Business Strategy 2011 Posts

8/3/2019 Business Strategy 2011 Posts

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Business StrategyPosts from 2011

Superhero or Villain? Whats Your Marketing Strategy?....2

Ready to Launch? Marketing Tips for the Startup....4

Business Frenemies, Cant Live With Em, Cant Without....6

4th of July Special, A Tribute to the Founding Fathers of Advertising......8

Rise of the Global Guerilla Marketers..11

Business Partners vs. Vendors: the Agility of the Small Agency.12

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THURSDAY, MAY 26TH, 2011WRITTEN BY JEN J

Superhero or Villain? Whats Your Marketing Strategy?

If you opt for a cape, what color is it? Does your brand strike the pose of a superhero or

villain? Whatever the case, you are choosing a method of appeal to attract your targetedaudience, and that is a big part of your marketing strategy. The good guys appeal to oursense of well being, health, nancial stability:

Breakfast of champions (Wheaties) Be all that you can be (US Army) Youre in good hands with Allstate (Allstate Insurance)

The bad guys? Im pretty sure you can name a few of those campaigns:

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas (Las Vegas tourism board) When you got itaunt it (Braniff Airlines) Nothing comes between me and my Calvins (Calvin Klein)

Before you get over enthusiastic, however, aboutnding accessories to match your cape,you need to determine what sort of strategy will appeal most to your target audience. Butrst things rstwho is your target audience? If you have a general idea of whom youraudience is, do you have demographics for your market? Or do you rely on broadgeneralizations and hazy stereotypes of your clientele?

To determine your target audience, consider the appeal of your product and/or service. Is itpreferred by women or men? What age group is most likely to buy/benet from it? Is it animpulse purchase or something that must be saved for? Is it a luxury product? What are themost appealing features of your product/service? What need does your product/service ll?(Alfonso Santaniello, How To Determine Your Target Audience,About.com Marketing.)Next collect information about the demographics of your target audience. Consider usinginformation from the US Census Bureau to nd location-specic information about thepopulace in the physical location you intend to target if you are a brick and mortar store. Orsubscribe to a company that conducts information research. Rutan recommends Dow JonesInteractive, Hoovers Online, S&Ps Industry Surveys and others (Steven A Rutan,Market

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Research: An Update on Sources and Techniques for Your Strategic PlanningEfforts,Inc.com).

You can also do your own research by conducting focus groups, surveys of potentialclientele, interviews or online research of statistics for similar companies or those who are

your competition. Careful study of the competition can often revealaws in their strategy thatyou can address in your own. Throughout this process, however, Mann, in an article for

Inc.com, notes that you must be willing to hear harsh critiques or possibly that you arewrong to be open to helpful feedback for your product or service (Darlene Mann, Hitting theMarket). This survey and interview approach that yields feedback dealing specically withaudience attitudes and values is called psychographics.

One more method of identifying your target market involves a newer eld of marketresearch: socialgraphics. As Cowley records in a recent blog, socialgraphics track the onlinesocial habits of users: This includes being able to answer

Where are your customers online? What are their behaviors online? What social information do they rely on? What is their inuence online? Who else trusts them? How do they use technology in the context of your products?

(Scott Cowley, Utah Event Recap: Engage Summit 2011,smcslc.org(Social Media Club SaltLake City))

Every business is grappling right now with crafting a social media strategy. Answering thequestions listed above will help you begin to understand the socialgraphics related to your

audience, which in turn will hugely inuence the direction your social media strategy shouldtake within the overall boundaries of your marketing campaign. Of course, your socialmedia strategy should also work with and be driven by your marketing strategy.

Now you have a product and/or service and an idea of your audiences wants, needs,limits and motivations putting you in a good place to determine the direction of a marketingstrategy that will appeal to them. Will that be in the guise of a superhero or villain? Whatcapabilities and characteristics does your target audience most want to identify with? Dothey thrive off the thrill that comes with defying convention, exploring the in-the-moment,edgy, sensual and saucy? Or do they get their warm fuzzies from feelings of sensiblereliability and endurance? Either way you dene yourself dont be afraid of the competition.

Every superhero needs a villain, and every villain needs a superhero.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15TH, 2011WRITTEN BY JEN J

Ready To Launch? Marketing Tips for the StartupDid you see the nal launch of the Discovery shuttle? Did you dig watching the shuttle riseinto space (actual reality TV)? Obviously, Discovery was once a startup itself, so to speak. It

was contracted, assembled and launched in 1984 at the end ofve years. Hopefully yourstartup wont take quite so long to get up and running but what is a reasonable launchstrategy? What marketing plan should you prep for your startup launch?

One of the best places to start is by outlining your marketing demographics, psychographicsand socialgraphics (as laid out in the previous blog Superhero or Villain, though sadly

without the aid of an infographic) and a knowledge of the options available to you as astartup owner. You want to understand the effect of your product or service and how itaffects its users because you want to create a story surrounding it. Storytelling builds aconnection between your audience and your product or service. It suggests a reason why

your users should be passionate about it and why they should use it.

Construct Your Brand Story

Pixar is a billion dollar company because it knows how to tell a story (The Stories TheirBrands Tell, Retin Art). Granted Pixars business is storytelling for entertainment purposes,but their ability to get an audience to empathize with their product through a story is thepoint. Here at LIME we love Apple, and that is part of our story. Our owners picked thename LIME because it was a fruit that hadnt yet been made into a brand, and our creativedirector likes a clean interface, intuitive navigation and glass, lots of glassvery Apple-esque dont you think? We also work in an open, techno, gadget-friendly atmosphere. Ouriconography, logo and website all graphically represent that brand story. As a matter offact, what people like about our brand is its sleek, gadgety, cutting-edge nature and thequality of the product. They relate with the story we have created that offers user-friendly yet

innovative solutions.The shuttle Discovery has a story as well. NASAs careful documentation of the shuttlesevery move is a great example of how devoted they are to the success and maintenance ofthe shuttle, its story and the NASA brand. Discovery was named after one of the British shipscaptained by James Cook in 1776. The story of the Discovery shuttle is told through its nameand the intent of its mission: to seek out the previously unknown. The story of your branddoesnt have to be complex; it simply needs to be something that your audience can relate

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to. (For a great analysis of the all-inclusive nature of brand, check out A Logo Is Not a Brandby Dan Pallota in the Harvard Business Review.)

Strategize Your Attention-Getting Tactics

Next up you want to strategize some attention-getting tactics (within reason of course; wellconsistent with your story anyway). The classic launch procedure for a brand has changedalong with the technological revolution (there is a sweet article on this revolution called Riseof the Marketing Technologist by Scott Brinker that I highly recommend). Now, obviously,there are options for your launch that include social media and a web presence. Yourprimary goal in the creation of your strategy should be using these tools to build up somepositive buzz and a general knowledge of your brand. This includes a few basic necessities: Make your local community aware of you Set up Facebook and Twitter pages and develop a following before your ofcial

launch List your startup in as many places as possible, such as startup listing sites

Create a blog and plan out content that can sustain buzz around your startup

Dont be overwhelmed by how much work these tactics appear to be, especially if you dontunderstand them. If you are working with an extremely low budget you can often nd helpfrom local students looking for experience or freelancersjust remember that you do get

what you pay for. So take it slow and build up. The most successful businesses are builtslowly over time; an overnight sensation is the exception to the rule, but this doesnt mean

you cant make some success of your own.

Keep an Eye on the Competition

Finally, be aware of your competitors, what their brand story is, how they are promotingthemselves, the content they are posting. Anything that can help you understand how theyare generating and sustaining buzz around their brand or operating in the community.So, in T a few weeks, on July 8, NASA will be launching Shuttle Atlantis on the programsnal ight. Whether you watch the lift-off on TV, online or perhaps via #NASAtweetup onTwitter, remember that a successful launch takes a lot of preparation, attention to detail anda marketing plan, however simple. Whatever media you choose to engage, dont forget toenjoy the launch!

For specic startup listing sites consult 5 Marketing Tools Every Startup Should Use by BenYoskovitz.

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MONDAY, JUNE 27TH, 2011WRITTEN BY JEN

Business Frenemies, Cant Live With Em, Cant Without

So far in our series regarding marketing strategy we have covered brand positioning

(Superhero or Villain? Whats Your Marketing Strategy?) and tips for launching your startup(Ready To Launch? Marketing Tips for the Startup). This post is going to explore competitiveanalysis: proling the competition. After all, your competition can be your worst enemy or

your best friend. They can inspire you to new heights or shut your business down. So, howdo you conduct a competitive analysis? And what advantages do friending the enemy haveto offer?

Brand Loyalty

In our real-time world, competitive strategy is not only commonplace but essential forsurvival of not just your product or service, but your brand. Our marketplace is saturated by

a lot of supply and much less demand, forcing any brand to concentrate on making andkeeping loyal fans. But this you already know, practically subconsciously, just as you couldeasily name major brands competing for your loyalty: Coca Cola and Pepsi, Netix andBlockbuster. Can you identify why you choose one product or service over the other? Do youknow what the limits of their resources are and what strategy they use to get your attention?This is how you want to consider your competitorsbecause they will give you a greaterunderstanding of your market.

Getting Cozy with Your Frenemies, Competitive Analysis

Since youve entered the proverbial boxing ring, its time to engage. The two major

objectives of your competitive analysis are these:

1. Identify and obtain information about your competitor2. Use that information to predict their behavior

Because of the internet, you will probably be able to easily nd information about yourcompetitor (fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, you wont have to cut a backroom deal or a maa-style interrogation for this info, but that really is a plus). You will also

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be able to nd out a great deal by simply observing your frenemiess mode of business.Consider these questions:

What services do they offer that you dont? Are you as qualied as they are?

Do they accept credit cards or other forms of payment that you dont? Can you answer questions about their products and services? Do you keep more complete records on your customers? What kind of personal contact does your competitor keep with the customer? Do their products seem to be moving? What is their mark-down strategy? How much free publicity have they had? How much advertising do they do?

By answering these questions you will craft a prole. This prole will let you observe whatworks for that company. It will allow you to analyze the companys strengths, and, hopefully,

it will help you identify areas in which you can either improve your own services or offer anadditional niche service that will give you an advantage. Consider this mini prole of twomajor frenemies (though perhaps more enemies than friends).

Mini Case Study: Blockbuster vs. Netix

In comparing the services of Blockbuster and Netix, lets examine the competitors proles.Two very important differences between the companies are the service price and theavailable selection. Blockbusters prices are slightly higher than Netix; Netix offers a wider

variety of releases but Blockbuster offers new releases more quickly. Blockbuster also offersthe option of returning lms in-store (might as well since they still have so many brick and

mortar stores). Surprisingly, I was not even aware that Blockbuster had entered the movies-by-mail distribution process, but they now offer a service completely modeled on Netix.The history of these competitors is a good example of staying on top of your industry market.Though Netix started business long after Blockbuster and was created around a differentbusiness model, it blindsided Blockbuster because Blockbuster had not even considered adifferent method of distribution or the changes in their market. Blockbuster was left to turn itsbusiness and marketing strategy completely around to face this new challenge. Theirupdated business model, as far as I could determine, is now based almost completely onNetixs with only a few small differences. In this case, was Blockbuster a brand leader or ame-too brand? Will your brand be a leader or a me-too?

Note: In my research for this piece I came across at least three web pages with Netix ads; Idid not, however, see a single ad for Blockbusters services. Its pretty obvious which servicewill spring to mind rst if I am a prospective customer in this market.

Find the Friend in Frenemie

Last but not least, could a friendship with your competitor possibly be good for business?Lee, in Do You Compete With or Compete Against, writes that when we competewith

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others it shows we respect them. We recognize that while we are competitors in some areas,we can learn from each other in others, accomplishing more because they exist. When wecompete against others, we arent open to learning from them, and we operate in fear; weare constantly on the defensive rather than the offensive, leaving us closed to crafting abetter product or service, or contributing to our industry and community.

The lesson, it seems, is to keep your friends close but your frenemies closer. Get to knowyour market, and get to know the competition within your marketcause they are a largepart of it. Also, be open to innovation. Where the market leads you must be willing to follow.The best frenemies arent the ones that withdraw from the ring; they are the ones thatchallenge you to evolve within the ring and keep you sharp.

Competitive analysis questions taken from Know Your Competitors by Isabel Isidro for PowerHomebiz GuidesComparison of Blockbuster vs. Netix by Ryan forCashMoneyLife

MONDAY, JULY 4TH, 2011BY LAUREN M

4th of July Special, A Tribute to the Founding Fathers ofAdvertising

The consumer isnt a moron; shes your wife. David Ogilvy

First off, happy 4th of July! I hope you see many reworks and enjoy the patriotic spirit

lling our nation on this beautiful Monday. Two hundred and thirty-ve years ago our nationdeclared independence from Great Britain. We thank our founding fathers for theestablishment of a free nation, where we can read what we want, live how we want andmore importantlyshop how we want. Nothing screams freedom more than the power topurchase. Its this consumption of goods that sparked a creative revolution. While Thomas

Jefferson founded a nation, numerous men in the 19th century founded advertising. Thesemen gave way to agencies, creative strategies, design concepts, copywriting and masscommunication.

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I could write pages upon pages about the multitude of contributors to the advertisingprofession, but that would take forever and I am sure youd rather read something else. So Inarrowed it down to my top four personal picks: N.W. Ayer & Son, David Ogilvy, DoyleDane Berbach and Leo Burnett. Whether it was their catchy slogans or impeccable eye for

design, these men took advertising in a whole new direction.A diamond is forever Hands down, every lady in the United States knows this phrase.DeBeers used N.W. Ayer & Son as their advertiser for their timeless diamond rings. Prior toDeBeers business, N.W. Ayer & Son was recognized as the rst ad agency in thePhiladelphia area. They made advertising agencies more than a media buying rm, rather aplace to instill creative design.

Take a look at the list and see which slogans you know:

- Be all that you can be. U.S. Army- When it rains it pours. Morton Salt- Id walk a mile for a camel. Camel Cigarettes- A diamond is forever. DeBeers- Reach out and touch someone. AT&T- The instrument of immortals Steinway & Sons

Another founding father to brilliant advertising (and a personal favorite) is David Ogilvy. Acollege drop-out, Ogilvy went to work as a cook, then salesman. Ogilvy was an extremelyimpressive salesman, selling to nearly every person imaginable (he sold stoves). Heemigrated from England to the United States, worked for Gallup Research and the US

Intelligence Service during WW II. Then, Ogilvy decided to become a farmer inPennslyvania. So, where does advertising come into the picture? One day, Ogilvy decidedadvertising was his next endeavor. With no experience in copywriting, he became one of

Americas favorite copywriters. His story shows that creativity, tact and hard-work can getyou anywhere.

Below are Ogilvys popular campaigns. See if you remember any:

- Good to the last drop. Maxwell House- Do you know me? American Express- Dont leave home without it. American Express Travelers Cheques

- The man in the Hathaway shirt Hathaway Shirts- Commander Edward Whitehead Schweppes- At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electricclock. Rolls Royce

Remember the family friendly Volkswagen commercial at the Superbowl? It struck a chordwith nearly everyone who watched. Well, Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) launchedVolkswagens Think Small campaign, which has stuck for years since its 1959 release.

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According toAdAge.com, the Think Small campaign was ranked as the number oneadvertisement of all time. The ad used minimal copy, tons of white space and a picture of thequirky Volkswagen vehicle. Bernbach changed the advertising landscape with inspiringcopy, design and graphics. He was all about creativity.

Below are some infamous slogans by DDB. Check em out:

- Think Small Volkswagen- We try harder. Avis- Its so simple. Polaroid- Share the fantasy. Chanel- Daisy Lyndon B. Johnson campaign- Hey, Mikey Life CerealSnap! Crackle! Pop! Remember that slogan? Last, but denitely not least, we have LeoBurnett and his contributions to the advertising industry. Some of our favorite icons can beaccredited to this man. Have a bowl of frosted akes this morning? Tony the Tiger was

Burnetts creation. Burnett created icons and memorable slogans. He made the image thead. Burnett was aware that people were stimulated by art and pictures rather than copy. Leostated, I regard a great ad as the most beautiful thing in the world. Take a look at some ofBurnetts beauties and see how many you know!

- Tony the Tiger- The Marlboro Man- The Jolly Green Giant- The Pillsbury Doughboy- Snap! Crackle! Pop! Kelloggs Rice Krispies

These four men have left an imprint on American culture with their witty slogans, infamousicons and creative design. Like our founding fathers, they took a leap of faith and started arevolutiona creative revolution. Enjoy the reworks tonight!

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2011WRITTEN BY JEN J

Rise of the Global Guerilla Marketers

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of

which victory is evolved. Sun Tzu

The Guerillas in history are thought to have fought in the Napolean war (stay with me here;the historical exposition wont last long). Spanish ghters whose name originated from theSpanish word guerra(war), guerillas literally waged little wars. The guerilla technique,however, of small bands ghting with local support against the large unwieldy machine,goes much farther back (I would discuss Sun Tzu in more detail here whoseArt of Warisperhaps the oldest documented discussion of guerilla warfare; however, I am remaining trueto my promise to shorten the history behind the technique).

Leaping to 1984, the term guerilla was applied to marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson. By

then marketing agencies had grown substantially into unwieldy forces dominating the publiceye with huge multimillion dollar campaigns the likes of which we are very familiar with.Now guerilla marketing and traditional marketing exist side-by-side both as respectedtechniques of marketing. But, you could say, the term guerilla marketing has been renamedor superseded by the zeitgeist (noun: general culture of a time, intellectual, ethical, spiritual)of viral marketing. You could say, correctly, that the aim of guerilla marketing is to achieve a

viral effect. And the secret formula to that lies in the hands of the marketing strategist.[Guerilla marketing]is a body of unconventional ways of pursuing a conventional goals. Itis a proven method of achieving prots with minimum money.

Every marketer dreams of crafting the ideal guerilla campaign, the viral video, the ashmob,

if you will, that takes everyone by storm. What we must keep in mind as we craftily plot,however, is that we can take our guerilla marketing techniques global thanks to soaringtechnological advances (this is obvious of course but the breadth of people we can reach isreally pretty amazing).

Consider the following:

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More than 72% of cellphone users send and receive text messages (actually itsdifcult to think of anyone who doesnt have a cell phone)

Anyone can view literally hundreds of videos ofash mobs at any time There are at least 100+ social media networks online Approximately 24,613,923 people receive emails from Groupon

Public transportation levels are at their highest volume in 5 decades providingapproximately 10.5 billion rides for individuals*

These facts illustrate the reach of text messaging, videography, social media, emailmarketing and locally posted signage respectively. To put it succinctlythe world is yourbillboard. So join up, keep your eyes open for ideas and techniques that might work for youand grow your business both locally and globally in the new guerilla marketing style.

Phenomenal infographic of 2010 text messaging stats: http://runtext.com/text-message-statistics-in-2010/ Viral video chart, top 100ash mobs http://vvc-origin.unrulymedia.com/chart_keyword/ash_mob?interval=week&items=100

Approximate list of SM platforms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites(Its true that I went to wikipedia to support this stat, but they cited pretty good sources.) http://www.quora.com/How-many-people-receive-Groupons-daily-emails*American Public Transportation Association Fact Book 2011 http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/A

MONDAY, AUGUST 15TH, 2011WRITTEN BY JEN J

Business Partners vs. Vendors: the Agility of the Small Agency

Presenting 12 compelling reasons to choose a small marketing agency:

1. Agility

Its pretty easy for us all to picture the large agencyMad Men or otherwiseat work withthe all-too-familiar cogs-in-the-machine analogy. In comparison, the streamlined clockwork

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of the small agency is comforting in its ability to remind us of how much less red tape isinvolved in any project. The fewer the people that need to handle a project, the more exiblethey are to work with and the more they understand the need for swiftness and accuracy.

2. Business Partners vs. Vendors

The larger an agency, the more accounts they will be handling and the greater the tendencythat your project will be siloed into one department or other where it will be completed as a

vendor outputs a product for their buyer. Small agencies, on the other hand, offer theopportunity to ally yourself with marketers akin to business partners; they have a muchgreater stake in seeing you succeed, not to mention the desire to turn out a well-craftedproduct.

3. Flexibility

The small agency understands the need to adapt. They adapt to survive; they will adapt to

your changing needs and offer you the exibility of knowing who you are working withface-to-face.

4. Machine

Thriving on the drive and desire of the individual, the small agency is not a machine. It ebbsand ows, nds alternatives to the traditional methods of doing business and outputs originalproducts and services unlike the one-size-ts-all quality of a large-scale machine agency.

5. Customer Service

If you arent working directly with the top decision-makers or partners in the company, youare working with the people assigned to complete the project and no one else in between.Either way you are on face-to-face terms that engender a higher quality of customer service.

6. More ROI

What to pay? Do you hire the larger agency that offers sometimes less expensive packagedeals, vendor-like, or do you hire a smaller agency for those customer-service oriented/exibly inclined/agile qualities? Larger agencies can also be more expensive, and you canget just as much quality for a lower price with a small agency (lower overhead = lowerprices). Whatever you decide, just remember that you get what you pay for.

7. Higher Risk Tolerance

A fantastic but edgy campaign could sink a larger agency (remember, less exibility, higheroverhead, the machine!), but a smaller agency? Hello and goodbye boxed tradition. Give

yourself the chance to experience creative living.

8. Content Oriented

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The traditional ad agencies are going to lose because creating great, engaging content isemerging as the key skill in marketing. And they dont have it. Kirk CheytzIf the new frontier is engaging content, you dont want to stick with the now-resented,interruption-advertisingmethod. Small agencies with that higher risk tolerance but quality of

thought and product will deliver for the changing market.9. Technologically Savvy

In order to stay in business the smaller agency must specialize, network and know how todeliver. Technology is the eld leveler when it comes to a small agencys ability to compete

with big business. Thus the small agency will be technologically savvy, exploring methodsthat will put them ahead of the competition.

10. Mediocrity

By electing to work with a small agency you are not going to be t into a cookie-cutterpackage, so say goodbye to mediocrity! Enjoy getting attention with your marketing whetherit be through shock and awe tactics or engaging content (or maybe both?).

11. Work with the Big Guns

To bring your account in the door, you will probably be wined and dined by the big guns,but will these be the same guns working on your account? The Magic 8 Ball says, Not sure.Check back later.

12. Passion

This should really be the number one reason you choose to work with a small agencythepassion of the company leaders should be something you relate with, something that attracts

you, something that you trust. Passion is what a small agency is founded on to begin with.Before you make a commitment to your marketing agency, consider these 12 reasons tochoose a smaller agency. Dont lose sight of what you want when it comes to your marketinggoals and objectives.

For more information about creating a customized marketing strategy for your business,contactLIME Marketing, Utah marketing company.

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