There’s a fun new trend in online marketing these days and it gets to the inner competitive child in all of us.  The technical marketing term is ‘gamification’ but it essentially means taking something mundane and turning it into a game.

Remember the games you made up when you were a kid?  You avoided the cracks in the sidewalk.  You had to burst every bubble in the bubble wrap (ok so that’s not restricted to just kids). You learned to count to ten by playing hopscotch and on a long road trip, you played ‘punch buggy’ with your brother.  And don’t doubt for a second that the urge to play games goes away when we grow up. (more…)

How many times has your sales team come home deflated from a trade show saying it was an abject failure.  Although they can’t quantify it with anything more than anecdotal evidence, there are five main reasons trade shows can fail to deliver the goods.

1)  You’re at the wrong show

Make sure that the people who attend the shows are the decision-makers you’re trying to reach.  Tire kickers, Sunday drivers and ‘get out of school for a day’ visitors are not usually in the market for anything other than a distraction — and maybe the opportunity to collect a goodie bag of swag. (more…)

Market research and consumer insights are activities that are typically only affordable by mega brands. If you’re a coffee shop, a retailer, a sports club or a museum, the very idea of a focus group and customer segmentation surveys are a daydream – not affordable on a shoestring budget.

Most small and medium business owners typically just roll the dice and hope their gut reaction is correct when they’re deciding to expand their products or services or change their approach. The unfortunate flip-side is that these are precisely the types of businesses that could reap the greatest insight from market research.

The good news is that there’s a new player in town – social media. By getting in and getting involved, your business will be able to reach out directly to customers and ask the very questions you need answers to – before you make any game-changing decisions for your business.

1) Jump into the water.

Your first task is to take the plunge and join in the social media world. You’ll need to get your presence established on as many social networks as possible. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursqure are the largest four, but if you’re not sure where your customers hang out, you may want to dabble in others as well. You’ll need time to find and connect with your customers, fans and prospects on each network, so immediate results are unlikely. In other words, don’t wait until an urgent decision is staring you in the face before you decide to get started. Start now, so that your listening posts are well-established when you need to use them.

2) Join the conversation.

Social media is like a giant cocktail party and everyone’s invited. There’s no need to be a wallflower; once you’ve found a conversation or a group that is relevant to you, join in. The more you join in, the more followers and fans you’ll find since – just like a cocktail party – people gravitate to where the energy is.

3) Start conversations.

If there’s a question you’d like to ask your customers, it’s ok to ask directly. No need to couch the question in any other terms. Make sure you don’t make decisions on a straw poll of a few responses, but over time you’ll get an idea whether you’re on the right track with your new idea or initiative.

4) Join groups.

Although you can create a new group, you might get greater traction by joining a large and already established group. LinkedIn is a great place to get feedback and thoughtful comments from other group participants.

5) Analyze the action.

Over time – after creating, engaging and gathering feedback – you’ll begin to notice that some networks and platforms provide you with more reliable or more relevant feedback and you’ll be able to ping that group directly when the question arises.

So while the mega brands have their research and development departments, their consultants and strategists, there is an economical alternative for the business owner who is socially active. Of course a good strategy and proper execution still takes man-hours and dedication, but it’s a cost-efficient alternative for those of us looking to make better decisions.

Very often, I come across a marketing plan that spreads the money so thin that there is almost no chance of success.  It’s the type of plan that is far too grand for the resources available.

As usual, I offer an extreme example to illustrate the point: a local party planner (in Canada) advertising her balloon decoration services in a national bridal magazine (in the US). She paid $1000 for that advertisement (a fairly small one at that) and she was geniunely disappointed and surprised when the total number of phone calls was ZERO.  Was it bad placement in the magazine?  Bad advertising design? Bad time of the year to advertise? None of the above… it was just lack of targeting.

If she had taken a moment to think it through, she would have realized that while her target market was definitely “brides to be”, she neglected to clarify “that live in or near my community” in her targeting.  While the circulation of the magazine was probably 100,000 or more, perhaps only a handful would actually live in her community.  And those that live in her community would not pick up a $5 magazine and expect to find a local merchant.

In this case, she was attempting to boil the ocean to find a prospect rather than dip in a pot and warm the prospects who live near her.  It would have been more effective to choose a local newspaper with a circulation of 50,000 and attempt to find the 100 brides within it, than to find 100,000 brides and hope that a few are local.

Of course, there is even greater debate as to whether mass advertising was even the appropriate tactic to choose.  It may have been more effective to spend the money on a bridal show where she could demonstrate her services, or request referrals from happy and satisfied customers.

Effective targeting and then matching the appropriate strategy against it are two basic steps in a marketing strategy. Sadly those steps are often missed by those eager to create advertising, sell advertising, make quotas or simply earn a paycheck.