Earn kudos in the workplace (and maybe a promotion)

No-one gets promoted for turning up each day, working nine to five and doing what they are told. True, you might be seen as the model employee, and certainly a reliable staff member, but it’s unlikely to deliver you extra dollars in your pay packet.

As marketers we’re ideas people, we use our talents every day to deliver projects and add value to our customers and stakeholders. So, why is it many of us don’t apply this talent to our careers?

If you're wondering how to make an impression on your boss, here are a few tips on getting noticed and rewarded. And, if you play your cards right, a promotion to the next step of your career.

Phase: 1 Planning

Have a good look around your company. Is there anything that could be done better from a marketing perspective? These are the types of things to think about:

·         A niche market that’s being ignored

·         A cross selling opportunity

·         Improvements to scripting or sales collateral

·         A way to improve customer loyalty

·         A more efficient way of doing things

Whatever it is, work out a plan of how you would tackle the opportunity. Try to make sure it’s not too large a project, it has to be something you’re capable of handling on top of your normal workload.

Work out budgets, time frames and an expected return on investment. Then draft a project plan.

Phase 2: Selling it to your Boss

Once you’ve thought through your proposal, arrange a time with your manager to present your ideas.

You will need to be positive and enthusiastic, and prepared to take ownership of the project. Remember it’s a sales pitch, you need to demonstrate all the benefits to be gained from your idea.

Be prepared for any objections, such as how you will find the time, or how you might get the extra funds.

Phase 3: Delivery

Great! Your boss loved it and asked you to implement your plan.

Make sure you stay on top of your normal day job while rolling out your project (unless, of course, your boss thought your idea was so important that they’ve re-assigned your duties so you can concentrate on it). Be prepared to put in some extra hours.

Anything that’s worth achieving is not without effort.

Phase 4: Celebrating Success

Once your project is successfully delivered, make sure you record the results and write up a review so you’ve got some concrete facts to present to your manager in a meeting. This is the ideal time to ask for the pay rise you’ve been angling for or to highlight the career path you would like to follow.

There are no guarantees to pay rises or promotions, of course. But at the very least you will have earned yourself some brownie points for your next review, and you’ll have given yourself some great job satisfaction in the process.

Here’s to your successful career in marketing!

Looking for more tips on being a better marketer? Follow me on Twitter: @CraftWrite

Keeping your stakeholders on-side

“No man is an island”…. and no marketer works in a vacuum.

If you’re managing a marketing campaign you know how busy it is. You’ve got to make sure all the elements of the campaign come together. Is your messaging right? Have you got the media mix correct? And there’s a heap of deadlines to meet. But did you think beyond the marketing elements, to all the people within your organisation who will be impacted by your campaign? It’s important to work closely with your internal stakeholders to get them on-side. It will improve the success of your campaign and provide a positive and seamless experience for your customers.

My advice is to understand the workings of the different departments within you organisation. Get to know key people and take an interest in their jobs so you know and understand the impact of a sudden increase of sales or enquiries.  Campaign management can be a lesson in diplomacy, with many people to please.

Here are a few departments and internal functions you need to consider when rolling out a campaign, particularly a high profile one:

Call Centres: consider the time of day for your campaign. If your call centre isn’t open on a Sunday, don’t run a TV commercial on Sunday unless you can negotiate with your call centre to put on staff that day. Provide scripts for handling calls and Q&A for any tricky questions.

Complaints Handling: if this is a separate function to your call centre, make sure the people handling your customer complaints are aware of your campaign. No-one likes to think anything going wrong – but it’s best to be prepared, just in case

Mail Room: if you’re running a direct mail campaign, think about return mail. Ask your mail room what they can handle. If your volumes are going to be large – arrange for your mail house to handle return-to-sender mail.

Order Processing : Check that your order processing team can handle an influx of new orders, give them plenty of time to arrange extra staff if necessary. If you’re using a new form or there’s something out-of-the-ordinary for your campaign, be sure to make sure it will work with existing processes.

Warehouse/Dispatch: Check you have adequate stock and/or people to pick, pack and ship orders.

In-Store: if you have retail stores, make sure your floor staff are aware of your campaign. You can be sure customers will come in to stores and ask questions. If there are any last minute changes to the campaign, you’ll need to keep store staff informed.

Web Enquiries: whether you’re running an on-line campaign or not, you need to be prepared for the fact that customers will visit your website. Besides ensuring the details of your campaign appear online, you need to make sure that whoever handles your website enquiries is aware of your campaign and is equipped to handle an increase in activity.

Reception: even if you’re not using your main reception phone number for your campaign, inform your reception staff that they may receive calls and where they should be directed.

Sales teams: your sales staff will be impacted the most by your marketing campaign. It’s important to work closely with the sales people to ensure they are fully informed of the campaign offer and any special order processing arrangements if necessary.

Senior Management: although their daily work is not usually directly impacted by a marketing campaign, you should give your senior management team a briefing about any high profile campaigns. This will ensure they are across it for general conversation both in business and socially.

Have I missed anything?

Have you ever forgotten to include an important person or group of people in your campaign planning? What was the impact?

Launching a New Product or Service.

Your R&D department have developed a new fandangle product (or service). It cost thousands of dollars in development time. Now the CEO wants some return on investment. It’s over to you to create some noise and get people interested in buying it. What’s the best way to go about it?

Here are a few tips on how to make a big splash with your product launch.

Media

A product launch is a perfect time to garner media attention. A new product is after all, ‘news’. You can hold an event, or reveal it at an exhibition, both of which are fantastic opportunities for a touch/feel experience, particularly if you do not sell your product through retail outlets.

Celebrity Endorsements

If you’re holding a glitzy launch event, it’s an ideal opportunity to try and get a celebrity endorsement while the cameras are flashing and the media attention is fully turned on your new product.

Promotion

Traditional methods of marketing such as advertising, bill boards, web, DM work very well for new product releases and it’s advisable to use a combination of these methods for maximum impact. You may also want to consider a social media or viral campaign to generate some attention.

New Name

You’ll probably already have a name for your product by the time you’re launching it (see my earlier blogpost: Naming your new product – top ten tips). Alternatively you may consider launching a competition to name your new product to generate some consumer involvement. This would then generate a two stage launch plan where later on you will reveal the new name.

Stock Levels

Assess the availability and distribution outlets for your new product. Try to avoid a situation where people have to wait to receive their product. It’s a poor customer experience after all the hype. Of course, you could turn over-demand to your advantage, whereby owning the product becomes a status symbol. This won’t work with every product and is usually confined to luxury goods or technical gadgetry. You know your product – judge stock levels carefully prior to launch.

Internal Communications

Make sure everyone in your organisation is pumped about your new product or service. Sales people will need to be well genned up on it as well as call centre staff and service/technical support people, in case of any issues with it.

What techniques have you tried when launching a new product or service? Was your launch a success? I’d love to hear your comments below.

Marketing Plans Made Easy - 10 Steps to a Results-Focused Plan

Your marketing director, or maybe your bank manager, has asked you to write a marketing plan. The colour drains from your face and you start to panic, right? Well it doesn’t have to be this way.

In a nutshell, marketing planning is simply taking stock and thinking logically about how you are going to achieve your objectives. Follow the 10 steps below and you will be well on your way to a marketing plan that will deliver results.

1.       Be clear on your objectives and ensure these are SMART (Strategic, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely). Your objectives may be given to you by the executive board. Or if you’re running a small business, your objectives are what you want the business to achieve. Marketing objectives are almost always financial in nature.

2.       Understand the market you are in. I mean REALLY understand it. What are the challenges, what are the threats, how do you stack up against the competition? It’s helpful to use SWOT or PEST analyses models to direct your thinking around the market situation.

3.       Understand your business offering and where it fits into the market. Are you fulfilling a niche? Do you do something no-one else is doing? Are you trying to be all things to all people? What’s your point of difference?

4.       Develop your strategy. Now at this point, let’s be clear on the difference between strategy and tactics. For example, you may decide your marketing strategy is to drive your business online because consumers are turning away from retail stores. Your tactics, in this case, would be things like; start a blog, do a series of email campaigns, or update your website. Your strategy is your approach based on your understanding of the market and your product/service offering. Note you can have a number of strategies, depending on the objectives you need to meet.

5.       Develop a tactical plan. This should be a list of activities you are going to undertake in order to deliver the results you need to meet your objectives. All these activities should meet your strategic focus. If they don’t, then they have no place in your plan.

6.       Now the financials. Work out the costs for your tactical activity and cull whatever does not fit your budget.

7.       Work out a timeline for your tactical activity. It may be useful in terms of annual budget projections to combine your timeline with your budget so you know where the peaks of expenditure will be. Accountants will love you for this.

8.       Measurement. Ensure you can measure the effectiveness of everything put into your tactical plan. This will assist your planning of future activities and will enable you to track how your plan is progressing against objectives.

9.       NEVER EVER put your marketing plan in a drawer and forget about it. Carry it around with you and refer to it often. It will keep you focused and results driven.

10.   Revise your plan if it’s not working or if the market changes. This will help your business remain nimble, flexible and adaptable to your customers’ needs.

So, next time you’re asked to write a marketing plan you can grin and say, “Sure thing, no worries!”

Want to share this knowledge with others?  Tweet, re-Blog or use Facebook using the links below.

Developing your Web Strategy

There’s no getting away from it, the internet is an integral part of our lives. It’s a seemingly inexhaustible source of information on every subject you can think of. It’s entertainment. It’s expands our social world. It educates. So why is it that so many businesses don’t apply the same strategic thought to their websites that they would apply to other marketing initiatives?

When the web first became mainstream, back in the late 1990s, it was used much like an online brochure. In fact many companies simply uploaded their brochures in PDF format, added a “contact us” email link then left the whole thing well alone. Of course the internet has moved on somewhat since those days. But how do you get the most from your online presence?

Here are seven questions that need to be answered when formulating your website strategy.

1.       Why do you need a website?

It may seem an obvious question. Everybody’s got to be on the web – right? It’s true the majority of businesses will benefit from a web presence. Just be sure of what you need your website to be or do. Some examples could be:

·         Low cost sales channel

·         Interaction with existing customers

·         Generate new sales leads

·         To inform before making a purchase in-store.

2.       Can you update your website easily?

Websites need to be regularly updated, particularly if there is anything seasonal or time specific in your content. Out of date materials will give the impression that your business doesn’t care. Ensure you have someone who can update your site regularly and easily.

3.       Does your website reflect your brand?

Your website is the face of your business as much as a brochure or a sales representative. It needs to reflect your brand on every page. This means representing your brand in imagery, design and copy.

4.       Are you using your website to its full advantage?

A website is an evolving process, and your strategy for its use needs to be reviewed regularly. What may start off as a sales hub may evolve into a customer service centre. Keep track of trends and find out what your customers want.

5.       Is your website easy to navigate?

A rule of thumb is that it should take no more than 2 or 3 clicks to reach any section of your website. Today’s web-savvy consumer will easily tire of pointless clicking and will be quick to move to a competitor site if yours is all too hard. Don’t try and do anything clever with your menu structure. It’s paramount that you keep the navigation simple and intuitive.

6.       Are you analysing your web stats?

Google analytics and many similar packages will work behind the scenes to give you reports on visitors, audience data, length of time on your site, navigation patterns and a whole host of important information. Make sure you use this data to understand your users and to refine and improve your site.

7.       How will people find you online?

With billions of websites accessible at the touch of a button, you need to be easy to find. The best way to do this is by Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), but it can be a tricky process to work your way to the top of the search engines. Another way to be found is through online advertising, either through Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which is Google Adwords or the like. In addition to this you will need to work out a promotional strategy to drive people to your website. More on this in another blog.

If you can answer these questions then you are well on your way to a successful website strategy.

If your web copy needs an overhaul, then share your strategy with CraftWrite and re-vitalise your online communications. Contact Jill Bynon today for a no-obligation quotation: jill@craftwrite.com.au

Managing Integrated Campaigns

We all consume different types of media at different times of the day, and for different reasons. This is why single channel advertising campaigns are so rare. With the ever growing number of communication channels it’s important to understand your target market and how to connect with them. Marketers need to be comfortable in producing communications across several mediums. Here are a few tips for managing an integrated marketing campaign:

Be clear on your objectives. It’s easy to get lost on what you are trying to achieve when caught up in the million things you have to do to go live with a campaign. So remind yourself regularly of what it is you are aiming for.

Get organised. By this I mean prepare a series of folders, both electronic and paper so you can keep track of the various rounds of artwork, briefing notes, and calculations for each aspect of your campaign.

Select your media carefully. Don’t assume that TV will be the most effective medium. If your budget won’t allow a sufficient media spend for TV spots, then select a range of channels that will give you your best “bang for buck”.  Depending on your audience, this could be something like internet ads, posters and radio or a clever social media campaign

Ensure the clarity of messaging across all mediums. The big idea may work well in TV, but be less convincing on the web or in direct mail. A good agency will think this through before presenting ideas, but it’s always worth checking with a little home market research on family and friends not connected to the brand.

You don’t have to use the same images for each media channel. So long as there is a strong common message or element that links each communication piece, then it will knit together as a campaign.

Make sure you can measure the effectiveness of each media channel.  Consider different phone numbers for each call to action or a system of codes – whatever works for your business. Be aware, though that TV can drive your web traffic or your yellow pages link. Not everyone will choose to respond in the same way.

Brief all customer-facing staff. With many campaign elements, it’s essential that everyone who deals with customers either on the phone or in person are aware of the campaign and what it is about.

Measure the results of your campaign from all angles. Understand what worked and what didn’t work. Sometimes a campaign can have a surprising effect that you could never have predicted.

Jill Bynon is an award winning marketing campaign manager, turned copywriter. Contact CraftWrite for your copywriting needs across all mediums: jill@craftwrite.com.au