Be Your Own Bailout
December 2, 2008
As the economy tightens, businesses have begun the belt-tightening process. They are taking a close look at all expenditures and cutting back on the non-essentials. Branding/marketing budgets are not escaping the scrutiny - nor should they. So what SHOULD a company allocate towards branding/marketing? Here are 7 areas to consider:
- Look at your business in its entirety. Think strategically, then tactically. This starts first with the 3 Simple Rules of business. Take a close look at your vision for your company - has the picture in your head of success changed? If so, then you need to re-focus your business strategy around that new vision.
- Take a long look at your business model. Is your business model out of alignment with market conditions? Do you have scalability in your processes that allows you to flex to new opportunities? This will have big impact on how you spend branding/marketing dollars. Keep in mind that advertising MORE doesn’t help an obsolete business model.
- Ask “why?” a lot. Every marketing expenditure must be tied to a strategic reason. There should be no marketing just for the sake of marketing.
- Ask “what?” a lot. Every marketing expenditure should have provable, measurable results. If a particular marketing tactic is not producing results, stop doing it.
- Make heavy use of public relations. This is key in two areas. 1) Media relations - most media outlets have had to cut back on reporting staff. As such, they are hungry for non-pitchy, relevant stories. Strongly consider using a professional PR firm to help you handle this. They can very likely articulate your story to the media better than you can. Also check out “Help-A-Reporter-Out”, a story request tool from PR guru Peter Shankman. 2) Be Your Own Media - if your story isn’t getting out, it is your fault. Your web-site is a publishing outlet waiting to tell your story. I’m a strong advocate of re-purposing all marketing tools to tell your story instead of pitching your message. If you follow the 3 Simple Rules, you will have great stories to tell.
- Drive the cost out of existing marketing expenditures. Keep in mind that almost all marketing is a commodity. This means it often can be done faster and less expensive if you shop it carefully. This especially true with web costs. Take a look at what it costs to maintain your site. If your current site doesn’t have a CMS (content management system) then you are likely wasting thousands of dollars. Also take a look at hosting costs. As far as out-bound marketing efforts, almost everything can be purchased less than what you are paying for now - direct mail, media placement, etc. Finally, consider using more interns. A college marketing student is much more likely to understand current marketing trends than a marketing person who hasn’t escaped the walls of his/her cubicle in 10 years. Interns are ideal to manage customer retention efforts (see below).
- This is the biggest one - focus on customer retention v. customer acquisition. The first reason is purely financial - it is simply much less expensive to get new business and referrals from your existing customers. However, this doesn’t mean to NOT spend money on customer retention. Instead, re-direct funds that are currently being spent on customer acquisition (for example, mass advertising) towards customer retention tools. These steps include:
- Re-purposing your web-site to be a conversation platform between you and your customers - and your customers with each other.
- Embracing social media as a digital word-of-mouth tool.
- Implementing survey and customer feedback mechanisms
- Investing in contact/relationship management tools like a CRM.
- Scrutinizing every element of the customer experience.
For B2B companies, there is an 8th step - Re-build your sales force. The bottom line - if your product/service is good, there is no excuse for an under-performing sales person. If you have a good salesperson, do everything to keep them.
Some of this is “tough love” that will ruffle some feathers with our fellow marketers/branders. However, if we don’t help businesses re-focus and properly allocate marketing resources, we will end up on a ledger with a red line through our name. For business owners and executives, you likely have been doing some version of the above for years; maybe not with marketing. Question everything, think strategically, and expect excellence from your internal and external marketing people.
Ten Big Questions
June 10, 2008
Here is an excellent post from Peter Blackshaw over the ClickZNetwork.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629851
Peter poses the Ten Big Questions Every CMO Must Ask.
I would add one more …
How are we measuring the relevance of our brand?
I have found that CMOs by default focus way too much on eyeballs and not enough on conversations. I don’t necessarily blame them, as CPM and it’s derivatives have been the metric of choice for so many years. That said, nothing says “relevance” like people talking about you. If a CMO can’t measure conversations, then it will be difficult to answer many of Peter’s questions related to “customer advocacy”.
Lee Jeans
May 21, 2008
Here is excellent article/interview in Ad Age with Liz Cahill, VP of Marketing for Lee Jeans.
http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=126925
It appears that both she and her company “get it”. It will be interesting to see if embracing social networking and a WOM cultural will create brand turn-around story.
One curiosity … I looked for Liz on Twitter and Facebook and couldn’t find her. Access to company executives is a critical step in creating a 1:1, people-driven brand.
Is a CMO a Temp Job?
April 16, 2008
As has been discussed far and wide, the average tenure of a CMO is somewhere around 21 months. Rarely is it the incompetence of the CMO. Most of them are bright, accomplished people. In most cases, it is because the CMO was set up to fail with unreasonable revenue expectations or asked to market a bad product. What is interesting is that this trend doesn’t seem vary much with great companies v. poorly run companies or good products v. bad products. It appears that the modern CMO may be the most transitional executive position. Why is this?
- Effective CMOs are typically big idea people. They tend to be strategic marketers not tactical marketers. Rare is the person who can excel at both the big idea and in the minutia of the execution. As such, the execution of the tactics is handled by Brand Managers, Marketing Managers, etc. - in essence, the “assembly line supervisors” of the marketing system.
- Speaking of “system”, the execution of marketing is a commodity. Once the idea is created and the execution system is in place, it is natural to drive costs out of the system. In short, it is cheaper to pay several tactical people than to pay one CMO.
- If the big idea and strategic marketing are successful, what does a CMO do? After the launch, most of the details will be handled by managers. Unless the company has other initiatives, there are really only a couple of places to go - out or up; either leave the company or get promoted to CEO. The latter is actually occurring more frequently.
- CMOs typically get one shot to be right. If they are brought in and their strategic marketing/branding plan doesn’t work, they are typically shown the door. It is a bit like being a football coach at a big time college - win now or die. There is not a lot of patience to build a brand internally by focusing on quality control, creating employee evangelists, opening up the marketing to allow customers to participate, etc. Most Boards and CEOs want results NOW. Unfortunately, sometimes greatness takes time.
The biggest issue that creates the “temp” feeling of the CMO role is that the marketing rules have changed. When done properly, modern marketing is about creating a large enough customer base to reach word-of-mouth critical mass. This means an initial outlay of external marketing dollars, but only to reach the point where your customers become your primary marketing driver. At this point, almost all marketing should turn inward. As such, the CMO must evolve to a role of something more like “Chief Branding Officer” or “Chief Experience Officer” (CXO?) - someone who obsesses about the customer experience, customer feedback, product quality, etc. Unfortunately, in most corporate hierarchies, these are Department Head-type roles, not executives.
In light of all this, it is no coincidence that the CMOs with the longest tenure, that have overcome the “temp” curse, are in innovative, forward-thinking organizations. In fact, they may not even be called “CMOs”. It is likely that they started with a strategic marketing role, but because of their own flexibility and the innovative culture of their organizations they have continued to evolve their role to provide value to the over-all brand. This follows the “Good to Great” philosophy of the “right people on the bus, in the right seats”. Who says they can’t change seats?
The System
March 31, 2008
The act of marketing is a commodity. You can get design, media placement, PR, web design, etc. anywhere. And the quality across the board is quite high.
Everything thing that reaches commodity state requires a “system” to manage the commodity. The System drives the costs out by being more efficient and more disciplined in the execution of marketing. By its nature, a system has metrics and measureables - both in how the marketing was executed and the results it produced.
Maybe it is because of the artistic nature of marketing people, but most don’t view themselves as commodities. As such, there tends to be no system other than the dreaded marketing punch list.
This leads to this process:
- Determine the Idea (brand)
- Build the System
- Measure and adjust
This means being a purist about the original idea - to allow no brand gaps or variances from who you really are. It also means being able to cast a cold eye on the System - to be willing to make changes to the process and the people to ensure that you are driving the cost out of marketing while maintaining the integrity of the brand.
If CMOs want the same respect within their organizations as the CFOs receive, consider this - the above is exactly what the CFO does. The “idea” is the business model, and the System is the financial model to achieve those goals. And the best CFOs have a perfect balance of both.
CMO Respect
March 19, 2008
Here is a great post on whether or not CMO’s get respect for their strategic efforts. My point has been that the lines are very blurred between marketing and planning. This is the result of a very flat and transparent society, where the polity of the audience controls a brand. This means a CMO, if capable, needs a seat at the strategy table.
CMOs Do They Get Respect? « The Collaborative Marketer
The CMO’s Dilemna
March 19, 2008
Here is a great essay on the plight of the modern CMO. If QB is the toughest job in football, then CMO is the toughest job in business.
The Chief Marketing Officer’s Dilemma
The Pressure Cooker
March 12, 2008
Most marketing decisions are made under duress. A pending launch. Entering a new market. Or the greatest pressure, trying grow out of a slump.
Any decisions made under duress are bound to create mistakes. In the case of marketing, I think the biggest mistake is surrendering to tangibility. In the pressure cooker, it is easy to fall back to The List of marketing tactics. The tangibility of the list makes us feel like we are doing something; and it is something we can show The Boss. But if you live by The List, you will die by The List. Because The List makes what you are doing a commodity; it drops you below peer level.
Another mistake is to immediately go into blitz mode; to do some sort of promotion to create a bump in sales. Unfortunately, this usually means discounting - which (unless you are Walmart) creates no long term adoption from your audience.
I don’t expect the pressure cooker of being a marketing executive to change. But there are things we can do to manage the pressure:
- Look inward - focus on your existing customers first.
- Don’t over-think it - stay true to the original idea or core of the business.
- Listen - to your customers, employees, yourself.
- Focus on the customer experience. It is the one branding activity that you have the most control over.
Final thought … you have to delegate. Not necessarily to your employees, but your customers. Essentially, turn your marketing over to them. This starts by being transparent about where you are taking the company’s brand. This allows you to work on the big picture stuff like your core, identity, and interaction. This makes you more valuable to your company, while also recognizing that your customers are collectively way smarter than you.
CMO Launch Checklist
February 26, 2008
CMOs and other top marketing executives are under more pressure than ever to produce results. As such, I have developed a check-list of sorts to be used before you pull the trigger on that seven figure marketing campaign.
- Is your message simple?
- Did you stay true to your brand core?
- Does your audience have a face and name?
- How will you prove results?
- Would you buy your product?
- Are your promises true?
- Are you employees excited?
- Where are the gaps?
- Will there be two-way communication with the audience?
- Why should the audience care?
Depending on your industry and budget, you need to know at least 7 - 10 of the answers. In a highly competitive environment, you better have all 10 nailed down. Note that there was little to do with which tactics to implement or what agency to choose. I am assuming that you have both of these figured out - and without knowing the answers to these questions, it really doesn’t matter.
CMOs v. Agencies
February 22, 2008
Here is a great blog post from Marc Bresseel about the issues facing CMOs and their agencies. As I mentioned in my comment to Marc, this is almost at manifesto level! I highly recommend reading this and passing it around CMO and agency worlds. It will clarify a lot of expectations on both sides.
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