MarketingAdvisor

As I watched the Phillies play the Rays in the World Series, it reminded me of my days in junior high school when I played on a basketball team. During the 3 years we worked together as a team, it was ingrained in me that one of the biggest strategic advantages in team sports is position. Not only the position you play but also the position you’re in relative to your competition during each and every game. This must have been sound advice because our team went on to win our division and head into the championships. In one of the championship games, I scored 21 points as a starting point guard. (For those of you who know basketball, this is unusual since the typical point guard’s role, i.e., position, is to get the ball to a shooting guard, forward or center who will ideally hit a jump shot, lay-up or slam dunk.)

However, what the competitive teams weren’t aware of is that I had the unique ability of dribbling both left- and right-handed with ease and had a knack for getting past my opponent for easy lay-ups. So, my point guard role was the official “position” I played, but the coach saw to it that my “positioning” in games was relative to the guard’s skills and expectations on the opposing teams. Most point guards handed off the ball and could only dribble right-handed. These were competitive disadvantages of which our coach took advantage. She leveraged the unique skills I offered as a guard, i.e., position, with the twist of having me attack the basket from either left or right of the key and placed the rest of our team in better offensive and defensive “positions.” This is how we did it. We didn’t ultimately win the championship, but I learned a valuable lesson about positioning and strategic competitive thinking that has served our clients well in numerous situations.

Position, Position, Position.

In marketing, we call it positioning but it’s the same principle at work. You may be familiar with the term made popular by Al Reis and Jack Trout in Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.

What’s the principle? You must stake out a position in the market and that position must be carved out relative to your competitive landscape and market requirements. If you don’t take the time to carve out your position, you risk having your offering positioned for you. This is not a good thing. For example, let’s dip into the past, shall we? If you offer what some would regard as an online version of a traditional personal information management (PIM) software, e.g., pre-Net contact management information management software such as ACT!, Polaris, GoldMine, and you’re the CEO of Salesforce.com, how do you position your product? Well, for starters, you do some research to find out that Customer Relationship Management (CRM) seems to be all the rage with analysts and then you do, what CEO Mark Benioff did, and position yourself according to the new emerging category…with a twist. Salesforce.com was initially positioned as the poor man’s CRM. Beautiful. This is a fine example of good positioning since Siebel, the category leader at the time, had positioned itself around CRM and were too expensive for most small and mid-range businesses. See the beauty here? Benioff positioned his online version of PIM software as CRM for everyone, i.e., the poor man’s CRM.  Now that’s good positioning.

Following are some tips on how to position your services, products or company:

First, conduct a thorough competitive analysis of your product, service and company.  As always, be brutally honest with what your offering can and cannot do. For example, perhaps one of your product’s strengths is ease-of-use, but your competitor has a superior product in terms of functionality. Well, that’s definitely something to put into your competitive matrix.

Second, do some primary and secondary (if existing category) research and discover what the top 5 market requirements are. For example, is ease-of use a “must have” feature? Do prospective users keep asking for reporting and alerts functionality? If so, then these would be included as part of your top 5 market requirements.

Third, taking into account your product’s strengths and the competition’s weaknesses relative to market requirements, position your offering around a problem your product solves that no other product can. You should be able to find this problem using the top 2 out of 5 market requirements, which will then serve as X and Y coordinates for the next step.

Fourth, try to “box” the competition using the Harvard Quadrant. Put each competitor into a position relative to your product and category. For example, if I were positioning dogs against other types of animals in a category called “pets,” I’d indicate in my box that cats and fish are wonderful pets for people who like animals but don’t have a lot of time. Then, I’d position dogs as ideal pets for people who like more interaction, have time to walk, like the beach, and don’t travel much.

Fifth, draft one sentence about your product. This will be your positioning statement, which is an internal statement to help guide all the messaging about your offering. The one sentence should position your competitors and your offering all together. My preference is to start with something like, “Unlike most other common household pets that tend not to be that social, dogs best meet the need for interaction and companionship required by most singles and the elderly. (Since they are social animals, horses make great pets, too, but if I were positioning dogs as perfect for the average elderly or single person, I’d position against horses by stressing all the time and financial resources required for care and maintenance.)

Final Note. Never, ever obviously trounce the competition. The best way to beat a competitor is to put them into a separate category as much as possible by implying that their products or services solve different problems than yours.

Best of luck in your positioning!

Sarah Autrand
CEO, Market4Demand, Inc.

Last week I was strolling through Fry’s munching on a handful of Reduced Fat Wheat Thins and nearly choked. Right there at the end of the software aisle were a couple of software products on an endcap that broke every rule in marcom and channel marketing. It doesn’t take a psychic to figure out that in about 90 days, the distributor would be requesting a Return Authorization (RA) number and most of the boxes, most likely still in the store after the 90 day contract expired, would be returned to the vendor.

Since I mentioned it, let’s talk Wheat Thins and consumer packaged goods (CPG) in general. This industry spends billions of dollars on packaging so we might as well take advantage of all that knowledge and research. What does this industry know that high-tech sometimes forget? It’s this: Your box is the best sales person you will ever have in the store and the only guaranteed sales vehicle you have at retail. The box needs to sell itself off the shelf and, preferably, fast. Given that, it’s wise to invest time, research and money to get it right.

If you plan to distribute your technology product through retailers like CompUSA, online and mail order, it’s important to understand that packaging is a critical component in your marketing efforts.

So, what type of packaging sells? Try these simple steps and you won’t be sorry.

Step One. Take a visit to Target and check out the laundry detergent aisle, the shampoo aisle and, of course, the cracker and cookie aisles. There are dozens and dozens of products in each category, but some grab your attention more than the others. Note those brands and ask why? Then, head over to the Apple store in your area and note the packaging. (Apple is so wonderful at packaging that I still keep all the boxes for my various iPods.)

Apple gets it.

Step Two. Visit a bookstore and stand in the middle of any aisle and note the books that jump out at you. Again, jot down why.

Step Three. Nail down the following items about your product because these will need to be on your packaging: First, you’ll need to draft clear and concise benefit statements or phrases. For example, what will your target customers receive if they buy your product? A good number of statements is around 3-6, depending on the complexity of the product, as most purchasers will not take the time to read more. Second, finalize a clear positioning statement. Strong positioning is the effect of researching both competitors and potential buyers and it is critical for success. Unfortunately, many technology companies skip this step because they make assumptions based on what they think or arrived at in an internal meeting. Nothing compares to the hard work of careful research. Third, create a “why-to-buy” statement, which is sometimes called a value proposition. In this statement, you will communicate why the potential customer should buy your product. Why is it of value to him or her? Does it reduce time? Save money? Try to be as specific as possible and leverage your competitive research to be unique.

Step Four. Throw all these statement into a Word document and hand it over, along with your top 3 competitors’ boxes, to a graphic designer with experience in channel marketing. Tell him/her that your packaging needs to stand out against the 3. As you work with the designer, strive for graphics that clearly support the selling message and don’t overwhelm it. In addition to a compelling copy, the graphics need to be simple to understand and easy to follow. Aiming at the lowest common denominator is a good rule of thumb. As we are ever fond of saying in Marketing…K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

Good luck!

Sarah Autrand, CEO, Market4Demand, Inc.

It’s 4:00p.m. on a Friday and you’ve just released an email blast in Constant Contact or Vertical Response. You call your spouse to let him/her know you’ll be home later than usual. An office affair? Gosh, no. You’re excited about the response rates of this email blast and want to hang around a bit longer to monitor response rates! It’s almost as fun as watching your favorite stocks increase. Almost. Well, maybe not almost since the market is doing so poorly. But you get what I mean.

Email Direct Marketing (EDM). It’s addicting.

As a marketer, I’ve been practicing it since the first Internet browser launched in 1995. Besides being witness to falling response rates over the last 13 years, I’ve also taught on the topic repeatedly, addressing audiences at Internet World (remember that?), the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association, San Jose State University, and the San Jose Cisco Entrepreneur Center.

What’s the secret? What’s the trick to reaching your audience via this medium?

A lot…and a little. It’s a lot of careful planning but a little 4 critical pieces. Also, it’s a lot like success in direct mail, but a little not like direct mail in terms of the cost. That is, cheaper.

The success of your email direct marketing campaigns revolves around four critical components: the list, the subject line, the offer, and relevancy of message to your audience. If you get these four things right, you’re on your way to a successful campaign.

List. First of all, the list must be selected based on careful demographics and segmentation. Second, the list must be of high quality and used recently. Rented lists are the best source, especially subscriber lists.

Subject Line. For goodness sakes, pick something original, provocative and intriguing. No one likes to be bored. The subject line works similar to the envelope of a direct mail campaign. If someone doesn’t feel compelled to open it, they won’t. Plain and simple, no matter what you’re offering.

Offer. The offer ensures action is taken, i.e., it’s a call to action. Given such, choose an offer that appeals to your target market, or constituents if you are in the nonprofit sector. If you’re marketing to Gen Y, maybe it’s a phone with advanced texting capabilities. (It was my 18-year old nephew who informed me that phone conversations and email were for old people.) If you’re targeting marketing executives, for example, maybe it’s some wonderful tool that makes budgeting easier. (Probably nothing exists, but one can hope!) If you’re targeting large retail buyers, on the other hand, maybe a faster way to track inventory. In other words, think carefully about whom your audience is in terms of demographics and psychographics and what will appeal the most to them. As my business partner, Diane Robinette, is fond of saying, “Why should I care?” This is the question that needs to be answered. You have to make your audience care.

Relevancy.  Similar to the Offer, successful campaigns communicate in the language relevant to their audience. When talking to physicians, would you use high-tech jargon such as ODBC, J2EE? Of course not. That’s silly. Successful campaigns take the time to research, write and test the messaging to ensure it resonates with their target audience.

Best of luck in all your EDM efforts!

Sarah Autrand
CEO, Market4Demand, Inc.

 The conference room was small, hot and stuffy and the entrepreneur was soft-spoken and long-winded. Over a table full of untouched bottled waters, he presented a slide deck with the most detailed product architecture diagram I’ve ever seen. Toward the end, he unveiled a lengthy list of all the markets the company planned to target within the next 6 months…vastly different markets but all to be reached with the same highly technical message.

Code Red.

After working with more than 50 startups and large enterprises in the technology sector, I’ve noticed that many entrepreneurs seem to face a similar challenge. What’s the challenge, you might ask? Is it lack of good programmers, a business plan, a full sales pipeline, reference customers, financing, awareness, or a full management team? No, it’s much more complicated than that, but impacts all of the above. The challenge is, simply, a lack of good messaging. What is “good messaging”? Good messaging is nothing but the direct consequence of careful positioning. Good messaging will resonate with your customer in a way that they immediately see themselves as needing your product or service and want to know where to get it. Good messaging also attracts partners, analyst coverage, employees, and investors because they can easily understand what problem your solution solves and why it’s so important.  How do you create good messaging? Below are some guidelines to help ensure your messaging is effective toward your marketing objectives:

• For starters, find no more than 3 core target markets and craft unique messages for each market, using the language and leveraging the motivators unique to them. For example, if you have a mobile application aimed at Generation Y consumers, you would use language appropriate to that age demographic. Similarly, if you had a service for CIOs in the automotive industry, you would discover the motivators, pains and language of the that particular segment.
• Next, ask yourself “Why would my audience care about my product/service?”
• The messaging must also include what you think the most important things are for your audience to know. For example, is your product the only one that can offer consumers an iPod docking station with built in robotics so it can follow users everywhere in their home or office like a puppy?
• It’s also important to ask yourself how you want your audience to feel after they have read your message. For example, do you want them to be afraid, uncertain, doubtful, outdated, unhealthy, vigorous, young, smart, or powerful?
• Next, you’ll need to determine what you want your target audience to do after they have read your message. In other words, give them a call-to-action.
• Finally, use these final messages in all your outbound marketing communications and sales interactions.  Don’t forget to be consistent! Good marketing messages must be repeated until they almost become subliminal in order to be effective. Compare this to the Middle Ages. People today have to process more information in five minutes than the average person living in the Middle Ages did in a lifetime. Repetition, across multiple channels, of the same message will help your message rise above the noise.

Having a messaging challenge? Feel free to submit your question and I’ll do my best to help you out.

Sarah Autrand
CEO, Market4Demand, Inc.