StratoServe

Why Reopening America in the Summer of 2020?

Today (May 20, 2020) all US states have reopened partially after two months of lockdown. This has left many of our readers wondering why America is reopening when Coronavirus infections and deaths keep increasing ? Here are some thoughts on this question:

Summer is Fun in America :  Think of all the fun  Hollywood movies set in summer. If you look at Google  trends in the last 30 days you realize  that even states that do not have very cold winters - summer is important. Traditionally, summer is when kids are not at school. Despite huge celebrations of the calendar new year Americans live more by the school calendar.  Summer is when you have Memorial Day the unofficial start of summer and it's interesting that all states have decided to re-open before Memorial day in 2020 which is May 25, Monday. It's quite amazing that politicians from both parties criticize each other exuberantly in public at the local, state and federal level and yet no one is staying entirely shut down by Memorial day. 

Summer is tourism season:  If travel and tourism does not limp back over the summer of 2020, it'll be really hard to start everything in the summer of 2021. While people may not travel far but you can be sure that local attractions will have good crowds. There is a lot of local government intervention if people ignore rules for face masks and social distancing.  Local governments at the town level are very important because they provide all emergency services, schools and collect property taxes to pay for these services. 

Government  Bailouts are rare in America: Folks globally hear a lot about American bailouts to businesses and individuals. Since individualism is a core value in America, people do not rely on Government as far as possible. The Government also tries to stay out of peoples lives except for support to the most vulnerable. If you are employable, you are on your own. Seen in this backdrop, the idea  of the "Paycheck Protection Program" is motivated by the need to finance businesses to keep their employees.  For if a business fires its employees, everything truly grinds to a halt. Even in low skilled  jobs if the business is closed and employees fired - there is a whole new cost associated with finding employees, training them once the business starts.

Coronavirus New Cases  are down:  The new cases of coronavirus infections are down as are are death rates. It's fascinating to look at the state and county data at the CDC website. Given access to data and much better testing of infection and antibodies local leaders are in a much better position to manage the re-opening effectively. 

Coronavirus needs a host: The coronavirus needs a host where it replicates. With lockdowns the hosts were away so the coronavirus could not find hosts and hence the decline in cases. The COVID 19 realizes that if it makes the host very ill or the host dies then it dies too. There is thus an emerging view that COVID 19 might be causing less harm to hosts to stay alive like other viruses like SARS etc. which are around but less severe.  Disclaimer: We claim no medical expertise. Please ask your doctor. 

All in all, we do hope and pray that all the US re-openings go well. People are aware and co-operating with rules, Businesses are eager to get back and the disease surveillance is in place. 

About StratoServe.

Unlocking Innovation: What does our Customer Success Tomorrow look like?

"Marketing" means different things to different people and no one really checks out the American Marketing Association definition. It's hard to convince everyone in an organization - that their role includes "marketing" and focussing on constant innovation. Hence the term "Customer Success."

The Customer Success term is particularly popular in  the SAAS (Software as a Service ) industry. SAAS  companies  need customer renewals  and are trying to align everyone including programmers, sales ,finance  to working towards customer success.

With Customer Success, the customer defines success and this keeps changing with time. There are three forces working here:

1. Technology: Technology changes fast and if you do not keep all eyes on your customer success: You miss the boat. For example, cell phones now have excellent cameras that you can make videos with. Consequently, the digital average camera  market has disappeared. Similarly with cell towers giving out good wireless signals you suddenly don't see GPS devices being sold in US retail. Car makers are shy of selling $2000 GPS as original equipment. Customers at car showrooms actually laugh (loudly!) at suggestions of a pre-installed car GPS.
2. Customer is constantly learning: No matter what your product or service- your customer keeps learning- fast. Their knowledge and skills improve- fast with your product, their own goals and competitor offerings.  Just think of a GPS user - who now relies on her/his cell phone. This customer went through a time when they probably had both devices in the car because wireless was less reliable. Now customers have learnt about different mapping apps that give driving directions including Google Maps and Waze.
3. Customer learning is very easy: If you have lesser calls coming to your tech-help call center don't assume that your product has become easier. It's just that your customers are finding easy answers on the web- that work! No customer wants to interact with a business in person or phone because it takes time and possible frustration (the old press 1, press 2 routine for call centers). Besides, the employee is Googling the answer anyway. Instead, customers find solutions online that work. For most common and sometimes uncommon problems answers are on the first page of Google with even videos on YouTube. Learning sources includes all global solutions and competitors.

These three forces together are upending marketing that assumed that the customer was passive and just waiting for the right "marketing message" that explained why she should buy our product. Instead the customer is empowered to make choices with all the information (so easily)  available. 

With an empowered customer who is "showrooming" -its fatal for marketers to think that if only you got your message to your target customer- you could win. Not so. Because the customer is always learning and demanding at least what is available online. Thus working towards customer success may be the alternative to get the entire organization on the marketing page.

What is customer success? To us, customer success is about where your customer wants to go tomorrow.Your product may take the customer to where she wants to be today but the product may become irrelevant due to the rapid influence of the three forces above.

Our idea of customer success builds on the great idea of Michael Schrage Who do you want your customer to become?. Schrage suggests that Henry Ford did not just create a car but created customers who started driving. Now think of all the movies you have seen where driving was an integral part of romance, action and crime!

There was no automatic feedback loop for Henry Ford to improve the car and make it better . Ford motors had to rely on traditional market research in the early days  and today probably has a whole lot of data coming in from dealers and customers. Like the aircraft industry the auto industry is also adopting Internet of Things (IoT) and your maintenance reminders will get smarter.

Google on the other hand depends on searcher feedback to make the search engine better and better. If people think that an answer is good that answer is pushed up in SEO and Google becomes better next time that query pops up.In the process, when more customers view a page or video it signals that it is answering the query the customer had typed. The customer really does not have to share a page on Facebook for the page to become better ranked. Views of a page against a search query is good enough to rank the page higher. This is the reason that we watch YouTube videos that have higher page views and traditional media talks about how many views a video or TED talk has.It 's hard to build a product like Google that automatically becomes better every time someone uses it. If you think about it, legendary brands like  Coca Cola do not have an automatic machine based system of becoming better. However digital businesses like Amazon and Netflix rapidly use big data to improve their recommendation engines.Sometimes you do feel that the suggestions are right and not simply up-sell tactics.

Here is how to think about Customer Success when you want to unlock innovation in your organization:

Customer Success for Today: The idea of customer success forces the entire organization to look at whether the customer is successful today and ask ourselves what we can do to make customer success happen in our individual organizational roles. For example, if you asked Accounts Payable about their role in Marketing, you might get a confused look. However, if you asked "How could you help our customer success?" your friend in Accounts Payable would remember that they take 7-10 days for refunds and reducing that time would go towards more customer success.

Customer Success for Tomorrow: Is much harder to guess unless you are thinking in the "customers shoes". Most search advertisers try to buy competitor brand names  keywords instead of trying to understand the customer learning forces that are at work. What a competitor's customer is searching for beyond the competitors brand name is far more insightful about where the customer wants to go. No matter what you sell, your customer is getting better in terms of knowledge and skills and naturally customer expectations are rising every day.

 Asking every member of your organization (including the Janitor) the constant question What does our Customer Success Tomorrow look like?  may be the key to unlocking constant innovation. Contact StratoServe.

You can't lie to Google but try to look great on Social Media: Search vs. Display Ads

Social Media has galvanized us to share our best face with the world. Go to any event (e.g. weddings) and you will find everyone taking pictures on their cell phones. This despite the professional photographers trying to do their best and stay relevant in the age of the smart phone.

You have a public persona and you want to always try and look good on social media. You are not lying but just trying to look your best. In contrast, you are asking Google all kind of frank questions (queries) and unless you honestly ask what you really are looking for - Google can't get you relevant results. So you can't  lie to Google!

Against the above backdrop, here is how display and search advertising work:

Display Advertising: Display advertising works like old media viz. TV, Newspapers and billboards. You expect hungry folks to be looking for food near the above highway exit so the McDonald's  billboard should help.Similarly when you put out a display ad on a particular show on TV, media planners have viewer data and try and match viewers to your target market. In a similar way display advertising on any Internet platforms like Google, Facebook,Instagram, Twitter etc. try to put out your ad to an audience that you can select by geography,demographics interests etc. Google's display ads work based on content (e.g. blogs,YouTube channel) owner sign ups (the AdSense program) who get a small commission on display clicks that happen on their website. Social media platform use data analysis of the behavior of the user base to identify characteristics of the audience that are relevant to marketers. Platforms do "talk" to each other and you see those creepy ads following you across the Internet after you looked at a product on Amazon. This last bit of stalking is based on a "cookie" dropped on your browser (with your permission given at some point) and is called "Remarketing". Marketers hope is that constant reminding will urge consumers to buy in very much the same way as TV ads for Coca Cola should hopefully remind you when you are at the grocery store.

To summarize, display advertising on the Internet, mirrors old advertising that does work to inform,remind and persuade. This approach is also called "outbound marketing" or push marketing.  Today online display advertising can be started with pennies and without the whole lot of investment that is needed for TV, major newspapers or websites. The digital world allows for much more granular data and targeting and the better you know your market - lesser is your advertising expense. And this after discounting the "best face" that we tend to put on social media!

Search Advertising: Search advertising, on the other hand, triggers ads based on what you type on the search (e.g. Google) bar. Here, nobody searches for stuff without reason. This reason is an initial interest (however random) in your product category. In the physical world And you would be amazed at the search terms that people use, whatever your product. This amazement takes several forms for example a  local pizza  delivery following the AIDA model :

Do they really not know?Or do they ask random questions on Google?: The marketer scratches her head wondering if people really don't know. Against broad match search the pizza marketer is incredulous at a search query "what is pizza" coming from the US. Perhaps the person landed from the moon, the marketer wonders... somewhat annoyed because she just paid for that click! This stage for the consumer  is understandable and is a stage where you as the marketer are building awareness, of your category.

Is that interest? Someone might type " pizza places nearby" and this suggests that the person knows about pizzas and is just checking out what is available nearby. The order might not be immediate , but they might remember when they really want to order. Here display advertising exposure can help because the customer is already in the path to purchase.

Is that desire? If the search term is "thin crust pizza nearby" you can assume that the person is familiar with thin crust pizza and has moved along the purchase path. If you don't offer thin crust pizza - your ad was a waste for now, but tells you that you might want to add thin crust pizza to your product line.

Finally action..  A search term like " piza delivery now"(and don't worry about the mis-spelt pizza !) might indicate that the searcher is now ready to order.

To summarize, in search advertising the searcher is (a) serious (b) truthful and asks things they really want to know about for Google does not judge you! The searcher is on a path to purchase provided that they are reminded through display advertising. The process of the customer searching for a need and finding your product is also called  "inbound" marketing

Marketers need to appreciate that target customers are at different stages of purchase and need to be given the right message at each stage. Here search and display work together. Research suggests ( see Kireyev,Pauwels, and Gupta, 2016) that when search and display work together $1 invested in display gives $1.24 return but returns $1.75  on search. In the context of a commercial bank they find that there is under investment in search advertising by 36%.

For there is nothing as powerful as the customer calling you!

Why Big Consulting is able to compete with Big Ad Agencies for Digital Marketing work

Big Consulting firms are competing with Big Advertising agencies according to E.J. Schultz in the current issue of AdAge. Big consulting firms like IBM, Accenture , PwC and Deloitte are growing their digital marketing practices and competing with big ad agencies like WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic, Dentsu etc. for digital marketing work. Here is a quote from the article that summarizes the trend:

"The big consultancies are underestimating the value of creativity [and] the agencies are under- exploiting the value of business analytics," said Ivan Pollard, senior VP-strategic marketing at Coca-Cola Co. "Someone's going to crack that soon because data plus creativity is the future." (From The Race is On, EJ Schultz, Ad Age, May 1,2017)

The trouble is that  big consulting firms are structured to have some great "right brain" analytical skills while Ad Agencies are structured to have great "left brain" skills. And here is why this seems to be happening:

1. Digital advertising is no longer "half wasted" due to data: The famous saying that half the advertising is wasted applied to the pre-digital era. You really did not know for sure which ad was working unless you asked the customer every time she bought your product. Even then it was hard to determine whether it was the newspaper ad or the billboard that helped convert the prospect to customer. No longer true with digital data.
2. Digital marketing data: Attribution is far more possible today and you can track conversions online. You can track back to which ads were working and which were not. In fact multi-channel tracking of consumer response to offline advertising like store displays and TV provides far greater accountability to marketing expense.
3. Big Consultants are about process and boots on the ground: Big consultants are about process. They are very good at putting hundreds and thousands of employees on client jobs that need to get done. The clients don't see the skills as core to their mission and are happy to have consultants do the work. These consulting firms hire college graduates with quantitative skills and these are very helpful in the new world of data driven marketing. Moreover, hiring and work is all about putting boots on the ground at the client's office.Since there are deep connections already with the CEO,CFO - it is just a step to find a connection with the CMO.
4. Ad Agencies are about creativity: Ad Agencies are all about creativity and have existed because it is hard to be innovative and creative within a rigid manufacturing environment. And great manufacturing setups need to be rigid to ensure consistent quality. Therefore in-house advertising agencies don't work well partly due to formal rigidity and the politics of organizations that do not foster creativity and innovation. Ad Agencies recruit for creative skills for the back office (Art Director, Copywriter) or customer skills (Account Director). They have tried to catch up with big data and marketing analytics and one big regional agency proudly showed us the tech area that is physically at the back-end of the office!
5.  Structurally not designed to do the other's job: The big consultants being strictly process and "right brain" driven are great at building relationships at the C-Suite and armies of young college grads (MBA,Engineers) build relationships at the working level of client companies. However, the free-wheeling aspect of highly creative "left brain"  ad agencies cannot be replicated at the client in-house or at the consultant organization. Similarly, trying to infuse data driven "creativity" in ad agencies is difficult because everyone in the agency hated math from childhood!

All this brings more challenge to the CMO:

• How do you get the creativity of ad agencies ?
• And the analytic power and insights  of consultants?

As the economy becomes more about knowledge and ideas- it might not be such a bad idea , to keep the two tasks separate with the CMO doing the coordination. About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Trump Effect: Five reasons why CEO's will become more involved in Marketing and Supply Chain

The Trump (@realDonaldTrump) effect in Marketing and Supply Chain is that CEO’s worldwide will take more interest in the operational decisions in marketing and supply chain.

While Chief Marketing Officers (CMO’s) being rainmakers have more visibility in organizations, the supply chain folks tend to be sidelined. The CSO (Chief Supply Officer/Head of Procurement/Purchasing) typically reports to the Head of Manufacturing in manufacturing companies or the Head of Finance in service organizations. The supply management community (see our sister blog www.cpsmblog.com) strives to be more strategic and find a “seat at the table” and be treated with the respect of a Chief Officer in the organization.This might be helped  and a great example is the Trump decision in the making of pipes in the US for the Keystone pipeline project. 

But why do CEO’s tend to have this “hands off approach” to Marketing and Supply Chain? A "hands off" approach to marketing and supply chain does not help create local jobs,  a priority for every country in the world.

Here are five reasons why CEO's are shy to get involved in Marketing and Supply Chain :

1. The overarching reason is that the professional CEO does not think like a sole proprietor whose sole purpose is to make the business great. A professional CEO is conditioned through professional training that is all about being “separate” from business ownership.  “Ownership” here is  both a financial and an emotional sense.  Consequently, there is generally a lack of “emotional ownership” in most for-profit businesses. In sharp contrast, the best “non-profit” CEO’s do firmly believe that the non-profit‘s goals are their very own life goals.  Why “ownership” has a bad feel in business and government leadership but is considered appropriate for nonprofit leadership is a topic for another post.
2. The CEO is focused on shareholder returns and analyst perceptions. These are short term goals and involve easy cost side decisions like outsourcing and buying cheap from wherever possible.  These short term goals can frequently be job killing at the local level.
3. CEO’s have varying degrees of comfort with personally handling social media and for the most part leave it to the PR folks. The PR folks are very cautious and continue to live in the old world where the press was the sole provider of news.  Today, if you have a question you just Google it. This means that the local jobs angle gets hidden, even when present in the company's intentions.
4. When it comes to marketing, things are becoming extremely data driven and mostly it is about proposals from the marketing group that is either voted up or down by the CEO or Board. The CMO tends to have wider vision as to start with “anyone can be a customer”. Call it one of the benefits of the outward facing role of the marketer. See five differences between B2B Marketing and Supply Chain Managers.
5. On the other hand the Supply Chain folks are constantly fending off sales people. The entire RFP (Request for Proposals) process is about being fair and transparent.Although it might not lead to local jobs and frequently may not get the best service or product that the organization is looking for. For very large purchases CEO’s of the buyer and seller meet to shake hands, but rarely negotiate at the CEO level. Negotiations are left to the Marketing folks of the seller and the Purchasing folks at the buyer.

More insights on CEO involvement in marketing and supply chain operations should appear from President Trump’s address tonight.

About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Why web advertising for e-Commerce is different from Brand Building

It's useful to think about paid web advertising (eg.Google AdWords, Facebook advertising) as Brand Building vs. e-Commerce:

Brand Building: Brand building is more at the upper end of the sales funnel. The purpose of the advertising is to build awareness and inform the potential customer in the target market. A great way to understand how brand building advertising works is to watch for any pharmaceutical advertising you see on the TV shows. Media buyers for pharma companies buy ads on a particular TV show based on data that that a lot of people from the possible patient demographic is watching a particular show. Such brand building also helps  reach doctors and hospitals who prescribe these medicines. Besides, the awareness building advertising makes life easier for the pharmaceutical rep who has more credibility right from the doctor's office reception to the physician's assistant and the physician as well. For all these people can vaguely remember the TV ad. So now when the pharmaceutical reps do their briefing and leave samples,  the chances of generating prescriptions is much higher. On the retail side, it is easier to get pharmacies to stock a new prescription medicine when brand awareness campaigns are on TV.

But not to fear if you have lower budgets to work with and can't really afford a national TV campaign. Targeted use of social media, paid online advertising on an ongoing basis can do a great job at a much lower cost.

Particularly for global markets , digital marketing is far easier to put in place than traditional marketing. If you are a low budget advertiser, just the logistics of finding a TV station or Newspaper to carry your message in a foreign market can take several emails and phone calls.But your message can start showing on YouTube or Facebook in minutes in that foreign market.

e-Commerce:e-Commerce advertising is about the lower end of your sales funnel. The customer is brought from your online ad  to your web store and a specific product.The assumption is that the customer has done her research and is ready to put the advertised product in their e-cart and check out.

Driving traffic to a web checkout web-page is easy in web advertising like Google AdWords. The question is:  is the customer ready to buy- now? 

If the product you are selling is well known ( i.e. has been brand building for a while) its no trouble selling that product from your online store. All branded products like grocery brands, branded clothing  fall into that category. On the other hand unique artisan items like jewellery and paintings are difficult to compare between stores. Here it is useful to have good pictures and descriptions on the e-Commerce page. Also a welcoming approach to answering questions online can help.

For eCommerce advertising, if you think your offer is competitive- you must advertise. And its not always price that matters. For example, if you offer a product  that can be picked up locally instead of waiting for delivery by mail, it's quite inexpensive to advertise online 25 miles around your store. The best part being that you don't pay unless someone clicks on your ad in PPC (pay per click ) advertising.

As we have mentioned earlier posts, it's good to have some form of Brand Building always going on. Web content, social media are free options in that you don't spend money but do have to invest time. Paid online advertising including video advertising is also effective in reaching your audience at comparatively lower cost than traditional media.

However, if you believe that your e-Commerce offer is competitive, particularly for a specific region of the world - it makes sense to advertise vigorously.

About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Don't have a mobile website? Why the new iPhone7 should make you worry

The iPhone 7 launched yesterday. The biggest buzz is about the wireless headphones and the removal of the headphone jack.One more urgent reason to make your website mobile friendly. (plug your website URL to the Google Mobile Friendly Test tool to see if you are already mobile friendly).

But first more about the iPhone 7 wireless headphones story.

To iPhone loyalists the wireless headphone is alarming on two counts. First, you have to pay for the wireless headphones ($159) and second, you are likely to lose the tiny headphones. But not to worry . Entrepreneurs in the iPhone accessory industry  are at work and many solutions to both these problems should be available by the holiday season. There was a necklace for the iPhone wired version (so that you don't lose them) and already there is talk about an app to find my headphones for the iPhone7. But the wireless headphones confirm the trend to mobile in consumer behavior.

Apple was the first company to do away with the CD drive on laptops. And this technology shift to "wireless" is the shift to becoming more mobile and less "bound" to hardware. This Apple decision is similar to moves by Microsoft,Google,Facebook and Amazon to move to the cloud. And not have the customer struggle with hardware. In a sense, this is the high tech innovation model that spends much more money and effort in the early part of the innovation and new product development (NPD) process.  These industries invest in the front end of the NPD process so that the later launch and marketing becomes much easier and far less expensive. Customer "love" is built into the product.

Here is a graph to understand how major pharma and tech companies invest in the NPD process. (Clarification: we do not intend to offend our readers from the consumer products industry by implying that they are low-tech. This diagram is merely to help our small and medium business readers understand why they need to get on the mobile bandwagon for their websites).

The high tech industry leaders (Amazon,Apple,Facebook,Google,Microsoft)  are all pushing for a wireless mobile world.

A wireless world is far easier to manage anywhere globally. Particularly  in the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America and Africa. Laying down cable is quite a nightmare in most countries. In comparison, to get a mobile phone tower up and running is much easier to execute. So one can understand the logistical reasons against wired infrastructure.

So what does this mean for small and medium business owners?

All small and medium businesses on US main street are consumer marketers and their marketing efforts resemble the blue graph  on the right.These small businesses includes hair salons, plumbers, electricians, clothing boutiques etc. They must be able to reach the local customer. And this local customer is increasingly on mobile.

If you have a website - make sure it is mobile friendly. Once again just plug your website URL to the Google Mobile Friendly Test tool to see if you are already mobile friendly.

If your website is  not mobile friendly, call your web developer today. The costs to go mobile are modest, and well worth the expense.

Many businesses we talk to tell us that they are going to re-do the whole website and will add the mobile friendly part later.

Here is the problem: we are yet to meet a business owner (large or small)  who is totally happy and think that  their website is "perfect."Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good" as Neil Patel wrote in the Entrepreneur. If you have a website up, and even if you are not happy with it, get it on mobile. You can keep improving your website over time.

Why are we promoting mobile sites, when we don't even do web development, our readers might wonder. Frankly, the traffic data we analyze for advertising is astonishing. We turn off mobile advertising if the website is not mobile friendly to save advertising money. The loss of potential customers we miss (for our client) is so enormous that we feel the pain. Thus we thought that an advocacy for mobile friendly websites is timely. Just as news breaks of the wireless headphones for the iPhone7. About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

3 questions to ask and decide how much to spend on Google AdWords

Our readers ask

How much do I spend on Google AdWords?

An earlier post provided the strategy answer and this post presents three questions to ask for coming to a better decision. Here are the questions to ask:

1. What were your inquiries before AdWords? Before AdWords you were getting inquiries. These inquiries could be from customer referrals, email campaigns, social media, yellow page listings, traditional media like direct mail, phone calling,  billboards or whatever. The first step is to have some estimate of inquiries by marketing channel. We are talking only inquiries here and not sales closed. Make a table for this month along the lines as pictured above.
2. What is the difference between inquiries and closed sales? : Google AdWords or any type of online or offline advertising cannot close the sale for you. They can only get the conversation started.And that is why we compare inquiries across marketing channels. It can be a waste of your time and energy if people who are unlikely to qualify (say for their budget reasons) keep calling you. Some channels have high closed sales to inquiries. That is why you  hear  " We get most of our business through referrals." If you think about it, that makes sense. Current customers have experienced your product or service and if they are happy they tell their friends. When those friends reach out to you they already know what to expect. If you just match expectations you get their business.
3. How did you hear about us? It's really important to ask first time callers- "How did you hear about us?". Many people will say we "found" you on the Intenet or we "Googled" you. If you are running a Google AdWords campaign effectively, its very likely that they saw your ad and found you.People will also report that they saw your coupon in a flyer and that's very important to note down.In other words,only the business knows who is contacting them and tracking leads is important. Start with a notebook or word/excel  file and then go to software for lead management. Whatever works and is comfortable for your business. At the end of the month you should be able to provide a data based source of leads.

Once you have some kind of system to track your leads, do the following:

1. Switch on Google AdWords for a month: If you have a well crafted AdWords campaign that understands your business strategy you should see clear results in one month. You might see some increases in other channels as people start with other channels (like your flyer) and then Google your product or service and see your ad. They click on the ad and call you and when you ask them "How did you hear about us?" they say "flyer" but the flyer really worked because near to the decision of calling you- they searched online and saw your ad. You might also find some things that you did not expect. For example, one of our clients found that incoming calls on the advertised phone number took a caller over two minutes to get to ..... the voicemail prompt!. There was 1 for Accounts, 2 for HR ..... 9 to leave a voicemail  on the telephone prompts. The business appreciated that someone calling from the commuter train on their cell phone , from clicking an ad, was unlikely to wait for 2 minutes to leave a voicemail. Changes in the welcome message helped to reduce the wait time to less than 15 seconds. Lots of website tweaks will become apparent that are easy to implement.
2. If you can't decide switch off AdWords for a month: If you cannot decide whether your results justify your expenses stop for a month. But continue the "How did you hear about us" lead source data collection in question 3 above.If the AdWords was working for you you should see a clear difference in the number of leads for the month that the campaign was running. Don't worry if other channels are also down- because the Internet works with other channels Without online ads, someone who saw your flyer and can't remember your business name will Google your product or service and when they see your business name they remember your flyer (sometimes unconsciously). 

You might wonder why you should switch off your campaign if leads will probably come down. This is required to build your own comfort on how well AdWords works for you and your business. You should feel energized  to make changes in your processes (eg. get an answering service) and change your website (eg. make it mobile friendly) as you re-start your campaign with new hope. AdWords should be clearly helping your lead pipeline, from all sources, and your own numbers should speak louder than the Google AdWords and Analytics  metrics.

About StratoServe Digital Marketing Services.

Why its safe to put out most of your market research as web content

Businesses large and small seem scared of putting out their market research on their websites. Common concerns we have heard are:

• Our competitors will know how we think about the market

• Our market insights  are our "secret" - sauce- why share the recipe

• And the one we like best: Speech is silvery but silence is golden- and silence on the web is golden

Here is why silence on the web is not golden, when it comes to most of your market research.

• Information asymmetry is the idea that the seller has more information than the buyer and "information is power". This is no longer true with Google and other search engines. You have a question? Google has several pages of answers. Some of these answers are good and some may directly answer a general question about your product. For example, a car buyer might want to know whether you should use regular or premium gasoline for a particular car. The answers are out there right from the brand website to owners forums.
• Consumers can and will get their information-online: You can be sure that consumers will do their research online.  These include serious expensive elective surgeries as discussed in an earlier post. They also include shopping mall purchases. One reason why Mall retailers like Macy's have to close stores is that consumers search online and are willing to wait for delivery from online stores.
• You did do your research before introducing a new product or starting a business: All new products or businesses are based on market research. That research might have been done formally through a market research agency or informally by the entrepreneur. Since the business needed funding and estimates of market outlook - even financial proposals would have sections detailing why the business has a need and what value it hopes to provide its customers.
• Explaining why your product from earlier market research makes great web content: The reason you launched a new product or business was because your research suggested that there would be demand for certain reasons.  Explaining this on the web is no big "secret" revealed!
• Anyway, you are explaining the "why your product" in your marketing, sales and advertising material : If you think about all the content of your sales pitches,marketing materials and even social media outreach- you are trying to convince customers about why your product. That is you are expanding on what your market research told you in the first place.

To summarize, market research got you into a particular business. And all your other marketing efforts are building on that initial market research. There is really no harm for you to explain the "why" on your website... It just helps your SEO, PPC like Google AdWords and your overall marketing effort.

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"What is your brand mission? " ask experts at the Yale Customer Insights Conference

As usual, the The Yale Customer Insights Conference 2016 was great. Leading practitioners and academics came together to tackle some of the most challenging customer insights problems of our time. This as technology moves at warp speed and entire business models get wiped out in a couple of years. And customer behavior changes more rapidly than ever before.

The big message (paraphrasing by us) on Saturday was:

"What is your brand mission?"

If you are clear about what your brand mission is, then you can easily:

• Create continuous fresh  content on the web
• Improve your social media presence
• Integrate technology to your business model
• Rework your business model including supply chain,production,advertising, distribution and revenue
• Have the same message across global markets

Here are some great nuggets from the conference:

1. Alison Lewis, CMO, Johnson and Johnson urged marketers to have one bold idea for each brand. You need to be super clear about the behavior change you are trying to activate in the market place. The baby bathing experience (video pictured below) was all about "Happy healthy baby development."  J&J clarified the idea by talking with scientists about the science behind baby skincare and with mothers worldwide. All mothers, everywhere , are interested in "Happy healthy baby development." Once the idea was clarified then different global markets and local advertising agencies  could execute on the concept as appropriate whether on TV,Billboard, point of sale, social media etc.

 

2.  Pete Fader, Marketing Professor, Wharton School spoke about "customer centricity". This is the idea of trying to identify your best customers and then treat them "special." Small businesses are able to do this very well and bend over backwards to satisfy those special customers. Today both big and small businesses have the data, and yet are generally afraid to differentiate among customers in their processes. Focusing resources on your most profitable customers of the future can mean better growth and profits.  There is a great podcast online where Pete Fader explains his idea.

3. Kristen Lynch, CMO, Vail Resorts explained about how big data is helping them constantly refine the customer experience at Vail Resorts.  Their brand mission is "Experience of a  lifetime." Amazingly, there were at least five people in the audience who were regular customers and said great things about the Vail Resorts experience.  Look at Trip Advisor reviews.

More about great ideas from the conference in later posts.

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