Perseverance (Part 2)

Last June I wrote a post about one of the greatest sports icons of our time, Tiger Woods. In that post I asked a question, "When do perseverance and determination actually hurt your brand?" Tiger has been out of golf and out of the spotlight for more than 6 months now. He is one of the major endorsers for Nike, Buick, Gatorade, Gillette, Accenture, EA Sports, and the PGA Tour.

As I stated in the previous post, this situation presented an amazing opportunity for marketing researchers to study the impact of a celebrity on a brand. Tiger is one of the largest sports celebrities in the world so I would imagine his impact would be much larger than some others, but it will be very interesting to see how these companies are affected by his return later this year.

If anyone in marketing for these companies stumbles across this piece or if anyone has some insight into how or if there is a study for this please let me know. And, please share it with marketers around the world. Thanks and enjoy your day!

Mj

Wayne Gretzky Is Your Inspiration

I was fortunate enough today to participate in a meeting with my company's president. The theme of the meeting was marketing, and the CEOs that are a part of this group were asked to invite their Head Marketing Nerd. Thus, the invite.

I probably don't attend enough non-industry related seminars and training, and I must say it was a nice change of pace. The presenter for the day was Mitch Gooze'. Mitch was an engaging speaker and allowed great participation from the group. The main theme for the presentation was comparing marketing and sales to design and production. He asks the question, "While production would not be expected (in most cases) to redesign a widget due to a design flaw, why do we expect sales to fix what is essentially a marketing flaw?"

Let me further explain. What he is trying to say is that there is a disconnect between marketing and sales. The sales team is trying to sell something that the marketing team has not clearly defined. He explained, on the marketing side we must connect the "Who Buys?" and "What are they buying?" to the sales side or "How are they going to buy it?" The message the sales team is receiving in many cases is conflicting or is inspired by them and not by marketing. Marketing should be the team clarifying the Who? and What? while sales is concerned with the How? Too often marketing has not made the message clear and sales is then responsible to fix it themselves.

So, how is this accomplished. Talk to your customers. Find out why they buy your product or service. It's our job to understand what our customers needs are, and if you've been in a business for a number of years you might think you know but in reality you don't. After you find out more about your customers you can give your marketing the direction it needs, and communicate that properly with your sales team.

Part of learning more about your customers should help you to innovate, improve, and stay ahead of the curve. Mitch shared a story about Wayne Gretzky that I just loved. Wayne was once asked, "Why are you such a great hockey player?" He responded, "I skate where the puck will be." Wayne made a choice, and just like Wayne we have a choice in business. We can educate ourselves and anticipate where the puck will be, or we can follow everyone else and chase after the puck. I'd rather play like the great one.

Enjoy your day!

Mj

picture courtesy of bobdylan_8 at Flickr.com

How Big of a Marketing Nerd Do You Have to Be ...

... to apply for this? http://www.squidoo.com/Alternative-MBA

How Do You Prefer Your Budget Hat: Fitted or Adjustable?

As a marketing director I wear a number of hats. The one that seems to fit best is the creative, brainstorming, idea hat. However, I also get to wear a customer service hat every now and then that's pretty comfy. There are times when my personnel/HR hat gets pulled down off the shelf, and there are a number of others for development, education, and PR to name a few.

The one I am most challenged with is the budget hat. That hat would probably be a visor or something else I don't enjoy wearing like a beanie with a propeller. Anywho, this post isn't about wearing a gazillion hats, as most of us do that and do it to the best of our abilities. What I want to talk about is the challenge of budgeting for marketing.

While a great marketing plan starts with a budget, it seems that economics, the unknown, and poor performance can all influence changes in the marketing budget. Each industry has different benchmarks for budgeting their marketing dollars. In the apartment industry the National Apartment Association actually takes a survey across the nation to measure average income and expenses. While this is an average and somewhat of a benchmark for economics in our industry, I have to ask what people are really spending and how they justify their expenses? How many of you set a marketing budget for the year and stick to it? Do you even have a budget or a plan?

We're all trying to save money, but how do you and your company wrap your arms around what is spent on marketing? I'm not asking this for my industry specific, but I'm curious what analytics marketers are using. I'd love to hear feedback for you and your industry as many are finalizing budgets for 2009 and cringing at the outlook of the economy. What drives your marketing budget decisions and sets the expectations for ROI?

What's Your Message?

I received an email blast from an "industry expert" yesterday. While she is an acquaintance of mine and I have attended a few of her seminars, the email felt so generic and blah. Now, this post is not a means to bash her, as she is very well respected in apartment marketing and presents great information & ideas at her seminars. This post is about improving your message and deciding that maybe email blasts are not a good idea.

Let me summarize what her message included.

Subject Line: Still Undecided? Vote for [her name]!
Email Letter Content: Large picture of her, letter summarizing why you should hire her to present her latest seminar and a summary of new website features and a link to her website. She also mentions a $500 discount coupon at the bottom of the email.
Additional Info: a brief history about her, quick summaries of the 4 seminars she is currently presenting, and, of course, the coupon.

At first glance I was curious to open up the email and peruse, but after doing so I realized there wasn't anything really there. Nothing grabbed me, nothing was newsworthy, and her picture (while very nice) was actually a distraction. A lot of copy and very generic.

Below is my response to her with some recommendations on how to improve her message.

“Don’t send me an email just telling me who you are why you are so cool with some generic descriptions of your seminars and your background. I’ll be honest, it’s not interesting as I already know you (as most people do that get these emails). What would be interesting is if you shared pieces of your seminars with me. Give me a taste of the good stuff! Here’s an analogy. Let’s say you’ve just emailed me a picture of McDonald’s French fries. I’m a sucker for McDonald’s French fries, but a picture doesn’t really motivate me to actually go buy some. What if you just gave me 1, just to try it, just to get that taste. If you did that, then I’d probably want the whole box. So, maybe ask yourself the next time you send out a SPAM email, are you sending out just a picture or are you giving us a taste. Send me one of your PodCasts, or your latest blog post (which doesn’t appear to be working), or maybe one or two graphs or slides that have some of your great statistics. And one final note, you don’t need a coupon!!! Coupons are for commodities. You are not a commodity!"

I share this with you because I know that she knows all this. But if she knows, then why does she do it? Here's her response back.

"I agree with your marketing thoughts. That was a blanket email that went to over 12,000 people and I need to introduce myself. The next emails we have planned have content in them that will be valuable to the reader. This is what I have been doing for some other marketing and I know those emails get read. With my new Web site, we are set up to put a lot of free content there and that will link in my
emails.

As for the spam, I got a call to work on a project in Atlanta as well as two managers retreats where I will keynote. Not too bad."

The excuse for a bad email is because it went to 12,000 people that she needed to introduce herself to??? In my opinion it was a very boring introduction, and while I didn't ask her if the jobs she booked from it were from previous customers my gut is telling me that is the case.

So, what's my point? My point is that you're only as good as your last email, or last podcast, or last blog post. The content you put into these represents you and what you do best. If what you do best is make excuses for average work and justify it with a couple success stories fine, but I can tell you that things are getting more and more competitive and average will only get you so far. Just because someone has opted-in shouldn't give you an excuse to send an average message. Provide compelling content as your last message is what you will be remembered for.

Until the next. Enjoy your day!

Do You List or Advertise

On a number of occasions I have had discussions with my peers, vendors, and colleagues in regards to what is considered an advertisement. In my industry a majority of marketing dollars are spent on "listings". "Listings," by my definition, are marketing dollars spent to post your product or company on a website, guide, or book that puts you right along side your competition. A "listing" also provides essentially the same information and format to display your information as your competitors. I do not consider "listings" advertising or advertisements. They are a necessary evil that unfortunately eat up a majority of my marketing budget in the apartment industry. Advertisements in my opinion are a marketing choice that allows your company or product to be creative, develop a brand, or have unique placement.

I feel in my industry we have allowed the "listing" companies to disguise themselves as advertisements and we pay too high of premiums to utilize these glorified yellowpage ads. And it doesn't seem to stop. A new online "listing" service comes on board all the time. As an industry why do we accept this? How do these listings help to separate you from your competition? All these listing services do is treat our communities and apartments as a commodity. We're not commodities, and we need to stop marketing like we are.

Develop great websites for your properties/companies, blog about them, provide outstanding customer service, build unique and distinctive communities/products/services, find your branding niche and exploit it, don't settle for listings as your main form of marketing. Everyone's in the yellowpages, but your company message needs to be more than just a phone number as that's what everyone else is doing. Dare to be different! Listing are a necessary evil while advertisements are a marketing choice.

What's Your Walkscore?

Last week during a marketing presentation at the Realpage User Conference, Lisa Trosien mentioned a cool website www.walkscore.com. Obviously in more urban areas this is great, but in the world of housing and rising gas prices this can really help or hurt you. It's not that you can go in and really change or improve your score, but I suggest every business, apartment community, realtor, etc. at least know what their scores are.

Microsoft Cool?

Can Hotshot Ad Guy Alex Bogusky Make Microsoft Cool?
"Life conspires to beat the rebel out of you," says Bogusky, with partners, from left, Jeff Steinhour, Chuck Porter, and Jeff Hicks | photograph by Peter Yang

In conversation with my friend Duncan, an article from the June issue of Fast Company came up.

We both agreed that this is one daunting task, but when I made my point I just said NO. Honestly, how can one person or even a team (ad agency) make a product cool? While Microsoft is trying to be something for everyone I think they need to be realistic and just be who they are. They are a business machine that doesn't need to be cool. Their products just need to work and work right all the time because a majority of people already use them. I'm trying to remember an ad campaign that influenced me to the point where it changed my opinion about a product. For me it's always been the experience with the product or the experience a close friend has with the product that is the key influencer.

At this point in the life cycle of Microsoft I can't wait to see what these guys think will make them cool. What makes a company cool is their brand, product, and service. Not a campaign. Did somewhere along the line Microsoft forget these principles. They have great strengths and they just need to lead with them. I hope that when this all-mighty campaign is launched that Mr. Bogusky leads with Microsoft's strengths. It would be a shame if they strayed from what is the core of Microsoft's business, and that is business.

Perseverance

For those of you reading that are not golf fans (or even know who Tiger Woods is), let me just simply explain that he is one of the most influential and incredible sports figures today. Last weekend and in a playoff on Monday with Rocco Mediate Tiger showed us again why he one of the most amazing talents in sports. Not only was he coming off of knee surgery, but during the 5 day/91 holes of golf he played he reinjured his knee and created two stress fractures in his leg. Oh, by the way, he won his 14th major championship even while going through these physical struggles. If that's not determination and perseverance I don't know what is. Unfortunately, these injuries now are season ending for Tiger as he will be having reconstructive knee surgery and will miss the British Open, PGA Championship, & Ryder Cup, in addition to other tournaments he scheduled to play in.

That all being said, I think there is a lesson to be learned from this icon of sports as I'd like to make this story relevant to marketing of course. The question I ask is, "When do perseverance and determination actually hurt your brand?" Due to the season ending injury that perseverance caused in this situation I think, Nike, Gatorade, Buick, Accenture, EA Sports, Gillette, and the PGA Tour are going to lose out a bit. The "Tiger" brand will still be strong and make a come back, but without his face appearing in highlights on ESPN how will this effect these brands that rely on his image in more than just advertisements. As the number 1 player in the world Tiger not only helps increase attendance at tournaments, but also helps to increase television viewers.

With no Tiger for at least 6 months it will be interesting to see if these advertisers and sponsors see an impact on their business. This could be a true marketing analyst's dream. Take away your premium spokesperson for 6 months and see how it impacts sales. Think of the millions of dollars each one of these companies spends to have Tiger help promote their products. I see two scenarios. 1. There is little to no impact at all because Tiger is such a recognizable icon that even a picture or advertisement continues to help these brands. or 2. Consumers begin to lose the connection they have with Tiger and the brands he represents and these brands suffer for at least 6 months. I'd like to see what these companies plan to do over the next 6 months to help sustain their brand recognition with Tiger. If I were them I would be afraid that he will somewhat disappear during this period, and the excitement that surrounds his golf play will not help to support these brands the way it does when he is out amazing us with his greatness.

-Mark

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$4.00 Gas & Some Other Thoughts from the Nerd

So, gasoline is hovering around $4.00/gal. and it had me thinking how marketeers can somehow make a positive out of this negative. Not in a stupid way like the way car dealers are advertising the obvious, like mpg/fuel economy on compact cars and hybrids or by trying to give away free gas when you buy a car. These are all basic or gimmicky and are short term solutions. What I'm asking is how can we take a product like, ohh ... let's say apartments for example, and help market them as a positive for fuel consumption.

For example, maybe an apartment community could have signs or something that say, "If you lived here you'd save at least $80/month instead of driving 15 miles further to get home." Just one pretty cheesy example, but that $80 is another tank of gas in your gas guzzling SUV brotha.

That has me thinking again about housing (as that is my biz). I recently was interviewed for an upcoming article in a local free publication called House & Home. The article is about housing development in the downtown Indianapolis area. One question I was asked is if we thought that having the Super Bowl come to Indy would make a positive impact or change the way we look at our business. Although my response was that we currently have not had a rush on our apartment community, The Waverley at 151, we're optimistic the game will have some type of influence on our community that's just a few blocks away.

Now, you might be asking, "What the hell does that have to do with $4.00 gas?" It actually has me thinking that the bigger impact for a property such as The Waverley could be the increasing prices in gas and not something that will come and go like a Super Bowl. A convenient location of a home or business could become a critical selling point, if not a main feature or amenity. Do real estate developers and businesses consider fuel consumption in a proforma or a business plan? Will it over the next few years become something that is a key component to starting a business, getting a loan, or just conducting business in general. As a society will the majority of businesses just ignore the issue and continue to raise prices or add fuel surcharges, or will we actually take a step as marketeers to help companies develop a marketing/business strategy that effectively promotes fuel conservation in order to maintain favorable pricing to the masses? What is your company doing?

- Mark

Blogged with the Flock Browser