Just finished a short piece that summarizes my philosophy on service marketing. In short:

1. Think like a customer
2. Solve buyer problems … real and perceived
3. Follow up and say thank you

Read the full text here. Thanks for visiting!

The economic turmoil of the past few years has wreaked havoc on many businesses, large and small. It’s not surprising. A domino effect occurs, where the failure or slow down of one business affects virtually everyone in its chain of influence, from clients to vendors. Given this atmosphere, everyone remains understandably cautious. Marketing, and in particular advertising spending, is one area that tends to be cut first despite its vital role in securing new business. Before you hack and slash, consider creative options that can extend your marketing dollars.

Cooperative Marketing

Have you explored cooperative marketing possibilities? Many manufacturers, vendors and associations that support your business or industry have cooperative marketing funds available, simply for the asking. These funds typically need to be requested, and are rarely publicized, so they often go unused. The funds may allow you to co-advertise a major brand you carry or advertise your business alongside an association that supports your industry, all with a percentage of the cost or flat amount reimbursed by your advertising partner. Read more about this in a recent article I wrote about cooperative direct mail programs.

Free and Low-Cost Opportunities

The term “social media” and its multiple iterations scares many business owners. No one wants to create a PR nightmare or invite negative comments into their business. However, with smart application, you can take the best of the social web–and its incredible relationship building power–and reduce or negate potential complications. Start small. Be honest. Offer value.

FACEBOOK. Try a free Facebook Fan page, where you can converse directly with customers, sharing new products and offering valuable benefits, freebies and sales promotions specifically to “fans.”

TWITTER. If your work has widespread application to a larger audience, consider a Twitter feed. Use this simple format to share information related to your line of work that helps others. You might be surprised how many followers turn into customers.

BLOGS. If you have specialized knowledge, a blog is a great way to share it. This avenue is more time intensive, but it also creates a stronger connection with readers. Focus on the parts of your business with the greatest outside interest. Write for your potential future customers. What do they need to know right now to improve their business? How can your knowledge and service help them succeed? Being of service, in any format, is the key to success.

Beyond the Quick Fix: Planning with Purpose

Marketing strategy is often discussed but quite rarely systematized. This is a key mistake in a tightening market. In an effort to quickly appease the accountants, it is common to see whole areas of a marketing process removed without pausing to analyze how this impacts the whole. Trimming the budget is not the problem. The problem lies in integration. If you are maximizing your opportunities and budget, your marketing plan should function as an integrated whole, each piece supporting the other to exponentially increase your reach and response. If this is not the case–if for instance, you still budget and evaluate “advertising” and “public relations” and “web marketing” as separate entities–your first step to streamlined marketing spending lies in creating an integrated marketing plan and budget. This process alone will allow you to more easily identify areas of excess and areas in need, and adjust accordingly. If your marketing is already integrated, then go back to your strategic marketing mission before making cuts. Evaluate how you can reduce the intensity or level of your overall strategy without destroying the delicate balance you’ve created. If you find that entrenched interests are making this nearly impossible, consider bringing in a neutral party and be open to their impressions. Sometimes a divorced perspective is all it takes to identify a simple way to solve short-term spending problems while maintaining long-term potential for growth.

Simplicity and functionality rule when it comes to trade show design. Trade show banners should draw attendees into the booth. Don’t try to accomplish too much at once. Clean, easy-to-understand visuals that support your established brand image will enhance your booth appearance. Save the detailed sales information for personal sales pitches from your sales staff and sales collateral takeaways. New to the world of trade show design or undecided about the best banner for you? Read more here.

Given the current economic challenges, many businesses are questioning long-held pricing strategies. While I would never advise making rash changes, I do think that an annual review of pricing policies and effects is good business practice. Writing a recent article on profit-oriented pricing strategies reminded me yet again that price is a key, yet often overlooked, marketing strategy. Be sure to incorporate pricing research, model application and market-based evaluation into your regular marketing planning.

• The time to market your business is now. Don’t get too comfortable. Ignoring marketing until it is crunch time is a critical error. Continue to evaluate your position and aim for the next level. The best time to market is when things are good so that you don’t experience a lull and require emergency attention.
• Talk to your customers as much as possible. Think about the successful businesses you frequent. How do they reach their customers? How can you emulate them? Send regular informative emails or newsletters. Offer services that make you stand out from the competition.
• Survey your customers. This can be as simple as informally asking your existing customers what was best and worst about your service. Don’t shy away from bad news. This may provide surprising insights. Negative feedback is simply an opportunity for growth.
• Always think in terms of customer benefits. How can you make their lives better?
• Keep an eye on market trends. For example, customer expectations are escalating. This means customer service—and publicizing excellent customer service—is crucial. We are also a wired generation and we live in a 24-7-365 culture. Customers continue to expect more and you can market conveniences to tap into this desire.
• Don’t worry about being perfect. Perfection may prevent you from sending that press release or making a speech to a local organization. Instead do your best. Your goal is to move forward. Learn from your mistakes and use them to grow your business.
• Avoid reducing marketing budgets when times are tough. This is your key connection to your customer. Your programs need not be expensive. Review what you can do in-house or at low cost.
• Don’t ignore public relations. An effective public relations campaign can dramatically increase your exposure with little relative cost. Just think about how much a full-page ad would cost as opposed to a full-page article. External validation also lends credibility. It is always better to have an impartial source saying good things about you.
• Be careful not to focus on one area to the exclusion of all others. Good marketing is balanced marketing. Use all the tools you have on hand: public relations, promotions, advertising (print, online), direct mail, websites, email, etc.
• Don’t try to do everything on your own. Growth requires the ability to delegate. Take time out to envision your firm’s controlled growth. Hire before you are overwhelmed. Consider contracting out to other experts (accounting, public relations, etc.) when it makes sense.

Marketing health care services requires special finesse. Many of the traditional rules of marketing do not apply. Organizations like the CLIO Awards are recognizing this. In recent years this group has created a separate category, the CLIO Healthcare Awards, to evaluate and select the industry’s best ads and promotions.  They recognize that health care marketing often serves a number of purposes. It must educate, reassure and sell or promote all at the same time. Working with an agency or outside consultant experienced in health care marketing can improve your odds of success. Read more about helpful health care marketing resources here. And remember to get your entries ready … the 2010 CLIO Healthcare Awards opened yesterday, June 15, 2010.

Considering a focus group to help you better understand your customers’ needs? Explore your motivations and follow a few helpful tips to ensure maximum value.

Questions to consider before beginning:

1. What is your primary session goal? Is this narrowly defined?
2. What are your secondary goals? Define each in order of importance and share with  your moderator.
3. What types of questions would you like answered? Discuss as a group to better define goals and help create the best demographic survey and ranked question lists. While quantitative results are not the goal, ranked questions can help your organization more quickly key in on the most critical needs of your customer population. It simplifies analysis and helps confirm qualitative observations.
4. How will group(s) be identified? Are there customer lists (names, emails, addresses, etc.) that can be consulted? Is data available to help target the particular groups most in demand? If not, what are some other options for reaching the target segment?
5. Consider possible venues and weigh pros and cons. A neutral venue can be helpful to free participants to speak. At a minimum, a venue that is private and free from company representatives is a must to encourage participants to speak without reservations.
6. What is your timeframe?
7. What do you hope to get out of the sessions? How will you use the data gathered?

Make the most of your groups:

• Groups should be limited to 8 to 12 people maximum to allow everyone a chance to participate and provide value. If you are inviting and confirming participants without professional support, be sure to select enough target individuals per group at the outset to allow for cancellations and no-shows.
• Keeping groups consistent and narrowly defined helps facilitate a smooth session and secure the most valuable depth of experience data. Segmenting by customer type, and holding multiple groups to address various customer groups, may allow you to better explore and later address specific needs and desires. Conversely, if you choose to create a mixed group (with segment crossover) consider that you may get breadth rather than depth of information, with the ability to contrast experiences but also the potential for reduced and possibly less reliable themes and patterns. Consider what is most important to your organization at this time.
• Rather than trying to do too much in one session, it can be valuable to attempt to focus on a specific, pressing issue (e.g., Why have some customers left? How can we attract new customers from “X”? What do current customers feel are our most critical strengths and weaknesses? What could we do for our customers that we are not currently doing?).
• Keep in mind that quantitative data is not the ultimate goal of the focus group. Rather, focus groups are an excellent way to explore how groups of people think about and experience your services and products. They help organizations brainstorm creative solutions to buyer/customer problems and investigate differences between groups to help better serve various segments going forward.

Interested in learning more? In honor of Barten & Associates’ 15th Anniversary, new and existing clients are invited to schedule new focus groups at a 40 to 60% or more discount (depending on number of groups) until June 30, 2010. Email us and mention code “anniversary” for more information. And, as always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions at any time.

Marketing Misstep #1: Slip sliding away

One of the most common mistakes I see companies make when it comes to marketing strategy development and implementation happens so subtly it is almost always ignored, with disastrous results. What is this terrible secret? I like to call it marketing or idea “slide.”

Let’s take, for example, mid-sized organization A. The marketing team spends weeks researching demographics, psychographics and customer needs. They wisely arrive at a short list of unmet needs their company could ably fill for a target customer segment. They develop a marketing approach and present this along with summary data to leadership. Great. Seems simple.

Well, not so fast. Coming up with great marketing ideas based on solid research is the EASY part. Implementing these ideas without serious “slide” is near-impossible without constant vigilance.

In this example, company A’s leadership is initially gung-ho and on-board. Great ideas! Serve unmet needs! Let’s go! But as the marketing team begins to work on the campaign further, questions and revisions begin to take shape. What about the way we’ve always done things? Tell me why are we doing this again? That seems like a BIG change. Hmmm. Maybe we should try this instead.

Suddenly, middle management is wary, sensing leadership’s hesitation to move ahead. They begin to chip away at the new ideas, taking away their potency. They don’t reiterate the data that drove the marketing decisions for fear of seeming pushy, overbearing or like a know-it-all. Great ideas become middling ideas. Unmet needs give way to a campaign that merely restates old promises to existing customers. Lots of effort. Hours of work. Little to no results.

Keep in mind this happens over time. Many, many meetings and small incremental changes that seem so minor when they occur, why object? But taken cumulatively, they have stripped the campaign of its original vigor and effectiveness. Six months down the road, a good deal of money will have been spent yet little achieved.

So how can companies avoid the inevitable slide? Quality theory and processes can help here. Marketing is an area where quality review, dashboards and the like, are rarely implemented but can be enormously helpful. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Create your own dashboard that includes a regularly scheduled review of all marketing efforts pre-launch. Pull out that data you so painstakingly analyzed. Go back to the original concepts and ideas. Does your ready-to-launch version still meet your vision? Are you still reaching out to the target customer segment? In many cases, in the beginning, the answer will be no and you may have to go back to the drawing board. But if everyone is on the same page and following the same agreed-upon quality processes, and you repeat this process over and over again with each new effort, eventually the group will learn how to avoid “slide” and stay on target throughout the process.

Like all quality implementations, this can seem a bit painful and time consuming. You need to get everyone to agree on the right “dashboard” and evaluation process. Then you need to make sure everyone actually uses the system, testing for weakness and adjusting as you go along. But once you find the right fit for your organization, you have systematized your marketing effort in a way that will bring lasting results and make the evaluation and implementation process much less adversarial and time consuming. And in the end, this benefits everyone.