|
Contact | Home | Sitemap |
 |
About Us |  |
Services | |
Process | |
Clients | |
Freebies |  |
 |
||||||||||
 |
About Archive Signup | |
|
|
|
Home > Freebies > Our Newsletter > Archive > Volume 3, Issue 1 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|
Straight to the PointVolume 3, Issue 1This Issue's Contents:Newsletter Re-launch Why I Hate Marketing Plans Lesson Learned (Misleading Web Stats) Success Story (Image Consultant Gets a New Brand) Marketing Communications Smarts from Kaszas CommunicationsJanuary 2007 Newsletter Re-launchYou may remember that Kaszas used to send out a quarterly newsletter. Later, that changed to what was then (two years ago) a relatively new corporate communications tool: a blog. www.straighttothepoint.ca has become an important vehicle to share our ideas and knowledge on a wide range of topics of interest to our clients. It allows us to experiment with "web 2.0" tools, which ultimately benefits our clients. And, it plays a role in our search engine optimization - an area in which Kaszas now provides services. But, a blog doesn't replace a more formal newsletter, and each medium has its own purposes and benefits. For that reason we are re-launching the Straight to the Point quarterly newsletter. In addition to bringing you new in-depth content, we'll also use this newsletter as a "round up" of our best and most useful blog articles over the past quarter. Why I Hate Marketing Plans- by Maria Ford How's that for a lead-in to a newsletter from a marketing professional?! But, hear me out before assuming I've just committed a major gaffe. Over my career, and in particular during the past five years running Kaszas Communications and working with many clients across a wide range of industries and business models, I have come to the conclusion that Marketing Plans don't work, and we have stopped offering such plans as a service. This is because I have never witnessed a marketing plan- mine or anyone else's - actually work. A traditional marketing plan is designed to set a course for a certain period of time, usually 12-18 months. It identifies the events, advertising, and other investments that will be made over that period of time. Why They Don't Work A great deal of effort is expended in creating the plan because to look ahead a year or more requires an awful lot of research, conjecture, and creativity. Any plan that size - which of necessity will also represent a significant budget due to the time frame it covers - will have to be approved by executive(s). Asking an executive to sign off forward-looking commitments based primarily on conjecture and creativity generally leads to weeks or months of indecision or wrangling, during which very little productive marketing is actually accomplished. 
Once the plan is approved, it is typically abandoned within months. Because the plan reaches so far into the future, changing it is disruptive. In my experience, organizations who make course corrections to long-term marketing plans tend to "go quiet" for a period of months - and that is disruptive to branding and awareness efforts, which should be constant. People who were working away on long-term projects must be stopped. Contracts signed with publications or event organizers must be cancelled. Productivity is lost and staff becomes discouraged because they feel their work is meaningless. In reality, it's just that the focus was all wrong. Today, we have many fantastic tools and information available through which we can quickly learn what is and is not working, and that's where marketing resources need to be focused. But the traditional Marketing Plan doesn't allow for such flexibility, and actually encourages its backers not to look at results until it's time for the next planning cycle. A Better Solution 
Organizations both large and small are seeking ways to become more flexible in all their planning efforts. Corporations are investing in tools that allow them to do "rolling forecasts", for example, or to monitor business performance in real-time and make informed adjustments mid-course. Marketing also has to plan differently. Here's how Kaszas Communications has evolved to address this reality:
Using this method, long-term branding strategy is maintained with a strategic messaging and positioning plan around which all other activities and tactics revolve. With a strategic positioning platform in place, the brand is able to tolerate frequent shifts in tactical efforts because all efforts contribute to the core strategy, whether or not they are altered or shifted over time, and no matter when they are introduced. In the words of one my favourite bloggers and marketing minds, Seth Godin, "The right strategy makes any tactic work better. The right strategy puts less pressure on executing your tactics perfectly." A Plan You Can Love Best of all, the plan itself ceases to be a behemoth to which organizations and their staff are chained. It is instead a rallying point on which stakeholders can converge. Every living comms plan that we manage looks, feels, and is used differently from the others, but all share a critical core characteristic: they are dynamic. Unlike traditional plans, they are looked at monthly, weekly, even daily. They capture successes, change, questions and possibilities. They are contributed to by a range of individuals. If your marketing plans are routinely abandoned, I challenge you to start thinking dynamically about your process and encourage you to consider a living marcoms plan as your marketing communications blueprint. The Freebies section of the Kaszas website contains a Living Marketing Communications Plan Template modeled after the common format that is the platform of our living comms plan. Each company's plan and format for the document will be unique, but our template just might give you the building blocks you need to build a marcoms plan that works. Lesson LearnedBeware of Misleading Web Traffic Volume Statistics 
Many of our clients rely on their web host's statistics engine for insight into web traffic volume, content performance, visitor trends, and more. Did you know that many of those tools do not filter out traffic generated by 'bots and spiders? That means you may not be getting the real picture about the number of humans visiting your website and what content they are looking at. A 'bot (short for robot) or spider is a term for a bit of software that search engines and online directories use to troll through the world wide web and look for updates to websites and web pages. So, if your web statistics engine includes this traffic in its reports, you're getting an inflated view of traffic volumes. And, because software can't be expected to behave in the same ways that human website users do, the inclusion of 'bot traffic will also limit your insight into what users are looking at when they visit your site. Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics), which is free and quite powerful, does not include 'bot and spider traffic in its reports. We've enabled many Google Analytics accounts on behalf of clients, and invariably the Google Analytics reports show much lower traffic volumes than tools like Urchin (recently acquired by Magma/Primus). In fact, traffic volumes appear to decrease as much as ½ - 1/3 when 'bot and spider traffic isn't factored into the mix. 
It can be a blow to learn that the amount of web traffic your site receives from human visitors is much lower than originally thought. But we've found that for most of our clients it's not really volume that matters. (Caveat: our clients tend to be characterized by complex sales cycles rather than online commerce. Volume, especially visits versus transactions completed, is very important for e-commerce companies to get a handle on). For the majority of our clients, however, information like this is more useful to monitor:
There are a few lessons to be learned here. First is to be aware of what kind of traffic your web stats software includes in its reports. Second is to find statistics software (free or commercial) that can filter out traffic from bots and spiders. Third is to think in more meaningful ways about web traffic, beyond mere traffic volume. Fourth is to recognize that the capability of web stats engines has advanced significantly in just a few years - today, it warrants regular, knowledgeable monitoring to stay abreast of a website's effectiveness. Success StoryFully Integrated Marketing Communications Yields Rapid and Lasting Results 
Often, a new client approaches us with a very specific concern. This was the case with Michelle Horne, President of Putting It Together Image Consulting. She'd been trying to get a website for her business live for years, but it seemed a daunting task that always took the back-burner to other business priorities. Once we started talking with Horne, we realized the problem wasn't having or not having a website. The real issue was a lack of confidence that the business was going in the right direction. Although the image and beauty industry is booming, Horne was frustrated. After 10 years in operation, Putting It Together was not performing nearly as well as she believed it could - and she wasn't alone. In fact, Horne couldn't name even a handful of image consultants who had turned the profession into a lucrative full-time business. We began our work for Putting It Together by learning about the business, Horne's goals and her clientele. We solicited client feedback and testimonials to understand how the company was perceived by her target audience. And, we audited the existing marketing and communications efforts. It became clear that, while clients who had used the services were enthusiastic about the value and results they received, most image consultants were not doing a good job explaining their services and benefits. Thus, Horne had no good models to follow in this regard. Colleagues she identified as successful were those who offered products or training, but Horne wanted to focus on one-on-one image consulting. But in so doing, she spent a great deal of her sales cycle convincing clients that her service was of value while tip-toeing around the topic of price. With the right messaging, branding and service structure, we believed that Putting It Together could assuage these buyer fears and leapfrog ahead of its competitors by offering clear, easy-to-engage services. 
We developed a new strategy for the company's marketing, brand and communications that focused on painting a clear picture of Horne's value, services and benefits, and we bundled the services into distinct packages that are easy to wrap one's head around. We implemented the strategy through a new logo, look and feel, web presence, search engine optimization, stationary package and blog (online journal). This was truly an integrated marketing communications effort with each aspect of the website messaging, architecture and service packaging focused on telling the right story to the right audiences in the right way. Putting It Together's new brand accurately reflects both its target clientele and its unique approach to image consulting, and that's turning out to be the winning business proposition that Horne knew it could be. Today, she is contacted weekly by new clients through web searches, referral business is booming, and she spends more time up-selling rather than convincing clients to buy in the first place. The new service and pricing structure makes it easier for clients to engage with the company and easier for past clients to refer Horne's services. 
Looking back, Horne recognizes that the project was more than the simple website re-design she initially thought she needed. "For years, the design, development and marketing of my business on the web had seemed like an overwhelming task for me," says Horne. "But, working with Kaszas gave me confidence as it guided me through the process of working out all aspects of the story I needed to tell clients about my services and the benefits of those services to them. And, just two weeks after the launch of my website, revenue and interest in my services had already increased." You can check out Putting It Together's new website at www.puttingittogether.ca, and Michelle Horne's blog at www.itsnotabouttheclothes.com |
|
|
|
 
Kaszas Communications Inc. |
|
|
|
||||||
|
Mail: #504-532 Montreal Rd. Ottawa, ON, Canada K1K 4R4 Tel: (613) 741-9484 Email: info@kaszas.ca |
| Copyright © Kaszas Communications Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy |
