Marketing Mix: What tactics must you embrace to compete in your industry?

Marketing mix refers to the combination of tactics a business uses to reach its target customers. It’s the winning recipe a business creates to grow and thrive.

There are three questions you should examine when constructing the marketing mix for your business:

1. What are the things you love to do?
2. What marketing activities are standard for your industry or profession?
3. What are the expectations of your target market?

Yesterday’s blog took a deeper look at how to incorporate the things you love to do. The basic premise is that you will be more successful engaging in marketing activities if you are passionate about them. The corollary I mentioned was that you shouldn’t be spending inordinate amounts of time on tactics you don’t enjoy. Right?

Well, there are exceptions.

There are marketing tactics that are (more or less) required for every particular industry or profession, whether you enjoy them or not.

Restaurants should advertise. Insurance agents should network. People who run communications firms should consider public speaking. And if you have a mobile food truck, you should be tweeting every day to let people know how and where to find you.

Ken Enjoys Public Speaking

There are two good ways to determine what makes sense for your industry or profession.

First, take a look at what your competitors are doing. Start by taking into account your direct competitors – the folks you run into at local Chamber of Commerce meetings. How are they marketing themselves? Look at their websites, blogs, press releases, etc. Next, examine what the major brand names in your industry are doing to market. These companies are successful for a reason. Study their brand messages and their marketing tactics, and see if you can emulate these successful brands on a smaller scale.

Second, investigate some of the trade associations that represent members of your industry or profession. Most trade associations offer market research, marketing guides, workshops, or mentoring programs to help people succeed at marketing. Trade associations are interested in the health of the industry as a whole, so most of them provide resources to help individual members compete. A rising tide lifts all boats, after all.

(Check out Associations Unlimited if you haven’t yet discovered the trade association that’s right for you. You can access the Associations Unlimited database through your local library.)

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the expectations of your target market.

“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh

Your Marketing Mix: What are the things you love to do?

Marketing mix refers to the combination of tactics a business uses to reach its target customers.

The first question to ask when selecting your marketing mix – your winning marketing recipe – is what are the things you love to do?

Many people are tweeting and blogging today because they feel they have to. Everyone else is doing it, so I need to, too. Right?

Wrong. If you are spending time doing something that doesn’t feel right, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. There’s a nice interview with marketing guru Seth Godin where he explains (nine minutes into the interview) emphatically why he doesn’t Tweet. It’s not him.

Step one, therefore, is to focus on the things you love doing and can imagine yourself doing enthusiastically to spread the word about your business. If you love to meet people, network. If you enjoy public speaking, teach a workshop. If you are a natural writer, try blogging. If you know how to communicate a story, experiment with public relations. If you are one of the rare people who can say something compelling in 140 characters, please tweet.

So ask yourself, what do I love to do? What do I want to spend my time doing to grow my business?

Write if you want to

Similarly, you should ask yourself whether there are things you are doing that you don’t enjoy. Can you eliminate those things from your marketing mix and put greater focus on the things you love?

The next few blog entries will help you determine an appropriate marketing mix for your business.

What is Your Marketing Mix?

Winning Recipe

Marketing mix refers to the combination of tactics a business uses to reach its target customers. It’s the winning recipe a business creates to grow and thrive.

Most businesses lurch and stumble into a marketing mix without ever realizing that they ultimately have control over the recipe. They forget that marketing is largely a creative endeavor.

Whether you are brand new in business or you are running a spectacularly successful organization, it always makes sense to step back and examine your marketing mix – especially with new social media tools popping up every day.

How do you get started?

There are three questions I ask small business owners to consider when they are creating their marketing mix:

1. What are the things you love to do?
2. What marketing activities are standard for your industry or profession?
3. What are the expectations of your target market?

Tomorrow, I’ll delve deeper into each of these questions. Meantime, here’s a quote from business author, speaker, and consultant David Maister, which sums it up well:

“Done right, a planned mix of marketing activities aimed at a consistent audience can make you irresistibly attractive, and lead the target audience to the right conclusion – that it is with you they want to have a relationship.” David H. Maister, Managing The Professional Service Firm

Interview with Janeen Smith, MS, MFT, Referral Queen

I recently interviewed Janeen Smith, MS, MFT about what makes a good business referral. Janeen is a San Francisco-based psychotherapist who helps people create the relationships and lives they want through psychotherapy, counseling, and education.

Janeen recently started a new BNI group, which is where we met. I am not a BNI member – I was a guest of Mike, a mutual friend and member of Janeen’s BNI group.

BNI stands for Business Networking International and markets itself as the world’s largest business networking organization. BNI’s motto is “givers gain.”

Janeen is indeed a natural referrer. Before we officially started the interview, Janeen was already thinking about people I needed to meet.

Janeen Smith, Referral Queen

KS: Is it ok if I turn the tape recorder on?

JS: I just had a flash. I’m listening to you talk about marketing and listening to what you do, and seeing you light up about it. As I was thinking about you, and I started thinking about my dear friend, and I started imagining you two as partners in a firm, and then I come back and I think, I would love for you to meet my friend. That’s how I roll in the referral world.

KS: Please introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your practice.

JS: I’m a psychotherapist, consultant, and trainer. I have about 20 years in the field. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. My business is its peak when I’m seeing individuals, adults, adolescents, kids, couples, and families. I do specialize in some scary things: substance abuse, mental health, and domestic violence.

I believe people can change. I believe they have to want to. And I am good helping people want to change.

I also love to sit with people who are having trouble keeping connections. That’s it in a nutshell.

KS: You described yourself to me in an e-mail as the referral queen. How did you come by that title?

JS: I like to see everybody prosper. I do believe that if we work together, there’s enough for all of us, so I’m always thinking about who’s a good partner. Maybe it started in my Yenta days. I wanted to help people find love.

KS: What makes a good referral?

JS: In the past five weeks I’ve made three connections for Mike, a friend in BNI. I started by sitting down with Mike and getting to learn about him. He brought his daughter, and I got to see the human side of him.

I introduced Mike to my creative guy, Todd, and they’ve already started doing business together.

As the referral or relationship queen, I just wanted them to meet and connect. I know that if I put my name behind somebody that means something.

KS: I’ve always hesitated to join a BNI group, because it feels like you will be forced to make referrals to everyone in the group.

JS: You don’t have to refer, which is important for me.

Who I have my name behind matters. People don’t have to be perfect, but I want to know if people do something wrong, do they get it? Do they want to change? If they want to really change, that’s ok. If they don’t. My name.

KS: You are currently looking for new members for your BNI group. What kind of members are you seeking?

JS: There’s a list of what makes BNI groups successful. What makes it successful is how much money we move through the group. Some professions are critical to have. We need lawyers, mortgage brokers, construction, handyperson, creatives, a marketing guy, bankers, and a CPA.

This group really fits for me, so I want it to fit for people who enter it. I want them to get it that I buy that I can be a sales and marketing force for you if I like who you are and what you do. I’m happy to do that.

I really do believe that there’s enough and that having a group of people that you feel really good about that you can refer is what helps my clients grow. And it’s community. In a city it’s hard to have community.

I really think there’s enough for everyone.

Small Businesses Beware Daily-Deals Offers (like Groupon)

The San Francisco Chronicle today reported that Yelp is backing away from a daily-deal service like Groupon.

“Rather than offer more and more deals of inherently declining quality to more and more folks over time, we want to make sure we’re only providing good, quality opportunities,” Vince Sollitto, vice president of corporate communications, said. “While we think the deals business is a good one, it has never been a core focus of our offering.”

Facebook made a similar decision last week, and according to Bloomberg, “the online daily-deals industry revenue dropped 7 percent in July from the month before.”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: these deals are often bad for small businesses.

Beware the spin.

Unfortunately, the offer of “valuable new customers guaranteed” and is hard for many small business owners to resist.

I met with a very successful business owner yesterday who is being inundated by promotions from daily-deal marketing companies. The business owner is frustrated. He’s been told by many people in his industry to avoid these offers, but the idea of becoming “the talk of the town,” is still tempting.

Even restaurants, one of the key targets of these daily deal strategies, don’t always benefit. One restaurateur from San Francisco’s Japantown told me that people who responded to his Groupon offer would calculate to the penny the amount of food they could order to take full advantage of the deal. And these people were not big tippers.

What’s the problem?

First of all, all new customers are not your “valuable customers.” The valuable customers Groupon is talking about are Groupon’s target customers. If they seem to match up with your target customers, well then you might consider trying a daily-deal promotion. Otherwise, tread very carefully.

Second, you’ve worked for years to establish your reputation and build your clientele. You’ve carefully planned and defended your price point. I’m not sure if you want to risk alienating your clientele by cutting your prices for brand new customers who don’t care about or honor your brand reputation.

Third, Groupon claims that “we get them to your business, and you bring them back again and again.”

Easier said than done.

The Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule) holds that a small number of customers accounts for the majority of your income. Do you really want to risk alienating the 20% of your customers who patronize your business year after year through good times and bad for a short-term boost?

That said, daily-deals offers do work for many businesses. Daily deals can help drive traffic to new businesses, they can give struggling businesses a much-needed boost, and they are well-suited for asset-based businesses with lower variable costs, like Mission Cliffs, that have the capacity to manage the traffic and don’t incur extra expenses from a drastic increase in business.

Do the math.

Yipit, a company that “aggregates and recommends the best daily deals in your city” (seriously?), provides a calculator to help businesses determine whether Groupon-like deals are good for them.

Win over your new customers.

There’s an article on TechCrunch with great advice for winning over daily-deal customers if you do decide to take the plunge. The author, Vinicius Vacanti, recommends that you:

• Surprise and delight-daily deal customers.
• Offer an incentive for them to come back.
• Collect their contact information.
• Discount just the first session.

Remember, daily deals are just another marketing tactic.

The bottom line is that daily-deals specials are just another marketing tactic, and they should be considered in the context of your overall marketing plan.

Contact us today of you need help with your overall marketing plan that may or may not include daily-deals offers. We can help.

Brand characters can help you clarify your target market.

Renata Razza, a brilliant coach and the owner of Being Daring Coaching, forwarded an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about Old Navy’s efforts to reengage with its current customer. The effort began when Tom Wyatt, President of Old Navy, had an epiphany about Old Navy’s typical customer. The effort resulted in the creation of a fictional character named “Jenny,” who represents Old Navy’s typical customer.

Jenny is a 25-to 35-year-old mother who earns $50,000/year and is pressed for time. According to Mr. Wyatt, Old Navy now has “45,000 associates that literally talk about Jenny.” Sales are up by 2%, and analysts agree that Jenny has brought fun and excitement back to the store.

I frequently refer to Old Navy when discussing strategic brand positioning with my small business clients, because of the skillful way GAP parses between its three major brands.

• GAP, for example, provides “great style, value, and service.”
• Banana Republic “is known for casual luxury.”
• Old Navy “makes shopping fun again!”

Jenny wouldn’t make sense for GAP or Banana Republic, because her “character” doesn’t match up with those brands.

Jenny likes to have fun, so she is the perfect character to represent Old Navy.

The company now keeps Jenny in mind when making decisions about product, store layout, and the non-clothing items for sale in checkout aisles, which are meant to “stir nostalgia for the chain’s target customers,” like Jenny, who grew up in the 1980s. (You can now find superhero lunch boxes and Mad Lib books at Old Navy’s checkout counters.)

Superhero?

When we talk about target market, we usually refer to demographics and psychographics, but these are difficult concepts to understand – especially if you haven’t taken the time to imagine your typical customer.

“Just as a character in a story must come to life for the reader, so must a brand for the consumer,” according to Bart Cleveland, columnist for Communication Arts Magazine.

So, before you start listing demographics, psychographics, and other intangible concepts about your target market, take some time to imagine your Jenny.

And do your best to follow Old Navy’s lead by making sure your brand character represents your business’s core values. That’s going to be the most important element of your brand character’s character.

Let us know if you have any epiphanies along the way, and give us a shout if you need a partner to help you conceive your Jenny. We can help.

Who are your target customers?

I bought a pair of Zeiss binoculars many years ago, while travelling in Germany. I brought them home, put them in a drawer, and rarely used them. They are very sensitive, and the lenses are tricky to adjust. It requires patience, which I was apparently lacking.

Recently, I moved to a new place with a deck and a west-facing view. One clear evening, I decided to try out my old Zeiss binoculars. I focused, and I refocused, and then I made minor adjustments. All of a sudden I could see craters on the moon. I could watch birds playing in the wind. I could see stars and constellations, and I could make out the details of airplanes flying high overhead.

I love my binoculars, and I now use them all the time. The binoculars finally started working for me when I took the time to focus.

Twin Peaks

It’s a struggle.

We all struggle with identifying our target customer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a small business owner who his or her target market is to be told, “Everyone. Everyone can use my product and/or service.”

The problem with that is you can’t reach everyone. You can’t communicate with everyone. You can’t focus on everyone.

I recently attended a workshop taught by Caterina Rando, a wonderful, motivational speaker. Caterina talked about how important it is to focus your marketing efforts, and she practices what she preaches.

Caterina talked about how she focused her coaching business. She’s developed a “Business Breakthrough Program” that probably could help everyone, but she isn’t focusing on everyone.

Caterina combined her interest in coaching entrepreneurs with her experience with a very particular small business niche – women who are in the image consulting industry.

As a general rule, people within a niche industry segment are connected. Connections lead to word-of-mouth communications, which leads to more business. This applies to image consultants, too. Image consultants attend the same trade shows, belong to the same industry associations, follow one another on Facebook, and when they are looking for business coaches, who do you think they are going to call first?

I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that an image consultant looking for a qualified business coach is more likely than not to seek out the business coach who has experience in their field; the one who is passionate about their work; and the one who’s given talks at their trade association gatherings: Caterina Rando.

Remember, you can target everyone, or you can focus and get “closer to your quarry than you ever thought possible.”

This blog entry is part of a series of SWOT analysis questions to help entrepreneurs write their strategic brand positioning messages. Answering these questions will help put you on the path to succeed in business.

My firm, 2Bridge Communications, is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs reach the next level. Contact me if you need help identifying your target market. I will help you get closer to your target customers than you ever thought possible!