In general marketing terms there are no clear trends toward outsourcing over insourcing of both advertising materials and content development . A traditional, comparison FMCG (fast moving consumable goods) / retail and b2b marketing usually resulted in the following. B2C tended to lean toward outsourced Mcomm companies due to large hetrogenous markets and low consumer risk per order. Alternately, the industrial b2b marketer is faced with several barriers to effective outsourcing, namely highly technical products, small groups of target decision makers and higher levels of risk per order. As such, many b2b marketers to be effective work in close association with engineering, and technical sales in order to develop content and advertising that express intimate understand of the specialized requirements of these narrow markets. Given the recent shift toward crowd sourcing and specific information on demand, many opportunities to recycle databased information now has given rise to the expert outsourced marketer, who while having limited specific sector knowledge develops easy to use interfaces that allow customers in the 'know' to query exactly the information they are seeking. This is truly a unique approach to marketing in that through robust analytics a mass marketing approach can be effectively outsourced but provide specific, segmented and actionable intel on narrow and specialized b2b markets.
Monday 30 July 2012
Monday 23 July 2012
Marketing planning-Put the cart before the horse!
Sometimes the old sayings are the most valuable. How many times have we heard put the cart before the horse? Similarly, how many times have we heard when doing our forward marketing planning to focus on strategy before tactics. While, this seems well worn and blindingly obvious several key issues can cause us to unwittingly muddle tactics with strategy and not even realize our error.
The most common issue is the limited executive time usually allocated for strategic planning. In most corporate environments, the senior managers will either go away for weekend or set aside several days for planning. The lead manager usually the CEO or presidents focus is generally on having built group consensus and hopefully an actionable list /plan for the coming quarter, year or disignated time frame. As such there is an underlying pressure or tension to limit or eliminate indepth senario discussions based on possible conflicting futures in favor of a single agreed upon or given future outcome.
The problem is, reality with all its immeasurable variables can rarely be encapsulated into one well defined senario. Any one single plan will naturally be wanting. Secondarily, as job expertise and experience among manager is almost always grounded in their perspective fields of knowledge; finance, engineering, sales production and marketing, there is little commonly held assumptions that can be used as an unbiased measure of competing business problems and suggested solutions.
By and large, the biggest stumbling block for marketers is the failure to clearly define the brand attributes and objective goals as a group. Failure to determine what their brand's truly unique selling proposition is to the market they serve in particular the difficult to copy intrinsic and extrinsic qualities that make your brand special drives managers to default to tried and tested tactical action lists.
The danger of this group think tactical planning is that it fails to encompass the potential future gains and to navigate the pitfalls that strategic examination of multiple outcomes could provide.
One of the best solutions is to apply game theory to strategic marketing planning where outcomes could be scored for how many unique permutations the team could develop for a change in one or more internal or external variables. Simply put if we changed our warranty policy what are all the possible outcomes that could result. In this way, strategic advantages can be uncovered and a follow on plan or tactics will naturally unfold. So if you really want to make the most of your marketing planning always put strategic considerations before tactical action plans.
The most common issue is the limited executive time usually allocated for strategic planning. In most corporate environments, the senior managers will either go away for weekend or set aside several days for planning. The lead manager usually the CEO or presidents focus is generally on having built group consensus and hopefully an actionable list /plan for the coming quarter, year or disignated time frame. As such there is an underlying pressure or tension to limit or eliminate indepth senario discussions based on possible conflicting futures in favor of a single agreed upon or given future outcome.
The problem is, reality with all its immeasurable variables can rarely be encapsulated into one well defined senario. Any one single plan will naturally be wanting. Secondarily, as job expertise and experience among manager is almost always grounded in their perspective fields of knowledge; finance, engineering, sales production and marketing, there is little commonly held assumptions that can be used as an unbiased measure of competing business problems and suggested solutions.
By and large, the biggest stumbling block for marketers is the failure to clearly define the brand attributes and objective goals as a group. Failure to determine what their brand's truly unique selling proposition is to the market they serve in particular the difficult to copy intrinsic and extrinsic qualities that make your brand special drives managers to default to tried and tested tactical action lists.
The danger of this group think tactical planning is that it fails to encompass the potential future gains and to navigate the pitfalls that strategic examination of multiple outcomes could provide.
One of the best solutions is to apply game theory to strategic marketing planning where outcomes could be scored for how many unique permutations the team could develop for a change in one or more internal or external variables. Simply put if we changed our warranty policy what are all the possible outcomes that could result. In this way, strategic advantages can be uncovered and a follow on plan or tactics will naturally unfold. So if you really want to make the most of your marketing planning always put strategic considerations before tactical action plans.
Wednesday 4 July 2012
You Need Me!
As traditional marketing would have us believe, our jobs as marketers among other priorities is to persuade our target markets that they need our product, service, or insight to succeed. Sadly, this model has been exploded by the reality of two way communication that is the new reality of our ever wired world. The simple fact is customers are not listening, at least not to the standard pitch of features and benefits. Prospects are more evolved in their likes and dislikes and at the same time more suspicious of messaging and product and service delivery in general.
Given the new market space we find ourselves in today as B2B Marketers we need to leverage technology to both transmit and receive timely feedback with regards the type, detail and frequency of the messaging we provide our markets. I think we would all agree that usable, relevant content is king, but we need to be sensitive to how and when this information is provided to truly make our offering something customer really want and need.
Given the new market space we find ourselves in today as B2B Marketers we need to leverage technology to both transmit and receive timely feedback with regards the type, detail and frequency of the messaging we provide our markets. I think we would all agree that usable, relevant content is king, but we need to be sensitive to how and when this information is provided to truly make our offering something customer really want and need.
Tuesday 3 July 2012
Your Not the Boss of Me!
Your Not the Boss of Me !
Have you ever sat in a meeting or job interview and thought to yourself this isn't where I want to be, in fact even if I get this job, sale or promotion its not what I really want. Well if that's true why where you trying so hard to get that job , slae or position?
I most cases the answer is simple, you thought that by doing this you could possibly reach a better situation, and then hopefully be richer or freer to pursue what you really wanted. But why don't we just go after what we really want in the first place? Again, either fear or ignorance of the final destination that our present direction will lead us makes us unwittingly waste days, weeks or even years seeking things that we know deep down won't make us happy or forfilled.
Perhaps, your hearts desire requires making less money, difficult study and or personal sacrifice, but if you knew for a certainty that you couldn't fail what would you try?
No one on their death bed ever wished their life had been duller, shorter or more predictable.
We default to these life-wasting options on an almost cruel belief that this is the only way, the safest way or the practically accepted way to live.
Without struggle or risk how can there be any growth or glory! We need to search our hearts and our minds for what will truly make us come alive, no matter what others may think or feel about our choice. Then we need to be brutally honest with ourselves about what we are willing to do within the boundaries of law and ethics to achieve our goal/s.
We need to imagine the achievement as a present fact and visualize our struggles as recollection of in the future, much like badges of honor that were won in Battles remembered. Our creative selves will begin to construct a compelling Vision which when consistently focused on can't help but to manifest its power in our daily actions, this direction will result in its final realization. We need to embrace it nurture it and compel it to tell our old ways of actions thoughts and doubts that they are not ,'the boss of me'!
Have you ever sat in a meeting or job interview and thought to yourself this isn't where I want to be, in fact even if I get this job, sale or promotion its not what I really want. Well if that's true why where you trying so hard to get that job , slae or position?
I most cases the answer is simple, you thought that by doing this you could possibly reach a better situation, and then hopefully be richer or freer to pursue what you really wanted. But why don't we just go after what we really want in the first place? Again, either fear or ignorance of the final destination that our present direction will lead us makes us unwittingly waste days, weeks or even years seeking things that we know deep down won't make us happy or forfilled.
Perhaps, your hearts desire requires making less money, difficult study and or personal sacrifice, but if you knew for a certainty that you couldn't fail what would you try?
No one on their death bed ever wished their life had been duller, shorter or more predictable.
We default to these life-wasting options on an almost cruel belief that this is the only way, the safest way or the practically accepted way to live.
Without struggle or risk how can there be any growth or glory! We need to search our hearts and our minds for what will truly make us come alive, no matter what others may think or feel about our choice. Then we need to be brutally honest with ourselves about what we are willing to do within the boundaries of law and ethics to achieve our goal/s.
We need to imagine the achievement as a present fact and visualize our struggles as recollection of in the future, much like badges of honor that were won in Battles remembered. Our creative selves will begin to construct a compelling Vision which when consistently focused on can't help but to manifest its power in our daily actions, this direction will result in its final realization. We need to embrace it nurture it and compel it to tell our old ways of actions thoughts and doubts that they are not ,'the boss of me'!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)