The Virtual Marketing Director

How creative are your customers?

2012-02-06T10:48:00.001Z

One of the classic mistakes of new product development is to ignore your customers, and their potential for giving you good ideas. But it isn't as easy as you might think to get the ideas from them and into your business. One of the best known quotes from Henry Ford illustrates this beautifully: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Consumers are experts on what they want, what they don't like and the problems caused by the products and services that we offer. What they aren't so good at is coming up with something better. But why should they? That is our job. So the trick is to play to their strengths. Listen to what they don't like, either face to face or through social media. Even better, watch them using your product. The point at which they start having difficulties, or swap to a different product or service to complete the task, is your cue to step in. Solve their problem, and make life easier. That's your job, not theirs. So use their experience, but don't expect them to hand you the answer on a plate. If you are interested in generating new ideas for your organisation, join us on February 21 for an early morning seminar at Farnham Castle. To check availability click here.

Q: What's the difference between creativity and innovation?

2012-01-27T12:22:00.001Z

The words creativity and innovation are often used interchangeably, but in a business context there is a crucial difference.

Creativity is all about coming up with ideas, and the more off the wall they are, the better. Inventors are creative, and they are often way ahead of their time.

Innovation, on the other hand, is about turning good ideas into something of commercial value. It is a structured process, rooted in the real world, and backed by knowledge, analysis and judgement.

Many start up businesses are in the creative category, based on one person's passion for one good idea. But to grow into a sustainable, larger organisation there has to be a focus on innovation, which allows the development of multiple new ideas, making choices between them and marketing them effectively.

If you are interested in becoming innovative, rather than just creative, join us on February 21 for an early morning seminar at Farnham Castle. To check availablity click here.

How not to launch a new product

2012-01-25T11:52:00.001Z

We see so many businesses with a great idea for a new product, but so few make a success of it. What are they doing wrong, and does it have to be such a risky way to grow the business?

The first mistake so many make is not to listen. Just because you think it is a good idea doesn't mean anyone else will. Ask people in your target market and LISTEN to what they say.
Be honest with yourself about the feedback. If the consensus is that it won't work, then take action. As Google say "Fail fast".
The best new products are simple. Don't over engineer the solution, just because you can.
And finally, don't expect people to buy it just because it is new. You need to plan your marketing and implement it well.

If you are planning to develop your business this year, come and join us for an early morning session on developing new products. It's on February 21 in Farnham. Find out more.

Innovate or stagnate. Which is it to be for 2012?

2012-01-23T11:50:00.001Z

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that recession can be a time of great opportunity. While competitors fall by the wayside, companies with the right attitude can prepare the foundations for explosive growth once the economy starts to turn.

One of the things that characterises an innovative organisation is its environment. People won't share new ideas unless they know that they will be given fair consideration. And you can't expect reasonable suggestions from the team unless they really understand the market and their customers.

So creating a very focussed workforce, that looks at their market with an enquiring mind and values each other's judgement is fundamental to successful innovation.

For more thoughts on the innovative environment, have a look at James Caan's book "The Real Deal".

What are you reading today?

2011-05-05T13:44:00.000+01:00

Brian Tracy

The great personal development guru, Brian Tracy, bases his philosophy for peak performance on seven rules. His start point, which is both practical and inspiring, asserts that you can learn every skill you will ever need in order to achieve great success. Even people at the top of their game started from a position of no knowledge. So continual learning is critical to personal success.

Although learning comes in many guises, books still come out on top. Whether for inspiration, learning new skills or just for fun, here are our current favourites:

For inspiration: Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers explores the ways in which seemingly unconnected circumstances can come together to create outstanding results.

For learning a skill: Andy Bounds' The Jelly Effect takes a step by step approach to communicating productively. By following the rules, presentations and proposals become consistently more effective.

Just for fun: William Boyd's Any Human Heart. What a great story of human values.

What could you learn that would help you become more successful?

When to outsource your social media?

2011-03-22T19:44:00.000Z

CIM Surrey hosted an interesting debate recently about whether outsourcing social media is ever a good idea. The argument polarises between those in favour of outsourcing (because Twitter just eats up time), versus the social media aficionados for whom it forms an integral part of their day.

Smaller companies seem to have the edge over their larger rivals when it comes to using social media well. The benefits lie in communicating with an authentic voice and building real, direct relationships. But for this to work, tweets and blog posts have to come from the heart, without jumping through hoops to get sign off.

So why might you outsource your social media activity?

If you don’t use it in your personal life, it might just seem too difficult or too specialist to do yourself. It just takes you too far out of your comfort zone.
An external agency is easier to control in some ways, and easier to stop if you don’t like what they do.
Your own staff won’t be diverted from their day jobs.
A specialist might just do a better job because they know what works best.

But there are weaknesses in this approach.

Someone completely separate from your company is never going to sound authentic, and your followers will sniff this out.
Social media is fast moving, and an agency will struggle to bring spontaneity into your posts.
If you don’t engage with it yourself, you are missing out on the value of building relationships with genuine followers.

So which is the best way forward?

There are important points to consider on both sides of the argument, and the trick is to find the right balance for your style and your business.

Social media is just one of the important tools available to market your business, and like the others, it needs to be used properly. Just because you use Facebook in your private life, it is not necessarily the right tool for reaching out to your customers. And like all your other marketing materials, the quality of your social media presence reflects your brand and the professionalism of your business.

So how can you maintain the spontaneity and authentic voice of social media, whilst keeping control of the time spent and quality of output?

An outsourcing model that works

Use an agency to help you develop a strategy for your social media presence. Identify what your objectives are and who you want to build relationships with.
Take advice on which media will best deliver these objectives. You don’t have to do everything, and some tools just won’t be appropriate for your kind of business.
Bring together a small team within your business who will take responsibility for delivering your social media strategy. They need to understand your objectives, but have the freedom to use their own voice.
Use an external specialist to keep an eye on the quality of your posts and their fit with strategy. This is a very cost effective way to bring expertise into the organisation, and grow the skills base of your team.

Social media isn’t complex in itself, but we are all learning fast about how best to use it in the business environment. In any fast moving arena, the smart operators buy in expertise to get ahead of the game, but always make sure that the learning is embedded swiftly, so they can move onto the next innovation, secure in the knowledge that their team is at the leading edge of best practice.

If you have tried outsourcing social media what works best for you?

Are you as numerate as you ought to be?

2011-03-01T15:31:00.000Z

During these difficult financial times, it is more important than ever for business people to have a proper understanding of how to assess the success of their enterprise. Many business failures can be blamed on the inability of the managers and owners to understand the financial dynamics of their organisation, and in effect, they run out of money.

And many non profit membership organisations live or die by their retention rate, but how many of the management team are really competent to work out the annual impact of a percentage change in the rate, or the resulting effect on the membership base year on year?

Thinking back to the maths lessons of our school days, there was seldom any link made between the equations and trigonometry and their application in the adult world. And this is probably why so many of us approach maths with some trepidation, and aren't as confident with it as we should be.

This was the prompt behind a new book, Business Maths Essentials, aimed at the very many business generalists who are not confident when dealing with numbers.

The book is short, because actually the basic maths you need for business is not very difficult, and there’s not that much of it! However, many people struggle, and this book sets out to provide all the basic day-to-day numeracy one is ever likely to need in one’s career in business. Based upon what the author personally has found to be essential during his career, it covers topics such as percentages, break even analysis, profit margin, and interest calculations, and is packed with worked examples in every day language.

BUSINESS MATHS ESSENTIALS is available from Oriel Marketing Limited for just £13-00 including P&P

Crisis? What Crisis?

2011-02-07T14:40:00.000Z

At Oriel Marketing, we’ve had plenty of experience in helping clients to develop their crisis management plan, which should begin with an honest assessment of where the vulnerabilities lie within an organisation, leading on to the development of an effective crisis management plan, often as part of their overall strategic marketing process.

But we’ve always been very well aware that what most people dread most is the prospect of handling interviews when they’re in the midst of the media storm, a skill that can be developed with high quality communications training.

We are delighted to have linked up with media training experts Rough House Media, to develop our own Crisis Management service, which now includes crisis communications training – so for the first time we can offer our clients the complete package.

The new service will:

· identify potential crises and risks

· audit our clients’ existing capability to handle these

· develop action and containment plans for the highest risk scenarios

· work with clients to develop a series of effective key messages to cover each eventuality

· produce a comprehensive communications blueprint, providing an operational plan on handling the media and the key messages to be delivered

· provide key spokespeople with a rigorous programme of crisis communications training, including specially designed interview exercises to test their strengths and weaknesses, and equip them with the skills and strategies to tackle the most difficult interviews

· run crisis simulations to make sure the communications blueprint works effectively in practice

Protecting your business in a time of crisis is essential - and if you do it well, you could come out stronger, with your reputation enhanced. Our new crisis management service will provide you with the tools to manage the unexpected, and the skills to deal with the media if the worst should happen.

To find out more, give us a call on 01252 727625 or visit our website.

What not to do in a crisis

2011-02-01T11:17:00.002Z

If I asked you to name five businesses which had suffered PR hell in the past year, it wouldn’t take you long – Toyota, BP, Hamleys (remember the live reindeer and penguins before Christmas), Sky Sports and BAA all spring to mind.

Of course no business can totally prevent disaster striking – after all BAA couldn’t stop the snow falling before Christmas. But they can all prepare and plan how they’ll react when the worst happens.

Effective crisis management will anticipate potential problems, identify vulnerabilities in the business response and put systems in place to deal with them.

A vital part of this is handling the media fall-out.

A rat runs across the steps of 10 Downing Street on live TV and you know the media will have a field day. Make sure the ‘humane rat catcher’ is also spotted by the cameras and it’s crisis-averted.

Be picked up by TV microphones making off-colour comments about a female footie official and you’re definitely in for some stick. With no apology and further footage emerging, then your career’s in nosedive.

As Andy Gray found, a crisis badly handled in the media can literally end careers, and wipe millions off a business’s value.

So what are the big no-nos in managing the media if your business is in crisis?

1.       Don’t hide your head in the sand and hope the media will go away. It won’t. And that will just egg the journalists on.
2.       Don’t refuse to comment. Immediately this makes you seem as if you have something to hide.
3.       Don’t allow anyone to do interviews with journalists who you don’t trust to stay on message in the face of difficult questions, and who hasn’t been carefully briefed and media trained. Tony Hayward is the most prominent example of this going wrong.
4.       Don’t lie and dissemble if you’re in the wrong. You will be found out.
5.       Don’t refuse to apologise for wrong-doing – an apology and a promise to investigate and take action is very effective.
6.       Don’t only engage with the media at the time it’s all falling apart – good relationships and a good reputation will help ensure you have a gentler ride in times of trouble.
7.       And lastly – don’t hope you can just wing it. You must have an effective crisis management plan which can swing into action, in which everyone knows what to do, how to do it and when.

Of course, none of this can prevent problems in the first place, but if you avoid these seven mistakes it will help mitigate the fall-out.

With thanks to Ann Wright of Rough House Media for this guest blog

Three ways to strengthen your renewal strategy

2010-11-26T15:29:00.000Z

Professional Bodies and membership organisations are in for a tough time in 2011. For some, a large proportion of their membership are public sector workers, and the pressure is on to cut back on anything that could be classed as non-essential. Research undertaken in Scotland last month uncovered multiple memberships funded by the taxpayer, which will not survive the cut backs in Local Authorities. So how should organisations retain their members?

The first step must be to engage with those who are leaving. Call a sample of members in the renewal cycle and find out more about their thought process. Are they concerned about the cost? Have they used any of the benefits? Have they attended any of your events? They may identify changes that can be made quickly and cheaply.
The next step must of course be to find out how well the benefits are being used currently. Do you track click throughs to affiliated offers? Can you track usage of your on line resources? Are regional events well attended? If the answer is no to any of these questions, you need to address the issue immediately.
And thirdly, start to forecast the likely renewal rates for the coming year. Undertake a simple survey of members' likelihood to renew, and take a view on the resulting figures. As a rule of thumb, count all those who say they will definitely renew, and half of those who will probably renew.

By doing three simple things, you will be starting the year from a position of strength, and will be able to plan much more effectively to maintain a strong membership base.