10 Thoughts for Your 2011 Marketing Budget

The coming marketing decade will be about common sense.  Most of the tools we need to develop relevant, engaging and reputable brands exist.  It’s just a matter of using them.  So rather than tell you about the next new thing to use, I encourage you to double-check whether your 2011 marketing plan takes into account the following items.

10 Thoughts for Your 2011 Marketing Strategy

#1 Focus on maximizing returns, not minimizing headaches 

Smart marketing funds get spent by figuring out what makes most money for your business, most sense for your customers and allocating funds accordingly.  This may sound like an obvious statement, but for many marketing investments, decision-making is driven by orthodoxy, past habits and the way media data happens to be structured.  Make sure your 2011 plans challenge this view and focus on doing what is right, no matter how hard it makes life for everyone.   

#2 Introduce customer economics to drive personalised communication

Every customer is a unique individual.  But segmentation myths and economies of scale cause many brands to treat them in largely the same manner.  After all, doing things in a more personalized manner is too expensive and cumbersome.  Still, by introducing customer economics into your 2011 plan, you can put a monetary value on different customers and their behaviour.  This allows you to build a business case to approach customers the way they deserve.

#3 Manage your total customer experience

I have never seen a customer journey in which the brand actively managed more than half the steps that existed from their customer’s point of view.  Leaving 50% of the customer experience up to chance is not only stupid from a customer satisfaction point of view.  It is also a waste of opportunity.  Each step in the customer journey can be monetized.  A failure to do this cheats the business out of valuable profits.  Double-check whether your 2011 plan looks at the whole customer journey.

#4 Engage the customer in a relevant way

Many brands are addicted to telling the world how great they are.  They appropriate the right to interrupt our music, our movies, our life when they feel we should listen to them.  For 2011, I challenge you to root out this narcissistic addiction at your company.  Stop talking in terms of what you want to say, and start talking about what your customers want to hear.  Explore brand utility concepts.  Be useful and enrich their lives, instead of being in the way.

#5 Explore customer centric communication planning

90% of people I ask to come up with a remarkable communication initiative for the man at the bus stop, show me creative ways for the bus stop to manifest itself.  Hardly anyone focuses on the man.  The magazines he may read, the people he may talk to, the games he may play.  Make sure your 2011 plan doesn’t fall into the trap of putting media data availability ahead of the consumption and interest patterns of the people you aim to reach.

#6 Use transmedia storytelling techniques to stop repeating yourself

When brands say they want to be consistent, they usually mean that they want their logo to be the same everywhere.  Their messages to be the same across all channels.  Their visuals to be re-used in every execution.  While this may look nice in a boardroom, from a customer perspective this is boring.  Transmedia storytelling techniques can make sure your audience remains interested in what you have to say.  Make sure your 2011 plan doesn’t repeat itself over and over.  Engage your audience.

#7 Audience inclusion

While this may not be their intention, many brands behave in a prejudiced way.  If you don’t fit the mould of their average customer, you don’t exist.  As a result, they edit out anyone who doesn’t fit the middle-class, healthy, heterosexual, religiously-correct stereotype.  And they definitely don’t set up tailored programmes for them.  Make sure that doesn’t happen in your 2011 plan.  Not for moral reasons, yet purely financial ones.  After all, every customer is worth fighting for.

#8 Real social media

I often get asked how people should improve their online reputation and which social media strategy they should follow.  I usually give them two responses:

·         First, I tell them that they don’t need to worry about a social media strategy.  This is about as useful as having a strategy for a mobile phone.  If it rings, you pick it up.  Simple.

·         Secondly, I tell them that they don’t need to worry about their online reputation either.  This is simply a reflection of the real world.  If customers are treated well, they will say good things about you online.  If they are treated badly, they will hammer you.  Simple as well.

Make sure your 2011 social media efforts don’t get wasted on shiny objects.  Focus on making sure you have many happy customers … the social media bit will follow.

#9 Behaviour focused internal communication

A brand is a sign of trust.  So building a brand is about building that trust.  This is not done by making empty promises.  It’s done by making relevant promises and delivering against them.  In other words, it’s not about the words you speak.  It’s about the behaviours of the people in the organisation.  Check whether your 2011 plans enables other departments to know about the promises that you will make, and that they are empowered to deliver against them. 

#10 Getting business to behave accountably

Finally a word on corporate accountability.  These days, every company wants to save the planet, feed the poor and be morally just.  In my experience the real test of their resolve is to see what happens if you ask the CEO to swap his BMW 7 series for a small hybrid car.  Accountability is less about inflated promises that you don’t keep, and more about transparency, honesty and doing a few things well.  Check your 2011 plan for what you can do and do this well.  Shut up about the rest.

 And if you’re stuck on any of the above, you can also just get in touch.  I’m happy to help ;-)

This post is one of a series to accompany the launch of the #ChangeMarketing Manifesto.  This is a call to action for marketers world-wide to change the nature of marketing itself.  To reconnect the profession to the needs of the customers and the businesses they serve. 

CLICK HERE to download your copy of the #ChangeMarketing Manifesto.

#ChangeMarketing: Shift Perspectives #2 Is Out

Changing  the face of marketing is something that takes vision and persistence.  With the publication of Shift Perspectives #2, Bogdan Meica & Stefan Moghina are proving once again to have both.

This time focusing on the topic of innovation, our two Romanian friends have brought together the likes of Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, Gerald Nanninga and many of the people you find on this blog in one publication that is sure to make you think.

But there’s more.  On www.shiftperspectives.net they have provided their own answer to the Battlecry to #ChangeMarketing and have created an online think-tank where all those who want to make marketing work for society can unite.

So once again we’re proud to be the first of inviting you to read this publication, and encourage you to join the Shift Perspectives community.  Because making marketing work is something we all need to do together.

The original Battlecry.

Change Marketing v01

Shift Perspectives. A Publication “Endorsed by Futurelab”.

These are exciting times.  Sure, we have a recession, and there is the looming threat of inflation, unemployment and further value destruction.  But all these clouds are also lined with opportunity.  The opportunity to change the way we work.  To set things right.

After all, people only change when they “have to”.  And from a business perspective, this is the case.  In many companies, doing more of the same is not an option any more.  While this poses challenges, it also allows shedding the bad practices that have accumulated over the past two decades.  The mindless shout and sell communication efforts.  The customer-toxic practices.  The often uninspiring types of innovation which shun breakthrough risk to the benefit of play-it-safe-incrementalism.

So for me, and for Futurelab, these are great times.  After all, beyond helping our clients, we are on a mission to change the nature of marketing itself.  We want to bring the profession back to its roots by focusing on the customer, the bottom line and breakthrough innovations that truly differentiate company.  We want to make marketing an all-company sport.  Get finance, logistics, sales, production, HR and yes even the marketing department to do what is right for the business and for the customer, rather than what their silos dictate. 

But we cannot do this alone.  In fact, no one can.  For marketing to regain its position as a truly meaningful profession, it needs to step away from the centralist knowledge paradigm.  Here, a number of smart people hold all knowledge and disseminate this to those less literate.  They often call themselves professors, thought leaders, strategists or even gurus.

Yet if there is one thing we've learned from this recession, is that no one holds all the wisdom.  The world as we know it has become unpredictable, and anyone claiming to have all the answers is simply not being truthful.

That is why we have started to look for initiatives from people that get it.  Individuals whose thinking and actions we can help amplify with the means we have available.  You are currently looking at one of them.

Shift Perspectives # 1

Launched by Bogdan Meica & Stefan Moghina, Shift Perspectives  is a digital publication that transfers on to 30 pages what we attempt to do on the Futurelab blog.  Bring together the thinking of some of the sharpest minds in marketing, strategy and innovation into one thought-provoking piece.

I have to say, they did it quite well.  From Seth Godin to Tom Anderson they brought together global thinkers who understand that a project by two young people in Romania can have the same value than the journal of a prestigious business school.

To ensure it also has the same reach, I am proud that they asked Futurelab to endorse their initiative and help launch it to world.  This we gladly do.  Because it is people like Bogdan and Stefan that are the real change agents of the marketing revolution.

Two Free Reports on the Brand Agency Disconnect

At best, the relationship between most brands and their communication agencies is "strained".  While exceptional agencies and executives exist (some of which writing for this blog), the industry as a whole tends to disappoint its customers.  This needs to change.  After all, while thousands of agency executives are gearing up for another dance on the Titanic in Cannes, clients are seeing billions go to waste.  Especially in our current climate, this is unacceptable.

But rather than join the choir of complaints, we decided to do something about it.  We want to initiate a global conversation on the renaissance of marketing as a whole (coming soon :-) and in specific on the ways brands and agencies interact.

We have bundled our thoughts in two reports we'd like to share with you (thanks to Management Centre Europe for the kind sponsorship!).  They analyse the disconnect that currently exists between brands and the agencies that service them.

• In Reconsidering the Advertising Industry we take the agency perspective, and compare the internal workings of agencies to what their clients need.  We then offer tactical suggestions and structural recommendations that allow agency executives to better equip their organisation for a challenging future.
• In Bridging the Brand-Agency Divide we look at the same data from a brand perspective.  We review what brands are looking for and what they feel agencies are not delivering.  For each disconnect we offer suggestions and tips brand leaders can apply to get their agencies to better deliver what they need.

Both reports, as well as a bonus slideshow are available as a free and instant download on our free publications page.  They're yours to read, use and abuse (cc 2.0 :-).  The only thing we would request is that if you find them of value, you engage in the conversation.

This can simply be done by forwarding them to others.  Or if you're more digitally active, blogging, twittering or commenting on them.  If you have a client-agency relationship which defies all we have written, share it.  If you have ways to make our recommendations better, build on them.  If you believe we've got it all wrong, write a counter-thesis. 

We want to start the debate, so at some point we can all come to conclusions.  This is our first - of many - steps. What is yours?

The Margin Challenge of Being Green

When listening to the case of TNT Post's sustainability efforts at Marktplein 2.0, I could only conclude that no good deed goes unpunished. And as it's a situation which many companies going "green" may be facing soon, it's one to start thinking about today.

At Marktplein, Peter Van Minderhout, Group Director of Corporate Sustainability at TNT, highlighted some of the highly impressive work his organisation does in the area of relief work (and I mean the "real thing" like Darfur, tsunami aid, etc). However, he also indicated a dilemma the company faced for the future.

In short, they had done a reprise of a stakeholder review across a large number of NGO's, customers, etc. to check what these people thought of the companies sustainability efforts (and where they should focus next). And much to their surprise, the message was had evolved from a few years ago. Among their customers, emphasis had shifted from "compliance with regulation", "child labour" and "fair working conditions" in 2004 to "eliminate CO2" today (only preceded by employee working conditions).

Or put more bluntly (my words): "We like what you're doing for the poor and your workers, yet frankly won't buy a penny more for it. Still, if you reduce your CO2 emissions, we would probably increase our orders (and if you don't we'll go elsewhere)."

This shift in itself poses some interesting dilemmas. Still, the real challenge of then responding to this call for CO2-reduction, came when the purchasing departments of these same customers got their hands on the CO2-reduction plans the company was putting in place. Their logic was simple: "as TNT was being more efficient, this should translate itself into lower price. So could we have a discount please?".

This while at the same time some of TNT's highest margin products are exactly the ones that are least efficient in energy (e.g. express freight by airplane). And shifting customers to more efficient means of transportation (e.g. express by train) is much lower margin.

In other words, the company now finds itself in a situation that to comply with the CO2 reduction request from their customers, they need to start cutting heavily into their margin. So in a way - and kudos to TNT for discussing this so openly - they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't".

So I wonder. Will this story repeat itself for EVERYONE who's currently selling to Tesco today, or in 2008 to Casino? Will it be so that customers will first pressure their vendors to "go green" and then send in their purchasing departments to ask discounts for more efficiency? And when this cat gets out of the bag, will these vendors actually resist going green as the business case for doing so erodes?

I don't have an opinion, yet it's definitely a space to watch. Meanwhile I hope the world will show ever more companies like TNT, who first do what is right and then try and figure out a way to also make this profitable for everyone (and even have the conversation in the open). Keep it up Peter!