Love Child: How to make sure your channel marketing program is not misunderstood by the channel you are trying to help, and not seen as “different from the rest” by your Executive Team. (This is what happens when I listen to the Supremes on the 60’s radio station)
The Problem:
If you have to stop and look at what is the best of all possible worlds for channel marketers (and the Enterprises that support them) it would be the one stop, the destination, the store…that let them take care of promoting their business while using tool that was officially blessed by the Enterprise they are representing, and made everyone more money.
This has always been easier said than done. Every single time “The Enterprise” thinks they have the secret combination that will make their channel sales people happy and help them sell lots of product…
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If you are a marketer or a marketing services provider, the chances are you have some experience with “personalization.” Some of you may know how to capitalize on it fully and some of you “think” you do. Whether if you are an expert or novice, understanding and being aware of the extraordinary benefits…
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Programmers know what flow charts are, as do many other process-oriented professionals. Planning cross media marketing campaigns, like programming, requires the anticipation of variables. For example, what if the target visited their landing page, but did not fill out their information because they had to respond to a phone call they got? Are you able to tell that where the variable occurred during the response process? The key is to have a plan for all anticipated variables before they are encountered. This is why flowcharts can be useful.
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As you may know, multi-channel marketing is one of the more effective methods of reaching and communicating to customers. The thing is, multi-channel campaigns tread on a thin wire between effectively “communicating to” and “blasting” customers.
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Seth Godin has a book about the lies marketers tell, do you agree with the premise?
Yesterday, I had a refreshing conversation with a non-marketer friend about the perception of marketers and of marketing campaigns. With no knowledge of the book by Seth, she came to the same conclusion that all marketers are liars.
If you’re like me, you’ll probably disagree with this statement.
For us, every other marketer is a liar, seems to be more applicable here. Yet, the simple fact is, sometimes we get so entrenched in marketing speak, industry jargon and hype, that we forget the basic function of marketing is to engage, educate and enrich customers.
Going back to this basic function, you’ll do well to apply the “so what” test to your marketing.
Every line you write, every tagline you like, every campaign theme you design, apply the “so what” test and see if it is still relevant. Often you only have a few seconds to capture your audience, if it does not pass this simple go-no-go test, then scrap it.
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Sometimes campaign data is like a clock that’s too fast or too slow. It gives you a good impression of what time it currently is, but without knowing how much faster or slower it is, you can’t be precise.
Sometimes data works in a similar way. The data you have of your customer may at times be [...]
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“Did you bring your passport?”
As you were travelling this holiday break. Inevitably, you would have asked/been asked this question before you head to the airport. Despite the endless hours of packing, the only one thing you really need for your trip, is your passport (or ID).
What’s the equivalent for marketing campaigns?
When you really narrow down your plans for your marketing campaigns for 2010. What is the one thing that you really need for successful campaigns? We say, it’s technology, campaign technology in particular.
Why? When used effectively, technology can make your campaigns more:
- Interactive
- Novel
- Response-inducing
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There’s social media and then there is social marketing. What’s the difference you say?
Think of social media as tools (blogs, twitter, facebook, linked-in, youtube, slideshare) that you can use to spread the word about your company, product, cause or just to share the knowledge you have and position yourself as the expert. That model is still 1-to-many, but with the opportunity for 1-to-1 conversations.
Now there’s also the reverse side, there is the email message, direct mail, sales calls, sms, print ads… that you should be using to create 1-to-1 conversations. While many think of these as traditional marketing channels, they are in fact not. They are just as much tools for making a marketing campaign social.
If you honestly believe you have something relevant to say to your prospects and customers, then they’ll want to share that message with their friends. You need to make it easy for them to do that.
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