Welcome to 2012, and if you didn’t get one of these over the holidays, we are happy to present you with a shiny, brand, new 10-speed buy cycle for the New Year. It may not be as glamorous as “items du jour,” such as Big Data, Cloud Computing or device mania, but for marketers, the new buy cycle demands attention.
Without exception, every marketing campaign or initiative begins with strategy formulated from research and ideation. While sales organizations are mostly focused on the “sales cycle,” marketers must also focus on the “buy cycle.” The framework for strategic planning in marketing is structured to address the stages of this cycle.
Throughout the years, strategic marketing leaders have presented buy cycles with various stages and numbers of stages. Nowadays, the proliferation of social media, content marketing and the new behaviors that fall out of them means that the buy cycle philosophy must evolve in order to reflect the new process.
The first iterations of the buy cycle (also referred to as the buyer’s journey) contained three major stages: Discovery, Consideration and Decision. Over time, this three-stage cycle evolved into the six stage cycle, consisting of No Awareness, Awareness, Research, Consideration, Trial Use and Exclusive Use.
The six-stage cycle simply does not take into account the new buyer’s behaviors, which have become part of the modern buyer’s journey. As more organizations understand the need for content strategy, mapping the appropriate content to the stages of the new buy cycle is essential for engaging buyers throughout their journey.
Here is the new 10-stage buy cycle, based upon the modern
buyer’s journey.
Stage 1—Distraction from work.
Everyone takes a break, which in the modern workplace usually means going online to visit social networks or to surf the Web. Social media is a distraction; however, marketing to people and trying to distract them from their distraction can become a little tricky. Content mapped to this stage would include viral type video, infographics, and guides or playbooks.
Stage 2—Recognize need.
After the buyer has been distracted with the distraction content, the buyer will recognize their need for the product or service. Blog articles, top 10 lists and other neutrally positioned content can help the buyer to recognize need.
Stage 3—Solution search.
Once the buyer has recognized their need, they search for solutions. While SEO is vital to this stage, other content can help the buyer with their search, such as newsletters, third-party trend reports, surveys or quizzes, and a new type of content that is gaining wide popularity—video white papers.
Stage 4—Seek vendor solutions.
The buyer knows the solution to their need, now they need to seek out vendors who provide the needed solution. Again, this is a vital SEO stage for those searching for a vendor solution, and the appropriate content would be Webinars and press releases; presence at events is also a well-practiced tactic for this stage.
Stage 5—Evaluation of solutions.
Now the buyer has been distracted, recognizes the need, searched for a solution, found several vendors who are in the consideration set and must evaluate those vendor solutions. During the evaluation process, content such as case studies, video, video demos and interactive demos can persuade the buyer.
Stage 6—Justify solution.
Buyers need justification to feel comfortable and confident with their decision. How can your content help at this stage? Third-party content really does the trick. White papers, analyst reports and comparative reviews should be in your content set for this stage.
Stage 7—Social research.
Also known as the validation stage, social research can help validate the decision that the buyer has made. As a member of WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association), we firmly believe that all social research, both online in social channels and offline with associates, friends and family, are essential to this validation stage. Obvious content would be that which appears on social channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others, such as customer testimonials, which provide peer validation.
Stage 8—Cost analysis.
To prevent the worst form of “buyer’s remorse,” which is usually caused by the cost associated with the purchase, the modern buyer enters into the stage of cost analysis. Here, not only the actual purchase price is analyzed, but the cost to the buyer over time is considered. Content that can help the buyer through this stage would include data sheets and checklists.
Stage 9—Purchase.
The moment of truth in the buyer’s journey is the actual purchase. Content that can help in this stage would be pricing guides and general onboarding collateral.
Stage 10—Decision evaluation.
Perhaps the most important stage in the buy cycle is the evaluation of the decision which usually takes place over time. Here is where brand loyalty, brand evangelism, brand advocacy and brand extension are percolated. Content can include retention, loyalty and customer experience driven pieces across all channels.
Content is only “king” if it maintains a high-quality level and is delivered at the right time and in the right place. Enjoy the ride of strategic marketing planning on your shiny new buy cycle!
Is it possible that marketing minds were behind the pricing model on the new Amazon Kindle Fire?
It’s a logical conclusion, since Amazon is actually selling the Kindle Fire at $199, which is below the cost of manufacturing the tablet according to numerous reports including this one in the Wall Street Journal.
“The Kindle Fire, at a retail price point of $199, is sold at a loss by Amazon, just as the basic Kindle is also sold at a loss at the current $79 retail price point,” said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of teardown services for IHS. “Amazon makes its money not on Kindle hardware, but on the paid content and other products it plans to sell the consumer through the Kindle.”
The razor and blade business model has been around, well, since the razor and the blade. It’s the same basic principle as the printer and the cartridge, where a manufacturer makes a product that is dependent on the continuation sales principle. Once the blade has dulled, the razor is no longer functional; once the printer’s toner cartridge is empty, the printer is basically a paperweight until a new toner cartridge is installed.
The Kindle Fire is built for one main purpose, which is to consume paid content from Amazon. The other features, such as Wi-Fi, email capabilities, .pdf and .doc readers and the ability to play Flash, are gratuitous extras in Amazon’s marketing plan.
Preliminary results are showing that Amazon has hit the proverbial ball out of the park. There are even some reports that the Kindle Fire is taking a bite out of Apple’s iPad sales. Debates are taking place online, offline and in the media regarding the battle between Kindle Fire and iPad. No one is claiming that the Fire can match the iPad feature for feature, as it obviously cannot; however, this isn’t about a head-to-head feature comparison. This is all about VALUE.
The $199 selling price IS Amazon’s marketing strategy. That price point is also their sales strategy, their product strategy and their strategy for selling content going forward. What Amazon is really marketing is their Amazon Prime subscription service, which is being sold for $79 per year and includes:
• Unlimited instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with Prime instant videos
• A Kindle book to borrow for FREE each month from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library
Amazon Prime members also receive free two-day shipping on millions of items sold on Amazon.com, and Amazon is currently offering a one-month free trial.
The actual piece of hardware is indeed a content delivery vehicle. And hardly anyone other than Amazon is considering the marketing repercussions that huge sales of Kindle Fires will have specifically on the demand for content from content providers. So magazine publishers, network and content providers of all shapes and sizes are currently vying for a piece of this newly created content consumption market.
Amazon’s aggressive online marketing campaign and transactional website are all part of the overarching marketing strategy that started with the razor-and-blade model in mind from the very beginning.
A lot can happen in a year. When Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2010, Netflix shares hit an all-time high of $163.72. The weight of all of Blockbuster’s brick-and-mortar stores left them unable to compete with Netflix, or even Redbox, who quickly eked out 25% market share.
Netflix was one of the first to offer video streaming, and their partnerships with Starz, Paramount and others gave them a competitive advantage in terms of content. By July 2011, Netflix shares were trading at around $300. And it looked like they could do no wrong.
But then a series of missteps—the restructuring of their rental plans accompanied by a big price hike, the decision to separate their streaming and DVD businesses, and then the reversal of that decision—left Netflix looking completely inept.
Today, they closed at $111.
So how did a company that was once noted for being innovative, foresighted, and well managed get so many things so wrong?
When CEO Reed Hastings announced on Monday that they were abandoning their plans for Qwikster, he said, "There is a difference between moving quickly—which Netflix has done very well for years—and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”
But to this observer, that’s not the problem. The problem is that Netflix was so eager to do what was right for Netflix that they forgot about the vital importance of doing what’s right for their customers.
For consumers viewing any change through the prism of “what’s in it for me?”, creating a separate company for DVDs was nothing but a huge inconvenience. I understand why it was a good business decision for Netflix. But why didn’t they at least put the benefits to subscribers front and center? The tone of Reed’s original announcement was “Trust us. It’ll be better this way.”
When British Airways emailed me that they were making their frequent flyer program “even better,” my first thought was, “Oh no. What are they taking away now?” But at least they acted like they were doing it for my benefit.
The other thing I don’t get is how Netflix could have ignored the damage that disgruntled customers can do in the age of social media. Didn’t they learn their lesson with the price increase? Not only have large numbers of subscribers left the service, their vocal unhappiness is preventing potential new customers from signing up. This, in turn, has re-energized Blockbuster, who has emerged from bankruptcy as part of Dish Network as a formidable new competitor in the space.
To me, there are three lessons to be learned here:
1) Do your homework. Nothing makes you look worse than changing horses midstream. Know what the impact will be on every aspect of your business before you pull the trigger. Netflix’s stock price is evidence that they didn’t understand all the ramifications of their actions.
2) Ask yourself how everything will play out in social media. Be sure you can live with the consequences—and the damage to your brand—before you move forward.
3) Dance with them that brung ya. Never forget that your customers are your greatest asset, and that their loyalty is conditional on yours. Talk with them. Solicit their feedback. And make sure that as your business model evolves, they remain your top consideration. A 5% increase in customer retention produces more than a 25% increase in profit.*
*Bain & Company. “Cost-Cutting Ideas for Now That Won’t Impair Clients Later.” Tennessee Society of CPAs. Accounting Office Management & Administration Report, June 2009.
The 2011 Mid-Year Marketing Trend Study is out and it reveals the top three marketing challenges facing marketers today.
Los Angeles, California (September 27, 2011) — The top marketing challenge for marketers is: “Acquiring a large number of new customers,” which was followed closely by “Increasing retention rates and revenues from current customers,” as “Increasing the quality and quantity of leads for field sales forces” was third.
The Kern Organization’s 2011 Mid-Year Marketing Trends Survey was conducted in July 2011, with 396 top marketing executives (CMOs, VPs, and Directors) responding from various industries. Watch the video above and download the 2011 Mid-Year Marketing Trend Study whitepaper to see what your peers are saying here: http://www.thekernorg.com/2011MidYearTrendStudyResults
In every human relationship there is a courtship phase. We meet, we Google each other, and then we date.
Time passes, and before you know it, we’ve fallen in love and we’re skipping through poppy fields. Well, okay, maybe not poppy fields—but clearly, we’ve fallen for each other.
We learn all the things Google couldn’t tell us, and figure out how to communicate with each other most effectively. Next thing you know, one of us is popping the question—I know, I read too many romance novels!
Social media marketing works in much the same way. You go online and find interesting content on one of the social media channels that you frequent. After a while, you realize that you really enjoy what they have to offer. So you “like,” “friend” or otherwise engage with the content producer.
Soon, you’re commenting on posts and retweeting content. Which, in most cases, will cause the content producer to get down on one knee and propose. The question is, will you say “I do?”
If you’re the one popping the question, what steps do you need to take to ensure that your relationship works out and lasts a lifetime?
Each day, billions of social media messages are posted around the globe. Getting your target audience to pay attention to what you have to say is a real challenge. Producing lots of content—even if it’s great—isn’t enough anymore. In order to have a true relationship, there has to be some give and take. As the old saying goes, “It takes two to tango.”
So what is social media marketing anyway?
It’s making the decision to actively interact with your target audience—and then following through. You can measure your engagement using Website visits, clicks, re-tweets, conversations joined and comments. You can even find out if people trust your business and feel connected to it.
Here are four ways to ensure that your social media marketing engagement is a smashing success:
1. Inspire and Inquire
Your audience wants you to offer them value and information about your brand. Go a step further and offer answers to questions, reply to comments, thank them for sharing your content with their communities and, if they offer up relevant content, share and retweet their stuff too.
2. Reach Beyond Your Target
Find relevant trends and keywords that will enable you to start conversations with new audiences. Search Twitter is a great tool that lets you comb through droves of interesting tweets in real time. And you can use Google Alerts to set up e-mail updates based on your choice of query or topic.
3. Monitor & Listen
Did you hear that? If not, you just missed an opportunity to engage. What is your audience talking about? How do they like to be talked to? Are they asking relevant questions? Are they talking about your brand? Both positive and negative sentiments need to be heard and responded to in a timely manner. And you should be gauging what’s going on with your competitors and industry, too. Hearing these conversations, lets you jump in and engage without being intrusive. After all, listening begets conversation and conversation begets opportunity.
4. Create a Genuine Relationship
Building a real relationship is one of the main purposes of social media. As it is in every relationship, people want to be recognized and validated. To create a genuine relationship online, use personalization and as much one-on-one connection as possible. It’s as easy as replying with a “@Viki_Nazarian thank you for your comment.”
Creating a social media marketing engagement plan that you consistently implement is the key to keeping your audience engaged. Keep your content fresh and valuable. And hold true to your brand. Get your audience to say "I do" and then make every effort to keep the love alive. After all, love comes naturally, but relationships take work.
Judy Mitchell is Vice President of Client Services here at The Kern Organization. In this video, she discusses a case study about a client that presented Kern with an interesting growth challenge in an especially competitive segment of the high-tech industry. And how, by using best practices in database marketing and in-depth tracking and analytics, Kern was able to rapidly grow the client’s business.
The client had a couple of challenges. First of all, they had a new technology product. The second challenge was that it was an extremely competitive category, and third they wanted to go national in a very short timeframe. They also had ambitious customer acquisition goals and an aggressive cost-per-acquisition.
Since this client was a new entrant into this category, and unknown to consumers, Kern used its experience in marketing high-tech products to consumers and bring learnings to the table. And right out of the gate provide expertise in that area, as well as having a proven winning control format for customer acquisition – with thousands of test validations – that was proven effective and very low-cost.
Direct mail was chosen because, for this particular program, Kern needed a surgical targeting of the data that digital couldn’t provide. At first, the mailing began with a relatively small number of pieces in the first launch market (approximately 250,000), and included a number of different data segments within the mailing universe, including pre-approved credit lists and credit “look alikes,” as well as a number of consumer databases and specialty response lists. Response models were not used. A mailing plan was assembled based on Kern’s category experience.
As soon as responses started coming in and were analyzed, Kern was able to build market-specific models to further optimize the campaigns and lower the CPA. Data was used from the initial launch markets to build a generic market model, to improve performance of new markets right out of the gate. During the first year, using this generic market model, Kern cost-effectively opened a dozen markets, and improved performance in existing markets.
At the beginning of year two, the expansion goals became more ambitious–with over 40 new markets of all different sizes and demographics scheduled to launch. In-depth analysis was done on all new markets to determine the best model strategy for success. The targeting approach became one of the models based on groupings of similar markets. For example, if one of the new markets was similar in demographic make-up to an existing market or markets with a model that was working well, Kern would apply that model to the new market. The assumption was proven true, as Kern was able to cost-effectively acquire customers in these new markets.
After year two, Kern needed some additional model “firepower,” as market tenures increased and mass media spends decreased. The solution was to move to a multi-source model that combined three major databases. This multi-source approach opened the available universe by approximately 20%, allowing more mail to more prospects, with a higher likelihood of purchase.
Of course, specific results cannot be revealed, but Kern has exceeded expectations on both the total number of new customer acquisitions, as well as the cost of acquisition.
In a span of approximately two years, Kern has taken the client from an initial monthly mailing quantity of 250,000 to the current 13 million pieces per month. The client has more ambitious acquisition plans in the coming months, and we now have an arsenal of optimization tools in our database to use as we continue to grow the Client’s business.
On September 8, 2001 my husband and I welcomed our daughter into the world. It was one of the best days of our lives. We already knew that sleepless nights and diaper changes were in our immediate future. What we didn’t foresee is the fury that would materialize in the days ahead.
On the early morning of September 11, 2001, I walked to the hospital nursery to get my newborn daughter. On my way I saw all the nurses on the floor gathered around a television, crying and gasping in shock. I slowed down to see what the commotion was and a nurse told me that an airplane crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York. Within seconds of hearing this I ran to get my daughter and didn’t let her go.
In the days following, we watched our television set with heavy hearts. We looked down at our newborn, wondering if it was a good idea to bring a life into this turbulent world. It was a bittersweet time for us, but we felt that we should count our blessings regardless.
10 years later, the sting of that terrifying day still lingers. I watch my now 10 year old daughter, as she rummages through her emerging social media world, and wonder how different that disastrous day would have been if Twitter existed. In today’s world, news travels faster via social media than any newspaper or television station can keep up with. Traditional media outlets are being trumped by people tweeting breaking news on the scene and using their smart phones to capture real time videos and images, blasting them out within seconds.
Social media is the new normal. We can thank Twitter for recent breaking news of Osama bin Laden’s death, the uprising in Egypt, the tsunami in Japan, and the riots in London and let’s not forget the wrath of Hurricane Irene and how it’s path was tracked online. The appeal is not just getting the breaking news before anyone else, but also getting the firsthand accounts and experiences of those involved. There are even news outlets using social media reports as legitimate sources. Further, the ability to experience news via social media channels, that can be accessed on a mobile device, makes it that much more addictive.
And so I pose the question, how would Twitter have changed the face of events on September 11, 2001? What if Twitter was around on that tragic day? Would there have been fewer casualties if there had been more warning? If people tweeted about the disaster in real-time, could rescue workers have been able to better pinpoint the locations of possible survivors? How many lives could have been saved? How could social media have changed that one moment in time? Unfortunately, we can only imagine based on how social media has affected more recent tragedies. September 11, 2001 is forever a part of our history. Our hearts will remember those lost, and we will continue to grow from our experiences.
Today I’ll hold my 10 year old baby girl and tell her how much I love her. But, if she’s not around, I’ll tweet it to her! It’s not breaking news, but it is my own personal real-time reporting.
How do you think the events of September 11, 2001 would have been different if social media were around and people were tweeting? Join us on Twitter @TheKernOrg and tell us what you think.
Direct mail still works well today. But few people want to discuss it as a channel because it’s seen as “old school.” In fact, some direct mail proponents are even shunned within their organizations. However, any marketer who isn’t using direct mail as part of their media mix, is missing major opportunities.
The Kern Organization mails more than 750MM pieces a year for its B2B and B2C clients. Direct mail marketing is crucial to building business, driving call volume, opening new marketplaces, attacking competition, and creating opportunities that couldn’t be found otherwise. Simply stated, direct mail is a scalable channel for driving ongoing revenue and profit – month after month.
There aren’t many digital channels that marketers can say do that, with much consistency.
Every channel has its place in the media mix.
It’s clear that today social marketing communications needs to be part of every marketer’s arsenal. And due to its low cost, email marketing will continue to be a foundational marketing channel. But when you consider that only 20% of people open emails, you need to ask yourself what you’re doing to reach the other 80% of customers and prospects who don’t.
When done right, direct mail can be an important marketing tool that can really move your business forward.
But there are some obstacles for marketers using direct mail that need to be considered:
Few marketers these days have had the training required to produce winning packages time after time
Unlike digital channels, mail is expensive and comes with inherent risk
Poorly executed mail programs can lead to severe consequences
Today, many marketers lack the experience and confidence needed to design an effective testing strategy – which is an essential component of any successful direct mail program. Inexperience marketers should partner with a direct marketing agency who really understands mail
Direct mail brings the following to a marketer:
It is highly targetable – Mail remains an efficient, high performance channel. B2B and B2C marketers have hundreds of thousands of lists with sophisticated target audience selection criteria that can help you reach the right audience with no waste.
Mail gives you room to tell a story – One of the few media that readers actually touch, direct mail can appeal to prospects on a highly personal level. With direct mail, there’s enough “real estate” to tell readers a story that engages them emotionally and also provide them with the rational benefits they need to feel comfortable making a decision.
It is scalable and controllable – If a company needs to make their monthly or quarterly sales numbers, direct mail allows for immediate scalability. Few other channels offer marketers the control to dial up (or down) volume based on company sales needs.
It is personal and “unexpected” – In today’s highly electronic environment, direct mail is actually unexpected. Consumers, accustomed to communicating purely through digital and social channels, haven’t evolved that much as human beings. They still don’t want to miss out on something important – as anything addressed to them that arrives in an envelope is assumed to be. Even today, there is still real joy in opening a piece of mail. Just be careful not to make your package so promotional that it turns the reader off.
