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Even though the financial stability of the global economy stares down the barrel of a gun, manufacturers continue to roll items off the production line. Through retailers and distributors, these manufacturers are exposing consumers to a wall of products in the hope that they will be able to reignite the sales boom. Although it might seem like wishful thinking, the only guarantee that has been made is that consumers now find themselves with so much choice that it makes sense for them to shop around for not only the best deal, but for a versatile product too.
The aggressive nature that can be seen by the manufacturers has resulted in almost a surplus of appliances and goods on offer. Whilst this is good for the consumer, the manufacturer now finds itself competing against much more and failure to sell boxes results in wasted time and effort. However, should the manufacturer prepare and develop its products properly, it can find itself reaping in far more than expected. For example, digital cameras have plenty of substitutes and variations in the market. Truthfully, each digital camera performs the same function, simply to a greater or lesser extent. Taking photos is so common place now that even cell phones are even seen as a threat to digital cameras.
MP3 players are also coming under threat from cell phones. Increasingly, people are leaving music players on the shelves as they prefer to only take one gadget with them. MP3 players may well be on the decline as manufacturers such as Sony and Apple begin to integrate Walkman and iPod features into cell phones, perhaps signaling the beginning of the end for digital music players.
Cell phones are not the only electrical goods learning new tricks. Even LCD TVs are evolving. The long lasting living room center piece is doubling up as digital photo frame in some instances. Samsung has begun to include USB ports into its LCD TVs. This allows users to simply plug in their portable storage devices straight into their LCD TV and begin viewing their photos. Some video files can also be played straight off flash drives too.
In conclusion, manufacturers have to be extra creative in producing new items. Innovations in the market place will lead to increased sales and profits. The development of cell phones is frightening, particularly for digital cameras and MP3 players, however, cramming so much into 1 device might make it a mediocre performer in all areas. Regardless, the overall winner in this situation is the consumer, as they will be able to pick and choose which products match their needs and wallets.
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Friday, 20 February 2009
Marketing during a financial crisis
So, what do we do then? Marketing by definition is a task that requires the expenditure of money. It can’t be helped. In order to do a proper job, cash needs to be spent as free marketing will only get you so far. As that’s the case, marketing spend needs to be kept tightly in check, else that all important marketing yardstick known as ROI will be unacceptably low. Fortunately, online marketing is extremely measurable and there are a number of ways to exploit this, as well as making the most of performance based budgets. This post will cover 2 distinct areas that you can quickly and immediately try to optimise.
Let others do the hard work
Unless you’ve found a truly magical niche market where you’re the only player, the chances are pretty good that you have competitors. Just about everybody’s who’s anybody is going to have a presence on search engines’ paid ads areas. There you’ll be fighting against all sorts of online competitors, some who will be selling the same products and those who are just comparing them or talking about them. But do you really need to have a presence for every product class and type that you sell? Probably not, as you might find that you only sell a small percentage of your product portfolio, or that only some of them will be able to sufficiently cover the costs of your marketing spend. So you can instantly cut out the chaff and focus on your bread and butter products.
Then there are the keywords that you’re bidding for. The high level, broad, generic keywords are the most competitive and are a great statement of intent. It shows everybody what exactly you’re about and corporate responsibility may dictate that you have to be here as it is your Oxford Street. But, in belt tightening times, it might be more prudent to let these slip a bit. There are far better converting keywords that you could be focusing on. If you have a big brand to protect, then it might not be possible to drop the Oxford Street generic keywords. If, however, you’re a much smaller organisation without much of a brand, it’s probably safe to be a bit sneaky. Let the bigger fish get their speculative traffic, target those people who are ready to purchase, those who are right at the end of their purchasing cycle. These long tail keywords are probably your best bet, particularly if you’re price competitive too.
Collaboration is the key
Love them or hate them, affiliate marketing is probably the best model for online marketing. Remember, it’s a win-win situation a lot of the time. You might be giving a bit away in terms of profit margin, but it is for a guaranteed sale. If anybody approached me and said that my marketing spend would come in every week at exactly 4% of overall sales, I’d call them crazy. Although it’s probably unrealistic to make affiliate marketing your entire marketing plan, it is possible to make them a bigger part of it instead. Provide as much information as you can and try to meet as many of them as possible. In an industry with seemingly little loyalty, you’re going to have to work very hard to get hard working affiliates onside.
Also put a bit of thought into your commission structure and levels. Big market players who have massive brand strength will automatically draw the attention themselves. They’ll get the lion’s share of the affiliates, as well as the lion’s share of the end users. Smaller guys will struggle a little more, but is there an alternative to just offering more commission. If you happen to be a market leader in price, you should definitely consider offering slightly less than the going rate and convince your extended sales force with your undoubtedly stronger conversion. If your conversion is not so good, even though your prices are low, then you probably want to focus on fixing your site!
More to it than that
Of course, this is certainly not everything that you should do with online marketing in a recession. There’s much more stuff you can look at, including improving relevancy with email communications and website personalisation. However, these are quicker fixes than everything else that makes up your online marketing mix and if you are struggling to know where to begin, PPC and affiliates are a good starting point.
Let others do the hard work
Unless you’ve found a truly magical niche market where you’re the only player, the chances are pretty good that you have competitors. Just about everybody’s who’s anybody is going to have a presence on search engines’ paid ads areas. There you’ll be fighting against all sorts of online competitors, some who will be selling the same products and those who are just comparing them or talking about them. But do you really need to have a presence for every product class and type that you sell? Probably not, as you might find that you only sell a small percentage of your product portfolio, or that only some of them will be able to sufficiently cover the costs of your marketing spend. So you can instantly cut out the chaff and focus on your bread and butter products.
Then there are the keywords that you’re bidding for. The high level, broad, generic keywords are the most competitive and are a great statement of intent. It shows everybody what exactly you’re about and corporate responsibility may dictate that you have to be here as it is your Oxford Street. But, in belt tightening times, it might be more prudent to let these slip a bit. There are far better converting keywords that you could be focusing on. If you have a big brand to protect, then it might not be possible to drop the Oxford Street generic keywords. If, however, you’re a much smaller organisation without much of a brand, it’s probably safe to be a bit sneaky. Let the bigger fish get their speculative traffic, target those people who are ready to purchase, those who are right at the end of their purchasing cycle. These long tail keywords are probably your best bet, particularly if you’re price competitive too.
Collaboration is the key
Love them or hate them, affiliate marketing is probably the best model for online marketing. Remember, it’s a win-win situation a lot of the time. You might be giving a bit away in terms of profit margin, but it is for a guaranteed sale. If anybody approached me and said that my marketing spend would come in every week at exactly 4% of overall sales, I’d call them crazy. Although it’s probably unrealistic to make affiliate marketing your entire marketing plan, it is possible to make them a bigger part of it instead. Provide as much information as you can and try to meet as many of them as possible. In an industry with seemingly little loyalty, you’re going to have to work very hard to get hard working affiliates onside.
Also put a bit of thought into your commission structure and levels. Big market players who have massive brand strength will automatically draw the attention themselves. They’ll get the lion’s share of the affiliates, as well as the lion’s share of the end users. Smaller guys will struggle a little more, but is there an alternative to just offering more commission. If you happen to be a market leader in price, you should definitely consider offering slightly less than the going rate and convince your extended sales force with your undoubtedly stronger conversion. If your conversion is not so good, even though your prices are low, then you probably want to focus on fixing your site!
More to it than that
Of course, this is certainly not everything that you should do with online marketing in a recession. There’s much more stuff you can look at, including improving relevancy with email communications and website personalisation. However, these are quicker fixes than everything else that makes up your online marketing mix and if you are struggling to know where to begin, PPC and affiliates are a good starting point.
Friday, 16 January 2009
Online versus offline marketing
I’m going to try to explain a little bit about the differences between online marketing and offline marketing based on my experience. It’s a good exercise to do, especially when you have to pitch to a potential client or when you’re trying to convert a new supplier to online retailing. For me, the first step is to understand the differences between online and offline shopping behaviour.
Offline shopping
For those who are “nonline”, shopping is all about the experience – wandering around, browsing, chatting to those who you’re with and enjoying a bit of spending therapy. As a result, all the marketing campaigns that surround you have got a tough job in catching your attention. Advertisers have their work cut out to produce the most outrageous bill boards or point of sale posters, whist marketers will be trying to catch you when you’re actively looking for something to buy. It’s extremely likely that you will miss a lot of the activity around you. Marketers will be looking to drive footfall with their work, though they will not really be able to track how successful they will be. Adverts, posters, gimmicks, short skirts… they’re all out there and they’re all trying to generate leads.
Online shopping
Online shoppers know what they’re looking for and are not prepared to be interrupted when looking for it. Advertisers must understand that their messages have to be targeted. Banner blindness exists mainly in mature online shopping communities such as that in the UK, but not so much in countries such as Hong Kong, where online shopping has not taken off. Trigger happy surfers will be the advertisers’ best friends. Marketing activity online will then be focussed around converting the long tail searchers, people who are ready to buy and looking for the best deal. PPC, affiliates and shopping comparison sites will be the core of your marketing activity and you’ll be able to distinguish between which ones are your best performers.
Integrated campaigns
If you are able to do both online and offline marketing, don’t treat them in isolation. From my time at Comet, I knew of an online marketing manager who was prepared to remove his best selling “TVs” PPC campaign on Boxing Day, the busiest trading day of the entire year, because he was afraid that he’d only end up driving footfall instead of increasing ROI on paid search. It made no sense, TVs are the bread and butter of Comet, easily the largest product in the sales mix, but this marketing manager didn’t care, and it seemed that he just wanted to protect his reputation. Flip this example on its head and you could imagine TV adverts that didn’t have website addresses written in at the very end. Would this be marketing suicide?
The most fundamental thing to remember is that more and more people are using both online and offline to shop. People are quite happy to put physical effort into going to see a product before looking for a bargain online. It’s perfectly normal to do so. If you want the product today, then you might even look online to see if your local store has it in stock or at least sells the item you’re looking for.
Conclusions
So, there you go, a very brief explanation on what the differences between online and offline marketing are. There is so much more detail to get into, and it would be impossible for me to put it into a blog post, it would turn into something more like a white paper. If you’re going to take anything away from reading this, remember that you need to remind yourself of the modern day shopper that will use as many forms of research as possible. This population of shoppers is growing all the time, so if you think the Internet is still a fad then you’re going to be in for a bit of a surprise. Define the boundaries and objectives of online and offline marketing and make sure you mesh them together.
Offline shopping
For those who are “nonline”, shopping is all about the experience – wandering around, browsing, chatting to those who you’re with and enjoying a bit of spending therapy. As a result, all the marketing campaigns that surround you have got a tough job in catching your attention. Advertisers have their work cut out to produce the most outrageous bill boards or point of sale posters, whist marketers will be trying to catch you when you’re actively looking for something to buy. It’s extremely likely that you will miss a lot of the activity around you. Marketers will be looking to drive footfall with their work, though they will not really be able to track how successful they will be. Adverts, posters, gimmicks, short skirts… they’re all out there and they’re all trying to generate leads.
Online shopping
Online shoppers know what they’re looking for and are not prepared to be interrupted when looking for it. Advertisers must understand that their messages have to be targeted. Banner blindness exists mainly in mature online shopping communities such as that in the UK, but not so much in countries such as Hong Kong, where online shopping has not taken off. Trigger happy surfers will be the advertisers’ best friends. Marketing activity online will then be focussed around converting the long tail searchers, people who are ready to buy and looking for the best deal. PPC, affiliates and shopping comparison sites will be the core of your marketing activity and you’ll be able to distinguish between which ones are your best performers.
Integrated campaigns
If you are able to do both online and offline marketing, don’t treat them in isolation. From my time at Comet, I knew of an online marketing manager who was prepared to remove his best selling “TVs” PPC campaign on Boxing Day, the busiest trading day of the entire year, because he was afraid that he’d only end up driving footfall instead of increasing ROI on paid search. It made no sense, TVs are the bread and butter of Comet, easily the largest product in the sales mix, but this marketing manager didn’t care, and it seemed that he just wanted to protect his reputation. Flip this example on its head and you could imagine TV adverts that didn’t have website addresses written in at the very end. Would this be marketing suicide?
The most fundamental thing to remember is that more and more people are using both online and offline to shop. People are quite happy to put physical effort into going to see a product before looking for a bargain online. It’s perfectly normal to do so. If you want the product today, then you might even look online to see if your local store has it in stock or at least sells the item you’re looking for.
Conclusions
So, there you go, a very brief explanation on what the differences between online and offline marketing are. There is so much more detail to get into, and it would be impossible for me to put it into a blog post, it would turn into something more like a white paper. If you’re going to take anything away from reading this, remember that you need to remind yourself of the modern day shopper that will use as many forms of research as possible. This population of shoppers is growing all the time, so if you think the Internet is still a fad then you’re going to be in for a bit of a surprise. Define the boundaries and objectives of online and offline marketing and make sure you mesh them together.
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Back in Stamford
So, here I am, back in Stamford, just like I was 2 years ago - jobless and just sat in my room. There are some differences, though. First of all, I have more shit in my room, there's plenty more stuff that I've accumulated over time. Secondly, I resigned from this last job of mine, a calculated decision and one that weighs very heavily on my heart, such is my affection for my previous role. And finally (because all good lists come in 3s), I have my new life/adventure to look forward to - I'll be working in Hong Kong, fulfilling an ambition to live and work over there.
It's amazing thinking about how far I've come over these past two years. I'll never forget my time at Crave, it really gave me a head start on life in online and allowed me to cut my teeth in the harsh retail world. But it's my time at Comet that has seriously sculpted me into what I am now. Under the supervision of so many good managers, colleagues and friends, I had learnt so much and developed into a strong, competent marketer that the job that I loved so dearly became a bit drab. And now, based on that experience, I've been offered the best opportunity that could have possibly come my way. I can't wait.
It's amazing thinking about how far I've come over these past two years. I'll never forget my time at Crave, it really gave me a head start on life in online and allowed me to cut my teeth in the harsh retail world. But it's my time at Comet that has seriously sculpted me into what I am now. Under the supervision of so many good managers, colleagues and friends, I had learnt so much and developed into a strong, competent marketer that the job that I loved so dearly became a bit drab. And now, based on that experience, I've been offered the best opportunity that could have possibly come my way. I can't wait.
Monday, 5 January 2009
It's been far too long again....
Ah ha! Well, it's certainly something that I've not been paying much attention to, but I do plan on cranking up blogging activity. Why? Well, for the simple reason that I'm going to be embarking on a new adventure.
Yes, I'm going to be leaving the UK, moving to Hong Kong where I will start a new job and new life. I reckon I'll keep a diary, so I might save myself some petty cash and just write on this blog instead. I don't know yet, I might just keep everything private instead. But 1 thing is for sure, and that is that I'm dead excited and scared in equal measures. I just need a bit of courage, but once I'm out there, I'm sure I'll be just fine.
Yes, I'm going to be leaving the UK, moving to Hong Kong where I will start a new job and new life. I reckon I'll keep a diary, so I might save myself some petty cash and just write on this blog instead. I don't know yet, I might just keep everything private instead. But 1 thing is for sure, and that is that I'm dead excited and scared in equal measures. I just need a bit of courage, but once I'm out there, I'm sure I'll be just fine.
Sunday, 2 November 2008
It's been a while
Well, I know it's been a while since I last posted anything on my little blog, but there has been good reason for it. I've been busy, not only with work, but with my course as well.
I recently enrolled in a course with the British College of Journalism and by the end of it, I will have a diploma in Freelance Journalism. I have so far had 1 assignment, with another one on its way sometime this weekend. I'm really enjoying it, although all I've really done is research topics to write about. I'm going to be writing up one of my follow up ideas with the next assignment, 800 words to be precise and I can't wait. I've made a start on it already, racking up about 600 words already, so I guess I'm nearly finished. Not quite sure about what I'm trying to say with it, but I am trying to make it as professional as possible. Going to have to give the tutorial a good read through before I submit it, as I'm sure it'll give me an indication of quotes and stuff like that, and maybe basic interviewing techniques.
I shall let you know how it goes.
I recently enrolled in a course with the British College of Journalism and by the end of it, I will have a diploma in Freelance Journalism. I have so far had 1 assignment, with another one on its way sometime this weekend. I'm really enjoying it, although all I've really done is research topics to write about. I'm going to be writing up one of my follow up ideas with the next assignment, 800 words to be precise and I can't wait. I've made a start on it already, racking up about 600 words already, so I guess I'm nearly finished. Not quite sure about what I'm trying to say with it, but I am trying to make it as professional as possible. Going to have to give the tutorial a good read through before I submit it, as I'm sure it'll give me an indication of quotes and stuff like that, and maybe basic interviewing techniques.
I shall let you know how it goes.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Beef jerky addiction
Since getting back from their cruise around North America, my parents have been lavishing me with gifts. Typical tourist style clothing, an endless supply of playing cards, a wooden yoyo, a set of Russian dolls and holiday snaps and video footage make up the treats. However, the only one to really catch my attention is the beef jerky. Oh my, it's wonderful, it's tasty, it's almost wrong, but it tastes sooooo good! I've gorged myself silly on two flavours, teriyaki and smoked. I can confirm that both are exquisite and urge everyone who has never tried beef jerky to give their teeth a good work out and take the plunge.
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