Communications advice
1 Dec, 2011
Competing for a public procurement contract is a demanding process. Government tender responses require a lot of information. Your organisation needs to be prepared to dedicate staff and resources to putting together a tender response that can win against your competitors. We have put together this short guide to help you write the best tender response documents.
We have broken down the essential elements of winning a tender into six components; the first five are about getting into the race and the last is about winning it. To be able to win the work your tender response must be: compliant; comparable; comprehensive; competitive; convincing; and extraordinary.
COMPLIANT—Compliant with the tender’s requirements
A tender is essentially a request for an organization to provide evidence of how well they will meet the needs of the client. The Government agency will evaluate submissions against the rules, procedures and criteria outlined in their request document. Due to Government procurement rules they will follow these procedures rigidly and without favour. To be in the running your tender must meet all the requirements of the tender.
Where you don’t meet the criteria of the tender you may have the scope to be able to submit a non-complying tender if the process allows it. However, this must be agreed and negotiated with the agency before submission.
COMPARABLE—comparable in presentation
Thousands of hours of time may go into preparing a response and it is important that it shows. There are those in the process who think that if all the information is included the document will speak for itself. Experience shows that if your documentation is presented badly it is perceived as lacking in care and is judged harshly.
You must present your documentation at least as professionally as your competitors. This means ensuring the document is well-designed and creates a professional image for your organisation. It is also very important to make sure that the document is properly edited and comprehensively proofed. Timings and costs must be checked as these can be the deal breakers. Some important considerations that are sometimes overlooked:
- Editing to ensure there is consistent style, a well-understood structure, and that the most important selling points are made clear;
- Consistent design including fonts, page layout, covers, inserts—make sure diagrams, images, CVs, case studies, support documents match in style.
- Structure and order—make sure the numbering of pages, figures and images, support documents and appendices are correct and that there is a good table of contents.
- Proofreading and checking—time is always short in preparing a tender and deadlines are met with little time to spare but it is essential to make sure all the numbers are properly checked and the text independently proof-read.
- Quality printing and binding—professional digital printing on high-quality paper presented in custom-made binding shows your organisation’s pride and professionalism.
COMPREHENSIVE—Comprehensive in addressing all the tender’s requirements
Small mistakes or omissions may disqualify you from the tender process. It is better to make sure that if you find the requirements ambiguous you provide enough information for the assessors to find what they need. Don’t allow your tender to be disqualified because it did not provide enough information.
Many requests for tender restrict the number of words or pages that can be used in responding. This is understandable but don’t allow a space restriction to prevent you from properly presenting your case. Where the space is inadequate additional information can be provided as addendums, appendices or attachments. These are increasingly provided in multi-media formats.
The tender assessors are primarily concerned with getting value for money from the provider of the service. Make sure that you provide as much information about your service provision that will help the assessment. Some of the key areas
- The relative risk of the proposal and how it will be managed and minimised, including the flexibility of the proposal and your organisation to adapt to possible change;
- The performance history of your organisation in delivering the service or similar services (to time, cost and quality). Show that you can mobilise the resources to do the work in a cost-effective way for the client, to meet deadlines and to respond to changing situations;
- All direct and indirect financial costs and benefits over the life of the procurement (including maintenance and disposal costs); and
- Your organisation’s performance in environmental, social and economic management.
COMPETITIVE—competitive in terms of value-for-money
Governments are now recognising that value-for-money (VfM) and not price is the most important aspect of assessing service or product delivery. Many organisations try to compete on price alone, which is a dangerous strategy if your competitors can undercut your price or if they can offer additional services for the same price.
Being competitive now means an emphasis on value-for-money. This is where tender can be won against your competitors. Your organisation’s bid should emphasise business benefits to the client such as: service improvements, risk reduction, energy savings and reduced greenhouse gas production, lowered maintenance costs, higher quality or reliability, or reduced whole of lifetime costs etc.
CONVINCING—convincing in making the decision easy for the panel
Selling to government is not difficult if you understand what the client wants and needs. To create a convincing argument for the assessment panel you must understand what they want, what they need and how they operate. Then you can explain clearly how your organisation will provide the wants and needs of the client.
Make sure you have developed a logical argument. The argument for the client to chose your organisation must include:
WHY—demonstrate understanding of the client organisations goals and objectives for undertaking the work;
WHAT—demonstrate detailed understanding of the client’s requirements;
WHEN—ability to meet the deadlines and timelines and to deal with contingencies;
HOW—ability to undertake the work based on capacity, resources, skills, experience and past performance and can manage financial, commercial and legal risk; and
WHERE—ability to deliver services or products to required locations
EXTRAORDINARY—extraordinary in making your bid stand out
Now that you are a fully complying bid how will you win against all the other fully complying bids? This is the most difficult question in every tender bid. Presenting bids that are differentiated from the competitors is about marketing and salesmanship. This is not about providing a neat description, with lots of clever diagrams and a colourful cover—all your competitors will be doing the same. Differentiation needs two essential components:
- PROVIDING the most innovative and value-for-money product or service; and
- CONVINCING the assessors that your solution is the most innovative and value-for-money product or service.
Marketing here is about fully understanding your client’s needs and tailoring your product to this need. This is marketing in its truest sense and must not be confused with the sense of promotions and advertising.
Convincing the assessors that your solution is the most desirable requires your bid to contain something of a “wow” factor. This is where the bid presentation needs to be creative and dynamic. Determining the wow factor also requires a good understanding of the client organisation’s needs and wants.
Extra-ordinary performance in the tender process requires that you have a superior understanding of your clients needs. You need to understand and interpret the client’s needs beyond the documentation and present your work to emphasise the superior way in which you meet their needs.
1 Dec, 2011
The Australian Centre for Retail Studies has produced a series of reports on Australian Consumer Trends. In one of their recent reports they characterise Australian consumers into six key types: value, busy, green, local, bored and digital.
Looking at your customers in different ways can help you to adjust your marketing and advertising strategies to win more business. Madrigal Communications suggests some ways to win these different types of Australian consumer.
The Value Consumer
The Global Financial crisis has increased uncertainty about the future economy. Consumers have responded by being more conservative and cautious with their spending, either looking for better value or if not finding the value not spending at all.
As a value shopper the consumer is more analytical and more rational in their behaviour. Consumers are buying what they need now and postponing what they want until another time. They are less likely to impulse buy.
Businesses have to respond to the value customer by giving them more for less. This means giving discounts, providing better service or creating improved products. Businesses can’t rely on brand loyalty they have to give more to the discerning customer.
The Busy Consumer
In modern Australia we are all time-poor. We work long hours. We are studying hard, working hard and trying to raise our children. Both parents are working and rushing home to cook dinner and taxi their children to sports or other activities.
Time is the most important commodity. Consumers now value their time highly and put a large value on it. Supermarkets are the preferred shopping venue not because they offer choice but because they have become one-stop-shops—we can get nearly everything we need in one shopping trip.
Businesses have to respond by simplifying the buying process, by placing importance on speed, simplicity and convenience.
The Green Consumer
The rise of the environmental movement has focussed us all on protecting our planet from the detrimental effects of consumerism. We now think about what we buy in terms of the environmental impacts of the product or packaging. We all are aware that we can reduce the impact of plastic bags to the environment by using reusable bags (although we may not always use them).
There is an increasing niche market of consumers who are highly motivated to protect the environment and are willing to spend more on being environmentally friendly. Green consumers consistently discriminate in their purchases in favour of products or services that have less impact on the environment.
Businesses have to respond by being more environmentally conscious. This includes being socially, ethically, and culturally sensitive and aware in providing and marketing your product and service.
The Local Consumer
Supporting local businesses is important to many Australians. Buying from local businesses supports the local community and economy. It also offers the advantage of better quality product or service without having to travel further to get it. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of where and how products are produced, leading to a surge in country of origin products for the retail industry.
Businesses need to respond to consumers who want meaningful relationships with the “brands” and organisations they deal with in their lives. Make sure that you have good front counter staff, make the management accessible to customers and value the customer relationship. Customers seek out personal interaction with people they can trust.
The Bored Consumer
Consumers are bombarded with advertisements and promotions and offered and infinite variety of complex plans or packages. Consumers have become de-sensitised and consequently bored with traditional retailing and advertising. Consumers have become cynical and do not engage with traditional mainstream marketing.
Consumers are therefore searching for more connection with retailers, and a more engaging shopping experience.
Businesses need to respond by offering consumers greater involvement in the transactions and more personalised products and services.
The Digital Consumer
The rise of Web II, as well as the main social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, has led to the emergence of “connected” consumers who spend considerable amounts of time interacting with businesses online. Digital consumers seek channels to generate recommendations for good service and to complain on line.
User generated content and online communities are changing the way consumers engage with businesses as well as changing how and why they shop.
Businesses need to respond by creating ways for on-line consumers to develop more meaningful relationships and to participate in more engaging experiences with the business. Make sure your website is linked to Facebook and customers have opportunities to engage online.
1 Dec, 2011
Here are some interesting facts on how people choose their holiday destination from a report How do Australians choose holiday destinations and experiences. The Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism looked at consumer choice behaviours for choosing domestic and overseas destinations for holiday experiences. They suggest that the most important decisions made by people choosing a holiday are:
- whether to travel,
- where to travel and what to do,
- when to travel,
- how long to stay, and
- how much to spend.
While travel businesses are interested in how consumers make these decisions, the most significant one is how they choose their destination.
Most marketing activity is aimed at persuading tourists to choose a particular location. However when a tourist’s buying behaviour relates strongly to what the travel motives are it is important to look at these motives.
The five strongest motives in choosing a holiday destination were:
- to have fun,
- to visit new places,
- to relax mentally,
- to get away from everyday life, and
- to experience something new.
The five weakest motives for travelling on holiday were:
- to master a skill,
- to engage in challenging physical activities,
- to improve self-confidence,
- to engage in nature-based activities, and
- to engage in non-challenging physical activities.
There are seven key motives involved in tourism consumer behaviour:
- Nature,
- Social and self enhancement,
- New experiences and knowledge,
- Health, exercise and skill,
- Relaxation and escape,
- Adventure and excitement, and
- Family, friends and fun.
So when you are thinking about your marketing plan you need to focus on one or more of these key motivations.
24 Oct, 2011
Summer marketing is thinking about your customers in a new way for the summer. Here are some great summer marketing facts and figures that will help. There are several things that impact on summer marketing: the weather, Christmas shopping season, back-to-school shopping, people taking holidays, and changes to consumer spending.
Think about the weather
The weather is warming up. People are wearing different clothes and wanting different things for the summer. They have different needs. They behave in different ways.
Research from British email marketing company Pure360 showed that businesses should consider the weather when implementing their email campaigns.
Hot, sunny weather increased the effectiveness of campaigns promoting summer-related products or services. Recipients of emails promoting festival tickets were twice as likely to open them on a sunny day as opposed to a rainy day.
They also found that consumers are far more likely to be thinking about major purchases such as cars or houses on a day with poor weather. Campaigns promoting restaurants are twice as effective on days with bad weather.
Their statistics showed:
• Email open rates for summer-related products on hot days was 15% (3% on rainy days)
• Click through rates for summer-related products was 27% in good weather (12% in bad weather)
• Holiday industry emails open rates were five times higher on hot days
• In hot weather, campaigns promoting satnav systems had a 48% click through rate (23% on bad weather days)
• Campaigns promoting business-related events and products had a click through rate of 27% (12% when raining)
Think about Christmas
Some US statistics from last year (source is in brackets)
• 19% of U.S. consumers planned to shop on the day after Christmas, December 26, 2010 (International Council of Shopping Centers, ICSC)
• 43% percent of people planned to make a purchase on December 26th (American Express Spending & Saving Tracker)
• 47% of U.S. consumers said they would be doing more shopping in the week between Christmas and New Year’s (ICSC and Goldman Sachs Group)
• 77.3% of shoppers planned on buying at least one gift card during the holiday season (NRF)
• 23 million people were shopping on Christmas Eve (ICSC)
• 31%-34% of shopping dollars generally change hands in the 10 days prior to Christmas (ShopperTrak)
• $36.4 billion was spent online by Thursday, the day before Christmas Eve, which was 15.4% more than 2009 (MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse)
Think about back-to-school shopping
A US study undertaken last year showed the key back-to-school buying behaviours.
Back to school shopping includes: general school supplies, clothing (including shoes and uniforms), books, USB flash drives, laptop computer accessories (software, speakers), calculator (basic, scientific, graphing), mobile phone/smartphone, sporting goods, and netbooks.
While shopping for children’s school supplies parents are also thinking about themselves. It is important to note that back-to-school spending can also drive non-school-related purchases.
• 51% of consumers will leave their shopping until the last minute to take advantage of price drops, while 49% will start shopping early to spread the cost out.
• 56% of consumers planned to spend more than US$250 on back-to-school items. 31% of consumers planned to spend more than US$500.
• Most consumers planned to spend at least $250 on back-to-school shopping for their elementary, middle/junior high, or high school student or college/junior college student.
• 14% of consumers say their economic outlook will influence their back-to-school shopping compared to last year.
• 17% of consumers will compare prices from their mobile phones when back-to-school shopping in-store.
• Shopping at discount stores (60%) and printing online coupons (33%) are the top back-to-school money savers.
• 21% of consumers feel influenced to make non-school-related purchases for themselves while shopping for back-to-school items.
Think about changing consumer trends
In a recent report the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed how we are changing our preferences for household appliances. We are spending less time washing up and more time on the computer. We are spending less time listening to our stereos and presumably more time listening to our iPods or MP3 players or watching DVDs on our home theatre. Statistics showing proportion of consumer goods in households:
• dishwashers have increased by 9 per cent since 2005 (42% in 2005 to 51% in 2011)
• top loader washing machines decreased from 83% in 2005 to 68% in 2011
• front loader washing machines increased from 13% in 2005 to 31% in 2011
• DVD players increased from 72% in 2005 to 83% in 2011
• stereo systems dropped from 78% in 2005 to 41% in 2011
• laptop (at least one) increased from 38% in 2008 to 61% in 2011
• desktop computer (at least one) increased from 55% in 2008 to 60% in 2011
27 Sep, 2011
I follow Twitter with great curiosity (Twitter name is madcom, if you want to find me) as well as with some healthy scepticism. Friends, even those familiar with social networking sites, such as Facebook, ask me what is it all about. This is part of an answer for Twitter beginners.
Social network marketing
Twitter is a fascinating world, as is the whole online social networking universe. I won’t explain the workings of Twitter. It is simple and written about elsewhere (try Wikipedia) but what I will attempt to explain is how Twitter is operating in social network marketing and how it can be used to make money.
Twitter operates as part of the social media marketing machine so you need to understand social media marketing to understand Twitter’s uses.
Social network marketing or social media marketing are terms that are less understood and perhaps poorly defined. Social media marketing involves engaging with online communities to create brand awareness, to create opportunities through partnerships, to generate targeted traffic and, ultimately, to generate sales.
Back to marketing basics
To understand social network marketing lets start with the basics of marketing. Marketing is a process to match products or services to the needs or wants of the customers in a way that provides a profit for an organisation.
Marketing uses market testing methods to work out what the customers want, then develops a product or service to meet that want, and then promotes and advertises the product to attract the customers. Simple!
So how does Twitter help in these processes? Lets break the marketing process down to these three components: finding out what the customer wants, creating the perfect product, and then selling it. Looked at in these terms Twitter has a lot to offer.
Monitoring mindshare
Mindshare is a term that is being used in the online social networking world to explain what the recognition level of a product is in the population. By following keywords (identified by hashes) or other search terms on monitoring sites you can monitor the Twitterverse (all that is happening on Twitter) for every mention of your product or company. Twitter because of its immediacy is an important indicator of the online mindshare.
This is a metric for a brand’s share of the collective mind! There are lots of other and more sophisticated methods to measure keywords that are being used across the online world to include Google and other important search engines.
Developing the perfect product
Monitoring mindshare provides the intelligence or information to develop the product or promotional message that will make the product more saleable. This is the product monitoring and product development part.
Monetising Twitter
This is the Holy Grail for Twitter. How is Twitter going to make money out of the whole Twitter world. No-one really knows how Twitter will make money but everyone seems to know about how it can be used to make YOU money.
How to make money using Twitter
Twitter CAN make you money in quite a few ways. It is a medium for getting messages out there so can be used as a great promotional and advertising tool particularly for international brands. Therefore you should be using it if you work for an advertising agency.
Twitter is a good method for building international brand. It will not work so well if you are a local business or in a niche market unless, as in all things marketing, you are creative.
Direct selling on Twitter is not encouraged. This is not so much because it is rude but mostly because it is too hard sell and therefore ineffective. The Twitter tweet is a short message and therefore does not allow anything more than headline-style persuasion, it is soft sell. However, the tweet can be used to direct people to websites or blogs where a more persuasive, promotional message can be used to persuade people to buy products. This is, of course, all about creating and driving website traffic.
Affiliate marketing
Companies either use their own marketers to drive traffic or they use affiliate marketers. Affiliate marketing is where the originator of the traffic gets paid for each customer or visitor to the owner’s site. This is where many people seek to make money online.
Affiliate marketing on Twitter requires that the originating marketer has enough influence with the Twitter community that they can direct large traffic volumes. This is why developing large followings on Twitter is so important. (It is one of the contradictions in Twitter that there is an expectation of a mutual exchange of messages between users. Those that have thousands of followers are unlikely to read the tweets of their followers.)
Providing help and expertise
The other way to make money on Twitter is to provide help to others to make money out of Twitter. Expertise in social network marketing is a rare commodity and there are those offering to sell that expertise. There are social networking gurus who can help you get traffic to your site or your affiliate’s site (I am not pretending to be one of them).
Get Twittering for money
So what does this mean for you if you want to make money from Twitter? You have several options:
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you can use Twitter as part of a larger branding and advertising strategy within your agency or company,
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you can develop an affiliate marketing strategy by developing a large enough Twitter following that you can direct significant, qualified traffic to target sites, or
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you can make yourself into an expert and sell your services to those that need it.
Thanks for reading this blog – no money required.
19 May, 2011
As Sydney turns cold we can rug up in our hoodies and Ugg boots and curl up in front of the heater but we mustn’t hibernate. It is time to think about hotting up your marketing for the winter.
The winter provides us with opportunities for new markets and new customers as well as helping our existing clients with new products. Here are some tips to focus your marketing, advertising and promotions over the cold months ahead.
1. Base your promotions on popular events
Sydney has a range of festivals, cultural festivals, social awareness programs and significant days happening over the winter. These provide an opportunity to create targeted promotions that tap into what’s hot in the event calendar. We have created a list of some of Sydney’s most newsworthy events and have given some ideas to market using them.
Choose events or charities that most fit your business’s product or services and marketing strategy. Choose at least one less well-known event to be different to your competitors. Advertise with a theme.
2. Don’t let your customers hibernate
Don’t treat the winter like a long, slow, down-time and don’t let your customers hibernate. Create urgency. Consumers tend to be more decisive in their purchasing when there is a short deadline. Use the events as cut-offs for promotions and create a sense of urgency in your promotions. The end of financial year creates a strong deadline.
3. Keep your prospects warm
If you have business premises make sure you keep your customers or clients warm by turning on the heating or having somewhere warm to meet. Cosy and comforting is the best atmosphere for winter shopping. Create ambience with an open fire if you are in the hospitality business. Make sure your marketing material is warming.
4. Expand your product range
Retailers know to change stock and to change their promotions and advertising for the cold weather, an easy example is Surf Dive and Ski, that covers both seasons. But does your business?
5. Make your merchandise match the season
The winter season brings different needs. Promotional items should be things that remind customers of your business and fit the season. You want to give them items that they use and that remind them of you every time they use them. Umbrellas are good for winter rain and scarves keep out the cold—they both are good for carrying logos and company names. Give out free tissues with your company details printed on them. Don’t give them T-shirts.
6. Look for new and different markets
If your product or services are so seasonal that winter is a slow time, think about selling your product in different markets. If you are selling bikinis in Sydney in the summer sell them in California in the winter (their summer).
7. Help your customers dream
It is important to market to your prospects when they are most likely to be thinking about your product or service. As people travel into deep winter they start to dream of the summer sun. If the purchase of your product or service has a large lead-time winter is a good time to start planning.
8. Take advantage of people’s changed behaviour
Cocooning behaviour
It is colder, the days are shorter, people don’t go out as much in the evenings. DVD rentals increase as people entertain themselves at home. People who stay at home on their holidays and socialise less are said to be cocooning or staycationing.
9. Use the time to develop leads
Create a customer management system or mailing list from the information you have about your customers so that you can use it to keep the sales flowing in your quiet periods. Market yourself as an expert in your field or business sector. Give free webinars or speak at meetings, conferences or events.
10.Focus on building your online social network
Focus your social networking accounts appropriate to your product such as Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. Keep your information up-to-date, relevant, and professional. Use this time to expand your contact base and to maintain dialogue with them. Make attractive product offers and deals. Warm people up for spring specials.
19 May, 2011
Media buzz
You can use large public events to promote you products and services to your customers. By tapping into the media attention that comes with the publicity given to big events you get your customers to engage more with your business.
City to Surf
The Australian winter calendar brings a range of community events, cultural festivals, social awareness programs and significant days that the public celebrate. In Sydney (and NSW) we have a few unique events of our own.
Have fun and be creative
Many events are held to raise funds for charities (which is a good thing in itself and helps you give back to the community). These give your business opportunities to participate in fund-raising events and to get your customers to join in. They can be great fun. Be creative in creating themes and in following the most appropriate events for your business. Sporting events are good for fitness centres, social causes for law firms, children’s causes for just about everybody. Use your imagination to support a charity linked to your business.
Providing sponsorship
Sponsoring events gets your business name prominently displayed and the association with important events helps to build your reputation. Sponsorship can be major or minor depending on your budget and promotional intention.
Getting involved
Participating in events provides opportunities for media releases and to get your business name in the paper. Get involved in local or regional celebrations (to expose your business to customers and to show involvement with your community).
Try giveaways
Use tickets to shows, films or events as prizes in promotions or as gifts to your most valued customers.
Broaden your market
Getting involved in cultural festivals broadens your market and gets you involved in the wider community.
Use themes
Decorate your business premises with the theme of the festival, event or awareness day. Sell the charity products to help raise money. Get your staff to dress up. It creates a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
Its all about being engaging
Businesses need to engage with their customers. This engagement builds trust, friendship and a long-term relationship. Taking part in events is an easy way to share experiences with your customers.
17 Feb, 2011
Typography or the font choice is an important part of a business’ branding. The choice of font (or typeface) is as important as the logo and the colour scheme in establishing the right image for your organization.
Classic fonts create a sense of strong personality implying reliability and trustworthiness, the best example being Times New Roman, developed in England at The Times newspaper. If your business has a professional image you need to use strong fonts; using fun or creative fonts would make you look frivolous.
Helvetica, a Swiss font that recently had its 50th birthday, is a modernist font worshipped by some and hated by others. The reason it is so well liked is because it projects an air of safety, reliability and stability. The list of large, corporate brands that use Helvetica is long and includes: Gap, Orange, Hoover, Lufthansa, Panasonic, Royal Bank of Scotland, Tupperware, and Zanussi.
The reasons why Helvetica is disliked are almost the same reasons it is liked: because of its corporate ubiquity it can be seen as bland, conforming and unadventurous.
Some organisation’s font choices are more adventurous, distinctive and can become immediately recognizable. The BBC uses Gill Sans which is slightly quirky but still reliable; New Johnston is the choice of London Underground, Dunkin Donuts uses the Frankfurter font. Sabon is the font originally used by Penguin Books and also now by Stanford University.
Fun fonts should be used with great caution. Comic Sans is so hated by some that they have tried to have it banned. Now, on one hand, I see this as a complete overreaction and a needless waste of effort but, on the other hand, I do really think the world would be a better place if people wouldn’t use it.
There are some people who see the interest in fonts as all too unnecessary. Unfortunately they are probably the same people who turn up to interviews in safari suits and nylon ties. It is not so much what you look like but how you choose to portray yourself that is important in how people assess you.
The importance of type
There is lots of information available on the web about fonts. Here are a couple of very good sites that will give you a sense of the power of fonts in evoking a particular mood of sense of identity.
The graphic designers at Penguin Books (US) all have different views on fonts. This series of video posts shows their passion for their pet fonts and for their disliked fonts—it is a great insight into the power and importance of choosing the right font.
In Live the Language, a series of advertisements for a language-teaching company, the creative director has used typography to emphasise the different identities of the four capital cities chosen: Paris, London, Beijing, and Barcelona. It is an insightful use of typography to differentiate the cultural aspects of each city and it shows how powerful the imagery can be in creating distinct personalities using fonts.
20 May, 2010
A recent Economist story tells that Anna Wintour, the 61-year-old editor-in-chief of Vogue (widely believed to be the subject of the film The Devil Wears Prada), was not very pleased when Tavi Gevinson was given a better seat than her at a recent fashion show.
Who is Tavi Gevinson? Gevinson is the 14-year-old author of the StyleRookie blog. Gevinson started her blog at the age of 11 and has built a huge following in the blogosphere:
Guess who is going to be all fancy n stuff and talk at L2’s Generation Y conference this Friday? Me, that’s who! And I’m going to be talking about the Unpredictability of Gen Y …
And not surprisingly, as reported by the Economist, she stole the show that had been put together to focus on “tomorrow’s affluent consumer”. Representatives of luxury-goods businesses, hung on Gevinson’s every word.
The lesson for today’s businesses is that those of Generation Y (people born between 1980 and 2000) know more than us about how to make the most out of social-networking technologies.
Some of us are Baby Boomers (born after 1945 until about 1960) who didn’t own a computer until we were well into adulthood. We possibly had to program our computers to perform our calculations and may even remember having to feed paper cards into a mainframe. Computers were calculating machines.
Most of us are X Generation (born between 1961 and 1981) we experienced the growth of personal computers and witnessed the birth of the Internet. Internet 1.0 was about sharing information and we played space invaders by putting lots of coins in arcade machines.
But those of Generation Y have grown up with computers and treat them as an essential part of their everyday lives – technology is social and about entertainment. They have participated in the growth of Web 2.0 as a means of participating in online communities, for sharing gossip and for on-line collaboration. They are also known as the Net Generation!
Do you know how to use Web 2.0 to connect and engage with Generation Y? Madrigal Communications can help you put together a do-it-yourself social media marketing campaign for as little as $250! Our consultant will sit down with you and show you how you can use a combination of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Foursquare and your website to connect your business with the Net Generation. Contact us to find out more!
13 May, 2010
People do business with people that they trust. When you put together your marketing material you should make sure you are building trust with your audience and your potential customers. Here are five quick strategies that I would advise you to use to build trust when marketing your business:
Be valuable
Don’t undersell your products or services. Emphasise value not price! Even if your customer is price-driven they still need to trust you to buy from you.
Be honest
Don’t say you are the best. Tell how you will provide the benefits that your customers want or need. That shows that you are the best at what they want.
Be authentic
Let your personality stand out. People don’t like superficiality. Don’t be just another business selling a product or service.
Be human
Your business is not an object – it is the quality, expertise, and experience of its people. It is what you do for your customers. It is not an “it” it is a “we”.
Be accountable
You are the most important thing in your business. Don’t be anonymous. If something goes wrong your customer knows who to talk to. Make sure you have a relationship with your customers.
Need help?
If your business needs ideas to build trust with its marketing give me a call, Tim Entwisle, at Madrigal Communications, valuable, honest, authentic, human and not anonymous.
25 Mar, 2010
Sometimes it appears that paying a professional copywriter to write your business communications (your brochures, newsletters, media releases, website, etcetera) is an unnecessary expense. So why pay for a professional copywriter?
- General knowledge – a good business and general knowledge is an absolute necessity for a copy-writer to avoid plagiarism, clichés and to ensure topicality. Making your material unique.
- Qualifications – specific knowledge is often not as important as academic training which provides researching and analyzing skills and the ability to formulate a convincing argument. Creating a response.
- Specialised communications knowledge – goes beyond spelling and grammar to the effectiveness of written communications in different media and in different channels. Helping your readers to engage.
- Delivery skills – nowadays a copywriter needs to understand and utilise a range of software products that save time and money in creating and presenting information, particularly on the web. Providing efficient service to the client.
- Commitment – professional copywriters are motivated towards delivering high quality work that is fit for the purpose and is delivered on time to agreed deadlines. Providing value for money.
- Ethics – a professional copy-writer always meets a standard of behaviour towards a client that includes confidentiality and reliability. Guaranteeing a good business relationship.
- Indemnity – if the result of work by professional copywriters results in legal proceedings or business problems the losses are covered by their professional indemnity insurance. Minimising customer risk.
- Efficiency – professional experience means that material is created quickly without the wasted time that inexperienced writers create as they learn on the job. No wasted time, effort or money.
- Management skills – copywriting projects involve other contributors so people-skills and industry knowledge are needed to manage contributors as well as designers, proof-readers, web-architects, printers and photographers. Smooth delivery.
- Creativity – copywriting is an art as well as a science and professional writers have to make their material interesting to engage their readers. Magic!
9 Dec, 2009
I was involved in an online discussion about the use of the word leverage in marketing. I was surprised that quite a few participants considered leverage to be a weasel word – that is a word that sounds good but really doesn’t mean anything.
In its original, physical sense, leverage is the advantage gained by converting a weak force over a long distance into a strong force over a short distance. A lever is a long pole that is used to lift an object using a fulcrum.
Lever comes from the Latin word levare meaning to raise (fulcrum also comes from Latin and originally meant the post of a couch or bedpost). This Latin root, levare, crops up in a wonderfully diverse set of words but all with a common sense of something being raised:
- A levee is a raised embankment that stops rivers overflowing.
- To levy is to raise funds; originally referring to the collection of taxes.
- Leaven is a substance, usually yeast, added to dough to make it rise.
- To levitate is to rise, or cause to rise and hover in the air.
- Elevate is to lift to a higher position or raise to a higher level or status.
- The Levant is the Mediterranean lands east of Italy, so called because it is in the direction from which the sun rose.
In the financial sense leverage refers to the amount of debt used to finance assets, for example, a company with significantly more debt than equity is considered to be highly leveraged.
In the marketing sense leverage is less well defined and used rather loosely. However it relates to the power or ability to influence people or their buying decisions. So leverage in marketing relates very closely with concepts like brand and reputation. The stronger your brand the more leverage you have in selling products.
It is apparent in major brands selling a wide range of products – it is not the quality of the individual product that sells it but the reputation of the brand. This is where leveraging is very tangible, when companies make the most of their brand to sell a range of products. It is also evident in the power of celebrity advertising – using well-known people to sell products is leveraging their reputation to the product brand.
The case for using leveraging in the marketing sense is legitimate and not really very weasel like.
22 Oct, 2009
The other morning my cat came and sat on me and started to purr. I started to think about the whole cat-owner relationship as if it were a business-customer relationship. In marketing terms why am I such a satisfied customer of the cat?
1. The cat delivers a unique service – it shows clear differentiation: it purrs – it doesn’t bark; it lounges – it doesn’t require walks.
2. The cat manages expectations – I get affection for providing food, accommodation, entertainment and free health cover!
3. It is consistent – I get the same product/service every day – a few purrs and a bit of affection.
4. The cat has clear communications – it purrs when it is happy and meows when it wants something – easy to understand.
5. It constantly reminds me that it’s there – persistent advertising ensures it gets fed and therefore survives.
6. But best of all if it makes a mess it covers it up (that’s not marketing, thats PR!).
1 Sep, 2009
- Tell everyone what you do
- Remind your customers about your products and services
- Tell your customers what special deals you have
- Tell everyone why they should buy from you
- Show everyone how great you are
- Introduce you to new customers
- Explain how to find out more about you
- Explain how to contact you
- Build your relationships
- Create customer loyalty
17 Jul, 2009
Do you recognise the twelve signs of bad copywriting? Let me help you discover how to identify bad writing:
1. Bad spelling
Bad spelling is less common than it used to be because of electronic spell-checkers. However, it still happens because the wrong form of the word is used, for example: he is dependant on his license? which should read, he is dependent on his licence! The spell-checker doesn’t know!
2. Bad grammar
Bad grammar, punctuation and syntax are still very common. Although perfect grammar evades us all, very poor grammar is a problem when the meaning of text is made unclear: for example the man carried a cat whistling blues tunes. (Cool cat!)
3. Poor structure
Poor structure is usually obvious when there are too many long sentences and too few paragraphs. Readers find it difficult to follow the flow of the writer’s ideas.
4. Discriminatory language
Discriminatory language that is racist or sexist still happens. Some of it is accidental and caused by the limitations of English in describing the singular person as either he or she but most is just insensitive.
5. Gobbledegook
Some work is so poorly written that it is meaningless and just not understandable.
6. Passive voice
The passive voice is when a writer makes what should be the object of a sentence the subject, for example: the business was successful compared to she created a successful business.
7. Wrong audience
If you don’t understand what you are reading it might not have been written for you. A lot of material by professional services contains jargon that the writer understands but is not clear to the reader.
8. No purpose
Writing must have a purpose. Writing seeks to persuade, inform or entertain. Advertising copy must have a call to action.
9. Weazel words
Beware of weazel words and clichés. Both seem to have strong meanings but really mean nothing, for example how often have you heard politicians say, “I have a commitment to infrastructure investment”.
10. Concatenations
This is my jargon, sorry, but concatenations are a strings of verbs, for example: she had commenced undertaking planning of the preliminary investigations for the project that try to make the simple sound more sophisticated, in this example, what should be said is: she had started the project.
11. Bland
Bland and boring language is recognised when you see the reader’s head hit the table. Bang!
12. Exaggerated or untruthful
There is no point in being the best in the business if no one knows what the best is. Many readers suspect this sort of superlative language and won’t believe it. Comparisons with familiar things are more honest and authentic.
13. Inconsistency
Much business writing contains inconsistencies in the text (did you notice this is the 13th point in the twelve signs of bad copy-writing). Also when facts and figures are used in a document they should be the same everywhere they are used.
If you don’t recognise these (13) signs of bad copy-writing when you see them you probably need to contact a good copywriter for your business writing.
14 Jun, 2009
This post is about the rule of three.
This is NOT the Wiccan rule of three: the belief that the energy you put out into the world will be magically returned threefold. That’s witchcraft!
This rule of three is the writing principle that suggests that grouping things into threes creates clear arguments, establishes patterns and makes things easier to remember.
Single objects are straightforward, pairs can be similar or contrasting, but threes create patterns that establish concepts. Groups of more than three become lists.
Important conceptual things are written in threes because three is the smallest number that can create a clear pattern. Some brilliant threes include:
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Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
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Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite
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Rum, sodomy and the lash
But remember that in good writing the rule of three is not witchcraft its wordcraft!
14 May, 2009
It is a public relations technique to promote your product or organization using current events. The swine flu “pandemic” is no different. I started writing this blog a fortnight ago but didn’t post it. However, now the pandemic is quietening down I have revisited it.
Many businesses have used swine flu to promote their products and services. However they must be careful to be sensitive to the situation and not to be seen to capitalizing on people’s fears. Several organizations seemed to be doing just that:
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There was a Google adwords campaign for Prophecy News Watch connecting us to a bible prophecy site. Google will be there at the end of the world it seems.
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In the mainstream press the US Humane Society had used swine flu to scare American meat-eaters into vegetarianism by blaming American pork producers, quite wrongly, for the outbreak.
Other businesses were just opportunistic:
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Latex gloves and surgical masks were marketed as swine flu products
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Zazzle.com had created a line of marginally humorous T-shirts the best with flying pigs, that is, swine flew
Now with the worst fears of the disease disappearing there are still marketing opportunities for products:
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one telephone and computer disinfection service offers its product to reduce absenteeism
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an on-line news service will keep you up to date with the pandemic
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contingency crisis planning services are available for organizations to manage the impacts of swine flu
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watch out for anti-bacterial hand washes (swine flu is a virus not a bacteria) and air sterilizers will help you avoid deadly viruses
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the US Food and Drug Administration has warned one company for offering a “SilverCure Swine Flu Protection Pack” made-up of toiletries that deposit traces of silver (silver is being claimed as a cure)
The lesson is really about tapping into what is topical with your advertising and PR without being sleazy.
7 May, 2009
Fusion Marketing
Fusion marketing is about combining your marketing efforts with other businesses that share similar clients or have products or services that complement each other.
It is about forming strategic marketing alliances to share costs, resources or customers.
Guerilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing is the use of unconventional or unexpected marketing tactics to get your message across. It is about thinking outside the square.
It may include creating attention-grabbing events in public places, unusual street giveaways of products, stunts, or anything unconventional.
It is about getting maximum results from minimal resources.
Tissue-pack marketing
Tissue pack marketing is an example of guerilla marketing. Japanese companies put their messages and logos on tissues and hand them out on the street. The tissue does not get thrown away. It is used.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is about joining with or creating an on-line community to generate exposure and build relationships with potential customers of your business.
Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.
Try some of these methods. They rely on imagination and effort rather than a big budget.
23 Apr, 2009
I saw on someone’s blog the top ten things not to do in your marketing plan. It is not useful to focus on negatives so I didn’t pay too much attention to the advice. However, it did inspire me to think about my top ten tips for a successful marketing plan.
Here they are:
- Have a realistic budget!
- Be different to your competitors!
- Be adventurous – take risks to stand out!
- Focus on keeping existing customers!
- Have a simple selling proposition!
- Understand the needs and wants of your existing customers!
- Find the best ways of getting your message to your best prospects!
- Make real claims for your product or service – don’t exaggerate!
- Have a mix of tactics – don’t put your eggs in one basket!
- Make sure you capture and respond to customer feedback!
Good luck!
2 Apr, 2009
Niche (pronounced neesh or nitch) is a word used both in ecology and marketing.
Its original use is as a noun to describe a shallow recess, especially one in a wall to display an ornament. It came into English from the French verb nicher to make a nest.
In ecology niche theory describes how an organism or group of organisms is always competing with others for the resources they need to survive. A strategy to reduce competition is to find a niche that other organisms aren’t using or not using very well. Here is a short explanation from Dr Seuss:
And NUH is the letter I use to spell Nutches,
Who live in small caves, known as Niches, for hutches.
These Nutches have troubles, the biggest of which is
The fact there are many more Nutches than Niches.
Each Nutch in a Nich knows that some other Nutch
Would like to move into his Nich very much.
So each Nutch in a Nich has to watch that small Nich
Or Nutches who haven’t got Niches will snitch.
It is similar in business. Your business is competing hard for customers and you have to work very hard to keep them or they will get snitched.
One way to decrease competition is to use a niche marketing strategy, which concentrates on a narrow sub-segment of customers. First you identify the customer needs or wants that are not being satisfied by existing businesses and then develop specialist goods or services that do satisfy them.
A very quick way of estimating whether your business can develop a niche marketing strategy is to look at your most loyal customers. First, determine if your best customers are price sensitive and second work out if they share particular characteristics.
If the core customers are not sensitive to price it means you can create a more specialist product or service that might cost more but will still be desirable.
If the customers share characteristics it means you can create more targeted sales and marketing tactics that will produce a higher return on your marketing budget.
There is a useful prediction from 1989 (Laurel Cutler, quoted in Phillip Kotler 1997 Marketing Management p251):
There will be no market for products that everybody likes a little, only for products that somebody likes a lot.
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