Advertising Thingys

The Four Cornerstones of Driving Traffic

Nader Ashway15 Comments

I recently held a garage sale (how suburban of me, eh?) and, while it was a success, it could have been much better. Definition:  I didn’t sell everything I would have liked to sell.

The issue, I have surmised, was not a question of our inventory or our location or our quality level – it was simply a matter of driving the appropriate traffic. [Note:  a follow-up report from the garage sale indicated that we converted sales at approximately a 25% ratio:  for every four people that came by, one made a purchase.  Not bad.]

While I covered all the requisite bases, there was a lot more I could have done.  It reminded me that small and midsize brands face the same traffic issues every day.  Whether you’re a website, a local retail shop, a restaurant or even a midsize b-to-b service provider, driving and sustaining traffic is central to your survival.

Irrespective of the media you choose, or the vertical you’re in, or the market(s) in which you operate, here are four critical cornerstones to understanding and driving traffic that I’ve branded as the “TMX2” approach.  These are in no certain order, and in many respects, have to be considered simultaneously.

The first cornerstone:  Targeting
Driving traffic begins with a clear understanding of the prospects you WANT.  If you’re working with a media company who’s doing planning for you, you can probably get to a very decisive target.  But if you’re not (maybe you’re small, maybe you’re not sure,) you can ask yourself important questions:  who is the “ideal” customer?  What is the ideal “deal” for that customer?  How can I provide that structure?

Two important targeting sub-themes here:  think virally and think in segments.
First, in the age of social media, ask yourself another targeting question:  Who will be likely to “spread” my message post-purchase?  Second, don’t be afraid to segment.  You can’t be all things to all people, but you can be one valuable thing to one segment, another valuable thing to another segment and so on.  For more information on segmentation, check out the VALS Framework, pioneered by SRI.

The second cornerstone:  Timing
Two facets of timing are essential.  First, give your offer or your brand or your new product launch ample time to sink in and make the requisite impressions.  So often, marketers have great ideas and fantastic solutions to offer, but we bail when we don’t think it’s happening quite quickly enough.  We already know that the American consumer (or business owner) is inundated with zillions of marketing messages every day.  Sure, you have to cut through the clutter with good messaging and solid creative, but you also have to allow for the message to seep in…there’s a reason “frequency” is a cornerstone of every media plan.

The second facet of timing is more delicate – you have to offer your consumer what they’re looking for, at a price he or she is willing to pay, at the right moment.  Not quarter.  Not month.  MOMENT.  This is why the term “real-time” is being bandied about so often in marketing seminars and business conferences around the world.  See articles on real-time marketing on Mashable.

The third cornerstone:  Message
While it’s impossible to cover everything about messaging in an overview, be clear about this:  you can target the right customer, deliver your communications over the right medium, time it perfectly and still not influence or stimulate demand if your message doesn’t resonate with your customer.  So how do you make that happen?

It’s not simple, but make sure you cover at least the following:  Claim the highest possible emotional benefits that speak to your audience (or segment.) Add rational support for choosing your product or service.  Be absolutely relevant.  And don’t be afraid to be a little unexpected – a little cooky.  As long as those other aspects are covered, cooky can work and usually does because it’s more memorable and more entertaining and more differentiating.

The fourth cornerstone:  Mission
Here’s a cornerstone of driving traffic that can easily get overlooked.  Very often, we achieve results when we undertake a marketing effort.  But sometimes, the early returns can influence our perceptions about what we’re trying to achieve.  If things are going great in the first month of a new campaign, everybody starts to project HUGE numbers for the program, and forgets that you had an objective to only move the needle by 10%.  If things start out slow, we may assume that “this is never going to work,” and we forget that we only want to move the needle by 10%, so we crush the program before it has time to sink in.

The best way to avoid abandoning the mission is to document it.  Write it down where EVERYONE involved can see it.   That’s right.  Everyone.  The client.  The agency.  The vendors.  The investors.  Everyone.  “WE WANT TO SELL 22 MILLION WIDGETS AT 19¢ IN THE NEXT YEAR.”  Or “WE WANT TO INCREASE WEB TRAFFIC TO 100,000 UNIQUES PER MONTH IN THE NEXT TWO QUARTERS.”  Whatever it is, keep it sacred and don’t abandon it.  You’ll find that it absolutely aligns every stakeholder and, if you build on the other cornerstones, you’re likely to be pleasantly surprised at the traffic jam just up ahead.

Article first published as The Four Cornerstones of Driving Traffic on Technorati.

Sampling: a 20th century model perfect for 21st century marketing

Nader Ashway4 Comments

Ever try a piece of that mystery meat in the supermarket?  Ever been to a trade show and strapped on some gizmo to “see how this thing really works?”  Ever take a free bottle of thirst-quenching ade at an outdoor event or concert?  Ever taken a test drive at your local auto dealer?  Then you’ve engaged with a sampling program and, perhaps, one of the most underrated routes to marketing success.

Sampling – sometimes called product sampling, or product seeding –  is the simple act of giving products and even services (think massages) away to get prospects to engage with the experience at no cost.  Typically, the results are very positive, as prospects that interact with or try a product at low risk tend to enjoy the interaction and tend to favorably recall the experience.

Sampling jumpstarts many of the most desired marketing outcomes:
–    creates brand and feature awareness
–    is an engaging and memorable experience
–    is real-time, and therefore creates immediacy
–    is a trial-based experience (perhaps the most important facet here)
–    is a strong acquisition tool

Sampling may reach more prospects than you might consider.  According to a 2008 study by Arbitron and Edison Media Research, nearly 70 million consumers aged 12 and older sample a product every quarter. And talk about lift:  about one out of every three consumers who try a sample buy the sampled product during the same shopping trip.  Further, sampling can impact future buying decisions, as the known experience creates a bond to the brand: six out of 10 consumers who sample products plan to buy these products again. That’s a pretty convincing ROI.

Now, no one here is saying that sampling is so monumental an option that you should abandon your other tactics and shift all your dollars into a seeding program.  However, there are aspects of sampling that simply outgain many of the more known marketing approaches.  For instance, advertising, long accepted as the heavyweight champion of marketing communication, can, at best, only serve to stimulate demand for a product.  Sampling, on the other hand, induces trial.  It’s simply a matter of scale: if advertising didn’t have the benefit of riding along the broadcast channels, it would lose to sampling as a model of efficiency.

Does sampling have any drawbacks?  A few minor shortcomings are evident.  Sampling is hyper-local, and with that comes a scaling challenge. [You can get around this by including a product sample in your next physical mailing program…scaling problem overcome, but watch out for postage fees.] Also, sampling creates a minor headache if you’re bent on attribution.  It’s easy to see same day sales lift, but long-term brand building and incremental sales gains are hard to attribute unless you’re isolating markets or specific product varieties.

Finally, sampling does have a few parameters that must be considered…it’s hard to sample large or expensive products outside of the confines of the test-drive model.  You do have to eat the manufacturing costs of the products you’re giving away as you hedge your bets against future sales.  But regardless of these minor drawbacks, you can gain advantages in your market through sampling.  And if you do it with an intelligently conceived, creatively executed program, promoted through social media and even mobile alerts, chances are you’ll be enjoying those advantages with newly acquired customers for years to come.

10 Reasons to Hire an Agency: Reason #10

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Reason #10: The agency has a great reputation. Or buzz.

When a small or midsize marketer in any category realizes (or admits) they need to hire an agency, the first conception of the choice may hinge on a simple condition:  the type of buzz or reputation that agency has gained in recent weeks or months.  Whether it’s in that particular market, or in that particular vertical, or for a certain proficiency the agency has been noted for, some industry buzz may be enough attraction to consider hiring them.

As I mentioned in the reason #8 post, an agency can generate a fair amount of buzz for work it recently did for a client…either the client was very notable (read: large) or the work itself was effective enough to move the needle and grab some attention. [Of course, the agency may have itself a good PR department, and was smart about getting some clippings.]

An agency can also become known for a certain kind of reputation in the business. What kinds of reputations can an agency have?  Some are known for producing great creative product.  (Most want to be.)  Some are known to be social media leaders.  Some are known to be brand experts.  Some are known to be super proficient in direct marketing.  Some will save you lots of money on media buying by virtue of their processes.  Some have a notable executive.  Some are known to have a “folksy” attitude.  Some are known because they have the coolest office space.  Some because they’re just huge and can handle a global product launch in 26 languages.  Some focus on very specific niches, like challenger brands, or multi-channel retail.

Hiring an agency for any one of these reasons is a decent course of action for small to midsize marketers.  To borrow vernacular from Newton’s First Law of Motion, an agency that’s hot tends to stay hot.  So it’s likely that if you hire an agency because they have a great reputation that’s built on solid work, there’s a good chance they’ll do solid work for you and your brand. Hire an agency because they’re breaking new ground in social, there’s a good bet they’ll develop a cool social program for your brand, too.

Again – and you may have noticed a theme here throughout these 10 in 10 posts – most of how your relationship with an agency will evolve is dependent on you (the marketer) and what you bring to the relationship.  In some sense, it’s about how you choose an agency partner…we’ve recently explored a 10-pack of possible avenues.

In another sense, (once you have chosen an agency,) it’s a willingness to participate fully in the relationship – to allow your agency partner to take some chances and explore some uncharted territories.

In both instances, the key to unlocking all the potential in the world from your agency partner will always lie with an understanding of your customers, and anticipating their needs before they even begin to articulate them.  Make sure your agency gets THAT, and it won’t matter what the reason was that you hired them in the first place.

10 Reasons to Hire an Agency. Reason #9

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Reason #9 – The Agency is in a Good Location

In today’s globally connected world, the concept of “location” barely holds water as either a barrier against or a case for professional collaboration.  There are a thousand different incarnations of off-shore outsourcing for everything from web hosting to back office operations to customer service in regions sometimes tens of thousands of miles away. Skype has made video conferencing virtually free and instantaneous for all.  Yet, for many smaller and midsize marketers, hiring an agency tends to be a decision driven day after day by district.

It makes perfect sense.  The marketer who chooses to hire an agency that’s nearby gets numerous benefits out of the proximity victory.  Meetings can be held in person if the agency is just across town.  The marketer and the agency can virtually ensure a clear and consistent collaboration process that includes personal visits to each other’s businesses, or timely lunches or even social gatherings during cocktail hours.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are many cases in which a marketer will deliberately hire an agency OUT of their market for any number of reasons.  In some instances, the marketer might believe that an agency in New York or Los Angeles or Miami might be “better” or “more capable” than some in their own market.

This may or may not be true and it largely depends on what market we’re talking about here.  Some marketers just like the sexiness of having to travel to the coast for a big “agency meeting.”  Some executives just like a boondoggle.  (Why do you think there are so many “amazing” agencies in Hawaii?)

In a more benign example, it may be that an out-of-market shop has a particular expertise (say, direct response, or mobile, for examples) that might be necessary for the next effort.  Perfectly legit to look outside the area code.

But the truth of the location issue lies somewhere in the middle of all the excuse-making.  An agency that understands your business, your goals and your parameters is valuable as a partner, whether they’re a cab-ride away or a long-distance flight from home.

In my career, I’ve met – and sometimes collaborated with – a hundred agency owners in big markets (New York, Chicago, LA, San Francisco,) and small (Tupelo, Greenville, Omaha,) and they pretty much all have talented people, proven processes, strong relationships and solid creative thinking across the board.

What really matters is what makes YOU comfortable.  If you place a high value on face-time, then hire an agency that you can drive to in less than an hour.  If not, then don’t be afraid to expand your search.

And remember, if you’re in a small market and you decide to look outside your region, you don’t necessarily have to hire an agency from a big market – there are incredible small and midsize agencies in smaller markets across the country that would love to pitch for your business.

Technorati blog claim:  BFAYX3XJRMCF

Next:  The agency is getting a lot of buzz right now.

10 Reasons to Hire an Agency: Reason #8

Nader Ashway1 Comment

Reason #8: The agency did great previous work for Client X.

The hiring of agencies based on their historical success with another client goes beyond just the business world.  Indeed, in virtually every facet of modern life, we reward those who have performed well in the past, regardless of the circumstances that may have led to those successes or the outcomes that may have followed.

Professional athletes receive lucrative contracts based on a fairly small sample of exceedingly laudable accomplishments.  Songwriters have their contracts renewed (and often bloated) following the release of a hit.  Same for authors, actors, newscasters, and don’t forget CEOs, CMOs and a gaggle of other C-dash-Os.

And likely, those who have enjoyed success tend to continue to succeed, especially when they’re affirmed – and often funded – by those who are invested in their future output.  So when agency X gets a “hit” with a campaign, it’s likely that the client will quickly sign on for 23 more executions just like it.  It happens every day.

There a number of factors that make this seemingly obvious connection troublesome at best and downright unreliable at worst.  For one, there is often a blurriness of specifics about how or whom or what led to the admirable outcomes.  Very often, success is a collaborative process that requires creativity, compromise and multiple input sources.

For an agency to be successful for a previous client, a whole lot of things had to go remarkably right:  the idea (regardless of who seeded it,) had to be sound, the hypotheses had to be tested (or at least vetted,) the talents and the efforts of a lot of diverse people had to be leveraged, the client had to go along with the concept and then 17 other departments had to get on board with the vision and execute with excellence:  research, media, production, the talent at the recording studio where the radio spots were crafted, and on and on.  Even for smaller or local marketing efforts, this tends to be true, just maybe with less actual people involved.

Let me be clear, it’s never a bad idea to hire an agency because they had success with a previous client.  It’s quite likely they learned a lot in the process, thereby implying they’re more educated than when they started.  They may have won a bunch of awards for the work, implying they’re confident and have been buoyed by their accomplishments.  They may have even written some case studies or a trend paper on the process, indicating that they’ve derived some universal truths or best practices out of the experience.

So hiring an agency for work they’ve done in the past for another client will get you halfway down the road, but it’s not a guarantee of success for you or your brand.  A number of reasons abound for this, but it comes down to this: it starts with you.  You determine what the freedoms or the limitations will be.  You determine how daring you want the campaign to be.  You write the checks.

Beyond you, it’s something bigger, and far more elusive.  The creative process (even if you’re creating a strategy,) is capricious.  It’s improvisational.  It’s collaborative.  It’s subjective to environment and timing and weather and the kind of coffee you’re drinking at the meetings.  It’s a bloody mess, but it’s the only way we get from here to there.

As a creative director, I’ve often been asked to show previous work to prospective clients, so they can gauge my abilities to both create solutions and direct a creative team.  And I hate it.  It’s not that I’m not proud of the work – I often am.  But all this shows is that I had a series of deeply thoughtful and leading conversations with my client, (often a strong voice in the conversation,) and that we went through a series of revisions to get to the final executions.  Joy.

There are directives (check out “Make My Logo Bigger Cream” on YouTube…you’ll scream,) and imperatives and legal requirements and of course the objectives and the budget restrictions and the market limitations and the testing breakouts and a hundred other factors that should indicate that our agency wasn’t allowed to run free through the fields and put a tree here and a waterfall there.  I was a collaborator in a business process, that’s all. And yet, the portfolio or the reel is the only barometer of our future abilities.  Seems odd.

In any collaborative engagement, the final result is only as good as the least willing participant in the process will allow it to be.  In some cases, depending on your business, it’s only as good as the loudest voice in the room.  So if you’re hiring an agency based on work for a previous client, start asking yourself, “am I ready to collaborate to the fullest extent?”  If so, it may very well be the best reason of all.

Tomorrow – Reason #9:  Location