Linda's Marketing Leverage Blog

Just a Moment for Marketing: The Best Kept Secret

Linda Popky advises: No matter how good you are, you won't meet your full business potential if you don't tell people what you are offering and how you can help them. That's where marketing comes in. Don't let yourself be the best kept secret. Shout out your value from the hilltops. Let us know you are there.

Just a Moment for Marketing: Go Slow to Go Fast

Linda Popky observes: It's only by starting slow that we really get to go fast in the future. Today's world offers us instant access to people and to technology. We know what we want and we want it now. But sometimes you need to go slow to build a foundation and to get things right. Start slowly, establish rapport, be sure we are in synch with our customers.

Just a Moment for Marketing: I Got Rhythm

Linda Advises: Be consistent. Once you establish a pattern that your customers recognize, you need to stick with it.

Just a Moment for Marketing: Failing Quickly

Linda advises: Learn to fail quickly to leave more time for success.
You want to introduce new products and services, target new markets, new geographies....The key is to know what constitutes success and how to recognize the signs of impending failure. If a new strategy doesn't work, stop, reevaluate and possibly pull the plug.

Just a Moment for Marketing: A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Linda discusses how success in business is like a marathon - you have to go the distance! In our marketing efforts we need to consider how to build presence, to develop enduring brand equity, and to ensure we get in front of our target audience on a regular basis. We need to prepare to go the distance and not be winded after the first turn.

Just a Moment for Marketing: Start At the Very Beginning

Linda Popky advises: Think through the whole process. Don't jump in and start executing. Do your homework and start at the very beginning to get where you really want to go.

Just a Moment for Marketing: The View from the Other Side

Linda advises: Try looking at things from a different perspective: from the customer's side, from your partner's side, from your employee's side. You may be surprised how the view really differs.

Just a Moment for Marketing: Those Pesky Airline Customers

Linda asks: Get rid of your customers?? What message are you giving your customers; you need them.

Just a Moment for Marketing: Climbing the Wrong Mountain

You need a good solid marketing strategy before you execute marketing programs.

 

Just a Moment for Marketing: The Miranda Warning

What you post online is public for the world to see.

Just a Moment for Marketing: Tell a Good Story

Take just a minute to watch my latest video about why it's so important to always tell a good story.

 

Just a Moment for Marketing: STRATEGIES vs TACTICS: The What vs The How

Take just a minute to watch my video about identifying the What before you work on the How.

 

The House Hunting Chronicles Part 1: Setting Your Sites on Real Estate

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that the very rich are different from you and me. Today, we might say the same about the real estate market in Silicon Valley.

In spite of an extended recession, double digit unemployment numbers, an ongoing foreclosure crisis, and general panic about the economy, Silicon Valley is booming. Whether this is another bubble or not is to be determined, but the combination of recent and expected IPOs from companies like LinkedIn, Facebook and Zynga, as well as continued strong growth from companies like Google, have driven up real estate prices here and limited availability. The rental market, BTW, is not immune, with rental prices up over 20% year over year in the Valley.

In the midst of this froth, I've decided to jump into the fray by downsizing from my large, comfortable house in Woodside to something much smaller.

In true Silicon Valley style, not only does my house have its own webpage,  but it also has its own Facebook page. With more than 25 Likes, it will now have a directly named URL on Facebook (Hmm. What happens if my house gets more Likes than I do? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?)

Now that my house is staged and on the market, it's time for me to start looking for something new. Sounds simple but it's not.

The web has revolutionized house hunting. You've probably heard about Zillow, but there are a dozen or more websites doing similar things. There's a site that lists all the open houses happening on a given weekend, and another that takes the pictures you put up on the website and turns them into a minivideo compelte with narration. There are sites that will match your parameters in terms of desired features (number of bedrooms, bathrooms, pool, view, etc.) and desired locations and send you a daily update with all the properties that match, as they become available. There are sites that will calculate mortgage and taxes for any given property, provide history of prior ownership, and even tell you who your neighbors are. There are even sites that will aggregate all of the other real estate sites.

This is not to mention the photographs and virtual tours prepared for each house, and the realtor sites that list not just their firm's listings but all of the available properties within a given area.

The good news is you can save a lot of time and shoe leather by doing the prep work online and narrowing the focus down to the properties that look good.

The bad news is that, to paraphrase, on the Internet, noone will know your house is a dog. The only way to see if a house REALLY looks anything like those incredible pictures that look so enticing online is to go see the house in person. In my next post, I'll share with you some of the adventures I experienced on my first set of house hunting tours. Wonder if there's a real estate site for that?

 

HP Shoots the Messenger: Does reassigning Chief Communications Officer communicate the wrong message?

HP's recent announcement that it wants to exit the PC business has generated a lot of flack: The stock took a big dip and customers are publicly backing off from buying more PCs from what is currently the world's largest manufacturer of said computers.

A few days ago it was reported that HP's Chief Communications Officer, most likely the person who crafted the messages and managed this announcement, has been put on "special assignment." At about the same time, a new PR and ad campaign broke repositioning the PC business announcement to try and generate a more positive spin.

Bill Wohl, who worked closely with new CEO Leo Apotheker at SAP, was brought over by Apotheker into the newly created Chief Communications Officer role just a few months ago, so the timing of this new move is a bit curious.

I don't know Wohl at all and I'm not familiar with his work, but I have a hard time believing that even a Chief Comms Officer who is tightly tied to the CEO can be held solely responsible for this kind of mis-communication.

Whether or not the strategic decision to exit the PC business is a correct one, it had to have been made by a team of senior executives who should have been aware of the impact of this kind of announcement (at least we certainly hope so). A communications officer can craft messaging and try to put out a positive spin, but this is not the kind of announcement that should have been made without serious thought to the consequences, from both a sales as well as an investor viewpoint (at least we hope not!).

Moving communications back under the marketing function may make sense for the organization, but HP's Marketing organization has gone through significant change over the last several years. It seems like the venerable Silicon Valley bluechip company is faltering in ways that Marketing can't necessarily coverup. Beating up on marketing and communications is like scolding the deck hands on the Titanic for not arranging the deck chairs more attractively.

On a related point, at the same time it made its PC announcement, HP also said it was cancelling  their new tablet line, and announced a bargain basement price to move existing inventory. Given how much time and resource and expectation had been put into this line, this was fairly shocking. Rumor has it there have been major quality problems with HP tablets, resulting in major product returns, but I don't have direct experience with the product.

At $99, the tablets started flying off the shelves like hotcakes, so much so that HP announced this week that to meet demand they would make another run of the product they just summarily killed. Huh? So is the product line resuscitated, is it the technical equivalent of a zombie, or are we not sure how much capability  the "patient" will recover when this is all over.

Here's the kicker: Estimates are it costs HP over $300 to make each tablet, yet they're ordering *more* units to be sold at $99 each. That's a loss of $200+ on each unit, but I guess they'll make it up on volume?

The best marketing team in the world can't put a good spin on this kind of confusing strategic move. And here's the worst part: If you have a habit of shooting the messengers, then it doesn't take long for people with something important to say to put their heads down and duck for cover.

Influencing the Enterprise: Driving Strategic Impact Through Marketing

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Lynn Hunsaker, Clear Action

Marketing’s direct access to the market makes it a natural nerve center for the corporation, to characterize the growth opportunities and communicate to the other functional areas what it will take to realize those market gains. Yet few marketing teams are equipped to position themselves this way internally or to align with stakeholders for this high-value enterprise-wide influence. In this Marketing Strategy Roundtable, Lynn Hunsaker will provide an overview of essential techniques that can propel your team to embrace a pivotal role across your firm. Learn about the collection of tools that can help your marketing organization leapfrog its current role toward strong strategic impact on the company:

• Applying systems thinking, stakeholder analysis, change management, and organizational learning in the marketing function
• Creating customer-centric context for financials, activities, strategies, and roles
• Identifying the profitability levers to improve customer value to the company as well as the company’s value to customers

BMA Members: $17/person*
BMA Partners: $22/person*
Non-Members: $32/person* 

(please register in advance--additional $5 fee will be charged for day-of-event-walkins.

Please allow enough time for morning traffic so you can arrive in time to enjoy the speaker.

Date: Tuesday, September 27
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scott’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, Palo Alto CA

Register now

Funny Thing: Using Humor Effectively in B2B Organizations

Join us for the latest episode of Marketing Thought Leadership. Kathy Klotz-Guest of Keeping it Human talks about how humor can help drive organizational success in B2B organizations.

Listen now.

Winning Even When You Lose: Using Win/Loss Research to Gain Critical Marketing Insights

Jen Berkley Jackson

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But how often do you know the real reason *why* you are or are not chosen by customers? Having input from both won customers and lost prospects on some key questions can provide insights about purchase considerations, perceptions of your company vs. your competitors and more, including:

What criteria are buyers using to evaluate us?

Who did we lose to and why?

What can we learn/do better in the future?

Organizations that conduct ongoing win/loss research have the critical information at their fingertips which can help make decisions about marketing messages, product features, and sales approaches among other critical marketing decisions.

Join us for the next BMA Marketing Roundtable when Jen Berkley Jackson of The Insight Advantage will discuss: 

• Benefits of doing win/loss studies
• Tips for conducting successful win/loss studies
• Who should own win/loss studies within the organization

BMA Members: $17/person*
BMA Partners: $22/person*
Non-Members: $32/person* 

(please register in advance--additional $5 fee will be charged for day-of-event-walkins.

Please allow enough time for morning traffic so you can arrive in time to enjoy the speaker.

Date: Tuesday, June 28
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scott’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, Palo Alto CA

Register now

Viral is Not a Strategy: Successfully Transforming Tech Content for Today’s Audiences

 

Karla Lacey

How does a tech company capitalize on current trends in communication and social media AND maintain brand equity? How do you take traditional content aimed at a technical audience and make it work in today’s environment? How do you fully utilize content in a variety of ways to maximize its impact?
 
Join us for the next BMA Marketing Strategy Roundtable when Karla Lacey, Director of Integrated Marketing Communications at Cisco, will discuss how Cisco is successfully dealing with these challenges.

BMA Members: $17/person*
BMA Partners: $22/person*
Non-Members: $32/person* 

(please register in advance--additional $5 fee will be charged for day-of-event-walkins.

Date: Tuesday, May 24
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scott’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, Palo Alto CA

Register now

How Social Changes Everything: The New B2B Approach to Brand

Katy Keim - Lithium Technologies

What’s the difference between brand and reputation? How do social customers affect what people think and say about your brand? How do you build a following of passionate, involved and committed brand influencers – even as a B2B brand? In the social age, if you’re not actively nurturing your influencers, monitoring your brand, and backing up your brand promises with world-class follow-through, your competition will win every time. And it doesn’t matter whether your focus is B2B, B2C or both.

Join us ofr the next BMA Marketing Strategy Roudntable when Katy Keim, Chief Marketing Officer of social customer solution provider Lithium Technologies, will explore why now more than ever B2B companies need to connect with their “consumers” in a powerful and meaningful way.

BMA Members: $17/person*
BMA Partners: $22/person*
Non-Members: $32/person* 

(please register in advance--additional fee will be charged for day-of-event-walkins.

Date: Tuesday, April 26
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scott’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, Palo Alto CA

Register now

 

 

Leveraging Online Strategies to Break Into New Markets

Sherry Prescott-Willis

Expanding into a new market can be time-consuming and challenging but with an abundance of online free tools, businesses now have an even greater opportunity to reach new markets quicker and with greater ease.  What’s the best approach for moving into a new market with little to no expertise in a desired target area? How do you successfully attract new customer segments online?
 
Join us for the next BMA Marketing Strategy Roundtable when Sherry Prescott-Willis, marketing consultant and author of Market This!, will offer tips and strategies to help strengthen the focus on the marketing messages necessary to attract new market segments. Sherry will also discuss practical tools and techniques to keep your online presence in front of new market segments.

Attendees will learn:

• Key drivers for attracting a new market segment  online regardless of your expertise
• How to develop a solid online marketing message for new market customers
• Online tools and techniques to help you get you noticed by new market audiences today
• Case Study success stories of companies that have used online tools to break into market segments

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BMA Members: $15/person*
BMA Partners: $20/person*
Non-Members: $30/person* 

(please register in advance--additional fee will be charged for day-of-event-walkins.

Date: Tuesday, Februray 22
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scott’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, Palo Alto CA

Register now

What’s The Story With Video? Integrating Video Into Successful Marketing Strategies

 

Great video is top of every organization’s social media ‘wish’ list these days. Yet, high-touch video that really works is about more than just going viral – it all starts with great storytelling and it’s integrated into an organization’s marketing strategy. So, what are the best practices around using video? What organizations are succeeding and why?
  

Kathy Klotz-Guest

Join us for the next Norcal Business Marketing Association (BMA) marketing strategy roundtable when Kathy Klotz-Guest, Founder of Powerfully Funny, will discuss best practices from a number of top firms (both B2B and B2C), and examine how video is changing the corporate narrative. We’ll look at who is doing video well and what they’ve learned along the way, including how video connects with people in ways other media cannot.

Date: Monday, January 24th (NOTE THIS IS ON A MONDAY, FOR THIS MONTH ONLY!)
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scott’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, Palo Alto CA

Please register in advance. An additional fee will be charged for day-of-event walk-ins.

Register now.

The Real Cost of Freemium Offerings and Other Truths About Subscription-Based Business Models

Join us for the latest episode in our podcast series MarketingThoughtLeadership to hear Robbie Kellman  Baxter discuss what makes a subscription-based business model successful, as well as why free offerings aren't right for everyone.

Listen now.

Hearing the Global Voice of the Customer

Join us for the latest episode of Marketing Thought Leadership, where global marketing and business development expert Lucie Newcomb discusses why it's so important to capture the global voice of the customer, as well as changes in the global business environment that marketers should be watching.

Listen now.

Mobile: The Next Big Move in Marketing

Mario Tapia

Mobile is opening up new channels as a new medium for marketing and also adding an intimate dimension.  Mobile devices are not only with the audience everywhere they go, they also allow campaigns to be quantifiable, traceable, personal, viral and location-targeted.

Join us for the next NorCal BMA Marketing Strategy Roundtable on October 26th when Mario Tapia, Director of Mobile Products at Getjar, reviews the options mobile marketing offers to marketers and tells us about upcoming trends that will forever change how marketers reach consumers.

Date: Tuesday, October 26th
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scott’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, Palo Alto CA

Please register in advance. An additional fee will be charged for day-of-event walk-ins.

Register now.

The Importance of Marketing for Entrepreneurs

Join us for the latest episode of Marketing Thought Leadership, where entrepreneurial business expert Janis Machala of Paladin Partners tells Linda Popky about how critical marketing is to today’s entrepreneurs, as they build their businesses and work to attract investors.

Listen now.

Leveraging Social Media in Global Launches

Join us for the latest video episode of MarketingThoughtLeadership where Karina Jensen, international management consultant and change facilitator, tell us about her recent research into the adoption of social media in product launch efforts around the world.

Watch now.

Lessons from the Aligned: CEO Impact on Sales & Marketing Strategy

Christine Crandell

 

In the never-ending quest to find companies that know how to keep sales and marketing aligned, there are a handful of companies that have achieved this goal. Their CEOs aren’t gracing the cover of business publications, keynoting conferences, or running for government office.  They are remarkable in their achievements and their perspectives are a breath of fresh air. What makes them different from other CEOs? How does their approach to alignment create a cohesive, well-functioning organization?

Join us for the next NorCAl BMA Marketing Strategy Roundtable, Sept 28 at 8:30 am when Christine Crandell, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Accept Corporation, shares what she’s learned on sales/marketing strategic alignment from her research with CEOs and board-level executives.

Date: Tuesday, September 28th
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Location: Scott’s Seafood Restaurant and Grill, Palo Alto CA

Please register in advance. An additional fee will be charged for day-of-event walk-ins.

Register now.

Where B2B Marketing is Going in Silicon Valley

Join us for the latest episode of MarketingThoughtLeadership.com where Josef Chervenka, president of the Northern California Chapter of the Business Marketing Association, discussed the new direction for the organization and explains how BMA provides value to business-to-business focused marketers.

Listen now.

Cashing in on an Early Trend: Wish I'd Thought of That

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that John Shepherd-Barron died in Scotland last week at the age of 84.

Chances are you've never heard of Shepherd-Barron, but you *have* likely interacted on many occasions with his most popular invention: The ATM, first installed at a branch of Barclay's Bank in North London in 1967.

Shepherd-Barron had a problem--there was nowhere to get cash after banks were closed. He thought of the candy vending machines and said, why not create a machine to vend money?

An interesting thing happened when the first ATMs showed up in the Boston area at a bank called BayBank in the late 70's. People lined up to use the new machine, so much so that BayBank put in a second machine, but the line didn't get shorter--instead more people made their way to the bank to try out the ATM. Within a short period of time, BayBank converted half of their Harvard Square retail location to an ATM lobby with a whole bank of ATMs, and still more people came to use them.

The rest, as they say, is history. Individual banks began to create their own networks of machines, then bank networks began to work together to coordinate withdrawals, until in short order we had a worldwide financial network for accessing our accounts and withdrawing money. Today my ATM card will dispense Euros or Yen in overseas locations, as easily as dollars in the US. Banking as we knew it has never been the same since.

What's interesting is what *didn't* happen when Shepherd-Barron first approached this problem: No one asked him to come up with a money vending machine, or a cash dispenser. The banks weren't looking for a way to lower their operating costs by automating the distribution of cash. Customers weren't looking for a way to access their bank accounts and balances in virtually every city in the world.

All of these things did happen eventually. Shepherd-Barron only focused on two things: An unmet need to get money after hours, and the idea that he could adapt an existing technology to solve his problem.

We hear so much about innovation these days, with strategies for being innovative, thinking outside the box, sustaining innovative teams, etc. Yet we sometimes forget what's most critical for real, useful innovation: someone who has the ability to look at a candy machine and see dollar bills in place of Cadbury bars.

How sweet it is.

New Rules for Winning Today’s Time-Starved, Always-Connected 24-Hour Customer

Adrian Ott

Join us for the next NorCal BMA Marketing Strategy Roundtable when Adrian Ott, author of the soon-to-be-released book, The 24-Hour Customer (HarperCollins, August 2010) will share research about how to use the new rules of time and attention to gain market leadership in today’s connected economy.

You’ll learn:
• How combining limited time, attention and sticky technologies creates competitive advantage
• How much time executives spend in the buying process
• Case Studies: How successful companies such as Symantec and J&J have changed the game
  &nbspthrough time and attention-centric methods
• Key triggers that engage buyers today

Date/Time:
Tuesday, June 29th
8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

Location:
Scott's Seafood Restaurant and Grill
855 El Camino Real
Town and Country Shopping Center
(Embarcadero and El Camino)

Palo Alto, CA 94301

Register.