Admitting Failure: A Marketer’s Road to Recovery

Marketers are human, making the best decisions with the information they have at any given moment. We call it strategy, and while we are pretty confident in our predictions for what message and what medium will garner a high response rate at a carefully picked time, none of us have a crystal ball. Sometimes campaigns fail.

Sometimes we make mistakes.

Sometimes we over-promise and under-deliver.

It happens. Maybe not very often, but it does.

Take this blog for example. A year ago today, I vowed to start a marketing blog and a whopping eight posts later, here it sits – reaching a total of two loyal readers (Baxter included) and reminding me that I’m not the blogging goddess I resolved to become in 2014.

But what should a marketer do when the campaign they worked hard on flops? When the direct mail response rate is 0%? When the PPC ads have a negative ROI? When the social media advertising they fought so hard to have approved in the first place generates very little click rate or conversion? When they have to report to the owners of their company, tails between their legs?

It’s at these moments that we’re given a chance to learn something new. Evaluating why something doesn’t work is as important as measuring the results of something that does work. Do not ignore the failures, ever. Sweeping it under the rug isn’t going to help anyone. In fact, I’ve found that the failures often teach me more about my audience than the successful campaigns.  And it sure can be a motivation to kill it next time!

Confucius, himself, said, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

I’ve identified a list of questions you should ask yourself every time you fall short of your goal:

1. Was your goal clear? Sometimes our first faux pas is not setting a clear goal to begin with; how can anyone achieve success when the expectations are unclear?

2. Did you reach your intended audience? Segmentation and personalization are necessary to break through in today’s message clutter. If you sent out mass blasts or tried the spray-and-pray method, how could you have targeted a specific segment better?

3. How well do you know your audience? In order to craft messaging that will really resonate with your audience, you must know what makes them tick. Could the copy or images you used have been better tailored to suit your ideal buyer persona?

4. Did you A/B test? Testing a campaign isn’t limited to email, folks. How could you have tested the different variables in order to choose an ad that has the best chance in performing? Trust me, it’s better to lose a small chunk of your budget on a failed test than a large chunk of your budget on a large campaign that wasn’t tested.

5. Was it an execution error? Whether it’s time, manpower, or budget, we all have constraints in which we are forced to breakthrough.  Oftentimes jugglers, many times magicians, marketers are sometimes asked to do amazing things on a shoestring budget with only 24 hours in a day. How can you overcome these obstacles, or what should you be asking management for if you are under too much pressure?

6. Did you leverage all the tools in your marketing toolkit? We can’t do it all alone. Did you integrate your messaging across every channel (blog, email, social media, etc.), set up appropriate notifications for certain calls to action, have your eye on the analytics throughout, and set up a tracking system? Maybe it’s not that the campaign didn’t perform – but that you don’t know if it did or didn’t.

7. Is this a chain of failures? Sometimes we buy into what everyone else is doing and think it will work for us. But that’s not always true. Direct mail may work for one brand where PPC is the best for another. Your audience may not be on Facebook, but they may be watching YouTube videos every night. Sometimes a chain of failures in one channel is just your audience telling you you’re getting it wrong.

8. How dedicated were you to making it successful? Perhaps it was because of those aforementioned constraints, but if you didn’t put the effort into it, you may not be able to reap much reward out of it. How could you have worked harder, smarter, or more passionately to make it sing?

After you’ve analyzed what went wrong and identified ways to ensure success next time, give yourself a pat on the back. Seriously. Failure doesn’t mean you’re not great at what you do. Disappointment only means you’ll push yourself to success next time.

Go home, grab a glass of wine, and cuddle up with your favorite four legged friend.

 

Why Direct Mail Still Matters in the Digital Age

When I was just a youngster visiting my grandparents for a few weeks one summer, I became in awe of the excitement my grandpa had when it was time for the mailman to drive up to his box and deliver the stack of envelopes, catalogs and postcards. He instinctively knew by routine when the delivery would be made without even checking the clock, and he and I would often meet the mailman at the end of the driveway, waiting to see what was in that day’s mail: letters, bills no doubt, magazines, and coupons. My grandparents instilled an exhilaration inside my soul for this form of communication. My gram and I were the best of pen pals throughout my youth, and it was a joy like none other to see my name on the front of the envelope. A hand-written note, a package, or a new business to discover, whatever the special message wrapped inside an envelope was, it passed through a complex but efficient web of actual human hands to wind up in the mailbox in front of me. When done well, physical mail incites this type of envy, creating a deep personal connection to the mail and its mailer, oftentimes far better than email.

It’s no wonder direct mail marketing is still a viable way to connect with your customers on a personal level.

Many companies have calculated a lower cost per lead, lower cost per impression, and a greater return on investment with direct mail, making this form of advertising a very cost-effective method. It’s not for every company, product or brand, but don’t dismiss the mail system just yet. Post offices may be closing and cutting their hours all over the nation, but think twice before you abandon your faith in the stamp and send business. Digital hasn’t killed the ability to recruit or retain customers with a physical piece of marketing content.

What direct mail looks like varies between marketers, messages, products, brands, companies and their audiences. There’s definitely not a one-size-fits-all solution for sending out a piece of snail mail that will radiate with your recipient. As a marketer, you need to know how the message will affect your target market and how best to package or present that message.

Here are a few examples of how you could use direct mail:

• Eye-catching flyers, brochures, or postcards – These are probably what most marketers think of first when they hear the term “direct mail marketing.” Spend time on the design, including the envelope or packaging of the mail piece, to gain a higher open rate.
• Info-packed newsletters or white papers – Educational content not only serves a purpose to your audience (by giving them must-have news) but it also helps to position your brand as an expert or a resource in your industry.
• Coupons, specials, or promotions – Be sure to track redemption rates through barcodes or specific online shopping cart coupon codes that can be measured for the length of the entire campaign.
• Samples of your products – Whether you want to launch a new product, encourage first-time buyers or introduce a different category to your existent customer base, samples show your commitment to your product and give buyers a risk-free opportunity to fall in love with what you’re selling.
• Catalogs – Many industries still depend on paper catalogs to stir up that feeling you had as a kid when you would flip through the big Wishbook catalog in the days leading up to Santa’s arrival.

When you create a marketing campaign – a theme and messaging that you carry out cross-channel – don’t overlook how direct mail may fit into that campaign. I do believe in a strong mix of communications – content marketing, SEO and digital marketing, traditional marketing, broadcast advertising, social media, and yes, even direct mail. But the messaging for each channel must a) fit that channel and b) carryout a similar brand message as all the other channel ads. It’s a balance every marketer must find in stride. Every component has its place and importance to any marketing strategy. Not every type of communications will produce the same results at different companies, so it’s important to test and know which area of the mix to allocate your resources in order to gain the greatest benefits. Every audience responds differently and every product sells differently, so you have to learn which mediums are most successful for producing a measurable ROI for your specific company or product. Find the right mix, and you’ll be glad that you didn’t put all your eggs in the digital basket.

Fans of social media marketing love being able to highly target consumers who closely resemble their ideal buyer persona. But direct mail can also be highly targeted. For B2C, you can segment by any zip-code, age, gender, and income. You can also pre-qualify lists with purchased credit score information from the leading credit bureaus. For B2B, you can buy lists of contacts holding specific titles in specific industries and also filter by zip-code or company size. Some mailing companies specialize within certain industries, qualifying the data and minimizing your risk in purchasing a list full of data errors. And with your own customer database, you can segment by online v. in-store buyers, by frequency of purchase, by purchase category, etc., etc., etc.  There are a lot of ways to segment your direct mail lists to narrow it down to an audience with the most likelihood of purchase intent.

Creativity matters. Getting an emotional response is always a priority with every direct mail piece. You want your mail to be opened, read and felt by every recipient. You want the experience of the advertising to feel personal and, well, like you aren’t advertising at all. So think of new ways to design, format, or send out the messaging that will be a welcomed surprise in the stack of letters, bills, and magazines your recipient pulls out of their box. A newsletter chocked full of detailed stories can build a memorable positioning in a reader’s heart that will strengthen their relationship to your mission over the long run. An attention-grabbing postcard can drive instant traffic and sales. A combination piece can do both. And the packaging – aka the envelope in most cases – must do what a cleverly written email subject line does – get the person to open the mail. Every campaign must have a clear objective in order to obtain the desired reaction of your audience.

A/B testing can be done in almost any medium. For direct mail, you can send a sample mailing to test two messages to see which performs better before sending out the bulk of the mail. Whether that’s a coupon code or a unique URL they must visit or a different phone number or a different contact email, you can see which mailing gets the most return. You can test the message, the image, or even the shape/size of the mailing, as long as you have one alternate variable and a clear way to measure the response (coupon code, URL, etc.)  Part of the fun of marketing is measuring every campaign and figuring out what makes your specific audience tick. There should be analytics involved in each communications piece, so you can learn and do better next time. But next time, you should test again. You can always be optimizing your marketing efforts. Testing once isn’t enough; it’s a continuous process.

Like any marketing, direct mail is a combination of out-of-the-cage creativity and bark-worthy statistics.

I’ve passed on my love of peeking inside the mailbox to Baxter, as well, who accompanies me everyday on our trip to see what the postal worker has delivered. What kind of tail-wagging news will you be sending us? Let me know how direct mail has performed for you in the comments below.

3 SEO Tools that I Recommend, Plus 1 I Can’t Wait to Try

Marketers and content writers know that three has always been a magic number. You need at least three supporting arguments. Or three examples, or three testimonials, or three key selling points. Even Baxter can appreciate a world of threes: he has three favorite toys, three types of treats, and three blankets (one for his crate, one for his travel crate, and one for bed).  So for today’s blog, I’m going to give you three tools I highly recommend for helping with your digital marketing efforts.

It was hard to narrow down, since I use tools like Webmasters and Google Analytics daily, even though they’re not one of my three here.  (I’m hoping even as a newbie SEO, you know how important those two tools are!)  There are certainly a vast number of apps or services available that you can take advantage of, but I’m confident the three SEO tools I’ll discuss in this blog will become your favorites, too!

1. MozBar
About a year ago, I was tasked with taking over the SEO on two of my company’s websites and dived into researching the best tools to help me successfully manage this.  After reading many recommendations, comparing prices, and sampling the services, I chose Moz. I don’t regret my decision; I love it.  One of the tools you get with your Pro subscription is the MozBar.  There are downloads for both Chrome and Firefox (I am still a Firefox fan), and if you’re still using Explorer, I highly recommend you download a better browser in order to do your job more effectively.

So once you get the MozBar installed on your browser, the toolbar will appear at the top of every URL you visit…and you’ll get a wealth of details right from the Google search page!  (Baxter says it’s better than a belly rub!)

What shows up in a search page:

Wouldn’t it be great to know what your competitors’ domain authority and link history is?  Well Moz not only makes that possible, it gives you all the info right within a Google search for your keyword! You can quickly see the page authority, domain authority, number of links, and number of linking domains of all the sites that show up in the search results, so you can scope out exactly how your competition is doing when it comes to some SEO basics.

When you click on any website URL, here’s the toolbar you’ll see at the top of the browser:

The MozBar will automatically show you the page authority, domain authority, number of links/root domains to the page, and number of links/root domains to the domain. But that’s not all you get.  You can ask it to show you the MozRank and MozTrust scores, and you can also tell it to highlight specific things on the page, including keywords, internal links, external links, and followed links!

Here’s a sample of what happens when you ask MozBar to highlight the followed links on a page (example from contentmarketinginstitute.com):

And I’m so giddy talking this up, because I’m not even done, yet!

Gasp, there’s more!

When you click the magnifying glass, a pop-up appears on the page that looks like this:

You can see the page elements (including the site’s meta text!), page attributes (including the load time!), and link data………all of which you can export into a spreadsheet for easy tracking.

Pick your jaw up from the floor.  It’s real!

The MozBar also links directly to the other Moz tools, including the Open Site Explorer, which will tell you all of the links that point to your competitor’s page or domain.  I often use the MozBar to connect me to the Open Site Explorer, because when I’m doing competitor research, these two tools work so well together.

I can get my fingertips on this competitor info as just one part of my subscription. That’s worth the $99/month alone. Although Moz does offer much more!

According to the MozBar, they already have nearly 6.5 million links pointing to their domain, but I’ll give them another one.  If you want to learn more, visit Moz here: http://moz.com/

 

2. Alerts & Mentions
You probably have your company name, CEO name, URL, and top keywords set up in a Google Alerts account. That’s a great start! But wouldn’t you also like to know in real-time when someone mentions your biggest competitor? Or when someone asks a question about your industry? There’s so many alerts you can set up – for free!  Here’s an article that details the power behind these alerts from Search Engine Journal: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-ninjas-guide-to-google-alerts/48068/

In addition to my Google Alerts, I also use Moz’s Fresh Web Explorer. There are some quantity limits, but I love that not only can I be alerted to keyword mentions on the web, I can be alerted when a URL, root domain or subdomain are linked to from another site. (Oh, yeah, more competitive research made easy!)   Plus, it’s a great monitoring tool, so if anyone is talking about you or your company online, you’re being alerted and can join their conversation!

Tip: You can set up 10 daily alerts in Moz, but for each of those daily alerts, you can include up to 5 keywords. So really, you’re getting alerted to mentions on 50 keywords a day! 

I also use Alerts and Fresh Web Explorer to identify backlinking opportunities.  For example, I have keywords set up that can alert me to new blogs about my topic. Or I can reach out to bloggers or reporters talking about things in my industry.  Or I can pitch someone who’s linked to a competitor an article that links back to me, too.

Here’s a Moz video that gives you even more insight into how these alerts and mentions can help make your life easier:

One more tool I want to include is SocialMention.com.  Because social network chit-chat doesn’t get picked up by all of the other alert tools out there, it’s good practice to check this site (or one of its competitors) regularly, so you’re not missing any chatter about your company, brand, or staff!

 

3. MetaLength.com
As if the first two weren’t enough to get your tail wagging, this is a great on-site tool that I use to make sure my page titles and descriptions are short enough to fit in search results.  This may seem really basic, but for those of us who work on platforms that don’t count the characters for us and are tired of getting the “title too long” errors, MetaLength.com really does come in handy!  Any time I’m writing fresh content on the site, I have this bookmarked site up and ready to help me get the meta text to the perfect size.

 

Plus 1: Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool
I cannot offer any personal experiences for this tool, but I’d like to check it out and compare the amount of information it provides to the tools I mentioned above. Want to try it with me?

Here’s a video describing the Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool (easy listening with a sexy UK accent):

 

Your turn! What SEO tools do you rely on to be efficient, successful, and productive? Tell me below!

 

Say What? How Gen Y and Gen Z Speak are Affecting Marketing Teams

Sup? I am one of the older millennials, so I grew up in the era of “whatever,” “gettin’ jiggy,” and “that’s phat.”  I’d be “buggin'” if someone was “wiggin’ out,” and if you can’t follow this, I’d say, “duh!”

Every generation has had its own vernacular. (Read more of my slang.)  My boomer parents had their own, and the younger millennials and Gen Zs have theirs.

A fresh-out-of-college woman just joined us in our web marketing team, and at 22 and nearly ten years my junior, the way she speaks is slightly different than me.  Born in the 1990s, she’s a young millennial that’s relatively close to Gen Z.  With most of the other office staff being from Gen X, I’m stuck in the middle to try to bridge the lingual gap.

My new staff member is ridiculously smart, very quick to take new direction, enthusiastic, and creative.  She’s doing a phenomenal job interacting with people on social media for our company, and she’s eager and excited to keep learning new things.

When she says “salty,” “totes,” “rando,” or any of the other hipster vernacular of today, I can completely respect and appreciate her in-the-now word choice.

But does everyone?

For her position, it bodes well to understand how others are using abbreviations and language in the social spectrum, so she can connect with customers on their level in a way that’s friendly and culturally relevant.

For our brands, the voice she brings makes us more cutting edge and in sync with the world around us than some of our competitors, which is perfect for the brand voice we’re trying to develop overall for our newest website.

What’s great, however, is that this staffer also just finished four years of submitting reports and papers stuffed full of technical style for her college classes, so when I need her to switch gears to a more formal, professional style of writing, she has no problems.

And for how she speaks around the office?  Well, let’s just chuck that up to the amazing generational diversity that should be celebrated in any working environment.

Just like she has to adjust to an office full of older gals, we’ll all have to adjust to her “dem” and “dat” chat.

Baxter’s secretly relieved he only has to worry about dog language.

PS: Enjoy this comic strip about workplace generational diversity from Dilbert:

 

 

Finding Your Brand’s Bark: How to Develop the Right Brand Voice

Baxter, please sit down.

Sit, boy, sit!

Sit.

So many ways to say the same simple command.

Your brand isn’t just about what you do or what you say, but it’s also defined by how you do it and how you say it.  Not just about what you stand for, but how you talk about what you stand for.  If your brand was a person, what would she be like? What’s her personality? What dialect does she speak? What emotion is she emitting? Sometimes developing that unique brand voice comes slowly and naturally, but don’t be afraid to nudge it to light. The more confident and consistent you are with the tone of your ad messages, website copy, and social posts, the more your customers will be confident in knowing who you are.

As a marketer, I write for four different brands every single day, and I’m not going to lie; it’s challenging to switch back and forth between so many characters!  But a good marketer can jump into performance mode and act the part, as if in a screenplay.  Just like the characters on stage shouldn’t sound like their playwright, they also shouldn’t sound like each other, whether they are owned by the same company or are competitors of each other.

“The role of an actor is to make every character believable.”  -Orlando Bloom

Each brand has to be its own character, and each character has to be believable.

Here are five questions you should ask about your brand:

1. Are you corporate and conservative or personable and progressive?
   Corporate speak would be more technical and grammatically correct, whereas a more personable brand may chat lighter and use tech-driven words and abbreviations.
2. Are you established and informative or cutting edge and inspiring?
   Regardless of age of company or product, a brand can take on a more established tone or opt to portray a more cutting edge stance.
3. Are you clinical and scientific or warm and fuzzy?
   Do you show off consumer research statistics, the R&D reports, and the product build diagrams, or do you rely on talking about the way your brand makes people feel?
4. Are you savvy and serious or fun and frivolous?
   You can choose whether or not humor, fun, and games have an importance to your brand.
5. Are you diverse and complex or single-focused and simplified?
   Do you have a lot of explaining to do?

Once you have a “voice” (e.g., energetic, carefree, organic, etc.), then you can further distinguish what that means in your marketing.

After answering the questions above about your brand, you need to determine your brand’s actual word choice.  Do you want to speak on a 5th grade level, or will your target audience appreciate jargon-filled copy that shows off your smarts?  Is it better to say your product is a “wonderful solution” or “an oh-so-amazing addition to your everyday life” when you roll out the description? Do you need to be detailed and professional, or is it OK to be choppy and to-the-point?  Knowing which language you prefer as a brand – and why – is important in developing a consistent voice.

Once you know your voice, you can adapt the tone for each application and channel, but still stay true to the character of your brand.  By having a brand persona, you can keep your writing in check by asking, “Is that how she would say it?”

If you have multiple marketers writing copy and sharing content, don’t forget to communicate the specifics of your brand voice every time you roll out a new campaign. If it means gathering the team in the conference room to hash out the words you’ll be using on the whiteboard over coffee and donuts, do it!  Making sure everyone is playing the same character is key in keeping your tone consistent throughout multiple channels and multiple pieces. And it helps keep your brand believable in the eyes of your customers, giving them a strong idea of who you are as a brand and if they relate to you as a consumer.

When they like you and your personality, the words you choose, and the way you talk, they will become loyal fans and repeat buyers.

Brand voice is why we know that Volkswagen is happy and youthful and Subaru is safe and reliable.

Creating a unique brand voice is important in message delivery, and thinking about the copy you write as if your content persona was writing it will really help you really delve into who your brand really is – and introduce others to her.

Let me know what tricks and tips you have for staying in brand character in the comments below!

 

 

Advertisers are Coming Out of the Closet

Baxter was raised by a gay couple for the first year of his life, and we both have many friends and family that we love dearly who are proud members of the LGBT community.  As a huge fan of the Olympics, it’s disturbing to me that athletes from around the world feel unwelcome or unsafe while competing for their dreams this year simply because the host nation has laws in place that actually encourage discrimination against certain groups.  Baxter and I take gay rights and inclusiveness very seriously; so for this week’s post, we wanted to applaud the brands who are making statements this week by proudly depicting a happier world – where everyone is welcome, regardless of age, sex, race, religion or sexual orientation.

Google’s Doodle

I literally gave my Google screen a thumbs up yesterday with this subtle rainbow doodle pledging Google’s support of the Olympic Charter’s commitment to practice sport without discrimination. Go Google!

Chevy’s Olympic Spot

“For whatever shape your family takes,” the commercial says, featuring families of all kinds in its spot that debuted during the Winter Olympic Games.  While a typical family in Russia and a typical family in America might look completely different (can’t resist a Modern Family mention here), this commercial speaks to all American families with some simple but effective words and a lot of beautiful family pictures.  It celebrates our diversity.  Go Chevy!

Canadian’s Institute of Diversity and Inclusion

Only an organization dedicated to gay rights could get away with this spot, claiming, “The games have always been a little gay. Let’s fight to keep them that way.”  You might chuckle at the imagery, so I should probably give a disclaimer that I don’t think all luge athletes are gay!  Go Canada!

Other Olympic sponsors and American advertisers, in particular, are taking this opportunity to give their brands a facelift to spotlight inclusiveness.  Just today, I saw an article on MSN.com regarding Valentine’s Day that chose to use an image of two females.  I’m excited to see these advertisers start to break through the prejudice in the hopes of a more accepting, tolerant, and loving world.

What is your favorite inclusive message in a commercial?

In the meantime, I hope you are all tuning in to watch the figure skaters, bob-sledders, skiers, curlers, snowboarders, and hockey players during the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

GO TEAM U.S.A.!

Super Bowl = Super Advertising

Quarterbacks and marketers share the same dream: to make it to the Super Bowl.  The big game has always been the quintessential venue for commercials. Tomorrow’s game will spur as much advertising chatter as it will football talk when it comes to the water cooler conversations on Monday morning.

It’s a historical date for marketers.  Thirty years ago, Apple introduced the Macintosh computer during the Super Bowl with iconic “1984” commercial.   Clydesdale horses, soda-chugging polar bears, and celebrities of all kinds make annual appearances to enthrall audiences and inspire product purchases.

Creativity, messaging, and filmography of the ads need to be top-notch in order to standout and earn accolades.  The nation is waiting for genius and is ready to nit-pick ads if they’re not up to the high expectations the Super Bowl brings to commercials.

Today, it’s not just about the TV spots that marketers pay millions of dollars for.  To stand out amidst the other advertisers, you have to take to social media.  Marketing teams have staff standing by and actively participating in all the #hashtag trends that will occur during the most important four quarters of the season.

We’re still in awe over the brilliance of Oreo’s Super Bowl tweet last year.

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

This year, the marketing world is a gasp awaiting H&M’s first smart TV shopping-enabled commercial set to air during the Super Bowl.  Game watchers aren’t just going to admire David Beckham in his new Bodywear line, but they’ll actually be able to make a purchase right from their TV remotes!

Technology continues to shape marketing, but the Super Bowl is still the prime location for spotlighting your brand.

Even though Baxter’s team isn’t playing tomorrow, he’s ready to see which marketers are going to stand out with their commercials and social media messaging during the big game!

Join the discussion:

What is your favorite Super Bowl commercial of all time?  Which ad are you most looking forward to watching in tomorrow’s game?  What do you think has changed Super Bowl advertising the most over the years?

The Evolution of the 4Ps | Marketing Mix

A decade ago, before Baxter was even a twinkle in my eye, I was surviving on the proverbial college student’s Ramen noodle diet, jamming to Beyonce’s first solo artist number one hit (which was coincidentally recorded with her now-hubby Jay-Z), and studying book definitions of product, place, price, and promotion. In a world where my peers were dropping out of school to invade Iraq at the same time the rest of us were wishing for a ‘No Shirts, No Shoes, No Problems‘ lifestyle, my future could not have been predicted.

I’m proud to be an aboriginal of the tech-savvy Millennials, yet I didn’t have my first Internet-connected computer until my 16th birthday…and a prepaid, flip style cell phone didn’t come until I was an adult!  University life meant handwritten lecture notes, library research, and lessons in traditional media – and not much more.  I did have a Web Marketing course, in which I learned FrontPage (ugh, how old am I?!) and discussed the growing importance of having an informational website.  eBay had been around a while, but its new acquisition of PayPal was breaking news, and MySpace was fresh on the horizon making the initial waves in social networking.

In short, within a speedy decade, a lot has changed.

These cultural shifts have had an enormous impact on marketing. Let’s discuss the Marketing Mix and the 4Ps, which were first introduced in the 1950s.  (If a lot has changed in 10 years, do we really even need to consider the changes over more than a half century?)

Product
When I was in school, we learned about two types of products: physical objects and services.  Today, companies offer experiences and solutions.  We also have to provide value-added content and educational resources to compete in most saturated (and now international) markets.  On top of that, we have to inject personality into every product offering to differentiate our company or brand from the other guy’s.  Having “things” just isn’t good enough, no matter how awesome they are.

Price
While setting a competitive price, valuing your products based on target market and branding, and deciding upon discount programs still remain an important part of the mix, there are a lot more variables to consider.  In addition to managing price tags and in-store signage, you have to manage online pricing at your site and various marketplace platforms (think Amazon).  You no longer distribute coupons via direct mail but rather digitally via emails and daily deals.  And price is no longer equal to the entire community; it is a very personalized offer to the individual shopper based on big data, consumer behavior, and level of social relationship or loyalty.

Place
Old school: Location is everything.
New school: Location is everywhere.

Whether you have a brick and mortar store or not, companies today are charged with doing the mere (but not really) impossible – being everywhere.  We aren’t just expected to be in several marketplaces and on social media channels, but we are expected to be able to deliver our products worldwide – quickly and inexpensively, too!  Strategically placed distribution centers, a network of freight companies, and a whole new logistics game are part of our everyday marketing lives.  Location means being able to be in our customer’s homes, having them take us with them to the laundry mat, or connecting with us over dinner at a restaurant halfway around the world. With mobile and smart TV technologies, we aren’t just deciding on where we’ll point the Google map or Foursquare pin, but how we’ll be accessible to everyone, everywhere, all the time.

Promotion
This has always been my favorite P.  I still get excited to watch an entertaining TV commercial or to see a well designed print ad.  But you know that in the digital age, there are so many other opportunities to consider.  From apps and retargeting to SEO and PPC, inbound traffic comes from a bit more than a gazillion sources.  Yet, at times, the best PR is still driven through relationship-building, partnerships, and word-of-mouth.  Use your creativity and digital tools to forge these great promotional opportunities.

What have I missed?  Join the reminiscing, or offer up your own insight into the new marketing mix.

Here are two articles I think you’ll like:

Ogilvy & Mather: The 4 Ps are Out, the 4Es are In by Brian Fetherstonhaugh

Harvard Business Review: Rethinking the 4 P’s by Richard Ettenson, Eduardo Conrado, and Jonathan Knowles

New Year’s Resolution = Start a Blog

Greetings, and welcome to Bark of Baxter Marketing!  The idea of writing my own blog came to me this fall, when during perhaps the most opportunist meeting I’ll most likely ever have in my career (maybe one day I’ll write about my epic fail), a light bulb flickered above my head, and I realized:  my writing portfolio was lacking, I had little social presence on the web as “myself” rather than the company I work for, and my creativity had been sucked away from the curse of real world tasks called budgets and analytics.  Plus, I genuinely wish I had a larger network of everyday marketers – just like you – to inspire and motivate each other when the going gets tough.  So in an eye-opening (and ego-shattering) moment, I promised my inner dreamer that I would make my new blog my very first New Year’s resolution…ever!

Twenty-one days after the start of 2014 (hey, not too shabby for a first-time resolution-maker), I’m putting a stake in this thing we call the worldwide web and claiming my space.

I’m not an expert on anything, but I am a 30-something girl who has a marketing degree and almost a decade of work experience under my belt.  From nonprofits to B2B, I have been charged with: event planning, fundraising (aka “sales”), copy-writing, advertising, SEO, PPC, relationship-building, storytelling, media relations, and my fair share of head scratching.  Compared to other marketing bloggers, I have no major accolades to brag about: no award-winning books, no interviews with the rich and famous, or no leagues of Mimi-wannabes vying for my heiress-like attention.  I like to think that makes me relate-able.  I might not always have all of the answers, but I always have a pawsitive attitude…and my personal champion, Baxter, by my side.

With said loyal business partner curled up on my lap as I diligently type, I hope to use this space on the web to bark about life as a marketer.  You’re all invited join in the  fun.  (And trust me, marketing is exciting!)  Post comments, share best practices, ask for practical tips on getting a project accomplished, or just sound off on a particular topic.  As long as it’s barking – and not biting – your participation is welcome! Let’s commiserate together about algorithm updates, how much time it takes to produce great content (i.e., how to live on 4 hours of sleep a night), and how to get more Facebook likes.  Then, let’s help each solve problems, streamline our efforts, and brainstorm new ideas.  I’ll also take the opportunity to tell anecdotes about my career and life, plus offer up some lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Beware of the dog: Expect to see lots of adorable Chinese Crested pics, too.  Just because!  (C’mon, you know that sex, babies, and dogs sell.  B’s just doing his job.)

As long as you don’t mind me writing in my pajamas over some loose leaf tea, we’ll get along just fine.  (Gimme a break, it’s not a video blog.)

Thanks for stopping by,
Mimi