deals on book groupings and far better prices on recently published books.

Cost is a consideration. Open access is even more of a consideration. Why is this little story important to you as a strategic marketer? Because you live in the age of the empowered consumer. We have access to more information and more means (via the internet) than ever before. We demand choice. We don't like to be ripped off, either. So as you put together your next marketing launch strategy or brand communications program, please don't forget us. We're out here. And we're probably your best potential customer. The empowered, informed consumer.

This is the time of year when execution starts to fall off dramatically. Chances are you came into the year with fresh optimism, a binder full of great big plans and somewhere between January 1st and today, you got interrupted by some very urgent tasks that have taken you off track.

This is a reminder that urgent is not always important AND, the best laid plan means little without execution.

Have you found yourself 25% of the way through your marketing strategy? Are you still on course to complete the items you laid out for your company/department/staff to complete or has the ugly urgent taken over your day?

Becoming a slave to the urgent happens in every area of our lives, but I see it profoundly occur in the world of marketing. Especially in organizations without a dedicated marketing department or internal staff. When marketing is not kept front and center - the urgent gets in the way of the important.

If you're off track, it's not too late to realign behind your plan and recommit to execution. If you're on track - then congratulations - keep it up. It takes a long attention span to fully execute a marketing plan.

I hope this year you are as diligent in executing your plans as you were in formulating them.

Disney just opened their new movie, "Alice in Wonderland", in 3D, right on the heels of James Cameron's 3D phenomenon, Avatar. With the advent of high definition hyper-real computer animation, these created, dimensional environments all but have us walking through forests of neon blue floating sea anemones as we fall down a rabbithole in hyperspeed. And these entertainments aren't just intended for the bubblegum set: expect to see adults, teens, seniors, preteens and grade schoolers flocking to these cinematic wonders.

It's early days in 3D yet the trend is clear. We've come to expect not just viewing but experiencing. The use of color, sound, motion and now, dimension, bring us right into the story.

As you move through strategic marketing planning leading to brand communication tactics, consider ways to insert your brand's constituents into the experience rather than just communicating at them. Interactive technology allows a two-way engagement. Holographic images allow us to walk right into a scene. Multi-sensory theaters like those at Disney World allow audiences to feel their seats move in a thunderstorm and feel the moisture of rain on their faces. Many small brands cannot afford these high test luxuries. But are there less expensive ways (scratch and sniff, moving pieces, textural components like cut-outs, pop-ups or imbedded sound chips, to name a few). Well placed, these types of tactics can breathe new life into an otherwise tired piece of brand communication and are well worth considering.

This has been a desperately tough time for many designers, writers, creative directors, photographers, art directors, music composers, and on and on. The convergence of electronic, automatic solutions to creative needs combined with the downward spiral of the economy has created a perfect storm. Marketers are opting to spend less, hire less and re-use more. And I'm all for being smart about strategic marketing planning and getting the highest possible return on marketing investment.

If you read Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind, you already know his prediction that we are rapidly moving through the information age into the conceptual age. The best way to win in any kind of economy is to have bigger, better ideas in the face of sameness. That's something you won't be able to find for $150 on the internet because that's where millions of others are looking, too. So those of us creative folk who do have work, lucky as we are, have to work extra hard to get all the work done with fewer colleagues. And we have to keep proving the value of our original ideas, every day. The less we count on existing ideas, the more successful our clients will be, making more opportunities for more creative minds eventually. So it's a vicious or wonderful cycle, depending on which way we choose to go.

Originality rules.

I received an interesting package in the mail today.  As part of this company's business development and marketing communications strategy,  I received a complimentary issue of their latest publication,  a letter addressed as follows: "To Whom it May Concern," and an insert with the publication's display advertising rates.  The postage on this piece came to $2.07.  The internal contents cost about another $3.  So, this company spent a little over $5 to woo our firm and potentially our clients into considering their publication for placement of advertising in 2010. 

Now, here is the rub.  The publication is a business journal for the Springfield, Illinois market. 

A little due diligence on our company and our market would have told the person behind this lead generation tactic that Indianapolis already has a business journal publication.  A visit to our website would have determined that we were not a qualified lead for this particular mailing. We do not have any clients that do business in Springfield, Illinois or its surrounding market area.  I suspect the company purchased a list of marketing and advertising firms within a specific geographic area and then mailed their piece.  This, unfortunately, is not strategic marketing planning at its best. 

Tactics need to flow from a well thought out and researched game plan.  With dollars at a premium and tons of clutter in the messaging marketplace, defining and knowing your target audience is a necessity.  Some basic research on the list of purchased names would have saved this company $5 and improved their potential return on their marketing investment.  Something tells me I'm not the only person who will toss this into the trash.

At Element Three, business first forms the foundation of marketing strategy development for our clients.  Before moving into a tactical plan, we would certainly want to make sure we defined a qualified lead before spending dollars to message to the audience.

Often, clients come to us asking for a specific piece of brand communication. They may say, "We need a web site," or "We need a brochure," for instance. Often the need to get brand communication out into the marketplace is indeed urgent. And we want to serve our clients' needs. So we will most likely take what I call the dual track.

Track One: Take care of the urgent brand communication need. If the market is moving fast, often marketers must move with the market. So we get out the needed messages.

Track Two (happening concurrently with Track One): With the client's permission, do due diligence to strategic marketing and brand understanding. If the organization hasn't yet done it, we begin with our Brand Chemistry deep dive process to completely identify the brand's unique assets and promises. We also get a clear understanding of the key audiences with whom the brand interacts. If these steps are completed already or once they are done, we find out through a variety of research processes, what the position of the brand is in its marketplace and what forces are at work that may affect the brand. From this data, we develop a complete strategic marketing plan. The marketing plan outlines goals, objectives and strategies to assure that all of our brand communications efforts are directed in the right place. The plan also includes a prioritized list of tactical recommendations (should we be creating a Web site at all or should we start with events, for instance).

Dual tracking. It works. And it puts your brand on the right track for the long run as well as the short run.

At Element Three, we offer logo creation services, along with all of our strategic marketing and brand development work. We also create whatever brand communications your organization may need to create and sustain successful relationships with your brand constituents. I believe that successful business logo creation is a very important thing. Your logo is like your name. A good one can help to build recognition through everything you do.

A cautionary note, though. Your logo is just the tip of the brand communications iceberg. Literally. It's the first thing most marketers ask for because if your logo isn't serving you well, it's like having a horribly ugly name. Or a face that's badly in need of several reconstructive surgeries. So it's fine to come in and say right off the bat, we need a new logo. Or we need to update/revise/overhaul our logo.

Because it's like your graphic 'name', your logo mark gives a signal about how your brand will likely look and feel in other brand communications. Is it modern, relaxed, classic, soft, regimented? All the communications that come later help to build upon that beginning, from brochures to Web sites to events to product design to packaging. And all of that is built upon the foundational structure of your brand (who you are). If you haven't done due diligence to discovery of your own brand's assets, let us help you with our Brand Chemistry process. See my earlier blog postings on Brand Chemistry to learn more about Element Three's unique deep dive branding process.

Customization is a great way to build a strong relationship with your customers, online or offline.

Lands’ End, a division of Sears, introduced custom fit on chinos and jeans at its popular web site. “Out of the gate, 40% of chinos and jeans orders were custom fit,” Sam Taylor, vice president of e-commerce for Lands’ End, said in an online article*. Lands End's most popular custom category is men’s dress shirts. “It’s just like ordering from your tailor in Hong Kong, but at a fraction of the cost,” he said. Lands End customers who order custom fit clothing have a 39% higher retention rate than the average Lands’ End customer and spend 39% more in the following year, Taylor said.

*Lands End Is Moving Its Success In Online Custom Clothing To The Catalog, Internet Retailer, Feb. 26, 2004.

What a great example for us all to learn from. Not only  did Lands End have a smashing success online with customizing their product for consumer needs, they went on to add the same function into their physical catalog as well, with similar success. As you look at your brand's return on marketing investment, have you considered ways to make your brand more meaningful and useful to your customers? Creating custom solutions is now more viable than ever, with interactive technology and print on demand capabilities. How might you create a strategic plan to build the viability of your customer relationships? Let us help you.

To start the discussion, contact Tiffany Sauder at tiffany@discoverelementthree.com.

Maybe you've noticed the trend toward purchasing stock logos, stationery designs, brochures and Web sites online. And I see why it has happened...the technology to make and share imagery has become readily available. If you're a tiny organization with no resources, these quick and cheap resources fill a need. They can help you communicate and make you look bigger than you are, fast. So why shouldn't everyone use these brand communication resources?

Here are a few of reasons.

1. It's important that your organization and what it has to offer stands apart. It's very hard to do that if you're buying off the shelf communications, along with your competitor down the street. How will your customer tell you apart?

2. Great brands create relationships with their customers by speaking their language and showing that they understand their specific needs. (see my earlier blog posts about Brand Chemistry). These types of brand communications must be created in response to ongoing customer needs and values, not a pre-existing template.

3. Great brands create a portfolio of communications that have a consistent look and feel. That's tough to do if you're shopping around on the Web for a logo here, stationery there, a Web site over here. And your customers will be confused by the cacophony of different personalities your brand is displaying.

4. Smart marketers are strategic in how, when and where they communicate, based on their brand, their customer and the market situation. And their strategic marketing partner sits alongside them as they navigate this territory so that the smartest efforts are completed, not the easiest or quickest.

5. A better use of interactive technology, if your organization can afford it, is to offer your customers ways to create their own artifacts that represent your brand using interactive technologies. You create the framework; they make it their own.

No doubt about it, interactive technology creates a completely new marketplace for us all. Using it wisely is where the real money is.

In a word. No.

The fourth quarter always ushers in talks of business planning, sales planning, strategic marketing planning - all kinds of planning. Don't misunderstand me, I think planning is vitally important to ensuring you are focusing resources on the highest impact opportunities. However, the rubber hits the road in execution.

Too often companies will spend months planning, getting their message just right and understanding the audience, only to run out of attention span when it comes to execution. Execution is the boring, tedious part that takes discipline and a long attention span.

Steve Nealy said something that will stick with me for a long time. He said, "sometimes in marketing, you just have to run it up the flagpole and see who salutes". In other words, all the market research and customer feedback in the world is not ever going to give us the level of feedback the marketplace will.

A word of caution as we enter this planning season for 2010 - don't get stuck on perfect. Leave time, resources and energy for the most important part - execution.

With years of advertising copywriting experience, I've confronted a new reality. Search Engine Optimization writing for the Web. My background always taught me to use conversational language relating to the reader. I learned to stay away from 'business speak', jargon, and overly formal language.

Now, I'm learning the complex reality of writing for bots that search the Web for key words – all so that search engines can find my copy. In fact, right now, I'm writing copy that must include key words so that Web bots can find this blog entry. The problem is, most readable copy isn't sprinkled with business terms usually identified as key words. For this blog, I am supposed to insert key word phrases like marketing launch strategy or brand positioning strategy, for instance. In fact, as I typed in those words, the little Keyword Strength Monitor turned from red to green...to bright green! But I can't imagine casually sliding these phrases into copy you'd actually want to read.

My hope is that the next generation of Web bots has the intelligence to pick out word patterns in a more human way, arriving at concepts as a result of reading the copy as you or I would. I can write SEO copy because I have to do it. That doesn't mean I like inflicting it on anyone who has to read it! Oh, by the way, marketing integration, done by brand consulting groups causes return on marketing investment due to strategic marketing planning. Boy, is the Keyword Strength Monitor green now!

Perhaps it was a slow news day in the world of advertising.

Today's issue of Advertising Age features an article entitled 2010 Comes in Plain and Fancy Versions.  The gist of the article is that advertisers need to make a decision on how to pronounce 2010.  Will it be spoken the long way, as in “two thousand ten” or will it be "twenty ten?" 

I have to say I'm a little amazed that this is a newsworthy issue.  Think about it. It's now November 3;  a time when many are in the throws of planning marketing strategy for the coming year. Somehow the question as to how to pronounce the name of a year doesn't strike me as the most important thing in the hierarchy of strategic marketing decisions. 

In all fairness to the article's writer, this is a decision point for those company's that deal with model year marketing, especially when it comes to television and voice over tracks.  Judging by the tongue in cheek responses quoted by creatives who work in the automobile advertising arena, this is really nothing more than an internal brand decision and not really an "issue." 

In my assessment, it's a devil in the details tactical decision that should not be prioritized over strategic marketing planning. It certainly won't be the decision that influences your return on marketing investment. 
 

 

From VisionEdge Marketing, here are four reasons you should be thinking about marketing planning for 2010 for your organization.

• Research actually shows that companies who carefully plan their marketing strategies during and after economic downturns bounce back quicker and more effectively once the economy recovers.
• Marketing exists solely to bring value to the organization by finding, keeping and growing the value of customers. It's difficult to bring value without a plan.
• Marketing's initiatives - when planned, tracked and measured correctly - add direct value to the company's bottom line.
• Successful marketers know they need to take a measurable customer-centric approach to their planning.

If you are thinking about putting together a marketing plan for 2010 and don't know where to start, click here to access Element Three's one page marketing plan. It is an easy way to get started.

"When [the new client] signed on I had to be extremely upfront about the time it takes to build new business. I told the principal that we weren't going to be the "pot of gold at the end of the sixth month rainbow". This principal understood and agreed to work with us despite my best attempt to scare the heck out of him.

Reason I bring this up is that for every client like this, there are plenty out there who stop and start their new business efforts, plenty who don't take the time to build the right messaging and collateral, and plenty who don't keep their eye on the ball and patiently stay the course to win new business.

 

If you engage in new business - both the sales and marketing involved to have a strong new business effort - there is going to be pain involved. That, I can guarantee. It is going to be painful to consistently carve out time yourself to engage in it or to monitor the progress of your team. There will be hard decisions to be made when it comes to deciding to fund marketing or keep a person. If you're truly committed, it will be painful at times, but it will be worth it.

Marketing Strategy #2: Focus, Focus, Focus

When the market slows, cuts are inevitable. Personnel layoffs, budget cuts, reduced inventory levels, capital expenditures are put off for another year, and the list goes on. Marketing spend seems to get caught in the mix when it comes to making cuts – so what is the ‘right’ thing to
do in a downturn?

Differentiate by focusing your marketing efforts. If you are going to make cuts and compromises, do so in a smart, deliberate fashion. In economic slowdowns companies tend to put programs and initiatives on life-support – spreading limited money around, rather than aggressively funding select programs that will ultimately sustain the organization’s competitive advantage.

Take the time to plan and strategize what customer segments or product lines are going to be the future of the organization and aggressively fund them. Well documented research shows that
consumers trade down during an economic slowdown to models that are more versatile, less specialized, and have fewer features. Can you trim your product or service offering accordingly? It is vitally important to not only identify the projects you are going to continue funding, but
also those projects you are going to stop funding. Be deliberate and bold in your decision-making.

Too many companies put effort towards planning and strategizing, only to stop short of thorough execution. Once you have decided which items will be funded, put metrics and accountability in place to ensure prudent and thorough execution. It’s not enough to plan to do something; you must execute with the same gusto with which you planned. If you are in management, check in often to ensure interim milestones and goals are being met. Set clear expectations and make adjustments.