Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

Goodbye 2008, hello 2009.

Made many resolutions for your business this New Year? Perhaps you’re reflecting on 2008, and wondering what opportunities 2009 will bring. Perhaps you’re taking a look around the current market and worrying how the credit crunch may eat into your business revenues this coming year. Perhaps you’re starting to wonder how you are going to distinguish yourself from your competition.

Whatever resolutions are set, most business owners are probably worrying about how they avoid the fate of Woolworths, and other UK retailers. My tip for 2009 is simple: avoid mediocre as if your business depends on it (it does).

In my view, the problem with Woolies was that no-one ever left their house thinking ‘I must pop into Woolworths for ______‘ - they lost their way and potential customers couldn’t see any value for themselves - in other words, it turned into a mediocre business.

I’m not normally one for predictions (setting myself for a fall ain’t normally my bag), but I do firmly believe that 2009 will see an increase in mediocre businesses struggling. Not solely due to a looming global recession, but also because customers are going to be much better at sniffing out remarkable businesses that they’d rather do business with. They don’t have to settle.

In the dark days before the Internet (I think everything was in black-and-white, and I’m not sure there was any electricity!), Customers had no option but to shop on their local high street. Businesses like Woolworths were positioned for this and they won. Now people don’t have to brave all weathers and venture outside to interact with a business - the Internet means you don’t get to win by simply taking part.

Do yourself a favour at the start of 2009: aim for remarkable. A great place to start would be with Guy Kawasaki and his fantastic Art of the Start speech - 40 minutes well spent if you intend to make 2009 a remarkable year:

For Graham and I, we’re hearing from a lot more people eager to talk about how they can start leveraging the Internet to overhaul a mediocre business - a realisation that has no doubt been aided in this economic climate. We’re really excited and looking forward to helping all our clients achieve that in 2009.

However you decide to beat mediocrity in ‘09, we wish you and your business every success.

Social Media has evolved, according to Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb. And we agree. Sarah reports how the social media trend is moving from place to ‘hang-out’ to a platform for communication and information sharing (how very web 2.0) in shopping and social media. Sarah writes about some interesting surveys recently released that begin to illustrate this trend.

Generation Y are those (fortunate souls, some might say) born after 1979, and for whom the Internet is an integral part of their social, and daily, lives. This hip, web-savvy group are obviously a growing target market for a vast majority of business, and those that are taking aim at them are beginning to get to grips with building a presence on social networks:

• 39.3% of retailers use social media for marketing
• 32% have a Facebook page
• 27% have a presence on MySpace
• 26% post to YouTube

Sarah also points out that another 2008 study shows that nearly three quarters of people (potential customers, some might say) are using the Internet to share experiences of dealing with businesses and brands. Tools including Blogs, RSS, Micro-Blogging, YouTube, Forums and social networking sites are all being cited as resources for sharing experiences. I would bet that a very large percentage of these same people are also influenced by what others are saying on-line - word-of-mouth 2.0, perhaps.

Now, these surveys are based on US Internet users - so should UK businesses ignore this emerging platform? We hope they don’t. Since the birth of the Web, we have seen many trends emerge and evolve, and in most the US seem to be a little ahead of the curve compared to us in the UK. I’m certain we’ll soon be talking about how many UK businesses are embracing, and benefiting, from all forms of social media.

Check out Sarah Perez’s post in full here, and draw your own conclusions. It could change the game your business plays for the better.

Things are bad in the world of marketing. In marketing departments and for marketing directors in particular, it’s hard to see how things could get much worse. Deloitte have released a report - Marketing in 3D - which, to put it bluntly, states that marketing is a dying profession. Nothing makes this clearer than the fact that a marketing director spends, on average, only 22 months in the job before being asked to move on to “better things”.

Anyone involved with new media or with companies who have already embraced the idea of the conversation will find this unsurprising. I was shocked, however, to find an article in this month’s Director magazine from the IOD that seemed to deduce all the wrong messages from Deloitte’s report.

Jane Simms is a former editor of “Marketing Business” and believes, with the understandable conviction of someone who has spent a career promoting marketing, that “Marketing should play a crucial role in identifying and satisfying customer demand.” Mmm. She does have a few harsh words to say about marketers whose sole interest is the size of their budgets but she refuses to face reality. It’s no longer about changing a few characteristics of marketing: the game has changed completely. New rules, new stadium. Even the ball has changed shape.

The sad truth for the ‘marketers drive the market’ brigade is that consumers are more sophisticated, have a wider range of communication tools at their disposal, and have grown mightily tired of being interrupted. If there is a role for marketing now, it is surely one that begins with the consumer rather than the company. A savvy marketer is one who relays the mood of the market and tries to effect change in his or her company rather than in the consumer. Customers know what they want, what works for them, and what is simply marketing hype and nonsense. It’s time to accept that it’s the consumer who does the marketing. The smart company listens.