Dissing

December 11, 2012 Leave a Comment

Seems like many B2B brands are challenged with overcoming issues at their distribution level. Those whose business models have relied heavily/solely on distributor sales have two problems.

One, they have no idea who their actual customers are in many cases, and two, if their brand is more expensive and lesser-known (which often means not a consumer brand), distributors are selling the competition.

Short of blaming the distributor or shifting business models into a direct sales approach, these brands are smart to address these challenges in 2013.

Some thoughts on the distributor part of the conundrum:

  1. Get to know the distributors and repackage your brand’s attributes into language that is meaningful to them. This usually mean $$$, as distributors are salespeople with whom the buck is a universal code.
  2. Bring distributors onboard with education and team-building around your new outreach initiative, whether it’s funneling them hot leads, enticing them into cross-sell or up-sell programs or influencing them to use your portal for lead tracking.
  3. Don’t expect them to turn into record-keepers intent on helping you, the manufacturer.
  4. Don’t expect them to share data, unless they are incented to do so.
  5. Don’t ask for their current customer records.
  6. Show them how you can help them make more $$$.
  7. Partnership takes time and is a real commitment.
  8. Develop an ongoing communications and relationship strategy to develop and nurture those relationships.
  9. Structure your internal sales to represent your brand to those distributors. Have your team get to know their client distributors.

10. Tier your distributors. Analyze who’s been the most profitable, cooperative, brand-friendly. And look at where there’s opportunity for better engagement.

More on the not-knowing-your-customers portion of the challenge later.

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

 

 

 

 

 

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Icon nation

August 28, 2012 Leave a Comment

#Yourpurchases. Don’t know about you, but we’re seeing incredible influence over consumer and business buying from Facebook and Twitter. Those little icons pack a big-bucks punch when it comes to brand influence and driving preference.

A recent study from the University of Miami and consumer research firms Empirica [link: empirica.com] and StyleCaster [link: stylecaster.com] seems to confirm all this. Shopping sites such as Amazon.com feature the icons as you check out and urge you to “Share” whatever you’re shopping for with your friends.

The study team asked 187 men and women between the ages of 18 and 40 to look at online products and to rate their likelihood of making a purchase. The product pages were designed specifically for the study; some included small social media icons while others did not.

The researchers found that if the product was something people would be proud to show off—like a new watch or expensive cologne—the presence of social media icons increased the likelihood of purchase by 25 percent. If the product was something unflattering—say, acne cream—the likelihood of purchase dropped roughly 25 percent when social media icons were present, the study says.

Not a huge surprise. We wouldn’t want to share stuff like that, either. Nor are we jazzed enough about mundane service providers to “like” them on Facebook. (That’s what Angie’s List [link: angieslist.com] is for.)

Moral of the story: it’s not enough just to show the icons on your website. In the age of social influence, the smart marketer invites more engagement and a firmer stake in the ground with consumers by the command to “share” certain purchase choices. It’s the old “friend get a friend” tactic on steroids.

Are there no more secrets? Is this a brag, as in “I just bought a Rolex online, yay me!” Is this the ultimate, “I shop, therefore I am?”

Potentially. But it’s here, and it’s powerful. Like lemmings jumping off a cliff, a certain segment of consumers seems to be motivated to buy simply by the fact that a friend has. It’s like tweens at the mall, catching buying fever from each other like a case of measles.

 

#Areyousharing?

 

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

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Take. Risks. Or. Die.

August 14, 2012 Leave a Comment

Like with politics, the pressure to play it safe in marketing is a huge temptation. In DM, we get to eat based on our results. And our results are usually grounded in data from past performance.

How many times have we developed creative concepts labeled something like “Tried and true” or “Sure to win,” along with “More of a risk” and “Potentially more breakthrough” but then watched clients go with “Tried and true”? You can’t really blame them for wanting to manage risk, especially when it’s their budget dollars on the line.

In uncertain economic times—and in a political year to boot—being “safe” has its undeniable appeal.  The appearance of control, the ability to predict

revenues, the (mythological) certainty of retaining one’s job…all good stuff.

Truth is, it’s death in slow-mo. In today’s streamlined retail and services space, the third-and-fourth-tier folks are in a scary position. Unless you’re first to be second, you face extinction.

When you come down to it, all the big marketing success stories have had one thing in common.  Each has disrupted their category. Doing it differently. Writing their own rules. Setting a standard. Instead of small incremental gains (“We beat the control by 0.8%!!!!”) these brands have created a boffo marketing strategy aligned with their brand strategy of distinction and Unique Selling Proposition. And they’ve set out with a risk-tolerant strategic and creative approach designed to get them noticed and remembered.

Whether it’s Progressive’s Flo-centric TV awareness and direct mail campaigns  (which seemed retro-goofy when they first started out), Apple’s category-defining simplicity or Capital One’s smorgasbord of Vikings, Visigoths, Huns, snarky David Spade and pain-in-the-butt Alec Baldwin, one brand point is clear: we stand alone because we look, sound and act as if we do.

The risk-averse should take note: post-election, when Wall Street settles down and management gets back to business, the big winners will be the Turks who can deliver not just small improvements, but monumental gains over time. And the big wins don’t happen for the shy.

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

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