Montreal Marketing Consultant - Montreal Business Marketing - Silver Maple

Oh those Boomers, how could we ever forget them? Depending on who you speak to the generation that was born after World War II, from 1945 to 1964, represents the largest demographic segment in the U.S., if not the world. 76 million Americans were born in that period, rejecting traditional values and growing up wealthier and happier than previous generations. For many years, marketers focused solely on this generation of consumers because of the enormous wealth and their need to spend it on something.

Traditional marketing theory has always focused on marketing to the up and coming generations. The logic followed that they had more disposable income, they were entering the stages of their lives were they were making big-ticket purchases on items such as cars and homes and because of the baby boom, there was more consumers in those segments. Fast forward to 2012, and the theory is undergoing a major transformation.

According to Nielsen, Boomers spend 38% of Consumer Packaged Goods dollars, however less than 5% of advertising dollars are currently targeted towards adults 35-64 years old (which includes my fellow Generation X’ers, born between 1965 and 1976 and the Boomers) You don’t have to be a math wizard, and I’m certainly not, to understand that there is a large opportunity for marketers.

Even better news is that Boomers have similar tastes as 18-35 year olds, including technology and online shopping. They represent 1/3 of one-third of all online users, social media users and Twitter users and because they watch the most video, up to 9:34 hours per day, they are an ideal market for online video applications. Reaching out to Boomers online and through technology has never been easier. Companies that recognize the consumption model has changed will gear their products and their marketing efforts towards the forgotten Baby Boom generation.

I was thumbing through a copy of Profit Magazine and I came across a great article on a hot trend for 2012 – Recommerce. Recommerce is really just bringing the garage sale junkie out in all of us. We want our old stuff to be worth something. We’ve been conditioned steadily by the auto industry, video stores and video game retailers etc… But the recommerce trend is bringing it all full circle and we now want everything to have a resale value.

There are three + factors driving this trend a) a tight economy b) low savings rates c) the green movement and one more common sense. Let’s face it, we consume too much. The E.U, U.S. and China represent 55.4% of the world’s entire gross domestic product. With more people being added to the planet by the minute, we will have to learn to do more with less, its just simple math. We have too much stuff. When I flip on A&E and watch Barry, Jarrod and the rest of the cast on Storage Wars buying abandoned storage units for hidden treasures that can be resold, I realize that we are spending too much on things we don’t need.

If this recommerce trend is for real, how long will it be before we have two sets of prices the next time we walk into a major retailer – brand new and slightly depreciated (lightly worn)? It’s a well-known fact that most retailers work on the new styles, new trends etc… so it might take a while for this to take shape. And there will always be fears of product cannibalization – the slightly worn jeans stealing sales from the hot new jeans. But I am not proposing anything all that revolutionary; I just think that retailers will have to change with the times.

Networking has probably been around since the days of the Romans, which has been deemed the point in time when the term “market” came into existence. It’s kind of hard not to imagine the following conversation not taking place somewhere in Europe “Listen Faustinus, Decimus has some wheat that he’s willing to part with for some barley, do you know anybody who’s interested”

There are several networking gurus out there, who have their own view on networking. With many years of trial and error under their respective belts, I think that they all have something relevant to add to the conversation. However, like everything else, networking is evolving as the world becomes smaller and social media usage increases. Networking is an essential form of business development; however the mistake that most people make is thinking that it is the only form of business development that they should engage in. It may be the case for some professions and industries but for most sales and marketing will always be the king of the hill.

In my experiences, I see networking or referral marketing falling down in the reciprocity stage. In the classic book "Influence", Robert Cialdini, the Arizona State University professor, wrote that sociologists and anthropologists believe that we humans  live by the rule of reciprocity. You know, I do something for you, you’ll repay me. In a sense networking lives and dies on the rule of reciprocity. If an act of giving isn’t repaid, there is no sense in the referral relationship continuing. With compressed product life cycles, hyper competition and economic instability, the lack of time and the importance of investing the little time that we all have comes into play. Choosing one’s networking partners is becoming more important than ever.

Many modern day technology entrepreneurs feel that customers should be seen and not heard and that they should never listen to their customers for product feedback. It’s hard for me to argue with the success of those multimillionaires who have introduced innovative products that have changed the world in the IT, telecommunications and medical fields. However there is strong evidence that suggests companies that don’t listen to their customers won’t be in business for that much longer. Based on a sample size of 32 startups, Chubby Brain, an online data-driven company that provides tools for entrepreneurs, found that the main reason that startups fail is because they ignore their customers. And three of the top four reasons were marketing related.  (excluding picking the right team)

You don’t have to be a statistician to understand that for every business idea there is a chance for success or failure. In fact, studies have indicated that more than 90 percent of all new products fail in within 2 years and only 40% of new consumer food, beverage, beauty, and healthcare products will be around in 5 years! Since most startups survival is based on developing a product that will be a hit with the market, we can  conclude that  company failures are caused mainly by new product failures.

In my experience, marketing research which can save a company from making mistakes and is the most underutilized marketing tool.  I’ve heard from business owners that with shorter product life cycles, it would take too long to get the product to market if it they had to research every product feature with their target market. Or it’s better to introduce the product in order to beat the competition to market.  Although these reasons are valid, they are prone to product failures. For startups surviving on a shoestring budget, investing in primary and/or secondary marketing research would not only increase their product success rates and but the long-term viability of their companies would increase significantly.

Way back when, we used to pick up a phone book and find the business or service provider when we had a need.  Times have changed. The wonderful people at Google and before them Yahoo etc… made it so much easier to type a query into a search engine and get pages and pages of results! They created the perfect information resource for a time-starved and attention deficit generation that needed everything yesterday.  

As Internet adoption rates are increasing all over the world, more and more people are finding what they need online. And mobile technology makes it easier for us to connect from anywhere. Globalization is no longer a textbook theory, it’s here and it’s happening now. Businesses who haven’t embraced the importance of marketing via the Internet, risk slipping into irrelevance as far as their customers are concerned, wherever they are in the world. Top of mind awareness matters even more in the present marketing context. And in order to stay top of mind with your customers, you have to make Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a top priority.

Search Engine Optimization, simply put, is how high your website (your strongest branding tool) ranks on SERP’s (search engine results pages) for keywords that describe your company, product or service.  Either your on the first page or your not. And if you aren’t don’t expect customers to go looking for you on page 20 of a search engine query.

SMB’s (small and medium businesses) really can’t afford to not do SEO, since their websites are their most effective marketing tools. You can only print and distribute so many brochures. So why don’t more companies invest in SEO? There are many answers to that very interesting question. Perhaps management doesn’t feel comfortable with the technology. I’ve been told in the past that “We get most of our clients through word-of mouth”. And while that may be true presently, the one constant since the 90’s is change. And customers and how we reach them is changing everyday.

In 2011, it seems like business has finally bought into using social media to reach prospects and build its online brand. Aside from the obvious SEO benefits of creating external links, generating buzz, adding another customer touchpoint and in some cases generating and nurturing leads, what’s not to like?   It’s really inexpensive; it only costs the salary of an employee or an external contractor. All of the major platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Linkedin etc... are free.  You might even surprise yourself and get an actual client.

And just like the old saying goes, when it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.  In an earlier blog, I spoke about consumers being bombarded by 5,000 marketing messages daily. I think people have figured out what a marketing message is by now. Companies that take a Me-Too approach to social media end up with me-too results.

Its one thing to build a community of followers or have people following you on Twitter (it’s what people do online nowadays) It’s another thing to generate sufficient interest in your product or service that they’ll actually buy a product from you. So how do you cross the Social Media Canyon without burning the bridge?   Very carefully

Social Media is the kid who moved away from your neighborhood but came back. Bigger, stronger, faster (My apologies to the Six Million Dollar Man) In the 90’s, literally eons ago in the online world, message boards was the original social media. They still exist but are truly depassé. Bulletin boards became Internet forums and then morphed into modern message boards. Very Web 2.0 in the age of Web 1.0. A combination of events including cheaper and more advanced technology led to the social media landscape of today.

Although experts are using many anthropology, psychology, web analytics etc… to get a better handle on evaluating and converting social media traffic, their haven’t been that many examples of business models built solely on social media success. It’s been on the nice to have list.

How do you convert these visitors REGULARLY? A dedicated resource that would work under the marketing umbrella like a community manager would be a start. Unfortunately many small companies don’t have the resources. Outsourcing is a solution but choose your service provider wisely.  Next off you need to integrate your social media plan that into your overall marketing plan.  Just like SEM and SEO, social media plays a large role in how your customers will find you online. You’ll have to introduce cross-metrics such as Registrations from Social Media Websites, Visits to Store Locator Pages, Visits to the Contact Us Page, Impact on Customer Lifetime Value etc…Finally you have to take action. The best plan will fail if no one monitors and tweaks it over time. Plan. Measure. Take Action. Are you ready for your to get the conversation started about your brand?

I recently worked with a 3^rd party email marketing service provider on a white paper that describes how companies can increase the effectiveness of their email campaigns. Now email marketing has been around since the beginning of the Internet. In those halcyon days of the mid 90’s when Hotmail was giving out free email addresses, the power of this new mass communications tool was still unknown. And just as quick as you can hit the delete button, email marketing took off as a low cost direct marketing tool for small businesses. According to the DMA, 94% of marketers use email marketing which is more than direct marketing (86%). With everyone jumping on board, what techniques could be used to maximize their effectiveness?

You have to ask your customers out on a date before they can trust you.  Seth Godin, the brilliant marketer who wrote “Permission Marketing” said it best”…that means you have to offer something that makes it interesting enough to go out on the first date” A whitepaper, a discount, free products etc… even if the prospect doesn’t accept your initial offer. It’s not just a smart sales technique but a sound business practice. By giving potential customers something of value, you position yourself as a resource and you initiate trial.

And then she told two friends and so on. By getting your customers and fans to refer you to their friends, you can grow your mailing list organically. Just include a “forward to a friend” link in your email and watch your list grow! Also, make your site content, newsletters, and social media both “sticky” and “sharable” by adding links on your page to “bookmark this site”, “send this article to a friend”, and “connect” on Facebook”.

Companies have to do a better job at targeting their email campaigns and testing the results. How many email marketers bother to verify their lists regularly? It’s very difficult to hit the target (2% open rate, 20% signup rate etc…) if the person has changed positions or doesn’t work there anymore. Email marketing is an iterative process which is a fancy way of saying you learn from your mistakes before try again.

Which leads to the next point, you have to have a follow up engagement strategy. It feels good to give away something for free but you have to plan the next steps to take. It could be a string of emails with special offers based on recipients browsing habits on your website. (Yes, there is a way to find out what visitors do after they come on your website). You could also direct them to your Facebook page and encourage them to become a fan for even more discounts. An email campaign is how they get to know you; the rest is up to you.

Goodbye doesn’t mean I don’t like you. For those people who unsubscribe because they prefer less communication; you could suggest that they follow you on Facebook or Twitter. You can keep the relationship alive with people who unsubscribe without offending them it just takes tact and diplomacy.

For more tips on email marketing visit me on Facebook!

As business owners are struggling to find more effective ways to reach out to their target audiences and create brand engagement, there is a growing trend among consumers to tune messages out. Limited budgets, increased competition, faster speed to market compound the issues and reduce the margins for error.

Taking into account TV commercials, radio ads, billboards, newspaper ads, banner ads, PPC ads (search engine marketing) consumers are being bombarded by 5,000 marketing messages daily! Consumers are faced with the daunting task of deciphering all of these messages and choose the product that best fills their needs.  So how can your message standout from the marketing clutter and build your brand’s credibility?

The answer could be in your company’s public relations strategy. Long considered marketing’s distant cousin, marketers don’t necessarily integrate PR into their marketing plans. The main reason is that unlike advertising, marketers can’t control the message; forcing them to rely on the opinion of an unbiased third party. Just to show you how powerful negative PR can impact your brand, we can just look at what happened when the American College of Chest Physicians published a report on the ineffectiveness of cough medicines. Sales in all segments of cough syrups dropped dramatically during January, 2006 when the editorials that  major media outlets had published were at their highest point . As media interest subsided, sales rebounded. Studies have shown that consumers put more are more likely to make a purchasing decision based on an article than based on an ad. So why don’t marketers divert funds to public relations?

Not being able to control the message is not the only reason that they haven’t been all jumping on the public relations bandwagon. If you haven’t noticed newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations have been prospering in the Internet Age. Declining readership, mergers, reduced editorial staffs and sagging revenues are negatively impacting the industry.

Also, just because a company decides that it’s going to optimize public relations efforts, it doesn’t mean that a media outlet is going to write about your product or service. Relationships have to be forged; trust and credibility have to be developed, all which require time, effort and funds. With shorter time frames to deliver results, it’s hard to blame marketers for not investing time and resources in a strategic public relations strategy.

For those marketers that want to build credibility with their target audiences and increase brand awareness and sales, an investment (and not an expense) in public relations is an investment that companies have to make.

The Harvard Business Review published a study awhile back that people remembered only 20% of what they hear and only 30% of what they see, but an incredible 70% of what they hear and see! In other words, video caused recall to jump between 40-50%!  According to Marketing Vox viewers have a recall almost 20% higher for online video ads over TV ads. (65% vs. 46%)  Online video ads also outperform TV ads in message recall and likeability. With all of the positive vibes generated by online video, why isn’t video already on your website?

Then you have to take into consideration all of those companies that have become international success stories through YouTube videos, such as Blendtec, the commercial blender manufacturer. In 2007, founder Tom Dickson took $50 and bought a white lab coat, some marbles and with the help of some other accessories (a few McDonald’s Extra Value Meals, garden rake etc…) and shot a series of five videos, asked viewers the Internet’s version of “To Be or Not to Be” in the form of “Will it blend? That is the question.” The Blendtec team then proceeded to blend everything and anything, posting their videos on YouTube. Not only did online sales increase by 500%, Blendtec created a viral storm with 155,945,374 views and 369,067 subscribers to its YouTube channel at last count.  I am guessing that more than a few viewers went and checked out the www.blendtec.com website and bought a blender. The Camera Store, Dave Carroll and Taylor Guitars and Old Spice are some of the other companies and brands that have capitalized on generating YouTube buzz.

When Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.6 billion, it bought more than a website that showed everything from music videos to corporate presentations. It bought its entire video library, and then fed it into its search engine’s results pages (SERP’s).  YouTube receives the third most visited site in the world, with 2 billion views a day and 24 hours of video being uploaded per minute!

Now consider this scenario. You’ve hired a top notch SEO firm that’s been trying to get on the first page of Google search engine results without any success. There’s too much competition in your product category for you to higher organic search rankings. Have you thought about adding a video? According to Forrester Research, websites with videos had a 50% better chance of showing up on the first page.

Getting onto the first page of a search engine result and staying there, takes a lot more work than recording a video. But if you’d like to take one action today that will help build your brand, get customers to remember your brand and put you where customers are more likely to find you, maybe you should consider producing a professional video.

The sales and marketing disconnect has been going on as long as they both exist - marketing creates targeted campaigns and complains that sales don’t follow up on leads. Sales complain that they aren’t getting “quality” leads. (depending on the organization, quality seems to be a moving target) Marketing develops their interpretation of messaging for the collateral (brochures, videos, direct mail etc…) and presentations and sales does their own PowerPoint presentations and changes the messaging.  Multiple messaging for the same product confuses the customer. The dialog goes back and forth until management sits everyone down at the same table. Sound familiar?

At the end of the day, sales and marketing have to come together to deliver a clear and consistent value proposition that enables prospects to develop a coherent brand image of the company and its products.  Forrester Research recently reported similar findings in “B2B Sales and Marketing Alignment Starts with the Customer.” Only six of the sixty-six marketing and sales leaders who responded to Forrester's survey, reported that the two groups worked closely together.

Jeff Ernst, a principal analyst at Forrester and the author of the report, states that first of all both sides have to agree on an ideal customer profile. In other words, determining the target market for the product.  Next, they should come to an understanding of the customer's needs and identify all of the factors that influence the buying process. The buyer then takes over leadership of the process.

Ironically, the corporate resource with the least amount of contact with the buyer, the CMO or Chief Marketing Officer, usually leads the process. In my opinion a truly representative alignment would include the buyer in some capacity (personas developed through marketing research & research and development) and the Sales Director. It might take longer to develop consensus, but all parties have a vested interest that this works.

Whichever opinion that you may be of, bridging the divide will mean that sales and marketing will have to spend more time communicating with each other and not talking “at” one another. Who knows, maybe going to lunch with the marketing guy or going fishing with the sales guy isn’t such a bad thing after all.