Losing sight of your customer

We all know that the term 'marketing' is synonymous with 'communication'. If the communication channels are inappropriate or misdirected, the central purpose of marketing any product or service is lost. Communication is delivered in many forms. Obvious 'front door' tactics of advertising, direct mail and bulk emailing are often combined with a more subtle approach of promotion on the website, widely distributed press releases, knowledgeable staff, personal contacts, and the 'moral high ground' support communication materials such as 'white papers', complimentary training courses, information booklets and advice guides. 

But who is the 'customer' to whom these various elements of a marketing mix are directed? In the 1980s, it was fashionable to consider everyone as your customer. The NHS ceased to treat 'patients', and replaced them with 'clients'. The public could no longer consider themselves 'passengers' on a train; they were promoted to 'customers'. Everyone in a communication chain became a 'customer'. 

When a company develops from the home-spun specialist enterprise selling directly to end users into a mainstream commercial business with a corporate structure, there has to be a change in working practice. The size of the client base expands and becomes too large to manage from head office. Markets may expand globally, and for a manufacturer, national distributors eliminate the problems of dealing with multiple languages, local fiscal and legal practices, maintenance and servicing. But companies can risk focusing their commercial interest on the nearest link in the commercial chain - national distributors - who consider their customers to be their network of competing dealers who may or may not sell to an end user. 

But what becomes of the communication channel between the prime manufacturer and the end user? Deciding on a marketing mix of appropriate marketing initiatives is the specialism of marketing consultancies who can help with detailed planning and implementation to ensure a coordinated approach to all stations on the 'route to market'.

Don't let software tools drive marketing activity

The availability of software tools tends to encourage some people to think they now possess the knowledge, capability and skills to successfully accomplish work they have no training in. Although paints, brushes and easels were readily available to anyone, few believed that the mere act of buying these tools transformed them into artists. But by a software package and suddenly they are graphic designers, web designers and accountants. The other side of the "technology" sale to non-experts is the leveraging of gullibility to sell supposed benefits  of a wonder product that somehow compensates for the purchasers lack of expertise. Taking the sale in isolation from its use as a tool for experienced users.

Some years ago chip makers Intel ran a powerful campaign aimed not at b-2-b customers who would actually buy their product, but at the general public who were invited to look for an "Intel Inside" label on the product. For buyers the business of comparing a whole range of specification points the task was now simple - they just had to look for a single label to know the product was "good". We even started to get feed back from sales people that this single parameter was being requested by b-2-b customers of electronic control systems. Forget that an R&D team had carefully researched the best electronic devices to meet the product specification and they actually knew what these things were. More recently we have encountered clients mesmerised with web technologies more interested in which CMS system (remind me, what does CMS stand for?) than the site content and navigation, or indeed the purpose.  

I was reminded of this selling "technology" to the non-technical when a client called excited about a new software product for marketing that had been demonstrated to him, something to do with e-mail he thought and just for a few tens of thousands of dollars it seemed like a bargain. Could I look into it? The web site he referred me to had no reference to the wonder software, just a series of hysterical messages inviting a call back - itself apparently worth $350 but offered free - and then a series of dead links.

Buying e-mailing software for its own sake is a bit like buying a car when you can't drive. Questions like do you have the e-mails of people you want to communicate with, indeed what is the message you want to send, do you comply with legislation, analysis, campaign tracking, your ISP etc. etc.? It is simply starting at the wrong end - learn to drive first, then once you have passed your test think about what car you need. There is a lot of knowledge and experience involved in using programs that goes on behind the scenes that a client does not have to get involved in. After all clients should be most interested in selling their own product, not managing software.  

Our philosophy at Technical Marketing Ltd has always been to start the marketing process from an analysis of business objectives, then to set goals and strategies that work to deliver those objectives. We develop marketing plans to describe the method, introduce a budgetary discipline for financial control  then work closely with our clients in implementing plans, measuring results and where relevant modifying activities.Technology in marketing is not an end in itself, but used by people with marketing knowledge can be a powerful tool. Driving a marketing plan to use one particular technology tool is not the most effective way to go.

Does the Internet threaten brands?

Although the Internet offers small companies a global platform it also provides new challenges to Intellectual Property according to a recent report.

The report by patent and trademark attorneys Marks & Clerk highlights concerns by brand owners across a number of infringement opportunities that have become possible due to the Internet, are difficult to police and where law in the digital space has yet to catch up. IP issues that undermine legitimate brands operate at a number of levels.  

The Internet has provided new distribution channels for counterfeit goods with leading auction sites playing an important role. It is no longer the case of buying something that had 'fallen of the back of a lorry' or 'from a man in the pub', instead a degree of apparent legitimacy is bestowed thanks to the branding of the channel itself. At another level editorial content is freely stolen and images used outside of the company control. Of course getting widespread publication of attributed editorial is a good brand building thing, but being plagiarized to promote rival products or counterfeit goods is another matter entirely.

According to the report, "63 per cent believe that search-advertising such as Google AdWords is unacceptable when businesses bid on the name of a rival’s trade mark" and "Almost 7 in 10 (69 per cent) predict that social media will become the “next big threat” to brand owners in protecting their brands online". So the threat is not just from counterfeiters and forgers, but from otherwise legitimate competitors using the Internet to ride on the back of their rivals investment in marketing.

Then of course there are disgruntled customers and users who can exploit the Internet to not just air a grievance but conduct campaigns and rally support.  Social media has been extolled as a channel for companies to converse with their customers but for most b-2-b businesses it is very early days. Some - a few - have embraced sites like Facebook, while others won't even entertain the idea. Marks and Clerk's report notes, "With Facebook reportedly having the world’s ‘third largest population’ – more than 400 million users, compared to a population of just over 300 million in the US – it is little wonder we are seeing increasing protectionism and nervousness from brand owners.” 

From our experience in social media it is difficult to point to concrete benefits either, except getting picked on search and generating useful links. This will be the subject of a future blog.

Are blogs changing PR?

An interview carried by iMedia Connection – ‘Steve Rubel on how blogs are changing the face of PR’- brings forward a debate of the technical possibilities versus their relevance to the target market and the interest, uptake and commitment of clients to participate. The figures seem compelling. According to emarketer "Once a haven for techies, there are now blogs for everything from celebrity gossip to political commentary to the most mundane personal minutiae. By 2012, more than 145 million people - or 67% of the US Internet population - will be reading blogs at least once per month." 

They reckon 12% of US internet users, some 25 million write blogs. Surprisingly more than 100 million internet users, more than 50% are also blog readers. Big numbers then. Consider now some unofficial statistics from our own research in PR activity in the UK industrial market. Whilst the most active portal web sites carry news free of charge and archive thousands of stories, a sampling revealed that the vast majority were generated by relatively few companies or their PR agencies. The larger group of companies submitted very few stories. Some just one token story before presumably losing interest or running out of news. 

Talking to other PR people confirmed that news output from their clients was hardly prolific. Most needed quite a good portfolio of clients to make their PR business work. In our experience many clients don’t even think they have any news and a key task of a PR professional is teasing out stories in the first place. Then few have any people in-house that can write anything about their business sufficient to interest and editor, let alone a reader. 

But blogs demand a far bigger commitment by company personnel as there is both an immediacy and inside knowledge that the traditional PR practitioners will find difficult to embrace. For example not just getting the story, but getting client approval introduces a delaying factor. The blog is more of a personal view and works against the secrecy culture many clients have. 

Only recently a PR professional was lamenting a decision by a client to stop all case studies and third party endorsement stories as they did not want their competitors to know. We all have clients like that – great stories are blocked because the credibility associated with their blue chip customer cannot be mentioned. So the challenge is getting not only the commitment to write a blog, even if ghost written by an agency but also the openness to actually reveal the sort of compelling inside news content people want to read.

Feature v Benefits

All too often businesses promote product features while customers are actually seeking benefits.

For many products, particularly those utilising new technologies, it is the new features that are most loudly proclaimed. The problem of marketing a product by focussing on features is that it presumes your target audience - your prospects have sufficient insight to translate a particular feature into something that is of benefit to them. Features are often seen as selling points, or specification clauses used to exclude rival products that do not enjoy that particular feature. I strongly suspect that feature-rich products such as smart phones, digital cameras, remote control devices actually cause confusion to prospects that just want to make a phone call, take a photograph or turn on the TV. A quick glance at many control surfaces or keyboards will often confirm by patterns of wear and dirt which keys are actually used and how many neglected. A feature is a statement of fact and making a potential customer work hard to figure out how it might benefit them is not going to help sell the product.

Prospective customers should not be made to do all the work. Many will be looking beyond features to issues such as value, reliability, availability and ease of use. Those TV manuals that arrive in 50 languages and in in several volumes show scant regard for targeting the user who only wants his language and is embarrassed by the paper wasted on the rest, but then discovers the hand book describes endless features that have curiosity value and no obvious benefit to the buyer. When marketing products, promoting benefits will be far more beneficial. It requires knowing  your target audience and presenting features in terms of benefits that will make their life easier, their businesses more efficient, their bills reduced - not clever technological functionality they cannot used to their benefit. In short it is 'what's in it for them', not look at how clever we are. If you need help in taking a fresh look at your business and products then a technical marketing specialist can bring this perspective and create compelling content that delivers results.

 

How will content be consumed in future?

In the last few days there have been a number of related announcements from different sources  that in their different ways point to a new future for content  and how it will be read. Who can have failed to notice the UK launch of the Apple iPad splashed across billboards, on TV and in the press - a device designed for online consumption of content from books and news to Internet and e-mail. 

This week Technical Marketing client, print giant Polestar Group plc announced, "Polestar is launching a service to enable its customers to publish their printed publications on the new Apple iPad, iPhone and online. Polestar Digital Editions – powered by award-winning YUDU technology – enables files received by Polestar for print purposes to be converted to online publication simultaneously across all platforms." In the same week, trade journal Automation sent their 'voucher copy' not by post, but by e-mail using this very technology. Meanwhile in Management Today in an article titled 'Yesterday's News, Today's new hope' the whole issue of charging v free content is examined.

Whatever the future - the devices, the software, free or subscription it is content itself that is essential. For b-2-b  enterprises anxious to keep their name in the news then a partner like Technical Marketing Ltd will become even more essential as this new future unfolds.

The importance of a clear and concise brief

Marketing is most successful when there is a clearly established client brief. Starting out on a vaguely defined project such as "we need a web site", or "we need a new brochure" is to court disappointment. It is the planning and research that goes into developing a brief that helps ensure that the resulting collateral is on target. That is why starting with a Marketing Plan is such a good idea, because individual projects will themselves be components within an agreed framework. Of course this takes work and effort in the first place, but the value of a marketing plan that can be shared with the rest of the company is realised during the year as individual campaigns, projects and material is rolled out. The rationale for that new web site or brochure will have been determined, objectives set, target audiences and target markets known and budget allocated. But it is still important to have a clear, concise brief that a designer can work to. Each element in a campaign that itself is part of an overall plan needs to be detailed and the usual format for this is a Design Brief.

The Design Brief should allow the designer to be creative, but focussed into delivering a piece of work that positively promotes and communicates your marketing message. Without a brief there is the risk the designer will allow creative imagination to dominate and run riot rather than deliver a message that hits the target. And it is important to use a professionally trained creative rather than having assembled all the information be tempted to carry on and do the brochure yourself. The reason is your time does actually cost money and however pleased you are with achieving the task, your customers will notice the difference between professional work and sub consciously this will be a judgement on your company, your products and services. 

Race for Life - supporting Natalie

David's daughter Natalie is running in support of Cancer Research. Donations can be made online.

Natalie writes,

"5K on Sunday 6th June 2010 at Campbell Park in Milton Keynes. Start 10.45hrs.

For anyone who doesn't know, all the money raised will go to cancer research. 

I will be running in memory of 'Bill Fisher', my father in law who sadly lost his battle with cancer in 2006.

Please can you help me reach my target of £50 (anything more will be a bonus). If there are any of you local please feel free to come along and support me.

I have set up my own site for the race, and you can sponsor me on there. Please follow this link http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/nataliefisher2 

Please do NOT forget to tick the Gift Aid box when donating.

Thank you in advance for all your support 

 

Nat x"

Small businesses need marketing too

According to the Office of National Statistics there are 2.16 million businesses registered for VAT and PAYE in the UK. Of these just 0.4% employ more than 250 people, 98.1% employ less than 50 and 89% less than 10. Adding in those below the VAT threshold and one man businesses it is clear that in terms of numbers, most UK companies are very small businesses. Look at another statistic 17.4% are less than 2 years old and 32.6% under 4 years old. A large number of small businesses that could benefit from marketing in growing their business. You might expect that the demand for marketing services would be strong from the large group of small, new businesses but small new enterprises typically have little to invest in marketing.

The reality is that it is the established companies that recognise the value of marketing most and allow some budget for the purpose. Many of these are classified as SMEs and are cautious in adopting new ideas so put most of their marketing investment into traditional communications such as directories, trade magazines and literature. As a broad statement both small new businesses and established businesses are slow to fully leverage online marketing methods that are both affordable and effective. For the price of a couple of full page display advertisements in a trade journal, a company could have a Virtual News Office up and running. Add in a press release or two each month and you have an on-going campaign that publicises the business and thanks to in-bound links from the press release archive, improves search engine ranking too - all for a fraction of a print based display advertising campaign. The news stories can additionally be fed into social media campaigns too. If an affordable marketing campaign seems like a good investment, the get in touch with Technical Marketing who can help you achieve this.

 

Advertising business to business

The term advertising is often confused with the whole marketing process itself. Our use of the word is confined to ‘paid for’ media space. In business-to-business communication this is mainly the trade press and  web sites. Advertising has been described as the persuasive force that utilises mass communications to make changes in customer attitudes, behaviour and actions towards products and services in a direction favourable to the advertiser. 

Advertising is cost effective in reaching large groups of customers and prospects with a shared defined profile, hence the proliferation of special interest and industry specific magazines that can deliver an audience relevant to the needs of the advertiser. Media selection must therefore seek to match your target audience and readership profiles. Advertising’s key aims are to progress the target audience through a series of stages by first turning possible unawareness of the product, into awareness, a comprehension of the proposition, a conviction that the product is both relevant and of benefit and finally a ‘call to action’ to convert the prospect into a potential customer. As individuals we are subjected to hundreds of advertising messages each day, so to arrest attention the advertisement has to stand out from the others. This may be by use of compelling images, headlines or a combination of both, that stops the browser just long enough to take in the proposition.  Once ‘hooked’ a few telling words must explain the benefits of the proposition succinctly, then offer a ‘call to action’ where the prospect can find more detail. Today typically a web site, but the ‘call to action’ could be incentivised by the promise of a useful or attractive offer to enhance response rates. Advertising is a key marketing tool, to raise awareness, build brand recognition and communicate a simple or top-level message, but needs repetition to ensure that message is seen and acted upon. Other communication means such as PR and direct marketing will be called into play for a fully integrated campaign. 

Should companies do essential market research?

Surprisingly few b-2-b companies conduct any sort of market research. In  my experience over many years in marketing,  it is rare to be presented with any of market research results by clients at the start of a project. 

Of course formal and rigorous primary market research can run into tens of thousands - a big investment for SMEs. Yet often, much larger sums are invested in product development and marketing communications without the valuable, indeed essential insight into the market. However there is secondary research data available that can provide useful information in more general terms about an industry and markets. Starting a marketing project or campaign with only the client's view of the market, which may lack the objectivity of a third party and result in loading a product with features users do not see as benefits, or setting the wrong tone or delivering an off target message for a campaign. A simple market appraisal conducted by calling a few people in the target market can yield vital information which may prompt the need for further research. For example, one client had given us a brief to launch a new product that would be sold through electrical wholesalers. But speaking to just 10 or 12 wholesalers brought up a serious issue which was related to non deliveries of the company's products in general and until these issues were resolved no new products would be ordered. So a campaign without rectifying this problem would have been a poor investment. More frequently market appraisals tend to confirm a client brief but may help clarify and re-order priorities.

Armed with some fundamental market research campaigns can then be planned with better awareness of the target market's views.

 

How to work 10 days more each year

Travelling into London by train it is impossible not to be aware of the current fad for e-mailing via Blackberry mobile devices. There is definitely a category of Blackberry users just as there is a group of iPod addicts identifiable by the the white wires trailing from each ear. At least emailing and facebook communication are silent activities unlike the very loud and public phone calls that invariably start, "I am on the train ..." delivered just before the train plunges into Primrose Hill Tunnel. So it comes as no surprise that recent research from Nectar Business reveals that thanks to mobile communications technology the British are "working on average an extra 10 days a year."

Some of the main findings are:-

• a fifth of people keep work phones on over weekends;
• 79 per cent of workers haven't met half the people with whom they do business;
• one in 20 people get over 100 emails a day;
• twenty-four per cent of people feel stressed by this constant state of being on call;
• 42 per cent of people say they meet colleagues less regularly due to email dependence;
• 60 per cent  now say they prefer to communicate by email than face to face.

In my travels I have also observed how many people seem to be frequently consulting at least two different mobile devices. A lot of time is spent using different communication channels.

 Why mention this at all? Well communication channels are vital to distributing  marketing messages and the suggestion that people are accessible longer and using a range of communication channels and devices implies marketers must consider all options. If 20 years ago train travellers were engrossed in the morning newspaper then that was a prime communication channel. Today the indications are that people may be even greater consumers of content, but want it more personalised and available through channels and at times they chose. Developing great content has become even more important and is an area where we at Technical Marketing Ltd are adding value to our clients' marketing programmes.

Has the Internet changed the traditional sales process?

An article posted on a blog dedicated to demand generation, proposes that the internet has swept away the old way of selling - old being the way we "sold back in the 70's and 80's even 90's". Five 'assumptions' about the way companies sell are lined up to be shot down by 'realities'. The article suggests that "so many things we did in the past — that worked well — no longer work." One reality claim is "7 out of 10 buyers say they start their buying process at vendor sites, not Google." Another "Over 9 out of 10 buyers consumed content on their way to purchase — especially white papers, eBooks, webinars, podcasts, and more and more, video clips." Although not making such specific numeric claims our experience suggests there is truth in both these 'realities'.

Although a review of Google Analytics for various web sites we monitor shows Google as the number 1 source of visitor traffic, there is other evidence from keywords that Google is used as a tool to quickly locate the web site of a company the user already knows. The combination of brand name and product type in the top search terms helps support the notion that visitors arriving at the site already have an idea of the supplier and product they are looking for. What the article suggests is that 70% start at the vendor site rather than a generic search for a product category. In a previous blog we asked, 'do offline channels drive search?' so this could be evidence that old fashioned marketing methods such as display advertising , PR and direct marketing still work to raise brand awareness and associate that with products or services the buyer is seeking. Using Google, or other search engines, to find the company site is often easier than accurately typing in the URL.

That 9 out of 10 consume 'content' on the way to purchase is no surprise as this is what the web site is good at doing - providing essential background and detailed information so that vendors are more often dealing with informed buyers. As an aside, my doctor observed that thanks to the Internet many of his patients had thoroughly researched their symptoms before a consultation. What the Internet offers buyers is the same opportunity to evaluate a vendors product, to see who has bought and recommended that product, to judge how knowledgeable the company is, how they handle after sales service - all without the pressure of a salesman controlling the process. And when they are ready the customer will call up the vendor. In short much of the sales process will have taken place without the company directly engaged. That is why companies should spend more time ensuring their brand is associated in buyer's minds with the products they are seeking to buy and the content is informative and relevant to the buyer. If 7 out of 10 customers start the buying process with the vendors web site, it makes sense to put most effort into content that will drive the sale than technical issues and SEO that will only influence at most 30%. And creating the right content is where Technical Marketing Ltd can help b-2-b companies get it right.  

How should the marketing budget be apportioned?

Marketing budgets are under pressure, but what share should go on the various communications methods?

Most marketers would advocate a broad range of marketing tools both offline and online. Some experts suggest headline rules such as you must be doing at least 8 marketing activities to succeed. One guru draws a circle, divides it into 3 equal sectors then propose one third of the budget goes on the web site, another third on advertising and the remaining third on everything else. An agency I worked for  advocated two ways of establishing a budget. The first, 'to cost the need' was the idealistic method of dominating the media, the other to set a figure  based on a percentage of turnover then adjust the level of activity accordingly.

 Rarely do companies have a proper marketing budget when we become involved. A marketing plan, budget corporate identity and delegation of authority to marketing to implement the plan and invest the budget are all important things to have in place. Usually the budget is reverse engineered from actual expenditure and once established tends to act as a benchmark for future years. Often there are two big ticket items that stand out - advertising and exhibitions. The latter usually understated merely recording the actual costs of space and stand design. If the true costs were accounted for - product, time, travel, hotels, entertaining - then it might seem a lot more expensive than it appears. How many companies relate enquiries to attendee numbers to the total population of their market? The ratios are probably depressing. A small percentage of the total market population will attend, not all these will visit the stand and a small percentage will lodge a useful enquiry. So why do companies like exhibitions? Exhibition space must be some of the highest real estate square footage in the world, yet the cost is rarely queried or negotiated. Yes, it provides face to face meeting opportunities, but once the tyre kickers are eliminated that personal contact might have been less expensively achieved with a good lunch.

Traditional display advertising remains equally popular and sacrosanct although if an advertising agency is involved at least the space cost is negotiated. The fact is that advertising and exhibitions absorb typically more than half the budget. So everything else has to be funded from the residue. Perhaps rather than tweaking budgets year to year it is time for a radical overhaul.

Will your PDFs sell products?

In the previous blog we discussed the importance of offline marketing activity to drive traffic to the company  web site, where visitors can discover all the information they require. It raises an important question of how that information is presented, in what format and how convenient is that to the user. In the days when all information was printed and mailed out or distributed by company representatives, it was relatively straightforward. There was a hierarchy of literature from the glossy brochures introducing the company its products and services through data sheets to instruction and operating manuals and ranging from colour to black and white. For consultants these would be presented in impressive ring binders and regularly updated. Print runs were generally large, although a significant quantity of any print run could be found stacked on literature room shelves or in the back of rep's cars. The distribution from receipt of request to sending out literature was often leisurely until the users became more urgent in their request, demanding information be faxed immediately. Often the most convenient style of literature for faxing was the data sheet and this was most legible if designed in black and white rather than using subtle colours lost in the faxing process. Today I suspect that a great deal of literature designed for print does not progress beyond the PDF stage and where printed it is as a short digital print run. Certainly clients indicate a reduced demand for printed literature, once a major part of any marketing programme, in some cases it is now delegated to the margins. 

The emphasis has shifted to the user to now do the work of locating the right PDF, downloading and if required printing a copy for reference. With this development,  control over presentation has been surrendered too. An ink jet printed copy on standard printer paper lacks the impact of quality print but this may now have become how your offering is judged. It means the PDF has to do a lot of work to impress, the question now is, 'do your PDFs do your product justice?'

Do offline channels drive online search?

Press Release authors love numbered lists - example "1o things you should know about marketing", or "8 marketing tools you must use".  By putting an exact figure to any subject there is an implication that if you follow that advice, then success is ensured. We advocate the use of an appropriate mix of marketing methods integrated into a coherent marketing plan, not a list to  simply be ticked off as done. This includes a mix of offline channels as well as online activity. Writing about market research is another fertile source for PR people too, so it was interesting that Marketing News Flash, an e-mail newsletter published by Industrial Technology, selected a statistic from some previous research to support the value of advertising in magazines. Print advertising  rather than being in terminal decline, according to the research is the stimulus that prompts 30% of all online searches. The magazine's own research found that "76% of readers prefer magazines to keep up to date with new products and information relevant to their job. 66% also find out more information from a supplier after seeing an advertisement in the magazine".

However looking at the market research conducted in America in June 2007 by iProspect and Jupiter Research, further interesting figures emerge demonstrating the importance of offline marketing channels in prompting further search online. Television advertising at 37% was in top spot, but hot on its heels at 36% was word of mouth recommendation by a friend or acquaintance, then indeed 30% due to print advertising in newspapers and magazines. Perhaps of equal interest was that the company name or brand at 68% was the most commonly used keyword.

Although clients typically report that most of their sales leads come from their web site, what is very important is that more than two thirds are searching for a company or brand rather than a generic product category and most of them will have discovered their awareness of the brand offline. So perhaps it is premature to move all marketing investment to the Internet. Customers are still strongly influenced by the offline world and turn to the Internet as a convenient tool to learn more. At Technical Marketing Ltd, we help businesses put together and implement marketing plans that develop the brand message, raise top of the mind awareness and develop compelling content that provides the information your prospects are searching for. Informed people then make enquiries. 

Image: iProspect.

Are ordinary user recommendations more powerful than opinion leader endorsement?

Although the company web site is today probably  the primary source of enquiries and sales leads, there still needs to be some stimulus for prospects to take this route in the first case. They need to have at least an interest in the product or service you offer. This could be prompted either by need or recommendation by a trusted source. The recommendation format provides a personal endorsement that has long been used in marketing. This could be in the form of testimonials and case studies  typically given by recognised and respected opinion leaders.  Of course the recommendation could be more formally expressed in terms of a written specification issued by a consultant. Most marketing programmes recognise the need for favorable reviews and work hard to ensure influential people are on message.  But now just as the Internet offers the promise of a level playing field for small companies, so there is an opportunity for users of products to comment on their experiences. In fact some intermediary sales sites like Amazon invite users to write a review and Trip Advisor has become an important resource for travellers to benefit from the perspective of ordinary people who tend to be less glowing in their reviews than professional travel writers.

Social marketing sites allow companies to conduct a 'conversation' with users who now have the opportunity to comment and indeed exchange views. This has the potential to be a powerful new marketing tool but demands both a level of engagement and commitment of resources that few b-2-b companies have yet recognised.

.

Market leadership credibility

Information has never been more universally accessible than now, in the Internet era. Turning to the Internet as a rich source of all knowledge has become the preferred starting point in the purchase cycle to research product/service options and to become better informed before entering into actual price negotiations. With the old business model  an enquiry would be followed by a sales call where the salesman had the upper hand due to superior and jealously guarded product knowledge. However the reluctance to share important information that can influence that final purchase decision is still kept back, at least on many company web sites. Yet that information, that unique knowledge or insight,  is probably what differentiates one company from its rivals. It is what establishes the company's credibility. The authority it commands within its specialist sector. A typical web site will show the company products and offer detailed technical specifications that can be downloaded, but then so do all the competitors. There is nothing to differentiate one product from another other than price!

What too few companies make use of is the White Paper. A document which can provide the essential background information that sets the product in context to the situation where it will be used. Not only can a White Paper be a valuable briefing document for the prospect, but it also establishes the company as an expert in that market, lends credibility to them as preferred suppliers and potentially, as a valuable business partner. Prospective customers will see beyond the headline price to a company that can also provide useful guidance and advice based on knowledge and practical experience. White Papers can provide checklists of what to ask for in a product, which specification points are essential, which are not and lead the prospect towards a product requirement that they are best placed to meet.  This may mean disclosing information that traditionally been withheld, but may also be the critical differentiator that wins a new  customer.

News bearing web sites

Several years ago it became apparent to the team at Technical Marketing Ltd that much of the content for a company web site was pretty much static. The products, services and stuff about the company itself, didn't really change that much, or that often. What did change was news. 

News can be about company results, investments, acquisitions, appointments, contract wins and  projects.  Or new product announcements, exhibitions, events, market research findings and comment on industry issues. The problem we recognised is that the PR people who were schooled in copy deadlines, embargo dates and other timing issues didn't run the web site. The IT guys did web sites and often it was pretty low on their priority list as well. If they had to fix payroll software then it could be a couple of weeks before they got round to posting news items if they bothered at all. 

All that changed, for our clients at least, when we rolled out the Virtual News Office. With a VNO, stories could be published online as soon as they were ready to go. In fact every story can be published rather than end up in some editor's waste bin. Although our goal at the time was to provide a service that got company news accessible through the company web site we soon realised it was also getting indexed by search engines and because the news story actually resides on the VNO server it was creating relevant links to the company web site, in turn improving ranking of that site.

I have written before on the inevitable shift of emphasis from print to Internet as the place where news is published and consumed. The print business model based on advertising revenue and free distribution is under threat and many publications now charge for news publication and in doing so forfeit editorial control over the news pages. Not only does this degrade quality, but some magazines now resemble a notice-board patchwork of press releases. Whatever journals do they cannot match the immediacy of the Internet. However the sustainable business model for online aggregated news sites is taking time to emerge, as generally these sites offer free news and have no subscription revenue. Interestingly, in the industrial and engineering sectors, industry web sites that are mainly news oriented, or as someone called it today - 'news bearing' - are emerging as important resources for enquiries for engineers or architects. 

Because such industry sites contain so much relevant content about a product category an engineer searching for a component will most likely find the that site higher up the search results than any one manufacturer of that component. So what he reads initially is a press release that in turn provides links to the supplier. And online aggregated new sites are becoming more selective, only publishing interesting news and carefully monitoring how many hits each attracts. The most popular news suppliers find their news items featured and fed to Google News and other participating sites. So this trend once again emphasises the importance of news creation and news delivery and increasingly as a direct source of sales leads.   

Marketing to a budget or on a budget?

In these times of economic gloom sound marketing advice, based on research, is to maintain the marketing activity while the financial management tendency, based on prudence, is to cut marketing expenditure. 

Research by Harvard Business School has shown that it is essential to maintain marketing spending, even more so in a recession and to emphasise core values. “It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times. Uncertain customers need the reassurance of known brands.”

In the last blog I talked about the importance of a Marketing Plan and closely linked to the plan is the Marketing Budget. As with the marketing plan - a statement of intent, a manifesto and plan of action - time should be spent on carefully building the accompanying marketing budget. Companies without a budget seem to be more easily tempted to buy special advertising offers and buy into all kinds of special deals than companies who have planned ahead and purchased at more advantageous series rates for marketing services that are core to the plan. Not only are the bargains not always appropriate but it is amazing how quickly the costs mount up and without apparent benefit. 

I have frequently referred to the engineering philosophy behind technical marketing. Take the case of purchasing a new machine or piece of equipment. It is regarded as an investment that will be justified on the benefits it will bring - lower costs, improved productivity, better quality. We look at marketing as an investment, an investment that should deliver valid returns. Just because there is often a significant creative element does not devalue the investment benefit. Equally there should be benchmarks and goals set that are measurable.

Another more subtle way of cutting the marketing budget is to cut quality. Where marketing is not valued by a company, then purchasing marketing services cheaply can be tempting. The problem with this interpretation of budget is that the downgrade in quality that usually accompanies becomes apparent to customers. They start to perceive the company as a 'budget' brand and lower their expectation of both the quality and value of that company's product accordingly. Interestingly people buying marketing services at a budget price might think otherwise in their day to day lives. They would probably opt for experience rather than trainees or amateurs and recognise that experience may appear more expensive but is actually the safe option. The same people that wouldn't let a student do their hair or fix their teeth will happily let a relative or man they met in a pub have a bash at their web site, design a brochure or photograph products. Although professional marketing advice might come at a higher hourly rate it can prove a wise investment in doing things right and helping the company build credibility.