People remember a good story.  Every business has one. If you think you don’t, take some time to remember why you started your business. What is your vision? What does your business stand for? What are your core values?  What do you want to be known for?  What are your customer successes?

By creating your story and consistently telling it again and again, your business develops a persona that customers identify. Story telling isn’t new.  In this day of sound bites, tag lines, and elevator pitches, telling a story may seem a bit long winded.  But, an effective narrative can tell a memorable story that has impact and matters more to your customers than advertising jargon.  Be truthful and authentic in your story and customers will develop trust in you and belief that you will deliver on your promise.

For the B2B Company:  A Great Story Can Rise Above the Noise

For B2B companies, customer successes are a great way to tell a story. How did your company help solve a problem for your customer or your industry? What did you do that sets you apart from the rest?  An employee success story can confirm your core values with customers and serve as a guide to employees in their decision making and interactions with customers to ensure consistent customer experiences.

Best Media to Tell Your Story

The best media to use when telling your story is always the one that most effectively reaches your customers and best fits your story.  Video is an important part of Cisco’s product offering so, it isn’t surprising that Cisco uses video for its story-telling and launched the Cisco YouTube channel in September 2011. Video is a powerful way for companies of any size, not only the largest, to reach and engage with customers as an alternative to standard text.

Businesses don’t make buying decisions.  People inside businesses make decisions.  Make the connection with them through your story.

Resources:

Name that Brand Story… by Rob Marsh, www.brandstoryonline.com
The Power of a Good Brand Story, Mark Thomson, the BrandChannel
The Importance of Story-Telling in Lead Nurturing,  Jeff Ogdon, Fearless Competitor
Are You Telling Your Brand Story, Steve Woodruff , Small Business Branding
Strategy:  Story’s More Powerful than the Brand, Tom Peters, You Tube

Famous Smiley Face

When my sister was ten, my aunt gave her a box of a 1000 assorted smiley face buttons and she decided to earn extra money selling them to the neighborhood kids.  The kids wanted different buttons based on sizes and colors and how much money they had to spend, so she put together several different packages of button combinations to sell. The boys didn’t want pink.  Some kids only wanted extra-large buttons and some kids wanted a variety. You get the idea.  She sold them wherever kids hung out, the park, school, scouts.  Soon the word spread and all her stock of smiley face buttons was sold.

This is a cute story but, was does this have to do with the ‘real’ world of business?  As marketers, it’s our job to define our target market and learn everything we can about them including their needs and desires then develop our marketing initiatives based on this information.  Where can they be found? What influences their decision making?  What makes them happy?  What keeps them up at night?  A well-defined and understood target market is the foundation for everything we do as marketers.

How Defining Your Target Market Can Help Your Business Succeed

1.  Determine the viability of your business.  Is the customer base large enough to support your product or service?  Is there enough demand?

2.  Make the most effective use of your marketing dollars and focus your resources.  You cannot be everything to everyone.  By focusing your efforts on your target you increase your chances for success by selling to those most likely to buy your product or service.

3. Develop appropriate messages and a communications plan that will be compelling and appeal to potential customers. It will help you set the right tone and determine the best media to reach them.

Defining Your Target

Everything you do in your business is based on your target market.  It’s the first element in your business, brand and marketing strategies. Learn as much as you can about your target market,  the demographics such as age, income, culture and the psychographics; lifestyle, needs/desires, hopes/dreams, and product purchase and usage behaviors.  Where can you find this information?  If you have current customers, this information may be in your sales database or you can ask or survey your customers.  You may be able to find existing research on the internet or through related trade organizations or associations.

It’s an on-going effort

Needs and wants change over time.  Marketers should continually monitor their target customers and adjust business and marketing plans based on market changes.

Resources:
How to Define Your Target Market, Mandy Porta, Inc.
Defining the Target Customer, Branding Strategy, the Branding Blog
Define a Target Market for Your Small Business, Peri Pakroo, NOLO
The Importance of Defining Your Target Market, Dequiana Brooks Jackson, CEO Inspired Marketing

How often do we make our customers feel appreciated and that their business really matters to us?  Probably not often enough.  We, as business owners, managers and employees need to take the time to Thank our customers.  It can be as simple as a verbal Thank You like our recent experience, or a hand-written note, (a nice touch that stands out in our digital world), or a gift that relates to your business.

Saying Thank You is part of the overall experience a customer has with your company and part of building a consistent and memorable brand experience.  Make the Thank You heartfelt and sincere. If it has any other intention than to truly thank them for their business, your customer will see it as disingenuous.  In other words, don’t also ask for something you want from them.  Make the Thank You about showing your gratitude for their business.  You’ll leave a positive lasting impression and your customers will be glad they chose to do business with you.

Resources:

The Experience Effect, Jim Joseph
A Tale of Two Thank You’s from a Customer Experience Perspective, Sean McDonald, Ant’s Eye View
Thanking Someone for Being a Customer Should be Automatic,  Kevin Stirtz, Customer Think
Saying Thank You to Customers, Lynn Gaertner-Johnston

Did you do the work upfront to confirm that it makes sound business and financial sense for your company to introduce this product (or service)? That upfront work is a business case and plan for the product.  You should answer these strategic questions in the business case. How does this product address the market / customer needs?  What can your company deliver uniquely with this product that no competitor can?  Do your core strengths support this product?

It’s critical that you accurately and honestly forecast the sales you plan to generate from this product, projected product costs to determine the gross margin as well as any additional operational (or other) headcount required to support the projected revenues and new business/customers.

Pull together a cross-functional product team that has the knowledge to provide the data needed to develop the business case. Some team members may only be needed on occasion (sales management, finance, manufacturing, marketing communications) while other members are core to the business case development, engineering, operations, product management and product marketing.

With the product business case completed, you have the information needed to move forward. Next have management review and approve the business case.  Having their buy-in will ensure that your product receives the resources and support required to be successful.  In most companies, this is a requirement.

Checklist for a Successful New Product Introduction:

1.  Beta Test the Product. Work with a few of your trusted key customers to trial and provide feedback to get the ‘kinks’ worked out from both the product and operations side.

2.  Back-end Processes. Ensure the back-end processes are in place and the internal operations teams (customer service, help desk, etc) are fully trained on the new product.

3.  Customer Feedback Loop.  Make sure to set up a process for customer feedback both for the beta test and after the introduction.  The feedback loop for customer issues and comments should include the core product team  who is responsible to evaluate and resolve.

4. Sales Training.  Your sales channel should be fully trained and all support materials completed.  This includes customer presentations (pitch deck) for the sales team, internal website updates.

5.  Marketing.  Is the launch planned and ready to go?  Is the website updated?  Are the product materials, such as manuals, technical white papers, and product FAQs completed?

If these can be answered with a YES, a successful New Product Introduction can be the result.

Anything you’d add to this checklist?

Resources:  Big Picture Questions to Ask When Launching a New Product, Alex Gammelgard, Arena

Here are my top picks;

Authentic and Sincere.  People trust a leader who is authentic, who knows who they are inside and allows that to show to the outside world.  It doesn’t work to be something you’re not.  People figure that out pretty fast and you loose their trust.  People won’t follow a leader they don’t trust.

Leads By Example.  He does as he expects his people to do.  It didn’t work when you were a kid and your parents said, “Do as I say not as I do”.  A leader cannot expect his team to perform at a certain level, if he does not do so himself.  I had a manager once who wanted all his employees in the office by 8:30am, but he would show up around 11:00am each day.  He was not a credible leader because he didn’t set the example of performance that he expected from his people.

Doesn’t Dwell on Failure.  He doesn’t dwell on what didn’t work. He looks forward. Dwelling on past failure only magnifies the situation and takes the time and energy away from focusing on what it takes to be successful.

High Energy and Enthusiastic.  He loves what he does and his energy and enthusiasm is contagious. He always remains positive under uncertain and stressful circumstances, this allows the team to maintain a positive outlook and their enthusiasm.

Truly Cares.  He cares about his people and takes the time to get to know them.  He builds relationships with them by understanding and attending to their needs.

Accepts Input.   He realizes his limitations and that he cannot know everything.  He wants and looks to his people to provide ideas and solutions.

Do you agree?  What do you think makes a great leader?

Resources:
Jim Harbaugh’s glow leads 49ers out of darkness, Scott Ostler, sfgate.com
Is Your Management Style Effective? Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp.
Keeping the Enthusiasm:  How to Encourage Your Team, by Kathy Ver Eecke

What is a S.W.O.T. Analysis?

S.W.O.T. = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Part of a business and marketing plan, a S.W.O.T. analysis identifies a company’s strengths and weaknesses relative to customers and the opportunities and threats present in the market. Preparing a S.W.O.T. analysis (even without completing a detailed business plan) can identify those things that will help accomplish a company’s objectives (a strength or opportunity), or it may identify an obstacle (a threat or weakness) that must be overcome or minimized to achieve desired results.  A S.W.O.T. analysis is not difficult to create but, requires a company to take an honest look at itself and a thorough look at its environment.

Components of S.W.O.T. Analysis

Internal:

An audit of a company’s strengths will assess what it does well, what are its most valued assets and resources and any advantages it has in the market. Conversely, identify weaknesses, vulnerabilities and what can be done better.  Both should be looked at relative to its importance to customers.

External:

As important as preparing an internal analysis is looking at a company’s external environment and threats and opportunities.  Threats and opportunities change over time as the result of changes in the competitive, economic, political/legal, technological, or sociocultural environments in which a company operates.

With a completed S.W.O.T. Analysis, management will have a current view of the competitive landscape, any obstacles or potential roadblocks and areas identified for improvement internally.

Next Steps:

1- Prioritize identified strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities and complete a SWOT matrix (like the one shown) to visually show the analysis.

SmartDraw Software SWOT Analysis Matrix

2 – Develop an Action Plan to address weaknesses and threats and to take advantage of strengths and opportunities.

Resources:
Importance of SWOT Analysis, by Regina Edwards, eHow Contributor
SmartDraw Software Templates for S.W.O.T. Analysis
SWOT Analysis by Anthony C. Denca

What is a value proposition?

A value proposition is much more than the benefits that your company or product delivers.  It defines why a customer should do business with you and not anyone else who provides the same product.  It is the unique value that a customer cannot find anywhere else.  Your product must have at least one  differentiator that sets it apart from the rest to be successful.

Believe it or not,  a value proposition shouldn’t be more than ten words to effectively communicate what is distinctive about your product. Be specific, clear and concise.  This isn’t easy to do and requires time to refine but essential to the success of your product.  You and your team may consider an off-site away from the distractions of the office to get this done.

A value proposition is brand defining

Unique value is a key element in brand strategy. How you uniquely fulfill the needs and the wants of your target customers defines your brand.  Find out What makes your customers happy and what keeps them up at night.   When your unique value provides an emotional benefit to your customers, you create brand loyalty and your customers will buy from you.  Define your value proposition and you define your brand.

Steps to identifying your unique value proposition:

1.  Take an inventory of your skills, what are you good at?

2.  Clearly define your target customer and their needs and wants.  If your product is segmented by vertical markets such as education or healthcare, each of these segments has its own set of needs and wants and most likely different competitive solutions.  You will want to define a unique value proposition for each segment.

3.  What gaps need to be filled in the market?

4.  Complete a competitive analysis.  What sets you apart from your competition?  What is distinctive about your product?

5.  Test.  This is a key step. Questionnaires, interviews and focus groups are good ways to see if the value proposition resonates with your customers.

6.  Once your value proposition is defined and you are able to clearly articulate it, communicate it throughout your marketing efforts, website, collateral, and social media activities.  Keep the message consistent but, you can customize it to fit the media.

Resources:

Powerful Value Propositions, How to Optimize this Critical Marketing Element – and lift your results. Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MECLABS group (webinar)
Make Customers Feel the Love and Keep Coming Back, Jim Joseph, (Vocus webinar)
Your Brand as Your Value Proposition, Chris Hughes, Vistage, (You Tube Video)
Defining Your Unique Value Proposition, ASAE & the center for association leadership

Make Giving Your Passion and Success Will Follow

Kris’ behavior was seen as radical and disloyal by the CEO, Mr. Macy who wanted Kris fired.  Customers were surprised by the level of service that directed shoppers to another store, but greatly appreciated his help.  That appreciation translated into record sales for Macy’s.  Realizing these results, Mr. Macy had a change of heart and directed all his employees share Kris’ sincere desire to help and do whatever it took to make the customer happy.  Even if that meant sending them to Gimbels.

It’s a simple lesson Mr. Macy learned from Kris and one of the five laws that the book The Go-Giver drives home in a well spun story. The most successful in business develop relationships with customers and colleagues by giving more than they get in value, help, knowledge and expertise. Kris positioned Macy’s as the expert in retail.  Macy’s became the store shoppers went to find the best places to buy their gifts. The simple idea of giving increased customer loyalty and growth in store sales beyond what any advertising campaign had attained.

The new year is an opportunity to refocus efforts on what matters most to your business – your customers.  Make helping your customer and others in your life your passion and priority and your business will grow.

Additional Resources:
The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann
How a Startup’s Vision Wins Customers, by Colleen Debaise, Smart Entrepreneur

The variety of Social Media options can be overwhelming and make each platform seem like the ‘soup du-jour’.  Look at Social Media as you do any other marketing tool in your mix and chose the platform based on how it will help achieve your goals and you will have success.  Social Media is no different from any other marketing tool you use to reach customers.  Both marketing tools and social media platforms should be chosen based on which will most effectively reach your target audience to meet your goals with the resources you have available.  How you message and how you communicate with your audience are the differences.

Commitment is Key to Avoiding Social Media Soup du-jour Syndrome

You can commit and believe in your Social Media choices if you do some work up front. That work includes taking time to set your goals and plan.  No marketing tool, social media or other will succeed in helping you reach your goals if you don’t do the work up front.  If you don’t, the result is you will have wasted precious time and money with little success.

Top Social Media Platforms

The top Social Media platforms can help a business meet its goals depending on the target audience and each requires different capabilities, time and resources and include; social networking, multimedia, blogs and microblogs.  Some of the most popular are Facebook, (social networking site), LinkedIn (social networking site for professionals), MySpace (social networking for the creative, artists/musicians), YouTube (video sharing site), Flickr (photo and video sharing site), Mashable (Social Media news blog) and Twitter (microblog).

Follow These Basic Steps When Choosing a Social Media Platform for Your Business

1. Develop your Marketing Plan
2. What are your Social Media goals – these should support your Marketing goals
3. Develop your Social Media Plan
4. Look at and focus on the top Social Media platforms and sites as a start
5. Chose the most effective of these to reach your audience and based on your capabilities and resources. Who are your customers?  Do they even have a twitter account to follow your business?  If not, twitter is probably not your best choice.  Are you able to post blogs consistently?  Do you have the resource to develop content and video to post on YouTube?

Here are five good reasons to include podcasting in your 2012 marketing plan:

1. Creates Interest:  A new medium to deliver your marketing message can create new interest in and bring new life to your existing marketing content. Using audio and video to deliver content enhances the audience experience beyond printed text.

2.  Positions You as an Expert:  Consider delivering a series of podcasts that informs and teaches your audience on a topic that is relevant and of interest to them.  Providing helpful and useful content to your target audience furthers your relationship with them and your position as an expert in your field.

3.  Reinforces Your Brand:  A human voice has the capacity to add inflection and an emotional element to your content vs. print. Using an appropriate voice that fits your brand further reinforces your brand strategy and messaging.

4.  Increases Reach:  Podcasts are accessible on-line at the demand of your audience.  This increases the reach of your marketing efforts beyond time-zones, work-styles and geographies.

5.  Builds Relationships and Trust:   People don’t have relationships with a company.  They have relationships with other people.  By giving a voice to your company, you humanize the experience between your target audience and your company.  They’ll be more likely to do business with you if they know and trust you.  Podcasting can further develop that trust.

As you look at including podcasting in your marketing and social media plans consider the following;  Podcasting should support your overall marketing strategy and plan and enhance your current marketing efforts with your target audience. Confirm that podcasting is an effective medium to reach them. Make sure you have the resources to update content and provide podcasts on a regular basis.

Resources:

How to Create Your Own Podcast, by Corey Deitz, About.com Guide
How to Podcast, by Jason VanOrden
12 Ways to Promote Your Podcast, by Jake Ludington
How to Grow Your Podcast Audience, by Marcelo Lewin

Why is it important to review your business plan?  To achieve your goals and move beyond where you are today, you must assess how well your company is performing to the business plan and identify any significant changes that may require adjustments to the plan.  If you make it a best practice to do a full review at least once a year,  your business goals will remain top of mind and you will be positioned to take full advantage of opportunities, address challenges and grow your business.

Make sure you review these key components of your business plan before 2012

1.  Company Analysis:  How well did your business perform to plan this year? Did your business meet expectations? Did you accomplish what you set out to do?  If you didn’t make your targets, do you know why not?  What are you good at and what makes you unique and qualified to be in this business?  Identify your biggest challenges and opportunities.

2.  Industry Analysis:  Has the size of the market grown or contracted? Take a look at the competition.  Are there more or fewer players?  Who are the major players?  What position do they have?  Do you see new market trends?

3.  Customer Analysis:  Who are your customers and are they the same targets in your business plan today?  Are they buying your products and services?  What are their needs and are any trends affecting their buying behavior?

4.  Marketing Strategy:  Is your marketing strategy generating the projected revenues and results from your products/services.  Are your products priced and positioned to take advantage of opportunities.  Do your products’ features and or specifications meet the market needs?  Did your marketing plans and promotional activities generate the intended results?

5.  Financial Plan:  Do you have enough revenues and the necessary cash flow to operate the business?  Do you need more capital to run the business and take advantage of market opportunities?

6.  Management Team:  Do you have the right players to operate and grow your business?

With a full business plan review completed,  you are ready to make any necessary changes and to set your goals for 2012 and develop an action plan to achieve them.  It can be difficult especially for small businesses to take the time out from day-to-day business operations to review and plan.  Planning takes discipline but, for long-term success it’s a requirement.

At the Women 2.0 Founder Friday event in San Francisco last week, Jenn Deering Davis co-founder of Appozite spoke about their product TweetReach, a tool that measures Twitter performance.  It’s been available for a couple of years in both a free and Pro version. TweetReach is different from other social media monitoring tools such as Google Alerts or TweetBeep in that it provides detailed reporting and analytics, not only alerts when a keyword or search term has been used on Twitter.

TweetReach Snapshot Report for #SantaClaus

The tool generates reports that shows the number of accounts reached and the amount of exposure your Twitter campaign generated. Providing you the ability to calculate the cost per reach and ROI for a specific campaign. The Pro version reports include detailed analytics on trend data and time period segmentation.

What’s also nice about TweetReach is you can see comments posted (either free or Pro versions).  A great way to find and tap into your advocates and influencers and uncover issues and prepare responses.  And you can monitor the Twitter conversations to find out what is being said about your competition and industry at the same level of detail.

Additional Resources
Finding Your Way Through the Social Media Maze, White Paper 

Benefits of Listening and Monitoring Social Media 

1.  Find Your Advocates.  Learn who really likes your company and product.  When you find them, see if you can create a two-way dialogue.  This will give you the opportunity to learn more about what customers think of your company and product.  Once you have established a relationship, you may find that some advocates are willing to provide customer testimonials you can use on other Social Media platforms and marketing activities.

2. Find New Customers and Product Ideas.  Listening provides the opportunity to uncover prospective customer needs, creates new product opportunities and may result in more and better product ideas and requirements, faster time to market and lower product costs. (read my previous blog, Using Social Media to Generate New Product Ideas and Innovations).

3. Learn What is Being Said About You.  Learn what is being said about your company and product and where it is being said.  This not only provides the opportunities to find out what customers think about your product (positive and negative), you have the opportunity to take action to improve your business. Comments may help  your company decide to add a new marketing promotion for a specific product to increase sales activities or may provide insights into poor performance resulting in a product or customer service change.

4.  Learn More About Competitors.  Just as you are able to learn what is being said about your company and products, you can also learn how your competition is doing. Share this information with the appropriate departments within your organization and take action as needed.

5.  Create the Desired Results. Did the actions you took create the results you planned?  Are you doing the right things in the right places?  Qualifying and quantifying how well your Social Media activities are performing will help ensure funding and allow you to make adjustments to your social media plan to meet your goals.

Software Tools Available to Listen and Monitor Social Media Platforms

To fully realize the benefits of participating in Social Media you must listen, monitor and engage with customers.  In marketingviewpoint’s next blog, we’ll look at one of the new Social Media software tools that are available to help companies do that easily and effectively.

Additional Resources
Finding Your Way Through the Social Media Maze, White Paper 

Nordstrom will Celebrate the Christmas Season AFTER Thanksgiving

by Susan Lowe

Happy Thanksgiving Week!  I planned to share some air travel stories with you on this blog.  I was certain that I would have some good (hopefully not bad) customer experiences to share from my travels back east.  But, something happened the other day that I had to share .

While shopping and getting ready for my trip, I stopped by Nordstrom.  Yes, I’m a Nordstrom Facebook Fan.  On my way in to the store, I noticed an interesting sign in their window.  The sign says Nordstrom won’t be ‘decking their halls’ until Friday, November 25th because they like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time.

In the great Nordstrom fashion, the company decided not to put up holiday decorations until after Thanksgiving.  Yes, after Thanksgiving. This is big news.   If asked most shoppers don’t like the idea of beginning the Christmas season right after Halloween.  Yet, retailers continue putting decorations up that early year after year.

Why did Nordstrom decide to wait on the garland?  They listen to their customers. Nordstrom is one of the best at delivering great customer experiences and delivering what their customers want.  We can learn from Nordstrom and others who make it their best practice to listen to customers and then incorporate the best of these great customer experiences into our own business practices.

Thank you, Nordstrom.
Share your Holiday shopping Best Customer Experiences by commenting to the blog.

Who needs to know XHTML or PHP code  to design and publish a website?  No one anymore.

Web hosting companies have been providing website builders for a while now, allowing customers to design, build and edit their own site without any special coding knowledge or skill.  Not only can you save a chunk of your marketing budget on the initial design of the site by doing it yourself but, you can make your own edits in real time – no need to pay a web administrator to do it for you.

The tools are free with most hosting services when you sign up. Some hosting companies offer a free trial service and most have some really great design templates ready to use.  And if you have the desire and the time, you can also customize most of the site.

Easy to use Site Builder Tools

Many of the tools allow you to easily add video, social media links, customized forms, and even PayPal to your site.  Intuit, a fairly recent entry into this space, has taken almost all of the frustration out of doing this yourself. Their easy to use SiteBuilder Plus is likely the result of Intuit’s years of experience perfecting the user interface with products Quicken and TurboTax.

The time to design and publish is quick. I completed my site in a few days.  I used the Intuit product and the interface was so good, I didn’t even reference a tutorial. Help is available from many of the web hosting companies and some are better than others.  If your comfort level is low, you will want to choose a host with good support that is included in the hosting fees.

Keep These Things in Mind when Building Your Own Website 

• Check the website options and features carefully before choosing a hosting service -especially the Help Desk Support

• Although templates are provided, you should have a good sense of design

• Content is still King.  If you plan to you write your own copy, content should be written for your target audience(s) and include your value propositions.  Many of the templates provide helpful suggestions but, content is an area of marketing expertise that is not ready out of the box. Keep the content updated and fresh and optimize your content for search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.  Many of the hosting companies provide help with SEO.

• Your website is a reflection of your brand.  If you have a logo, include it.  Consider your brand as you choose a design template and customize your site and write the content.

• Have someone whose opinion you respect review it before you go live – another set of eyes is always helpful.  Your website is your face to your customer and may be their first impression of your company.

Related Links: