Glossary of Marketing Terms

Above the fold: Refers to any information or content that appears at the top of a web page or other marketing piece. The point of origin for this phrase comes from newspapers, and it referred to content above the fold running through the middle of the page.

Adsense: Google’s contextual advertising program. You can incorporate Adsense into your own site to generate advertising revenue.

Adwords: Google’s Pay Per Click advertising program. You can use this program to advertising your offering and drive traffic to your site.

Affiliate: Someone who resells a company’s product/services. Affiliates typically do not handle the product/service, but rather help in the advertising. Affiliates are typically paid for every buyer (completes a transaction) they refer to a company’s website. Software programs track every visitor and every sale, allowing affiliate a way to track their progress online.

Alt Text: Also known as alternative text, Alt Text is text used to describe images and links in the HTML code of a webpage or email. If someone has the images turned off in their web browser, alt text that will appear in place of the image. (Also referred to as Tool Tips.)

B2B: Business to Business. Refers to a business marketing to another business, rather than directly to consumers.

B2C: Business to Consumer. Refers to businesses marketing directly to end-user consumers.

B2G: Business to Government. Refers to businesses marketing to government entities and/or agencies (federal, state and local). Similar to B2B marketing, but may involve a more bureaucratic sales process and several layers of approvals.

Backlinks: Links on other sites/pages that refer back to your site/page. Backlinks from sites, especially highly ranked and trafficked sites, help your own page rank and drive traffic to your site.

Below the Fold: Any content that appears at the bottom of a webpage, requiring the user to scroll down, or at the bottom of a marketing piece.

CMS: Content Management System. A program or application that allows non-technical users edit, update, maintain and create a websites, webpages and content using built-in templates.

Contextual Advertising: Online ads targeted directly toward the individual user visiting a web page. Contextual advertising systems scan the content of a site/webpage, determine what the page is about, and then display topical ads related to the content.

Cookie: A unique code or file automatically embedded within a visitor’s web browser. A cookie allows a website to track that visitor during his current visit and any subsequent visits.

CPA: Cost Per Action/Acquisition. Cost an advertiser incurs for each specific action a visitor takes in response to an ad. This commonly includes subscribing to a newsletter, requesting a free trial, requesting more information of a sales-call follow-up, or even making a purchase. It doesn’t matter how many people see your ad or click on it. You pay for the number of people who complete the action you determine, leading to an acquisition. (Sometimes referred to as PPA, Pay Per Action/Acquisition.)

CPC: Cost Per Click. This is the cost to an advertiser for each click on a link by a site visitor, search engine user or even a newsletter reader. Many search networks/engines, such as Google, use this model to generate revenue from advertisers. With this setup, you only pay a set cost for every click recorded, regardless of the number impressions. (Sometimes referred to as PPC, Pay Per Click.)

CPL: Cost Per Lead. This is usually an internally defined metric that measures the marketing expenditure needed to obtain each new sales lead. Comparing CPL between marketing activities is a good way to gauge the effectiveness of how you are dedicating resources. (Sometimes referred to as PPL, Pay Per Lead.)

CPM: Cost Per Mille (Thousand). This is the amount charged for every 1,000 impressions of an ad. With this model, you pay a set price for every 1,000 impressions, regardless of how many clicks are recorded. (Sometimes referred to as PPM, Pay Per Mille.)

CPS: Cost Per Sale. This is a broad internal metric generated by dividing costs (usually marketing related) by sales revenue generated to determine the cost to make each sale. This metric is great at determining the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales process.

CR: Conversion Rate/Ratio. The percentage of prospects who complete a desired action (make a purchase, subscribe to a newsletter, etc.). Usually the higher the CR, the better.

CRM: Customer Relationship Management/Manager. Involves improving customer interactions by better understanding their needs and wants, as well as their history and behaviors. Also sometimes refers to software or systems that track customer interactions with the aim of increasing sales, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty (and therefore increasing profits).

CSS: Cascading Style Sheets. Used in conjunction with (and sometimes in place of) HTML to render webpages and emails. CSS helps make designs more flexible and can result in reduced HTML file sizes.

CTR: Click-Through Rate/Ratio. Percentage of visitors/users who click on a link.

Cyber Squatting: A practice of registering a domain name with the sole intent of selling it to someone else who may actually want to use the domain for a website. Some cyber squatters register domain names of known or new trademarks, hoping to sell those domain names to the trademark owner. Others simply register many domain names using commonly used words and terms at a very low cost, and then wait for someone to buy it.

Dead Link: A link that no longer works.

DM: Direct Marketing. A type of advertising meant to elicit an action (place an order, visit a store/website, request further information) in response to a communication from the marketer. The communication itself could be in a variety of formats, including traditional mail, telemarketing, e-mail, infomercials and point-of-sale (POS) displays. Customer response to the campaign is usually measurable. (Also referred to as Direct Mail or Direct Response.)

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions. Often used as the webpage title of answers to commonly asked questions about an offering or company.

HTML: HyperText Markup Language. HTML is the set of symbols/codes/tags that tell a browser how to display content on the web.

IM: Instant Messaging. A communication vehicle that enables a kind of private chat room with another individual or group in real time. It’s similar to a telephone conversation but uses text-based communication.

POS: Point of Sale. A place where a sale is made. Commonly a business, place or display where an offering can be purchased. (Also called Point of Purchase.)

PR: Page Rank. An assessment by a search engine, such as Google or Yahoo, of a website’s or webpage’s relevance to a specific term/subject and possibly its popularity

PR: Press Release. A public relations announcement about a product, service or company issued to the news media and other targeted recipients for the purpose of drawing public attention to the subject and letting the public know of new developments. (Also called a News Release.)

PV: Page View. A measure of each time a user visits a webpage. (Also written Pageview.)

ROI: Return on Investment. This refers to how much profit is made after all applicable costs have been accounted for. ROI can be calculated for a business as a whole, or it can be calculated for specific activities, divisions, etc. From a marketing perspective, this is a commonly used metric that gauges the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.

RON: Run of Network. This is an arrangement with an ad network to have your ad placed throughout all websites within the network. Ad networks are basically a collection of websites that provide ad space. Websites join ad networks to sell ad space because they do not enjoy the economies of scale networks do in dealing with ad sales, metrics, reporting, customer service, etc., to their advertisers. Instead they contract their ad space to a network. Often RON is cheaper than having your ad placed on selected sites.

ROS: Run of Site. Similar to ROS, but ads rotate across the pages of a single site instead of an entire network. This is usually cheaper than having your ad placed on select pages.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication/RDF Site Summary/Rich Site Summary. Acronym used to describe a method of web content syndication. RSS is XML based and allows publishers to distribute their content, which can then be read by an RSS reader, on another website or even through mobile applications.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing. Marketing tactic similar to SEO that stresses the importance of search engines and search engine rankings to drive traffic to a website.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization. The process of optimizing webpages and websites for high rankings in search engine results in order to attract more visitors.

SERP: Search Engine Results Page. Page of results displayed after a successful search engine query.

SMM: Social Media Marketing. The process of generating interest and excitement in an offering through various online social outlets, such as blogs, RSS feeds and social networks. Programs usually center on creating content that attracts attention, generates online conversations and encourages readers to share it with their own social networks. The message spreads from user to user and hopefully resonates since it is coming from a trusted source as opposed to the brand or company itself. (Also referred to as Social Media Optimization.)

USP: Unique Selling Proposition. The reason somebody should buy from you and not competitors. It is the unique set of benefits your product/service offers consumers.

VOD: Video On Demand. Systems that allow users to select and watch/listen to video content on demand to an individual web browser, TV, handheld or other device whenever the user requests it.

WOMM: Word Of Mouth Marketing. A form of viral marketing similar to Social Media Marketing that involves the passing of information from person to person. Originally the term referred specifically to oral communication, but has come to include any form of human communication, such as face to face, telephone, email and text messaging.

WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. A website editor that converts your text, image and graphic layout into HTML while displaying the content exactly as it will be seen by the end user. Most Content Management Systems utilize a WYSIWYG editor. Pronounced “Whizzy-Wig.”

XML: Extensible Markup Language. A generic format intended for maximum flexibility that provides information in a wide variety of structural formats. A variety of XML formats exist for different applications, including RSS. Unlike HTML, XML is extensible, meaning authors can create their own elements and attributes.

Purpose of a Positioning Statement

People (even some marketers) often confuse a positioning statement with a tagline or slogan. The key is that a positioning statement outlines the benefit of your product or service to your target audience, and states how you’re different from competitors. A tagline or slogan, on the other hand, is an advertising message about how you want to be perceived by your target audience, succinctly delivered through different media channels. Typically, an ad agency (or you if you are doing all your marketing in-house) will use your positioning statement to develop a tagline or slogan.

In a nutshell, a positioning statement answers some basic—yet important—questions:

• Who is your brand?
• What is your business or industry?
• Who is your target audience, and what are their needs?
• Who are your competitors?
• What is your key/unique benefit or differentiator over competitors?
• Why should anyone believe you can deliver the benefits?

Some people also refer to a positioning statement as a “brand strategy,” a “positioning strategy” or a “brand positioning statement.” Use whatever terminology in which you feel most comfortable. The main takeaway is that a positioning statement serves as a succinct description of the core target audience to whom your brand is directed and provides a compelling picture of how you want that audience to view your brand by bringing focus and clarity to the development of your marketing strategy and tactics. Once a strong positioning statement is in place every decision made about the brand is judged by how well it supports the positioning statement. This means everything, including the brand name, the features and benefits of the product/service itself, packaging, advertising, pricing, promotions, etc., so you can see why it is important to craft your positioning statement first. If not, you risk wasting time, effort and resources on off-brand activities. Your positioning statement should never be far from reach, and good marketers refer to it often to ensure their strategies and tactics support the positioning statement.

Positioning Statement Process

There are many ways you can go about developing your positioning statement, and the process you follow should reflect your own style and needs. But I have found that a combination of interviews and brainstorming sessions works for me. Here is a brief outline of how that could work:

Interviews

Identify key internal and external stakeholders and formally interview them about your brand. And don’t be afraid to ask hard questions like “What do our competitors do better than us?”, “Who would most benefit from our offering?”, “Why would someone use product/service X instead of product/service Y?” Some of the answers to these questions may be painful, but even the painful ones provide a better view of how your brand is positioned. Eventually you’ll appreciate the insight (in fact I’ve found that the best marketers crave them!). Use a list of standard questions to keep yourself on track, but be flexible enough to let the interviewee lead the discussion (within reason). Have someone sit in to take notes, but not participate in the interviews. This allows you to focus on the discussion, and it makes comparing responses from all the interviews more productive.

Brainstorming Session #1

Invite a cross-section of stakeholders to your brainstorming sessions, but try to limit it to a maximum of six to eight people. And try to avoid inviting people who report to or are direct reports of someone else in the group. Rarely will you get a direct report willing to challenge a supervisor’s point of view in front of everyone, and you’ll get fewer honest and diverse responses if an attendee is worried about offending his boss. Also, set ground rules: no ridiculing ideas, no self censorship, no Blackberries, etc.

This session should be used to answer the questions I listed above (Who is your brand?, What is your business or industry?, Who is your target audience, and what are their needs?, Who are your competitors?, What is your key/unique benefit or differentiator over competitors? and Why should anyone believe you can deliver the benefits?), but you don’t have to limit yourself to those questions. You’ll feel the urge to edit and delete as you go, but resist that urge for now; just get everything documented. You’ll also feel the urge to share snippets from your interviews, but don’t. The group may take those responses out of context, or your brainstorm session may get derailed as you spend more time discussing someone else’s responses than brainstorming.

This will probably be your lengthiest session since it involves in-depth self-study. To make the session shorter, you might consider sending out some questions before the sessions so attendees can start thinking about them.

Brainstorming Session #2

This should include everyone from session #1 and should be held a few days after that session to allow the participants to digest what was discussed. This session is pretty straightforward, and the goal is to edit, refine and agree on (as well as possible) the answers to the questions.

Positioning Statement Draft

This is where you put everything you learned from the interviews and brainstorming sessions to good use. Use the template I provided below (or another template you find and are more comfortable with) to create a draft of your positioning statement. I have found this step is best done as an individual rather than as a group.

Brainstorming Session #3

This session doesn’t necessarily need to include everyone from the first two sessions, but try to include them, especially if their input has been valuable or insightful. Also try to include others who are involved in the brand, but make it clear that the objective is to refine the positioning statement draft, not rewrite it. Diverse input is usually valuable, but you want to avoid negating the work and input of everyone else because an individual comes in at the 11th hour and objects to your findings. To avoid this, make sure to start the session by reviewing the process you have followed, and share some tidbits from the interviews and brainstorming sessions that helped formulate the positioning statement you drafted.

Once you have reviewed the process and shared some excerpts from the interviews and brainstorming sessions, present the positioning statement draft and ask for comments. At the end of this session, you should have a working positioning statement in which everyone is comfortable.

Positioning Statement Template

There are several templates available that provide a framework to how a positioning statement should be structured. One that I like for its simplicity is:

For (target audience), (brand) is the (frame of reference) that delivers (benefit/point of difference) because only (product/service/brand name) is (reason to believe).

The structure is simple enough, but here is some detail as to what each component addresses. The six elements or components of a positioning statement are:

• Target Audience. This is an attitudinal and demographic description of your core prospect. This is to whom your brand is intended to appeal, and includes customers that most closely represents your brand’s most fervent users. As you can see, market research (informal or formal) is key to understanding and formulating this component.
• Brand. This is what you’re marketing. It may seem like a simple step, but take a few moments to reflect on exactly what you are attempting to brand. Is it the product/service itself? Or is it your company? Or is it something else?
• Frame of Reference. This is the category in which your brand competes, and including it helps provide context for your brand and relevance to your customers.
• Benefit/Point of Difference. Cite the most compelling and motivating benefit your brand offers your target audience relative to your competition.
• Product/Service/Brand Name. Your brand can be different than your brand name. For example, Apple is an overarching brand, while iPad is a brand name within that brand. If you have developed a brand name already, use it here. If not use a descriptor of your product/service.
• Reason to Believe. Figure out what convincing proof do you have that your brand delivers what it promises and add it here.

One thing to remember is that while your positioning statement should accurately describe your brand and brand promise, it should also have an aspirational feel to it.

Evaluating Your Positioning Statement

Now that you have created your positioning statement, it is important to test it to make sure it will work for you. Ask yourself:

1. Is my positioning statement memorable?
2. Does it motivate and focus on the core target audience?
3. Is it clear?
4. Does it provide a distinctive and meaningful picture of my brand?
5. Does it differentiate my brand from the competition?
6. Is it credible?
7. Does it allow for future growth?
8. Will it serve as a filter for brand decision making, and make decision making easier?
9. Will I use it?

If you answered yes to all these questions, congratulations you have a positioning statement. If not, don’t fret. That just means you’re that much closer to getting your true positioning statement.

Positioning Statement Example

Here’s the positioning statement I created when I started thinking about creating this website. How do you think I’ve done so far in adhering to this positioning statement?

For marketing professionals, John Moss is the marketing and branding expert who delivers authentic knowledge, expertise and guidance because only John Moss Marketing shares John Moss’ experience as he explores real-world marketing and branding issues facing new and established brands.

Notice that I didn’t focus on a website or blog. Those are just tactics/mechanisms for delivering on the brand promise, and I may change those tactics one day. By focusing on the core brand promise as I developed the positioning statement instead of the details, I left myself plenty of room for growth.

Tips for Developing a Positioning Statement

Here are a few other tips when developing your positioning statement:

• Try to stick to one benefit/differentiator. Avoid stuffing as much as you can into your positioning statement. Simplicity is always better, and if you are having a hard time figuring out what is your main differentiator from a group of equally important differentiators, maybe none of them are your true competitive advantage.
• Define your target audience. And take the time to do this right, even if it means doing some market research.
• Include a plausible and customer-centric reason to believe or the reason to buy. Keep focused on the customer and his needs.
• Include unique benefits that are sustainable over a period of time. No one is going to get excited by an imitator. And who cares if your unique benefits are short lived? A positioning statement is intended as a long-term statement, so short-term benefits have no place in it.
• Invest the time and effort to do it right!

Set Up Analytics
You can’t change what you can’t measure, so the first thing you should do is set up some analytics for your site to benchmark how it’s performing. Google offers a pretty good (and free) suite of tools, including Google Analytics (GA) and Google Webmaster Tools (GWT), and I’ll focus on those below. There are many similar options you could use, including some from Bing, but the key message is to get analytics set up and assess how your site is performing.

As you can see above, Google Analytics provides some pretty good info about your site. I could write an entire article just on how to set up Google Analytics and what you can do with it (please let me know if you’re interested), but the takeaway is that the first step of setting analytics up is crucial in optimizing your site and increasing traffic. All websites can be improved, and once you’ve set up analytics you can then assess which areas need the most work and prioritize your to-do list. And Google Analytics helps make that assessment easier. The dashboard offers some valuable information at a glance, including pageviews, average time on site, number of pages per visit, what percentage of visitors are new, where your traffic is coming from (search engines, referral sites, direct traffic or other) and more. You can even see where your visitors are located globally. Additionally, you can compare timeframes, so you can see whether your efforts are paying off.

Dig down deeper within Google Analytics, and you can get even more details: what browsers and operating systems your visitors are using (great for testing), what screen resolution your visitors have their screens set to, what sites are sending traffic to your site, what keywords are driving traffic to your site and more. You can even link your Adwords account and find more info about how your ads and keywords are performing.

Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) is another great tool you should think about implementing. It provides valuable search data, such as the number of backlinks to your site, a list of crawl errors, a list of broken pages and more. It even helps you to submit your sitemap to Google and tells you how Google sees your XML sitemap. And both Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools can be used with multiple sites.

Optimize Your Site and Content for Search
I’m not the first to point it out, but it warrants reiterating that many marketers are so eager to get their site up and running that they only consider search engine optimization (SEO) after the fact. There is definitely a “build it and they will come” mentality, which I sort of believe is natural actually. But to get your site ranked and indexed by search engines, there are a few ‘housekeeping’ items I suggest you strongly consider for your site (preferably before go live).

• Make sure every page has meta keywords and meta descriptions. The importance of meta keywords and meta descriptions is hotly debated, but since most search engines keep their exact ranking criteria secret, and this is easy and quick to implement, why not do it? Plus meta descriptions show up under your page title in search results, so a clear and compelling description increases the chances that someone will click on your link.
• Use alt text/tool tips for all links and images. This is another quick and easy thing that most people simply forget to do or put off until later. But it will make your site more accessible and therefore rank higher in search. Tip: Use keywords in image file names and alt text.
• Make sure you have a sitemap (preferably XML) and submit it to search engines. XML sitemaps make indexing your site easier for search engines. And anything that makes their jobs easier mean more traffic to your site. Plus it enhances the customer experience. Even if you site is just a few pages big, an XML sitemap should be created. There are plenty of tools to create an XML sitemap for you, so use one of those and upload it to your site. Tip: Make sure to upload your sitemap to your site’s root and name it “sitemap.xml.” The direct link to your sitemap should look something like http://www.johnmossmarketing.com/sitemap.xml
• Get rid of all those dead links and pages. Nothing can turn a visitor off like a dead page or link, and it makes your site look unprofessional. So use tools, like Google Webmaster Tools, to identify any dead links or pages and fix/remove them. Tip: Remember to remove dead pages from your sitemap.
• Make sure your robots.txt file is set up correctly. This file does a lot of things, but one very important thing is does is it allows search bots to crawl (and therefore index) your site. Or it can tell the search bots not to crawl certain pages you want to be crawled. Make sure you have a robots.txt file in your root and that it’s working correctly.
• Research keywords to find good ones to use on your site. There are a lot of tools out there to help you find keywords for your site, but one that I suggest is Traffic Travis. In addition to keyword research, Traffic Travis has some other cool functionality that you may find helpful.
• Use questions for the title of your pages and posts. This helps because many people type questions directly into search instead of playing the keyword-guessing game in which we’re all familiar. Try posing the question exactly how you think a potential visitor would word it, and the relevance of your page to the keywords will cause it to rank higher.
• Use good keywords in your page titles. The keyword research you did earlier will come in handy again. By using keywords in your page titles, search engines will rank your page higher for those terms.
• Make sure your site is set up for permalinks. What are you more likely to remember: yourdomain.com/WebForm/viewPage.aspx?categoryId=246 or yourdomain.com/title-of-your-page? The one that uses keywords and a title in the page’s link makes more ‘sense’ and is easier to understand for humans, and search engines also prefer links with titles and keywords.
• Monitor keyword density. The percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a page compared to the total number of words on the page is known as keyword density. Obviously you want to use keywords in your content, but it’s also important to pepper your content with your keywords at a sufficient density. Too low and it would seem that your page isn’t relevant for those keywords. Too high and the search engines may think you’re engaging in search/keyword spamming. Wikipedia suggests a keyword density of 1-3%, but I like a higher percentage, maybe 3-5%. Wikipedia also links to a few tools you can use to check on your site’s keyword density: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_density

Get Backlinks
The thinking behind a backlink strategy is pretty simple. When search engines see that a certain site or webpage has a number of other sites/pages linking back to it, it assumes the page receiving site/page links to be highly popular and relevant. And the more popular and relevant a site is, the higher it is ranked. So you can see why a good backlink strategy should part of your larger marketing plan. The best backlinks are ones that are from a highly ranked “dofollow” site using your keywords in the displayed text. Here are some tools and ideas for you to incorporate into your backlinks activities:

• Comment on dofollow sites. And make sure to link back to your site using your keywords. The Follow List provides a list of sites that are dofollow sites. Inline SEO is a search engine that can help you find dofollow blogs that cater to your audience. And Website Link Building Strategies provides a list of high-ranked dofollow blogs.
• Create an account at Technorati. And ping it when your site/blog changes.
• Use a ping service. For example, pingomatic can be used to ping RSS aggregators.
• Submit your site/blog to directories. Robin Good’s list of RSS directories and DMOZ are good places to start. Listible.com is another good resource.
• Leave comments on blogs. Make sure to include your site’s URL and focus on related niches to increase relevancy.
• Put your URL in your signatures. Add your URL to everything from email signatures to forum signatures.
• Enable social media. Provide visitors an easy way to share your site and content to ALL social bookmarking sites.
• Get .edu links. Search for .edu sites and get links back to your site. They usually have a high page rank.

Promote Your Site
It sounds obvious, but promoting your site is probably one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site. And if you follow a few tips in promoting your site, you will also get some links, thereby helping your SEO efforts. Try some of these tactics:

• Tell your friends. Tell them about your site and specific posts, pages and functionality, and be sure to use your Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. accounts.
• Answer forum questions. Target forums related to your industry and link to one of your pages that offers info about the question.
• Use signatures. Put your URL in your email and forum signatures.
• Write press releases. There are a lot of low- or no-cost solutions that make it easy to distribute your releases.
• Answer questions at Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers is a great place to answer questions that have to do with your industry. Make sure to add a link back to your site where people can get more info.
• Set up a MyYahoo feed. Doing so will help Yahoo keep better track of your site.
• Use RSS feeds. They are easy to set up, and be sure to make it easy for visitors to sign up for your feed.
• Make your pages Digg/Reddit/etc. friendly. The easier it is, the more likely visitors will share your pages. And don’t be afraid to ask them to share.
• Submit articles. Submit your best articles to article directories.
• Exchange ads. Find complementary sites and ask them to exchange ads for a set time. Not only will it drive traffic to your site, but the other site gets good traffic from yours, you have a potential ad customer.
• Plaster your URL everywhere. Put it on everything that goes out, including business cards, stationary, mailing labels, etc.
• Distribute videos. Publish on YouTube and post your URL at the beginning and end of every video.
• Use wikis, including wikipedia. Find wikis related to your site or industry and to submit your content to those pages.
• Get your site reviewed. Submit your site to free review sites like CoolSiteoftheDay.

Provide Useful and Unique Content
Content is still king, so make sure to provide quality content, and you will see traffic explode. Here are a few simple ideas for content creation:

• Make lists. People love Top 5, Top 10 lists.
• Use pictures. No one wants just boring text.
• Use video. It’s relatively cheap to produce for the web, and will drive up the time visitors spend on your site. You can even use YouTube to host your videos to cut down on hosting costs. Just make sure it’s not too long or takes too long to buffer.
• Write for beginners. Don’t forget those looking for introductory info.
• Use easy-to-read fonts. Make it easy to read on the web, and stick to common fonts.
• Look professional. Proofread your content to avoid typos, and make sure your site design is professional looking.
• Don’t forget your navigation. Make your site is easy to navigate, and it will be easier to find your great content.
• Reply. If your site supports comments, reply to every authentic question (get a good spam filter to save time). Do the same with emails.
• Translate. Install a translation plug-in or use a translation service to broaden the appeal of your content.
• Post frequently. Set up a schedule (monthly, weekly, daily or hourly) and stick to it.

All of the causes and contributing factors of the housing bubble, crisis and downturn can be debated ad nauseam, but I think one thing is clear: people engaged in financial activities, such as obtaining mortgages, selling and buying financial instruments, etc. that they either did not or did not want to fully understand. And despite warnings of the contrary, many of these people held an irrational opinion that the markets would somehow fail to follow the pattern of ups and downs that they always have in the past. Some may have acted out of greed, some out of fear and some just because it seemed like the prudent thing to do at the time.

I believe that most marketers (not all, but that’s another topic) acted and continue to act ethically and honestly, and based on that opinion I started thinking of what lessons could be gleaned from the events over the last few years. As I sat to reflect, I kept coming back to a common theme: the Marketing Mix (Product, Price, Place and Promotion). This invaluable tool/structure that marketers have come to rely upon hasn’t necessarily failed us, but instead we have failed to properly utilize it. And in fact, I think we are continuing down that road even today.

If you look at the amount of focus placed on Product, Price, Place and Promotion, you quickly see that the majority has been placed upon Promotion while Product, Price and Place have seen little attention. Why? The simple answer may be because in many ways Promotion is the easiest to execute, especially in the digital age, and many times the most exciting. Product, Price and Place are just as important components in the mix, however, so I will address all four and discuss some lessons we can learn.

Product
The common sound bite we hear is that financial products and services are too complex. I agree that some products are complex, but are they any harder to explain to consumers than how an email marketing application works? Or the features and benefits of a high-end music system? Or the workings of a consumer satellite TV system? Any of these products can be seen as “complex,” but the difference is education and support.

If you have ever tried to purchase a complex product or service, you would agree that a well-educated salesperson is worth his weight in gold. And by “well-educated” I don’t necessarily mean that he has a high-level degree from a top school or other impressive credentials, but rather that he know the products and services he is selling inside and out. Nothing instills confidence, pride and customer satisfaction like the opportunity to ask a salesperson real questions and get real answers before, during and after a sale. And nothing creates hesitation, ambivalence and customer dissatisfaction as a discussion with a salesperson who has neither knowledge about nor interest in the products or services he is selling. Marketers sometimes forget this simple lesson and fail to consider ourselves salespeople. In essence, however, that is exactly what we are. Even if we don’t have front-line interaction with customers, it is our responsibility to know our products and services and also ensure that our sales force is equipped with training and support that allows them to fully understand our products and services. By doing so you help the salesperson achieve his goals and also create better-informed and happier customers.

In the world of financial services, this has become stuff of legend as tales of brokers and agents peddling products of which they had no clear understanding abound. Terms like mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and mortgage programs such as low/no-documentation mortgages and adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) have now become a common part of our lexicon, but just a few years ago most people would have been hard pressed to explain what these were or how they functioned. Some people selling these products were more concerned with making a sale than educating themselves about the products, and most consumers were far too eager and/or ignorant of what they should know about the products to take the time to ask the important questions. A well-educated salesperson would have been able to determine if a particular product was right for a particular customer’s situation. While I believe that ultimately choice and the responsibility of that choice fall upon the consumer, the salesperson should play an important role in educating the consumer about his options, risks and obligations.

And as marketers, we are responsible for ensuring that our salespeople fulfill that role. I believe the sales force should fall under Marketing’s management, but even if we are in an organization where the sales force is managed in a separate division or group, we can support the sales force by creating training sessions that educate them about our products. And once that initial training is complete, follow-up sessions are needed to keep the sales force up to date and let them know about enhancements and changes. In addition, support materials in the way of clear, easy-to-read product sheets, reference materials, customer handouts, etc. should be created and updated to support the sales force and their efforts.

Price
I often hear from marketers that price is one of the most difficult parts of the marketing mix for them to control. It’s just common sense that if it costs $XX to develop, produce, distribute, etc. a product or service, it follows that a company could not continue to sell below that price for any length of time and remain in business—let alone make a profit—even if offering it at below cost has strategic value. (Of course I’m assuming a simplified and traditional business model where there is only one product or service. I am also ignoring any joint efforts/investments with distributors or retailers, as well as any other revenue streams such as subscriptions, advertising revenue, etc.) Marketers may not be able to control all aspects of the costs, but a marketer can control price in a couple of ways.

First, while there is a lower limit to what we can charge for a product or service and remain in business, we do have control over the collection of features included in an offering that drives the cost and therefore the price. By customizing features to the needs of different segments, we can offer our products and services at different price points. I actually believe that the financial services industry has done this pretty well. Just take a look at the plethora of products and services available. If you plan on staying in a home for four or five years, a 30-year fixed rate mortgage with a higher interest rate may not make sense. Instead a five-year ARM may be exactly what you need. Or if you are an older consumer looking to buy a home to take advantage of tax benefits but not necessarily interested in capturing long-term value and equity, a zero-down, interest-only loan may be the right way to go. It’s through this mix of features that we are able to satisfy the real needs of our targeted audiences at the appropriate price.

If anything, consumers are bombarded with too many offerings, which makes choosing difficult for consumers. The key for marketers is targeting specific offerings to the right consumers, which brings me to my second point on price. Given the array of products available to consumers, it is imperative that marketers step into an advisor role where we strive to marry the right product with the right consumer. This needs to be done in terms of cost, as well as features. During the housing bubble there were many consumers who took out ARMs without fully realizing what their monthly mortgage payments could be once interest rates rose from their historic lows. Again, I don’t think brokers necessarily hid the costs of the products they were selling, but instead assumed that consumers were fully aware of those costs and that they fully understood the risks and financial ramifications associated with them. From a legalistic standpoint consumers were advised of the risks in the documentation they had to sign to obtain those mortgages, and a case can be made that greed, unrealistic expectation and willful ignorance drove consumer behavior. But having a legal defense doesn’t necessarily translate to good business practices, and we could have done a better job of making those risks better known. Now I know this seems counterintuitive to marketers. Basically it sounds like I am suggesting that financial services marketers should have highlighted/promoted the possible negative aspects of their offerings. But what I’m actually saying is that when reviewing the suit of available offerings with a consumer, we should provide the possible outcomes of each and then allow the consumer to make the best choice for himself. The worst situation, of course, would be one in which the marketer is forced to dictate what offering is best for a consumer and deny a consumer his freedom of choice.

Place
Once you have a great product or service that is priced right for your targeted consumers, the next step is to make that product available to those target audiences. In the years leading up to the housing bubble burst, many financial services companies migrated much of their sales efforts from traditional broker-based to web-based. And as they migrated to new websites and landing pages, search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) proved to be some of their best tools in pairing prospects with offerings. It goes without saying that the web is an invaluable tool that makes education and commerce incredibly easy, but it tends to allow individuals to become too narrow in their searches, and/or inundates them with so much information that a consumer may end up delaying a decision or making a knee-jerk choice out of frustration.

Search is an incredibly efficient tool for marketers. It directs consumers who are already interested in the attributes of your product or service to find you from almost anywhere in the world. But it has potential pitfalls for consumers who are looking for a clear overall picture, especially if they are looking for the pros and cons. If a consumer Googles something like “cheap mortgage rates,” he will be delivered a page of results that correspond to that search: some paid results and some organic results. One factor that causes pages to show up organically is that their content relates to the search terms. Most likely there are also other pages with similar content/keywords linking to those pages, which drives page rank (PR). And it can be assumed that advertisers paying to have their ads show up as results when certain keywords are entered have pages that relate to those search terms. And most likely they also link to similar pages and content. So what you end up with is a deep funnel of pages and sites with similar content, keywords and subject matter that parrot each other’s messages. Instead of giving the consumer a range of information, search has basically boxed in the consumer to similar-sounding information that reinforces what they were looking for in the first place. While this “feature” of search is great when the consumer is already well educated about your product or service and knows exactly what he is looking for, it can also force an uneducated consumer down a funnel that fails to include any diverse points of view or information that may differ from their initial assumptions.

So what’s a possible mitigation strategy? Well, one is similar to the strategy I mentioned under “Price”: Provide robust information and educate your consumers about your product or service, instead of engaging in a perceived one-sided “hard sell.” Thereby you allow consumers to make their own decisions, and you have empowered consumers to make better choices. To do this, when creating your marketing materials, especially online materials, keep all your pertinent information upfront, and don’t try to bury any potentially negative aspect of your offerings. Your consumers may not care about those features as much as you think they do, or they may be willing to forego a certain feature in order to ensure that they obtain others. Regardless, you will gain respect and trust from consumers by the fact that you are upfront with them.

Another strategy is to treat landing pages as portals where visitors can survey your suite of products and services instead of solely relying on individual product-/service-specific landing pages. More general/broader keywords and ads should direct visitors to your suite of products, where you can help guide visitors to more details contained in product-/service-specific landing pages. So you should still keep the more specific landing pages, but modify your keywords, ads and content for visitors who are looking specifically for that content. The real key here is the usability and intuitiveness of your landing pages to ensure visitors are being funneled to offerings that match their needs. I’m a huge fan of usability testing, but if you don’t have the budget for a full-blown usability test, the simple exercise of placing paper design comps in front of a test subject with a defined task (get the latest 15-year fixed mortgage rate, open a business checking account, etc.) will warn you of any major problems and allow you to address them before you start development. Some people claim this can be done at the wireframe stage. While I agree it can warn of missing information or links, I don’t think wireframe tests provide a true sense of a site’s usability since the design is very important and draws users’ eyes and clicks.

As you can read between the lines, I’m an advocate for comparison charts. In fact, it has been found that allowing consumers to compare products in one view, even when potentially negative information about one or more products is included, drives more conversions. Again, this is difficult for some marketers to do as they have been conditioned to only speak about the positive aspects of their products and feel they may potentially scare prospects off from making any decision. Quite honestly, this is an antiquated view. If there is negative information about your product or service, a consumer can Google it in about half a second, no matter how consistently you avoid talking about it. If you don’t believe me, try Googling “*your company/product/service* sucks.” Hopefully nothing too scary comes up, but you may be surprised at what you find. By talking about these issues head-on, however, you get a chance to diffuse them and it allows you to address them on your own terms.

The other problem is the sheer amount of information available. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pages about financial services products and services are available to a consumer. One could say that access to the information is a good thing for the consumer, but at a certain point it simply becomes too much to digest and the consumer experiences information fatigue. Tired of looking at the same information bundled in different packages, the consumer finally settles on a decision simply because he is tired of researching. This obviously won’t necessarily end in the best possible decision. There aren’t enough hours in the day for each consumer to research every possible product or service available to them, so many consumers turn to financial advisors (FAs). But the outlook isn’t much better for FAs. I attended a Journal of Financial Advertising and Marketing (JFAM) conference late last year, where Daniel Rothman, the Director of Research (Americas) at the Financial Times presented some research he did on how financial advisors spend their time. As you can see from the below, most of their time is spent in activities other than research. In fact, only 12% of their time is dedicated to research and picking investments.

If FAs don’t have time to do the research (and they get paid pretty well to research and make recommendations!), how can we expect that the average consumer has the time to do the research? The glib response is that the FAs should spend more time doing research and provide that consolidated information to their clients, but as we’ve seen there is just too much information for them to humanly wade through. As the graph above shows FAs aren’t spending their time relaxing or playing golf, but rather servicing their accounts in ways other than performing research. Expecting the FAs to allocate more of their time to research also stops us from seizing upon an opportunity to position our products and services as we want. Instead of forcing FAs and consumers to search for information and hope they stumble upon our own materials that position our products and services as want them positioned (pros, cons and all), it’s a good idea for us to make our materials available in digestible chunks to consumers, as well as to FAs, who can spend the time to look through them and possibly pass them along to their customers.

While it is important to segment your audiences, I’ve seen a lot of companies take this too far as they don’t realize the fluid nature of information in the digital age. As soon as information is distributed to one audience, you can safely assume that it will be shared with other audiences. So instead of attempting to cordon off information, free that information and make it easily available. Make sure your offering pages print legibly and beautifully, and/or make printable PDFs of your offering sheets available on those pages. That way if a visitor (consumer or FA) wants to print either to review later or wants to email the PDF to a family member, friend or client, he can do so easily and quickly. This may sound counterintuitive to marketers who track pageviews as a metric, but getting the information out there is more important than a few clicks of the mouse.

To make getting to and sharing your pages easier, make your URLs easy to remember and don’t rely on long, nonsensical URL strings. We’ve all seen these strings that look something like “www.domain.com/Webpage/template_product.aspx?fileType=prsrel&categoryID=123.” If your site is designed in a manner that these types of URLs are created, make use of redirects and extensions like “www.domain.com/products” to drive traffic as people are more likely to remember those.

I’ve also seen many sites (especially news sites) with functionality that allows visitors to “forward this article.” While this is a step in the right direction, I wonder about its effectiveness as visitors may be hesitant to provide the site owner the email address of the person they want to forward the article or page to, as well as hesitation that their own email address would somehow be added to some marketing database. Whether this is a valid concern or not, it may cause visitors to not use the functionality, especially when cutting and pasting the URL is just as easy.

I could provide more tips and ideas on how to get your products in the right place for your consumers, but the main idea is that we should make the content and information available in usable bits and easily accessible in the manner that best facilitates the consumer’s behavior. Merely throwing more information up on the web isn’t the answer.

Promotion
I mentioned earlier that Promotion is the easiest part of the marketing mix to execute, and many times the most exciting. And because of this we have seen the lion’s share of focus on Promotion. The reason I say this is because of the ever-expanding set of tools that we have to distribute content. We have email, banner ads, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, microsites, iTunes, Digg, press releases, etc. The list can go on and on. Consumers are bombarded with hundreds if not thousands of messages that demand their attention every day. And because of the constant bombardment, marketers have been forced to rely on louder, more nontraditional methods of reaching their audiences, who quickly learn to ignore promotional messages in whatever form in which they come.

Social media and Web 2.0 technologies are great tactical ways to get important messages out, but I have seen many companies that are allowing tactics to dictate strategy, instead of the other way around. By doing this they risk alienating their audiences, who have turned to social media as forms of interaction and two-way communications with their friends and network of friends. True social media is about conversation, but there is a component of traditional word-or-mouth (WOM) advertising that marketers can take advantage of. But when that becomes too much like a forced corporate message and resembles spam, the WOM benefits can quickly dry up or turn negative.

Some savvy financial marketers pounced on new ways to promote their latest products and offers using new and easy-to-use tools, like Google Adsense, banners, RSS feeds, etc, as well as the social media and Web 2.0 scene. While many of the tools they currently use weren’t available as the housing bubble began, they did rely on Promotion and the tools that made Promotion much easier and “sexier?” as the housing bubble continued to swell and eventually burst. They used these tools to blast their messages to anyone and everyone, with the emphasis on distribution rather than communication and dialogue. Instead of listening to consumers, they spoke to them. With the rise of this one-way communication, the focus on the right mix of Product, Price, Placement and Promotion went out the window as Promotion became the main focus regardless of its comparative strategic value. The favored metrics of the day were click-through rates (CTRs), conversion rates, pageviews, time on site and retweets, rather than on true customer education, engagement and satisfaction.

And I see the trend continuing today. We all get emails, tweets, etc. just about every day about new social media seminars or whitepapers, or articles telling us how “important” it is for us to reach consumers through a different venue. But what value is this adding for the customer? If a message is of true value to the consumer, the right tactic or tactics should be used. Simply blasting snippets from press releases will not result in true education about your products or services, which are key to sales. Not all marketers are guilty of this, but I see many so engulfed with making tactical decisions that strategic considerations get lost. When pressed to describe how a particular tactic supports the sales process, I often find that some marketers are unaware of what their sales process is or do not consider the sales process when deciding to employ a particular tactic! Instead they have a belief that if they promote their offerings enough, it will eventually lead to sales. Now this idea is true in some sense, but it is neither a smart nor strategic use of money and resources.

Conclusion
I hope you found this interesting and useful. If you have any topics you would like to see featured, feel free to send me an email!

Start with a Full Search
Most marketers are eager to jump right into their work. They come up with a great name that highlights the benefits of their product or service, is easy to pronounce and spell, and easy to remember. And they then start using ‘their’ brand name without much research beyond the typical market research beforehand. Or if they do perform a search, it’s limited to a Google search or a search to determine if the URL they want is available. While a trademark isn’t necessary to start using a name, it does provide protection from infringement. If someone else starts using the brand name you have worked hard to build, a trademark provides legal recourse in getting them to cease and desist. But that works both ways; It provides you legal recourse (cease and desist, sue for damages, etc.) if someone else starts using a brand name you worked carefully to build, but it can also bite you in the rear if you start using a brand name (wittingly or unwittingly) that someone else has filed and protected.

If you start using someone else’s trademark name and are forced to halt use and/or use another name, you can find yourself neck deep in legal costs, reputational damage, operational costs to update all your marketing materials and just a general marketing nightmare as you scramble to rebrand. These risks may be manageable, especially if you are considering a new introduction or a small sub-brand, but if you are considering your overall brand, this can be an important consideration. Many companies fail at rebranding even when they have spent a lot of time and money in strategizing and planning, so being forced to quickly rebrand by the seat of your pants most likely isn’t going to end with the best results.

The first step to avoid this is to do a quick search using the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS). This free online tool is pretty basic and not all that intuitive the first few times you use it, but after playing with it for a little while, it becomes pretty easy.

You can make your search as broad or as narrow as you want. You can include singular or plural uses of the name (i.e. Coke and Cokes), or look just for “live” registrations (trademarks that are currently protected) or “dead” registrations (names that were once trademarked, but for whatever reason the trademark owner has allowed the trademark to lapse and are now considered “abandoned”). You then insert the term you are searching, and you have the option of limiting your search to trademark owners (if you want to see if a certain person or corporation owns a mark), search by serial number (if you want to verify a mark) or search by term.

You’ll most likely encounter quite a few results/hits, but don’t worry. The next step is to dig through those results and determine which ones are used for a product or service similar to yours and then decide if they are ‘confusingly similar.’ Then, just as a double check, look up those serial numbers in the USPTO’s Trademark Application Registrations Retrieval (TARR) system to make sure the info is correct and get the most current status of the mark. If you did want to use a lawyer, this is the step where he is most useful because you can ask your lawyer to provide a memo or letter stating whether in his opinion the mark is ‘confusingly similar,’ the legal criteria for deciding if infringement has occurred, or if it not. This letter may become useful down the road to thwart a frivolous lawsuit or limit damages if someone is successful in suing you. It shows that you took precautions to avoid infringing on someone’s mark and obtained a legal opinion before proceeding, so your actions will not be deemed an ‘negligent.’ Of course involving a lawyer will cost money and take some amount of time, so I would only focus on the really problematic marks (if any) that may be identified. If too many conflicts arise or you don’t want to involve a lawyer, I would suggest considering a more ‘available’ mark.

Description of Goods and/or Services
Next you will want to write up a good, accurate description of the goods or service that fall under the brand name. Avoid hyperbole and ‘marketing speak,’ and stick to the functional pieces. If you are marketing a software application that does translation, say so. The USPTO isn’t interested that it is the “next-generation translation application that will change the way people from around the globe work, share and communicate.” They are interested in knowing the functional capabilities of the goods or service are they can determine if a similar trademark has been filed. It will also not matter and may even perturb a judge if you find yourself suing (or being sued by) someone for trademark infringement down the road.

Make sure your description is as accurate as possible, but do not be too broad or narrow in your description. If you are too broad, you risk having your application denied because it is not distinguishable enough from other trademarks. And if you are too narrow, you limit your opportunity for growth, enhancements and improvements. For example, if you are developing translation software that you are planning on initially distributing through an iPhone App, a description that simply states “software application for iPhone” isn’t probably the best you can do. There are plenty of software applications for the iPhone out there, and if there is one with a name ‘confusingly similar’ to yours, you will most likely be denied. On the other hand, the iPhone will not always be the ‘hot’ distribution method for your application, and you may want to sell your application/software through other venues: on other phones or PDAs, online, iPad, CDs/DVDs, etc. If you too narrowly limit your description to the current landscape, you may forfeit your brand’s protection as it grows. In the case above, a better description might be something along the lines of “language translation software for use in digital applications, including mobile devices, computers, online and other digital formats.” This is narrow enough to make your goods or service distinguishable from others using the name, while broad enough to cover future growth. The important thing, however, is that the description isn’t intended to make your goods or service 100% different from all your competitors; it could very well be the same. (In fact a good tip is to look at competitors’ trademark applications to see how they describe their product.) Rather the goal is to make it different enough from other products that may share the same name so that the two are not ‘confusingly similar.’ For example, you can use the name “Apple” if you’re marketing pickaxes, but it’s advisable to avoid the name if you are marketing computers.

Trademarked Design or Name/Characters
Next you’ll want to decide if you want to trademark the name, spelled out in ‘standard’ characters (A-Z, etc.) or if you want to trademark a designed logo. You can do both, but just not in the same application. It is much more likely that someone would try to use your brand name than your designed logo, so if you are trying to limit upfront costs, I would suggest filing the character mark first and then filing an application for the logo when it is more financially feasible.

File the Application
Now that you’ve completed all the necessary preparations, it’s time to actually file the application. Luckily this process itself is pretty straightforward and can be done online (you can also do it via mail, but expect it to take longer). The USPTO has yet another acronym for this system, TEAS, which is short for “Trademark Electronic Application System.” From this page you should select “Initial Application Form” and then click on “Trademark/Servicemark Application, Principal Register.” You will then be prompted to choose between the TEAS Form ($325 to file) or the TEAS Plus Form ($275 to file). While the Plus form has a lower cost associated with it, it isn’t as forgiving as the TEAS form and requires you to have done all your homework beforehand. Of course if you haven’t done your homework you really shouldn’t be filing an application unless you have money and time to burn. Regardless, I would advise you to read the descriptions on this page and select the appropriate form for your needs.

After that, it’s a pretty simple process that just requires you fill out some fields about the intended owner of the mark, description of goods/services, etc. You can even pay the filing fee by credit card or by Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) right there online. At the end of the process you will receive an “immediate serial number,” which you will need for all future correspondence pertaining to that filing.

The USPTO then reviews your application and basically does all the work you already did (checks for conflicting marks, etc.) for itself. Since this is a government-run program, the entire process may take a few months to over a year, but if you did the legwork upfront, you shouldn’t have any surprises. The USPTO attorneys may contact you if they have any questions, but you do have the option of using the mark during this review process. You just won’t be protected and able to sue anyone until the mark is officially approved. If someone else files a similar application during this time, your application will take precedence if you filed first.

Approval
The USPTO will eventually publish your trademark in its “Official Gazette.” There is then a 30-day period when someone who feels they have rights for your trademark can challenge its approval, but again if you did your legwork this is just a formality. The USPTO will continue to review the trademark, but barring any hiccups eventually it will get approved. After your trademark is approved, you will need to periodically send the USPTO examples of the trademark in use, but they will communicate all that when they approve your mark. The important thing to remember is to respond to their requests in a timely fashion. If you fail to maintain your mark, they may deem your mark “abandoned” and you’ll have to start the process all over again.

That’s the trademark process in a nutshell. While it seems like a confusing and cumbersome process, it really involves some simple research and due diligence on your part to make the entire process as smooth as possible. I hope this was helpful. Good luck!

More Information
The United States Patent and Trademark Office, provide some excellent resources for those interested in trademarking a brand, product, service, etc. A good place to start is their page, aptly titled “Where do I start?” at http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/index.jsp.

Marketing involves selling products and services, but that doesn’t mean marketing is limited to sales activities. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” Sounds impressive, but what does that really mean? This definition is chocked full of information, so let’s break down each component of the definition.

The Activity
Marketing involves activity. That sounds obvious, but it is important to remember that marketing is not passive; It requires active participation on the part of the marketer. It may sound like this active participation means solely promoting your product or service, but it really means employing the entire marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion), plus some of the legwork that goes into implementing the mix, such as market research, financial planning, strategy, etc.

Set of Institutions
Even the best salesperson in the world knows that marketing is a group effort that involves a variety of individuals and groups, internal and external to his organization. From an overall perspective marketing involves many institutions/groups, such as market researchers, advertising agencies, sales support, research and development, financial forecasting, distributors, etc. A key to good marketing is being able to manage and coordinate all these institutions and groups.

Processes
Marketing has to be process driven. While flying by the seat of your pants may sound like fun to some people and may even work for the short term, eventually it will land you in trouble. Without processes in place, you will not be able to plan effectively, determine what is working or not working, figure out which efforts have a positive or negative effect on sales or even learn from your successes and mistakes. To do all this, you really need a mapped-out process that can be honed and replicated.

Creating
Marketing is an innovative field that attracts very creative people. Marketing ideas and strategies are limited only by your imagination, and we see this high level of creativity in action every day. I have always respected an artist who can make his audience feel a certain emotion or understand a certain idea or point of view. But I admire a marketer who can make his audience act even more. Understanding and feeling are just the first steps for a marketer, while mobilizing toward action is what really counts. This is true creative power in action.

Communicating
If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it fall, does it make a sound? This philosophical question mirrors a problem marketers face; You may have the best product or service in the world, but if you don’t communicate the benefits and features of that product or service well to the right audience (and not necessarily only through advertising) how is the world going to find out about it? Communication is important to marketing your product or service, and this communication can come in many forms, from overt advertisements and promotions to more subtle activities such as the effectiveness of your supply/value chain and branding.

Delivering
Again this seems obvious, but marketing isn’t just selling a product or service. In essence it is delivering on the promise created by your marketing mix. It is your job to accurately describe that brand promise, and if you fail to deliver on that promise, you have failed as a marketer. At the very least you need to deliver what you promise, but a smart marketer over delivers to delight and wow his customers.

Exchanging Offerings That Have Value
You provide customers value in the form of features and benefits delivered by your products and services. In return you demand value, usually in the form of financial payment. Only an unethical marketer would expect to receive value for something of no value. And only an ineffective marketer would deliver value yet not receive appropriate value in exchange. One of the roles of a marketer is to determine the fair value of the product/service he is marketing. He must then go about exchanging that product/service for the appropriate value.

Customers, Clients, Partners, and Society at Large
Marketers must satisfy these constituents by marketing products and services so that they fulfill customer needs/wants and attain their clients’/partners’ goals. There is also an ethical question about the role of the marketer to “protect” society at large by refusing to misrepresent features/benefits or hide the negative aspects of a product or service. True marketers think of long-term, strategic goals, and trying to “make a quick buck” at the expense of others is not how you attain these objectives.

In conclusion, “marketing” seems to mean different things to different people, but in reality marketing is a complex and robust activity that encompasses many different skills, competencies and people. It is a very exciting and rewarding field that offers a marketer the chance to explore his own interests and develop strengths in areas he may have never considered.

From the get-go, the male interviewee is being evaluated based on his perceived age. The seemingly ‘younger’ version of the interviewee with his brown hair is portrayed as having more energy but no experience despite being the same person. In fact he seems sort of like a doofus. And the gray-haired version is portrayed as having experience, yet no energy. He seems like he’s ready for the old-folks home. But magically, by fusing the brown and gray hair, the interviewee now possesses both positive traits, but no negative.

Basically, it seems that Just for Men is playing on the ageism that middle-age men who seeking employment fear. I don’t need to comment on how hard it is for some to find jobs right now, or how this stress may more profoundly affect middle-age men, but playing on those fears seems like a dirty approach to me. Instead of using the positive features and benefits of the product, Just for Men has decided to focus its advertising on the potential negatives of not using the product. This would maybe make sense if they are looking to retain customers (keep using our product or look at what could happen), but if they are looking to attract new customers, this seems fruitless. Why would someone want to start relying on a product that they could never stop using?

The other part that bothered me was the apparent sexual tension in the ad. It seems throughout the spot that the female interviewer is evaluating her sexual appetite for the interviewee rather than his qualifications for the job. If I was a woman, I would be offended at this spot as it suggests that a woman in a position of power is unable to separate her personal sexual desires from her professional responsibilities. If the genders were reversed and it was a male interviewer leering at a female interviewee, I think the outcry would have been loud.

Overall, I don’t really like these spots. I think they could have been done better, but to do so Just for Men needs to take a step back, look at their positioning and focus on the core benefits of their products. To see how it can be done well for a product like this, see this 1993 ad. It does a good job of discussing the product benefits and feature.

As a marketer I am amazed that people still fail to consider the effects of technology and communications on brands, and that this position persists on a site thought to epitomize “Web 2.0″ is shocking. Does anyone really believe that a brand in one market has no exposure in another? Is there anything such as a local brand? I would argue that if your brand is limited by geography and that your brand fails to add value to your products when consumers are contemplating a purchase, regardless of distance, you really aren’t doing your job as a marketer. The very tools that have made product research and development, promotion, price competition and distribution (also known as “place”) easier for marketers have also made the concept of a local brand archaic. Call it a lesson in the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Today’s marketer has to consider many things that have made the world smaller. Here are just a few examples:

• Yelp: Offers business and service reviews. With just a few keystrokes, a consumer can find out everything about your brand and the products you market, find out what others have said about your brand or even share their own experience with your brand. Exciting or scary, depending on your view of your brand and whether it’s ready for prime time.
• Google: Again, with just a few keystrokes, a consumer can find out all about your brand. And with the way Google’s algorithms work, consumers don’t even need to be looking for your brand specifically. Even if you are marketing a small, “local” brand, you may find it alongside a larger brand with more marketing muscle behind it. For example if you are marketing a locally owned pet shop in a small town, your brand has as much of a chance of showing up in a visitor’s search results if your site is targeted to the search terms the visitor is looking for and your site is optimized for search.
• Ebay. No matter where you are or where you saturate your brand’s promotion most, your products can be sold worldwide. Therefore, the need for a strong brand is the most evident on a site like Ebay.com. And if you don’t sell your products on Ebay yourself, don’t think they aren’t selling there. Do a quick search and see who is selling your products at what price and what your competitors are doing. You may not be ready to set up an Ebay Store yet, but you need a strong brand to make the job of those intermediaries who are selling your products easier. They may be ultimately selling your products, but they are buying your products in the meantime.

There are tons of examples I could go through, but in the end I just don’t think there is such a thing as a local brand any more when you truly consider what a brand is in the world we live in. Yes, there may be some business names that resonate with a certain area, but given the growth of technology and communication, and the resulting shrinking of the world, these examples are becoming harder to find.

At first the approach made me feel a bit apprehensive, but I quickly saw they executed the strategy pretty well. What I like about the execution is that Domino’s commercials show concrete examples of what they are doing in response to the comments (new cheeses, new sauce, etc.), not playing lip service to what they intend to do. In the era of too-late corporate responses, it was somewhat refreshing to see a company air a problem (granted it was one most of us didn’t really worry about) and then ‘fix’ it. If the customer perception was accurate and Domino’s hadn’t intervened to bolster its brand, given time Domino’s brand image would have degraded to a point where it would have not been able to recover. With a decade of experience in marketing and advertising, I know how easy it is to mold focus groups responses to a particular end, but to be honest I hadn’t eaten Domino’s in years so I can’t say how much I agree with what was presented. But assuming that what was presented was representative, I think Domino’s was smart to respond.

Of course this is a very risky proposition, but one that Domino’s management should be commended on having the confidence to initiate. There have been a lot of comments about the importance of the Super Bowl to pizza delivery sales. I would argue, however, that while that single night probably represents the highest one-day volume for pizza delivery, it pales in comparison to the entire college and pro football seasons leading up to the Super Bowl. Taking this approach during this crucial timeframe is very risky, and I would have started it the summer if possible. But it seems that Domino’s has seen some stock price success with this strategy.

I also think the campaign has been successful in creating buzz. Many of us who haven’t even thought about Domino’s in years started looking at Domino’s again. But that buzz must be backed up with results. I was so intrigued that I actually ordered pizza from Domino’s this weekend. I was happy to find out that I could order online, and ordered two two-topping pizzas and breadsticks. The quality was ok, but not really all that noticeably different from what I remembered. They got most of the order right, but the extra breadstick sauce I requested in the online text box didn’t show up. No big deal, but part of me was disappointed because I felt that behind the hype would have been some really great pizza (I live in NYC, so ‘good’ pizza is a given). Instead I got something that was just ‘ok.’

But this new attention highlighted other problems Domino’s is having. What was really disappointing was the delivery service. I waited over an hour for the pizza to be delivered, and because I ordered a couple of pizzas and breadsticks I was shocked to see a delivery charge attached to the order. Now I understand a delivery charge if a customer orders below a minimum, but an automatic delivery charge with no clear indication that the customer will be charged that fee seems greedy to me. I would have been fine paying the small fee (I think it was only $1.99), but I feel Domino’s should have been more transparent about the charge. Their failure to do so creates an impression that they are trying to nickel and dime their customers; not the impression they want to create when they are trying to persuade their customers that a return to quality is their utmost priority.

But what disappointed me the most was their online tracker. In theory it’s a great application. Once you place your online order it tracks the status of your order and lets you know where it is (prep, bake, etc.) and gives you a delivery time frame (BTW, I was disappointed to find out that Domino’s 30-minute guarantee has long been discontinued). The problem I experienced with my order, however, was that the store I ordered from indicated the order was further along in the process than it really was. My order was shown as ‘delivered’ according to the tracker, and after waiting 15 additional minutes I called the store since I was a bit apprehensive that the online ordering may not work as easily as I hoped. I thought the pizza may have been delivered to another address, but after getting through to the store I was told that the delivery person was just about to leave. When I mentioned that the online tracker said it was delivered, the Domino’s employee gave me an excuse that was vague at best. I waited another 20 minutes, and the delivery guy showed up as I was about to hit redial to figure out where my pizza was. This may have been an isolated case, but created the perception that store managers are incentivized to record faster deliveries. The tracker, which has the potential to generate some serious positive word-of-mouth buzz, instead created disappointment and a sense that Domino’s is concerned with superficial appearances. This is not the impression they should be creating when working to clean up their brand.

All in all, while Domino’s campaign is a good execution of a good strategy, I think there are components of their value chain that management needs to focus on before they make any further promotional pushes. Perhaps management fully intends to tackle these issues, but had their hand forced due to the Super Bowl just a few weeks away. But given the real risk of calling attention to their previously poor quality in hopes of replacing that perception with better quality in consumers’ minds, it would have been smarter to make sure all their pieces were in place before launch. If Domino’s management is unable to quickly fix these issues, they will have caused the brand to fall on its own sword (at least in the short term).

As I viewed the exhibit, I was struck at the close relationship between design and the impression that was conveyed by the design. In other words, Saarinen’s work projected brands. And the beauty and genius of Saarinen was that he didn’t necessarily project his own personal brand, but instead projected the brands of the companies/entities for which he was designing. This intangible impression is as much a part of branding as benefits/features, logo, pricing, etc. For example Trans World Airlines (TWA) was at the time a leader in cutting-edge, globe-shrinking technology: the jet airplane. This represented a turning point in modern commercial aviation, and the outlook toward the future seemed bright. The terminal Saarinen designed for TWA conveyed this. Saarinen could have focused on a number of the concepts/features/benefits to drive his design (speed, comfort, ‘improvement,’ etc.), but instead of using a standard, boxy design that was popular at the time in an attempt to convey these themes, Saarinen designed something radically different. He went after what the TWA brand strove to be: forward looking, futuristic, a technical marvel that implied that human innovation was limitless. Sitting in 2010 and looking at the images of the terminal is inspiring. I couldn’t imagine what the public felt seeing it for the first time in 1962.

This is what well-branded product design is about. Not necessarily striving to copy what Saarinen did (not all brands should attempt to position themselves as “forward looking,” “futuristic” or a “technical marvel”), but using the design of a product or service to match and amplify the brand promise. If Saarinen hadn’t designed such a striking building, I don’t know if we would equate a terminal with an airline brand today. Perhaps we would associate an airline brand with the planes it flies, ignoring the surroundings of where we board those planes. But Saarinen and TWA understood that everything, from the paper used in communications to the quality of chairs in a waiting room, reflect a brand.

And we should keep this in mind with everything we create. Consider the exercise where we remove the logo from a product to determine if it reflects the brand on its own (this is a great exercise to do with your communications too). Is the product strong enough on its own to convey the brand promise? Does it support the brand? Or does it draw upon the brand for support? If our products or services continue to fail this test we risk serious damage to our brands. And that type of damage can prove costly in terms of time, money and effort to even start to repair.

I’d love to get feedback and suggestions for topics, so please feel free to leave comments. But please do not spam us. If you have to ask yourself whether your message can be construed as spam, it probably is.