Category: Marketing

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What 1 Year & 38kgs Taught Me About Marketing

I’ve asked a lot from my body this year – and it’s taught me a lot!

In October last year, on a whim I decided to start following a keto diet. I didn’t know that much about it and thought it sounded simple. It’s not really…I mean the premise is straightforward enough but the execution is more involved than I first assumed.

Essentially the way of eating (WOE) involves teaching your body to burn fat instead of carbs for fuel – like switching your car from diesel to petrol, and to do this you follow a macro ratio of 5% carbs, 25% protein and 70% healthy fats.

Look at me talking about macros! Who is this person?

I know I’ve lost some of you already and I promise this isn’t a diet blog so that’s really all the detail I’m going to go into about Keto. If you’re interested you can leave me a comment or get in touch and I’ll happily answer questions.

How is losing a significant amount of weight like marketing?

 

Many ways – here’s a list.

ONE: Have a goal

Have a goal, but keep it fluid. Things change and the original goal might not suit you as time moves on so review it regularly to stay on track.

Also set mini goals to break up the large goal into manageable smaller milestones.

You can’t achieve goals you haven’t expressed.

TWO: Decide how to measure success

Scales are  easy to use, but they don’t give you the whole picture. You need to see how you fit in your jeans, what your percentage of body fat is, or measure yourself in inches to get a better picture of your progress.

Same with marketing – one source of data is not enough to make strategic decisions. Diversify your measurement tools.

THREE: Measure often, but don’t sweat the small stuff

You might check in with your marketing daily (just like getting on the scales) but are those real data points you need to consider as part of a wider trend? Or simply daily fluctuations?

Yes – you need to measure often to make sure you’re on track to your goals but don’t get bogged down in the daily results if you’re still meeting your milestones.

FOUR: Be consistent

You can’t eat one salad after a lifetime of eating donuts and expect that it’s going to have a huge impact (salads aren’t really a keto thing but you hear what I’m sayin’).

You have to be disciplined enough to show up consistently and work toward achieving your goals.

FIVE: Be realistic

You’re only kidding yourself if you think your bootstrapped start-up is going to be Nike in 6 months.

Set yourself up for success by keepin’ it real.

SIX: Have a plan for when you fail

Sounds fatalistic doesn’t it? But inevitably campaigns (and diets) fail. It’s what you’re going to do to fix it that’s important.

So you had some days with no conversion, or you ate a whole tub of ice-cream…ok – what now? How you recover is more important than beating yourself up that it happened.

SEVEN: Be accountable

It’s not “the recession” or “the algorithm” when your campaigns fall flat. The same way it’s not Christmas’ fault that you ate 3 slices of pavlova…those things might make success more challenging, but they aren’t a deal breaker.

There’s literally people out there killin’ it (in both a diet and business sense) so stop playing the blame game and take responsibility over the things you can control.

EIGHT: Optimise

As you get lighter you’ll have more capacity for exercise. As your campaigns run, you’ll have more data to optimise them. Same same.

Example? If you’re video has poor performance past the 1.20 sec mark, see if a re-edit can save you.

The longer you have been at it, the more you’ll make better decisions you’ll on adding activity to the mix.

NINE: Celebrate the wins

It’s important to take time to reflect on your wins. That goes for everything. There’s so much uncertainty around that it’s really important to allow yourself to feel proud/content/happy when you are getting results.

TEN: Ask for help

My final one in the list is one of the most important. Sometimes you’re too close to things to see them clearly. Or you might not have the technical skills that someone else in your network possesses. Ask for help!

We’re social animals and we can’t operate alone. You’ll be surprised how many people out there will lend you a hand, an ear, or some advice.

Thanks for indulging me in a little left of centre thinking, comparing my year of keto and 38kg weight loss to how to run marketing campaigns.

Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Announcement for Marketers | The Marketer

Exciting times…

Introducing our new arrival!

No, it’s not a baby.

Well, not as such…it’s a website (we’re calling it a publication) and we’ve just gone live with our soft launch.

Why on earth would you want to release another website when you don’t even publish regularly one this one?

Great question. I need to do better. It’s the typical scenario of marketers being slack at their own marketing. It’s boring – and I need to prioritise my own work more.

But in the meantime, let me introduce you to The Marketer and maybe you’ll forgive me.

I’ve joined forces with a local Social Media agency owner and birthday twin, Clayton from Smith Social to bring you The Marketer.News

Now I hear what you’re thinking, why would you team up with a competitor? 

Why indeed!

Well why not?

Anything we can do successfully in our separate lives we can smash if we get together, right?

Plus there’s MORE than enough businesses who need our help than we could possibly ever service alone. It’s called an abundance mentality, but before we get all woo-woo – let me tell you the story…

The Marketer was kind of a natural progression.

We liked getting together and talking about Marketing and found the recurring theme was “what does great marketing look like” and it turned out we agreed on enough to keep it fun – and disagreed enough to keep it interesting.

And it wasn’t just digital marketing – we wanted to cover all marketing, not just our specialties but old school marketing theory, print media, out of home, TV, email…everything!

But both our company blogs are written for business owners and people learning to DIY their marketing, so we needed something new.

We looked around and there wasn’t much out there covering great marketing campaigns and executions, especially that pertained to our local market of Perth, and we wanted to change that.

Sure, there’s marketing news sites, but that’s not our focus.

And we found plenty of marketing company blogs, but they’re spread out, and focus on their areas of expertise (naturally) so we concluded there’s not really a resource for discussing Perth Marketing from the POV of a Perth marketer.

Until now.

If you’re an Australian marketer – we’d love for you to get involved!

Visit TheMarketer.News and sign up, follow us on Facebook and Instagram while we finalise some content specifically for YOU.

There’ll be articles, discussions and maybe even some get-togethers in the future.

We’ll be guided by you, and where and how far you want to take us.

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Nobody Googles the Yellow Pages

As a business, do you have an advertising strategy? If you do – when did you last review its success in generating you business? If the answer is ‘a while ago’ or even, ‘I don’t know’ then it probably needs your attention.

Does your strategy use the latest data, technology and metrics to make sure it reaches your target demographic? Here are some tips to help you assess your current efforts.

Use Current Technology

Recently I saw a renowned law firm’s advert on tv and it surprised and perplexed my marketing brain that it is still exactly the same advert it has always been. True, in reality this may not be forever but if you think in terms of advertising – it may as well be a lifetime.

If you don’t know which advert I’m talking about, here’s a quick word picture: A man has an accident at work or a woman gets rear-ended at some traffic lights and then the advert cuts to the injured person sitting in bed, covered in bandages, plaster casts and neck braces. For whatever reason they have a copy of the Yellow Pages handy, just within arm’s reach and the tag line of the advert is “Insert Lawyer Name Here- see us on the back of the Yellow Pages- we’ve been there for years”.

Glossing over the convenient narrative of having the Yellow Pages in bed with you when you’re injured I’m just going to ask the obvious – why are they STILL using the Yellow Pages? The only reason I would have the Yellow Pages in bed with me when injured would be to prop up my injured leg!

With the ability to google anything these days from your electronic gadget of choice, why would you use an actual directory made of paper? I believe that using the Yellow Pages dates this company’s advertising campaign and to me, signifies that the advert was created when this way of searching for a business was still current.

“No-one Googles ‘Yellow Pages’

Gone are the days when your paper directory was your bible and you could look up any business – from an architect to a piano tuner.

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Metrics

So why do they still use this advert? The simple answer is money. The company would have paid considerable money creating the ad and are now still spending money paying for slots on television.

The extended answer is: it’s worked for them in the past – so why change. But how do you know your customers are coming from the Yellow Pages? Digital marketing has the advantage over traditional in that every click, every page view is measurable!

Consult The Data

Who are your trying to reach with your messages? Where do they like to spend their time? Use research to determine where your target market is most likely to see and absorb your latest product, offer or sale. If your market is Baby Boomers or older, maybe the Yellow Pages isn’t the worst choice, but for anyone else it seems like a throwback to a long-gone era.

If having an ad in any form of print media worked for you 10-15 years ago – great but as times change so should your approach. Your clients more than likely have moved to different methods of sourcing information, especially with the never-ending development of apps, search engines and websites. If you are wondering why your advertising return on investment is not as great as you had hoped – maybe it is time to have a closer look at how your potential market would try to find you.

But I’m not saying all directories are bad.

Here are two examples of online directories that are current and seem to be very successful in what they do:

Bean Hunter (where you can search for decent coffee shops near you) is simple, categorised, local and interactive. Not only can you add pictures of the shop, you can also add images of menu items, show off your latte art and write reviews – it is consumer assessed and feedback is instant.

Hotels Combined They have a modern, simple, successful advert on tv that has a simple message – use us for cheap accommodation. They compare prices from different accommodation providers for you in mere moments and save you trawling the internet for deals. They even have a strangely masculine polar bear as their mascot which makes it oddly memorable.

Why do these two examples fare better in my opinion? Because they live solely online and this is the way most people look up information these days.

Also, Hotels Combined and Bean Hunter (and many others) succeed as “online directories” because they offer MORE than just a list of businesses. They have incentives. It’s like joining a community. The online directories also have the ability for community members to write reviews, add pictures and give so much more information than you could get before!

Peer evaluations, though one person’s opinion and always should be taken with a grain of salt, are what makes them better and more informative. Bean hunter/Zomato/etc. are the same – they all rely on user input. This is the next step up. Helping people choose from the list, not just providing one.

With the Yellow Pages – a business had to pay to have a small written ad published and you had no further information.

Essentially what I’m saying is that it is important to regularly review your advertising strategy. Connecting efficiently with your clients through the most appropriate medium is going to be the key factor in ensuring you are getting maximum ROI. In some cases this could be through an online directory, in others it is ensuring your business is visible on google or social media.

The way your potential clients search for your business will have drastically changed in the last 5, 10, 15 years and your advertising strategy should reflect this progression. Either that or stay the same and risk becoming invisible or obsolete!

Handy Hint – If you want to stop receiving these pointless books of yellow paper, go to Directory Select to unsubscribe your address and also return old directories.

Sounds like a win-win!

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Integration: Commonly Misspelt & Undervalued

Some of you already place a value on making sure the marketing of your business is integrated, and by this we mean using consistent messaging and branding – but more than that; by making sure the types of marketing you do and platforms you use are supporting each other to maximum benefit. Integrating your marketing will help you in increasing your brand’s awareness, helping to build strong communities, and saving you time and money.

Awareness

We need to keep our brand elements and messaging consistent so people recognise what our business does and stands for, also making it easier for users to find us and subsequently buy our things and use our services. But just as importantly we need to make sure none of our marketing platforms operate in a vacuum.

For example – if you have an amazing new glossy brochure of all your products, why wouldn’t you use it on your website too? Why not pin the items individually to your Pinterest boards, post on Facebook where people could get hold of your shiny masterpiece – or better yet, make a Facebook app to house it so people can see it from there.

You could target some advertising directly to it, and send the web link to your email subscribers. Then with the help of Google Analytics, your email software metrics and Facebook Insights you can track your views, clicks, etc to see what kind of impact it had.

This is just  a small example of how digital, social, print, and email marketing can all come together – and it might sound like more effort than just producing the brochure alone; but what’s the point spending time making a stunning brochure if you’re not going to make sure as many interested people see it as possible? That would be more of a waste for sure, because we all know we’re only as strong as our weakest link.

But this doesn’t mean you have to do all of this yourself! There are people who can help you in your business and outside of it. Having an integrated marketing strategy doesn’t mean you must have a huge marketing budget and a large team with endless resources. It just means you have a plan – and that plan is thought out to ensure all your channels speak the same language and support your messaging.

Having worked on many social media accounts in the past few years, The Chameleons know the difference between companies that do this well and those that struggle. We’ve seen many lost opportunities where businesses have had major events, sales or received awards and not communicated this to their teams, missing the chance to increase awareness – but more than that in the case of social; letting their audience feel part of their band at grass-roots level.

Growing Your Communities

Your social media communities (providing they have been built the right way) are interested in your business. They want to know about what’s happening in your world because they feel like they are friends with your brand. How would your friends feel if you went to a party without telling them? Or won an award without sharing it with them? Once they found out they might start to question your commitment to the friendship.

Email Marketing & Social Media can work hand in hand: with you being able to convert your customer database to social followers and vice versa. And don’t forget to upload your database to Facebook to use them to help your advertising targeting as mentioned in this previous blog post.

You can also use your offline efforts to promote your social communities. Make sure collateral like business cards and flyers contain your social icons, and use internal venue signage to encourage people to check in, review or follow you while they are in store.

Time Is Money

At the end of the day having an integrated strategy might take more time to come up with, but when you’re ready to roll out you’ll have all the necessary tools to make your efforts a success – without needing to resort to ad hoc methods that ultimately leave you further out-of-pocket.

Often marketing can be about playing a long game, building awareness and trust of your brand. Doing this consistently across all your channels will help you reach this goal more quickly than deciding on Wednesday to do a newspaper campaign that starts Thursday without giving your other channels the time to plan their part.

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As the famous African proverb says “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”