Key lessons for marketing in a recession

Coachie has written a list of notes from a report "Key lessons for marketing in a recession".

I can't say I agree in full, there are some typical marketing self-esteem lies to approve marketing existence. But for sure I agree that companies which cut marketing budgets are long term marketing losers. It was always easier and cheaper to maintain customer relationship rather than building them from scratch.

And of course, crisis is a great time to search for an opportunity and to use new alternative media which is cheaper than traditional one.

crisis behavior strategy

It's almost official - we're in crisis. At least now we can feel it by reconsidering payment periods for our clients, managing cashflows and thinking out our future possibilities in terms of both personal salaries and marketing budgets.

Now we have several possible behavioral patterns.
1. Making efforts to act if there's no crisis at all. Painfull and we're not sure if we have enough resources.
2. Doing nothing hoping to survive somehow until better time.
3. Reconsider our marketing policy, take our time to create all we can create by ourselves, communicate with our clients, choose strategy to do our best in terms of maket activity without spending much money - and get it all when economics gets out of recession.

We can use low-cost marketing still to ensure our clients to get enough attention.
We do.

One can't be a good marketer if his/her efforts are in product/client area only. The main product for a marketer is himself/herself. Self-branding is extremely important to a marketer.

I've heard from a collegue of mine that one of marketing gure started his seminar with a statement that he doesn't care about self advertising - his clients are the world-of-mouth channel. But to me this was a bit arrogant to say - very self-important and nothing about the audience.

The good example for me is Igor Mann with is slightly out of reality "I love all" image - he provides with a serious content without this burde of self-importance.

It is very important to show self-importance without showing it heavily.

marketer vs director

You can do most things alone. I can do, at least. But marketing goes beyond individual work. YOu can be a good analyst, you can have a good sense of what you need to do, but to have solid results, you need to have a marketing team.

Now I'm in a big project of creating the system of client's business improvement to establish long term win-win relationships. A mix of marketing, consulting and analysis tools. But to perform well I need a solid base of marketing support - and I can't do this alone.

Here is a problem. We have one marketer who doesn't think strategically. The only perspective he can get is his own interest, the more short term the better. WIth all that he thinks it is normal to interrupt other processes with his opinion. In most cases he is a pain in the ass.

My first move was to kick him out. If I start anti-promotion, soon or later I hit the goal. But before doing this I decided to provide him with some tools to improve his behavior. Before kicking out it is always better to find a way to fit the employee to ideal system.

Here we are - just making a step from sole marketing executor to a strategical thinker.

presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/ethos3/storytelling-101?type=powerpoint

i like the idea and the structure, although the whole appearance is not close to russian presentation style

promises

Am I totally wrong being against the practice of producers of putting advertizing of products which are not included in the catalog?

My perspective is the following:
- We put advertizing with the product which is not included in the assortment of a company.
- The customer sees it, wants it, asks it.
- We can't provide the customer with the desired product.
- The client needs to search another way to get the product.
- The client is disappointed by the company.

salestaff motivation

I'm having a chat with my client now aboput sales staff motivation. It is normal for sales people to claim for more clients and more clients' satisfaction. Normally sales compensation is a percentage of sales to motivate people sell more and to give the opportunity to be paid on the basis of their efforts. Well, I understand that effort doesn't mean sale or result, but th classical payment system is more or less adequate.

What do we have now in Russia? The only lesson on career build-up process young graduates know is to get a good payment. They've been told that companies have money, that salaries are high and the higher starting salary is the better for you - you will get dramatical rise only if you change a job. Which is true in most cases.

But for fix salaries.

Young sales people here in Russia normally ask for high fix salary. Which means that they don't want to work. And that is not the right person for a salesteam.

motivation

I beleive that people are better managed by premiums rather than by fines. Especially this is true to me - I hate being paid less than I expected.

i like it

We have a bonus collecting system called Mnogo.ru. If you buy with their partners, you receive virtual bonuses you can convert to gifts (provided by partners). The more you collect the more you can get. I use this occasionaly collecting bonuses for buying books with boffo.ru and paying for mobile services and transform them into aeroflot miles to get free ticket.

So, Mnogo.ru has a promotional quizes. You can pass it, receive 20-50 bonuses (the prizes cost more - 800 bonuses for DVD, 1050 bonuses for a jar of coffee)and if you pass it successfully, you can try to get a prize from a partner. So, typical staff - answering simple questionary, you get your bonuses and think for a couple of times about Mnogo.ru itself and its partner.

But let's look deeply. The questions are posted in a way you can easily get an answer (with a link provided to a site you can check info). And that is a great trick - if you can easily increase your chances for grand-prix, you most probably will go for it and check. And get more information about the company.

E.g. What is the price for a model XXX (link to a model)? Of course, you will realize that the price is low and will have more incentives to buy the product.

Or: what is the color of a t-shirt XXX (item nr) at a website (link). You will go, see a t-shirt and may be continue browsing the catalog.

And all it for 2.5% of a DVD!!!

I like it!

FF 3.0

I'm crazy about FireFx 3.0. It is perfect. With one excepton. Del.icio.us buttons don't work although the opposite is said at help part.

I hate two things (at the moment). When I need to change my habits. And when the promised thing isn't true.

Upd. Mea culpa. It works. But in a different way. Now I have my post button again. What a relief!