The Gilman Company Blog

The Communications Audit: How to Get Started

This is not the post about the importance of branding. You're beyond that. This one is the post about getting started with one of the most important elements of branding: your front-line communications.

"Audit" in this context is just another way of saying that you're going to take a close look at an element of your operations with an eye toward improvement. One of the first material steps you can take to effectively enhance how your customers perceive your company is conducting a communications audit.

Get everything together. Everything. Brochures, websites, email templates, text content, magazines, the products, press releases, business cards, signage, ads, the music that plays when your customers are on hold, anything that the world perceives your product or service through. If it's not already, get it all on paper.

Once you have everything together, scan through all of it quickly. Is there cohesion or chaos? Does the look, feel and tone of your communications represent the unified vision, goals and fundamental objectives of your organization or are you sending mixed signals to your customers?

Not concerned about cohesion in communications? Without it, your customers may never experience, understand or recognize the core values of your organization and brand, and brand recognition is why your customers will be loyal, why your customers will pay a premium for your product or service. Whether you're a local printer or a national brand, you can leverage the value of a communications audit followed by an organized effort to improve.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Behavioral Marketing

No sophisticated marketing strategy goes without an effort to leverage behavioral marketing and no sophisticated behavioral market campaign, these days, goes without a strong commitment to technology.

Put simply, behavioral marketing is intelligent marketing. It's informed marketing. Presently, the king of behavioral marketing or "behavioral targeting" is Google. There is no commercial organization that has invested more in developing an effective behavioral marketing machine. Whether you're a search engine selling ads, a non-profit or a start up, at the core of any behavioral marketing campaign is the collection of data.

Create an incentive to collect data
In Google's case, an organizational gateway was created. If you want to leverage this organizational tool, you have to provide data in the form of a search query. Type "cupcakes" and get all types of paid ads with your search results, Betty Crocker to handmade and delivered gourmet cupcakes.

Collect even more data with advanced incentives
Learn more about the behavior with additional services that require customers to provide more data. If the services are valuable, your customers will tell you more about their behaviors and your marketing can be especially on point and more effective.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Shocker of the Month: Soap Brands Expand Advertising on Swine Flu News

Earlier this month, brands like Dial, Lysol and Purell ramped up aggressive advertising print and TV ad campaigns in light of the swine flu buzz. A pretty logical marketing response to an epidemic that has every MD in the world saying that the best preventive measure is covering mouths and washing hands.

Every now and then the media hands your company a slam dunk. When gas prices went through the roof, bicycle sales and small car sales followed suit. When President Obama announced his intent to ban certain types of firearms, sales of those firearms exploded. The list goes on and on.

What types of news might your business prosper from and are you ready to respond? Chances are one or more of your competitors are.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Pay What You Can: The New Kid on the Revenue Diversification Block

No, it's not a traditional pricing model, but if your product or service can stand some revenue diversification, "pay what you can" is a great way to shake up your market presence.

In some cases, it's a great way to reduce production costs, which is exactly what the rock band Radiohead did with an album release. Go ahead and download. Then pay whatever it is that your willing to pay for our music. "It's up to you," the band wrote. 1.2 million downloads and the band grabbed some serious attention.

Another one is events. Trade related events are taking a major hit now. However, if you don't get people to your event, you're toast. Some organizations are applying a "pay what you can" model, then turning it around on vendors, sponsors, advertisers and visitors for some creative revenue diversification. If your model is particularly compelling, and "pay what you can" is compelling, others will want to leverage (and pay for) the opportunity to be involved.

Bonus tip: make sure you're marketing related to any "pay what you can" promotion is heavy hitting. "Pay what you can" is an eye opener, but only if you do something to get in front of those eyes.

Design an effective "pay what you can" promotion...

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Grocery Store Membership Cards

Dear Chain Grocery Store CMOs,

Yes, membership cards seemed like a good idea at the time. But let's face it. There is no value in grocery store membership card programs for customers and your not realizing the type of value that seemed to exist from a conceptual perspective. Here are a few reasons why you should drop your membership card program first and take credit as the industry leader who did so:

1. Obviously, all of the retail chain grocery store competitors in your category have the same program.

2. A lot of the data you collect is bogus.

3. The rewards you offer aren't compelling and unique enough to retain a customer that you wouldn't retain without a card program.

4. Now you have a duty to inform people when they may have purchased bad food. "Dear Valued Customer, we sold you some bad food."

5. Your card program is a hassle for potential new customers.

6. You give so-called preferred treatment to some customers and the others are chopped liver.

7. Wal-Mart has been expanding grocery sales since "Go" and they don't have a card. Although customers will still come in for your extensive mustard selection...unless it's cheaper at a card-less discount grocer.

8. You can reduce your marketing budget by eliminating membership cards and have something new to talk about or pass the savings along to customers.

9. Unless you're a discount chain, the real value in your local stores is location, personal service and selection, not membership. Spend more money marketing that stuff.

10. Relating to the people who come into your stores as "customers" is more important to them than relating to them as "members."

Get a Gilman consultation.

Marketing Word of the Week: Recessionista!

Many fashion savvy femmes formerly known as "Fashionistas" have now graduated to an all new recession worthy title: Recessionista.

Over at the Shop Barbara Blog, Barbara notes that looking great is not an option, but as personal economis face a crunch, more and more women are resorting to strategic shopping efforts to get more for less in the fashion arena. Here, retailers like Shop Barbara are the new Nordstroms, a place where recessionistas unite to get get better value in their mission to look absolutely fabulous.

Large and well-known retailers in the fashion world have dominated the market. A big part of that has been the shopping experience offered by posh retailers. As recessionistas get frugal, more of the market share in this arena is going to online retailers like Shop Barbara.

A great example of how at least one company is embracing a shift in a big market that is strong enough to create an all new brand of shopper.

Get a Gilman consultation.

The Gilman Company Blog on Twitter

Sample Gilman Company Blog posts on Twitter. Yes, I know. It's about time!

Visit www.twitter.com/gilmancompany to follow.

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You are Not Your Customer

If you want to enhance the experience that your customers have when they do business with you, remember that "you" are not "they". What may appear to be the best solution to you may not be the best solution for your customer.

For example, if you like pastels and your in the business of selling sporting goods, the packaging for your boxing gloves product probably shouldn't be designed based on a pastel color scheme. You should be looking for a bold and strong color scheme.

If you like to get creative but your customers are very no nonsense, you should market to and communicate with them with that in mind.

Bonus tip: know your customers.

Get a Gilman consultation.

Existing Customers vs. New Customers: Marketing and Sales(Part II)

If your only marketing goal is to source new customers or members, you’re losing out on sustainable growth. That means you’re not optimizing the lifetime value of each customer. Unless you’re running a lonely gas station in the middle of nowhere that caters to the occasional passer by, existing customers should be a priority.

Because the attention span of consumers can be short and because consumers love trends, marketing efforts to retain existing customers or members should focus on the reason why your existing customer became a customer in the first place: “value.” If you keep a close eye on your competitors, this marketing focus might need to change to “added value.”

Also, it’s almost always less expensive to keep an existing customer than it is to track down a new one. This is precisely why the sophisticated players in this game are often willing to pass a part of that savings on to existing customers in the form of loyalty based incentives.

Get a Gilman consultation.

If You Can't Think of Anything Good to Say...

If you can't think of anything good to say, you probably don't have anything good to say.

I have worked with business owners and professionals who wring their hands all day trying to decide how to characterize their product or service to customer prospects who aren't taking the bait. These are the customer prospects who skip the bait time and time again and who will probably never take the bait.

The real problem may be that your bait sucks. And, with one pointing finger raised, the longer you pummel your customer prospects with bait that sucks, the greater your chances are of never getting that customer, because...drum roll please...now you're known as the company with bait that sucks.

Get a Gilman consultation.