Taking a look at our stats, and based on unique views of these posts, the Top 10 Clear Thought Blog posts of this year goes like this…
1. 10 things to include in a marketing brief
Handy tips on writing a brief for marketing that sells – what to include to make sure that your supplier is most likely to get the project right first time. Read blog »
2. What to say when, managing marketing content through the sales funnel
A quick look at the right emotional tone and volume of information people respond to at different stages in the buying process, and how to tailor your marketing material to hit the right note at each stage. Read blog »
3. What shape is your marketing budget
An approach to setting your marketing budget that makes sure that you maintain an integrated mix of activity that supports every stage in your sales funnel. Read blog »
4. How to create powerful sales tools from your desk
A seven step guide to creating compelling and professional sales and marketing materials using Microsoft Office. Includes two case studies. Read blog »
5. B2B Social Media; Be There, Be Relevant, Be Proven
Practical advice that any B2B marketer, business owner or sales person can put into practice to generate leads through social media. Read blog »
6. A typical thought leadership campaign
A quick run-down and checklist of the things to include in a thought leadership campaign. Particularly powerful in B2B or complex sales processes. Read blog »
7. Treat your website like a member of your team
Practical advise for anyone in laying the ground rules for how to approach your website as a function in your business, rather than as a one-off project. Read blog »
8. One piece of content, 20 ways to use it
20 ideas for things you can do with just one piece of content, like a presentation or a paper – giving you ways to squeeze more from your marketing budget. Read blog »
9. What are your social media rules?
In this blog, Bryony shared her own rules to managing the way she interacts with friends, colleagues and acquaintances on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Read blog »
10. The Jamie Oliver approach to marketing
Reflections from attending the B2B Lead Nurturing event in September, looking at how marketing wants to feed sales with health food, when they are likely to have a taste for junk food. Read blog »
I was talking to a business owner the other day, who despite having a £4 million turnover has no structured marketing budget. The business dips in and out of marketing and tends to spend according to what looks like a good idea at the time. He described the following:
He tends to start a marketing activity with real vigour, and then loses interest.
He’s tried various things, and they’ve never really worked.
He’d really like to just flick a switch.
There are certain time of year when the pressure is off in other areas, so he can focus on marketing.
This sounds an awful lot like things I’ve heard myself say about doing some exercise and getting fit:
I say to myself that I will run everyday, which I do for about a week and then slip back into old habits.
I’ve tried boxercise, yoga, rowing machines, etc. but I’ve never stuck at it.
I try to convince myself that because I’ve done some exercise one day that I can have ‘time off’ the next week or next day.
I can’t be the only one to make New Year’s resolutions and the like, that just don’t last.
The thing about dipping in and out of marketing (and exercise) is that it doesn’t really work. To get fit, the ‘little and often’ is far more effective than big bursts followed by extended periods of inactivity. The same is true in marketing – I’d actually prefer clients to spend less overall on marketing if they do this in a sustained way, than I would to see huge peaks and troughs in activity. As, I’m sure a GP would prefer it if every patient did a little exercise every day, rather than the boom and bust of un-sustained good resolutions.
To get started you might need to shift a bit of flab, i.e. have a concentrated period of getting into good shape (e.g. messaging, brand, infrastructure, systems), thereafter you’ll need to have a regular routine. Naturally, it is also sensible to have regular check-ups with an expert, and you might want to vary what you do to maintain interest – I’m sure you can see the point I’m making.
10 ways in which marketing is like exercise:
If you start as a young company you get into good habits for life.
It is hard to change the habits of a lifetime.
If things have gone to seed, it can be hard to get started.
A regular, structured, approach is best.
Even better if you integrate a little into everything you do.
Some people are absolute fanatics (like me), but most do fine with small changes.
There are lots of people out there promising quick fixes that don’t really work.
It takes a little while to see the results.
To get the best all-over results you need to vary the techniques you use.
Your company will look great, and feel healthy and fun.
The business owner in question is looking for a step change, they’ve hovered around the same turnover for a few years now and never managed to break the ceiling on their potential. For this he knows that he needs to get marketing fit… but just doesn’t know how.
At Clear Thought, we act as a kind of marketing ‘personal trainer’ – we’ll do a marketing health assessment, and put a programme together to get your business into good marketing health. We’ll then work with you to get into shape, transferring the skills to your business as we do it, so that when you’re ready, you can go it alone and maintain those good marketing habits. Indeed, we offer small businesses a free half day audit and report to get them started.
Our clients, and most people we’ve met and talks and events recently, have asked the same question: Is social media appropriate for business-to-business marketing? Unequivocally, the answer is YES.
In the last year, 40% of Clear Thought’s revenue can be tracked back to a social media source, and 100% has been enhanced or aided by it in some way. In the last six weeks alone, here are some things that Clear Thinkers have achieved through social media:
Hooked up two people met through Twitter with paying B2B clients.
Received two good quality new business enquiries, both of which are now at proposal stage.
Sourced experts willing to talk to us about their business as part of market research projects.
Enhanced relationships with prospective businesses using online nurturing techniques.
In B2B decision-making or considered purchases, social media has most impact in the top half of the sales funnel
From a new business perspective, social media has critical impact in the first three stages of the sales funnel. That is, Awareness, Interest and Evaluation. From a social media perspective, you need to do the following:
To generate awareness: ‘Be There’ find out where your prospects hang out online and have a presence there.
To convert awareness into interest: ‘Be Relevant’ provide information that is useful or controversial to pull people into your content.
To make it through evaluation: ‘Be Proven’ provide case studies and testimonials at every turn online, ideally with other people talking on your behalf.
To really make the most of the channel, it makes sense to get some expert support – particularly in measuring and enhancing your activity. But, here are some really simple things to get you started.
10 FREE things you can do to generate awareness online:
Ensure your company & all employees have a LinkedIn profiles.
Join or set-up an interest group on LinkedIn.
Set-up a SlideShare space, link it to your LinkedIn profile.
Set-up a You-Tube Channel or Facebook page (if appropriate).
Set-up a company Twitter Feed.
Bookmark your content (StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, etc).
Set up a BT Tradespace profile.
Set-up Google, BlogSpot and WordPress identities.
Comment on, or become a contributor to, blogs and forums.
Regularly update email signatures with new content.
10 FREE things you can do to generate interest online:
Post snappy links to content via Twitter, Status, Email footer, etc.
Post regular interesting short blogs (10 mins).
Prepare deeper content like pressos, papers and articles (20 mins).
Give each of your team an area of expertise to track and comment.
Post details of other people’s content relevant to your audience.
Comment on industry news and happenings… in real time.
Make sure all employees regularly update online statuses.
Follow-up traditional touch-points with online contact.
Gather permissions to send email updates.
Ask intelligent questions in online forums.
10 (nearly) FREE ways to prove your credentials online:
Provide written case studies on your site, Blog, etc.
140 character lines to link back to your case studies, articles, etc.
Post case study videos on your site, You-Tube channel, etc.
Post webcasts and presentations on your site, SlideShare, etc.
Post product demos on You-Tube, SlideShare, etc.
Re-use the words of others about your products and services.
Provide intelligent answers to questions posted in Forums, Groups
Run live Q&A sessions via Twitter.
Add a customer feedback / rating system (like Kampyle) to your site, blog, etc and re-use the positive feedback.
Ask LinkedIn contacts for endorsements.
Note: In this blog, we’re focusing specifically on lead generation. It is worth noting (and blogging in the future) that social media can be powerfully used in market research, recruitment, lead nurturing and much more.
I recently attended the B2B Marketing Lead Nurturing event (30 Sept 2009). I have a bar by which I measure the success of any speaker event I go to, which is that if there’s one thing I take away and implement in some way, it’s been a good event. For this one, the key thing I take away is an analogy used by Pete Jakob of IBM when talking about the relationship that often exists between marketing and sales.
In setting the scene he outlined how marketing generally want to feed sales with beautiful, nutritious organic vegetables, when sales want to eat fast food. It’s a great analogy that put me in mind of Jamie Oliver’s school dinners’ crusade.
It’s an analogy that works on many levels:
Marketers will cite the potential lifetime value of a lead – when sales are often rewarded on revenue that month. Eating your greens is better for you, but a bag of starchy chips will fill you up quickly.
Marketers often want to create ‘perfect’ materials and campaigns, when sales are often in need of a quick fix. Cooking a meal from fresh raw ingredients just isn’t as easy as grabbing a take away.
Sales do know that ‘easy’ sales often result in churn and aren’t 100% healthy for the company, but need to meet their targets and maintain cash flow. I can’t be the only one to have tucked into a burger promising to go for a run later!
Moves to convert a sales organisation to a new diet of inbound, marketing-generated, leads often makes them feel ill and change is often resisted. Reminiscent of parent passing chips through the school railings.
For a business, you need to work out what a healthy balanced diet means. Often this is about having two speeds – the long-term profitability track (greens, etc.) and the essential cash flow now (junk food). Then, I’d suggest that you take a careful look at the business you generate, assessing the source of the customers that provide these two things for you. I’m betting that in most cases, a marketing-generated lead, that has been nurtured through a thoughtful process, is likely to be more profitable in the long term, and that sales that closed on the day as the result of something like cold-calling often buy less and churn more. Most businesses will need a healthy mix of both – but it is essential to know, and manage, the difference. Making a shift in dietary habits is hard – adopting a closed-loop marketing>sales approach is really hard. But, the results of both are definitely worth it.
Now don’t get me wrong – I like chips. I even think there’s a place for fast food in a healthy diet – as I think there’s a place for tactical sales that get cash in the door quickly. What I’m saying is that if your business is surviving on junk food alone – think carefully about the long-term impact this could be having on your bottom line.
The questions I most often get asked about marketing budgets are:
How much should I spend as a percentage of turnover?
Should I benchmark against competitors?
How much shall I spend on each discipline (PR, DM, Events, Ads, etc.)?
All totally reasonable questions… but what you should be asking is: what shape should my marketing budget be? Seriously, it is the most important question there is on the budgeting front. So, let me tell you what I mean.
A decent marketing programme is centred on a sales funnel, onto which you’ve mapped the decision making process for your target audience. (see previous posts Making Marketing Pay, and What to Say When).
FIGURE 1: Chart to show the influence of marketing spend across the sales funnel
From this you can put together a programme of activity that moves a person from awareness to a sale. Each marketing technique has a different level of influence at each stage of this process. You need to determine the level of influence at each stage, then apportion this across the funnel.
There are a few ways to decide the amount of influence each technique has:
Workshop with the sales and marketing team to agree the apportionment
Surveys or focus groups amongst new customers to get them to assess what they saw at each stage (this can be tricky, as people often post-rationalise decision-making, meaning that emotional triggers are downplayed)
A best guess (hey, we’ve all got to start somewhere)
A combination of all of the above
From this exercise you now have a powerful tool for designing programmes and allocating budget. Now analyse your budget in the same way:
Split your spend into each technique
Apportion this spend as per the influence amount you’ve worked out for that technique (for example, if you worked out that PR has 40% influence at awareness, 10% at interest, etc. your spend on PR should be tabulated to reflect that)
You now have an actual shape for your budget
Compare your actual budget shape to the ideal budget shape you’ve established to maintain a free-flowing sales funnel. This allows you assess where you’re spending too much or too little, and to adjust your spend according to the funnel requirements.
Now, if you have a budget cut, or find a pot of cash, you again have a powerful tool to decide how to adjust your spending. The crucial factor here is to maintain the shape. So, rather than cutting a project that happens to be the right level of spend, you can cut evenly across the funnel ensuring that you’re not leaving any gaps.
By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk
Being asked to prepare a talk for the Bristol & Bath Marketing Network on ‘Making Marketing Accountable’ has given me some space to reflect on my key learnings on making marketing pay. It was a 20 minute talk at a reasonably high level, just enough to get the conversation started…
First off, I asked “who are marketers accountable to?” A great presentation from FutureLab neatly breaks this into three key areas of accountability:
Our world – society, environment, etc.
Our customers – accurate descriptions, no false promises, etc.
Our companies – making a profit, keeping people employed, etc.
For my talk, I focused on the latter and specifically on some key techniques for making marketing pay:
Map out your sales funnel;
Work out which tools do which job through the sales funnel;
Assess activities and spending on these to ensure the funnel flows properly;
Measure movement through the funnel to identify and remedy holes and logjams.
Having done this, there are some key pieces of advice I’d give any marketer:
Put every project, campaign and pound in context – a neat device is to have a funnel icon on all documents with the step the activity pertains to highlighted.
Place any spend report or budget request within the funnel, demonstrating the impact on actual or anticipated sales results.
Maintain your funnel flow – if you need to cut budget, cut evenly through the funnel so you don’t leave any holes… or add spend evenly so you can cope with the extra demand you create.
As you’d expect from a room full of marketers, I was asked some thought provoking questions…
How do you work out the percentage through-put from one step to the next? I’d start by work-shopping this internally and reviewing historical data. This gets you to putting a stake in the ground. You then track actual results against this to refine over time – remembering that this is a tool to facilitate conversation between teams and to draw your eye to areas needing attention. Absolute accuracy may never be possible, but this will always help you identify areas of concern or success and prioritise resource and energy.
How do you avoid this becoming a finger-pointing tool where marketing point to sales and sales point to marketing? You work out the funnel metrics together and regularly review against it. You can also go further and use the funnel to apportion people’s time against activities in each step, which can help to facilitate inter-team collaboration.
How does this work in big companies where small aspects of each step are often owned by different teams who play each other off and get highly political? It doesn’t – this works in organisations where the CEO or MD has bought into the concept and is leading from the top to avoid such in-fighting. I do know that this makes it sound easy and that it really isn’t – but a genuine grasp of sales funnelling in large organisations will often require a full change management programme – such is the nature of turning a tanker.
Some questions from me to you:
In my thinking over the years and in preparing for this talk, I’ve come across some emerging themes, on which I’d love to hear your thoughts:
Does ROI obsession create a race to the bottom? If ROI is the king metric, surely the quality and standing of your brand will suffer due to cutting back on ‘fluff’ to make the ROI look better… if this is done continually will you ultimately devalue your own offering? Apple could clearly make more money on each sale by cutting packaging costs, for example, but they’ve prioritised brand over absolute ROI. Is there a lesson there for all marketers in setting, and staying true to, core values for long term value.
Analysis versus intuition? How do we, as marketers, balance the potentially conflicting forces of detailed analysis and personal intuition or hunch?
Transparency and self protection? I’m a big believer in making everything crystal clear. But, I have certainly encountered marketers who like to maintain a sense of mystery in which marketing is a dark art, so as to protect their own standing or to avoid answering difficult questions. How do we overcome nervousness in some quarters about putting marketing under the microscope and enabling our peers from other disciplines to understand what we do?
I’m currently working on two, very different, business-to-business websites, and have been knee deep in information architecture (IA) and web design for the last six weeks or so. Having come across the same questions time and time again… I thought I’d put pen to paper about rules you should never break online. For this, I am specifically talking about business main websites, not blogs, twitters, forums, etc.
I see myself as a free thinker. My natural reaction to someone telling me that I can’t do something or shouldn’t do something is to challenge it. So, I find myself in the unusual position of championing convention. When it comes to business websites, function must always take higher priority to form (sorry designer friends). The look and feel is a very close second, but it is second.
So, when warming a client up to IA, I tend to use an analogy of a website as a text book. A business website serves a purpose – people come to it looking for something specific and their time is precious. Your site needs to get them to that info as fast as possible (whilst sign-posting them to relevant other content along the way). Think, if your site was a textbook you’d add a contents page, an index or lay things out alphabetically. Can you imagine trying to find a word in the dictionary if someone had decided to order things according to… say, their favourite words first, or some other such subjective nonsense… it would drive me crazy! This is the effect you have on site visitors if you ignore web conventions – so, don’t do it if you want to facilitate that all-important search-to-sale journey.
Web conventions you should not ignore
Logos go on the top left and typically link back the homepage, this is the equivilent of flicking back to your contents page in a book.
Major navigation goes along the top and secondary navigation goes on the left – I didn’t make the rules, it is just what people expect to see, so why mess with it if it helps people find what they are looking for? For me, I think of major navigation as chapter headings and secondary navs as chapter contents.
Legalese in the footer of every page – it has to be there, but it will never sell your stuff, so just put it at the bottom. For me, this is like the publisher’s page at the front of a book.
Disabilities Discrimination Act (DDA) and best-practice – get decent advice on this, you don’t want to break the law or alienate potential customers.
Don’t put text in as an image – Google (other search engines are available) can’t read them and it causes a DDA headache.
Use system fonts – I know that they are a bit dull, but using anything else is totally impractical, you need to use a font that is installed on every computer so that you can be sure your text will be legible to all.
Hmmm… so, business websites should all look the same?
No way. Just because reference books all have contents pages and indexes, they certainly do not look the same. Hard back, soft back, image style, tone of copy… just walk around a book shop, there is plenty of variety. Online, you add personality in the same way… but by employing a designer who specialises in web – print designers never get this quite right. The two sites I am working on at the moment could not look more different. Your brand can sing through, but you don’t need to mess with the stuff that makes your site actually work to make this happen.
And of course, there are always exceptions… particularly on very simple sites of fewer than 20 pages, where you can get away with being a bit more maverick.
For me, these are guiding principles. There are bound to be many more detailed tips from IA specialists… but if you start by putting function before form you’ll be better placed to move forward.
Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Truly compelling messaging is almost certainly going to upset someone… providing that you’ve identified the people you want to inspire and the message works for them, does it matter if you upset people? Often the answer is no. Clearly, you need to be legal, honest and fair – but a bit of controversy can be a good thing. Who was it who said “write what you like, just spell my name right”? So true, especially in an search-enabled world.
I spent six hours this weekend clearing junk from my house. It felt great. I sorted through piles of boxes, threw out unwanted clothes and re-organised a load of storage. Then, my Dad came to visit and commented on what a lovely home we have. Now, he didn’t say ‘Wow, isn’t it tidy’ – in fact he didn’t notice that I’d been tidying, but by clearing away the distractions he was able to notice the lovely touches we have around the place – like art and photos.
A room that is clear of clutter and that is well laid out to enable you to move around freely, is a joy to be in. Good literature design (on and off-line) is the same. There are various design conventions in regard to leaving white space, to aligning and anchoring headings and sub-headings, etc. – and whilst most people picking up a brochure (except those of us who work in the business) won’t consciously see these rules being applied, they will enjoy a well designed piece much more. This is most evident when you see something that hasn’t been well designed – you don’t know why, it just doesn’t look right. Just like when you walk into a room that has been freshly vacuumed, you don’t actively notice the carpet pile all running in the same direction – it just looks better.
Whilst there are, of course, examples of anti-design where rules are actively broken to create a jarring and clashing visual impact – most marketing literature, particularly in B2B, requires the sort of design that allows the message to take centre stage, that gently gives a sense of the corporate culture, and that silently guides the eye to the key points.
So, take care if you’re tempted to prioritise content over design in times of budgetary squeeze – if the two aren’t balanced, you’re missing a trick.
Marketing is increasingly viewed as a science, where sophisticated modelling and data-driven decision-making are taking centre stage. Against this backdrop, has creativity become a less important marketing skill? It has certainly been argued that marketers come in two shapes – the scientist and the artist. My contention is that significant marketing success requires a careful balancing of both, and that neither is the superior marketing skill.
In a previous article, What to say when, 29 Oct 2008, I outlined the key steps in an effective sales funnel, and the role of marketing at each stage. So, working on the assumption that a decision to buy starts at awareness, let’s also start here in reviewing the relative roles of science and creativity on marketing success.
In my first major agency role with Mason Zimbler (www.mzl.com), our MD used a simple equation to set the scene which has stayed with me ever since:
Frequency x Impact = Awareness
The premise is that if either element is out of balance, your chances of success are limited. It is a simple concept. In regard to frequency, think ‘it takes more than one drip of water to get wet’. The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK suggest that it takes three sightings of an ad to really notice it. When we talk about impact, the most important element is relevance – did your ad, email, banner, blog, etc strike a chord with the recipient, if not they won’t notice you. (There’s also more on this in my article ‘what to say when’). So, if your piece is dull and irrelevant, your audience will not see it. Or, if your piece is stunningly relevant, but they only see it briefly, you’re unlikely to really get the message across. Taking these two elements as our bases for comparison, we’ll review the contribution of science and creativity to each.
The scientific approach to communication frequency:
The scientific approach to managing the frequency of your marketing messaging is to model an ideal contact density for each segment or, in highly sophisticated set-ups, for each individual. That is the number of touches that person, or group of people, typically require in order to respond. This enables the marketer to develop a communications plan that ensures the optimum number of touches. Large consumer organisations, like banks, also use this technique to ensure that their customers aren’t over-communicated – having observed that over-communication can trigger complaints or defections, smart technology-driven rules are applied to ensure that this risk is minimised.
The creative approach to communication frequency:
A creative approach to communications frequency is to think laterally. The best example of a really creative approach to this is the innovative use of ambient media. By putting themselves in the shoes of the audience, a creative team will dream up highly creative media placements to ensure that the message gets to people regularly. For example, the National Union of Students in the UK ran a highly successful campaign highlighting the risks of sexually transmitted infections by stickering ten pence pieces and dropping them in student union bars. This is creative thinking on many levels – firstly the location, then the assumption that a student would pick up a stray coin, and the association of the money having passed through many hands linking directly to the message itself. Another example of this is the use that Amplex deodorants made of placing their ads on the hanging hold bars on underground trains and busses – we all know how unpleasant it is to be on crowded public transport where someone nearby has a body odour issue. Creatively tapping into this gave Amplex a highly creative media placement opportunity – putting the message right in front of their audience every time they travelled through London. By mapping out a buyer’s journey and thinking about how to get your message across creatively at each point, you can vastly increase your opportunity-to-see.
The scientific approach to communication relevance:
Scientific marketing has increased the likely relevance of marketing messages exponentially in recent years. The ability to analyse and overlay various data sources to build up a rich picture of your audience, and indeed each individual in that audience, is immensely powerful. Sophisticated optimisation techniques can tell you what to say, when to say it and even which medium is most appropriate for a particular segment or person. The various data strategy awards are littered with excellent examples of this approach.
The creative approach to communication relevance:
When it comes to creativity and relevance, we need only look to viral marketing for lessons in why creativity is essential. The Cadbury Gorilla ad would never have come about by virtue of scientific messaging development. Marketers need to remember that they are talking to people, with feelings and a sense of humour. We also all know that a recommendation from a friend is vastly superior in terms of our likelihood to listen than an official piece of marketing. As such, tapping into word of mouth is essential and creativity is king in the ‘click to forward’ world. The earlier examples of creative media placement also show how creativity can increase relevance by being appropriately positioned to amplify your message.
Balancing and fostering a healthy mix of marketing skills:
Having merely scratched the surface on these subjects, it is clear to see that marketers need to balance their skills at both ends of the scientific-artistic continuum.
Ten key points to fostering and balancing both skill sets:
Ensure your marketing team is trained in understanding and briefing scientific and creative suppliers
Facilitate creative thinking – I’d suggest that marketers need about one day per quarter of facilitated creative thinking
Start with science to build the profile of your audience, but always get a creative team to contribute ideas about how to reach them
Test various creative executions against the same audience to demonstrate, in hard commercial terms, the impact of the creative element of your campaigns
Don’t sacrifice creativity to buy more frequency – if your message makes no impact every time you pay for space, you’re wasting money
Don’t let beauty distract you – something can be beautiful but irrelevant
Make sure you track people through the sales funnel to allow you to see how you’ve generated your best leads
Look for ideas everywhere – you don’t have to have ‘creative’ in your job title to have a good idea
Never let the numbers speak for themselves – when it comes to reviewing marketing, you do need to look at what the audience saw to really understand it
Read the marketing awards booklets – there’s no such thing as a new idea. Most marketing awards these days look at science and creativity, you will find great examples if you look for them.
Marketing is one of the most exciting jobs in the world – you are a scientist, a psychologist, an artist and so much more. If you recognise, hone and balance these skills you’ll achieve success for your business and great satisfaction for yourself.
Will an economic downturn curb the enthusiasm of companies to spend on decent creative, or will it force people to be more inventive?
The recent Honda live ad, where they booked the entire ad break for a live parachute jump was pretty innovative. You could argue that this is sign of a company splashing the cash… or was it only possible because prices are on the down and a stunt like that becomes affordable? It is certainly true that in an increasingly saturated media landscape, people need to work harder for standout – but chucking money at it is not always the answer.
In the socially networked world, creativity is king. The Cadbury Gorilla is case in point. Though I’m sure Cadbury spent a pretty penny, the many hundreds of spoofs that really made the campaign a success were made in homes with dodgy webcams or even camera phones. It is the idea that shines through – really capturing imagination.
So, will a downturn lead to a mass of truly awful ads… possibly on TV, but in the ‘click to forward’ world, the dross simply doesn’t make it through the judging panel that is the self-selecting audience.
Long copy rules. For many a year the short copywriter has been king – writing those catchy lines that grab attention, particularly in advertising. In an online world, this is less important than depth, quality and quantity. Well written articles picked up by relevant online journals, forums and bloggers are now much more powerful than the clever one-liner. Why? Search! Where advertising once ruled, search has become the first, or the very close second, port of call in a buying decision. Being referenced in many trusted online venues is essential – and this can only be achieved with decent long copy (preferably written with clear thought on SEO strategy).
Many of us will have experienced a sense of ‘information overload’ where we simply switch off, or the frustration of wanting to know more about a product or service before we commit and not being able to find it. Both happen regularly, and when they do – you’ve lost a sale.
For almost every purchase we make, we run through a broadly similar decision-making process (I say almost, as the impulse bar of chocolate at the supermarket counter is quite a different process). Typically, and particularly for more complex purchases, our thinking will go something like this: ‘My laptop is heavy – I saw that ad for really light weight ones, who was it again?’ (Latent need); ‘There’s that ad, it’s X-brand’ (Awareness); ‘I’ll just check out their site’ (Interest); ‘Hmm, well the weight certainly compares well, but can I afford it, what are the other options?’ (Evaluation); ‘I’ll pop into Y-shop to see what it feels like and ask a little more about it’ (Trial); ‘I’ve researched the best price, I’ll get it from there’ (Purchase). Kotler and others have spelt out various different versions of this process, there’s bound to have been one modelled for most markets. So, our step-by-step decision-making process is something like 1) Awareness, 2) Interest, 3) Evaluation, 4) Trial, 5) Purchase.
Against this process you should map and measure your sales funnel, you’ll steadily whittle down your audience at each step, with interested parties moving through the funnel and those who either don’t want what you offer or who are turned off by your messaging going elsewhere. To maximise the conversion at each stage, marketers should consider two key elements; tone and quantity.
What do I mean by tone? As short-hand, think emotion. Against the sales funnel, there is an appropriate tone at each step. If you imagine a continuum from emotional to rational, typically your marketing material will need to start at emotional and move to rational through the funnel. Emotional appeals are most likely to really grab someone’s attention. If you hit a nerve, they notice you. However rational you are, e.g. ‘we’re cheap’, if they don’t feel a need for what you’re offering they’re unlikely to notice your communications in the first place. Successful emotional appeals, in marketing terms, usually hit on a negative feeling and say that you can take it away. This is called finding the point of pain. Once you’ve established that emotional appeal, your communications need to move into more rational territory, where proof is needed. As a sanity check on the tone of your marketing materials, map out each stage of the sales funnel and look at the material (offline, online, sales person, in-store, etc.) and assess the tone – are you too rational too soon? Are you trying to appeal to their emotions when they’re looking for proof?
Quantity, in regard to sales funnelling, is a fairly straight forward concept – start ‘short and sweet’ and then provide more information at each step. Where most organisations fall foul of this is on their websites. Home pages are often jam packed with information. Considering the journey a home page or a campaign landing page is only the second step on the sales funnel – they are still pretty emotional (what’s the benefit for me?) and they are looking for key messages. Again, map out your journey and assess the quantity of information you are serving at each stage, it should start small and increase at each step.
So, if you’re experiencing lots of web traffic, but low numbers of enquiries – or lots of footfall and low sales, think about the sales funnel. An initial assessment against tone and quantity will sign post where your blockage might be and put you on the path to a free flowing sales funnel that has a tangible link to your bottom line.
Posted by Bryony Thomas 
Posted by Bryony Thomas 
Posted by Bryony Thomas 
