Q: I've spent a ton of money advertising in lots of different media, but it doesn't seem like I have much to show for it. Can you tell me plainly and simply how to advertise so it will work?

A: I applaud your honesty. The simple truth is, most advertisers feel just like you do, but their pride won't let them admit it. Unfortunately, I don't have a "success pill" for you to swallow, but I can describe each of the most common mistakes you will need to avoid:

1. The quest for instant gratification: The ad that creates enough urgency to cause people to respond immediately is the ad most likely to be forgotten immediately once the offer expires. It is of little use in establishing the advertiser's identity in the mind of the consumer.

2. Trying to reach more people than the budget will allow: For a media mix to be effective, each element in the mix must have enough repetition (frequency) to establish retention in the mind of the prospect. Too often, however, the result of a media mix is too much reach and not enough frequency. Will you reach 100 percent of the people and persuade those 10 percent of the way? Or will you reach 10 percent of the people and persuade those 100 percent of the way? The cost is the same.

3. Assuming the business owner knows best: The business owner is uniquely unqualified to see his company or product objectively. Too much product knowledge leads him to answer questions no one is asking. He's on the inside looking out, trying to describe himself to a person on the outside looking in. It's hard to read the label when you're inside the bottle.

4. Unsubstantiated claims: Advertisers often claim to have what the customer wants, such as "highest quality at the lowest price," but fail to offer any evidence. An unsubstantiated claim is nothing more than a cliché the prospect is tired of hearing. You must prove what you say in every ad. Do your ads give the prospect new information? Do they provide a new perspective? If not, prepare to be disappointed with the results.

5. Improper use of passive media: Non-intrusive media, such as newspapers and yellow pages, tend to reach only buyers who are looking for the product. They are poor at reaching prospects before their need arises, so they're not much use for creating a predisposition toward your company. The patient, consistent use of intrusive media, such as radio and TV, will win the hearts of relational customers long before they're in the market for your product.

6. Creating ads instead of campaigns: It is foolish to believe a single ad can ever tell the entire story. The most effective, persuasive and memorable ads are those most like a rhinoceros: They make a single point, powerfully. An advertiser with 17 different things to say should commit to a campaign of at least 17 different ads, repeating each ad enough to stick in the prospect's mind.

7. Obedience to unwritten rules: For some insane reason, advertisers want their ads to look and sound like ads. Why?

8. Late-week schedules: Advertisers justify their obsession with Thursday and Friday advertising by saying "We need to reach the customer just before she goes shopping." Why do these advertisers choose to compete for the customer's attention each Thursday and Friday when they could have a nice, quiet chat all alone with her on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday?

9. Overconfidence in qualitative targeting: Many advertisers and media professionals grossly overestimate the importance of audience quality. In reality, saying the wrong thing has killed far more ad campaigns than reaching the wrong people. It's amazing how many people become "the right people" when you're saying the right thing.

10. Event-driven marketing: A special event should be judged only by its ability to help you more clearly define your market position and substantiate your claims. If 1 percent of the people who hear your ad for a special event choose to come, you will be in desperate need of a traffic cop and a bus to shuttle people from distant parking lots. Yet your real investment will be in the 99 percent who did not come! What did your ad say to them?

11. Great production without great copy: Too many ads today are creative without being persuasive. Slick, clever, funny, creative and different are poor substitutes for informative, believable, memorable and persuasive.

12. Confusing response with results: The goal of advertising is to create a clear awareness of your company and its unique selling proposition. Unfortunately, most advertisers evaluate their ads by the comments they hear from the people around them. The slickest, cleverest, funniest, most creative and most distinctive ads are the ones most likely to generate these comments. See the problem? When we confuse response with results, we create attention-getting ads that say absolutely nothing.

Contact Medici Media today and avoid these and other costly advertising mistakes.




Marketing Mishaps to Avoid

While there are plenty of ways to mess up a marketing campaign, new business owners typically fall prey to four particular pitfalls:

1. Saying too much: When you jam too many messages into any one marketing vehicle, you risk losing your audience entirely. Focus on one or two key messages for each marketing effort.

2.  Inconsistency: If each piece of your print marketing materials looks as if it's from a different company, or doesn’t match up with your TV, Radio or other advertising, you're not likely to be effective.

3. Cutting your marketing budget first: When cash flow dips, it's more important than ever to keep up your promotional efforts. Don't be tempted to make marketing your first cut when it's time to slash expenditures.

4. Hiring an advertising agency: Like most businesses, advertising, public relations and other marketing consulting agencies come in different sizes and price points. If you need to hire help on a shoestring, look for a small to midsized agency where your dollars and your business will be treated with the respect they deserve.  Medici Media is such an agency.

Cheap Marketing Tactics

Getting word of your biz out on the street is worth any price, but with these seven techniques you'll hardly spend a dime.

It's the chicken/egg syndrome of start-up: You need to spend money to bring in customers, but you don't have money to spend until you get customers. Too often, new business owners treat marketing as an optional expense. The truth is, if you don't dedicate an adequate budget of time and money to marketing, it's unlikely you'll attract enough customers to sustain and grow your venture.

The good news is many small businesses have successfully marketed themselves on a shoestring. By applying creative solutions to marketing challenges, you can get the word out to prospective customers without going for broke. Simply keep in mind these seven secrets to successful small-budget marketing and you'll be well on your way to big-time results.

1. Have a game plan. By creating a marketing plan that includes goals, vehicles and budgets for time and money, you gain significant advantages. Planning six to 12 months ahead gives you a broader view of your marketing needs and expenditures. Use that information to take advantage of volume discounts on advertising, services and printing by committing to a schedule in advance. You may also be able to negotiate longer payment terms on products and services related to promoting your business. Most important, a plan will help you stay focused, and you'll be less likely to make purchases that aren't in your company's best interest.

2. Sell yourself. As you craft a plan, become your own toughest customer. Ask yourself why you should invest in each marketing opportunity. Does it hit your target? Is it cost-efficient? What will it do for your business? If your idea doesn't pass with flying colors, rethink it.

3. Get good "marketing mileage." Elevate your efforts so they include many opportunities for attention. Charitable organizations and service clubs can help you get a forum for raising money for worthy causes and cultivating relationships.

Sponsor a charitable event.  Besides using news releases, publicize events by posting signs in your store, send mail to your customer list and tap the charities to spread the word about your sponsorship. Because you work with nonprofit organizations, events get picked up as free public service announcements on radio stations, TV and Cable companies. The result is more marketing mileage than you would have gained by merely making a donation.

4. Partner up. By partnering with other businesses in your marketing efforts, you can expand your circle of influence and slash your budget.   If you all target the same market the arrangement can boost business as businesses refer and promote each other.  Have your businesses link your websites and use their testimonials in your marketing.  This will give you credibility with new prospects.

5. Find diamonds in your own backyard. Every time you reach out to customers, you have an opportunity to reinforce your marketing message. By using vehicles you already have, you can increase your outreach and get more business from existing customers. For example, turn monthly bills into opportunities to mail buying suggestions based on past purchases or to share good news about your company.  Use email blast to touch your current customers with welcome news about your business that would be of interest to them.  Within your place of business, you may have ample opportunity to inexpensively reach out to old and new customers.

6. Keep your ego in check.  The adage "fake it until you make it" may be true for some things, but marketing spending is not one of them. Some entrepreneurs lose sight of what's effective when they let their egos dictate promotional spending. While a lavish grand opening party may be a great way to impress friends, it's a bad idea if you must cut back on activities that bring customers through the door.  Don’t be left so overextended that you don’t have money in your budget to publicize your business.

Similarly, don't be tempted to overspend when approached by advertising salespeople if the opportunity doesn't fit with your plan. Your business is probably contacted by advertising salespeople from media that aren't good vehicles for your company. "Who doesn't want to see their name up in lights?" he says. "But you have to say no if it's not the right fit."  Consult a reputable advertising agency that has your best interest at heart and not just “making a sale.”

7. Track results—and reinvest appropriately. Put tracking mechanisms in place to ensure your efforts are paying off. Some ways you can track customers:

• Hold drawings for prizes. On the entry form, include a spot for patrons to fill in where they heard about your business. 

• Encourage employees to ask customers how they found your business. Have your employees routinely ask (and record) how customers heard about your business.

• Imprint promotions and coupons with medium-specific codes.

• Collect names and addresses and email for customers, and spot trends related to your marketing (i.e., an increase when you promote your business in a particular area).  Be sure to get their email address so that you can build a good contact list for email blast.

Keeping these guidelines in mind can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars on your marketing efforts and ensure the money you do invest is well-spent.

Theories on how to set a marketing budget range from a certain percentage of net revenues to whatever is left after all the bills are paid. While there's no formula to tell you the "right" number, these guidelines can tell you whether you're in the ballpark.

1. Check out your competitors. With a bit of sleuthing, you can discover how your competitors are reaching their customers and estimate their expenditures. If their efforts appear to be working, you might consider matching their marketing dollars.

2. Find similar non-competing businesses and find out what they're doing. Industry associations and even the Net are great ways to find people who do what you do in non-competing markets. You may be surprised that many business owners are eager to help each other—especially when they're not vying for the same customers.

3. Budget more for a start-up. It takes more effort—and often, more money—to make a name for a new business.

4. Review your plan periodically and adjust your expenditures accordingly. Just because you have a plan doesn't mean your expenses are written in stone. Be sure to review how your marketing dollars and time are being spent to see what's working and what needs to be modified.

The bottom line when it comes to your marketing budget is—well, your bottom line. Be sure the amount you dedicate is going to be manageable for your business.

"A Jingle is Born"

Making Your Brand Original

Like your competitor's ideas? There is a  fine line between inspiration and imitation.

We all know it's tempting to copy the competition. There's safety in conformity--a certain "comfort factor" in being similar. After all, the other company knows what its doing, right? Not always.

First, remember that branding is about differentiation--emphasizing your company's differences, not similarities. When you copy the competition, you're reminding customers of them, not you. However, there's a difference between exact imitation and creative inspiration. Use creativity to leverage an existing idea, but avoid replicating its every detail. So when is it okay to follow someone else's lead and when isn't it?

Of course, plagiarism is out, and it's illegal to copy anything that's patented or trademarked. Here are some other less obvious things you may be tempted to copy but shouldn't:

?  Don't imitate the design/layout of sales materials. Copying a competitor's materials is never a good idea because instead of differentiating your business, it makes you look more like your competitor. It's fine to imitate basics of their material like "lots of white space" or forced-perspective product photos (just don't use the same perspective!). But avoid choosing similar colors, graphics and layout.

?  Don't imitate the content or style of your competitor's copywriting, or you'll literally sound just like the competition. Instead, create your own unique "voice" and messaging. Good copy has a consistent, strategic tone to it (e.g., conversational, direct, humorous, etc.) that reflects the personality of the company and product. When done correctly, copywriting is an integral part of branding.

?  Don't imitate the primary color your competitor uses. Select at least one unique color to associate with your company--use it in your logo, on sales materials, product packing, signage, etc. (You can use a Pantone Matching System or "PMS" book to help you choose the exact color. Always specify the exact PMS number to your printer.)

?  Don't imitate the name of your competitor -- make yours as different as possible. Also, try to avoid using the same first letter as your biggest competitor. You may like the fact that "AAA Towing" puts you first in the phone book, but it sounds too much like "ABC Towing" to help with your branding.

If you have to, imitate a competitor's marketing strategy or sales incentives only with extreme caution. Make sure you understand the underlying assumptions first. For example, if a competitor's sales materials feature an upscale design, maybe there's a good reason behind it, maybe not. Is there a market for premium-priced goods? Or does the CEO simply prefer an expensive look? Sometimes companies--even bigger ones--have no sound strategy behind what they do. They're just catering to personal tastes or imitating somebody else themselves.

Imitation isn't all bad, though. Here are instances in which it can be quite beneficial:

?  When you translate a principle from one industry to another. For example, a local carpet company offers a one-day "Remnant Sale." Your computer company offers a similar one-day sale with out-of-date PCs.

?  When being different hurts your customers' experience. It rarely makes sense to deviate from standard industry terms or navigation rules. For example, changing the "About Us" link to "Leading the Way" on your website may be creative, but it's less clear and makes customers less comfortable. In some cases, familiarity is crucial.

?  When imitating something "obvious" brings comfort to your customers. Say you own a restaurant and your customers are health-conscious. Green is a color associated with health, but your competitors also know this and probably use green abundantly. You don't need to omit green from your design palette--instead, use it as a secondary color, or choose an unusual but attractive shade of green no one else has chosen.

?  When being different means not meeting established customer expectations. Industry standards are standard for a reason. It's risky to deviate from the norm when it means customers may be disappointed.

Your goal is to stand out without sticking out. You want your customers' experience to be comfortable and positive, but also unique. Seeking customer comfort and satisfaction in creative ways is a vital way to build brand equity.

How to Become a Master at Networking

Adopt these 10 traits, and you'll have people knocking down your door trying to do business with you.

Networking is more than just shaking hands and passing out business cards. Based on a survey of more than 2,000 people throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, it's about building your "social capital." The highest-rated traits in the survey were the ones related to developing and maintaining good relationships.  This process is more about "farming" than it is about "hunting." It's about cultivating relationships with other business professionals. It's about realizing the capital that comes from building social relationships. The following traits were ranked in order of their perceived importance to networking. They're the traits that will make you a "master of networking."

1. Follows up on referrals. This was ranked as the No. 1 trait of successful networking. If you present an opportunity, whether it's a simple piece of information, a special contact or a qualified business referral, to someone who consistently fails to follow up successfully, it's no secret that you'll eventually stop wasting your time with this person.

2. Positive attitude. A consistently negative attitude makes people dislike being around you and drives away referrals; a positive attitude makes people want to associate and cooperate with you. Positive business professionals are like magnets. Others want to be around them and will send their friends, family and associates to them.

3. Enthusiastic/motivated. Think about the people you know. Who gets the most referrals? People who show the most motivation, right? It's been said that the best sales characteristic is enthusiasm. To be respected within our networks, we at least need to sell ourselves with enthusiasm. Once we've done an effective job of selling ourselves, we'll be able to reap the reward of seeing our contacts sell us to others! That's motivation of the best kind!

4. Trustworthy. When you refer one person to another, you're putting your reputation on the line. You have to be able to trust your referral partner and be trusted in return. Neither you nor anyone else will refer a contact or valuable information to someone who can't be trusted to handle it well.

5. Good listening skills. Our success in networking depends on how well we can listen and learn. The faster you and your networking partner learn what you need to know about each other, the faster you'll establish a valuable relationship. Communicate well, and listen well.

6. Networks always. Master networking means you are never off duty. Networking is so natural to them that they can be found networking in the grocery store line, at the doctor's office and while picking the kids up from school, as well as at the chamber mixers and networking meetings.

7. Thanks people. Gratitude is sorely lacking in today's business world. Expressing gratitude to business associates and clients is just another building block in the cultivation of relationships that will lead to increased referrals. People like to refer others to business professionals that go above and beyond. Thanking others at every opportunity will help you stand out from the crowd.

8. Enjoys helping. Helping others can be done in a variety of ways, from literally showing up to help with an office move to clipping a helpful and interesting article and mailing it to an associate or client. Master networking means keeping your eyes and ears open for opportunities to advance other people's interests whenever you can.

9. Sincere. Insincerity is like a cake without frosting! You can offer the help, the thanks, the listening ear, but if you aren't sincerely interested in the other person, they'll know it! Those who have developed successful networking skills convey their sincerity at every turn. One of the best ways to develop this trait is to give the individual with whom you're developing a referral relationship your undivided attention.

10. Works their network. It's not net-sit or net-eat, it is net-work, and master networking means you don't let any opportunity to work your networks pass you by. They manage their contacts with contact management software, organize their e-mail address files and carry their referral partners' business cards as well as their own. They set up appointments to get better acquainted with new contacts so that they can learn as much about them as possible so that they can truly become part of each other's networks.

Do you see the trend with these ten points? They all tie in to long-term relationship building, not to stalking the prey for the big kill. People who take the time to build their social capital are the ones who will have new business referred to them over and over. The key is to build mutually beneficial business relationships. Only then will you succeed as a networking master.

Contact Medici Media and we’ll help you master networking and grow your business.

The Three R's of Networking

If you want to build sales through word-of-mouth, you need strong networking muscles. Here's how to shape up.

When you belong to a networking group, it can be difficult sometimes to obtain referrals from fellow networking members. But instead of giving up and looking for another group to join, there are some things you can do to encourage them to spread the word about your company.

I like to teach entrepreneurs about the three Rs of networking: relationships, reliability and referrals. First, however, let me preface my comments here with an important statistic. When businesspeople begin developing a referral-based business, they receive a vastly smaller percentage of referrals their first year. After the second year, the statistic is about twice as high as the first, and after the third year, it really jumps. This being said, let me talk about how the three Rs of networking affect these numbers and can help you develop a successful word-of-mouth-based business:

1. Relationships: Word-of-mouth is about "relationship marketing." If you approach the first year of your involvement in a networking group with the sole motivation of getting to know the other members well, you will be far ahead of the game.

One of the most important things I've learned over the years is that it is not really what you know or who you know; rather, it's how well you know them that really counts! People do business with people they know and trust.

In order for word-of-mouth marketing to work for you, you first have to build a strong foundation with the people you hope will refer you to others. That takes time, and the amount of time it takes varies from profession to profession. Obviously, some professions are much more sensitive than others to the development of referrals. So find reasons to meet with each person outside the networking meeting. Get to them, and work on having them get to know you better. Make it clear that you value your relationship with each one of them.

2. Reliability: For the first year or so in a networking group, you are putting in your time. Your referral partners are testing you, checking you out and making sure that you deserve to have their valuable clients and contacts turned over to you.

Therefore, you must be credible to the other professionals with whom you hope to network. Bear in mind that you should feel the same way, too. Before you risk your reputation with your clients by referring them to someone who takes less care of them than you would want taken, you must be very sure that the person to whom you refer them is reliable! How else are you going to know that--unless you use them personally over a period of time?

3. Referrals: After cultivating relationships and proving yourself to be reliable, you get referrals as the end result. In order for someone to receive, someone else has to give. This holds so true with referrals. I would suggest you perform a reality check to see just how effectively you are referring the people in your networking group. You might be surprised to find how little you actually refer others, or that you consistently refer the same two or three people.

If you aren't tracking your referrals (both given and received), then start tracking them. Look for patterns. I would anticipate that in the months following a month you were particularly active in referring others, you will find that you are receiving more referrals! I have seen the "what goes around, comes around" principle illustrated over and over.

This is a natural progression and one that can't really be rushed. I know it can seem frustrating at times when you are anxious to see your bottom line increase quickly from all the referrals you are anticipating receiving, but believe me, if you are patient and apply these techniques, you will see word-of-mouth marketing work for you in a big way.

You can't take an orange tree and rip it up from the ground after a year and replant it on the other side of the yard, just because it wasn't bearing fruit where it was. You have to water, fertilize and care for the tree where it is. In time, it will produce fruit. Your efforts will pay off. You must approach building a word-of-mouth-based business this way. In a solid networking group, you are growing solid roots with the other participants. The worst thing for you to do is pull them up just as they are getting set.

Three Easy Ways to Track Advertising

Are you really getting the most for your money? These methods will help you make sure.

If you're running a comprehensive marketing program, with a solid combination of advertising media plus direct mail and e-mail, chances are you've got leads and responses coming in from just about everywhere. So how can you tell which of your marketing tactics are stellar performers and which need to be replaced? Tracking your marketing responses is easier than you think, and it's the smartest way to save marketing dollars by cutting the fat and eliminating any nonperforming media and tactics.

The best way to track your advertising responses is to key each ad with a unique code, so every sale or lead can be identified according to its original source. Here are three ways to make every lead identifiable:

1. Apply key codes. Key codes are used in print advertising and direct mail or email. Suppose you were running an ad campaign in a group of magazines. In order to track the responses from individual publications and issues, you would need to include a different key code in each of the response mechanisms. Your direct-response print ad in the January issue of Builder magazine could be coded "BL-1," while another ad in the February issue of Remodeling magazine might be coded "RE-2." These codes would appear in the "reply to" section of the ads, so when responses were generated, you could immediately determine the source of each lead.

Key codes are often incorporated into the bounce-back mechanisms of direct mail or email. The next time you receive a direct-mail package or email, take a closer look. Chances are, you'll see that the response envelope is imprinted with a code (consisting of letters and/or numbers), and you'll also find that code on the order form or the response card.

2. Provide a unique number or URL. It's a good idea to acquire several toll-free numbers for use in different aspects of your marketing program. For example, you might track the results of a direct-response TV campaign by using a unique, memorable toll-free number--and use a different number to track the leads from a concurrent print or radio campaign. For larger campaigns, inbound call centers can provide reports showing the number of calls to each toll-free number, including the percentage and number of calls from every state and by time of day.

Another way to track responses from offline campaigns is to provide unique URLs. By taking advantage of "domain parking and pointing," you can have multiple versions of your domain name or different URLs that all point to a designated landing page on your Web site. For instance, respondents to an outdoor ad campaign might type in a simple URL that's easy to remember, such as "MyBoat.com," and then be instantly forwarded to your primary site. Your Web logs would reveal the number of responses that came to each URL.

3. Track online responses. Whether you're monitoring the results of online ads or an e-mail campaign, it's important to have unique tracking codes for each. One way to measure responses to an individual ad or e-mail is to track hits to your Web pages by including a "?" after the URL, plus your code. For example, instead of using "mydomain.com," your coded link might be "mydomain.com?A." This will in no way alter the landing page, and it will show up in your log files. Another alternative would be to create multiple copies of your landing page--each with a different file name--then link from your e-mail solicitations or online ads to specific landing pages.

Of course, the bottom line isn't merely to measure how many leads you generate, but how many convert to sales. By tracking all responses according to their sources, you can test individual ad campaigns to see which marketing approaches and offers produce the most profitable results for your company.

Get Customers to Open Your E-Mail

Looking for a low-cost, high-return marketing tactic? Follow these four expert tips for a successful e-mail campaign.

Ask the majority of small-business owners, and they'll tell you the one tool they can't live without is e-mail. In fact, with its extremely low cost of implementation and quick turnaround time on campaigns, e-mail marketing is becoming the customer-retention tool of choice for entrepreneurs nationwide.

Just as with any other new marketing tactic, e-mail marketing may take a bit of time to master. If you've tried e-mail and had less-than-stellar results, there are a number of important steps you can take to improve your ROI. And if you're just learning about e-mail marketing, it's critical to understand the elements that can make or break your campaign. For superior results, be sure to follow these four important tips.

1. Build a Qualified List
Right now; e-mail marketing performs best when used for customer retention, not acquisition. With the proliferation of spam, most consumers are filtering out all but the most recognizable e-mail. In a consumer e-mail study by Double-Click, the vast majority (93 percent) said they considered an e-mail to be spam when it came from an unknown sender, but the majority said they open at least 60 percent of permission-based e-mails.

To build your own permission-based list, prominently display a registration box on the main page of your website and provide an incentive to register. This incentive can be anything from notification of sales and specials or access to special content, to a free newsletter. If you have an e-commerce site, capture registrations during the checkout process and provide registered customers an incentive, such as speedy checkout on future purchases. Brick-and-mortar retailers can acquire e-mail addresses at the register.

Once you've assembled a sizable opt-in list of customers and prospects, you'll need an affordable (less than $50 per month) e-mail service to send out your campaigns. Choose one that also provides professional-quality templates for inputting your copy.

2. Improve Your Open Rate.
Your customers and prospects can't act on your e-mail solicitations if they never open them. While open rates have been on the decline over the past year, conversions are actually rising, which is a strong tribute to e-mail as a successful marketing tactic.

Recipients quickly scan the "from" and "subject" lines and make almost instantaneous decisions about whether or not to open your e-mail. So always display a name your customers will recognize (either your own or the name of your company) in the "from" line. That will make it clear the e-mail is coming from you, a valued source of information.

By keeping your subject line short--no more than five words--it can be read in its entirety at a glance. The most effective subject lines include a customer benefit or at the very least a clear indication of what the e-mail contains.

While e-mail that comes too frequently--even from a recognized source--is often considered spam, sending e-mail too infrequently can cost you sales. In an e-mail marketing survey published last April by InternetRetailer.com, greater e-mail frequency was linked to higher response rates and more conversions. This study suggests that the most effective e-mail frequency may be two-to-three times per month, with half of the survey respondents in that group experiencing e-mail response rates of 5 percent or higher.

3. Make Your Content Relevant
Most internet users are on many permission-based lists, but they look forward to--and avidly open and read--e-mail with content that's specifically relevant to their needs. What would your customers and prospects most like to receive from you? Building a successful e-mail campaign requires that you send messages that fit your list members' attribute and preferences.

Customers typically expect e-mail to confirm transactions and shipping, although many other types of communications are welcome. Nearly three-quarters of the Double-Click survey respondents said they had redeemed online coupons, approximately half expressed interest in receiving information about membership rewards programs, and more than half of the respondents said they would be interested in offers for products related to those they purchased online.

4. Increase Click-through and Conversions
Click-through rates vary based on whether customers are being asked to click through to make a purchase or simply to get more information, such as by reading a longer article in a newsletter. You can increase click-through by offering multiple links sprinkled throughout your e-mail, so customers don't have to read all your copy in order to move to the next step. For e-mail solicitations, a strong call-to-action is essential and is largely responsible for a pass or fail click-through rate. Be sure to provide an incentive that adds value and gives your recipients a reason to respond now.

And here's a final tip regarding e-mail solicitations: For maximum conversions, direct your click-through to specialized landing pages on your site--not your main page. Send customers to pages where they can take immediate action on your offer, rather than having to hunt through all the pages of your site. This small adjustment will increase sales and the return on investment from your e-mail campaign.

Contact Medici Media for complete turn-key email solutions to work for you.

Facebook: Changing Advertising Forever

Facebook. You have heard about it by now, whether from your teenager or a friend, or lately you've read about it in the business section. If you think that Facebook is just a Web site for high school and college kids to share funny pictures and stories, you are dead wrong.

Facebook has already become one of the most popular social networking sites in the world, with some 50 million users today—and that number has been doubling every six months.

A large and growing percentage of Facebook users are over the age of 23. There are nearly 6 million Facebook users over the age of 23 in the United States, and more than 4 million users each in Canada and the United Kingdom. In fact, US users under the age of 24 make up only 30 percent of all Facebook users.

Whether or not you completely understand social media or social networking sites, the one aspect you must understand is that they are going to change the way businesses advertise.

Facebook is constantly evolving and improving its users' experience with new features and applications.

Advertising: from Mass Media to Personal Connections

Facebook is trying to change the way businesses market and advertise their products and services to potential consumers.

Google AdWords revolutionized the way businesses market on the Internet by selling advertisements in a live auction style and by publishing the ads to individuals who are searching for relevant information, solutions and products. Facebook intends to improve on this and deliver even more targeted ads to users of their social network.

At the November 5 launch of Facebook's new advertising platform, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, presented his vision for the future of advertising:

"Once every hundred years media changes. The last hundred years have been defined by the mass media. The way to advertise was to get into the mass media and push out your content. That was the last hundred years. In the next hundred years information won't be just pushed out to people, it will be shared among the millions of connections people have. Advertising will change. You will need to get into these connections."

Major Corporations Are Facebook Believers

Many major corporations have already committed to using Facebook as a legitimate advertising platform, including Blockbuster, CBS, Chase, The Coca-Cola Co., Saturn, Sony Pictures, The New York Times Co., and Verizon. Why are these companies so excited to jump on board with Facebook?

Because Facebook is offering the most targeted—and therefore one of the most powerful—advertising platforms that has ever been created. Imagine being able to show your company's ads to only the consumers within your target market.

Due to the amount of information Facebook garners from users, ads can be shown to a specific type of user based on sex, age, education, relationship status, keywords that appear in their profile, or even political views. It's the promise of true one-to-one marketing.

Facebook Beacon: Advertising at the Powerful Referral Level

Another new Facebook tool, called Beacon, alerts others as to what their friends have been buying online. When two Facebook users "friend" each other, each user can see the other's profile with their pictures, videos, or anything else that is included. Users are alerted to all of their friends' actions on Facebook through what are called news feeds.

These news feeds are based on the actions that the user and their friends make on Facebook. The feeds used to include basic actions such as posting a new picture, writing a message on someone else's profile, posting a new entry on your page's blog, or setting up an event invitation.

The news feeds are seen by all of a user's friends when each of them logs into Facebook. Many Facebook users have hundreds of designated friends, meaning these stories can be seen by a large number of people in some cases.

Facebook Beacon takes these news alerts to a whole new level, because now users can be aware of their friends' actions not just on Facebook but across the entire Web.

By placing a few lines of code on a Web site, a business can publish Facebook users' interactions with their site onto Facebook news feeds. Beacon enables businesses to publish such actions (e.g., a Facebook user purchases a product, signs up for a service, adds an item to a wish list). Once users perform an action, they are alerted that the Web site is sending a "story" to their Facebook profile and that they have a chance to not allow the story to be sent. If they do not opt out, then no additional user action is needed to publish the story on their profile.

For example, if someone buys a movie from Blockbuster online, then it is placed in their news feed and in their friends' news feeds; along with the story is a picture of the friend who purchased the movie and an ad for Blockbuster. This is advertising at the powerful referral level.

As Zuckerberg said later in his speech, "People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising."

Facebook Pages: Interact with Your Customers in an Environment They Trust

Facebook even has developed a means for companies to create a presence on their site for free. Facebook Pages can help businesses build their brand online.

Businesses simply go on to Facebook and create a profile. Facebook Pages allows businesses to interact with their customers in a familiar, trusted environment. When the page is created, one of the goals of a business on Facebook is to gain "fans" of their service or products. This is very similar to two individual users' becoming "friends" on Facebook, except that a business cannot view a user's profile. Businesses can increase their chances of gaining fans by making sure that their Facebook page is constantly updated with fresh content and new applications to engage and entertain the users of Facebook.

Once a user becomes a fan of a business's Facebook Page, the fan can be kept in constant contact with the business through Facebook. If a business launches a new product or service, it can send a message through its Facebook Page to all its fans on the site. Companies can present special offers or promotions as frequently as they wish.

Whenever fans interact with the page, their actions are automatically generated into social stories that are published to the news feeds. Next to the story in the news feed is a link to the business's Facebook Page. Again, your business has been promoted virally with a personal referral from a friend.

Facebook has moved from a way for college kids to share pictures and stories into what will probably become one of the most powerful advertising platforms available. And you can be among the first companies in your industry to leverage this powerful new advertising platform.



Getting Ink

Need exposure? Follow these six tips to win press coverage for your growing business

So you want to land your business message on the pages of The Wall Street Journal or Vogue. Sound impossible? Not really. You can hire an experienced publicist or PR firm with established media contacts, or you can go it alone and still achieve media-relations success--just so long as you follow some basic rules. Here are six practical tips for getting media coverage:

1. Set clear goals. Who do you want to reach, and what do you want them to remember about you? Ideally, your media-relations program should help your company achieve better penetration of its core message. Rather than a one-shot attempt at coverage, make communicating a central message or idea to your target audience a long-term goal. Focus on reaching your best prospects and customers, and use your media-relations program to repeatedly drive your message home.

2. Create a plan. A written plan is essential to keeping your program on track. It doesn't have to be elaborate. Briefly outline your goals, media-relations themes, and the tactics you plan to use, a schedule of activities and a rough budget. Take, for example, the owner of a home-improvement company who has a $400 budget. If his goal is to be known as a resource for upscale contemporary remodels, he might plan to send press kits with photographs of completed projects four times per year to editors at select magazines and producers of cable TV remodeling shows, and then follow up by phone.

3. Lay the right foundation. Effective media-relations programs don't exist in a vacuum. They need support. Add a section to your website that's devoted exclusively to the needs of the press, with information about your company, its executives and products, as well as a contact page. Also, prepare your staff by keeping them up-to-date on your media-relations plans and messages, and designate individuals who may speak directly with the press.

4. Shape your story. One of the most critical components of a successful media-relations program is providing content that fits the needs of specific media outlets. Journalists and newsrooms are bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands, of press releases and phone calls each day. And they're looking for news and information of interest to their unique readers, viewers or listeners. For best results, become familiar with the media you plan to target. Figure out what they want most, and tailor your story accordingly.

5. Make it easy to cover you. From print journalists to radio and TV news directors, everyone in the media is pressed for time. And much of what they use comes from press releases announcing new studies or statistics, video news releases, radio tours, or even photos supplied by businesses or their PR firms. Winning coverage often depends on going beyond a basic release. For example, you can provide a page of tips that journalists can quote from or use as a springboard for interviews with you. You can supply product photographs to magazines, win high-tech reviews by e-mailing links to an online demo, or position yourself as an expert in your field by scheduling a radio tour on a newsworthy topic.

6. Build relationships. Sometimes "blasting" a press release to thousands of media outlets is called for. But for most entrepreneurs, media-relations success depends on one-on-one interaction--selecting key media, becoming familiar with their needs, providing materials and then following up by phone or e-mail. You can assemble your own list of local media that cover your type of story or, for larger lists; you can find help in media directories such as Bacon's Media-Source and Gebbie Press, where you'll find a free, searchable database of media links.

Contact Medici Media to help you set you goals and plan.  Build the right foundation that shapes your story, gets media coverage and builds lasting media relationships.

BECOMING A MARKETING GURU

If you are new to business or to marketing, the whole endeavor can seem very intimidating. Who are these “marketing gurus” who come in and wave their wands of business success? Back in the ’50s and ’60s, they used to be called “marketeers.” And new terms creep in every day to deepen the mystery: database marketer, Web marketer, affinity marketer, nonprofit marketer, public information marketer. Does the term “marketer” have any meaning left? How does any of it apply to the small-business person who just wants to give his or her company a boost in sales, a change in product direction or a shift in market focus?

You will be glad to know that, despite all the trendiness of names and definitions, marketing at its core is simple and easy to understand. Large corporations have marketing departments full of “marketing gurus” who sit around every day thinking about how to advertise, promote and move their products. But the typical business person probably has a marketing department of one: himself or herself. You may be the owner, manager, clerk and chief floor sweeper as well. Whether you’re ready or not, you now have a new title to add to your stationary: Marketing Guru.

Medici Media will help you earn that title—and even enjoy it. You are the expert in your business, at least the technicalities of it, and we can help you approach your business with a marketing frame of mind. This is essential for your ultimate success (unless you are one of the extremely lucky ones). In fact, most small-business people know their companies pretty well, but they run into trouble in one of three ways: either with money (undercapitalization has many notches on its six-shooter), with people, or with marketing.

Basically, in order to think like a marketer, you need to talk to your customers. If you don’t have regular contact with them, you’re working by hunch. And a hunch is a dangerous basis for a business and for risking the financial future of yourself and your family. Pick half a dozen of your main customers and take them to lunch over the next couple of months. Tell them you’re doing a market check. You want to know what’s going on in their businesses. You want to know their problems. You want to know how you can help them do whatever it is that they do. You’re not just looking for larger orders but to gain an understanding of the challenges they face in their businesses or their lives. If you’re sincere, this is how you build relationships, and it’s how you learn how to deliver what customers want. Replace hunches with lunches.

Now let’s begin building up your marketing knowledge to support your business.  Contact Medici Media Today!

Think like a Marketing Guru

If you can develop true marketing vision, you’ll transform your business. You’ll establish a tight bond with your customers that will be impossible for your competitors to break.

Look around us in turn-of-the-millennium America. The marketing concept is the dynamo of our consumer culture: It’s the realization that pleasing the customer is central to business success. The success of marketing is a large part of why we and the rest of the developed world enjoy the abundance that we do.

We tend not to realize the enormous impact marketing has made on us, and it’s easy to forget that marketing, the careful union of the consumer’s needs and the products and services that satisfy those needs, has not always existed as it does today. We are very fortunate. We enjoy high-quality and affordable foods and exotic taste treats from around the world. For a modest expenditure, we can buy electronics unimaginable a generation ago. Through books, magazines, television and the Internet, we browse in an evening more information than Horatio ever dreamt of in his philosophy. Marketing is one of the key catalysts of this abundance.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MARKETING

It’s helpful to take a quick look back to see how this has all come about. In the earliest times, people only made what they would use. The countryside was largely self-sufficient, with families and small communities generally making everything they needed. The customer had not yet been invented. As time passed, people began to barter and trade among themselves. It was a simple exchange: You give me some of what you make or grow, and I will give you some of what I have. Eventually, community marketplaces sprouted up where this bartering could take place, and as bartering became complicated and unwieldy, money was used as a substitute for the direct exchange of goods. Middlepersons emerged (as they always do): They would buy from lots of different growers and makers and then distribute a range of those products to everyone. People now became customers as well as producers, and as societies grew and the process continued, people began to specialize: They would produce one thing to sell, or they would sell their services to a company, and with the money they made they would purchase everything they might need or want.

Fast-forward to the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century. Technological advances made production easier; trade increased among a growing number of nations. Machinery spit out goods quickly—much more quickly than people could do manually. Despite the well-chronicled problems of this time, people welcomed the wide range of new and improved products and inventions that came on the market. You couldn’t make enough. In this rapidly changing era, the truism that “a good product sells itself” was born. It was industrialists’ heaven!

Direct marketing was born at this time, as manufacturers mailed lists of their products to customers at home and had them order through the mail. Toward the end of this period, mail order catalogs invaded the living rooms (and other rooms) of rural American homes.

Over the next century or so, as more and more factories kept cranking out goods, the market became flooded with many different types of similar items. Businesses found they had to “push” goods harder to get them bought. This process ushered in the era of the salesperson, along with advertising and advertising baubles (most advertising memorabilia come from this era). It wasn’t enough anymore just to make something; you had to differentiate it from all the other products around. Roles became more defined: It was manufacturing’s job to make stuff, and it was the sales force’s job to sell it. No one bothered much about the customer at this point. Demand was still great enough that real customer satisfaction wasn’t a vital issue.

Selling proved to be very successful, but at first it was one-sided: It was all about the product. Eventually over exuberant manufacturers made too many products that didn’t really meet the needs of the consumer. Customers became wiser, more discerning, more demanding. A new approach was needed.

Marketing, as we know it today, came of age in the late 1950s. Customers may tire of a product, but they never tire of themselves. Salespeople realized they needed to build their offerings around customers’ needs and desires. The marketing era was born when manufacturers began to consult the customer first, tailoring what they made and how they delivered it to meet customer demand and expectation. Retailers converted to a marketing orientation first, and the industrial and service sectors followed.

Today we have a new revolution: computers. They have affected the selling environment in two major ways:

1. We can gather and manipulate enormous amounts of data for direct-marketing efforts, market research, and product testing and so on. Historically, selling has gone from personal, through mass marketing, and now increasingly back to personal again. Computers let marketers focus their efforts with stunning precision.
2. The Internet has emerged and grown more quickly than anyone could have imagined. No one knows how this will change the marketplace, but almost everyone’s convinced the decades to come will be computer-exciting.

MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS TODAY

You’re in a small business. You’re the top person or one of the key players. Or maybe you’re the entire company. With the marketing revolution, with computers and with simple and powerful communications, this is your time. Just as the mammals took over the world from the dinosaurs, so small businesses have the nimbleness, the resources and the energy to make great advances, no matter how intimidating the large companies may appear.

It’s important for you to think of your business from a marketing standpoint: You’re not a company making a product and looking for customers to buy it. You are a company with an understanding of a particular class of customers—their needs and problems—and you are developing products and services that fill those needs and solve those problems. This is the key marketing insight.

The ramifications of this idea are many, but in itself it is very simple: Your focus is the customer, not the product. You are a people-pleasing company (as all companies are today) and your main goal is, well, pleasing people. Get beyond the product you are manufacturing or the service you are providing, no matter how excellent or essential it may seem, and instead figure out what the needs of your customers are and how to best fulfill them. Successful companies forget about their products as products; their products are only the means by which they satisfy customers.

As a small business, you are in the best position to do this. Marketing a small business is fun and exciting because it requires creativity, resourcefulness and flexibility. Being small, you can adjust more quickly and be more responsive. The communication between you and the customer can be very direct and immediate. Put together the right mix of product and market, and your profits will increase and your company will grow. The challenge of marketing a small business is more than compensated for by the satisfaction you’ll feel as you succeed.

In fact, you’ve been marketing all your life. It’s part of being human; every day, every one of us is creating messages that address the specific needs of particular audiences. Remember when you brought home a bleak report card from school? Recall when you met your partner’s parents for the first time? Or your early job interviews? What product were you marketing then? That’s right, your favorite product: you. You were tailoring your product, yourself, to meet the expectations of the customer—your parents, your in-laws or your future boss. That’s the short-form answer to “What’s marketing?”

Is it really that simple? Well, yes and no. It really is that simple. But here’s how the American Marketing Association defines marketing more formally:
“Marketing is the process of planning the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives.”

The key thing to notice here is how inclusive marketing is. It’s not just sales. It’s not just promotion. And if you remember anything from this article, it’s not just advertising. Let’s define marketing as the planned exchange between buyer and seller, in which both the customer and the product-maker/retailer are satisfied. Think of it as a pure exchange of stuff, almost like barter. The manufacturer or retailer or service provider has the product or service, while the customer (whether another business or the final consumer) has the money.

You should also take to heart a few other truisms about marketing and small businesses:

? The customer is both judge and jury, and you’re the one he or she is making decisions about.

? It is just you, the customer and the “exchange.”

? Even a little marketing is a good thing.

? You’re never finished marketing.

Learning and applying the fundamental tools of marketing will change the way you do business. If you can take the concept of marketing into your business personality—if you become a real marketer—good things will happen with your company and the products and services you offer. You may even have some fun along the way.

Of one thing you can be sure: The marketing approach is the central engine that runs and maintains so much prosperity in the United States, and it can lead you to prosperity in your business, no matter what you do for a living. If you develop marketing vision, if you’re able to look at the selling terrain with the eye of your customer, you’ll avoid 90 percent of the mistakes made by small businesses.

THE LOGIC OF MARKETING: LOTS OF SIMPLE THOUGHTS

Let’s start with a basic proposition: On the scale of human knowledge, marketing lays precisely midway between science and art.

On the one hand, top marketers can target and define an unexplored or under explored market segment, develop a product to fit an unfulfilled need, and move the goods. We have lots of data on consumer behavior in the market, and we can often use that information to deliver predictable results. This is the science part.

On the other hand, marketing can be unpredictable and unscientific, subject to the whimsy of human desire. Some of the smartest marketers in the world have shaken the marketplace with their flops: New Coke, Edsel, IBM Home PCs, Sony’s Beta max and many others. All the resources in the world can’t keep marketers from making inept decisions, nor will marketers ever turn into mind readers. Marketing deals with human psychology on a very fundamental level. And despite all the years of serious study, the human mind and how it works remain a mystery. This is the art part.

Let’s start our lengthy journey together by defining some terms.

The Components Of Marketing

Marketing includes market research, advertising, sales, public relations, direct marketing, product promotion, pricing and distribution—as well as lots of other things. Some say it includes the seeds of the decline and fall of Western civilization. But you’re busy, so we won’t take time to discuss that here.

Here are marketing’s key elements:

?   Market research helps you form and refine your understanding of your audience. How does the market feel about you and your competitors? What are the market trends? Market research doesn’t have to be complex and expensive. But it should be systematic.

?   Advertising helps most businesses get their message to their customers. Once you have your message, you embody it in advertisement; align your media with your target audience, and cross your fingers.

?   Sales is the intimate “closing” part of marketing. It’s where the exchange actually takes place. You make the sale. You satisfy the customer. You scratch the itch. And you take the steps to make sure that customer stays happy. Think of sales as the endgame of the marketing process. You’ve selected the market, you’ve established the price, you’ve settled on a mode of business, you’ve developed the product or service, you’ve picked an advertising message, and you’ve decided how to send that message out to your audience. It worked. Your audience has responded. There they are in front of you, fingering their wallets. Now it’s sales time.

?   Public relations help make the story of your success a news story. And this works to make you even more successful. People like to see a positive tale, and the more you can spread the upbeat story of your business, the greater the results. Purchasers like to buy from successful companies—they feel validated in their buying decision.

?   Direct marketing or database marketing are other elements of the marketing puzzle. Some businesses, especially those that sell to other businesses, lend themselves very well to building (or buying) a database of prospects and “working” it with scheduled contacts.

?   Product promotion gives you options for pushing your product into the marketplace, generally over a short period of time. Coupons, special offers, event tie-ins and celebrity endorsements are all types of promotions. You can even send a van around with a team of people to give out $10 million checks. Product promotion can boost a new product, announce a new location, fight off a competitor or take advantage of a special purchasing opportunity.

?   Pricing pulls together all the costs that go into delivering your product and then determining how much your customers will be willing to pay. Many small-business people don’t see this as a part of marketing. But doesn’t price impact the “buy ability” of your product? It sure does. It’s part of the marketing mix. Incidentally, high price doesn’t equal bad, nor does low price equal good. A coffeehouse owner in Greenwich Village in the ’70s offered a range of elaborate coffee drinks at high prices. His top coffee was $6.25 a cup; the second most expensive was $4. A friend once asked him why he offered such an expensive coffee, since no one was going to spend $6.25 on a single drink. “You’re right,” he replied with a smirk, “but it sure helps me sell a lot more of my $4 cup.”

?   Distribution covers how you get your product into the customer’s hands. Do you deliver? Does the customer come to you? Is there a middleperson? It’s not uncommon for businesses to use many different distribution systems. Lands’ End clothing, for example, built its business on catalog sales. But they did a market research study that revealed that a significant portion of their target market remained skeptical of ordering clothing over the phone. So they opened several varieties of retail outlets: overstock stores and some special “come in, try the clothes on, and then order over the phone” stores.

Marketing includes a mix of complicated variables, not to mention the obscurities of the consumer mind.  To harness these elements to work together demands a sure hand and quick feet.  But not to worry—you will need no more skill and courage than, say, the average lion tamer.

If you find yourself continually putting off your marketing duties, look at them as necessary homework. If you have kids, you know what it’s like trying to convince them that they should get started on their sociology paper before the day it’s due. You present them with your logical arguments—if they wait, they’ll only make life harder on themselves and increase the risk of getting a bad grade—but still they resist. We all do. When faced with dull or unattractive chores, we procrastinate. But fail on enough papers, and we begin to become believers in homework. Once you get started and keep at it, you’ll develop your marketing skills more rapidly, and they’ll become more intuitive. You’ll soon find yourself naturally adopting a marketing perspective.

Most people start their business because it’s something they love. They don’t necessarily like the selling part of the business, and they often don’t know much about marketing. On the other hand, most marketers don’t have much detailed knowledge of their products…especially technical ones like infrared spectrometers, electrical distribution or protein analysis.

If you choose to have professionals (like Medici Media) do you’re marketing, great. If not, then you’ll just have to wade into battle and master marketing yourself.

You’re Business And The Four P’s

The “Four P’s” provide a lens through which you can look deeply into your business and see how to improve it. They’re a cornerstone of marketing-oriented thinking. They apply to every business in the solar system. And they’re relevant to yours, whether you’ve thought of them before or not. They are:

1. Product
2. Place
3. Price
4. Promotion

Wash your hands and tie on an apron for a moment. Let’s put you in the pizza business and demonstrate how you can use these ingredients to create what’s called a “marketing mix.”

Each of the Four P’s is a variable that you manipulate until you get the right balance for a profitable business. It’s much like taking pictures with a 35mm camera—you adjust the shutter speed, exposure and focus every time you take a picture, and every time the light or your location changes, you have to adjust them again. The Four P’s are not static either, and you will have to continually adjust them to keep your business at its most profitable.

If you’re in the pizza business, just think of the things that can compel you to change the way you operate:

? Growth on the edge of your prime market

? New competitors

? The passing of old competitors

? External factors: the cost of gas, tight labor pool, property tax increase

? Cost of ingredients

? New product introductions

Now let’s consider your options based on the Four P’s:

1. Vary the Product: Offer thick-crust pizza, asparagus and tuna fish pizza, sauerkraut and boysenberry pizza or maybe some hero sandwiches? And how about salads and soups?
2. Vary the Place: Offer sit-down meals, a drive-thru window, free lunch delivery to offices, a fax line, catering for office parties, a pizza wagon outside factories and so on.
3. Vary the Price: Cut the price, raise the price.
4. Vary the Promotion: Buy a pizza and get concert tickets, two for the price of one, special child discount, newspaper coupons and so on.

The Four P’s are absolutely key to your marketing plan. At this stage, just be aware of them. They control the details of your business, and every time your business picture starts to look fuzzy or underexposed, you adjust them till it looks right again.

Every marketing writer talks about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous dictum that if you create a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. Emerson’s remark makes several assumptions that we should reflect on: The world has to know about your mousetrap (promotion), it has to know where you live (place), it has to have enough money to buy your mousetrap (price), and it has to have a mouse problem (to which your product is the solution). If all this doesn’t come together, you won’t make your fortune and go down in marketing history for solving the vexing Mousetrap Enigma.

When Henry Ford was conquering the automotive world with his Model T, would-be drivers asked whether they could order vehicles in special colors. “You can order a Model T in any color,” sniffed Henry, “as long as it’s black.” It’s so easy to assume your product can dictate to the market. In the ’20s, General Motors decided customers could have lots of different colors along with cars that were more mechanically sound, and it nearly killed the Ford Motor Company. Later, all of Detroit learned a similar lesson when the Japanese started delivering high-quality cars at reasonable prices. Only recently have American cars caught up in quality with those of their international competitors.

The market delights in teaching expensive lessons to arrogant manufacturers and service providers. Eventually someone will figure out a way to meet an unmet need. And then those black cars get harder and harder to sell. Only the companies that learn to evolve and change survive.

You’re Business And The Four Utilities

There’s another way to look at your relationship with your customers. It’s kind of a parallel universe: the customer side of the Four P’s. The Four Utilities remind us that what customer’s value and what they buy are not products or services themselves but the utility they expect to derive from their purchase. Consider what you are selling in terms of the Four Utilities to decide whether what you are offering will actually appeal to your customers.

The Four Utilities are form/function, place, time and ease of possession.

1. Form/function corresponds to the product of the Four P’s, but it’s from the customer’s perspective. Is the product easy to use? Is it attractive? Is it durable? Does it solve my problem? In terms of services, how do I receive them? Is getting the service a pleasant experience in an attractive atmosphere? Is receiving the service convenient and memorable?
2. Place means where or how the product is received. Do customers come to you? Do you go to them? Do you mail it to them? Do they download it? Do they pick it up at a retail store? Making your offering available in a convenient place has value to customers.
3. Time means customer convenience in terms of hours of operation, quick shipping, and large inventory (so no back ordering) and so on. This has grown increasingly important: Today’s customers, retail and commercial, are short on patience. If a product is available when customers want it, this has value to them. If it’s not, they’ll likely go elsewhere.
4. Ease of possession is connected with price, which includes the initial cost and two other issues as well: 1) financing terms, interest rates, lines of credit and/or acceptance of credit cards, and 2) warranties—will the customer’s VCR break down six months from now or can he or she expect it to operate trouble-free for several years? If it does break down, do you stand behind it? The assurance this utility provides also has value to customers.

The point of outlining the Four Utilities is to focus on what it is that customers value about what you offer. If you’re offering is easy to use, attractive and durable, if it’s available at a convenient location, if it is available when customers want it, and if it is reasonably priced and you stand behind it, customers are more likely to want to do business with you. And they’ll be willing to pay you a reasonable price for offering these different utilities.

The Four P’s and the Four Utilities present slightly different but complementary ways of looking at the exchange between you and your customers. They represent the perspectives of the company and the customer on what the company offers. There is a famous line attributed to Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon cosmetics. He is reputed to have said, “In the factory we make cosmetics; in the store we sell hope.” His customers weren’t buying cosmetics, but a more attractive self. That idea is true in a million different contexts. The Four P’s are the means by which you can announce and deliver the Four Utilities.

The Customer Is Always Right, Right?

Now that you’re thinking like a marketer and paying attention to the customer’s wants and needs, does that mean that, as they say, the customer is always right? In fact, they usually are. You’re in business to deliver products and services that customers believe they need and want. If they don’t believe you’re doing that, they’re not going to do business with you, no matter how great you think your offerings are. If you go out of your way to satisfy a customer, you’re more likely to retain that customer and to sell him or her more stuff tomorrow. In other words, you’re building a base of satisfied customers on which to grow your business.

Another way to look at it is this: It costs a lot less to retain customers than it does to attract new ones. And if you lose customers who are dissatisfied, they’re likely to tell all their friends, so who’s to say how many additional customers you may have lost as well? When firms talk about “satisfaction guaranteed,” they’re marketing their willingness to go all out to please the customer. Of course, they have to live up to this promise, or else they’re going to suffer the consequences.

The Illogic Of Marketing: Making Sense Of Madness

In battle, they call it the fog of war. Trying to read the market is rarely a simple thing. You never have enough information. The market’s always packed with contradictions. You constantly have more options than you can deal with. Your competitors aren’t playing fair. Your employees could be more helpful. And your customers are just so unpredictable!

After all the talk about the Four P’s and the Four Utilities, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that marketing is always logical. It certainly isn’t. It can be satisfying to chart out all the aspects of your business rigorously, but there will always be an element of art in the mix that can make a folly of all your plans. Many seemingly good products and services have failed. And many troublingly stupid products have made their inventors or retailers millions. Odds are, you and I are certainly smarter than at least a few of those millionaires—so what gives?

If your best thinking doesn’t appear to pay off, don’t despair. Learn from the experience or find a good advertising firm whose experience you trust.  If, for whatever reason, you didn’t connect with your customers in that instance, think about what they’re telling you. Go back to the drawing board, and use the experience to refine your marketing expertise.  Of course having an experienced marketing team on your side is a great advantage.

Contact Medici Media to help you become a Marketing Guru or at least seem like one.  Advertising and Marketing are both art and science.  Let us help you make sense of the madness.

Medici Media, Inc. 803.278.0826 Office 480.287.8306 Fax MediciMedia@aol.com