The Limits of Public Relations

I remember a funny story I heard a few years back. A man tried to sue a certain auto manufacturer claiming their product was unsafe. When there was a bit of discovery done it had turned out that the man had crashed the auto and was upset that while the airbags had deployed, they had not prevented damage to his car. He claimed that everything he read about airbags spoke about how safe they are and that this resulted in him driving less-than-safely due to the fact he believed the airbag would somehow envelop his entire auto.

I always like this story because I think it does a good job of illustrating the limits of public relations. PR as we know has never had a really firm definition like accounting, nor has it had a strong oversight board like the American Medical Association or the various state bar associations. I think the best way to initiate a discussion like this is to say that PR does have limits and is not a magic cure all that will solve any problems. I will list a very few limits of public relations here but be assured that I will not list them all because that would simply be impossible.

One great limit of public relations and the one I see most often used in publicly traded companies is the idea that PR exists to "goose" a stock price or somehow make a company more palatable for sales. Very simply put, PR does not sell your product. Public relations exists to disseminate truthful and wholly accurate news about the organization. One term I despise is the term "spin," because it is not the role of PR to take information and try and paint it in an inaccurate light. I fully acknowledge that is what often times happens but in doing so you weaken your brand and the organization.

Another great limit of public relations is the concept of damage control. Without a doubt one of our greatest contributions as public relations professionals is in the area of crisis management, we can not be called on to turn lemons to lemonade as a matter of course. Still many organizations make decisions that they know put the brand and the organization at risk with the belief that the PR team can come in and simply clean up what ever may go wrong. That amazingly shortsighted viewpoint is what often results in organizations being forced to deal with crisis that, had they consulted with PR earlier in the cycle, could have been greatly avoided. It is much easier to put out a fire when it is a small flame than if the entire structure is consumed.

The last limit of PR is one that I hope will fade away as a result of the recent market crash. That is the concept of using PR to boost the ego of senior executives. All to often, PR people have been called on to write materials that are essentially irrelevant to the organization but do have the executive in question look like the king of the world. If you take a look at the organizations that have failed, going all the way back to Enron and beyond, you will see organizations who saw PR as a means of protecting them from any pesky questions they don't to deal with. Again, senior executives seem to think that PR exists to dance around like a puppet on a string. It is the role of the PR person to drive the process and as such we can not be expected to jump in and do the biding of a senior executive who feels they are being neglected . Our first opportunity is always to the brand and the organization.

In conclusion, I would say that PR can accomplish amazing things and that there are very few things we can not do. That is not to say however that our boundaries are limitless. Some of the limits on public relations, must be places by PR practitioners themselves because we are in charge of protecting the brand and it is our job to make sure the organization pays heed to correct means of messaging and message delivery. One may argue that if a PR person tries to express limits on public relations that they will be replaced. I can not discount that theory except by saying the following. If you want the best PR people you have to listen to what they say, and the best PR people are telling you that there are limits on PR that you must pay heed to if you wish to succeed.

How do I market my product? Part V

The final topic I think we need to discuss is the issue of metrics. When it comes to metrics, marketing is always treading across a minefield. For one thing, there is really no linear connection between marketing and sales. Sorry marketing folks, while we may like to pat ourselves on the back and think that we sold the product, we can only make the sale possible. We do not have the ability to actually go out and execute on the sales that is the role of the sales team.

Sales and marketing and joined at the hip and neither can succeed without the other but both can fail if one entity does not fulfill its side of the bargain. So the question becomes, how do we measure success? How do we determine if a marketing plan was good and only failed because of sloppy execution or on the opposite, how do we determine if the marketing team passed onto sales poor materials to do the job.

I have to be honest that the first person who develops a rock solid, unassailable marketing metric will be like the person who invents the better mousetrap. The world will most likely beat a path to your door. That being said, there are some interesting ideas out there about how best to track marketing metrics. One I like is by looking at sales leads that have come in after the roll out of a marketing program and look at these leads at fixed periods of time. This should tell the marketing people how effective a job they have done in peaking the interest of target audiences. It does not make marketing beholding to sales and allows for an appropriate examination of who was responsible for the success or failure of a marketing campaign.

One thing I like as far as public relations is the idea of measure full coverage of an organization during a 3 to 6 month period. A lot of PR agencies are lazy and try to rest on mere mentions and include that as part of coverage. This is a colossal cop out and is simply a way to get recognition for picking off the low hanging fruit that they should be getting anyway. What I would recommend is that we identify one-half to a dozen top tier publications and ensure that we are in constant communication with them. During this period, there is ample time to draft either bylined articles, major pitches or work out from the editorial calendar existing pitches and secure major coverage.

I would recommend setting a floor that would expect at least X amount of pieces of coverage, depending on what you have that is of value. This will require an open and frank dialogue between both parties to ensure that the appropriate targets are set. Obviously, putting out a minor press release does not warrant the same amount of coverage as a major product announcement or business deal. This would require the frank discussions of goals that are all to often lacking in relationships with PR agencies. Clients defer to the agencies, the agencies are too happy to collect checks so they take the path of least resistance.

So in conclusion, metrics needs to be better refined and it will take trial and error. Until then, we will only have a nebulous idea of how successful our plan actually was.

How do I market my product? Part IV

There is a story that I like to quote a lot to clients and to friends and that is about how in the late 19th century the head of the United States Patent Office recommended that the office be closed as everything that could possibly be invented, had already had. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed. But as we all know, there are hundreds if not thousands of new products coming onto the market on a regular basis. The simple law of numbers tells us that most of these products will fade into obscurity and never become anything.

So how do you avoid having your product become one of the vast majority. Well for one thing, use your messaging to accomplish this. If there is one thing I find amazing, it is how many entrepreneurs believe that the benefits of their product or service is so self evident that no explanation is required. That is not only arrogant but it is stupid. Let me tell you that if think the benefits of your product are so obvious you will not see the bus that hits you and destroys your product.

First and foremost it is essential that you state clearly what they benefits are for your product and what they mean for your target audience. Look at Netflix for example. When they emerged they had a very simple statement of benefit. They mail you movies that you have selected, you can keep them as long as you want and when you send them back, after watching them of course, you get the next movie on your list. No trips to the video store, no late fees, very easy to grasp. What is more important is that Netflix did a fantastic job of telling you why they were better than the competition on the market and why you subscribe to their service. Now they have changed their market and knocked Blockbuster back on their heels.

Secondly, you need to understand what you want your product to say to the target audience. To be honest if you decide to say that you are offering a revolutionary product that will change the world then you had also better get out the no-doze because that is the lame reasoning of every product that can not decide how to brand themselves. You need to offer your target market a declarative statement that clearly evokes what you will do. For example, "we will make better butter because we will refine the manufacturing process and make it sweeter, softer and longer lasting in hot weather." Not, "we are revolutionizing butter."

Third, say something you can believe in. There is nothing more annoying than a startup who this week claims to be this one week and then the next week decides they are something else. When you tell the market you don't know what you are you destroy any faith in your product. Also, you send a clear signal of confusion and a lack of an articulate focus to your customer.

Last, make sure marketing is in the drivers seat when it comes to articulating the product. Other groups, especially senior management will be inclined to offer reams of suggestions which they will naturally want to see followed. However it is essential that you keep control of the marketing process within marketing. Input is always welcome of course, but marketing tends to go astray when dozens of executives stick their noses in. Please pardon the cliche but too many chefs spoil the pot.

There are many ways to differentiate your product and some of it may result in trial and error. Don't be afraid to tinker but make sure that you know what you want to say before you want to say it. Form your ideas and hit the market with a developed and well thought out plan and you will succeed.

How do I market my product? Part III

OK, so we have set up a web site and we have further developed the brand identity by working on some of the marketing materials. Now we have to move into a more critical step, because it is responsible for influencing market leaders and key decision makers. This step requires the establishment of a solid media and analyst relations programs. This is in some ways a very difficult situation because you will find many people who believe they are qualified to tell you what to do but who in fact have no clue.

Let me begin by telling saying what should be at the very bottom of your list. Do not even think of writing press releases. All too often, senior executives who enjoy seeing themselves talk, will push out a press release that says nothing and is simply nothing but white noise in the field. I always recommend that the term "press release" be banned from organizational lexicon. Instead substitute news release in its place. While this may seem like splitting hairs there is a key difference, press releases don't necessarily have any news value in them. In a news release you are searching for the news value of the story and thus you have something that may be of interest to the news media.

Positive and mutually beneficial relationships with the news media are essential to the well being of your organization. The primary way to stand up and differentiate yourself from the crowd is by being featured in a strong news article in a well respected media outlet. Some PR agencies tend to go for the low hanging fruit of mere mentions or background information. This is a sure road to failure. Don't be afraid to go after the big dogs in your field. Yes you may not get coverage to start, but by having the combination of persistence and a good story, you will eventually receive coverage proportional to how effective you pitch and how interesting your story is.

The other key aspect to consider is analyst relations. To be honest, you can not succeed without having some independent third party review of your products These independent analyst can provide you with two valuable sources of information. First of all, they can provide you with an outsiders view of your product as well as your strategy and give you an opportunity to make course corrections before heading to marketing. Secondly, if you are able to secure an agreement, they can provide you with a valuable independent resource that will affirm the benefits of your product and/or service. This is something that will be of tremendous benefit when you are speaking to both news media as well as potential customers.

Lastly, there is a key component to the success of a good PR program that can not be understated. You will not succeed by playing it safe and by going along the path of least resistance. The news media is interested in exciting new players and someone who demands to be viewed seriously and wants their story told is someone who will stand out. Many people will not wish to leave their comfort zones and many will say don't go there because the result will be nothing. The only way the result will be nothing is by lack of trying. Demand of yourself and of any vendors you hire that they achieve results from unlikely sources. By doing that, your product will be exposed to a wide and diverse group and you will be able to differentiate yourself.

Tomorrow: How to differentiate your self in a crowded field.

How do I market my product? Part II

OK, so as we discussed in Part I you have built a web site and that is serving as the kernel for your brand identity. So now you have to decide what to do next? You basically have two choices, the first being to continue working under the radar and develop your product further or begin the public aspect of your organization by ramping up the public relations aspect of your program. At this point, you are not truly ready to go public since you will need to have stronger sense of who you are and be ready for what may come your way so the best course to follow is to continue defining your brand and image by developing marketing materials.

The development of marketing materials is often given short thrift and more often then not suffers from dual and conflicted roles. On the one hand, they are eagerly desired by sales people who seek them because it is something they can leave or send to a customer that clearly spells out the market advantages of their organization's products and services. The other side of that coin is that marketing materials are often prepared by very creative types who see themselves as the sellers of the brand and focus nearly exclusively on the creative aspects of how best to sell the product.

If you are familiar with the AMC television show Mad Men you know what I am talking about. Sales people offer a value proposition and believe that they can sell it to the target audience as a rational, fact based formula. Creative people are nearly the exact opposite. They believe that the sales decision is made based on emotional stimuli and as such we need to appeal to a person's emotional side and need to have a creative approach to sell the product.

It then becomes the difficult task of a marketing manager to not only balance these two, often conflicting viewpoints out, but to find a middle point. As we all know the definition of a compromise is when everyone walks away from the table feeling cheated. But that is exactly what a marketing manager needs to do, balance the competing desires of both groups.

Successful organizations know how to balance the ideals of sales and creative types and work together to develop a strong brand message which clearly sells their product. A perfect example of a company that marries both very well is Coca-Cola. Coke has an exceptionally strong brand and this is done by advertising which most companies can only hope to achieve. But the strong creative is enhanced by a global distribution system that is second to none. Without this strong sales and support system, Coca-Cola would have none of the global command that it does today.

So you are starting your own company, can you learn anything from what Coke or any other brands do. I believe the answer to be yes! First of all, as I said earlier you need to use the step after your web site to continue building your brand identity within the organization. This is also the time when you should bring your nascent sales organization to the table. Ideally this person will have some knowledge of your markets and sure as heckfire should know how to sell. You will also want them to give you some feedback on the tools you plan to give them to sell the product and service.

It is not uncommon for sales people to try and pull back and say they are not comfortable or that is marketing's job etc. But the fact remains at the end of the day it is up to sales to connect with the customer and convince them to buy. They need to be present for at least the first stages of development. The worst thing that can happen is for you to be six months to a year in, wondering why your product isn't moving and have sales shrug their shoulders and blame marketing.

So part II of the marketing development program is the development of marketing tools to further help build your brand. This is also the time to begin to engage sales and bring them into the loop and see what they can contribute. Marketing will help you increase awareness of your product but it is sales who sells it. Therefore their contributions must not be excluded.

I have my product all set but how do I market it?

Sadly, great brands do not come with directions on how best to market them. It is impossible to say that this way will work and this way will not in every case. So the issue then becomes, how best to reach my target audience and, in the end, how to sell the product. First of all, rivers of ink have been spilled on how best to market a product, to that end I will refer you to the local library or bookstore to decided how you want to brand and market your product.

But to start off, you need to have some basic idea of how you want to go about the process. Pardon the cliche but you need to crawl before you can walk. First of all, I would sit down with your team or if it just yourself sit down and figure out what you wish to accomplish. Do you want to ramp up brand awareness first or do you want to jump in feet first and create a quick buzz. I tend to lean towards to the slow ramp up because it has longevity and buzz much like the fizz of a soda can fades rather quickly.

I think the best place to start is with your web site. The web site is basically your front door and it gives you a wonderful opportunity to test messages and test the layout of your image. Does your design formats reinforce the brand image of the organization and does it clearly convey what you do, who you or, and/or what you are about? The web site is also a great laboratory where you can test which messages have the greatest resonance with a target audience. This is your best chance to test your concepts and ideas on a limited, but ideally targeted audience.

The development of the web site should only take a few days but can provide your first feedback on the marketing of your idea and can also provide invaluable feedback regarding your marketing message and the value statement you hope to bring to the marketplace. This is your best chance to make the quick fixes needed before you take your product to market or even take it to the next step of the marketing process.

Tomorrow we will talk about the next step to take!

Trying to place a marketing value to social media

When I was thinking about this topic I am reminded about the story from the late 19th century about the man who ran the U.S. patent office. It would seem he wanted to close the office because everything that could be invented, has been invented. A century and then some on we are still inventing stuff at a breathtaking pace. The question now is not so much one about invention but more about how to make money off of someones recent invention.

Take for example the social media explosion of the past few years. There is a great deal of controversy regarding how to best make money off it. There are as many ideas on how to do so as there are grains of sand on a beach. I would suggest that the only way to determine how to make money from any Web 2.0 technology is to determine if the technology fits your business model and if so, how does it?

As we saw in the late 1990's with the Internet, there was a stampede to get on board with a web site and to start selling on the web that very few people really were successful in doing it. The focus was on the end of the route that no one bothered to figure out how best to get there. The few organizations that were very successful on the web were the ones who spent the time, and money to figure out how best to build infrastructure and in the end marketed not the fact that they were online, but that they were an easier and possibly less expensive alternative to your local book store or flea market or whatever.

The emergence of social media and the potential to generate revenue from it is bedeviling a great many organizations. What brings a chuckle to me is that we are seeing a repeat of the late 1990's without the rush of cash from venture capitalists. Companies all want to be on Facebook and Twitter and Youtube but offer no great value to a consumer there. For example I am a fan of Coca-Cola on Facebook. I am told all sorts of trivia regarding Coke and its products but there is nothing for me as a consumer.

No I think as a marketing person, any new technology needs to understand what it can bring to a consumer before there is a mad rush to add a Facebook following or start putting videos up on Youtube. Ironically, very few organizations reward consumers for following them on social media sites or utilize them to build a stronger relationship. It is in many cases a practice in numbers for the sake of numbers.

It is very simple, social media offers marketing people a tremendous value. They have the chance to reach out to customers who want to be reached out to! The rate of success on a direct mail campaign is at best 5 percent, with social media it should be much higher since it is an opt-in strategy. Design programs that allow you to reach out to your followers online and most importantly, give them a reason to purchase your product and bring more potential customers!

Why the death of managed earnings is a victory for marketing and communications

There was a story on the news recently that General Electric CEO Jeffery Immelt is recommending the company abandon the practice of issuing earnings statements and trying to manage the company to meet those expectations. Coming from one of the great failures in American business during the last several years, this is indeed welcome news for all marketing and communications people. As people who believe in branding know you can know more manage earnings than you can milk a bull!

Actually by way of a history lesson the concept of managing to earnings started with GE and spread to a host of publicly traded companies like a flesh eating virus. Gone were the concepts of doing what was best for the company in the long term. It was replaced by doing what needed to be done in order to meet the quarterly numbers and as a result the long term success of the company was often compromised. This resulted in all sorts of financial shenanigans which played no small role in our current situation of financial distress.

Hopefully this change of heart, assuming it is both true and lasting, will lead to a return to long term vision which in my opinion has tremendous upside potential for marketing and communications. The two parts of the organization best equipped to deal with issues around branding.

By forgoing a short term vision of the organization, marketing and communications people will be able to do what they do best. Design a program which enhances the brand and allows for the organization to be sharply defined within the marketplace and clearly differentiated from the competition both in the forms of other organizations as well as competing technologies. As we all know marketing and communications is a game of inches and success, or failure, is often measured from the vantage point of time, not a few days.

My greatest hope is that since GE started all this foolishness that they lead a trend towards a more sensible form of management and allow for marketing and communications to emerge into its rightful place as the managers of the brand. A brand takes a great deal of time to build and unfortunately for all the MBA's who think the world runs on their clocks, there is no set amount of time we can tell you for when the brand will mature. In fact I can promise you that much like our economic recovery, it will proceed in fits and starts and may even move in a parallel direction for a period of time. Let's hope CEO's get smart and realize you can not manage earnings but you can invest in a brand and finally let marketing and communications people do their job!

What is better for a company, success or failure?

At first blush this may seem like a no brainer, of course success is necessary for a company to survive. What I am addressing is the idea of risk taking and the concept of being too afraid of failure to take a chance on greater success. Think of it as playing a game of blackjack, I remember a saying I once heard and that is that the brave hit on 16 the stupid on 17. I always liked this idea as it shows there is a fine line between being brave and being foolish.

What is ironic is that just about every company was founded on a strong element of risk. The idea that they could do something better or fill some need within the marketplace. Given the high risk of failure associated with starting a business it is safe to say that risk is a part of the game and you can't help but notice how risk adverse companies become as they mature. The larger a company becomes a very interesting contradiction arises, not only do they become risk adverse, but senior management wants to see a continuation of the rapid growth, associated with early years of success.

As a marketing and communications professional, we are often tasked with walking that tight rope between success and risk taking. I have seen two types of individuals in marketing and communications. Ironically, the ones who tend to have the longest tenure in an organization are the ones who take the fewest risks and as a result deliver the smallest possible return. Again ironically they are able to demonstrate to their higher ups activity which they then interpret as success. It is obvious that activity is not success.

The individuals who bring true success to any organizations are the ones who chart the course that will most likely result in real sales growth. This is usually through the result of an aggressive and yes at times risky program. Sometimes even great programs fail and that is the nature of the beast! A good marketing person looks back and tries to find out why they failed and builds off of that lesson for future plans. A bad marketing person, someone who is risk adverse, seeks to avoid any and all blame for the program and thus learns nothing but to avoid risk and avoid blame.

The fact of the matter is that a good dose of failure is like a refreshing breath of air. There is a great deal to be learned from success. But success can breed arrogance and the misconception of invulnerability. What is worse is the fear of failure can make people avoid a chance at success unless they believe the probability of failure is virtually zero which in the real world is not really the case.

I would argue that good marketing and communications people have no great fear of failure. While logically they would want to succeed, they make their decisions after calculating the risks and deciding if they want to move forward based on the risk/reward ratio. A great number of mediocre people take the path of least resistance and only go the route that virtually assures them of success. Even if that success results in tepid results which will only have an incremental meaning and will have no long term impact on the growth or success on the organization. These are the people who thing in the immediate short term and have no long term vision.

The answer to the question in my opinion is that while success is necessary for a company to thrive, the fear of failure can inhibit and organization from achieving true success. Real leaders and successful people are the ones who fought the tide and realized that there was a better way and that it is worth taking a risk to achieve it. They don't reach for the low hanging fruit and they realize they don't know it all. By doing this, they achieve great things and set standards for the rest of us to follow.

What is not reasonable to do to land a job

I recently saw a job posting for a PR manager position which by all accounts was very basic in what it wanted and was from a rather unexceptional organization. With the help of a good PR person, they might become a decent player in a small, niche organization. What made my blood boil with this company is they wanted candidates who apply to develop a PR plan, including a press release for their upcoming product launch.

Well I have to say this is a sad example of our current economic times and really says how sad this organization is for taking advantage of market conditions to try and score some free PR help. I know a number of extremely talented public relations people, some of whom are looking for work, they all agreed unanimously that they would never submit to conditions such as this without being compensated for it. It is simply unreasonable to expect someone to do something they would normally be rightfully compensated for. Does anyone believe this company would give their software to you so you can test it for an indefinite period of time? Of course not!

We all know that times are tough and that there are probably 5 qualified candidates for each position that is available. Still, we need to be able to maintain our professional quality and temperament. If we compromise on it, we run the risk of diluting our talent and appearing to our new employer as the type of person who will do anything to keep their job and can be bullied about. It's not easy to maintain ones dignity and pride when bills are piling up. Pride does not pay the bills as we all know.

But we must also be aware that we are our own brand. If we slash rates and let it be known that we are able to be pushed around and willing to compromise on our standards then any chance of being seen as a valuable employee are virtually gone. Quite honestly, we will be seen as someone who is expendable from the word go since we rolled over so easily to get a job.

Let me be clear I am not advocating being combative or disagreeable. I believe it is perfectly reasonable for employers to ask for, and receive, references, writing samples and other examples of your success. What is not reasonable is for professionals to be asked to give away what is essentially our product or service to an organization so that we can "prove" our viability. That is nothing but an end run around hiring someone to fill the job as they will now have the blueprint to do the job themselves. My argument is fight on and keep the faith!

Recepie for brand disaster: Let the lawyers handle it!

I have seen a lot of cases of senior executives stepping into the marketing arena where they knew nothing a reaping a great deal of damage in the process. If I had to pick one specific red flag it is when an organization goes into crisis mode and right away it is decided to allow the lawyers to handle everything. That is a surefire recipe for disaster.

The reason I say this is that lawyers by nature are a secretive bunch who wish to with hold as much information as possible and then, when it is too their advantage or when they have no choice, disseminate to select audiences. What is amazing is this philosophy nearly always fails! It would be if doctors used hot mustard plasters and blood letting to cure a patient of exposure to noxious vapors.

A score of business histories worst marketing moves have the thumbprints of marketing all over them. Does anyone remember the lawyers telling Ford not to recall the Ford Pinto because it would be cheaper to settle the lawsuits than recall and fix the problem. Or when the Catholic Church faced sexual abuse claims they decided, based on legal advice, to settle with privacy clauses so they could deny responsibility and put off the day of reckoning another day.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Johnson and Johnson and Pepsi and Coke represent the ideal of how marketing and communications should function in a crisis. All 3 of these organizations kept the lawyers in the loop, but let the marketing people do what they do best. As a result they emerged from their crisis and one could argue that they emerged stronger thanks to their foresight.

The company to watch now is Twitter. As you may know there have been two denial of service attacks on Twitter which brought down the service. That is not at all good for the company and you have to wonder how they will react to what for them is a major crisis. I haven't seen much by way of communication from them so I am guessing that the lawyers are saying, shut up and keep your head down. Sadly, if they follow that advice they may end up writing the first line of their obituary.

The response to a crisis is a role that should be handled by the marketing and communications team. We have the firmest knowledge of crisis management and our goal is to minimize damage to the brand. Lawyers will try to prevent the fewest lawsuits and the fault there is that sometimes you have to take your lumps in order to overcome a crisis. The legal method in my view doesn't resolve the crisis, rather it is about avoiding blame and that only lays the foundation for the next crisis.

Earnings are up, so what about spending some on marketing?

Recent news reports have shown that publicly traded companies are garnering very strong, even record earnings during the first part of this year. To be honest this is not coming from natural growth but from massive across the board cost cutting. Once again we are seeing the short sighted formula of cut costs and make the numbers look good for the quarter end. I would recommend that these companies who intend to avoid irrelevance during the next decade do the following two things.

First of all, spend the money on R&D. As we all know the life cycles of products are growing shorter and shorter each and every year. What was very hot two years ago is now ever so passe. I wonder if Fox wishes they had spent more on researching the market around Myspace before plunking down God knows how much money for a product that is being blown out of the water by Facebook.

Secondly, I would recommend spend money on marketing. This is an excellent time to take advantage of your less far sighted competitors and create a revised and/or deeper image in the marketplace. Most organizations virtually shut down operations during times like this. Planning on campaigns is usually suspended and the planning includes just enough effort to keep some sort of plan going but that's it.

Instead, if you want a company that will emerge from this period stronger and more prepared for the rebound which seems coming quicker than expected than start marketing now. Marketing is an investment and you need to be there to take advantage of what will be a rebound in demand. During this recession a great deal of ink has been spilled about comparisons to the Great Depression. What few people remember is that after the Great Depression and WWII came an explosive growth in all types of demand. That is why the Federal Reserve is so concerned about inflation.

By planning marketing programs now and having them enter the minds of your target markets, you will be well positioned to seize the reins of future economic growth. If you decide to wait until the market shows signs of growth, you may be like the person who decides they do not wish to be too soon to the train station. By the time you arrive, the train may have left the station.

Tom Peters once said that a company can not grow by cutting and that is very true. In order to be successful and grow your company, you need not only a successful marketing plan, designed for periods of both growth and decline, you need to be in a position to capitalize quickly and ahead of any changes in the market. Market leaders drive what happens; followers spend all their energy trying to keep up!

The importance of ethics in marketing

In the U.S. right now there is a lot of fear regarding China. Now of course there is good reason. They have a huge army, love selling weapons to dictators, put anyone who looks funny into jail and God knows what else. But the really scary part is China's growing economy. Back in the day there was a term called "Chinese Marketing," which spoke of the fallacy of assuming that because an economy had X number of people you would be able to get them all to agree to purchase your product.

What should be of even greater concern is the concept of a growing move for ethics in China. I was speaking to a colleague just back from China who was impressed by a banner he saw throughout a Chinese company. Loosely translated it read, "Social responsibility is good for our business and our good business is good for you." I laughed when I read it because it sounded so very simple and at the same time was an ideal testimony to what this organization wished to convey to its customers.

This topic reminds me of an article in Business Week last week about a Chinese company whose CEO has made it very clear to investors that they come last in his pecking order. First, is his company's customer's, second are his employees and then come investors. By doing this he has a both a satisfied customer base and satisfied employees who combine to deliver exceptional results that result in satisfied investors quarter after quarter.

Contrast that with companies in the United States who see "flipping," or going public as a quick way to pocket a few dollars and then leave the market. They show no long term interest in growing for the customers and the customer is quite often an ends to a means. I have had the miserable experience of having my sales rep ignore me more or less until the end of the quarter. Then magically we are best buddies if my contract is up for renewal. Sadly this is typical of companies where meeting "the numbers" is what passes for business and as we see from the examples of Enron and so many other companies earlier in the decade, and Bernie Madoff recently, even out and out fraud are often practiced with little regard for the long term marketing problems.

Two companies should be put into the marketing hall of fame for how they handled a problematic ethical issue, which was ironically not of their own making. Johnson and Johnson and the Tylenol issue in 1982 showed how a company should handle any issue that concerns the safety of their customers. They were publicly traded but showed how concern for ones customer can result in a stronger result down the road. Speaking for myself, if I am looking to buy an over the counter medicine more than 25 years after the Tylenol poisoning, I reach for a Johnson and Johnson product when ever possible because to me, they have my best interests in their mind. God knows how many times they recouped the losses from those terrible days.

The second case is less well known but worth remembering as a teaching moment. In the summer of 1993 people claimed they were finding used hypodermic needles in Pepsi cans. Pepsi went back and shut down production to figure out how this was possible and where in there production process something might have gone wrong. They pulled products from any of the areas where the needles were found and then retooled the process so no foreign object can be put into one of the cans.

More importantly, they sat down with Coca-Cola and more or less said, "Today it is us, tomorrow it might be you." Combined, both companies worked out a solution which did two things, it proved the people with the needles were liars but also developed a combined PR campaign which proved that both leaders had worked together to secure their production process from any type of problem,

The take away here is that there is more to ethics in business than simply writing a plan and feeling good about yourself. You need to have a plan in place which will roll in and protect your brand. An ethical breech can cost you millions of dollars if not your entire brand! Act aggressively to be a good ethical citizen and remember social responsibility is good for your business and good business is good for you!

Marketing is a porus medium

A lot of people like to think of marketing and communications as some type of juggernaut that moves forward and leaves only the crushed competition in its wake. Actually nothing could be further from the truth. There are a lot more similarities between the Titanic and most marketing programs than most of us would like to acknowledge.

For those who are familiar with the ocean there is something known as wash back wherein the ocean water flows around the boat but then flows back, or more precisely is sucked back by the engine. This causes great damage to the rudder and engine over time.

This is something that most marketing people do not think of when mounting a marketing campaign. A marketing campaign does not end on the second Tuesday of the month. Instead, it is an ongoing ever living cycle where marketing and communications done today can have implications down the road.

I recall a former client of mine who wanted to do a campaign which said something that contradicted what was said in the previous campaign. As usual it was a case of a non-marketing person thinking that doing the marketing was as simple as ABC-123. They could not, or would not see that by pursuing this course of action would result in the high potential for reputational damage to the organization's brand. They were only looking ahead and didn't see the big wave coming up from behind.

The reason this one stays with me is that I was told to stop living in the past. That is the call of those who do not understand that in the past is where we learned all of our lessons and where we can find lessons for the future. To quote Cervantes, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Sadly far too many corporate types do not take a look over their shoulders to see what has happened and instead plunge forward blindly and, as a result, make avoidable mistakes or even worse repeat old mistakes. The graveyard of marketing blunders is full of organizations who have done this.

The lesson to be learned dear reader is not to live in the past but be sure to pay heed to it. Make sure that the past also serves as a guide post to where you are going in the future. As hikers all know remembering where you came from is the best way to hit the top of the hill!

Dealing with the reliance on technology

Yesterday featured an attack on Twitter which resulted in the service being down for most of the day. The result was wide spread anxiety among the hordes to whom Twitter is as addictive as nicotine or caffeine. I found myself in a state of schadenfreude at how people were lamenting the loss of a service that had not existed five years ago.

This outage proves the point that any technology can be a tremendous value to marketing and PR people in the execution of their jobs. However, the job goes on regardless of what is running or not. You do not delay a product launch simply because Twitter or Facebook are not running at 100 percent. They exist to compliment your marketing service, they are not there to replace it.

My first recommendation to all those who were taken aback by the Twitter outage is take a deep breath. First of all, if you stop and think about it, what is not being said by you on Tweeter? I have seen very few messages that were so Earth shattering that they needed to be sent out immediately, despite what senior executives seemed to think at the moment.

No the Tweeter outage yesterday showed us three things that are good learning lessons for marketing and PR pros. The first one is the most obvious, always have a back up plan. You may decide to send out that press release the day of the next great black out, or you may decide to have your event on the day of the big blizzard. It is essential that there always be a plan B. A lot of managers don't like to have a plan B because they believe that is planning for failure but by not having one, you are in fact planning to fail.

It also proved that new technologies, while helpful and, at times, exciting, are subject to risk. All technology is but the newer ones by virtue of their youth still have bugs to be worked out and are also the target of those wrong doers who seeing them much in the same way that a hungry lion seeks out the youngest prey in the herd.

Lastly, there is an old lesson we need to remember and that is while technology does make our lives easier, it is not irreplaceable. Remember that computers used to be the size of a room and typewriters used to require people who can spell and even on the web we just had basic web sites. So while losing a service can be a headache, it is just that. Having your car in the shop is a bigger one. So keep that in perspective.

Technology is great, but it's loss while a pain is not the end of the world!

RIP-John Hughes

So you have a blog/Facebook and Twitter account, now what?

Companies are jumping into the social media pool faster each day. What is surprising is no one is saying to them, why? A quick discussion with a few PR and marketing professional's the other day resulted in them telling me that they were basically told to do it, do it quickly and get it done. No reason was given towards doing it, other than we need to do it. It is a case of someone outside of the marketing arena deciding that something needs to be done by marketing so lets give it to them.

Plunging into the social media arena without so much as plan is the dictionary definition of dumb. More over, the fact that one person has a blog, Facebook or Tweeter account does not render them as an expert on the topic. I have poked around more than my fair share of them and have found one or two that I chose to emulate in my own efforts but I was amazed by how few were well designed.

The first thing I tell clients or potential clients is that I am not an expert on social media technologies, but then again I don't worry about it because these technologies are so new that it is impossible for any to be. In fact, I often say that anyone who claims to be is either a fool or a liar.

The next step I would offer to anyone who has made the decision to go with a blog or a Facebook/Tweeter strategy is to look around and try and find someone who does it well. Blogs are becoming very influential as a tool for distributing news and, as we saw recently in the case of Sarah Palin, often become news themselves. One possible strategy is to not just create your own blog but make sure to post on blogs related to your own area of expertise. You should use your own blog to demonstrate your thought leadership and show the world why you are the best at what you do. A blog post should be like giving a short presentation and should be consistent with marketing and PR efforts.

Facebook and Twitter represent different challenges and opportunies. Within the marketing community these remain very controversial in regard to how best to utilize their potential for the organization. There are some companies out there who point blank refuse to use any new or social media and try to wall themselves off from its implications by forbidding any comment on any of these outlets. Essentially ceding the field of battle before a shot has been fired. Others have no policy and that can lead to pure chaos.

Of the two, I believe Twitter has the greatest promise for marketing due to its acessibility and ease of use. It allows for quick interaction, while limiting what can be done thanks to its character limits. Facebook in my opinion is much like a fan page or, alternatively, a bill board. You can post something on there and have limited discussions, but you will not likely see open and honest feedback from participants.

That is why I believe that if you really want to utiilze social media to enhance your marketing efforts a blog is your best bet. If you engage in free and open discussion. By using the blog as a platform to develop a clear pattern of thought leadership in your area of expertise and leave an option for discussion with interested parties, you can become a very influential party within your field and establish both yourself and your organization as THE thought leader in your field.

Marketing and bad news.

A few days back I told the story of the CEO who was rude in front of a receptionist and how that resulted in a lost business opportunity. Ironically, the same thing happened to me lately and it is amazing how marketing and PR can have direct impacts on business opportunities that are not in a linear direct line.

My own story is that a few years ago I met with people at an agency about a job and during the first round of interviews things went fine. Nothing unusual and nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently the direct hiring manager was out of the office that day so the HR person told me that I would need to meet with her which again is not anything I thought unusual. I was told that the meeting would take place the next week and we set a time and date.

On the following Monday, I receive an automatic email from the company thanking me for my application but that they had decided to pursue other candidates based on the hiring managers needs. I thought this was odd as I had already coming in for an interview later in the week so I called? I never received a call back and I found that to be both very rude and very unprofessional.

So a few years pass and I am helping on a charity event on its publicity committee. We are told by the charity running the event that they have money for PR and would like to hire an agency. I look at the list and see the same agency on the list and I go to the contact from the charity and explain what had happened and she asks me if I can remain impartial and judge them on the merits of their presentation to which I respond, "of course."

Well they come in and to be honest all the presentations were about the same. No stars, but no one really was terrible either. But this agency's presentation was all about how they care and that with them you will be dealing with human beings and people whose caring for one another was at the heart of what they did. Needless to say that was quite the opposite of what I experienced and they did not get the job for that and several other reasons.

The message here is that unpleasant things happen in business. People get laid off or don't get a job or whatever. It is always better to deliver the bad news in person or at least by a personal method. To be cold and mechanical about it says you don't care and in the karmic universe, what goes around, comes around! Remember to let down any source, customer, potential job candidate or whom ever you need to share bad news with lightly, because today's reject may be tomorrow's opportunity.

There is the classic adage about not burning bridges. Sadly, the market for bridge burning tools is a robust one and many organizations seem to be on a mad quest to see how many bridges they can burn in the least amount of time!

The risk of social media

Social media is currently all the rage in marketing and PR circles. Everybody wants to be on Twitter or Facebook or be running a blog. While these are admirable intentions and, I am very happy to see marketing engaged as a positive force, I do want to express caution as I foresee several areas of concern which are being neglected in a full force rush into embracing social media.

First of all, I believe we may be recreating the same problems that went into developing web sites when the Internet became popular in the late 1990's. Everyone was so keen then on having a web site that sites were designed based on what looked cool and what the latest technology could offer, that very little attention was paid to what was expected of a web site and how the web site would help further the overall marketing and sales goals of the organization.

Similar things are taking place with social media. Organizations are now so keen about being on Twitter or having a Facebook page that very little attention is being paid to how these vehicles can best be utilized to further the marketing efforts of the organization. I know of one company that is up on Twitter and has a number of followers, but what they do is so useless that they receive no benefit. No one is interested in what they have to say because the only reason they set up Tweets is for a customer to chat with a sales person about upcoming product revisions or minor technical issues.

Both Tweeter and Facebook, along with Blogs, have the potential to be tremendous resources for developing thought leadership and establishing clear and solid bonds with their future and potential customers. There are tremendous benefits to social media but they must structured within the larger marketing plan. While you and I may go on these sites for our own amusement, another area to be wary of, for organizations and specifically corporations social media sites are an area that must be managed wisely.

No organization would ever consider allowing an employee to develop and place an ad, or to send out proprietary information to a competitor. Yet with a poorly developed and managed social media policy, you may be doing exactly this same thing. However with appropriate controls, social media can be an explosive tool in bringing the appropriate message to not only a target audience, but one that shares your interest in cutting edge solutions.

How interactions with others can be mean ruin for your organization!

I remember this story that a sales friend of mine told me about a meeting he went on with his CEO and a potential client. They were waiting for the client who was delayed and while there his CEO started talking about someone back at the office and saying how incompetent she was and how in his organization he has no tolerance for fools and that it was his way or the highway. Well sure enough the client comes in and right away the scowl goes away, the smiles go out and they go in and have their meeting.

Well several weeks later my friend calls up the client wondering why they have not heard back regarding what had earlier seemed such a promising lead. The contact told him that the receptionist had overheard what the CEO had said and commented on how rude he was. The icing on the cake is when this was reported back to the CEO, he didn't take it as a lesson learned, he called up and told the client that they were not interested in doing business with them anyway and if that is how they do things than fine.

The point of this story is that every person who deals with the public from the CEO on down to customer service or even accounts payable is a brand ambassador. Each and everyone of them need to realize that all customers are key and that the cost of finding new customers far and away exceed the costs of acquiring new ones. Yet companies seem to think that the only people who are responsible for presenting the public face is either marketing and then by default sales. And sales gets the task by default only.

Every organization needs to review who speaks to the public and more importantly there needs to be some basic training in how to deal with the public and in many cases customers. It is amazing to me how much money an organization will pour into marketing and how much time and effort is spent on color schemes for advertising and what vehicles to use and then from the minute the contract is signed until the moment the license comes up for renewal nothing happens.

Or you can have a case where there is a problem and you get passed around from person to person, none of whom seem interested in helping you. In my mind it is amazing how little time or money is truly invested into the full 360 degree marketing process. Yet ironically when customers are unhappy and not purchasing or purchasing more renewals of the product, it is often the marketing group that faces the blame.

The take away here is that everyone who deals with customers works for marketing. Customers should be treated like the special beings that they are. The reason being is that if you think it is expensive to keep customers happy, try to find new ones to replace those who are unhappy. Of course, don't forget the old adage that an unhappy customer will tell six people for every person a happy customer will tell.