An integrated campaign as a reminder means that the campaign does not use any one single component of marketing-be it advertising, public relations, sales promotion, or social media but rather a combination of these to make sure that most audiences will be addressed via one media or another.

Putting all your money in one medium is likely to falter precisely because it is not supported by a full complement of marketing initiatives that must reinforce one another, producing exponential results such as 1+1=3.

One may ask, “Isn’t advertising in one medium only better than doing nothing at all?” That’s question misses the point. A wiser approach is to ask what can be done to support the investment in advertising so that you achieve the objectives you established at the outset.

What is preferred logically and in an efficient manner is an integrated set of marketing tools and initiatives carefully planned within the framework of a multifaceted marketing campaign.
To do that, you must create a media plan designed to make sure that all of your marketing tactics work together.
Lastly, getting marketing to generate Top Line revenues implies marketing initiatives that produce a significant return on the marketing dollars spent.
In order to give you some direction on ensuring that the campaign is (in fact) integrated, watch out for the following four pitfalls:

Common integrated campaign pitfalls.
Pitfall #1: Media that don’t reinforce each other
Pitfall #2: Create a budget first, metrics second.
Pitfall #3: Awareness vs. sales
Pitfall #4: Delegate and forget

For the purpose of brevity for today’s post let’s explore the second one:

Pitfall #2: Create a budget first, metrics second.

We’ll spend more time on metrics, analytics and ROI later but a common mistake is to set a budget first, then spend later on a variety of media.

The justification to coming up with a budget first could be:
a) Slow sales

b) Competitors are not advertising as much or,

c) The state of the economy.

In fact even if sales are slow during an economic downturn, they never stop altogether. And if everyone else is cutting back on spending during a recession, this is the worst time to cut back on marketing as is frequently the case. Studies show that businesses that continue marketing through a recession (http://www.renaud-investments.ro/five-steps-on-how-to-survive-in-a-recession-3) are the ones that come out ahead when the economy begins to turn (ex. Orange in Romania).

This could be an opportunity for you to gain market share by being aggressive.
But at the same time coming up with a budget figure out of the blue or out of thin air because sales are down, orders have declined and inventories are mounting is not rational thinking either.

You must consider the following instead:
1) Who’s the target of the marketing campaign?

2) Do these initiatives follow the marketing plan?

3) What goals will this campaign seek to achieve?

4) How these funds will to help sluggish sales?

5) The messages used to position your product as The customer solution

6) How the campaign will be measured?

7) How leads will be captured?

8) How are you going to monitor the results?

Committing to X million euros to a marketing budget in the blind implies that you will be spending big money without any clear plan for how it will generate additional revenues for the business.
This is certainly not the way to generate Top Line revenues with Marketing!

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Marketers need to understand sales effectiveness. This seems terribly simple but ultimately the most direct effect of sales (as a result of marketing) is that sales generates revenues.
Plus as a Marketer how you can’t expect to drive top line revenues from market initiatives unless you have a thorough understanding of your company’s sales department and how effective they are.

Fact:

There is a strong link between sales and marketing and dynamic marketing leaders are always seeking feedback from the sales team when it comes to reading the market, understanding competition and fine tuning products and services.
In fact you should always welcome it.

Ask yourself when was the last time a sales peer gave you feedback on prices, the promotion or the new products launched last week?
If you can’t remember – that’s a problem; either:
1) As a marketer you are not getting feedback from sales since they don’t have your phone number or email or a method/channel to give to feedback,
2) You are not welcoming feedback,
3) You have not created an environment where sales can openly give feedback.

In all cases, something has to be done immediately.

Any customer centric organization has to provide an environment where sales can for example, get on the phone or email you to say ‘hey…this client is telling us that our prices are too high’ (common sales reply)…or this client has decided to leave for x/y/z reason because of the product.
Another reason could be that customers expect a higher group discount or are asking if we can modify the product/package or distribution somehow. These are all legitimate questions and market feedback and it implies that there is a dialog between marketing and sales.

As a Product Manager, I would get the distribution sales team to call me on a daily basis to complain (read, suggest) about one aspect or another about the products. This is healthy. As a Marketer, you have to welcome this kind of feedback and you have to toughen your skin since you may get a lot of criticism.

In Romania we initiated this environment of informal feedback since the sales team simply did not know that they could or should give feedback to Marketing.
We also had a product development board (formal feedback) where new products and enhancements were presented because existing products lacked a better price/package or feature.

Informal since you want to hear it ’live’ or before someone has to write an email and formally since it’s important that if you are getting similar feedback from many sales teams about the same problem, this implies that the problem must be addressed immediately or it has to be elevated to your boss or the next product development board.

Experience:
I am assuming that all good marketers have some form of sales experience. If you don’t I would try to deflect this aspect about your career as long as you can. In my opinion you need to have sold something to be effective in marketing. Sales may seem easy but it’s not. There is a lot of work to even get a customer interested in your pitch and even then, that does not guarantee that you will close. Marketers must understand this pain of trying to ‘make the sale’.

If you wish to stay in marketing and you cannot leave your marketing job tomorrow to start a new sales career, then I strongly suggest that you engage in a MLM (Multi-level marketing) or network marketing organizations like Amway, Tupperware, HerbaLife, NU Skin, and Avon in your spare time. Even if you try it and don’t like it, the fundamental part of this exercise is to understand what is required to sell. You’ll get free training and initial products to sell to your friends and family. After a while say in 2-3 months you will either love it or hate it. That’s the pain I am talking about.
Bottom line- Selling isn’t easy.

Sales discipline: Basics
The success of any organization resides in the Sales department’s ability to reach sales targets that were established in the Business plan – this is imperative.
Each Sales representative – let’s call them Account Managers (AM, for short), must go through a consistent prospecting process till a sale is made. I’ve described for illustrative purposes the most basic sales process below. I will assume for sake of example that the Account Manager is new and was not given any particular segment focus – a ‘shot gun’ approach in other words.

Day to Day Plan:
Daily Activities

0930 – 1030
Account Managers starting their day early, on time to do Telephone calls
Returning phone calls of previous day
Leads generated internally
Cold calls to prospects
Confirm presentations booked by other team members
Call on new contact developed within existing clients
Follow up on Direct mail program

Goal: Book a meeting even if it short in nature. The AM does not try to sell products/services over the phone.

1030 – 1230
Customer meetings either booked or “in the neighborhood” calls to existing clients.

1230 – 1300
Lunch

1300 – 1600
Customer meetings

1600 – 1900
Returning phone call messages on same day
Leads generated internally.
Follow up on Direct mail program.
Cold calls to prospects
Confirm presentations
Call on new contacts provided by Marketing leads or Customer Service.

This has to be done religiously – every day!

Adding to the rigor of cold calling, prospecting and meeting customers, the AM needs to initiate the following:

1) Direct mail to selected targets such as Romanian publicly traded companies, banks, manufacturing, trading firms, NGOs, insurance companies, government institutions or other relevant vertical markets.

2) Telemarketing to customers. Purpose of call is to introduce your company. Other reasons are to explain offerings, getting feedback on existing suppliers, product/service guarantees – but not on the phone. Remember the objective is to get an appointment!

3) Chamber of commerce/trade association events.

4) Accompanying the Sales Manager for customer visits, both to introduce company and prospect for more business.

5) Customer ownership focus:
Develop/add/ complement the customer profile and account review in your CRM for new contacts that you have developed.

7) Thank you letter after each call and place lead information in CRM that can be recalled for future prospecting purposes.

You get the idea.

The trick in sales is that if you repeat all these steps in a consistent manner, you will develop a small yet growing database of good customers.

It takes time.

I have sold water filters (yes…MLM), mobile phones, computer equipment, consulting contracts, sponsorships and coaching services. In my experience the AM starts to become effective and on ‘top of his/her game’ after approximately 1 ½ years of selling. It takes that amount of time to get to know your customers, learn the tricks of the trade; you avoid mistakes and become focused on customer needs and an expert at ‘closing’.

Rome was not built in a day, nor will you become an effective Account Manager overnight.

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A moment of truth is that one magic moment where a company is evaluated – fairly or unfairly for the way its products perform, the way it interacts with the customer, the way it delivers its service or any instant that consumers come across a product/service.

I will always remember a speech given by Tom Peters (Passion for Excellence) where he was emphasizing a moment of truth by using a quote from an airline executive. The executive said ‘Tom, when passengers see a coffee stain on the tray table in front of them, they automatically assume that we have engine troubles.’
A bit extreme but if you follow the logic from the passenger’s point of view, the passenger is thinking ’ Well if they can’t at least take the time to clean the coffee stain, I hope that they are taking the time to service the engines…?’

Another example of moment of truth is when a fellow Romanian steps out his car to help you push your car out of the snow during our last snow storms. You certainly did not expect it but it gave you a renewed reminder on how hospitable Romanians can be when things are not going well.

Here’s my example. Someone very dear to me received this sms for an outstanding balance on her bank card:

Cod IDclient XX8644YY: La 06/02/2012 suma datorata este 67.41 RON. Restantele se raporteaza Biroului de Credit.

In English the translation is: Client code: XX8644YY, as of 06/02/2012 you have an outstanding amount on your bank card (owed to the bank). Unpaid sums will be reported to the credit bureau.

Context: Yearly fees were accumulating on the card which had not been used for quite some time principally because my friend has other cards and her main banking was done with other banks.
I assume that banks know that clients have multiple cards and accounts.

Assessment: First of all, total lack of politeness. No ‘Dear Mrs’…or ‘we would like to raise to you attention’…
Second no explanation – we go straight to the credit bureau.
Third: No warnings; this came ‘out of the blue’. No emails, no attempt to call and perhaps enquire as to why this was left unpaid or inactive. Perhaps there was some confusion; who knows what can happen when we call customers to get information or feedback!

I sound cynical (my Canadian heritage) but I am mostly disappointed as a marketer!
This bank which will remain nameless spends a tremendous amount of money on Above the line (ATL) advertising in TV, Print and outdoor with 3 Romanian sport figures.

I mean the visuals are nice, creative, welcoming, and frequent and judging by how long these 3 celebrities have agreed to promote the bank, I assume that the campaigns are working. In fact my friend held on to the card (albeit inactive) for that very reason…it had a celebrity on the card. Now that is powerful Marketing.

Result: My friend was upset with the message and she was not aware that the card had become inactive (I mean the last time I checked, we were all too busy to check to see how ‘active‘ we have been with some of our bank cards right!?). This whole matter was unbeknownst to her. She proceeded to call the bank and cancel the cards, rather…all cards, if this is how they treat customers. Ouch!

The solution:
All touch points and customer facing departments have to be in unison, like a classical music symphony. They need to follow the same music, the same beat and the same song book. Product Managers and Marketing communications folks busy trying to get new customers need to be attentive what the customer care staff or retention/loyalty or collections teams are sending to the customer via SMS. This is inexcusable.

Don’t spend money by swaying customers with nice ads with powerful icons unless you as marketer have complete control of all touch point messages. We don’t expect Marketing to actually make collection calls however any message, let me repeat ANY message to customers has to be consistent with the brand and what you are conveying to the market.

All customers bring value even if their revenue seemed insignificant. The value they bring is how well they will refer you or speak about how they were treated by your company even if the relationship between your company and the customer had to end. Do it gently.

Your homework
As the marketing leader emphasize upon your peers that interact in some way or another with customers such as Sales, customer care, retention/loyalty, collection, PR and operations that all messages to customers, have to be consistent. Get your team to collect all messages (‘canned’ or pre preprogrammed) that were sent to customers in the past and insist that all need to be reviewed by Marketing.

This may be a long laborious task but well worthwhile the time – you may uncover other ‘shockers’.

As the lead Marketer, make it a point to continuously communicate to all your peers that Marketing owns the messages to customers. By rallying your organization with this precious yet effective direction you will be on your way to ensuring that those moments of truth are fair ones.

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This guy killed the product and Blackberry. He also reminded us that Nokia once a leader in the mobile handset business has “given away their business” to Apple with the Iphone.

I remember a few years back I missed out on an opportunity to meet Jorma Ollila, then CEO of Nokia. This guy was God! He was invited to all the high level, prominent world conferences as a speaker and meeting him was akin to meeting the Pope if you were in telecoms (well OK… not like meeting the Pope but close). Nokia was on top of the world in the early 2000’s where they commanded at least 60% world market share. Then a little company from Canada called RIM was building steam on the market with the Blackberry and it was hailed as the next best thing and you were missing out if ” you did not have a Blackberry “. Today the table has changed once again: I mean do you know anybody that does not have an IPhone?

Product development and a philosophy of being customer obsessed are key in the smart phone business as you can see. Apple commands now 26% of the app phone market (i.e. IPhone applications) which is the result of 75 million slaving fans and a bottomless app store.

In my MBA classes we talk about “Gaining momentum – the Larreche prescription”. Larreche maintains that momentum is something that can be created by companies and once achieved can be maintained by pursuing a creative marketing approach. Apple, Toyota, Nintendo and Skype have all entered the virtuous circle of continuous growth – “the momentum effect”. A company that “systematically place customers at the center of its thinking and thrives to attain ambitious goals will be able to harness the power of the momentum and deliver exceptional growth.”( J.-C. Larreche, 2008 the momentum effect: How to Ignite Exceptional Growth).

I could not agree more.

Where are you sitting right now with product development for your firm and more specifically is the customer the main focus for what you are trying to create, build and sell?

I want to cover the importance of being competitive and aggressive about product development. In my next article I will talk about the actual phases of NPD (New Product Development) but I can’t do that until I raise (read, remind you of the) importance of:

1) Why you always have to be in the right zone of developing enough products,

2) Making sure the customer is at the focus of what you develop and,

3) Kill a product when it has reached the end of its life cycle.

I don’t care what industry you are in. Customers have become used to “new and improved” and unfortunately for you they expect it. Are customers rational when it comes to buying new products and knowing which product is best? Answer: No. Larreche also tells us that they are not always strictly rational: Their perception is their reality.

Perception is what drives them.

If your products have not had a “face lift” or change and your competition offers something better or perceived better, the customer “will walk” in other words he/she will change products.

Lifestyles have changed and are getting faster .People are more are more time constrained and want immediate results. Does your product offer this better than the competition?

As well, your competitors are probably persuading even loyal customers to come over based on better prices. NPD is another reason to help you get away from the “price trap”.

Have I got your attention now and are you motivated to do something about NPD?

Here are 10 ways to find great new product ideas:

1) Run informal sessions with customers

2) Make customer brainstorming a part of company/plant tours

3) Survey your customers

4) Allow time off for technical people to putter on pet projects

5) Undertake ‘fly on the wall’ research from customers

6) Use iterative rounds with customers

7) Set up a keyword search to scan trade publications

8) Treat trade shows as intelligence missions

9) Have employees visit supplier labs

10) Set up an idea workshop

Notice how often I mention often the word customer here?

As a benchmark Toyota employees generate 2 million ideas per year or 35 suggestions per employee (er…that is 3 idea per month!). Are you encouraging the same in your firm?

On a closing note, Bob Bowles one the best NPD gurus I know in telecoms came to help me with my former employer, essentially a company that could not compete.

We wanted to get NPD off the ground and to become a credible player in the telecoms business, but ironically we found that the team had all the right ingredients. We just needed a structure, a process and the need to ignite the obsession of being customer focused.

The rest is history since my former employer is now competing and generating new products with the same intensity as established industry players. It worked!

NPD starts by having the right mindset regardless if you are a 1 person organization or 5000 people organization. Customers want products that satisfy their needs – all the time.

Use the ideas above to optimize or kick start your NPD approach. In my next article I’ll go over NPD structure and process.

In the meantime get the Idea generating machine going!

The post New Product Development(NPD): Develop or die! appeared first on .

Def: Identify and selectively target prime groups of customers and potential customers, to understand their preferences and to respond with different marketing strategies that are appropriate for each chosen segment.

Case: Market sizing and segmentation

You are the new CEO of Kool Concept, a new residential real estate developer, a greenfield project in the heart of Cluj, Romania. You can basically build whatever you want however you must address potential demand and meet revenue and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). To be successful your residential concept also needs to incorporate other elements to attract residential owners: Offices, large employers, schools, retail, professionals, fitness centres, public transport etc.

The research company you hired came up with an extensive research and analysis on the addressable market in Cluj:

–     You know that there is an annual demand in the city of Cluj to build approximately 14.000 housing units annually.

–     Very few people live in houses currently, but there is high demand for single-family residences. Nearly 35% of those who intend to purchase a residential property would like to purchase a house.

Residential market segmentation

Income is the most critical predictor of ability to pay for say, high-end housing. You assumed the target market for housing in the Kool Concept development is concentrated in the segment >1.100 EUR/ month net income. In Cluj county, there are currently 7.800 households meeting this definition. Ten years from now this is expected to rise to over 20.000.

The research company combined income and social class with other factors to create a more complex, needs-based segmentation to help illustrate demand. This analysis delivered the following five segments:

• “Young Rich Kids”: Both young and successful entrepreneurs or children of wealthy parents who are studying in Cluj.
• “High potential students”: Students or recent graduates who have an above average level of interest in real estate and improving their living conditions
• “First Time Home Buyers”: Young adults in their mid-20s or early 30s, they have generally started their first home with a partner. Many have young children,  socially and physically active, have cars, are online and sophisticated consumers:
• “Happy families”: Middle-aged families in their 40s, married with older children at home or who have begun to move out of the house. Significant household equity, 80% of those want to buy a house, but only half intend to get a mortgage. Less active than younger segments, fewer tendencies to go out.
• “Empty nesters”: Older couples in their 50s/60s whose children have moved out, accumulated wealth and want to buy a place to enjoy their twilight years. Currently own a place, typically larger, with 3 – 5 rooms. They do not go out to bars and restaurants but enjoy culture, sports matches, having friends over, etc: 
• “Foreign expatriates”: Upper managers of current and future investors in Cluj will be present in the city for 2 – 4 years and will demand the highest quality housing.
• “Repatriate Romanians”: Roughly 2.5m Romanians have left the country since 1990. You estimated this could total 3.000 – 5.000 individuals over the next decade.

So what?

Now that your research generated what is called “Primary” data – data that has been researched and paid for (whereas “secondary” data is what you find in reports or the web, usually free), you now know that there are different categories or “segments” of customers to address and target.

Then what?

Once you have done the research and identified the clusters, the next task is to target the right product/message with the best media – this is called  „hunting with a telescopic sight “  vs. using the shot gun approach.

At my last employer ( Romtelecom) once we knew our segments, we targeted them with laser precision by offering them a product which we instinctively knew they would buy.

Results:

My direct mail (DM) campaign gave me a 12% success rate ( unheard of in the business) versus the usual  2-3% success rate.

Why were we succesful?

1)   We shocked  the segment since they had never received an offer from Romtelecom.

2)   They were targeted –almost a perfect fit  with the new product (hint:  I could see their consumption behavior based on their current usage).

3)   Our media or advertising campaign was incredibly cheap. Instead of using TV, radio or print, we used envelopes, stamps/courier service and a few follow up calls from the call centre.

All this because we did a bit of research, grouped customers with cool descriptors called segments, made a few assumptions and tested a different approach.

Ta Dah!! There lie the benefits of Segmentation!

Now I also need to admit that our product was indeed what they wanted.  How did we know that?

Well because all that research that we had commissioned in the first phase indicated to me what they were interested in buying. All we had to do was to “action” the research with a real campaign.

Q. Cost of Segmentation research.

A. Approx. 60K Euros. Regardless of company size (big or small) the process is the same and so are the results.

If your business is small then you need to use www research (web). The people in your team are critical. Any good Research Analyst will understand Segmentation even if they have never really prepared one. This was the case with my team – we learned from each other.

 This segmentation discussion was more in line with the classical approach which stands the test of time.  I would need another article to explain newer approaches to getting primary data through “permission based” or “inbound” marketing”   techniques in order to gather info about segments.

On a closing note, when Jim Hubley our CEO first told me “Paul…Set up segmentation for us” I said  “of course Jim “  walking away and not having a clue how to do this.

After a few months building the team, setting the direction, getting buy-in as well as convincing top management the merits of Segmentation we were able to deliver a 12% sales rate on our Direct mail campaign!

So as you can see it took time but it was an investment in people, processes and getting a better understanding of customer segments which enabled us to become more strategic in our approach.

It paid off…Happy hunting!

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