Alberta Business Marketing

One of my favourite recent books is the new Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. He has one line I love: " Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?"

He said that in reference to some of his new product ideas. Product ideas that had not yet been conceived or at least not readily on the market. His view was that consumers did not know what they needed until he showed them what they wanted. A great view for a truly innovative company that is bringing out products that no one yet uses.

For most companies however, they are not the innovation leader that creates truly new markets. What they are doing is selling similar products to other companies in a competitive market. This is why most companies need market research.

Six ways to do market research:

1 - Do the traditional and hire a market research firm. They will do focus groups and surveys. Their anonymity can help them do unbiased research (it is tough to tell GM that you would rather drive a Toyota but easy to tell a market research firm).

2 - If the budget is limited, companies can do their own focus groups. The disadvantage is bias. The advantage is they can create a double advantage of keeping clients "sold" because they spend time with you and feel heard.

3 - It is easy to do surveys now. You can even use free tools like surveymonkey to do this. And a well worded survey can be a sales tool. If you ask a customer do they like you more because of X or Y, it draws attention that you are both X and Y.

4 - There is a new breed of company that monitors social media. Companies like General Sentiment read all the Tweets, blogs, news etc and even interpret if what is being said is good or bad. These are a good addition to traditional market research.

5 - I have often blogged about "fail often, fail fast, fail cheap" as a way to do market research. Experimenting is a great way to do research. I advocate selling products at a price. Giving away products is not a good test of the market. If people have to invest their hard earned money, it says something.

6 - I am a big advocate of split run testing. Try one thing in one market or sample and measure the return compared to a different approach in a different market or sample. Send 500 people an email saying "lowest cost" and 500 people saying "most reliable" and see which one draws best. Doing split runs can prove which approach works best.

Market research is here to stay and adds value despite the fact that Steve Jobs and Alexander Graham Bell did not do it.

Jim Estill

Tags: Research, Strategy
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The biggest challenge for the marketer is to get prospects to actually pay attention and read what you are sending them. It does not matter if your list of Twitter followers is 100,000 or your email list has 10,000 if no one reads what you send.

The easiest (well not real easy) way to get people to read is to send something that is personal.

I never cease to be amazed at the people who use the standard Linkedin "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn." with no additional comment. Adding a simple, "Jim, we met at such and such show..." would go so far in making me click the connect.

Recently I have been promoting a book I contributed to called "Entrepreneurial Effect". I have been sending dozens of emails saying "Sue - I would appreciate your help by tweeting this...." (that is a blatant hint, please tweet it for me) And if I have something personal like "How is your son", I add that too.

So why is this not easy? It is, but is takes a lot of time. Personal emails often evoke personal responses that again need action. And just the time to personalize them can take a minute each so it is tough to do that to a 10,000 person list.

Being personal has a secondary advantage. I tend to develop and keep relationships with people that I personally correspond with.

The mail equivalent of this is the simple hand written note on the mailing. This is a highly effective technique for getting things read (and improving your handwriting muscles).

This is the age old marketing dilema. Quality (the personal touch) vs Quantity (worst case would be straight spam). Quality gets response (I get 80-90% of the people I send a personal email to, to respond) where just sending emails to a list often evokes only a 1-2% response. Personal can be 40-90 times as effective.

For true results - try personal.

Jim Estill

Tags: Direct Marketing
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Video is now easy to add to any marketing campaign.

The most common learning style is visual. And most people prefer video to any other media. It requires less thought and can be done "lazily". As a marketer, it makes sense to cater to the audience.

Video is increasingly placing well in Google search results.

There was a time when creating a video meant thousands of dollars of equipment to shoot and thousands more to edit. Now video equipment is "included" free on such things as a Blackberry, iPhone and a normal cell phone. And editing software is pervasive and easy to use.

One side effect of cheap video cost is it can often be bad video. Just because anyone can do it, does not mean anyone should do it. As marketers we know we need quality.

The goal in video production is acceptably good. The cost to get perfect near TV quality video can be much more than acceptably good but the difference for the audience is small. Many people will watch your video on a small screen (perhaps even a device like a Blackberry). The smaller the screen and lower the resolution, the more forgiving the user will be to the quality. Blow it up to theatre size and imperfections are blatant.

8 Tips that can make video marketing easier:

1 - Spend a bit on a real video camera. A few hundred dollars does the trick. Buy a tripod as well. It is impossible to hold a camera still without one.

2 - Shorter is better. Most people will not even click on a video that says 10 minutes. Optimal length in our time starved, ADD society is 2 minutes. Of course this has the advantage to you. It takes less time to produce a short video.

3 - There is a reason why professionals use expensive lights. Video that is well lit looks better. It can be as simple as turning on all the lights to using cheap construction lights.

4 - Plan the story line. No video will be watched if the story line is poor. Video copy is like any other copy. Make it punchy, active, funny, and interesting to keep people's attention. Remember people always have their finger on their mouse waiting to click off your video. Videos that "go viral" always have a great story. The quality of the story beats the quality of the video any day.

5 - Consider adding music. Music adds to the interest and can add to the flow. Think of most TV and news shows. They all have intro/exit music.

6 - Consider doing a music video. I liked the one Organic Meadow produced. I do not know their production equipment or cost but the outcome was great.

7 - Promote your video in your other marketing. Producing the video is easy. But distribution is key. So cross reference it in your blogs, twitter, print, radio, business cards, signage, email it etc. It is the old story - distribution of marketing is key.

8 - Consider doing educational videos. American Health Journal does a great job of medical videos for example. By naming videos by the educational topic like "back pain", they will get good natural search traffic when people search for that term.

Video is easy and economical and deserves to be a part of any marketing program.

Jim Estill

Tags: Digital, Strategy, Viral
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Marketers thrive on being creative.

The problem is life can get in the way of creativity. There are calls, meeting and bills to pay. And don't forget the constant stream of email that needs attention.

One way I have been able to keep being creative is by creating a "Creative Oasis". A space where I tend more naturally to be creative. I took this photo out of the window of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Someone had created their own creative oasis.

My special space includes:

1 - Some plants.
2 - All the tools I need. For me, that includes a pen, paper and a computer.
3 - Unobtrusive background music. Or sometimes silence.
4- Some art.
5 - Some tidiness. Order for me helps me to focus.
6 - I like the outdoors so sometimes it includes some of that.

Of course true power comes when I can be creative outside of that area. For example, I am working hard on "being alone and creative" when I am in a crowd like on the train or airplane.

I also have activities that I deliberately add to my habits that help spur my creativity. Some of the activities that spur my creativity include:

1 - Running.
2 - Hiking. Especially in nature.
3 - Cycling - again, especially in scenic areas.
4 - Reading. Often I get ideas that are unrelated to the topics I am reading about.
5 - Yoga.
6 - Meditation (note to self - add more of this).

What space can you create to be more creative? What activities can you do more of to add to your creativity?

Jim Estill

Tags: Marketing Talent
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I read a book recently by Michael J. Nick called "The Key to the C-Suite - What you need to know to sell successfully to top executives".

"C-level executives make buying decisions based on the strategic effect that a purchase will have on a set of key financial metrics or levers." The book makes a compelling case for using Metrics when selling- things like Return on Assets, Return on Investment, Earnings, Debt to Equity ratios etc.

Nick suggests that you need to know how your product or service impacts these metrics. And understanding your strengths in those areas will help you make a more compelling case to help you sell.

As a former CEO, I have strong opinions of my own on how to sell to CEO's. My top 5 rules include:

1 - Respect the executives' time in all interactions. Most CEOs get hundreds of emails so keep any emails short. Most CEOs get invited to lunch or dinner daily so keep those short. Most CEOs have fairly aggressive schedules so be on time and stick to the time granted.

Anything you can do to save the executive time will help make the sale. I recall one creative sales person who offered to give me a ride to the airport so had my uninterrupted attention for 50 minutes.

2 - Make sure the CEO is the one you need to sell to. Sure it helps if the CEO is onside but many CEOs delegate decisions in many areas to their staff. I recall sitting through a detailed presentation on trucking complete with glossy brochures. After wasting an hour of my time, I simply put a post-it note on the brochure and passed it to my shipping manager "these guys presented to me - call them if you want".

3 - Treat everyone well. How you treat the receptionist, the assistant and the person doing research for the CEO will get back to the CEO. And besides, they are just doing their job and it is lower stress to be nice anyways.

4 - Do your homework. The internet makes it easy to know a lot about the company. Wasting a CEOs time asking questions that are on the web site or that can be readily obtained elsewhere is not a good way to start the sales call.

Use your valuable question time to probe for hot buttons and problems you can help solve.

5 - And after reading The Key to the C-Suite, I do think it is a great idea to know your metrics. This would fall in the category of saving the CEO time. It would also help the CEO make the case for buying from you.

People have the mistaken idea that the CEO makes decisions without having to "sell" anyone themselves. This is not true. CEOs need the buy-in of their staff to ensure good implementation of any purchase.

And finally, like all marketing, there is not only one way to sell to the C-Suite. Situations vary, people make decisions differently, companies are organized differently etc. So use multiple approaches to make the sale.

Jim Estill

Tags: Analytics/Measurement, Strategy
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