Marketing

Protecting Your Assets

My friend and business partner Troy Claus wrote an interesting post the other day, looking at personal versus professional branding. It raises some great questions about focus and recognition, and where the value lies in both.

It got me thinking about how the line between figureheads and financial results in business can be a frail one, and how companies need to take a look at how their audience perceives them if they want long-term success.

It?s a question that not too many businesses look at, especially if the employee is either a founder or boardroom level. Yet it?s something that every business needs to be aware of, and not just at the highest level.

One Minus One Equals?

Look at Apple and Microsoft for a minute. Everyone knows who the number one employee is (or was) ? Steve Jobs and Bill Gates respectively. They?ve become the face of their companies and are synonymous with the two brands.

Yet for anyone outside the tech and associated arenas, could you say who?s immediately after these guys? Timothy D. Cook is the Chief Operating Officer for Apple and Steve Ballmer is the CEO of Microsoft. I know of Ballmer, but that?s purely from being an Xbox 360 owner and his name pops up a lot in that field, but Cook I didn?t know.

This is why there?s always a big reaction to any news about Steve Jobs? health ? most people (or at least the ones that really matter, the consumers) see Jobs as Apple and vice versa. All of Apple?s successes have been because of Jobs (again, in the eyes of the general consumer), so no Jobs means no Apple.

You only have to look at the way Apple?s share price dropped when a citizen journalist incorrectly reported on Jobs? death. While the story was criticized for lack of research, it did raise a valuable point ? is being the face of a company detrimental to your overall business strategy?

Strength in Numbers

There are two key factors in the success of a business ? customers and product. Sure, you can have the best personnel but without customers it doesn?t matter if you have the most kick-ass team in business history. While market forces and economy also play a part, it?s customers and product that go hand-in-hand with each other that either make or break a business.

Normally they won?t care who?s running a company ? all that matters is they can get a product they need at the price they want to pay. However, if they see a front person for that company, it?s natural to associate that person as the company itself. So if something happens to that person, it?s also natural to think the company will be affected. Which is what?s happened with Apple in the past, despite the fact they have a tremendous backroom team in place to steady the ship.

If you have a face to your business, ask yourself if it?s the best approach. It?s always good to be recognizable as a brand but can there be too much recognition?

Make your business the brand as opposed to having a figurehead. These are usually only good for shareholders and investors, and they don?t normally stick around too long when your customer base starts disappearing.

Spread the love. Businesses with just one or two key personnel are always at risk from one or both of them leaving. Where does that leave the business? Encourage others to step up and reward innovation across the company with increased responsibilities.

Talk to your customers. Keep them up-to-date with current events behind-the-scenes ahead of announcements and help head off speculation before it happens.

Build the confidence that your business isn?t just a one-man show. If there are public trade shows, send multiple employees to deliver keynote speeches in their niche. A ship full of knowledge is more powerful than a knowledgeable ship.

No-one likes to hand the reins of their baby over to anyone else. You built the business; you made the early sacrifices; so you should be the one leading from the front, right?

Yes, you should be leading. But do your customers really care who?s leading as long as your business meets their needs?

image: antony chammond

Culture Club or Knowing Your Customer

Did you know that in Germany, you should always use a knife and fork to eat sandwiches? Or that in Italy you shouldn?t yawn in front of others?

How about clicking your fingers or whistling in China ? did you know it?s rude?

There are a lot of differences between cultures. Some are less profound than others, yet they?re there all the same. Are you taking that into account when trying to reach that audience?

Say your new client is from Italy and you?re having a webinar. That yawn you fail to stifle during the meeting could skittle that big account you?ve worked so hard for over the last few months. Or you have new investors from Mexico. If you don?t keep your hands above the table, it?s seen as a sign of disrespect. And who wants to work with someone that disrespects them?

It doesn?t matter if you?re in PR, marketing, advertising, manufacturing, retail or a million other industries. If you don?t know either your client or audience, you?re not going to succeed too well.

Online sales have increased massively over the last few years. The Internet and e-commerce have made international trading the equivalent of buying at your local produce market. Even your local produce market – or any offline equivalent – usually has a huge mish-mash of different cultures in the trading stalls.

Shouldn?t we spare that little bit of time beforehand to get to know the culture and see the bigger picture?

image: xiaming

Personal Marketing with Canadian Pet Connection

How are you influenced? By adverts? Marketing campaigns? Email blasts? Word-of-mouth? A little bit of each?

How about personal marketing?

Would you be more inclined to shop with someone that actively takes the time to know who you are, what your needs are and what your shopping pattern might be? I know I would.

Case in point ? pet health nutritionists Canadian Pet Connection (disclosure – client).

If you live near their stores in Oakville, Ontario, and you go in to buy something for your pet, father and son owners Lorne and Brandon Forder treat you as if you’re old friends.

They chat warmly; they ask after your pet (which they remember by name); they’ll talk to you for as long as you want about what could be wrong with your pet, and offer solutions without being pushy salespeople; and they’ll remember your preferences every time.

They take that same family-friendliness online, where the Canadian Pet Connection blog is full of great pet advice as well as featured people and local businesses; their Facebook Page is a fun mix of advice, questions and best Christmas films for pets(!); and their Twitter stream is a constant of chat, tips and facts.

Brandon even monitors for people mentioning their pet’s birthday, and often sends out a surprise package for the pet to make that extra year all the more fun. And with a new e-commerce store about to launch, that could mean pets further afield getting the birthday treatment too.

Simply put, Canadian Pet Connection are successful because they genuinely care.

So how can you reflect this personal approach online?

From a business point of view, you could offer similar. Offer an email list for your customers to sign up to, and ask certain questions that allow you to personalize your message.

Customers in Canada? Set up an email message wishing them a Happy Canada Day. The same goes for the UK (four different celebrations for Saint days), the US (send an Independence Day message) or anywhere that has a specific celebration. It might take a little work on your behalf, but isn?t the end result worth it?

You can use the same ideas even on a personal level. New follower on Twitter? Either reply with a response to their last tweet or send a personal DM that references their last tweet or their bio. Leave some advice on someone?s Facebook status and if you have a solution (if it?s answering a question) let them know that you can help in the future.

These are just two examples of two of the most popular social networks. The same principles will work anywhere.

Social media allows us to connect with people and offer solutions to those same people like never before.

Is there any part that says these solutions can?t be personal? Canadian Pet Connection don’t seem to think so.

How about you?

Where Addressable Advertising Can Benefit from Social Media

I read an interesting piece over at Marketing Magazine the other day. It discusses cable company Cogeco and their move into “addressable advertising” next year in a pilot scheme throughout limited households.

If you’re not familiar with addressable advertising, it’s the method of using far more targeted ads based on location and demographics. So, certain areas may be more affluent while other areas may be more working class.

What Cogeco’s aiming to do, via their pilot on local cable channel CHCH, is to test out targeted advertising and send out ads that are geared to someone’s specific address.

So, for example, someone living in an affluent are of the Golden Horseshoe – the area of south Ontario, Canada, where the scheme will be piloted – will see ads for luxury cars. Those living in a less affluent area will see ads for minivans or compact cars.

The goal is clear – if people are to buy something, they’re more likely to buy what’s in their cash range.

Targeted or Taking Aim?

It’s a great idea – although I’m not too sure if closing your potential customers off by ignoring them due to current financial status is a great idea. Everyone has aspirations, right? And what better way to aim for a goal than seeing something to aim toward (like a more luxurious car, or nicer home, or bigger vacation)?

There’s also the problem of the demographics. Just because someone lives in an affluent area doesn’t necessarily mean they are affluent. They could be working their asses off to pay the higher mortgage, and have little-to-no fluid cash.

Additionally, is the affluent neighbourhood made up primarily of younger people, or the “reward year boomers”? The latter category are people that have worked their lives to become affluent and now have time to relax and enjoy their savings. So they’d be perfect – but if that’s just a small part of the audience, will addressable advertising be successful?

Without seeing exactly how the company putting the plan together for Cogeco has come up with their information, it’s hard to say. Using Invidi’s Advatar system, it may be that they have all the information they need for the pilot to be a success. While the system looks perfect for showing when a TV is on and what’s being watched, it’s less clear how demographics and spend power is determined.

Of course, one of the ways Cogeco (and others like them) could really target an audience (along with the addressable advertising platform) is to combine the project with social media.

People, People, and More People

Because social media is such a perfect tool for not only messaging your target audience, but actually finding out if they’re in your sights to begin with, it makes perfect sense to combine the offline cable advertising with online and social network promotion and focus.

Facebook

For example, using something as simple as Facebook Advertising can allow Cogeco and their partners to gauge how many people in their target audiences (affluent and otherwise) will be in the Golden Horseshoe area.

If you base an ad on the cities that will be targeted (from Marketing Magazine’s article), then you have just over 917,000 people living in the Golden Horseshoe between 18-64 years of age (both sexes). But not a lot of 18-year olds will be affluent, so change that age to 30-64 and the audience drops to just over 600,000.

Let’s say it’s a sports car – that’s going to appeal primarily to men (sorry ladies!). Making the age between 30-50, and male demographics only, shows a return of just under 217,000 (quite the drop).

However, it shows that there’s the potential for a Facebook ad campaign to highlight what’s coming via CHCH (and at a far lesser cost than say, a print ad campaign or TV one). So, use a Facebook ad to drive traffic to a landing site that explains what the project is about, and get people to sign up there as well with more detailed information (including available spend power and likelihood of spending through targeted ads).

Twitter

While the audience on Twitter is a lot less than Facebook (particularly in the demographics and locale that Cogeco is piloting), there are still 5,500 registered users on Twellow (the Twitter Yellow Pages).

But this is just for registered users. Go to Twitter Search and start using it for highlighting the areas of interest and what’s being said about ads over there, and it begins to give you a very focused look at the likelihood of certain ads working while others, not so much.

For instance, this tweet from Hassan Al-Ghareib popped up from a search I did on some terms that the addressable advertising audience might be interested in.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/Hassan_AG/statuses/11477534243819520″]

It complains about a new de-icing solution that obviously isn’t working (Canadian winters aren’t very car-friendly). So, if I’m an auto parts store, I know I may have an in there with Hassan and others like him. I find out where Hassan lives (Toronto area), do some more searches to see if others are having similar issues, and then make sure my ad runs in that locale. The fact that Hassan’s in marketing at Samsung helps, too, from a word-of-mouth viewpoint…

Oh, and using Twitter advertising to direct people like Hassan to the CHCH channel is just a simple addition to complement the addressable advertising.

And don’t forget you have the likes of YouTube (visual ads) and BlogTalk Radio (audio ads), as well as mobile advertising (a whole other topic of discussion and the perfect partner for social media). Add these guys into the mix and you really begin to get full-on addressable advertising.

It’ll be interesting to see how the pilot scheme from Cogeco works, and if the statistics – cost versus return for advertisers and awareness of consumers – will be shared. Hopefully they will – it’s a brave new path and one that deserves to work.

And with a little help from social media, it could have an even bigger return… Stay tuned!

image: Dreamer7112