Here is an interesting idea. Everyone knows that sunscreens are used when you are out in the sun.

Now, the challenge is, sunscreens are messy and they are psychologically associated with “good times on the beach”. But sunscreen is also a needed protection for skin, especially those with fair skin, to prevent skin problems. Everyone knows this, but, like a diet, no one seems to be able to make it a habit.

This company, launched by two concerned (and innovative) moms, seems to have identified an interesting niche - daily sunscreen. Their company, Screen, Inc., has a range of sunscreens that promises to be non-greasy, affordable, non-irritating and dermatologist-approved. They hope that this will encourage teens to use it on a daily basis.

This is quite smart. After all, teens are the ones who spend the most times outdoors, and they are most concerned about their looks. A face peeling from sun burn is not the most attractive, for sure!

One of the most “fun” part of marketing must surely be the logo. Whether you are using them creatively, trying not to use them or even coming up with a new one for your company or brand, it’s a lot of fun!

If you like logos, then you must surely check out David Airey’s Logo Design Love where there is an ongoing contest to vote for your favourite blog logo!

When we look at the giants, it is usually in awe. But once in a while, we stare in wonder and shake our heads at the strange spectacle of their self destruction.

Ever since Motorola came up with the RAZR, nothing else came out that was even close to the success of that range. Wondered why. Now we know. Over at Engadget, Ryan has written this post “Motorola insider tells all about the fall of a technology icon” - which publishes a letter by the late Geoffrey Frost’s personal adviser at Motorola; until Frost’s death in 2005, Numair Faraz worked under the Motorola’s former CMO.

This here is yet another lesson in leadership. It is hard to lead when you do not really know where you are going, isn’t it?

Sorry to have to get back to this topic again. But I just read this post about Burger King’s Inappropriate Commercial and I just had to heave that sigh… I wanted to say “I told you so!” but then, I would be lying.

You see, I have never met the marketing folks over at Burger King. If only they read the warning…

I would hate to repeat all that was said about this topic, so, do head on over to read what Eliza Ferree has to say about it.

Do not be deceived, there is no choice!

A friend of mine had a very interesting discussion with me recently. Basically, we were talking about why she was not aggressively marketing her company’s services. Typical of many small business owners, she was a little apprehensive about marketing.

Her comments were along the lines of her not having a very outgoing personality, there was not a lot of money to go around for marketing, and such. But the most interesting comment was this: “Maybe I cannot do push marketing, but what kind of pull marketing do you think I should do?”

Let me get this straight - too shy to do push marketing and you want to do pull marketing? Hmmm…. interesting.

I mean, you can get a lot of information on the Internet about what push marketing and pull marketing are. So, this statement took me by surprise. What was it in the definition of pull and push marketing that gives the impression that pull marketing was

• cheaper
• less demanding
• no need to encounter customer

This is so wrong. So, I have some good news and some bad news for all small business owners.

The Bad News is - pull and push marketing are two sides of the same coin
The Good News is - pull and push marketing are two sides of the same coin

What is the essence of marketing anyway? Please, put away your marketing texts and stop waving that MBA at me!

Marketing is basically about letting others know how wonderful your products/services are and to convince them that they should buy it from you.

Now, keeping that in mind, there is no such thing as push and pull marketing. Leave that to the “experts” and those who make their money marketing full time. For the small business manager, you just have to find what works for your particular industry and niche. More importantly, do what works for you.

For example, distributing flyers at the street corner can be considered “pull” marketing as you attempt to get customers into your eatery or hardware store. But it is really not so effective if you were a lawyer or a dentist. Putting up posters advertising your wares might work if you had your own brand, but it is not going to help get customers directly to your store.

Forget about push and pull marketing. Instead, think about “bread and butter” marketing. Every action that you take to attract customers must pay off for itself, at least. Don’t get caught up in jargon and industry fads. Focus instead on what works for you.

Talk to a marketing professional because they will know how to “do it”. But don’t get bamboozled by all the glitz. Use your hard won experience and tell them what you want to achieve and how much money you have to do it. Any good marketer should be able to work within your budget and deliver your results. The great ones will exceed your expectations.

When you think about creating a marketing plan, many people feel a huge headache come on. Everyone wants to have the “best” marketing plan.

You will always hear things like:

“We need a creative marketing plan”
“We need a practical marketing plan”
“We need an actionable marketing plan”
“We need an innovative marketing plan”

What exactly is a marketing plan anyway? If you decided to hire 10 sales personnel and go knock on the doors of all your neighbours, is that a good plan? Is that even a marketing plan?

Many people confuse the 4P’s of marketing with the marketing plan. Product, Price, Place, Promotions are essential considerations, but they are by no means the marketing plan. Most of us has learned what a marketing plan is in school and so, I will not insult all the readers by even attempting to define it. I just want to say that many people simply regurgitate the “4Ps”, add a SWOT analysis, talk a little about the competitors, put it into a nice format, and submit it as a marketing plan. Not in the real world, my friend.

I would like to venture that for the small business, an academic marketing plan is really totally unnecessary. The small business owners and managers need to understand this clearly. You do not need an elaborate, sophisticated “marketing plan’”. However, you do need one. A business without a marketing plan is simply a mom and pop shop disguised as a business. Heck, some of the more successful mom and pops do have a marketing plan - and you wonder why?

A good marketing plan for small businesses should be fun, exciting and most importantly, easily actioned upon. It is pointless to have a beautiful 99-page marketing plan that you are never going to use. Here are some simple pointers towards creating a really effective plan for your small business:

1. Figure out what you want to achieve.

This is commonly known as your objectives, or vision. It could be as simple as I would like to add one new, major customer this year that does $X of business with me. Or it could be a grand plan that says you want to have a chain of stores that circle the globe. But the most common time horizon a small business should look at is one year. Two feet on the ground, eyes lifted to the horizon.

2. Figure out who your real competitors are.

Just because you run a small eatery, McDonald’s might not necessarily be your competitor. If you are not even able to honestly appreciate who you are playing with and against, well, it’s easy to “win” when you are the only one playing.

3. Figure out why your customers like you.

If you are running a small business, you have customers. Why? They could easily have gone to the other guy. Understanding what value your customers see in you, will help you understand how to meet their needs better. It also tells you who you should target - people with similar tastes, needs, values… It is pointless to create an academic SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis at this early stage. Get the basics right.

4. Find a good agency to work with.

A mistake many small business owners make is to assume that marketing or advertising agencies do not want their business, or that they cannot afford one. Depending on your budget, there is always an agency willing to work with you and for you. I need to clarify one thing here - a freelance designer is NOT the same as a small agency. What you need is marketing and advertising expertise, not pretty pictures. Some designers do have the experience, skill and knowledge to meet your marketing needs. All I am saying is that you need to be clear about the difference between a great designer and a great marketer. Talk to them (agency/desginer/freelancer) and evaluate their track record. Then pick the one you like most. Go with your gut after all the evaluations are done.

5. Stick with it.

Stay with your plan. Give it a chance to succeed. Just because the first flyer distribution flopped does not mean your PLAN flopped. It is just one element of execution. Test. Experiment. Measure results. Adapt. But stick with your “vision”.

Above is just my view. I would welcome comments, questions and maybe, if you want to contribute, write me and I will gladly have your article posted up here.

Some resources:

Great marketing articles - http://www.versacreations.net
Good copywriters - http://www.writingthoughts.com; http://essentialkeystrokes.com/
Good designers - http://randaclay.com; http://davidairey.com

I just saw this book selling contest that I thought was very interesting.

As marketers, one of the things we look out for is an opportunity to address the market. Now, with the stock market in its current volatile state, guess what is selling well?

Well, genius, books about stock markets.

So, see if you can win the contest. Let us know.

I am sure by now, all of you would have had the joy of discovering the power of YouTube videos in promoting your product, services or brand.

It is particularly powerful when it comes to delivering socially conscious corporate messages, don’t you think?

But what if you do not have the video talents? Surely you do not want your products or brand image to be tarnished by an amateurish video effort? Well, I just found a new best friend - the corporate film-maker. Imagine that you have the resources and experience of a producer that has worked with big names and big brands. Then imagine that you can discuss your needs with him/them. Isn’t that better than begging those young ‘uns in your department to cook up a YouTube video that you might not even dare show your mother?

Chuckle if you will, but don’t joke with your corporate image. I was puzzling through this question - how can I participate in the YouTube phenomena if I can’t make a decent film. Well, I was wondering until Director Tom visited my site and I saw his link on the MyBlogLog widget.

Problem solved.

Most people would love to find a method of marketing that is effective, fun and free. Well, blog marketing certainly fits the bill.

Unfortunately, not many people understand that “effectiveness” is not the same as having a lot of pages in the blog, nor is it getting listed in as many directories as possible. Actually, effectiveness of a blog marketing strategy really depends on the objectives. Any marketer will know that a marketing strategy is nothing more than a powerful sum of its parts. Hence, a blog marketing strategy cannot stand alone, that is a given. So, we will not talk about that. For a blog marketing to be deemed effective, there are usually three measurements: traffic, response, and action.

Denise has an interesting post on how to build blog traffic. Any new blog will face the challenge of generating traffic. The key is not the volume of traffic, but the relevance of it.

Response is one of the best indicators of whether your traffic is targetted or not. Interested parties will respond to your blog posts (unless they are so poorly written…) and they will respond through comments, feedback forms and even emails.

Arguably, action is the holy grail. A blog that has plenty of traffic and an active, responsive readership, but cannot prompt readers into action to become buyers, subscribers or whatever it is you are marketing, can hardly be deemed to be effective.

I am sure there are many other marketing metrics that can be used. But blow aside all the fluff and illusions of success, the above are, I believe, the 1-2-3 of a successful blog marketing program.

In most large marketing companies, market research tends to rule, or rather, over-rule many marketing decisions. Marketing by numbers has become not only the favourite past-time of marketers, it has also become necessary to justify ever increasing budgets.

Most of the time, market research is useful and important. Product managers should never fall in love with their products and company owners should not be so enamored by their own cleverness that market feedback is ignored.

But what happens if the market says “no” when everything you believe in says “yes!”? This is a dilemma faced by innovators through out the ages.

If you believe market research, the Sony Walkman would never have seen the light of day. If you listen to market research, Intel’s CPU road map would be boring indeed. And of course, Microsoft, who in the world would have imagined that everyone “needed” to have Microsoft Office on their computers, at home? No one needed a telephone and the fax machine was a joke.

Then there is the now infamous line “… who would ever want to make a copy of that?”

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/photocopier.html
http://www.cornerstonecopy.com/history.html

Now, bring that into the context of Marketing, and you will begin to see the same behvaviour. When you propose a new idea that no one has ever tried before, the Management will more likely than not, shoot it down. Simply because it has never been done before. Keep this in mind when your next idea gets canned and just smile a little smile to yourself.

For all the marketing folks out there, here is one way never to launch a product. Read on for the low-down on the fun and games. Not.

The product in question here is a computer game called HellGate London. It was a much anticipated product and had a rousing response to its launch. However, it did a few critical things wrong which has made it go from hero to dog in something less than a week!

- Product was extremely buggy (bugs are things that make the game hang, or interfere with the game play)
- Communications with the community was patchy
- There was no in-game communications (this is critical, especially for an online game)
- Action was taken with no consideration to user inputs

Many users felt that the company simply took their money under false pretense. This is really bad. Now, bear in mind that the game is indeed an excellent game. I think what happened was a mis-management of communications, customer service and worse of all, plain, lousy product management.

You can read a funny “review” of the situation here: When There Is No Room In Hellgate, The Dead Shall Inhabit The Bargain Bin

Unfortunately, you cannot view the ire of the gamers unless you can log into their forums. Both the US/Europe and the Asian forums are hot with irate gamers. Bearing in mind that this game is based on the incredibly successful “Diablo” franchise, it is really surprising. Yet, again, if you think about it, it is not that surprising. Ego, Arrogance and Greed. If not, there is no other explanation as to why a company so experienced and with such a strong history, can screw up a launch so badly.

With products and services, a launch should never take place before a product is ready to go. The skill here is to be able to tell the difference between a critical bug and a non-critical bug. When “management” takes over or “marketing” takes over the product management process, the fiasco of HellGate proportions happens. This is not the first, and I doubt if it will be the last. Another famous example would be the Tribes2 launch by Dynamics (now gone) where the “auto update” was defective and could not update itself at launch!

Technorati Tags: hellgate, bad service, poor marketing

Actually, if you pare it right down, what is marketing other than building trust?

In the end, what we are trying to do is to make people believe what we say about our products, its capabilities and that it is the best possible price. So people buy. Yvonne wrote a nice little piece on Building Brand Trust, which I think really hits it on the head. Marketing is not just about the folks in the marketing department. Or the sales people going out to visit customers. It is about everyone providing the best possible customer experience. So customers will keep coming back.

Technorati Tags: marketing, customer service, sales, brand, branding, brand trust