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Customer Manufacturing Update |  |
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Dear Mitchell, Here is your February Customer Manufacturing Update. For several years now, Marketing ROI, Marketing Accountability and Metrics have been topics of purported interest to Boards of Directors, CEOs and CMOs. But to quote a friend and colleague, the late George Nelson, is this all just NATO (No Action, Talk Only). This month were going to look at why you need to take appropriate action on these important topics. methods to help you do just that.
If you have friends or colleagues who would
appreciate receiving this Update, feel free to
forward
a copy to them using the "Forward e-mail" link at the
bottom of the page.
We have been preaching for 10+ years that
marketing/sales is a process that can be measured,
managed and improved. A few years ago we noticed
that others were beginning to take up the mantra,
especially on the Marketing-side. People started to
push on Marketing Performance
Management. If you are ready to move beyond talk, hope or hiding we have several resources available to help you improve your Marketing Performance and to Manage it for continuous improvement. This includes our breakthrough book, Value Acceleration: Secrets To Building An Unbeatable Competitive Advantage, as well as several white papers including: And, of course, highly effective process-focused consulting services to help you achieve higher Marketing Performance and an on-going ability to Manage it.
Like most marketing "experts," we comment on Super Bowl ads every year. This year is no exception. Things we noticed this year:
We believe that ads need a purpose and that the purpose needs to be achieved for the ad to be successful. We see a few possible purposes for Super Bowl ads:
With these criteria in mind, our opinion about the ads is as follows (to be clear, we do not choose to comment on ads for movies or TV shows because those ads' quality and effectiveness are largely tied to the product they are promoting):
Ads that we felt were "on message" and had above average entertainment value (we don't usually care about entertainment value except in the Super Bowl venue, or others, where it is expected) included:
Several pundits seemed to like the Doritos ads, especially the one where he throws the crystal ball through the vending machine. We found the Doritos ads to be less than useful or particularly entertaining. So, again this year, these are our opinions on the Super Bowl of advertising. BTW, good game regardless of which team you were rooting for.
Larry Moon, CEO of Sandstone Group in Milwaukee, WI, shared this timely story with us recently. There once was a man who lived by the side of the road and sold hot dogs. In fact, he sold very good hot dogs. He put up signs on the highway telling people how good his hot dogs tasted. He stood by the side of the road and called out, "Buy a hot dog, mister." And people bought his hot dogs. They bought so many hot dogs, the man increased his meat and bun orders. He bought a bigger stove, too, so that he could meet his customers' demands. And finally, he brought his son home from college to help out in the family business. But something happened. His son said, "Father, don't you watch television or read the papers? Don't you know there's a big recession going on? The European situation is terrible. The domestic crisis is even worse!" And the father thought, "Well, my son's a smart boy. He's been to college. He ought to know what he's talking about." So, the man took down the signs he had put by the road, cut down on his meat and bun orders, and no longer bothered to stand out by the side of the road to promote his hot dogs. And sales fell almost overnight. "You're right, son," said the father. "We certainly are in the middle of a recession."
Circuit City is being liquidated. Economy related? Probably, but not exclusively. A while back Circuit City restructured their compensation plan for their sales people, effectively reducing the pay of their top performing sales people. This caused many of their top sales people to leave. Sales dropped and now bankruptcy. Cause and effect? I think so. Sales dropped and now liquidation. Cause and effect? We think so. And while we do not agree that all sales people need to be paid on commission, we do believe that if you reduce the pay of your top performers (in any category), the are they ones mostly likely to be attractive to your competition ... in any economy. Think about it. Wouldn't you love to hire your competitor's best people? (Well at least some of your competitors.)
We appreciate any feedback you can provide to help us make sure these Updates give you value each month. Feel free to respond to this e-mail with any comments or suggestions for future topics or ways we can make these Customer Manufacturing Updates more valuable to you.
Thank you for your interest, and if we can provide
any
additional assistance in sales, marketing, strategy, or
innovation to help you increase your sales,
let us know.
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