How about a book for Christmas?

Buy now

Choosing a suitable Christmas gift can be a challenge. At one time a DVD  was a useful standby gift idea, one that didn't usually require too much knowledge of the recipient's interests, could be wrapped up easily and would be appreciated. But now everyone seems to download movies, box sets and the like and movies have gone the same way as music and to some extent books with their contents held in the ether, or cloud. 

I am not sure we are all yet ready for a fully digital Christmas where in place of opening up intriguingly wrapped presents from under the Christmas tree we sit around with our iBooks, iPads and iPhones and open our downloads! Recently I  received a Kindle as a birthday gift and this has great merit when travelling thanks to it being physically small, lightweight and yet easy to read. In these days of carry on hand luggage, books consume both space and add to weight that could otherwise be used by some essential items of clothing. 

On the other hand, books to read when flying or on holiday will probably be fiction. I was once influenced by a list of titles in a national newspaper recommended as suitable holiday reading for people in business as sources of new ideas, or essential background briefings for anyone with ambitions to succeed. That turned out to be a big mistake. They were just boring. However the concept of reading other people's ideas is quite compelling. Over the years I  have assembled a very small library - well short bookshelf really - of books that once read proved useful to refer to from time to time as a source of information when writing an article, drawing up proposals or prompting thoughts.   These books are all characterised by 'Post-it' notes sticking out of the tops of pages to bookmark some helpful references. Somehow they are more accessible than the links I bookmark to useful online references.

Running a small business which involves marketing strategy and content development, the small office library comes down to just a few subjects:-

Marketing - Marketing in a Competitive Economy by Leslie W Rodger, The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott and the recently published Technical Marketing - Ideas for Engineers by David Brooks.

Management - The Practice of Management by Peter F Drucker and An Insight into Management Accounting by John Sizer.

Reference - The Oxford Dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, two books on web design and HTML, A to Z London and AA Road Atlas Britain, plus a few operating manuals for various bits of kit.

Digital marketing - rules of engagement

One thing marketing in the Internet [or digital] age does not lack is jargon.

As systems and software permit "tracking behavioral metrics online" we can be delivered a whole load of data about individuals. With a joined up system we can review past purchases, searches, page views, actions taken and lots more and apply all this stuff to evolve digital marketing strategies. But just because a campaign reports response rates to several decimal places, it does not follow that figure is real. Mathematically it will be correct of course, but what actually happened may be quite difernt.

Just because I leave a trail of searches and page views around the Internet, does not mean I am actually about to purchase a product. But that expensive digital marketing software someone sold you will trigger various actions, in particular presenting advertisements everywhere you now go as part of an engagement strategy.

Engagement is another popular jargon term for stalking a customer or prospect  who by online actions has been flagged up as a potential buyer.  So wherever you now go online the advertisements follow, offers pop up, emails arrive. It's all about personalisation. At one time it was much simpler. Companies had salesmen that 'engaged' with the customer. B-2-B marketers regarded these as being their target audience and looked for others like them as potential prospects who read specific trade magazines and attended particular trade shows. So the marketing team advertised in the journals the target audience read, posted press release to the  editors and exhibited at trade shows. The enquiries these activities flushed out were passed on to the sales team as leads. In the industrial sector the company typically sold a basic product which for many b-2-b's could last for years before a replacement sales opportunity might crop up. Happily much of this stuff needed accessories to work effectively - always a good thing to sell to a captive market as margins were always higher than on the base product. Consumables offered another profitable source of revenue and then the maintenance contract. All good opportunities to keep the customer engaged and bring forward the time for a replacement base product was purchased by talking about new models during visits.

As field salesmen were phased out in many companies that personal customer contact went to in-house teams who were less well placed to build the same rapport a good salesman could create. I was always impressed when out on the road with some of our salesmen how they could turn a 'no' into a big order. Also salesmen actually got to see how customers used the products - if acted on a good source of market intelligence. I am surprised how in many companies today the internal sales force seem more at home selling via email exchanges rather than using the phone. Meanwhile prospective customers are engaged in the early stages of researching products based on their own trawling round the web, which seems to be assumed includes social media sites and even closing the sale through an online purchase. And into this mix comes digital marketing software tools which aggregates all this stuff.   

Digital Marketing - what does in mean for b-2-b companies?

The term Digital Marketing is gaining traction as digital agencies spring up or emerge from traditional advertising agencies. But what exactly does it mean in the b-2-b world?

Engineers probably have a different concept of the term 'digital.' For many it was effectively an advance over analogue systems. Instead of sending data as a continuous time variable signal each using a dedicated line, digital divided the data into packages which could all be sent down the same wire using a protocol such as DMX. But I don't think that's what digital agencies are about. 

Think back 20 years or so ago when print was suddenly not the only media agencies could  output their work to. CDs, then DVDs came along and agencies started talking about being New Media agencies. A term that has already faded away. What digital agencies are mainly about is using Internet tools and systems bundled up with software to gain greater engagement with their customers and prospects. 

Wikipedia describes digital marketing as "an umbrella for the targeted, measurable and interactive marketing of products and services using digital technologies to reach and convert leads into customers and retain them." .... there's more ..  

Some have talked about 'engagement marketing' by applying digital tools to tracking individual behaviour. Interestingly most of these digital tools have been around for some time and there is already plenty of data about. It prompts the question for b-2-b companies could they use existing tools better - or even use them at all - or buy some expensive software package that costs thousands each year? 

A lot of this starts with having a good, 'clean' database and that is a problem. What so often happens is that names are added for various reasons by different people and in different ways which soon become out of date. Whenever a b-2-b client tells me they have 50,000 or more records on their customer database, I  can be sure at least 25% of it will be wrong. Rather than face the task of 'cleaning' the database, this old unverified and frequently wrong data gets imported into the shiny new software the sales rep sold them. Yes interesting that. If the whole marketing world is now digital, why would a company selling premium priced software need a salesman to give a demonstration when whole sales process through to delivery and billing could be done online.?

The publicity value of advertising

Sometimes an advertisement can be the focus of significant news coverage - intentionally or by accident.

It is hard to say which course of action has put the Church of England's pre-Christmas 60 second advertisement intended for screening in cinemas prior to the latest film release in the Star Wars series in the spotlight. Could the C of E really be that smart, or indeed that naive, to think despite approval of the British Board of Film Classification and the Cinema Advertising Authority it would not attract attention. Christmas is arguably the star in the C of E's biblical portfolio, but a brand under attack from the American big business promotion of 'Holidays' as a challenger to the whole Christmas franchise that should be the C of E's exclusive territory.

The 'Happy Holidays' mission to displace the original 'Christmas' branding has been slowly creeping in through business neutral greetings cards sent to customers for years now and gaining traction in retail outlets as the season becomes a huge sales opportunity that doesn't really want religion getting in the way. Interestingly the C of E has opted for the non-traditional version of the Lord's Prayer which provides the narrative for the advertisement which I think is a marketing error. One which may possibly risk alienating their traditional audience who might prefer the more dramatic wording of the original. Either way the Church of England has pitched in with two of its prime icons brought together with powerful images.

The news storm has gained far more mileage than the advertisement would have achieved alone.   

The Marketing Budget

Setting and working to a budget is one of the key fundamental   components of the marketing infra structure.

Previously we have highlighted 4  crucial pillars of b-2-b marketing - the business model, the marketing plan, the budget and the CI Manual. Today we take a brief look at the marketing budget. The first obvious question is - do you have one? Even when there is no formal budget a historic record can probably be assembled by the accounts department tracing through invoices paid. At least this will give us some point of reference and highlight where money has been spent. And here is the first issue, that word spent. It implies a reactive, even negative cost incurred, why not approach the budget as making an investment. An investment that should demonstrate valid returns. If the company was investing in new production equipment for example, then the company directors would be expecting no less than a proposal that set out the benefits and return for that investment and judge this against other proposals competing for what are typically scarce resources.

The marketing budget holder will often be the marketing manager or marketing director and the scope might include staff salaries and employment costs, an allocation charge for floor space and overhead contribution,  marketing communications, travel expenses and intellectual property such as trademarks and patents. Clients often ask me what percentage of sales turnover should the marketing budget be? Well, this will be influenced by the scope - what's in and what's out - the nature of the business and what can be afforded.

 There are two ways of looking at this. To 'cost the need' - that is to outline the plan for staffing and marcomms judged appropriate to reaching the business's financial targets, or more likely decide how much can be afforded. Client/agency meetings provide the forum where such a disclosure is usually revealed.

In practical terms the next stage is to create the budget - a spreadsheet can be very useful and allow further  analysis. I  tend to use an application such as Exel or Numbers utilising features such as formulae and relational spreadsheets to do the number crunching and  comparisons. I find it useful to provide a line for every type of marketing activity, even though some will have a zero figure entered. Also build in a contingency for unexpected expenditure.  The MD is often good at signing you up for an exhibition you don't need but is in a location he would like to visit - but that's another story.

Finally having prepared and presented your marketing budget, monitor it versus 'actuals' and take the appropriate action if you are spending too much against the plan

Writing the Marketing Plan

Not many people take the trouble to write a marketing plan - why?

Writing the marketing plan does take time, but we have to question what else we would be doing. Probably day-to-day actions that should be prescribed by the marketing plan and may actually not be things we should be doing at all, or doing differently. So take time to think about the shape of the plan. Discuss ideas with colleagues and your agencies, don’t simply dust off the last plan, but do review what worked, what didn’t and understand why. Once committed to paper, having a route plan will in turn make day-to-day life easier, because you now know where you are heading. Things will of course change. New opportunities will present themselves. New threats will emerge. At least you now have something against which they can be evaluated. Don’t be afraid to modify the plan if that is what is required. It is after all only a plan constructed at a particular moment in time. But update, build in the new items so that you still have your route map.

  The marketing plan is quite a different animal to the business plan. I see it as an important sub-set. It is a manifesto of aims and a programme of activities that should be reviewed and updated annually or quarterly depending on the business’s timescales and be used to both describe and measure progress. The marketing plan derives from the business plan and should start by restating the business objectives. Some of these may be long term and eternal, others specific to a time frame. Such a marketing plan could then include the main areas of identified activities, these could cover some or all of the following:-

Market analysis

·       Size, sectors, competition, share, products & services, channels

·       Marketing organization

·       Personnel, outsource agencies, research, areas of responsibility

·       Business programmes

·       Pricing, products, information, training

·       Marketing communications

·       Campaigns: advertising, PR, Direct Marketing, web, print support, exhibitions

·       Product development

·       New products, deleted products, maintained products – product portfolio

·       Intellectual property - Patents, trademarks, software protection

·       Budget - Expenditure and income plan

Read more about Marketing Planning in Technical Marketing: Ideas for Engineers from etbooks.

Four pillars of b-2-b marketing

There are four essential matters that should be in place before any marketing activity is initiated.

From a marketing agency point of view when dealing with any new client, or established clients, there are 4 important things to understand.

1. What is the business model?
2. Do you have a marketing plan?
3. What is the marketing budget?
4. Do you have a CI Manual?

The Business Plan
Yes, we need to go back to the Business Plan and in particular to understand : - What are the goals or objectives the company has set for the medium term? These are often set at the level where they can be measured in terms of numbers. It maybe the company aims to increase turnover by 5%,  or increase sales by 10%, or increase profit The Business Plan will also explain how the increases are to be made - new production/ facilities, new products etc. Hopefully there is a Business Plan  to refer to. Amazingly not every business has a plan, they just roll out the same de-facto plan year after year. One important thing for marketing is to understand the business model. Put simply the business model describes the method by which the company earns money. It may be the company actually designs,  makes and sells products to end users, or they may just source and sell products from others. There may be some variants within the model that are important for marketing to know. For example in the lighting industry selling luminaires created new 'sockets' and each time a lamp reached its end of life this automatically prompted a replacement sale, which may be half or dozen or more in the life of the fixture. Accessories to add functionality to the base product typically carry high mark ups, so promoting that base product can generate a further income steam from associated products.

The marketing plan
Again not everyone troubles to research and publish a marketing plan, but investing time on doing so and 'selling' the plan to the rest of the company can save a lot of time and effort in the long run. Think of it as a manifesto that sets out your strategy for helping the company meet its business goals. It establishes the agenda and provides the rationale for its implementation.

The marketing budget
A budget is essential if you don't want expenditure to soar out of control. I  have introduced marketing budgets for various companies I  have worked for and for clients as well. Without a budget marketing people are more at the mercy of sales people who sell advertising and the like on a discount basis, so it sounds like a great deal when it isn't. A company with a sensible marketing plan and well researched budget is far less likely to fall for the apparent savings on offer, because research will often have shown they should not be buying that particular advertising space at all. And if they did want that they could negotiate a better deal on a series rate.

 Corporate Identity
The CI guidelines are the remaining essential element at the foundation of the marketing programme. Repetition of a corporate style - logo, fonts, color-ways, livery etc will have a cumulative effect in building your brand and differentiating your products from the competition.

So take some time to review these four fundamentals. Understand where marketing resource will be most effectively invested to achieve business goals. Set out your plans and share them with the rest of the company. Manage the marketing investment against budget. And bring a consistent identity to your products and communications.

Talking about meetings

When I worked in the corporate world, meetings seemed to occupy much of the day. Preparing for meetings, travelling to meetings, participating in meetings, writing up the minutes of meetings and finally actioning them.

Most of my fellow product managers had files full of minutes of meetings. If I were to look in a dairy from those days I would find curious cryptic entries consisting typically of a time, a location and then an alpha/numeric code. The same code appeared on the labels in the filing cabinet. What was that all about then?  The company, the lighting division of a leading manufacturer of electrical products seemed to manage everything via a hierarchy of meetings which met on a monthly basis. At the top no doubt was a board meeting, but no marketing people ever got on to that. Our top level was the policy committee, or in fact two policy committees. A committee that planned all light source developments known as the Lamp Policy Committee and another that planned all luminaire developments and known as the Fittings Policy Committee. I got to serve on both of these eventually. Beneath the two top policy committees were sub committee and it was these that had letters and number assigned. The sub committee that dealt with outdoor lighting for example was known as PC10. And these too had sub committees such as PC3H or what ever.

But this wasn't the end of the matter. There were department meetings, sales meetings, factory visit meetings, planning meetings, staff meetings and even briefly the company flirted with a works council. Then there were external meetings at the Lighting Industry Federation - the trade organisation - standards meetings at BSI and no doubt others since forgotten.   Filing cabinets contained little else but minutes and test reports. When the time came for succession to a position on one of these many committees the departing representative handed over the files which usually dated back to the 1950s. One product manager attending his last policy committee before retiring read an extract from the previous month's minutes about the shortages of a particular type of lamp and the excuses put forward by the production site. He then picked up another set of minutes and read something almost identical and sat down. The chairman asked what point he was making.  The point he said was that the second set of minutes was when I first joined the committee 25 years ago!

Fittings Policy Committee was chaired by the company chairman  a larger than life character whose main objective was to get the meeting concluded by lunch. Outside the conference room in the then modern, indeed recently built laboratory building was a mezzanine floor where a generous lunch was set up along with a well stocked bar. On the stroke of midday the catering manager would turn up to start setting up. Our chairman seemed particularly attuned to the chink of glasses and was out of the door like a shot.  If you were to walk past you would find him clasping a large gin and tonic while his meeting droned on inside the conference room.

Yes those were days of boozy lunches and smoke filled meeting rooms. The senior managers puffed on cigars, younger men smoked cigarettes and the older hands spent a great deal of time cleaning, filling and occasionally smoking pipes. There were no ladies on any of the committees that I attended - well not for years.

Occasionally, perhaps because of this team structure we would be sent on a team building course. One of particular note was run on military lines by ex SAS types outside Hereford. A life spent drinking, smoking and eating was not the best preparation. And team players didn't tend to come up with the clever product ideas the company needed. Many of the best ideas came from mavericks, the loners and slightly dotty who were not great team players, but that's another story.

Heading south

In the last two blogs we travelled north - this time we head south.What began as a test of, could we run a marketing business away from base, turned into a marketing appraisal of opportunities offered by the location.

So from northern Britain we headed to one of the most southerly parts of Spain, an island location nearer to Africa than mainland Europe. A recent poll discovered that a big majority of British people do not consider themselves European at all. Continental Europe is also mainly the European Union which looms large in the current political agenda.  The EU is not yet a state although its seems its aspirations are to become one. It has a flag, national anthem, parliament, currency, but critically no common language. Well yes it does, in practice - English. And the English are probably the least enthusiastic about membership of the EU. In fact a referendum - a very European concept in itself - is promised next year.

Consider the results of the last two major elections in Britain.  The elections to the European Parliament in 2014 were won by UKIP -  a party with a key aim of leaving the EU - UKIP won 4.36 million votes and 24 MEPs; second were Labour with 4.02 million votes and 20 MEPs and third Conservatives with 3.79 million seats and 19 MEPs.  Interestingly the Scottish Nationalists had 389 thousand votes and 2 MEPs. Contrast this with the 2015 UK general election where UKIP polled 3.88 million votes and got one MP, the Scottish Nationalists with 1.45 million votes got 56 MPs!  A strange efect of the two different voting systems used.

The Spanish economy is the fourth largest in the Eurozone and was severely impacted by the recession of 2007-8 with a quarter of the work force unemployed, but this year has been recovering faster than other EU countries. There are large English communities in the south many of whom have set up small businesses. Applying the 'crane count' appraisal as a guide to economic activity, despite groups of unfinished buildings standing like concrete skeletons, the cranes are back and construction is picking up. Interestingly working in Spain is not much different to working in England, but in the sunshine. For me the Internet is the enabling technology essential to running our business.

So what did we learn from the 'taking the business on tour'. Simply put, with planning, an iBook, iPhone and Internet it all worked very well.

Looking for the northern power house

We take a look at the territory.

When we previously referred to the 'Northern Power House' as being a 'vision', it prompted the thought that a visit might be useful to have a look at things on the ground and seek the green shoots of growth of this new era of northern power.

Historically the region played a major part in England's Industrial Revolution -1760 to 1840. The damper climate of Lancashire worked best for cotton mills, while Yorkshire mills produced wool. Huddersfield located midway between Leeds and Manchester is actually only 190 miles north of London and Huddersfield was where we located. The mills that generated the wealth were not without problems, with early labour troubles instigated by the Luddites who smashed mill equipment and where at least one mill owner was shot dead. But that was over 2oo years ago. The town today is much like many other English towns with its national chain stores brands, supermarkets, pound shops, charity shops and vacant shops. The area also has a number of museum celebrating the past industrial successes and many fine buildings remain as a legacy of past wealth, not least the much admired railway station facade.

Presumably in the Industrial Revolution, first the canals and then the railways were built to ship out the mill goods to markets further afield. The HS2 railway however seems to be presented as the driver for the Northern Power House vision and not its servant. Down south there are plenty of protest posters in leafy Buckinghamshire against HS2 which will  run through this pleasant area, but here's a thing. HS2 doesn't actually go to the north at all. It kind of bypasses Birmingham and runs out of steam somewhere north of Tamworth. It is described as a London to West Midlands railway. Phase 2 is still vague with spurs to Manchester and Leeds suggested. HS3 is even more of an illusion dreamed up to to improve east west links, but a map suggests a series of spurs linking various northern towns and hopefully built by 2033! And it all seems to hinge on Chinese investment.

So is there any evidence of a Northern Power House in meaningful terms yet? Or is it a political thing to create an autonomous region and prevent demands for independence, not by Scotland, but for England? From a marketing point of view there seems to be no unique proposition from a group of northern cities and towns being bundled together as an English sub brand. The geography  doesn't help and fast trains a couple of decades away might instead offer a faster exit from the area.

Taking the business on the road

For companies like ours that do not have a bricks and mortar existence, we decided to test how practical running the business on the road actually can be.

We operated from two different locations - one in the North of England, the other in Spain. The work tasks envisaged included day-to-day client contact, content development and all the necessary back office stuff like bank accounts, VAT, invoicing and general management. This called for a fair amount of planning as we were aiming to run everything from iPhones and iBooks which meant leaving PCs, NAS and paper based systems behind.

The first foray was for a short visit to an area which the government is referring to as "The Northern Power House." It is not anything to do with electrical goods or generation, or even a domestic appliance warehouse, but a vision to improve connectivity between England's northern cities by improved transport links somehow generating super economic power. There's big investment planned particularly in rail links - HS2 north-south and HS3 east-west, plus 40 major road schemes. Certainly the M1 had a huge amount of roadworks in progress apparently transforming this previously boring ribbon of concrete into an 'intelligent motorway." The region includes Manchester, Leeds, Hull, Sheffield and Liverpool and accounts for 16.7% of the UK population but has performed below the UK  average for years. A lot is actually about Manchester, but we headed to Leeds and Huddersfield, basing ourselves in Brighouse.

As a measure of economic activity I  find a quick count of how many cranes are dotted around the skyline is an interesting indicator - plus a chat with a taxi driver or barber. When I  was in Leeds a couple of years ago, the taxi driver was very downbeat and gave the impression that there was little money being brought home by most people except by benefit cheats who seemed to provide much of his trade. Even then the centre of Leeds seemed busy with popular post code areas like LS 5 providing attractive residential options in the suburbs.

We headed to Huddersfield to meet in the Harold Wilson Building at the University. Despite having been Prime Minister and local MP,  none of the undergraduates we asked for directions appeared to be aware of his identity or where the building that bore his name was located. The building itself was considerably understated compared to the expectation - not even a picture of Harold in his trademark raincoat enjoying a pipe of tobacco. Not much to see of the Northern Power House so far ....

Technical Marketing - we wrote the book

'Technical Marketing - ideas for engineers' is a book that should strike a chord with engineering, scientific and technical people in businesses that need to market their products.

It might seem a bit of a niche audience, but the fact is many small to medium size businesses typically selling engineering products to other businesses, either cannot afford, or don't have in-house resources to market their products. Tougher still for start ups with a great product idea. How do you let prospective customers know about the benefits your product might offer. You only have to watch a few episodes of Dragons Den to see how most innovators need some help and not just in marketing.

It is not unusual to find new businesses launching into buying advertising space or exhibition space without any plan or idea of financial return. Marketing isn't only advertising or exhibitions, but for example consider these two activities. For many modest start ups, or established small businesses come to that, advertising in the trade magazines can be very expensive, despite the advertising sales person offering massive discounts. How often are you told by  the sales exec there is only one page left and they are just about to go to print and will let you have it at a very special rate. Placing advertising that way will rapidly exhaust the budget. Exhibitions can be a big call on money and time as well. Having bought the stand space - because you are told all your competitors will be there - you need to pay for building a stand, travel, probably hotels, subsistence etc and suddenly it is not such a good deal. Not surprisingly Advertising and Exhibitions are often the top expenditure items on a b-2-b marketing budget. Budget, what budget? Reading Technical Marketing - ideas for engineers might help you be aware of such pitfalls, but most importantly give you pointers to what you should be doing and how to plan activities. When you have a marketing plan it is easier to negotiate deals and reject opportunist sales opportunities.

Take a moment to have a quick look at what the book contains, or simply get your credit card out and buy a copy on line now.

The continuing appeal of catalogues

The promise of a trip down memory lane

Despite the relative ease with which we can buy products online, why do some companies still publish catalogues?

In that polythene sealed envelope that accompanies Sunday newspapers is often a short catalogue typically for household items, clothing, gardening supplies, but best of all - gadgets. It is the gadgets that intrigue me and because you didn't know that they existed you probably wouldn't have searched for them online. That's why the catalogues work. And you judge the price on the basis of does it sound like a good deal, not by going to a comparison site.

One last Sunday was fabulous - a music centre. Described as an 'Exclusive Nostalgic Music Centre with Radio, Plays CDs, Cassettes, Singles, LPs and 78s. ' Fabulous - every music format since the Second World War and all installed in a 'beautifully crafted music centre finished with genuine oak veneer' that looked like it had been designed out of old radio bits about 1941! Promising the experience of'a trip down memory lane' the sales copy expertly makes you want to have one. I  could bring all those old vinyl records in from the garage ...  or not. Maybe I  will stick to the digital music that is on all my Apple kit and actually sounds much better.

How about the opportunity to own a drone complete with HD camera which can be radio controlled to fly in various directions, up, down and hover - all for less than £30. If that was available when I was 10 it would have been fabulous fun! Lots cheaper than the music centre, but then again our children are all long grown up and left home so no excuse to buy one on their behalf and help them fly it.

I particularly used to enjoy the catalogues once found in seat pockets of American airlines a few years ago  which usually included a range of outfits for animals. The tailored suits for dogs were wonderfully amusing and hilarious. Of course it is not just the catalogues that have gone, Ryanair has dispensed with seat pockets as well. But these are only relatively small catalogues, nothing like the huge tomes for mail order clothing that sometimes get delivered by courier and weigh a few pounds. Apart from anything else  because they are so heavy they are difficult to look through. The sheer cost of design, print and delivery must be huge. They do what? Charge you for them!

Small businesses back in the spotlight

This blog has noted before that in terms of numbers there are many small businesses and relatively few large ones. Yet it is the corporates that claim to speak for business.

A news item today quotes a Treasury source as saying "the Treasury is keen to make sure small businesses are creating wealth, rather than spending time dealing with tax." A noble sentiment indeed.  While large corporations seem to merrily continue to avoid corporation tax, the small business in awe of the sweeping powers of the HMRC appears to pay more than many famous global brands in corporation tax. Then there is the EC Sales return, VAT, PAYE, NI etc it is surprising small firms have the time to go out and win new business and then actually deliver that work to clients.

Marketing is very much linked to business strategies and results and being a small business we are also very conscious of the time spent on non billable work required by the government. Interestingly by email today arrived news of a new marketing consultants report which apparently lists some 1176 firms including ours and can be purchased for between £195 and £295 depending on the format - ebook, print or searchable database. Curiously it claims to identify the best seven firms to own, the four newest and a short list of those most suitable for acquisition. Not it seems a reference for firms to locate marketing consultants, but as a resource for those who want to buy the marketing businesses. The address appeared to be a castle in Scotland. Right - back to the VAT.

And on a final note and much better value, a new edition of our marketing book quietly went into print last week. More in future blogs, but if you want to buy a copy then check out http://www.etbooks.co.uk !

The hidden power of colour in advertising

Colour is the first thing that attracts your attention to an advertisement. Or so an article this week on the psychology of colour as it relates to persuasion and advertising claims.

The article - Psychological Properties of Colour -  claims "There are four psychological primary colours - red, blue, yellow and green. They relate respectively to the body, the mind, the emotions and the essential balance between these three." It then goes on to list the attributes of various colours and what moods they convey. Apparently "colour has a powerful psychological influence on the human brain, mentally, physically, consciously and subconsciously. These responses to colour can be used to the advantage of marketeers to illicit the desired response to their marketing campaigns."

Red, for example, is described as a 'physical' colour - "Physical courage, strength, warmth, energy, basic survival, 'fight or flight', stimulation, masculinity, excitement." Then think brands such as Coca Cola, McDonalds, Virgin, Ferrari cars ... and how often are in-store "SALE" signs red?

Green is said to offer "Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness, equilibrium, peace... and you have Starbucks.


 While certain colours such as red are used to grab attention, more often in b-2-b marketing it is the typically mute colours of the Corporate Identity that we are accustomed to work with. It did bring to mind an incident many years ago when I was marketing director of Strand Lighting, at that time part of the Rank Organisation. In its earlier days, then known as Strand Electric, a range of  filters had been developed for projection of colour from theatrical spotlights. In the world of stage craft their quaint names and associated colour numbers were well known.

One day I  received a telephone call which resulted in me sending the editor of our company magazine to follow up on the story as a potential interest for alternative use of our by then elderly range of colour filters. Indeed that was the case and Richard returned to regale the marketing team of what was to us was a whole new world called colour therapy. He no doubt embellished the story, particularly the range of treatments and the facilities at the venue. It is said that, "Colours Therapy is a natural therapy tool which uses colours to restore or promote energy balances within an individual. The colours we interact with can impact us on an emotional, mental, spiritual and physical level. Colours operate on wavelengths which each have their own energy. Each colour of the rainbow resonates with the seven main chakras in the human body. Understanding these colour, chakra relationships can be used to to restore the balance of energy within the body according to where needs it most."

 


Does country of origin matter?

When it comes to manufactured goods there is a legal imperative in most countries to mark products with the country of origin. But do customers care?

At one time a nation's expertise in manufacture was often looked at as an umbrella brand for the products its companies made. Thanks to the legacy of the industrial revolution the British had earned a reputation for building solid, reliable products. If testimony was needed look no further than the railways constructed throughout the Empire where steam locomotives built in Glasgow or Birmingham still huff and puff along narrow gauge lines even today. Old Morris and Austin cars are still going, even factory machinery with still produce basic goods in many parts of the world. 'British Made' stamped on a product offered a reassurance of that dependability, while at one time 'Made in Japan' was a euphemism for junk. But how things changed. The Japanese who seemed to have cornered the market in plimsolls by adding a pink rubber diamond logo glued to the sole saying 'Empire Made' managed to ride on the back of the old British Empire preference, without going so far as to say it was actually made in the Japanese Empire.

But change things did and it was the Japanese who by the nineteen sixties were laying claim to leadership in high quality goods, particularly in the manufacture of cars, motor bikes, consumer electronics and cameras. It left British goods looking old fashioned and clunky. The British had by then developed a fascination for the antics of the young movers and shakers of the so called 'swinging sixties'. The British Union flag became a symbol of the new era in clothes fashions and in popular music. Meanwhile poor old manufacturing industry had lost the design edge too, if it ever had one, to the Italians and Scandinavians who produced much more elegant, stylish and desirable products. British industry suffered not only from generally poor design, but under investment in new equipment, over manning and militant trade unions in its factories, all seriously affecting productivity and competitiveness.

So industry started moving offshore. I was working in consumer electronics in the late nineteen sixties at the advent of colour television. Thanks to government pontification,  several years had been lost deciding which standard would be adopted for broadcast - the established American NTSC for which we had technology licensing in place from our American commercial arrangements, or the French SECAM system for which we did not. We mounted interesting little demonstrations of colour television in our laboratories for years as we waited while the big decision of which standard to recommend was delayed. Eventually the government opted for neither and backed the later  entrant the German PAL  system and so the race to get  TV sets on the market had begun. The probably unique thing about the British market was the widespread preference to rent televisions owing to their poor reputation for reliability. The company I worked for owned the majority of outlets, originally intended as the channel to feed the production of its own factories into the market. But the pent up demand from rental customers couldn't quickly be met, so additional TV sets were sourced from Japan. Soon to be joined by  radios, record players, tape recorders etc. to which a British brand label was attached. By then the company had also bought most of the leading British brand names. It was joked in-house that the Japanese designed and manufactured the products and the British decided where to glue the label. But even that task was done in Berlin thanks to some customs quirk dating back to the war. This apparently attracted some financial preference to goods entering Europe through that city then isolated in a soviet landscape as a show case of western consumerism.

By this time the buying public had generally lost interest in country of origin and rarely turned the product upside down to see where it had been made. Then just when it seemed Japan would make everything that bubble burst and the country entered recession. But even that did not matter, they had been off shoring themselves to the Philippines and the Tiger economies as  labour costs rose at home. Then into the mix came China as a huge manufacturing operation with even lower labour rates. Big brands,  designed where in the world suited them most, then had the products built in China.  By now brand had usurped country of origin in the consumer's mind. Most don't care how its made, what working conditions are like, or even can they get spares because the product's desire will have expired long before it breaks and its time to buy the latest model!

There have been signs for some years now that low labour costs are less significant as the market for many classes of product demands greater levels of customisation. Robotics become more widespread.  Filling whole containers for shipping for months is less economic specially if the whole load has manufacturing defects and is rejected ... and at some stage the economy in China will have to adjust and correct. May be that is what is happening now!

Should you trust recommendations from people you do not know?

Recommendations typically rate highly as a source of enquiries - but what actually is a recommendation and can it be trusted?

Trust is an important factor. So a recommendation from a friend whose judgement you trust would carry some authority, more so where they had personal experience of the product or service you were interested in. But even then you would probably evaluate their recommendation in the light of your knowledge or their expertise or experience in the subject. Your interpretation of their opinions might be different between prompted and unprompted  recommendation - for example if they were extolling the virtues of a new product they had bought they might be justifying the correctness of their own purchase decision not suggesting you buy one too. Whereas if you asked could they recommend a good plumber then their response would be based on personal experience - quality of work, promptness, value etc.

The thing is the recommendation is 'word of mouth' from a source you trust. Businesses often ask where you heard about them when you make an enquiry. But more likely it will be where did you read about them and the answer is on the Internet. One example of online recommendation is Trip Advisor where people volunteer their opinions of a hotel, often going into amazing detail about the rooms to avoid, the names of staff, quality of service ... on and on. You have to ask what sort of person has the inclination and time to write all this stuff and are their opinions likely to be similar to yours? Now many sites invite you to review products - a chance for a rant for disappointed purchasers. Generally by sorting through the dross you can form a view on the product or service you are looking to source.

 A more recent form of recommendation is the vlog  by video bloggers - vloggers. When looking at certain products it can be useful to look at a video of how they are set up. A typical example is the blogger who starts off by taking the product out of the box before showing you how easy it is to set up and use. You are left thinking if that guy can set it up then I  can do the same. Presenters talk like a friend or equal in this user generated content world. But some times these amateur product demonstrators sign off the vlog with a phrase such as 'catch you next time'. Oh - so they are serial product reviewers then. Where do they get all these products to review? Often it is from the manufacturer. And guess what? The more successful who have created a niche as 'experts' in a product sector, or built a personal following on YouTube are paid to do so by the manufacture. Nothing wrong in that, but the Advertising Standards Authority has now issued guidelines so that advertising vlogs can be identified as advertorial content.

Bringing print to life ... using augmented reality

The promise of seeing 'this magazine come alive on your iPhone' only served to disappoint.

I had dispatched QR codes to the trash can a while ago as yet another great technology that was for a while seen as a way to connect the printed page to the online world. But somehow, despite a rash of checkered squares appearing all over advertisements for a while, the subsequent experience failed to excite. At best the link opened a relevant video or web site landing page which was fine if you wanted to discover more about the subject of the original advertisement. But when QR  codes started appearing on bus sides and across the tracks at tube stations, the chore, even danger, of pointing the iPhone at them soon over rode any interest in viewing the content.

Then, the other day through the letter box arrived a local magazine with the invitation to "See this magazine come alive on your phone or iPad " splashed on the cover.  Inside the publication the contents page carried a lead story under the heading of " Our new interactive magazine bringing print to life ... using augmented reality." A tag line proclaimed "Augmented reality connects the online and offline worlds." Page footers  included a 'layar' logo imploring to be scanned. It sounded exciting, maybe someone had figured out how to make QR codes relevant. But hold on. What was the magazine about and what was the reality that was about to be augmented? The 20 page A4 publication devoted half a page to a 'Welcome' from the managing director (not an editor) of the publication,  further half pages to 'Contents', a brief article about the town's coat of arms, a page announcing local events (many already long gone) an article about red haired people and the rest advertisements for local trades and shops. Not too promising content to come alive thanks to augmented reality then. There are at least two other magazines of the same local advertising - typically 85% ads to 15% editorial - which have recently appeared.

At a barbecue last weekend friends of ours who run businesses locally talked about advertising and how local advertising had brought them no enquiries at all. So are these local magazines merely a means of getting local businesses to part with money?

Oh and the augmented reality? A message saying "No content found for this scan" appeared to be he only result.

A word about word of mouth recommendations

Word of mouth recommendations are usually highly trusted, so why are more companies not using this communications vehicle?

Someone once remarked that it was a pity that all the most eloquent politicians were busy driving taxi cabs or cutting hair. To those categories you might add plumbers. In my previous blog I drew attention to the surge in one man businesses, companies without other employees. Plumbers are right in there and as with other skilled trades you can learn some interesting things. For a start, they don't come with an apprentice any more. They have scaled back on the size of van they drive, rather than carry lots of spares they use a local stockist as required, just popping in for even the smallest item. When it came to marketing, this plumber had a web site acting more as a testimonial, stressing his experience, but not offering an email. The preference for telephone contact was partly to avoid requests for 'free' quotations which experience showed were often time wasting. He was not aiming to be the lowest priced in town. He also advocated an industry wide adoption of charging for quotes, refundable on acceptance. He had zero expectation of this ever happening of course.

Interesting too his lack of enthusiasm for trades approved web sites which are investing heavily in brand building on TV to act as a portal of preference to people searching for a plumber, heating engineer, electrician etc. Although these trades portal type sites showed up on page 1 of the search, as a customer somehow I wasn't convinced. Instead I  searched for local guys who seemed to concentrate on the work I  needed doing rather than offer a wide range of additional services.

Know what? I  picked out the few likely prospects and asked if anyone knew them. They did. It is not just about price - it is all the service related factors including advice, quality of work and guarantees.

Pressure on microbusinesses

Recent research takes a look at the legislative pressures faced by microbusinesses.

Microbusinesses are defined as businesses employing less than 10 people. There are 5.2 million apparently in the UK, by numbers - some 99% of all UK companies. It seems that 'red tape' and increasing employment bureaucracy is becoming a big disincentive to taking on more staff. Just in the recent budget a big hike in the minimum wage was sprung on business in general.  By  these standards our company must be a sub-microbusiness as we employ other specialist supplier companies rather than take on staff ourselves. But this does not mean we are exempt from issues such as auto enrollment in pensions for example. We are apparently known as a director only company in auto enrollment parlance. We have to register to opt out.

So here is the story. Our accountant writes a letter explaining the background, what is the best option for  our business, then goes on to supply screen shots of the online process. It look straightforward  given he had done the research and got all the numbers for us. Five to ten minutes at the most. Wrong.  OK so we get to the web site of the Pension Regulator  at htpps://automation.thepensionregulator.gov.uk/NotAnEmployerhttps://automation.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/notanemployer  - OK , done that, 'submit'. Up comes the red triangle and exclamation mark symbol - 'Mismatch ... check you have entered data correctly and try again.' Do that, get my fellow director to verify - same result. Now I am asked to telephone 0845 600 1011. A recorded message of 1minute 18 seconds tells me to visit the web site, then gives various fixes for problems such as substituting numbers for asterix or something before finally a menu of options and last option of all to speak to someone. This is no 5 minute job. Eventually after being asked to participate in a questionnaire I get to speak to Olivia, after of course the usual security questions. After explaining the problem she explains that I  cannot submit the data because it has already been done as we are a director only company and they have helpfully done this for us. I don't ask the obvious question as to why they don't explain this on the web site as we can't be the only ones. She takes a note of my email and promises to send an email noting we have registered. Great - all done the. Well not quite there's the survey I agreed to take.

I watch my email inbox and after a short while up pops Olivia's email. Oh dear, they have got the wrong company, we are not beauty consultants. Back on the phone, same message, swerve round the survey and speak to a young man with an unpronounceable name after all the security questions of course. Explain the problem which amazingly he is authorised to sort out. Soon his email arrives and I duly forward this to our accountant for reference. And that is just one reason why small businesses feel over burdened by employment legislation, even when you have no employees - yet this is where new jobs should be being created.

Now how about doing some paid for work!

Picture this - images for PR

Compelling images are an important element of a news story, but despite everyone having a digital camera, ownership of a camera  doesn't empower everyone to be a photographer.

Going back some years, most b-2-b PR agencies would commission a professional photographer to come up with an interesting and creative image to accompany the text and often elevate an otherwise uninspiring product into an object of interest or intrigue. And photographers often specialised. Those specialising in images of buildings for architects might not achieve the best, or most flattering  portraits of the managing director. When we commissioned a photographer to photograph a new building in the City of London he paid a crane operator to let him ride up in the crane's bucket to capture a great image from an elevation nobody else would ever see. The resulting image was widely used, but nobody ever asked how it had been taken.

In the b-2-b world, the expense of professional photography has been dropped from budgets and instead images, typically supplied as  jpg files are user/client generated. While not expecting creative work, it would be nice to receive something which was, well lets say OK. Here are 10 common problems with images we receive from clients:-

1. Out of focus, blurred, fuzzy and indistinct - these are useless, so trash can for them.
2. Bad lighting - subject in shadow, silhouette or over exposed.
3. Poor composition  - boring stuff, load of clutter, product lost amongst irrelevant junk.
4. Rubbish in shot - typically in installation photos; scrap materials or builders drinks cans  right in the middle of the shot.
5. Empty scene - buildings or exhibition stands curiously devoid of people.
6. Colour  tinges- strong colour from light reflected from a wall, drapes, background paper,  lighting results in apparently changing the colour of the product.
7. Low res files.
8. Finger over lens.
9. Image lacks any interest, is uninspiring - in short it's boring.
10. The product is not the star of the shot.

So what do we need?
1. Interesting, relevant and engaging images.
2. Technically good quality - in focus, hi-res and reasonably lit would be nice.
3. Good composition - at least to show the product to good effect.

One final thought. Are the people who take the images ever given any brief other than can you take some photos for us? Why not tell them what you need? If you have equipped a building  interior how about some shots of the exterior to set the scene, or people using the place rather than an empty room. Would close up products shots help tell the story? What about pictures of the client for testimonials?
Hopefully with some brief the outcome will be more usable.

Keep on blogging

This blog began as a trial almost 9 years ago.

When I started in August 2006 it was an experiment in several ways. First of all to gain experience with the blog platform itself, secondly to use a free and informal route to talk about our business - the business of technical marketing - and thirdly to discover whether there was enough to say going forward.  

The blogger platform, now owed by Google, is pretty easy to use and over the years I have also changed the design a few times. Currently I  have gone for a simple black text on  a white page with red the only use of colour, in a style that reflects the graphical look of the Madmen TV series. There is a reason for this too and that is the look is used in an upcoming book. 

I  have opted for blogging weekly, partly because the blog is syndicated weekly to recipients of an eNews service and partly to have something interesting to say each time. Some business bloggers write daily which must demand not just a lot of time, but a  constant quest for something new to say. Over the years I have generated a lot of content which I am in the process of publishing as a book. So the blog has achieved some useful business goals all without cost other than my time. I have also been able to blog when travelling overseas to maintain continuity.

But like newsletters for example, it is hard to discern how much it is read. Of course the Google Analytics  give me numbers, but few people sign up as followers - well there is no real need for that - and few comment either, so mainly one way traffic. But then so were printed newsletters except they don't have any SEO value.

Before the blog, further back in 2000 we published a book - Technical Marketing Techniques - at a time when marketing stood on the threshold of a new age - an age dominated by the Internet. The new title - Technical Marketing:Ideas for Engineers - currently being edited, is a story of three parts. Retained is a whole section discussing the rationale of marketing, a new section integrating offline with online marketing communications techniques and a wide ranging final section based on content from this blog evaluating new ideas, new tools and new opportunities.  I will keep you posted.

Is RSS making a come back?

Just when it seemed RSS  had gone the way of other promising technical developments and headed into oblivion, it seems to be enjoying a revival.

Or perhaps it never really went away. We have been using RSS for at least 10 years for news feeds - maybe longer - and required an RSS Reader which few could bother with loading, but when built into browsers became easier to use. Why RSS? Basically as a news feed from our Virtual News Offices to provide headline news flashes. OK - lets step back ten years or so. With self publication the "news" available has become a torrent - the problem how to keep in touch with the information you need and not sink beneath this torrent of content, little of which is actually of interest.

At the time we figured that many people typically would want to monitor news streams from various sources and RSS offered the opportunity to create their own customised headline service. For example news from their professional world - new technologies, product introductions, industry news  etc. Then news from about their special interests - sport and their favourite team, music, entertainment etc. General news of events, politics, weather and finally social news from their friends and relatives. RSS  offered the opportunity to collate headlines from all these sources, quickly scan them and follow up those of most interest and ignore the rest.

The BBC  offers a good description of RSS, Facebook offers an RSS option too, but the RSS button seems to have gone from a lot of company web sites if it was ever there at all. In today's content overload, perhaps they are missing a trick in not offering an RSS news feed.

Small office, home office, no office

With 5 million UK small businesses, there are more and more people working outside of traditional offices.

What was once called the SOHO - small office, home office sector was still a dedicated space in a home, or shed, but today for many workers the office is actually an iBook or lap top plus iPhone. The home office has its problems - typically other residents scheduling deliveries for example. Very disruptive to concentration to break off and deal with someone's Amazon shipment, often a neighbour's as the delivery guys have figured out people working from home. So it was time to road test the iBook office.

There was a fair amount of planning to ensure communications would be as smooth as possible, starting with organising an Internet connection in Spain. Checking on to the Ryanair flight at Luton with a bar code on my iPhone - printed documents were not required any more than I needed a printer. I did back up all my client files on a portable drive and that was it to run the business offshore for three weeks.

The age of the NO - No Office - is here!

Marketing the politicians

With political parties busily promoting their brands in this General Election, how are they doing so far?

 The UK General Election of 2015 has been more notable for the  arguments over the staging of the televised debates than the core values the parties represent. It is a bit like the argument some decades ago of the peace talks for Vietnam where the shape of the negotiating table was the only topic for months. The first TV debate lined up leaders of the two major parties - Conservatives and Labour (note the previously re-branded "New" Labour has been dropped - plus the Liberals. To these three established parties were added UKIP's leader which as winner of the last European election in recognition of a new disruptive market entrant and the Green Party who had a single MP in the last Parliament. Then curiously leaders of nationalist parties from only two of the UK's constituent countries - Scotland and Wales - but none from Northern Ireland or England. The leaders' debates are important because the leaders have become the public face of their individual political brands. A bit like the role played by Sir Richard Branson as the personification of the Virgin brand. Three wealthy ex public school boys, university educated, career politicians, who could easily be inter changeable with each other but without the charisma or flair of a Branson. Then UKIP's leader who clearly is different and three ladies - Australian, Welsh and Scottish.

The 3 biggest parties held 94% of the seats in the last parliament - the Scottish Nationalists held just  6 seats, Welsh 3, UKIP 2 and Greens 1 -  less than 2% between them and fewer than the Northern Ireland parties. The TV  debates gave the niche parties a level playing field opportunity with the leading brands; a debate that the big players by no means dominated.

Meanwhile what of the target audience - the voters? Well first of all, the target market. With the two nationalist brands only contesting 15% between them of the total seats at the 2010 election there was a mismatch between the target market and target audience. In other words two of the seven did not compete in 85% of the market, but were given a platform to disrupt those who did compete in the total market.

Next a quick look at the product which traditionally is documented in the party manifesto - a series of promises for legislation in the next parliament. I suspect few voters buy, let alone read the manifestos and rely on news coverage for the 'elevator speech' - 30 second version. Big issues such as the economy,  the NHS, immigration etc are hardly differentiated in product terms and mainly disputed in costs of each programme which run into billions of pounds. The target audience has little concept of what a billion pounds looks like - a suitcase full of notes, a van load, more? And is more interested in how things work for them - getting a doctor or hospital appointment, buying an affordable home, decent education etc. There are no big ideas it seems, no real political ideology or inspiration, no Churchill with the rhetoric to translate into memorable words, Thatcher with the concept of a property owning, shareholder democracy, or for that matter Benn to articulate socialism. Apple's Steve Jobs created a desire for the company's products, not how much they cost. The leaders of the 3 old parties debate the nuts and bolts and costs.

So building a trusted brand comes down to the leaders being able to motivate the target audience - so far it is pretty dull stuff.