Linda's Marketing Leverage Blog

New Silicon Valley Marketing Strategy Roundtables Start in January

Mark your calendar for the first Northern California Business Marketing Association (BMA) Marketing Strategy Roundtable breakfast meeting on Tuesday, January 26th in Palo Alto.

I'm very pleased to be hosting this brand new series, modeled after BMA's successful roundtables series on product marketing, branding and other marketing areas. We'll be featuring dynamic speakers focused on marketing strategy topics of interest to Silicon Valley marketing professionals.

Brett Olszewski

January's speaker will be Brett Olszewski, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of K/P Corporation. Brett will discuss how on-demand marketing technology offers marketers the ability to affordably do it all: making closed loop marketing programs that drive the customer conversation a more practical reality. He'll provide examples of how marketing strategy, execution and measurement can be successfully applied in an on-demand environment.

In February, we'll be hearing from Nilofer Merchant of Rubicon about The New How: Enabling the Front Lines of Change.

Roundtable meetings will be held at Scott's Seafood Restaurant, 855 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, on the last Tuesday of the month from 8 to 9:30 am. Cost is only $15 for BMA members and $30 for nonmembers, which includes your breakfast.

Register now.

Creating a New Business Surge

Join us to hear Seth Kahan, noted consultant and author of Fast  Company's Leading Change blog, explain how he is helping free agents succeed in a difficult market, through techniques like the new business surge in this latest episode of MarketingThoughtLeadership.

Building Effective Go-to-Market Campaigns with Leading Edge Technology

Join us for the latest podcast episode of Marketing Thought Leadership as Karen Galatis, Senior Director for Integrated Marketing at Sun Microsystems, tells us about the steps Sun takes to build and deliver effective go-to-market campaigns, including how Sun has integrated leading edge technology in its integrated marketing campaigns.

Listen now.

Branding Gotchas: When Going Too Broad Produces Less Impact

As a marketing and brand consultant, I am often asked to review value propositions of organizations, small businesses and individuals. One common mistake I see frequently is the value proposition that is so broad and all encompassing that it says virtually nothing.

Examples: We solve organizational problems. Or: We improve people's lives.

What on earth does that mean? What kind of organizational problems do you solve? Are you a psychologist or a leadership expert or a relationship coach? Or do you help me transport information more effectively throughout my organization? How do you improve people's lives? Have you found the cure for cancer or the common cold? Do you know how to solve world hunger or prevent global warming?  Or have you found an easy way to get through airport security quickly?

The people who spout these lines tell me they don't want to limit themselves or cut off potential audiences. They want to leave themselves enough flexibility to grow or to address new areas in the future.

That's great, but in the present your statements are so broad as to be totally useless. I don't know what you do, who you do it for, when I should call you or why you are different from other alternatives I might be considering. In other words, I don't understand the value you provide, which is the point of a value proposition to start with. 

If you target everyone and everything, you target no one. There is nothing on earth that is applicable to everyone without some clarification and modification--not even air and water.

So instead of trying to get your arms around the whole enchilada how about coming up with something that's focused, concise and to the point. Tell us what you do and who you do it for. Let people know right away whether or not they should be listening further, and just as importantly, who they might know who might be a good prospect for you and your services.

Give us something we can digest, one bite at a time. You'll do more with less and go further, too.

Why Marketers Need to Know About Inclusion and Diversity

There are many benefits to building a diverse, inclusive workforce, but how does this relate to marketers? In the latest episode of Marketing Thought Leadership, diversity expert Simma Lieberman explains how knowing about and implementing inclusions and diversity programs can help marketers build their own businesses and those of their customers.

Listen now.

Now the Fur REALLY flies

Stranger than fiction: It's now possible for both your luggage and your pets to have a much better flying experience than you do.

You've probably seen airlines like United promoting the use of Fedex to deliver your luggage (pushing the cost of this service from them to you). As of this week, there's a new airline devoted strictly to transporting your pets safely and comfortably through the air.

Pet Airways started operating this week with 5 daily flights, soon to be serving as many as 25 cities, and prices that are quite competitive to what you'd pay a regular airline transport your pet.

The difference is that w/Pet Airways your furry companion flies in the main cabin, with specially trained flight attendants who check on his well-being every 15 minutes or so, and make sure Fido gets to his destination in one piece. To start, some destinations may require a stop-over, but Pet Airwayws will include food, water, exercise and bathroom breaks for the pet.

What a great idea...another innovative service being launched in spite of the current economic conditions. Which just goes to show that if you are creative, you can find and exploit market niches that are currently not being served--in any economic situation.

There's no word yet on how they'll figure out who gets to sit in the exit rows or how exactly to handle the safety briefings (chew on your own mask before chewing on the ones of the passengers around you?), or even how to handle those Great Danes who want to stretch their legs. But security should be quite streamlined--no shoes to remove!

What You Don't Know About Your Online Reputation CAN Hurt You

Learn about the importance of online reputation management, including how to monitor your current reputation, what you need to do to repair damage, and how to stay ahead of the curve in the future.

Listen to expert Celeste Bishop discuss this in the latest episode of Marketing Thought Leadership.

New Podcast: Lead Generation--we've got to be able to do better than this

Lead generation and sales force automation expert Dave Taber talks about what's wrong with many of today's lead generation systems in the latest episode of our Marketing Thought Leadership podcast series.

Dave is the author of a new book entitled  SalesForce.Com Secrets of Success: Best Practices for Growth and Profitability

Listen now.

Trading Down Has Companies Looking Up

An article in yesterday's San Jose Mercury News entitled "In Recession consumers turn to small indulgences," reinforces what I've been telling clients and students for months:

First, there are companies who are doing well in this gloomy economy, such as Hershey's, Kraft Food, Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, as well as some that would not necessarily have come to mind, like running shoe and bicycle helmet manufacturers, coin dealers and gardening tools.

Second, a key behavior is for people to trade down from their prior behavior. So people who used to eat out at high end restaurants now move to mid-range eateries; those who used to frequent mid-range eateries go down a notch to lower end restaurants; those who used to go to the lower end restaurants now head to McDonalds or Taco Bell. Or folks who might have eaten out previously are now enjoying a nice dinner at home--a trend that not only helps the grocery chains, but stores like Target as well who are positioning themselves as the key player to help people dress up their "at-home" experience.

This trend is true across many industries--such as hotel and travel, automobile sales and leasing, or clothing. It's not that people are no longer spending; it's that they're spending their dollars much more selectively.

As marketers we need to help our clients focus on reaching the new consumers--those that have traded down to where we are today--rather than those who used to aspire to move up and associate with our brands. The market's out there--it's just dressed differently, with a different set of faces, goals, and challenges than we're used to.

But the opportunity is there for companies to move up by capitalizing on the movement to trade down.

New Podcast: Why Marketing Operations Matters

Listen to our latest podcast with Gary Katz of Marketing Operations Partners, defining marketing operations and discussing why this matters to the marketing function.

Go to podcast.