Zombies encounter sweetness & light in the garden of marketing roses, Part I.

Marketing happens with or without proper attention. Markets respond to well targeted offers made by well-positioned sellers who properly and consistently present their value proposition in well planned media and sales campaigns. That mouthful means It’s up to you to determine whether or not they respond to your marketing, or your competition’s.

If you’re one of the good ones, you’ve taken control of the marketing function to reduce costs for lead generation, customer retention efforts, customer support & market communications - even as your marketing program effectiveness and ROI skyrocket. You and your now accountable colleagues are hailed as heroes bathed in sweetness and light in a garden of marketing roses. Truly, it happens!

More often then not, though, marketing is treated as a necessary evil, and an unprofitable byproduct of the business core. It may not even be a budget entity. In this case marketing becomes a catch-all for everything that is not sales or production. This is Zombie marketing that may be known from its dilution of responsibilities and its nonexistent accountability for all manner of will-nilly marketing projects rehashed from earlier efforts, or developed unplanned and as-needed (or late to never!). 

Anecdotal evidence of what happens with Zombie marketing over time includes: brand confusion, sales/profit stagnation or loss, and erosion of market share.

Frustrations mount over time along such Zombi highways paved with adequate, if not the best of intentions. Piddling 1,2 & 3 star customer experiences become the norm. Fewer and fewer prospects turn into fewer and fewer new customers. Existing customer orders fall off and nobody knows why. Zombies rarely get burned for going with the flow. This is especially true in the business-to-business selling world with extended sales cycles involving lots of influencers, decision makers, and procedures where death can be from a 1,000 hard-to-track cuts.

You know who you are. Perhaps your company has grown, along with the number of hats everyone wears. Marketing - what is that? We’ve made it this far, haven’t we? 

Even so, the “things” of marketing that need doing somehow manage to get done sooner or later in some way, shape or form. Piece meal marketing projects may be shared or divided among Sales, Operations, IT, Division Management, or even Secretary hat wearers. He or she gets today’s marketing hat who drew the short straw to shepherd a much needed website, PR, ad program, or any one of a number of sales support productions, i.e. videos, brochures, presentations, or events. 

There’s hope. You acknowledge such random Zombie acts of marketing aren’t ideal. You realize management by reaction; this is marketing in pieces is unsustainable. Competition is nipping at your heels. You’re hearing more and more customer suggestions, if not complaints (and on social media, no less!). Department heads are screaming. Morale is sinking into fatalism. You want to turn this grayness into sweetness & light in your very own garden of marketing roses.

You get a glimpse of a bigger marketing picture. You start asking pointed questions. How do each of these Zombie marketing things you’ve just been throwing into the mix: Work for a common corporate goal? Get prioritized? Account for effectiveness? Promote a consistent brand? Work together to gain new customers? Keep existing customers coming back?

You’ve reached the end of my attention span for this exciting episode of Zombies encounter sweetness & light in the garden of marketing roses, Part I.

Look for Zombies cured by sweetness & light in the garden of marketing roses, Part II in the near future.

Those anxious for a more personal solution to a Zombie Marketing issue may contact the author, Emil Walcek, at:

EJW Associates Inc

1602 Abbey Ct

Alpharetta, GA 30076

advertise@ejwassoc.com

770-664-9322

www.ejwassoc.com

DYI Market Research - Tips for making it pay

http://www.marketingprofs.com/5/kaden1.asp

As with all things digital, the tools for marketing research and marketing surveys are easy. Expertise for ensuring productive results is harder to come by for b to b marketers. First red flag, be careful what you ask to avoid rabbit holes that waste time, effort, and lead to dead ends. You will be caught like a deer in headlights with too much survey information. So will customers facing a too-complicated survey. Focus before beginning any survey! Ruthlessly winnow survey questions to get fewer answers that can have more impact.
Market Research Surveys can help marketers reduce risks, improve customer service, successfully develop new product or services, and gain new customer sales. Help formulating a survey strategy that includes defining a goal, questions, sample size and analysis will ensure an actionable result. For more information: EJW Associates Marketing Consulting Services and special OLI Marketing Consulting Offer.

How long has it been since you're company's last reality check?

http://www.manta.com/resources/tip-of-the-day/swots-it-all-about/

Everything from future sales & profits to market share & branding starts with a SWOT checkup - ideally guided by a dispassionate third party.

__________ - Art or Science?

Even before screens (BS) and blogs, it was not uncommon to run across article headlines with the alluring "-Art or Science?" phrase. Article content that followed was usually a disappointment then, and, as I peruse business feeds today, not much has changed. Authors in the blogosphere continue to tack this academic challenge onto subject headlines as if the phrase is forever fresh. Oh, the banality!

Readers, steer clear. Writers, think twice. It’s easy to rationalize such a headline hit. After all, there is an art or science in just about every subject. See for yourself how desperately effortless it is to fill in the blank before Art or Science with whatever: Marketing, Sales, Accounting, IT, Website Design, Programming, Management, Dog Sitting, etc.

A cynical plot, naiveté, or writer laziness?
Like moths to flame consumers of content are mysteriously compelled to break things into conflicting parts. Writers know contradictions attract, so such a headline phrase is pure gold. If we can divide something we're on our way to conquering and understanding. Or, at least be thoroughly entertained with the conundrum. That's the theory.

Don’t get me started on a whole raft of antonymical, kissing cousin, cheap-trick headline phrases that bombard us around the clock:

… Right or Left Brain?
… Heart or Mind?
… Form or Function?
… Style or Substance?

To illustrate, let’s plug the word Marketing into our “Marketing - Art or Science?” headline. Challenging, right? It invites us to really get in and slice and dice. Here's the rub: in the space of a 400 word blog post it is virtually guaranteed that the content cannot live up to these type Academic promises. Knowing this, the calloused among us have learned to skim right past such headlines.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Deep Thoughts. Academic headlines matched to suitably in-depth content have their place: Say, among target readers who also study the meaning of life and other such theoretical dilemmas. On the other hand, a writer delivering anything less after such a headline should expect banishment to the trash heap of the Interwebs, his or her work identified with the ever expanding belt of noise encircling the Internet, and a tarnished brand. You don’t want that, do you?

Problem number 2 with "-Art or Science" or other such theoretically challenged posts: consider the result, even if the article content did by some miracle deliver on the headline’s academic promise with relevant, reasoned content. On a practical level, what possible outcome can the answer to the question have on a CMO (chief marketing officer), or other manager’s work flow today, or ever?

Managers want to be hit with management solutions, i.e. My busted budget, the website update, vendors on the wrong track, Jane home sick and I don’t know how our trade show will go on, sales folk beating me up for new product promotions and brochure documentation, etc.

Bloglanders heed this message. May this be the last blog post you read headlined by the question “-Art or Science?”!

To all blog authors young enough not to have been taught cursive writing in school: save this low hanging fruit of a headline phrase for the leisure class reader. Or, do it justice in an academic context. But, please spare those of us in the business world!

Why draw lines between a brand, branding & marketing?

Branding developed without audited
marketing intelligence may be wasted.

It is not uncommon for executives who finally bless a brand review do so as a necessary backlash to years of brand neglect. However, discussing Brand and Branding outside the context of an overall Marketing self-assessment is an exercise in the proverbial tail wagging the dog. If you can start the healing anywhere, start the process with marketing. Here’s why.

Historically, most in the small to medium business category are challenged to effectively manage their brand. With scarce resources, an executive who ignores the foundations of an essential marketing foundation squanders opportunity and a viable long term path to success in favor of short term flash and unnecessary risk. We’ll begin by describing the differences and overlap of Brand, Branding and Marketing, starting with the most visible (the Tail) and work our way through to the most strategically important (the Dog).

The word brand derives from a burning mark, a sign and a certification. In today’s narrowest marketing parlance, a brand is a logo. Virtually all who are exposed to our commercial world are fundamentally aware of the significance of logo as brand. None can argue against the caretaking of an identity, a logo design (or redesign) with attendant usage guidelines as a noble effort.

Lacking brand application guidelines or direction, well intentioned employees will populate their communications with every conceivable possibility for personal expression, causing employer mis-representations and contributing to market confusion. Symptoms of brand neglect include:

• Abundance of logo tweaks and settings - simply because it’s so easy!
• Tag lines that come and go with popular tides.
• Corporate, division or department identities presented inconsistently with a logo creates an amateur impression of the company as a whole, does not instill confidence.
• Sales channels that plop corporate logos willy nilly into jarring displays of affiliation, hinder more than help the desired effect of a stable relationship.

Today, in its broadest sense, a brand has come to signify everything an entity stands for, and thus begins the overlap and confusion with Branding and the over-arching Marketing function.

Branding is the act of promoting a company or product with distinctive design or advertising. The term Branding is a natural extension of activities associated with a corporate brand and requires extended creative attention and management. Why split such hairs? Beyond establishing a Brand, or a corporate mark, Branding also involves art and direction approved at the highest corporate level. Branding brings discipline to: graphic design, photography, illustration, videography, and all forms of content development to unleash a powerful gamut of promotions on a mission to proactively charge markets. The harmonizing of corporate Brand with Branding efforts results in effective market perceptions.

Marketing encompasses and supports all actions required to communicate a corporate value proposition to its target markets. As a science, marketing includes the identification of meaningful markets, their motivations, and response triggers.

A larger issue looms even as we have ironed out the finer distinctions between brand and branding. Consider:

if…

Brand = logo = identity
Branding = Brand x distinctive promotions.

If we were to end our argument here at branding, essentially a multiplier of promotions, our branding activities would be unchecked.

So, we need…

Marketing = Branding ÷ value research

With the addition of Marketing to our series of equations, Branding becomes focused, directed at where and how it will do the most good, and Brand provides the essential market signature. An organization’s unique value proposition supported by an overall look and feel that is managed for consistency becomes that company’s brand

Conclusion:
A brand as an identifying mark needs and deserves TLC. Branding demands more and therefore requires more information gathering to be cost-effective. A company has the best chance of success when its marketing; that is, information gathering and direction for how it is to be precisely communicated; takes the lead in sales operations.

Emil Walcek, President,  EJW Associates Inc.

What you need to know beforehand: Websites, SEO & Search Marketing

Confused about the functional roles of website design & development, website maintenance, SEO & search marketing in general? You're not alone. Yet, few budgetary line items have more impact on marketing ROI. For visitors & prospects a website is the company and visa versa: a company is the sum of its Internet marketing. Online exposure in all forms is what defines a B to B company for its customers, prospects, and other business contacts.

So let's manage expectations for both developers and site owners with a review of basic industry questions and definitions. It's a good, self fulfilling prophecy that when all stakeholder start on the same page we've taken the first step toward making practical & cost-effective Internet marketing production and maintenance choices.

What's included in website design? - Website Design encompasses the overall look and feel of a website, from the home page to inside screens. Design is fun, but because all websites are interactive to some degree, web design must also include the site visiter's interface with all aspects of the site, including structure.

So, website design, and user interface design in particular, requires a unique combination of graphic arts creativity, left brain logic, and a grounding in current technologies. Impossible in a single talent? Because devices, technology and standards continue to advance at light speed, interdisciplinary teams are more the norm than an exception.

A website design specification that outlines project scope with clearly defined deliverables will help manage expectations for a new or upgraded website.  Note: even in the design phase, development functionality (discussed below) may be addressed in general sense.

What's included in website development? - Another name for Website Development could be website production because it includes whatever it takes to make the approved website design a functional reality. This phase requires an intense focus on how everything in a website is to work and the information that will be conveyed to site visitors in every screen. This may include:

• Setting up or migrating Domain Name & hosting account
• Creating or purchasing illustrations, graphics, professional photography
• Creating or adapting written content
• Creating animations, videos & other multi-media
• Building an Administrator Dashboard
• Template setup/coding to design specifications
• Populating new site with content
• Functionality scripting, coding
• Integration with CRM & other databases
• Integration with eCommerce financial systems
• Beta website functional review, debug, revisions
• Final website roll-out

Website maintenance - Even a "brochure-ware" website is not a set it and forget it proposition. Not only do freshened websites garner more Search Engine ranking points, but an updated website is a marketing asset. Creating and refreshing content is a big deal.

SEO (search engine optimizing) is the process of optimizing a website so that it may rise to a top result in a Google, Yahoo, Bing search. When querying a search engine both natural (organic) and paid advertising listings are displayed in select areas within 100's or 1,000's of result pages. Search engines have special algorithms to ensure the most meaningful listings for a given search string are given top priority. This applies to both natural and paid listings

Optimizing a website to enhance a website's status in a natural search result is the sole focus of SEO, and requires yet another area of expertise. SEO has evolved from a combination of tricks and value-add practices to solely value-add content and link practices to warrant a priority rank. Today, search engine optimizing a website requires an initial setup with ongoing SEO only required to the extent keyword focus may change.

Search Marketing (or Internet Marketing) is an all-encompassing discipline that includes whatever it takes to promote a website in the context of a marketing search. Traditionally, Search Marketing was more narrowly focused Adword or "click" advertising and SEO efforts. But today, a marketer may use a wide variety of inbound or outbound strategic tools to enhance website and company exposure:

• Websites
• Landing Pages
• SEO
• Adword or "click" advertising
• Banner advertising
• Direct Mailing or ePromotions
• PR & Content Marketing
• Analytical Tools

Each of these tools may be employed individually or in some combination in an integrated marketing effort. 

For more information on agency services for website development & hosting call me at 770-664-9322, or visit http://www.ejwassoc.com/what-we-do/web-design-development/

Manage your next corporate capability publication

Few would dispute the keystone significance of a corporate capability brochure, even as the Internet has (for some businesses) superseded an actual print rendition. Building a website has similar issues. Those who have been through the process know what a minefield the development process can be for any major communications work. Here I share my notes for taking on and managing such projects.

Identify your audiences.
Keep in mind ALL of your companyʼs potential publics, including: prospects, customers, vendors, bankers, employees and investors.

Note the development & production process
•— Concept development
•— Concept refinement with mockups, user interface design
•— Creative development - Research, Writing, Imaging
•— Prototype design and graphics with content text and images
•— Hosted Staging, testing. For brochure: Print ready artwork and print specifications
•— Live rollout. For brochure: Print production and distribution

Plan
A good plan well executed will fulfill its mission, net greater returns, have a longer life than an ill-conceived or poorly executed work.

Involve stakeholders from the outset
Nobody likes surprises, from the executive suite to the boots on the ground. Establish a representative team for the mission. Consider involving important partners, too. With skin in the game the hierarchy ensures that buy in is complete.

Research. Discuss. Listen.
It’s not just a marketing exercise. Collect many points of view from a broad variety of sources. C-level execs, managers, product engineers, department managers, sales and application engineers, HR. Begin with a free-form wish list from each stakeholder. Work this into a more detailed outline:
•— Introduction, company background
•— Capabilities & scope of operations
•— Industries and markets
•— Systems and products
•— How we work, sales & service support
•— Contact information, partner imprint.

However, avoid design by committee
Excessive delays in collecting input, proof approvals, etc., are the bane of any major project. Anyone missing a deadline forfeits bragging/bitching rights later. Not everyone’s opinion can or should be accommodated. Establish which experts will have final say for what project component.

What are others doing?
Review competitors, partners, suppliers samples to set the bar.
Develop a project timeline and stick to it.

Brochure Series completed in 19 days for show

Enlarge

Print thrives, but client expectations for production and delivery now verge on real time. After all, "it's digital, isn't it?" With a looming trade show deadline we committed to our client to deliver not one, but a series of product/corporate brochures in less than 19 days. Answering your question at the outset: Print, who needs it? Fewer folks than before but, then again, who needs trade shows, either? And yet, decision makers continue to rely on both.

In today's everyday world squeaky wheels of marketing tend to languish. Projects to effect performance 30, 60 and 90 days out is considered long term by many, particularly in small to mid size B to B businesses. Marketing plays a back seat to a daily grind of product management and sales.

That is, until a major event threatens to spotlight a company's market commitment. Then, the specter of inadequacy looms large to focus attention on marketing basics, such as: show booth graphics, Powerpoint & video presentations, visitor handouts, brochures. Pre-, during -, and post-show advertising, direct mail and promotions.

Another plus for trade shows. WIthout them how many marketing projects would languish in the lands of Hurry-Up-And Wait. This brochure project, originally approved without a particular timeline weeks before, now leaped to life with company stakeholders on red alert. Design concepts and rough content now moved forward with all due speed to meet impossible milestones. Failure is not an option when 10's of thousands of dollars in company resources are at stake, not to mention image and reputation.

In this industry show of mechanical systems, an all-out, full court analog experience was deemed essential. Brochures arrived on time and had the desired effect on the industry represented there and then and beyond.

In fast-tracking any new creative development, two factors rise in importance to ensure success to avoid crashing and burning: client focus and a solid agency vendor resource.

Call in a trusted partner. In this story, EJW had been working with our client for years. Every project with essential building materials is double archived. On the same wavelength we push the right buttons, ask the right questions, know what works in tight situations. To keep projects moving we become the shepherd herding the proverbial cats when milestones need attention.

Form a project team that includes agency & company personnel. To keep projects moving, fully prep members for expected participation. Assign point persons to manage all of the content likely to be required in any marketing project, such as: special image files, 3D renderings, content sources, vertical market expertise, product and application knowledge.

Call it Content or PR, it's customer engagement

Editorial is a marketer's most cost-effective tool for enhancing sales without burdening sales resources. 

Whether you do them, or hire an agency like ours, use articles, press releases, blog posts, industry newsletters to 

• Boost customer engagement frequency. 
• Enhance customer loyalty. 
• Penetrate key accounts to target new buying influences. 
• Prime both new & add-on sales.

Few organizations can afford to be in direct contact with all customers, all of the time - much less keep track of the ever-changing customer landscape of buying influences on a timely basis. Yet, without a regular public relations program that might include advertising, social, or content marketing, a company gambles on who has what information during a purchasing cycle.

EJW marketing PR services augment essential sales support obligations, helping clients multiply the efforts of a sales team.  Content with the right value proposition can penetrate old accounts, in addition to identifying new prospects and decision makers. Content can engage customers in between sales calls with your story the way it should be told.

A schedule for release of your company and product news, industry overviews, application information can be planned in advance, with content created as needed.

Press releases, articles, social media, white papers, videos, broadcast spots, websites and website blogs are major outlets for marketing PR. Some PR content can be quickly created and distributed to coincide with marketing pushes. In depth, article-weight content requires an appropriate measure of research and production. Our B to B pros can create it all for you, working with you to define content goals, media mix and final form.

On a project or contract arrangement, the public relations services we perform result in EJW clients establishing an ongoing dialog with their customers - raising awareness, adding to their knowledge, enabling informed buying decisions, and creating sales leads when your sales channel is not on duty 24/7/365.

Adapted from http://www.ejwassoc.com/press-releases.php

Sure, "Ready, Fire, Aim" marketing might work...

...but let's not kid ourselves - it's still a gamble. 

Who are we to judge? We've all been at the crossroads of Time, Money, & Results.  At some point, every marketer has shot from the hip, and shot themselves in the foot, too! In "just doing it" to make a campaign happen - without knowing everything there is to know about a product, its market, and expectations - a marketer is rolling the dice. You can win, but odds are you could have won bigger. And, with Las Vegas odds always with the house, more often than not you'll not meet campaign goals doing READY. FIRE. AIM. marketing.

Some rationals for shooting first and asking questions later include:

• I need results yesterday.
• Don't have the time or money for market research.
• I feel real good about this. Success is in the bag!
• My boss respects the "act now, apologize later" methodology.
• Cost of failure may be judged another day.
• Potential for success is simply too great to delay.

Experienced marketers I've known have almost always regretted not doing a campaign right the first time. Others simply write-off bad results by blaming everything and everyone but their own choices. In "Ready. FIRE. Aim." mode a marketer completely by-passes the vetting we all know should be done.

Yet, I have to say I've seen marketing shortcuts work. Better than doing nothing, or when perfection becomes the enemy of good, a niche, industrial or technology marketer may have just enough insight and experience to take a marketing risk and achieve some ROI.

But here the kidding stops. Marketing is as marketing does. Hero one day, loose cannon the next. There's a reason process, buy-in, creativity, and accountability win out in the end. Ready, AIM, Fire not only reduces risks, but improves the probability of long-term success while gaining the marketing practitioner respect within an organization and (most importantly) among customers!

And if you think you can't afford it, think again. Learn about Marketing Consulting for B to B marketers here. Than look for another link to a "Unique Outside Looking In Trial Marketing Consulting Offer" at the end.