But it is a fantastic watch

Here is an astonishing fact:

MessageLabs Intelligence released numbers this week that place email spam levels at a staggering 90.4% of all email traffic in June, which makes you really appreciate your spam filter. And the profit margin becomes even more enticing for spammers when they don’t need to use humans to do their dirty work (80% of all spam sent today comes from botnets)

Please read Meghan’s full account of Spam is on the rise

For instance, you can have superior quality or lower prices, but as long as your competition has very good products and services, and similar pricing….you have no real advantage when it comes to features, benefits and costs.   Years ago high quality service and a great product were selling points because not every company delivered quality.   Nowadays having a good work product and amazing customer service skills are just the costs of business, as customers will not tolerate the anything below par.

Here’s where the problem lies:   most business professionals try like crazy selling their customers on the “fact” that their products and services are the “best”.  The problem here is that everyone claims this credibility and that confuses the buyer.   Being the “best” becomes an issue of perspective, and thus muddies the water.

The competition also claims quality (yes, they claim to be superior!  The audacity and cheek of it!).   And as long as they can convince the prospect of a certain level, the customer no longer cares who is “best”.   Now they like who they like.

Instead, it is best to focus on the building a bond with the client that proves to them that you are the best “fit” for their needs.  This does not always mean that you show them a long list of satisfied clients, but instead instill a feeling of trust in you as an individual.   Buyers want to know that you care about them. They want to like you. They want you to like them back.

I try to meet everyone as a friend (albeit, long-lost friends that probably haven’t met before) as soon as the first words are spoken.  Doing things for them like you would with friends and family members can be exceptionally rewarding, if exceptionally hard work.   Not every person you befriend will immediately (as I know far too well) but you will find that many will go out of their way to help you reach your goals.

Customers use their brains to gather information between two or more competitors, but they use their hearts to select the agency who they will work with on a specific project.  That is where it is needed to connect with them in their soul to win their business.

Step 2. Digital channel contribution.
What are the digital channels delivering across different markets and product categories now to support business goals in terms of sales, cost of acquisition, profitability and customer loyalty?

Step 3. Brand alignment.
Reviewing how digital channels and website functionality can support traditional brand values but also enhance the brand through development of online value propositions (OVPs).

Step 4. Marketplace analysis.
Customer insight is key, i.e. qualitative and quantitative research of customer characteristics, behaviours and opinions. Also includes benchmarking of competitors proposition, marketing communications and capabilities. Developing detailed understanding of online intermediaries, e.g. key portals, search engines and social networks which influence audience.

Step 5. Technology infrastructure.
Review capability of technology infrastructure to support online marketing innovation. Is an acceptable “time to market” for new functionality available dependent on legacy system integration, business case authorisation and prioritisation, dedicated development resource and agile technical development processes?

Step 6. Vision and Goals.
Develop a long-term vision for how digital channels will contribute to the development business. Set short term goals for digital channels in areas of customer acquisition, conversion and customer experience, retention and growth.

Step 7. Strategy and planning.
Ensure digital marketing is integrated into different planning cycles (i.e. long-term 3 to 5 year plans, annual plans and quarterly/monthly operational planning reviews). Establish method and budget sources for identifying, reviewing business case and prioritisation for new site and campaign functionality.

Step 8. Review capability of marketing resources to deliver efficient, integrated cross-channel communications.
Including organisation structure, staff roles and responsibilities, skills levels of staff, agency capability, marketing campaign management and review process.

Step 9. Refine Management Information and reporting.
Ensure web analytics and other business reporting tools maximise understanding of the influence of different digital media channels on delivering leads or sales. Implement a culture and process for integrating review and action based on defined Key Performance Indicators and structured tests.

Step 10. Identify and implement “quick wins”.
Based on strategic analysis performed, identify short-term projects to deliver business results across areas of customer acquisition (e.g. improvements to digital media channels such as search engine marketing, aggregators or affiliate marketing); conversion (improvements to landing page messaging and usability through small findability improvements to navigation or search labelling possibily based on AB or multivariate testing or customer journey improvements on home page, category, product or other landing pages and basket, registration or checkout process ) or retention and growth (encouraging repeat site visits or purchases through email marketing or on site merchandising).

 This is an extract from e-consultancy and their report Audit checklist – best practice in managing digital channels

Mind you, he should be talking to me….

Click here to view the whole article

“With the much hyped credit crunch looming, there is greater emphasis for all business departments to justify their budgets. For sales this is a fairly straight forward process – how much are we spending on salaries and expenses measured against how much money is made. However, for marketing departments this is far harder to measure.

As a business overhead, the marketing function must now stop measuring itself against non-tangibles such as brand awareness and start to link its performance directly into the bottom line. They must be able to demonstrate to the rest of the company that their activities and results can show a clear ROI.

The actual measure can vary, but inevitably it will support the growth of the business either through increasing customer acquisition or driving sales. However, the biggest challenge marketing professionals face is that they need to change the view of what they do. They need to stop thinking of themselves as brand builders and reputation managers and now consider their role as a lead generating one. ”

 To read the fully story click here

Today, a number of businesses and corporations currently use USPs as a basis for their marketing campaigns

Origin

In the early 1940s, Ted Bates & Company carried out extensive market research on successful advertising campaigns. In particular they identified two desirable attributes: the penetration and the usage pull.

The pattern they found among campaigns that produced a high usage pull was the basis for the theory of the USP. It may also be known as the unique selling point.

Definition

In his book Reality in Advertising, Rosser Reeves (Chairman of the Board at Ted Bates & Company) gives the precise definition as it was understood at his company:

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the customer: “buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”
2. The proposition itself must be unique – something that competitors do not, or will not, offer.
3. The proposition must be strong enough to pull new customers to the product.

However, Reeves warns against forming a USP based on what he calls “The Deceptive Differential” – a uniqueness that is too small or too technical for customers to observe the differences in actual practice.

Examples

Some good current examples of products with a clear USP are:

• Head & Shoulders: “You get rid of dandruff”
• Olay: “You get younger-looking skin”
• loreal: “Because you are worth it”
• Set Wet: “Very very sexy”
• Red Bull: “You get stimulation of body and mind”
• Ronseal: “You get exactly what it says on the tin”

Some unique propositions that were pioneers when they were introduced:

• Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free.”
• FedEx: “Your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”
• M&M’s: “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand”
• Wonder Bread: “It helps build strong bones 12 ways”

Criticism of USP theory

The perception of something being a USP is somewhat contentious. In the examples above, Head & Shoulders is not the only product on the market that will get rid of dandruff, neither is Domino’s the only pizza delivery chain with a similar thirty-minute guarantee. In both instances, the specific product may be viewed to be a market leader due to its innovation of the original USP, yet has stopped being viewed as unique in the public eye. In other words, what was originally a USP has become merely a perception of superior quality, something quite different.

In the example of Ronseal, “[doing] exactly what it says on the tin” could be argued to not be a USP at all but merely a clever advertising slogan implying reliability or honesty; most or all products do what they imply they will on their packaging.

Successful business development often requires a multi-disciplinary approach beyond just “a sale to a customer.” A detailed strategy for growing the business in desirable ways is frequently necessary, which may involve financial, legal and advertising skills. Business development cannot be reduced to simple templates applicable to all or even most situations faced by real-world enterprises. Creativity in meeting new and unforeseen challenges is necessary to keep an enterprise on a path of sustainable growth.

Small to medium-sized companies often do not establish procedures for business development, instead relying on their existing contacts. Other times they assume that because they know people in high places that their business development problems are solved and that somehow new business will come to them. The ramifications of such thinking can be significant in the event they are unable to leverage those relationships, which very often are personal or weak. Then they will have no new business in the pipeline.

Business development professionals are frequently found to have earlier careers in investment banking or management consulting; although many find their route by climbing the corporate ladder in functions such as operations management or sales.

The pipeline refers to flow of potential clients whom the company is in the process of developing. Each potential client in the pipeline is given a percent chance of success with projected sales volumes attached. The weighted average of all the potential clients in the pipeline can be used for staffing to manage the new business when it comes in.

For larger and more well-established companies, especially in technology-related industries, business development often refers to creating and managing strategic relationships and alliances with other, third party companies. In these instances the companies will leverage one anothers’ expertise, technologies or other intellectual property to expand their products, services, functionality and/or market reach without having to invest in building or acquiring these with internal resources. Revenues are typically shared in some sort of royalty arrangement. For example, a company with a successful technology will partner with a company that has an existing customer base and sales force, and together they will penetrate that market, sharing the proceeds.

The set of efforts for identifying, researching, analyzing and bringing to market new businesses and new products, business development focuses on implementation of the strategic business plan through equity financing, acquisition/divestiture of technologies, products, and companies, plus the establishment of strategic partnerships where appropriate.

Certainly there are many stories that I could start telling.  

Although most of them would have to be edited by my good self.  Maybe I should start with a heart-warming story about what I did at the weekend there, seeing as it was a pretty quiet one which mostly consisted of catching up on a lot of reading (I recently bought Bobby George’s autobiography and want to learn the secret to his success and where he learned to play darts with such elegance; plus I have bought the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins which appeals to the cynic within me).  Firstly, there was Friday night which was full of fun – I went to visit a friend in the Edinboro Castle in Camden who was there with his new girlfriend.  Three’s a crowd, springs to mind.   So I left and went home to drink a bottle of red.

So Saturday was a day of recovery and football.   Watching it, that is.  Really nothing else to report on the weekend except that Sunday was lovely and I had a great time reading all that I can.    A broken heart can take time to repair!   Yes, I miss my cat.   And she misses me.  Oh Mamma Mia!

Yes, it’s me with Suggs outside a toilet block in Camden.   Taken about 7 months ago, when my hair was ridiculous.  Oh wait, it still is.  But shorter.

I’m not the biggest Madness fan, but here’s their website www.madness.co.uk