email Jumps the Shark

I am absolutely amazed at the rapid expansion of junk mail being sent. And what is more concerning is it seems to be increasing. And that increase is actually a self fulfilling prophecy that we marketers have created. We send more and more email to make up for the decrease in response rates. Thus, we just keep expanding the target list to meet past results. And I would imagine we “loosen up” that tight list criteria we started out with. 

However, I believe we’re at the “jump the shark” moment as it relates to email as an effective tactic for  lead generation. Many of you might have thought that moment came years ago and perhaps it did.   Check out these statistics compiled by SpamLaws

• 14.5 billion messages globally per day are spam. That’s 45%... so nearly half of all email is junk
• Advertising spam makes up 36% of junk email
• And if you thought that was bad… estimates of 58 billion junk emails sent per daywill be the norm in the next four years. That landslide of junk email is estimated to cost businesses $198 billion per year

And guess what – we’re the culprits. Yep, go to the mirror and look at that face and realize you are guilty as charged.

So what kind of things should Marketers do over the next 4 years?

• Stop looking at your % of unsubscribes you get per campaign. It is a false indicator. Junk filters distort the number.
• Use direct mail – no one sends great mail anymore (if any mail at all) and if done properly you’ll cut through the clutter.
• Give your content away via social networks and communities – and let customers “find” the content in the appropriate areas.
• Tighten your list criteria back up
• Drive customers to your website to get content or interact with your brand
• Use more mass advertising and search to drive more top of the funnel leads
• Use associations and partners to help spread your message
• 3rd party PR – get out in front of the press, be an expert that companies look too
• Use social channels to promote valuable content back to your web site
• Focus on those who actually want to receive your emails
• Hold customer events or tradeshows to promote the brand and feed the sales funnel
• Just reduce the amount of email you send – sounds simple enough, but when you need to push sales quickly everyone seems to pull email out of the marketing tool kit first
• Get creative – start being marketers again!

These are just a few ideas I’m sure you have more. Look we need to get off of email crack. Remember, the road to recovery is to admit you have a problem.

Scott

Part 2 – Building the Perfect Beast – The Ecosystem

As a continuation of my earlier blog post on how to build the perfect marketing beast, this post will focus on the overall ecosystem – from the center of the ecosystem to outer edges. 

Before we start, don’t kid yourself, building this ecosystem takes time, effort, support, vision, financial and human capital.  Most companies start the journey with good intentions but discontinue the effort quickly based on changes in strategy, financial constraints, lack of IT support, patience or the lack of substantial results prior to the completion of major milestones.

Step 1:             Determine the center point of the ecosystem – this is absolutely the most critical aspect of designing the technology ecosystem.   Why?  It’s the point where all other platforms or activities hang off from.   I like to refer to this as the “home” of tracking and customer data.  This system can be:  a CRM system, ERP system, marketing automation platform, relational or inverted database, etc.  Each has its own unique positive and negative traits.   You’ll need to work with your IT department to determine which system might work best for your circumstances and overall goals.

I’ve used SQL, Oracle and a host of other databases, ERP and marketing automation systems during my career.  My preference is a true “marketing system” more specifically a Marketing Automation System (MAS).  And I’ve used both of the two major players Eloqua and Marketo. 

For me, Marketo seems to be easier to implement and not taking as many IT resources to maintain or expand. MAS’s allow marketers to store specific campaign, tactic and customer data in a format which the non-technical marketer can use and understand.   In addition, it creates the needed “memory” of activities and behavior which came from all marketing activities.  It also allows for a database which has the ability to stand alone or integrate with other internal or new systems.   The use of metrics and graphical representation of data is very intuitive and provides real data which can be acted upon. 

I’m a big believer in simple is better.    

I’ve bought the systems which were sold on the premise they could almost launch a space shuttle – but most times I’ve never had to launch the space shuttle.

Stay tuned for the next post where I’ll discuss the “core” types of platforms or technology which should surround your center point.

Scott

TV Commercials - The Cost Keeps Getting Higher

First, if you haven’t gotten ahold of the “Marketing Fact Pack 2016” produced by Advertising Age, it’s worth your time and money to get one.  The piece is one of the better information resources to help make decisions and comparisons.

Second, in reviewing the information specific to the cost of a 30 second TV spot, I nearly feel out of my chair — wait, I actually did fall out of my chair.  The lowest cost of a :30 second weekly network spot was $14,309 for the CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, running Friday at 9:00 p.m.  Now sit down because the high end weekly network spot was Sunday Night Football at $673,664.

And as usual football was priced at a high premium across the entire week:

NBC Sunday Night Football — $673,664

CBS Thursday Night Football — $522,910

NBC Thursday Night Football — $485,695

Running a single :30 second spot to reach the male demo in each of the above football programs would cost you a mere $1,682,269 per week.  Naturally, that cost is un-negotiated.  If you’re one of the big boys you could easily spend $2,500,000 a week on TV advertising.

Even bulking up a TV schedule with lower rated and lower cost TV while utilizing remnant TV with the goal to get the CPP down would be tough to do.  

Now taking into account all of the other media channels $3,300,000 a week for a medium GRP media schedule would not be out of the ballpark.

My preference is to run an 80/8 schedule (hit 80% of the target audience at least 8 times).  And while I’d love to see if that is still doable with the increased pricing I’m not even sure reaching 50% of the target 5 times is achievable.

How the times have changed.

Scott

Leadership vs. Management

An old business acquaintance caught up with me this past month and had an interesting question for me. What’s the difference between leadership and management. It’s a question which I’ve heard before. Here’s my definition at the simplest level… 

Leadership is setting a goal and getting others to believe they can achieve it.  

Management is identifying how to reach the goal and helping everyone successfully reach it.

Some food for thought.

Scott

CMO Dashboards

Having a marketing dashboard is an absolute must in today’s ultra competitive marketplace.  Everyone has their favorite areas to track.  Some of the areas I’m keen on include:

1. Lead Funnel
2. Lead Conversion 
3. Sales Velocity
4. Marketing Revenue Contribution
5. eCommerce Platform Revenue and Performance
6. Channel Performance
7. Campaign Summary
8. Web Property Performance Social Property Performance
9. Marketing Costs vs. Budget
10. Financials — Fixed vs. Variable Marketing Costs, Future Run Rate Budget, Category Budgets
11. Media
12. PR
13. Segment and Customer Value Performance
14. New Customers Acquisition
15. Cross Sell and Up Sales Ratio 
16. Staff Performance Against Yearly Goals

There are many more which could be added, but the above tend to be the areas which allow me to quickly understand what’s going on.

Scott

India's Powerhouse Economy

India now has the 5th largest economy in the world having surpassed Britain.  If you're not focused on the India marketplace, you might want to see what this unique country has to offer.

It's the Little Things That Matter — My Experience in Dry Cleaning

It's the Little Things…My Experience in Dry Cleaning Hell

My wife and I are high users of dry cleaning.  Having two professional jobs you tend to need your clothing cleaned on a frequent basis.  And given that, we probably have a higher than normal customer lifetime value.

And we’ll pay for service.  Unfortunately, we’re also very forgiving of mistakes and give people more chances to correct situations than we should.  Which leads me to my latest experience AND solution blog post.

We’ve had the same dry cleaner for probably 5 years or more.  We’ve suffered through damaged clothing, lost shirts, not having the dry cleaning picked up and delivered for 6+ weeks.  The last straw was an incorrect billing of $700.  This incorrect billing forced me to reconcile 6 months of billing — a 4 hour job.  End result, we owed them $100 for the last couple weeks of cleaning.  Having to actually “manage” my relationship with a dry cleaner is completely unacceptable

Enter the solution - Men’s Warehouse Cleaning Services (www.mwcleaners.com). .  I was amazed at how the dry cleaning service has changed for the better.  And although some of you might already be experiencing such service it was completely new to my wife and I.  Here’s what I found:

1. Drive through lanes (3 wide) where an attendant will greet you and take your dry cleaning from your car and deliver it back to your car when you return.
2. Professional attendants — who are courtesy, helpful and attentive.
3. Frequent purchase programs — I can get a free shirt for every 20 cleanings of a shirt.  A great cross sell to get customers into Men’s Warehouse stores.
4. Free plastic collar inserts — holy crap!  I loose those things all the time, so having these is fantastic.
5. On-time pick up and drop off of dry cleaning.
6. Quick service — 1 day max for anything.  In fact, the attendant asked me if I needed something even faster as they would get it done immediately.
7. A summary of the billing and a quick review by the attendant of the invoice —ensuring it’s correct and that the number of items I brought in were what I was leaving with.
8. The assurance that if anything was not perfect, I need to contact them and they’ll make it right.
9. Altering service — yes you pay for this, but the attendant always mentions they’ll check for any buttons, etc. and alter those if required.  That saves me time and keeps me from having frustrations when I slip on a shirt.
10. A clean retail environment.
11. And higher prices.  Yes it costs more.  But, the price of the above services is worth it.  Service continues to matter folks.  And I continue to believe that the key differentiators with business is service and authenticity.  
12. Online Account — holy crap I can actually get access to the status of my laundry, etc.  

Men’s Warehouse get’s it.  Provide great service, keep customers happy and do an above normal job of the core offering leads to a higher household lifetime value.

Scott

@MWCleaners

The Death of a True Pioneer

The serious part of this post — We should recognize public service personnel (police, fire, etc.) and our armed forces who give the ultimate sacrifice.  These are the unsung heroes.  So please take time to think of them this holiday season.

Now for the humor part of this post — 2016 saw the death of many celebs.  And those deaths should be mourned as their talents and contributions will be missed.

However, all of us need to pay homage to a man, no… I mean a pioneer of invention.  Yes, I’m talking about the inventor of the Red Solo Cup — Robert Hulseman.  Mr. Hulseman passed away last week at the age of 84.  And his contributions to the world are incredible:

• The ability to personalize or write your name on a Red Solo Cup
• Always looking for the Red Solo Cup over any other color available… by the way, who invented the Blue Solo Cup?  The Yellow Solo Cup?
• A container which could be used to carry water, ice tea, milk, mixed drink or my personal favorite beer from an icy cold keg.
• Exactly the right size — just enough liquid to keep you from having to make multiple trips back to the drink line.
• And durable - you had to make a real effort to get those bad boys to crack.
• Fit perfectly in a car cup holder.

And I know there are many more, but I’m getting a tear in my eye so I’ll stop here.  For those of us who are true lovers of the Red Solo Cup I invite you to listen to the tribute song and video made popular by country artist Toby Keith.  I’ll never be able to listen to that song again without a tear in my eye and a cup in my hand.

And as you celebrate New Years, lift your cup and toast Mr. Hulseman.

Scott

CMO's Take Back Marketing?

I’m catching up on my reading this holiday week… unfortunately, I’ve let it pile up, shame on me!

The October 31 issue of Advertising Age has an interesting article in the Opinion Column summarizing a recent speech given by Bob Liodice, President-CEO of the Association of National Advertising.  With an article titled “ANA Chief Calls on CMO’s to Take Back Marketing, but Do They Really Want to?” got my attention.

A top line on the article:

1.  Company sales performance is growing at 2% annually

2.  9 of 10 big brands are losing share

3.  Overworked and under trained marketers

4. CMO’s need to lead – drive business results, etc.

5.  Brand building is waning

6.  Competing financial decisions

A few thoughts…

1.  Big brands might be losing share – competition from overseas competitors, outsourcing to lower costs and lack of innovation are surely some of the specific reasons.  Building the brand is critical but there are other factors which are probably impacting growth.

2.  Medium and smaller brand growth – looking at the big boys is great, however I wonder if the same sales performance issues are impacting those further down the size scale.

3.  Training – yes it’s a huge issue.  Everyone talks about it, but it seems no one actually does it.  It’s not just sending people to courses.  It’s giving them projects beyond their skill sets and mentoring/teaching them to do it.  It’s allowing for failure.

4.  Skill Sets – what use to be the norm is for Marketers to be skilled in all aspects of the marketing trade – PR, brand, media, direct, social, mobile, search, web, advertising, production, creative, strategy, planning, database, writing, etc.  However, today there is so much specialization most Marketers don’t know how the pieces fit together.

5.  Financial Management – this isn’t anything new, so I wonder why it’s all of sudden considered a big issue.  Where to spend or invest marketing dollars varies by each business… but where most get it wrong is that they invest in areas which don’t drive sales, pay for things which really aren’t true marketing expenses and a whole bunch of other areas which I won’t go further into.

6.  Never Outsource Strategy – if you’re not smart enough to develop the foundation of your company’s marketing strategy,  then you shouldn’t have the job.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t work with others to develop the strategy, but outsourcing it to a 3^rd party isn’t wise in any situation.  

7.  If leadership is showing where we need to go then management is about actually getting it done.  And some Marketers don’t have a great track record of late on not only leadership but management as well.  The media rebate scandal, allowing procurement to own agency selection/management, outsourcing strategy to agencies – these are all symptoms of not focusing on block and tackling marketing. 

The ANA’s call for CMO’s to take back marketing?  CMO’s should have never let it go in the first place.

Scott

2017 Marketing Predictions

It's that time of year to begin predicting what's ahead for the Marketing industry in the new year. Here's my attempt....

1.  More scandals regarding the way agencies, suppliers and clients work together will continue – see Department of Justice investigation of agencies.

2.  Marketing and media budgets will increase based on business friendly optimism of a Republican controlled White House and Congress.

3.  More clients will hire media audit companies with many finding they are due rebates.

4.  There will be an increase year over year in agency reviews – the media audit scandal, the public discussions on agency executive compensation, etc. will add more gas to the ever raging fire.

5.  Media rates will fall.  The 2016 scarcity of television and digital from the Olympics and election cycle will put more inventory in the 2017 market.  But the Super Bowl will still be over priced.

6.  TV talk shows, political news programming and comedy shows will see rating increases based on a Trump White House – lots of humorous material, questions and concerns will draw viewers.

7.  Yahoo! will go into fire sale mode.

8.  Content will become interactive – helping to keep consumers engaged.

9.   More live streaming of events, conferences, presentations, etc.

10.  Marketing automation will continue to grow across all sectors.

11.  Social will transform with a higher focus on direct ecommerce purchases.

12.  B2B marketing will start to take the lead on best practices. 

Scott