Five Key Things We Can Learn About Marketing And Social Media From Our New Brownlow Medialist

Winning Ways

The reality is that regardless of what arena we play in, there is a strong direct association between key success factors that are universally shared regardless of market, size or business age. The other night the games most exciting young talent Nat Fyfe won his first Brownlow Medal and again taught us all some key points that we should apply to our business marketing.

Stand Out From The Crowd

Differentiation is one of the most important core elements of marketing and despite this so few businesses actually do effectively differentiate themselves from the rest. In Nat's case: His unmistakable hair style and hair band uniquely mark him as a unique product offering like no other.

Be The Best At What You Do

Brand recognition aside, you need to do what ever you do better than the next guy and be able to consistently demonstrate your skill, knowledge and abilities to the marketplace. In Nat's case: He is an incomparable player with the mobility of a midfielder but with the marking skills and strength of a key position player.

Tell Your Story

One of the real opportunities in modern social media is the ability to effectively tell your story to explain who you are, how you come to be there and essentially through this process, try to more fully humanise the brand. In Nat's case: His speech after winning the medal was memorable in so many ways and gave us a real insight into this individual, his family and other key aspects of his life.

Being Real

Rarely if ever has the market place been so savvy as they are today and in so being able to spot disingenuous content a mile away with the reaction of not using that brand and often telling others about their thoughts. In Nat's case: There was an obvious authenticity to everything we heard from him through the night. Everything from the status of his injuries, fathers and brothers work and his feelings on winning a premiership.

Keep Working On Your Weaknesses

I have little doubt that the most underutilised tool in business is the SWOT analysis that effectively highlights both external market forces and internal strengths and weaknesses and through this presents each business with the opportunity to leverage their strengths and importantly, work to improve their relative areas of development. In Nat's case: Amazingly Fyfe did not go one or two or even three in the 2009 national draft but instead pick twenty.  Incredibly this means that every team passed on him before Freemantle eventually took him as an early second round pick. The embarrassed recruiting managers looking back say that at the time Nat was very slightly built and it was through also that he lacked the stamina to be become a regular midfielder.  Well they were wrong. Over his time in the league, he has developed these and every other area of his game to become the best player in A.F.L football.

So what about you and your business or brand. How can these five key factors be used to propel you to a higher level of performance and success. And if you'd like to learn more about marketing and social media visit our extensive range of nationally accredited courses at:
http://www.roadscholarstraining.com/services/accredited-courses.html

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.

Instagram New Ad Formats Soon To Be Available To All

 New Advertising Formats 

In recent months it has been well publicised that Instagram were widening the scope of which businesses could use their new ads. They have now formally announced that by the end of September all businesses will be able to access the new and improved advertising campaign services.

Influencer Networks

Ranking Potential

The question of potential is often raised by businesses looking for better ways to categorise and ultimately rank and prioritise both current customers and also prospects that fall within your target audience that may hopefully one day become valued customers and clients.

Actual Usage

Typically what a lot of businesses tend to focus on is that actual usage of a product category.  For example you sell photocopying paper and one of your current clients buys around a thousand reams a year and a key prospect who uses another well-known, rival brand of photocopying paper also buys around a thousand reams. In both cases these two businesses are both high potential and relating back to a Boston Consulting Group type matrix would be a Star (i.e. high potential and high use for the current customer) and Problem Child (i.e. high potential and no use for the high potential prospect).

In both cases we have businesses that are high potential and so would be focused on with a view to either maintaining and growing the current client and convincing the prospect to switch to the alternative photocopying paper brand. Clearly the adoption of an actual usage criteria to evaluate potential is a simple and effective one that is universally applied however there is also a less apparent and often missed adjunct to this more obvious alternative.

 Influence

That more subtle aspect of market potential lies in influencer power and influencer network and perhaps the best way to explain this alternative is to provide an example of how it works in a real world situation.

The Kind Professor

Some years ago whist working in the pharmaceutical market I met a gentleman who by this stage had all but stopped seeing patients and for the most part because of this had been all but forgotten by not only my company but also that of every other rival pharmaceutical company. However I had a self-imposed rule that I at least wanted to meet every doctor at least once to introduce myself and provide any support for the right reasons regardless of how great or small their personal prescribing was at the time.

Through this discussion I understood that he himself was taking the very medicine I was charged with promoting to the market. With this I not only provided him some free samples but was pleased to update him on some recent exciting data that provided great comfort to him not only as a prescriber of the brand but also as someone taking it personally. Frankly that gave me a great feeling and I left it at that thinking I had done something nice for a lovely man.

Sometime after this other doctors I met in my travels that before this had been at best non-committal and at worst totally dismissive, had called me wanting samples for their patients and additional information on how to use the medication. What had happened I asked myself?

Influencer Network

Put simply this one doctor who for years had taught so many of the current ‘high potential’ doctors was still in contact with many of them through the divisions of general practice and more informally through social contact and through this ongoing interaction had acted as an advocate for the brand and the data I had shared with him.

So in light of this anecdote I’d ask you to re-calibrate your thinking. Certainly level of use and selective brand use are important aspects to this equation, but they are not the only important considerations. Influence as described above is a much more powerful and enduring marker of long term sales growth. Please consider.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.

Comparative Advertising in Marketing

Currently On The Small Screen

This week I was asked by a student about  an advertisement she had seen recently on television which was directly comparing two forms of painkillers. Namely: Panadol (paracetamol) and Nurofen (Ibuprofen).  

These days we tend to see less and less of this type of head to head, comparative advertising for several reasons. Firstly if you're going to use comparative advertising you need to be fairly certain that your brand is either better than a key rival brand in a key area that holds strong significance to the target market audience or at vet least that you are as good as that rival brand and with this established parity, you can then claim some additional edge in another important aspect of the brand's function and usage.

If you can't do this you need to be careful because this type of promotion is certainly interesting and tends to throw a strong spotlight on both brands as people are always looking to gain some additional insight into which brand is better, by how much and why.

Classic Battle

The classic example of comparative advertising that made ripples globally and lead to formal legal action and a prolonged fight within the courts was that of the “Energizer” television commercial which described how the “Energizer” lasted longer than a “Duracell”.

This is a powerful form of advertising which can build strong, selective demand if a product is perceived as being superior to its opposition. Overall competitive advertising is used after a product class has been established and the general public has become reasonably familiar with it and consequently wants to purchase the product.

The Need For Differentiation

I have always advocated of course that every brand regardless of its origin, market or size, should always to continue to develop its own genuine point of difference that is meaningful, sustainable and relevant to the target markets unmet need.

If as the guiding mind of your business or brand you pursue this goal and develop a reasonably significant point of  difference, you will always be well rewarded by astute use of direct comparative advertising, but I stress that this will only work if your USP is a strong one that has already been established and is valued by the market.

So for now, think about every aspect of your brand and how it differs from the  opposition and consider how each key difference can be best utilised to drive your core promotional messages more effectively.  Let us know what you come up with.

And until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.