Friday, November 21, 2008

If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

If your company or product were a fictional character, who would it be? It's one of the questions I ask when trying to determine the intended brand perception for a client. And I get more than my share of rolled eyes from the engineers in the room.

But consider your own response to this question: If you were thirsty, where would you likely find an ice-cold Obama? Next to the Dr. Pepper or nearer the energy drinks?

If you called your friend, would you expect to pick up and dial the McCain or are you more likely to just go online and 'poke' them on Obamabook? Maybe you'd discuss the McCain supertanker that is caught in a storm off the gulf coast, or the latest music player from iObama.

You can think about this when you pick up a snack of some organic dried fruit at Obama Foods for your flight to Chicago on McCain Airways.

Okay, the whole thing is silly. But now reverse that:

If you were thirsty, where would you likely find an ice-cold McCain? Next to the Dr. Pepper or nearer the energy drinks?

If you called your friend, would you expect to pick up and dial the Obama or are you more likely to just go online and 'poke' them on McCainbook? Maybe you'd discuss the Obama supertanker that is caught in a storm off the gulf coast, or the latest music player from iMcCain.

You can think about this when you pick up a snack of some organic dried fruit at McCain Foods for your flight to Chicago on Obama Airways.

Relatively speaking, the former made more sense, didn't it? And it proves out the power of branding on not only our perceptions of products, but perceptions of our leaders, our friends, and ourselves.

This important article was sent to me by a designer with whom I do much of Strategy180's branding work. It underscores the power of branding and how it may not only impact the can of soup we put in our grocery basket, but the future leadership of the world's last great superpower.

Perhaps now you might want to budget for that branding study, yes?

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Spam sham

Spending and the stock market aren't the only things falling these days.

Worldwide, fewer and fewer consumers are bothering to open commercial emails. This from a study by eMail list management firm MailerMailer.


Their study reveals that the typical e-mail open rate for targeted marketing messages declined to 13.20% in the first half of this year, compared with 16.11% in the first half of last year. Click-through numbers fell too, from 3.18% in the first half of '07 to 2.73% in the first half of '08.

The data collected by MailerMailer indicated that the numbers between industries differed, for example, finance, government, telecom and even spiritual-oriented email messages having more success than others.
Supporting reports from other earlier surveys, pithy subject lines (<35 characters) performed better than longer subject headings, with an open rate of 19.6% and a 3.1% click-through rate versus 14.8% and a click-through rate of only 1.9%.

None of this slow down has apparently caught up with the marketing plans of most retailers, where SEO and email remain tops of their online marketing planning efforts. I believe that this is as due to marketing's continued search for a measureable and accountable media as emails' continued, though decreasing, effectiveness.

It has been reported that one hit out of a million emails (that's a .000001% click-through rate) makes the effort worth it to fraudulent spammers, so by comparison, even a 2.73% click-through rate is likely to remain a prize bird among competing turkeys this holiday advertising season.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A drop of sanity into a sea of panic

With the market in a freefall, credit tightening, and budgets shrinking, it seems very dark indeed. But before you simply accept a slash and burn budget number, you might want to reevaluate the assumptions from the executive suite.
They may be saying ‘people aren’t buying!’ – But people are buying, and they will continue to do so.
Who is buying? Most are the same folks that bought from you before (let's call them 'customers', just like we did last year) and some folks that bought from your competitors (let's call them 'lost opportunities', just like we did last year). There will be a few net new customers to the market, depending on the industry, but we can't generally count on that, so let's concentrate on the first two.
It's actually all pretty clear once you get out of the forest and identify the trees.
Those who are buying, although there are only as many or perhaps fewer than last year, still are seeking to replace or in some cases upgrade whatever they've purchased in past years. They'll be bargain hunting, negotiating aggressively, and demanding more for less. But they're buying. They'll look for savings and quicker ROI, but they're buying. They'll be looking for lower energy use and longer warranty periods, but they're buying. They are definitely seeking better credit terms. But they're buying.
Your marketing for the New Year needs to look closely – almost exclusively - at these 'customers' and previously 'lost opportunities'. The goal is to apply limited marketing resources to activities that protect and expand your current customers. The slowdown in net new business allows opportunity for nurturing what you have, that is, given the macro-economic environment, perhaps aggressive business development efforts should be scaled back in favor of one-on-one account development. Instead of making Sisyphean attempts to expand the pie, demand a larger piece of the existing one through campaigns targeting competitors – particularly who have made the mistake of weakening their own marketing and sales efforts in a short-term effort to 'weather the storm'. Look to shore up market share so that when the inevitable turnaround comes your company hits the ground running… from a starting point in the distance.
People are buying. But the only way to be certain you are selling what they are buying is to listen to what they need, deliver it with a little of what they want, and anticipate what they're going to need next.