Marketing

The buying continuum

March 3, 2008

Like all human behaviors, there are stages that lead up to someone actually buying something.  We call it the Buying Continuum.  This is a critical tool for understanding how to best communicate with your target audience.

The five stages of the Buying Continuum are:  Unaware, Aware, Trial, Repeat and Recommend.

Unaware:  This is the stage where your potential buyer has no idea that you even exist.  They’ve never heard of you.  Your goal is to get on their radar screen. Editorial coverage and blogging are great marketing tools to use with these buyers.

Aware:  Now your potential buyer has an inkling of your company. You goal is to get them intrigued enough to care. Then, they’ll listen. Ads in targeted publications, your website and contests are effective at this stage.

Trial:  Now, they’re on the cusp. They’re willing to give your service or product a try.  You just need to give them that nudge. Direct mail, testimonials, and advertising will help get them to cross the line.

Repeat:  They’ve tried you. You want them to do it again. At this stage, you want to let them know you won’t forget them and just chase new clients. This is a great stage to launch customer perks/clubs and specialized newsletters.

Referral: This is the Holy Grail for marketers. This is when your customers are out doing your job – selling your product or service. They are creating buzz, word of mouth marketing for you. You want to talk to them regularly. Make them feel like an insider.

Knowing where potential buyers are at in the Buying Continuum can help you decide which marketing tactics to use. Since you probably (hopefully) have potential buyers in all stages of the continuum – be sure you have the right media mix to reach them all.

Download your own, full-sized buying continuum chart, courtesy of MMG!

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Are you having a little trouble selling the cow?

February 29, 2008

Could it be that you’re giving away too much milk?  We’ve all heard the expression, "no one will buy the cow if you keep giving away the milk."   At MMG, we are huge proponents of giving away what you sell for free.  We call is sampling.  When you don’t sell a tangible product, there’s nothing for the potential customer to evaluate.  They can’t look at your expertise.  They can’t smell your knowledge. 

So you have to demonstrate it.  The best, easiest and most effective way to do that is to give it away.

To a point.  One of the traps that many service providers fall into is that they struggle with drawing the line and knowing when enough freebies have been given and it’s time to move the relationship to client status.

We’re having a very lively discussion over at Marketing Profs Daily Fix about how to balance wanting to share your expertise and yet still be a smart business person.

I guarantee you’ll find a take away or two in the comments section.  Lots of people sharing their experiences and methods.  It’s good stuff.  Come over and join in.

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Perfection Paralysis

February 25, 2008

I would guess we’ve all witnessed it.  A business owner or marketing decision maker who can’t pull the trigger when it comes to marketing tactics. 

Something about the piece (be it a website, brochure or direct mail piece, etc.) is off for them.  Often, they can’t even tell you what’s off, just that something is.  "it’s just not quite right," they’ll say with a rueful smile. And so the team tries again — revision after revision.

What was that sound?  It was the window of opportunity slamming shut.  In many cases, the piece never gets completed and marketing dollars slowly swirl down the drain.

And your prospects and customers wonder why you’re ignoring them.

Pretty darn good trumps perfect every time, if it means you get to market faster (or at all) with your message.

Next time you feel your team (or yourself) begin to stall a project because perfection paralysis is taking hold, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does it clearly communicate our key message?  (no more than 2-3)
2. Does it offer some response opportunity? (website, e-mail, phone number, etc.)
3. Does it protect and respect our brand promise and look/feel?
4. Is it error-free?  (typos, grammar etc.)

If you can answer yes to all 4 — give yourself 24 hours to futz with it if you want and then get it out the door.

Perfect or not.

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Viral video — are you the expert?

February 22, 2008

It started with a simple question.  Do you viral video?

Let’s wrap up our discussion on the phenomenon of viral video and its many purposes. 

We’ve culled through the stats that show the rapid rise of viral video viewing, we’ve talked about how some companies are using the medium to just get in front of as many people as possible and we’ve also looked at the educational aspects of the medium.  In the last installment, we also talked about how some are using video simply to be heard over the din of marketing messages.

One of the other applications/goals that seems ideally suited for video is demonstrating an expertise.  While writing a white paper for your website or even sharing your PowerPoint slides will allow you to share your expertise, it lacks the emotional connection that a video can give you.

Matt Dickman, from Fleishman-Hillard, has really established himself as a social media tools expert by producing a series of videos in which he dissects a particular application or site.  In the example below, he introduces his subscribers to Utterz.

 

The beauty of what Matt has done is that he’s become our tour guide.  He makes his audience comfortable with the new tools. He explains them in language that everyone can understand and he takes the time to lay some groundwork before he dives in.

With his series approach, we also make the assumption that he knows a lot about ALL the web-based tools out there.  Does he?  I don’t know, but he’d sure be one of the first I would ask. He’s proven to me that he’s an expert in this field.

How could you use viral video to spotlight your expertise in a way that’s both compelling and something people would want to pass onto their friends/peers? 

How could you use viral video to showcase your skills if you wanted to be the on-air talent?  How about if you didn’t?

Other posts in this series:
Do you viral video?
Viral video – are you looking for a lot of eyes?
Viral video — are you trying to educate?
Viral video – are you trying to be heard over the noise?
Viral video — are you establishing yourself as an expert?

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Is it work or play…and what’s the cost?

February 22, 2008

Three converging thoughts/conversations:

1. A recent post on this blog about how our work/personal lives are becoming more blended
2. An on-going e-mail conversation with KG (Kristin Gorski) about the pressures of trying to keep up coupled with her post about our muses
3. Greg Verdino‘s pot stirring post, asking if we’re fooling ourselves with social media tools

I’d love it if you’d take a few minutes and check out out the posts referenced in #1 and #3.  Then, read the post mentioned in #2.

What are the pros and cons of being "plugged in?"  What do we gain?  What do we pay?  For you, personally and professionally — how does it weigh out?

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Want to get creative?

February 19, 2008

Want to get your creative juices flowing?  Try one of these tactics:

View the problem/product/desired result from a different seat on the bus:  In other words, how would a 6-year-old child view it? A librarian? Truck driver? College student? Someone who uses a wheelchair for support? By putting yourself in many different people’s shoes, you can begin to see the situation differently.

Do a 180: How would the product talk about itself? Or describe how it works? It sounds crazy, but again, sparking creativity is all about thinking differently. What would the competitive product tease your product about? Who knows what you will uncover?

Personify it: If your product or service was a person, who would it be? A man? A young girl? How would they behave? What would their personality be like? What would be their favorite book? Movie? What are they afraid of?

Get out: Most people brainstorm and try to spark their creativity in the same work environment that they are in every day. One of the best ways to inspire some new thinking is to be in a new place. Go to a park and take a walk. Go play at a toy store. Visit a museum. Play a kind of music you would normally never listen to. Stimulate your senses.

Ask why: Make an assumption about what you are working on. Then ask why. And answer it. Then ask why. And answer that. Then ask why. And so on. See where it takes you. Then, when you cannot go any further, make another assumption and do it all over again.

Play: Have a paper airplane contest. Create a putt-putt course in the office. Play charades. Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to be creative, and being playful is a great way to bring that part of you to the surface.

Okay….your turn.  How do you get creative?

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Marketing, recessions and budgets….oh my!

February 18, 2008

Boy, there’s a lot of talk about the R word, isn’t there?  And I think business owners/leaders are beginning to get a little jittery.  That’s what prompted me to remind all of you that there is significant danger in being reactionary and lowering your prices.

Jonathan Munk, over at Manizesto, recently interviewed Beth Goldstein, author of Ultimate Small Business Marketing Toolkit, on this very topic.  Her answers are worth your time, if nothing else…to get you thinking.

You might also glean a little insight from reading what Brent Allen’s take is on the topic.  Not enough?  How about Tony D. Baker’s extensive post on ways to safeguard your business during a recession.

And for those of you who are about to tell me we’re not heading towards a recession…remember, perception is reality.  If consumers or business owners believe that’s where we are heading, the reality doesn’t matter all that much. 

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Surprise!

February 14, 2008

There are good surprises and then there are bad surprises.

On Saturday evening, my daughter and I were driving towards home when all of a sudden, my foot could not find the gas pedal.  It was gone.  I stomped and wiggled my foot all over the floor of my truck….but no gas pedal. 

We coasted over into a left turn lane, I threw the truck in park and hopped out.  My gas pedal was still there…but just sitting limply on the floor.

We weren’t going anywhere.  Bad surprise.

Long story short…tow truck. Repair place. Rental car.  Snapped cable from pedal to engine.  Empty wallet. 

When I picked up the truck on Monday night, I noticed that something was different.  The seat belt on my side had developed a snag which turned into a vertical tear, along the seat belt.  Which meant that it caught on the seat belt latch, every time I buckled up.  It was annoying.

But, while the repair place had my truck and was replacing the gas pedal cable, they had "re-strung" my seat belt, so the tear didn’t catch any more.  They didn’t charge me for it.  They didn’t even mention they’d done it.

Good surprise.

Suddenly, I felt a whole lot better about the empty wallet.  They’d done something special for me.  Something they didn’t have to do.  That’s the beauty of surprises…they make us feel noticed and valued.

How often do you do that for your clients?  Do a little something extra?  Put a note in a bill saying that you aren’t charging them for something,  send dessert over to their table, let the ride run a wee bit longer?

Toby Bloomberg e-mailed me a couple days ago and asked me for a tip on building great client relationships.  I said…"surprise them…give them a little more than what they expected or paid for."

Good surprises, like my seat belt are great fodder for passionate, genuine word of mouth.  Give your clients a reason to tell stories about you.

By the way….Toby asked many a marketer this question.  She’s compiled all the answers for us and there’s plenty to think about. Check it out.

Related posts:

Are you boring your customers?
Surprise! (Marketing lesson from Walt)
Turn things upside down!

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Stopwatch Marketing should be on your nightstand

February 6, 2008

Isn’t that where we all keep the book we’re going to read next?

I think Stopwatch Marketing is the book you should read next.

Here’s my formula for the ideal business book.

• Tell me something I either don’t know or twist something I do know, so I get it in a new way
• Tell me stories with lots of detail (case studies) to make your theories come alive
• Make sure those stories cover a range of industries so I can see myself/our clients in some of them
• Teach me how to apply your theory/ideas so I can really use them

Stopwatch Marketing nails every one of my criteria and then some. 

The gist of the book is that customers all operate on their own internal stopwatch.  But each person’s stopwatch is moving at a different speed. They may all be shopping for the same product (let’s say a bottle of wine) but how they shop for that wine is based on their own motivations/situation. 

Someone grabbing a bottle of wine before a party is a very different shopper from the person who is trying to pick out the perfect bottle for a first date.

The trick is, of course, how do you recognize and capitalize on these different kinds of shoppers?

John Rosen and AnnaMaria Turano make their readers a promise on page 6 of their book.  They say:

"The promise of the book you hold in your hand is that it will show how to analyze, evaluate, and exploit the time that represents every shopper’s most important resource…to understand how to measure the length of time your customer will spend searching for your product or service…and how to make absolutely certain that your product or service is close to the front of your customer’s queue: that lineup of shopping options that gets longer for consumers every year."

The authors identify four different types of shopping personas:

• Impatient (pressed for time)
• Reluctant (only purchase when they have to)
• Painstaking (researches as long as necessary to select the best)
• Recreational (slow and leisurely)

This chart illustrates the four shopping styles and the types of products that often fall into each category.  Part of the message is that a person is not always the same kind of shopper. 

I might happily spend an hour in Barnes & Noble, browsing and enjoying the atmosphere (recreational shopper) but when I’m in Target….I want to get in and out as quickly as I can. (impatient shopper) unless of course, I am shopping for a new digital camera (painstaking).

The book goes on to illustrate how both product and service driven companies have used the insights of the shopping styles to better understand their consumers and how to target them with the right message, at the right time.

But….what most business books lack is that next step.  Teach us how to actually use this stuff.  Not Stopwatch Marketing.  The entire second half of the book is devoted to doing just that.  There are sample focus group questions, needs gap examples, customer survey samples, web analytics information, budget building suggestions and much more.

There’s lots of meat on this bone whether you’re an experienced marketer, a consultant or a business owner.  Get it on your nightstand soon.

Buy the book
Check out the authors’ blog

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Should you lower prices during a recession?

February 4, 2008

Remembering that perception is reality, we’re headed towards a recession.  Whether we are or not.  Consumers believe it’s coming…so they will behave accordingly. 

So we need to be ready to anticipate how this is going to alter their reaction/response to our marketing messages.  And, if they’re right, we need to be mindful of our own budgets as well.

Last week, The New York Times ran a story about how many retailers are pushing the "lower prices" message to capitalize on consumers’ fear.  The article documents several companies including the much written about Starbucks $1 cup of coffee.

Is this a good strategy?

Maybe.  It depends on your brand position. 

Are you the product or service that’s all about being cheap?  Are you ready to live with that new brand position far beyond the recession?

A low price strategy is one that’s easy to slip on and incredibly difficult to shrug off, once the economy turns around.  Consumers tend to really wrap their arms around a low price position and they aren’t likely to be happy about going back to paying full price.

If your brand is not about price — adopting a low price strategy is probably going to damage the work you’ve already done.  And that doesn’t only apply to luxury or high end brands.

As money gets tighter, consumers will want to be confident in the companies they do business with.  Brand trust will become even more important, the tighter people are with their cash.

A recession is the time to be even more diligent about protecting your brand by staying consistent.  If you weren’t a bargain basement brand a year ago, you should think long and hard before becoming one today.

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