Leftovers

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and that you enjoyed your family, food and football (well at least the first two for us Chicagoans). 

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it’s time for shopping and leftovers. 

When you get back to work, there will be “leftovers” there too.  Of course, I am talking about your marketing budget leftovers…those leftover dollars you’ll lose if you don't spend them by year-end. Here are some ideas to chew on about consuming these "leftovers."

1.     Don't do anything until you know you have authority to spend those dollars, even if you have budget. Organizational profitability requirements may prevent you from spending those dollars

2.     Don't spend just for the sake of spending. Figure out strategically how your money can be best spent. If you can't think of anything, don't spend the money.  

3.     If you can spend your “leftover” money, here are just a few things you can do:   

·         Get all your online efforts for next year in line. Finalize your Website. Optimize it. Make it mobile friendly.  Get your social media programs going. Get any videos done.

·         Instead of mailing your direct mail campaign just after Jan. 1, mail it just before Jan. 1 to expense the postage. But don't mail it too soon - you'll want it to hit after the first of the year.  And yes, direct mail still works.

·         Have any miscellaneous writing projects initiated in December.

·         Begin the process of initiating a market research project in December, and see how much of it you can pay for up front.

·         Prepay planned 2015 advertising expenditures. You might even be able to get a discount.

·         Talk to other providers about paying them in December with 2014 money, even if your schedule doesn't permit them to start working on a project until after the first of the year.

·         If you are a B2B company, try using this strategy with your clients. Have them commit to spend IT money, buy office supplies, whatever. It works.

The Four Questions of Positioning for Design-Build Organizations

 This week is Passover.  Jews around the world will gather for the Seder to tell the story of Passover.  A central part of the Seder is the asking of “The Four Questions.”  Traditionally asked by the youngest participant at the Seder, the questions ask “why is this night different from all other nights?”

While conducting research for a client, I made the connection that determining positioning also requires answering four questions.  They are:

· Why do our prospects want/need what we offer?

· What are the important purchase decision drivers?

· How do we rate on those drivers?

· Where do our prospects get the information they need to make decisions?

Before we look at the specific questions, we would recommend that the questions be asked by an objective third party, and be anonymous.  The reason is simple: people will be more honest. 

Now let’s look at each question in more detail.

Question 1:  Why do our prospects want/need what we offer?

For some companies, the answer is easy:

· Airlines: To get to my destination quickly and safely

· Hospitals: To maintain or improve my health

· Plumbers: To fix a leaky faucet

For design-build companies, the answer might not be so simple.  Sure, it would be easy to say “to create my dream home” or “to have my restaurant be a destination.”  But you really need to understand much more:

· How important are factors such as technology, sustainability, aging in place, etc.?

· For a residence, is the client downsizing or upsizing?  Do they have kids?  Do they entertain a lot?

· For a business, what do you want your site to “say” when clients walk in the door?

Question 2: What are the important purchase decision drivers?

To understand the purchase process, quantitative research (telephone interviews, online surveys, more sophisticated methodologies such as discrete choice, etc.) can be conducted to determine how important specific attributes are.  Attributes can include:

· Reputation

· Professional or personal referral

· Price

· Expertise in those things identified as important in Question 1.

· Chemistry with the people I will be working with

· Size of company

· Ability to make the process easy

But if you do not have the budget to do that, you can also use qualitative research to ask open-ended questions. Ask them to describe your organization.  Find out what three words they believe best describe your organization.  Find out about strengths and weaknesses.  If they chose you for a project, find out why.  While this qualitative research will not produce quantifiable results, the actual words you hear can provide meaningful input for the language you will use to create positioning and messaging.

Question 3:  How do we rate on those drivers?

Using the same attributes, identify how prospects perceive your organization, and your competitors.  These are natural follow-up questions to be asked right after you have answered Question 2. Some hints:

· Ask about both your organization and competitors

· Distinguish between customers and prospects 

Answering these three questions should help you determine positioning and messaging.  What you are looking for are those attributes that are both important to your target market, and for which you rate highly.  Those are the attributes to emphasize.

Question 4:  Where do your prospects get the information they need to make decisions?

The final question helps you determine where to deliver the messages.  For design/build firms, the natural reaction is to say Houzz.  But you need to drill down.  Some possibilities include:

· Friends/relatives

· Mass media (newspapers, television, etc.)

· Websites

· Social media ( ask specifically about Facebook Twitter, Houzz, Pinterest, etc.)

· Email

· Other

Now that you have answered the four questions, you will be able to create your positioning and messaging, and know where to deliver it. 

Happy Passover, and may your kids (or grandkids) find the afikomen.  And if you celebrate Easter, happy Easter and may your kids (or grandkids) find the Easter eggs.

Native Advertising

We recently began a native advertising campaign for a client.  So far it is doing great… better at driving people to our Website than any other digital marketing we do.

Native advertisements are online ads that look and read like editorial content (in the print world they are called advertorials).  They provide information of value to the reader, as opposed to blatantly promoting products or services.  Much like print advertorials are labeled as advertisements, native ads may be listed as “sponsored links.”  You might also consider native ads “content marketing” (another buzzword) that is paid for.  Here are some advantages of native advertising:

·         It provides the content provider/advertiser with a way to establish credibility by communicating something of value.

·         Since the native ad adopts the appearance of other content on the Website, it looks like regular content.

·         It can help your SEO efforts.

·         It can drive people to your Website.

·         It can provide reasons for people to engage with you.

·         It is easy to track clickthroughs from your native ad program to your Website.

Marketers investing in native advertising include P&G, Unilever, Coca-Cola, JetBlue and Porsche.  But you do not have to be a big boy to play.  Our client is Ravinia Plumbing & Heating (www.RaviniaPlumbing.com), a local plumbing and HVAC company.  Some of the native ads they have done are:

·         What to do if your pipes freeze

·         How to tell if your furnace is about to fail

·         Preventing floods

Here is a link to one of them.  http://rankommend.com/businesses/148916-ravinia-plumbing-heating/posts/791-would-you-know-if-your-furnace-was-about-to-quit

You undoubtedly can think of numerous topics for your business.

So here are some tips to help get started.

1.     Determine your objectives.  For Ravinia Plumbing, the main objective is getting people to the Website.   But your objective might be to generate engagement via phone calls, to sign up for an event online, or just to increase awareness.

2.     Identify your target market.  Then identify ad channels that can most efficiently deliver your message to that target.  If you have a specific geographic or demographic target, focus only on those people.

3.     Negotiate.  As with any form of advertising, make sure you know how much you are paying to reach just your target market, not the entire market of people who will see your ad.  Also, try to get the sources to package your native ad with other digital ads, and even print ads.

4.     Have your ad professionally written.  Many media sources have writers that will write the articles for you at no charge.  But you are the content expert; make sure you proof the articles.

5.     No hard selling in the content.  Do not promote your features and benefits.   A soft sell will work much better than a hard sell.

6.     Have a strong call to action.  You do want the readers to engage with you.  So at the end of the article, provide the reader with a reason to contact you.  As you can see in the Ravinia Plumbing native ad, the call to action is to call if the reader has a home heating emergency.

7.     Leverage your investment.  Once the native ad is posted online, Tweet it, post it on your Facebook page, send it to your LinkedIn network, etc.

8.     Track and measure.  Make sure your media source provides you with clickthroughs to your Website so you can track how effective the program is working relative to other programs.  If your objective is more than Website hits, make sure you measure that as well.

Ketchup on a Hot Dog? And Other Super Bowl Ad Musings

While it was a dog of a game (no pun intended), give credit where credit is due: Seattle was brilliant.  Wish I could say the same about the ads, but I found them to be, on the whole – eminently (and imminently) forgettable. 

Last week, I wrote about Northwestern Kellogg Professor Tim Calkins’ commercial rating methodology (http://lsternmktg.blogspot.com/2013/01/watching-super-bowl-ads.html).  You can boil the framework down to:

1.     Did I like the ad as an ad?

2.     Would I have known whose ad it was as a casual observer?

3.     Did it either reinforce brand positioning or at least create favorable awareness?

With that in mind, here are my thoughts on yesterday's ads. 

Who’s ad is that?: More and more, it apparently is about creating an ad that people remember.  Remembering whose ad it is is secondary.  Whether the ad enhances the brand is tertiary.  The only reason I remember who did several of the ads was because I wrote it down.  Time to get back to basics of why you advertise.

Sex, animals and the flag:  It used to be that “sex sells.”  Watching the commercials, it seems now it is animals and the flag.  Most of the animal ads came off as stupid (Budweiser and Doritos being the exceptions; and their ads ranked first and second on USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter) and most of the “patriotism ads” came off as contrived or manipulative (Budweiser’s "Hero’s Welcome” again being the exception – ranked #3 on Ad Meter).  The only ads I remember with any sexual overtones were SodaStream (liked it, but not for that reason), the David Beckham H&M ad (liked it, but not for that reason), and the horrific GoDaddy “BodyBuilder” ad (see below).

Car ads: On the whole, pretty bad.  None of them effectively used any type of patriotism theme.  Most of them had me guessing as to whose ad it was.  I would not have known unless I wrote it down.  I don’t want to see Bob Dylan selling cars.  I was intrigued by Maserati; not a particularly great ad, but I found it interesting that they decided to advertise when maybe 0.0001% of the people watching were in their target market.  The best of the ads, I thought, was the Toyota Highlander ad with the Muppets.

Favorite ad(s): Bud Light Epic Night and Epic Night Continued.  I thought these ads were clever and I knew who the advertiser was all along.  I just wish they continued the story with more ads.

Second place: Cheerios “Gracie”.  OK, the interracial couple was a little cliché, but it was a nice use of the product.  I certainly knew whose ad it was.  And I loved the ending, when the girl said: ‘And a puppy.”

Third place: Microsoft “Empowering.”  Maybe the most motivating of all the ads.  Rated #1 by Kellogg.

Honorable mention:  Doritos “Cowboy Kid” (but not Time Machine), Wonderful Pistachios (Part 2), David Beckham H&M ad (best music).  And also a shout out to Fox for the 24 teasers.  Jack is back.

Worst ad (ever?): GoDaddy “BodyBuilder”.  Last year, I questioned whether their ad was the worst ad ever.  This year’s ad, while awful,  wasn’t as bad.  Scary how bad last year’s ad was.

Dishonorable mention:  T-Mobile (really?  Tim Tebow?), Audi Doberhuahua (exactly what does that dog have to do with your brand?  Rated last by Kellogg.)

Ad I am most conflicted about: Heinz “Happy and You Know It.”  I would put this close to the top on “technical merit.”  The brand was evident throughout; the functionality of the bottle was well documented.  But…ketchup on a hot dog?

If your want to see all Ad Meter results, go to http://admeter.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/super-bowl/2014/02/03/ad-meter-story-final-ad-meter-rankings/5173807/

Finally, if you want to see how the Kellogg folks evaluated the ads, you can visit http://kellogg.northwestern.edu/news/superbowl/results/2014.htm