Gambling With Your Marketing

by Paul Travis, Interim Marketing Executive

This post has been bubbling in my head for some time, but 2 events today broke the camel’s back…

First was my colleague, Max Clough, mentioning a client potentially dragging out an opportunity to seize a market, because of the “national (and worldwide) poker game” that we’re experiencing.

Now on the one hand, I like that phraseology better than “The Economy”. As in, “we can’t make a decision because of The Economy.”

Let’s call a spade a spade. You’re afraid you don’t know what’s going to happen and you’re not confident that your business can survive.

Why?

Because you’ve been conditioned by the media for over half a year that the sky is falling! Now to be clear, I am not saying that there haven’t been huge increases in the jobless. I’m not saying that institutions Fannie Mae and Lehman Brothers aren’t failing and having huge repercussions.

What I’m saying is that people are still putting on their pants, and driving to work, and going to the movies, and.. and.. and..

* The movie industry is up 14%.
* Fast food companies are up.
* Low priced toys/games are booming.
* Almost anything “green” is selling.

Unfortunately telling the positive side of the story isn’t as lucrative as the fear cycle: it’s really bad so come back tomorrow and we’ll tell you how much worse it got!

Now before I go off the deep end, I know you’re wondering — what was the second event?

It was this SmartBrief: 73% of marketers predict more spending.

More than seven in 10 marketers hope to boost spending three to six months before the end of the downturn, while 16% said they would increase their budgets “as soon as it ends,” according to an online survey from the Association of National Advertisers. — Adweek (05/28)

What this means is that people are conserving cash, just like banks are. Too many are just playing the “timing” game, when to put the chips back on the table. Am I upset about the 16% who said that they would come back to the table when they could afford it?

No — I look at the 73% (almost five-fold!) who hope to play “time the market”, coming back “just in time”, before everyone else knows that the situation has gotten better.

If there is anything I hope we learn/remember from this, it is that the tortoise wins the race. Not the rabbit who wastes time chowing down, then runs fast, and then relaxes some more.

Plotting business strategy, developing process, and executing against plan is worth gold!

I was saying to my kids the other day, “there comes a point in growing up that you learn you can speak up and break with the crowd when they’re doing something you know is wrong”.

At the risk of over-repeating Steven Covey’s great line: “The environment you fashion out of your thoughts, your beliefs, your ideals, and your philosophy is the only climate you will ever live in.”

So think hard next time you catch yourself uttering a pessimistic remark… Let’s all be seeking to create success!

Paul Travis is an interim marketing executive and helps companies create a screaming value proposition and accelerate sales. He can be reached at paul.travis@oneaccordpartners.com. He also blogs at Marketing 2020.

The book, Leadership on Demand is available at http://leadership-on-demand.com/.

Photo by jamadams

Interim Marketing Executive Question: Should Marketing Be Measured on Conversions?

by Chuck Besondy

Good question. Up until recently I thought the proposal conversion rate belonged to Sales and therefore Sales performance should be based, in part, on the rate of proposal wins.

After attending a FunnelAcademy(tm) workshop lead by Hugh MacFarlane, I have changed my way of thinking.

The percent of proposals won is directly related to the quality of the buyers that marketing places into the revenue funnel and advances through the early stages of the funnel.

Yes, Sales should still be measured, in part, on their effectiveness in closing deals, but so should Marketing.

What better way to put Markeing and Sales on the same page than to have both evaluated for the same key business metric?

Chuck Besondy is a principal at One Accord Partners and is co-author of Leadership on Demand: How Smart CEO’s Tap Interim Management to Drive Revenue. You can read more about Interim Sales and Marketing Management by Chuck Besondy at his blog One Riot-One Ranger.

The Number 1 Rule of Marketing for Executives: Quantify, Quantify, Quantify

by Paul Travis

Do you have a favorite retail quote?

I do. And it’s not one that I think the industry should be proud of…

Save up to 40 percent, or more!

What are we, the consumers, to think — 1% or 99%? Human beings can only consider offers and value propositions within a meaningful frame of reference.

Consider this example — a customer feedback card from Silver City Restaurant & Brewery in Silverdale, Washington, made to look like the classified ads.

$375k per year sounds a lot more impactful than $15 for five minutes. Misrepresentative? No, I see creativity in catching attention and “portraying value”.

There is always a way to quantify the true value. Sometimes we have to work hard to figure it out. Often, going through the exercise helps us understand how to communicate to the prospective consumer.

So… how can you quantify your value proposition for your prospective clients and customers?

Paul Travis is a principal at OneAccord which provides interim executive services. Mr. Travis is based out of Seattle with 25 years of experience in high technology, marketing, and consulting. He can be reached at Paul.Travis(at)oneaccordpartners.com and at 206-910-2222.

Seth Godin Video: Godin Discusses A Remarkable Marketing Strategy

Seth Godin is one of the foremost marketing thought leaders and is constantly publishing innovative thoughts on marketing on his blog www.sethgodin.typepad.com. Godin likes to challenge the conventional way of doing things and urges us to take risk to make our product or service remarkable. The following video discusses why the “TV industrial complex” no longer works and why it more important than ever to be remarkable.

Executive Marketing Strategy Presentation by Seth Godin

Here is a terrific presentation on marketing strategy by Seth Godin given at Google. Seth Godin talks about how it was the marketing decisions, not the technology that made Google so successful. He cites that a study found that people could not tell the difference between Google and Yahoo search results and attributes their success in part to Google using permission marketing. Google does not serve ads for espresso machines to people when they are driving down the freeway, they serve ads to people who are actively seeking something, Google markets to people who want to be marketed to.

Seth Godin also writes for his marketing blog daily and shares insights into his innovative marketing ideas that marketing executives can greatly benefit from.