7 Low-Cost Tips For Marketing In A Recession
Here are seven low-cost marketing ideas that will keep your business at an advantage during a recession.

The Creative Holy Grail
An unending quest for the penultimate marketing concept can leave your business stagnant and behind the competition.

Selling to VITO?
How to sell to the Very Important Top Officer (VITO) of an organization.

7 Marketing Tips
Important tips to make your marketing more effective and to help small businesses grow.

Don’t try to be better … Try to be different!
The whole purpose of branding is to “position” your company, its product or service, so as to differentiate it from your competitors, so that your customers identify yours as being different, and having customers identify yours as being better, different, or more special than the rest.

The Discovery Audit
Before developing a marketing program, you should conduct an honest and comprehensive assessment of your business and previous marketing efforts.

Who Are Your Customers?
Successful marketing begins and ends with your customer. How well you know your customer is a critical factor in the effectiveness of your marketing.

Guidelines for Winning Proposals
You are having a great meeting with a prospect. There is excellent rapport, they like your ideas, price is not an issue, and they need to make a decision right away!! You’re thinking this is a piece of cake. But then you hear the dreaded words; “Can you put what we’ve talked about into a proposal, so we can compare it with those from other firms we’re talking to?”

What’s In a Name
Perhaps nothing is more important in marketing than what you decide to call your company, product, or service.

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A dilemma shared by those who produce creative concepts, and their clients who must approve creative work, is the faith that with enough time and effort the creative version of the Holy Grail is attainable. In truth, your search for the next “Got Milk” campaign may be costing you more than you realize.

Certainly there is enough evidence to defend a robust creative effort. A well-crafted creative message can be many more times effective in generating sales and awareness than a mundane creative message. The question is, where to draw the line from ongoing creative exploration to acceptance that what we’ve produced is good enough to go with. An important factor in this decision is that, while the creative quest goes on, the landscape of your marketplace is continually shifting. Subtle dynamics can easily be overlooked, resulting in the erosion of your company’s brand awareness and the loss of marketing momentum, which could stall current and future sales.

In marketing, a consistent message — albeit one that may lack some pizzazz, but one that is delivered consistently and frequently — will always trump a highly creative campaign that is delivered infrequently and inconsistently. Keeping your message consistently in front of your customers is the tried and true method for increasing sales and building your business through marketing.

If you’re finding that you have let weeks or months go by without being actively engaged in the marketplace, you may be doing substantial harm to the long-term health of your business. Marketing takes time to build momentum. When you stop for a long period of time, you quickly lose that momentum, and you’ll end up spending more money to get back to the same amount of brand awareness that you had before.

In almost all instances, you’re much better off going with a campaign that is less than perfection, than letting an extended period of time go by without being actively engaged in your marketplace. You’ll always have time to work on improving your message in subsequent campaigns. Don’t stay on the sidelines crafting a masterpiece while your competition is stealing your customers and new customers don’t have a clue about your company at all. While there is always room for improvement, at some point any change will achieve only minor incremental improvements.

The important questions your creative marketing campaign should answer are:

• Is our message saying the most important thing we need to communicate?
• Is the tone and style aligned with the values of our target audience?
• Is our choice of media and tactics the most effective in reaching our target audience on a cost-per-lead basis?
• Is our message or offer appealing and compelling enough for our target audience to act?

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No, it’s not about making a deal with the mafia; it’s the title of a sales strategy book, by Tony Parinello, that maps out an effective strategy on how to sell to the Very Important Top Officer (VITO) of an organization.

VITOs are the key decision makers for most companies, yet reaching this individual and arranging a face-to-face sales presentation can be an almost impossible task.

For many of us, who sell products or services that would benefit VITO’s company, this book provides some useful tips and a sales process that will help you make contact with a company’s VITO. The author, Anthony Parinello, shares his own experiences and success as a top salesman for Hewlett Packard. The book divulges his methods on how he was able to get past gatekeepers and lower level management and make his sales pitch to VITO himself.

For those who might think the book contains a magic bullet, I’m afraid it does not. Parinello was successful because he did his homework. He researched his prospects, crafted a compelling message to them, spoke benefits that VITO understood and was consistent in his effort.

These are ideas that resonate in strategic marketing as well: do research, tailor your sales message to appeal to your key customers, deliver the message in a compelling manner that will create urgency, be consistent in your effort and measure/evaluate your results.

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Marketing is arguably the most important component of a small business’ success. But many principals place far more attention on internal systems and processes and too little on marketing — the true engine that drives business sales.

These tips can have a powerful impact. Many are common sense ideas. The key is to apply them consistently. Do that, and there is an excellent chance your small business won’t be small for long.

1. Make Sales and Marketing Your No.1 Priority
Most entrepreneurs and small business owners are industrious and innovative. They put great effort into building their businesses, improving products and keeping costs down. Marketing also belongs at the top of the priority list. Remember, a great business is of little value if no one knows about it or buys from it.

2. Have Clear Business Goals and a Plan To Achieve Them
Setting goals and objectives for your business is critical for long-term success. It’s easy to become so engrossed in day-to-day details that you soon lose sight of what you wanted to achieve.

Once you know where you want to go, the next step is to produce a marketing plan to show how you will achieve your goals. A marketing plan should detail what tools, actions, timetable and budget you need.

A marketing plan can also foster cooperation within your business organization, help maximize efficiencies and minimize impulsive and costly mistakes.

3. Develop a Brand Strategy Or USP
Developing a brand strategy and USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is not just creating a logo and slogan. It’s the process of understanding what makes your business unique, sets it apart from the competition and helps you compete in the marketplace. Your USP should answer this question: Why should your customer do business with you above any and all other options, including doing nothing or continuing whatever they are doing now?

Dean Mandel, president of World Wide Dictation in Ardsley, described how branding paid off for his business. “We’ve been in the medical transcription business since 1965. Our work is superior to our competition, but we found it difficult to approach larger customers because our corporate image and marketing materials were lacking. It’s remarkable that within a couple of months of developing a new brand identity we were able to land a major insurance company as a client — one which potentially could double our business. ”

4. Identify Your Key Customers
Trying to sell to everyone is a typical marketing mistake many small businesses make. Closer analysis usually reveals that it is easier, and more profitable, to focus on just those customers your business is best able to serve. Once you’ve identified your key customers, focus your marketing primarily on them.

5. Allocate a Suitable Budget To Do The Job
It’s a challenge to determine an appropriate marketing budget for a small business. The simple answer is: You need to spend as much as will accomplish your business goals. Advertising and marketing campaigns usually fail because they try to accomplish too much with too little money. Spending half the amount you need, will not get half the results. In addition, whatever your budget is, it probably won’t be enough, so budget extra in reserve, especially if you’re a new business trying to build awareness.

Donna Rubin of American Legends, a sports memorabilia store in Scarsdale, had been advertising on cable TV and found the results disappointing. “We discovered that to really make cable advertising work effectively for us, we would have to spend far more than our budget allowed. So, we decided to focus our marketing dollars on public relations and in-store signings of athletes. This approach has been much more successful in generating sales and building awareness for our store.”

6. Track Your Marketing Efforts
If you don’t track the inquiries generated by your marketing, you’re likely overspending. Tracking helps you identify which advertising medium and sales message is working best. Tracking also helps you budget marketing expenses and sales-to-marketing expense ratios — critical to the overall success of your marketing.

7. Go For The “Big Idea”
Many business owners are risk averse. While this makes sense in financial and business dealings, playing safe rarely produces outstanding results in marketing. This is why so much advertising looks and says the same as the competitions’. Most effective marketing campaigns are built around breakthrough ideas: the Volkswagen Beetle’s “Think Small;” “Got Milk?” and Absolut Vodka, to name a few. Don’t be afraid to be creative, different and even a little controversial as this will help your business stand out and get noticed. As mentioned earlier, when your best customers know your business and the compelling reasons why they should buy only from you, you’re on your way to growing a successful business.

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The whole purpose of branding is to “position” your company, its product or service, so as to differentiate it from your competitors and have your customers identify you as being being better, different, or more special than the rest.

Many consumers would be hard-pressed during a blind taste test to pick their favorite brand of beer, soda, or laundry detergent (not that I would ask you to taste test laundry detergent). Positioning your company’s brand, so as to differentiate it from your competitors is a very important element of branding, and a key to effective marketing.

The concept of brand positioning has been around for years. Originally, Rosser Reeves, one of advertising’s most influential figures, presented this concept in the 1960s as the Unique Selling Proposition, or simply USP. In his book, Reality in Advertising, Reeves proclaimed that every successful advertising campaign contained four key elements:

1. It makes a specific proposition to the customer: buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.
2. The proposition must be unique or “perceived unique” by your customers – something your competitors don’t have or offer, and ideally would be difficult to imitate.
3. It should be compelling and relevant to your customers so as to entice them to try your product or service – something that addresses their needs, fears, frustrations or desires.
4. It must be simple and easy to articulate and communicate, so your customers will quickly understand why you’re different and what the benefit to them is.

Although this concept was created decades ago, it is still very relevant in developing a brand today. In fact, the USP Reeves created for M&M Candy – Melts in your mouth, not in you hands – is still used today.

Sometimes in large, competitive markets, it may be difficult to define a truly unique point of differentiation. Take laundry detergents. Most of the popular brands are pretty much the same – they’re all effective in cleaning your clothes. Yet one claims to eliminate “ring around the collar,” another is safe in “all temperatures,” and another is “stronger than dirt.” They’ve created particular benefits to carve a market niche for themselves.

Why you should develop a strong brand position

Consumers prefer to pigeonhole a company, and its products and services. In their minds, they like to put you in a neat little box and clearly label it with what you do, how well you do it, how much it costs, and the underlying value received.

In many ways, branding helps to facilitate this process. When your brand is clearly defined and communicated, the consumer becomes comfortable with your brand, and with buying from you. When your brand is fuzzy, because you’ve provided too many choices, options or messages that have begun to negate each other, the consumer becomes unsure of what your brand stands for, and may look to competitors for clarity. In this regard, you’ve got to stand for something in the consumer’s mind, or you stand for nothing.

Car manufacturers are a good example of trying to be too many things to too many people. It used to be that a particular car manufacturer had a clearly defined niche staked out as to its core customer, but in the pursuit of selling more cars to more people, manufacturers began to extend their product line to appeal to customers beyond their core audience. Take Chevrolet, for example. Is it a big, small, expensive, cheap car? Hard to say, isn’t it? Foreign car brands use to do a much better job of targeting and protecting their core customer base. However, they have also begun to undermine their brands by foraging outside their core audience. Mercedes, which has always stood for expensive, superbly engineered cars with prestige, has begun to damage its brand by offering cheaper, smaller models, while quality has slipped as well.

This happens frequently when a business seeks greater short-term revenue growth without understanding, or simply disregarding, the risk of long-term damage to their brand and ultimately their business. It may seem contradictory, but the key to building a strong business is to narrow your focus and become exceptional at the one thing your key customers will really appreciate you for.

To begin to define and differentiate your brand, give some thought as to what is your key benefit, competitive advantage, or important promise you deliver to your customers.

Starbucks different & better
Focus on one thing and do it better than anyone else. That is what Howard Schultz; the founder of Starbucks Coffee did when he opened his first Starbucks.

He didn’t create just another coffee shop that sold sandwiches and donuts, he focused on providing premium coffees brewed cup-by-cup and customized to the whim of the discriminating coffee drinker.

He took coffee to another level and charges as much for a cup of Starbucks’ java as a typical coffee shop might charge for a complete breakfast. His diligent focus on branding helped to make Starbucks a franchising home run, creating a company with a stock capitalization of over a billion dollars.

Here are some questions to help jumpstart your thinking on brand positioning.

• What does your business offer that consumers want or need and why?
• Identify and articulate your competitive advantage. What is the one thing you can deliver that your competition can’t?
• What is the promise that your company stands behind and can consistently deliver to your customers?
• Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What are the things in your business (or better yet, what are the things your competitors do) that irritate, upset, cause extra work, inconvenience, or just plain drive customers up a wall, and what can your business do about it?

From the above questions, you should derive a number of competitive advantages and important benefits or promises. Narrow the list to those that provide the greatest value for your best customers.

Remember to view your brand’s positioning from your customers’ perspective to ensure you’re addressing the needs in their world. If you make drill bits, the benefit to your customers is that you make 1/4” holes, not 1/4” drill bits.

The goal is to identify just one good reason they should buy from you, rather than a slew of reasons. Keep the focus on the one superior benefit, advantage, or promise which provides the greatest value and most unique benefit for your “best” customer.

Developing your brand positioning statement

After you’ve defined your key benefit, competitive advantage, or promise, articulate a positioning statement that includes these for your brand. This statement should convey what your business stands for and what promise/benefit it gives to your customers.

Your brand positioning statement should not be long-winded ideology; rather, it should be crisp and concise — be able to communicate what your brand stands for in a few sentences. Keep chipping away at it. Eliminate any dead weight. You really want to narrow your focus until you have a crystal clear, concise, and powerful brand positioning statement that will have great appeal to your customers. The importance of your brand positioning should not be underestimated, as it will become the major theme that drives all your future marketing and subsequent business growth.

The power of beliefs

Think of the branding process as a funnel – add information and insights into the top, keeping and refining those that are important and discarding what isn’t. As the remaining essential elements move lower in the funnel, what is finally distilled is the essence of your brand.

Development of a tagline

The final step of your brand’s positioning is not absolutely necessary, although you may find value in distilling your brand statement into a simple tagline that can be used in advertising and marketing to quickly communicate your brand’s positioning.

Some examples include:

• Just Do It – Nike
• Pork: The Other White Meat – The National Pork Board
• The Ultimate Driving Machine – BMW

Sometimes your positioning tagline can be different from your brand identification. For example, the heartburn medication, Nexium uses “heals the damage” as its positioning tagline, and “the purple pill” as its brand identifier.

When creating your brand positioning, remember that many people buy because of emotional reasons, but need logical facts to rationalize their buying decisions. They will do business with you if you make them feel smart, or good about the decision. Don’t lose sight of this when developing your brand positioning.

Once you’ve developed your brand positioning, look for opportunities to deliver your brand’s message through your marketing often and consistently. A great brand message is like a hit song with a simple melody and a great hook, just hit “play” again and again, and your brand will climb to the top of the charts!

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Before even thinking of developing a marketing program, you should conduct an honest and comprehensive assessment of your business and previous marketing efforts. This is referred to in marketing jargon as a “discovery audit” phase.

The first place to start this process is with you, the small business owner. Why? Well, for marketing and branding to be most effective, it must be initially driven from the inside out. Since most small businesses are a reflection of their respective founders, owners or chief executives, it is your values, principles and beliefs that have the greatest impact upon your company. In addition, you are the one who provides the vision and leadership for your business, which will probably endure long after you have decided to retire or move on to other challenges.

However, this doesn’t mean that you alone should drive this process; depending upon the size of your firm, you should include the key stakeholders in your business in the discovery process. This includes your senior management team, board members or key business advisors, major shareholders or investors, and lower-level managers and employees, who interact with your customers on a frequent basis.

It is important to be as inclusive as possible in the initial stages of the discovery process. Getting input and support from key stakeholders at the beginning will make them feel part of the process, and this will enable them to more readily embrace your new marketing strategy once it is fully developed.

Ideally, your marketing should become interwoven into every aspect of your business, creating a marketing-driven culture within the business. This can be achieved by having everyone feel that they have ownership in its development.

A word of caution: while it is important to get input and support from various stakeholders of your business, be careful how many will have decision-making authority on determining actual marketing directions. I would avoid making decisions by committee. Remember the old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Important marketing decisions should be done by the fewest number of people, ideally, you.

As important as the values of the owner/principal and senior management can be, they may need to play a subordinate role in the discovery process in consideration of another key stakeholder, who plays an even more important role in marketing strategy, and who will ultimately decide if your marketing is a success or not. Who are they? Why, your customers, of course. An effective marketing campaign should address the wants, desires and concerns of your customers, within a structure that is authentic and consistent with your company’s underlying values, goals and vision.

What follows is a series of questions and discussion points that will help you and your stakeholders uncover your core beliefs and values.

What is your vision for your company?
An important step in becoming successful is to define what success means to you. In Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, the second habit “Begin with the end in mind!” is a good example of this concept. In his book, Covey asks that you imagine you are eighty years old sitting on your rocking chair, thinking back over your life. In regard to your business, what images come to mind? Can you visualize how large your business became? What was your annual revenue? How many employees did you have? How many locations did you have? Did you franchise the business idea? Did you go public? What was your exit strategy from the business? Did you sell it? To whom? Or, did your son or daughter take over the reins of the business?

If you are starting a new business, creating this vision is an important step because it gives you a clear direction to steer your business from the beginning (see IBM, begin with the end in mind.). If you already have an established business, compare where your business is now to where you want it to be in the future. In general terms, outline what steps you need to take to align your business with your business vision.

Have fun with this, and try to avoid limiting thoughts from creeping into the exercise. Don’t focus on why something can’t be done. Avoid saying to yourself, ‘I cannot do that because I don’t have the skills or knowledge,’ or ‘I don’t have enough capital,’ or ‘I don’t have enough time.’ At this stage of the process, you want to ‘blue sky’ the process and be as free and unrestricted as possible. Take an enthusiastic, childlike approach of unlimited possibilities. Later, you can always deal with the reality of your business situation. Most people find that creating a powerful vision for their company gets them really excited and highly motivated. Having a clear vision of what you want the business to become will help bring life to your vision. When you continue to take daily action because your course is clear, your vision will soon begin to materialize.

I am a firm believer in the power of intention. Once you have a strong visualization of what you want to achieve and are willing to take consistent action towards your vision, I firmly believe you will be successful and achieve your goals. If you stop and think about it, every great accomplishment began with an initial spark of thought, which was fueled by an intention, and accomplished by taking action.

Here are some additional questions that will help you clarify your company’s vision.

Why does your business exist? What does your business offer that consumers want or need, and why?

How do envision how your offices or stores will be furnished?

What kind of people will work here? What standards are you going to insist on regarding personality, character traits, values and principles?

Who are our customers? Why will they work or buy from us?

How much money will the business earn? Will it be a $100,000, or a $100 million company?

It is important to delve deeply into each question, and not to be satisfied with superlatives or superficial answers. If appropriate, give specific examples of behaviors or actions that demonstrate your answers. As you compare your answers with those of other stakeholders, you may find that the answers differ significantly between people. You may be quite surprised that people who work for the same company, and in the same job, can have such wildly divergent views of the values a company represents.

Begin with the end in mind

IBM became the dominant computer company because its founder, Tom Watson, had a very clear vision of what he wanted his business to become. He envisioned IBM as a great company from the very inception of the business, what it would look like, how it would act, and how large and dominant it would become. Thus, way before IBM fulfilled its founder’s vision, it began from the very outset to incorporate the characteristics of the company it was to become – its values, principles, beliefs and culture. From the very beginning, decisions were made against this template, which became the guiding force of IBM’s future success.

The Importance of Companies Values
Why is it important to determine your company’s values? Many times, companies I work with think that this exercise lacks value. What they fail to see is that one’s values are really what differentiates you from your competitors, and ultimately from success or failure. If I were to ask the question, “What is the reason some countries are rich and others poor?” the first answer that might pop into your head would be natural resources. If that were true, then Russia would be the world’s richest country. Although it is certainly the world’s largest country, and contains vast resources of oil and minerals, Russia ranks way down in terms of per capital income at $8,300 per citizen, compared to tiny Luxembourg, the world’s richest with a per capita income of $55,100, followed by Norway and the U.S. both tied at $37,800 as stated in the CIA World Factbook. It is not natural resources, but the values and culture of the population of each individual country that most impacts its wealth generating capacity. This premise also holds true for business. Take, for example, Wal-Mart versus Kmart, both of which were founded in 1962. However, while Wal-Mart continues to grow and is the U.S.’s largest retailer, K-Mart continues to falter and teeters on the brink of bankruptcy.

The Power of Beliefs

As this diagram illustrates, when we “limit” the choices we consider, it will impact the actions or risks we take, which in turn affects the results we achieve, and thus reinforces the limiting beliefs and attitudes we have about ourselves. Recognizing the impact limiting beliefs have upon our business (and personal lives) is the first step to breaking out of the mindset of limiting beliefs.

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Successful marketing begins and ends with your customer. How well you know your customer is a critical factor in the effectiveness of your marketing and the subsequent success of your business.

Acquiring in-depth knowledge of your customer should go beyond just acquiring basic demographic information such as where your customers live, what sex and how old they are, what education level they’ve achieved and how much money they make. It requires that you understand your customer’s character, traits and persona, as well as their needs, concerns, motivations and aspirations. You should have a clear idea as to what your customers prefer to do with their leisure time – do they like to read magazines and books, or prefer watching TV and playing video games? Other questions that can give you insight into your customer are: What kind of car do they drive? Are they fashion conscious, or do they prefer casual comfort? When they go out to dinner, do they order steak and lobster or burger and fries? Do they listen to classical music, punk rock, or the latest American Idol star?

Why do people buy?
There is a psychological component of a customer profile that is perhaps more intuition than science. People make most purchases for emotional reasons and then find reasons to justify or rationalize their decision, which is often contrary to what they may tell you when asked. Often, these decisions are made unconsciously, and reflect a person’s lifelong choices in values, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions. These have been formulated over the years and now affect their buying decisions.

Your secret advantage
Large businesses spend a ton of money on research getting to know their customers better and understanding what motivates them so they can craft a sales message they will be receptive to.

Your big advantage over larger corporations is that most likely you know your customers first-hand because you deal with them directly on a daily basis. Larger corporations must rely on research and focus groups to understand the needs and wants of their customers. With all their money and resources, they still make huge boo boos like New Coke, Crystal Pepsi or McDonald’s Arch Deluxe.

Developing your “Ideal” customer profile

Step 1. Apply the 80/20 rule to your customer definition
I’ve found the 80/20 rule to be very useful in helping my clients determine who their best customers are. (You’ll find this rule is applicable to many other aspects of business and personal life.) In this instance, most small businesses will find that 80% of their revenue is derived from 20% of their customer base.

While identifying the 20% of your customer base that provides the most revenue is a good first step, you should take this process further by identifying the “most profitable” and “most important” customers to your business by answering the following questions:

1. Which customers are the easiest to sell to? Ideally, you want customers that are already knowledgeable about your business, understand the benefits of your product or service, and are eager to buy.
2. Is it better for my business to have customers that place one large order a month, or two or three orders a week? Retail stores may prefer customers that stop in frequently to up-sell them and to have more impulse purchase opportunities. Distributors may prefer large, bulk orders.
3. Which customer buys your most profitable products or service? It would seem obvious that it would be better for your business to target those customers that buy products and services with higher profit margins than those that buy low-margin items.
4. Do you prefer small customers who pay in 15 days versus large ones that take 90 days? Many small businesses struggle when they have a small number of gorilla accounts that take inordinate amounts of time and paperwork for payment. Sometimes, the smaller, responsive customer is best.
5. Do you have a customer base that has been with you for years? While it’s important to acquire new customers, the easiest way to increase business is to sell more to your existing customers. Since there is little or no cost of acquisition, the margins on existing business should be higher.

Step 2. Creating a demographic profile
Your next step in understanding your customer is to create a demographic profile. As mentioned earlier, a demographic profile of your customers encompasses where they live, what sex they are, their age, how much money they earn, and how much education they have.

Knowing where your prime customers are located gives you a geographic region to target, which is very useful in advertising and direct mailing – focusing your marketing dollars in the areas where your customers reside. A good fisherman knows that to catch fish, you have to fish where the fish are.

Next, knowing your customer’s sex, age, education and income is helpful in crafting a brand image that is receptive to these demographic groups and in determining what the key message of your marketing should be.

Put a checkmark next to the term that best describes your top customers.

Male
Female
Blue Collar
White Collar
Simple tastes
Sophisticated
Urban
Suburb
Exurb
Rural
Child/Teen
Young Adult
Middle Aged
Seniors
White
Black
Hispanic
Asian
Other
Lower Class
Middle Class
Wealthy
Limited Ed.
Some College
4-Yr College
Masters+

Step 3. Understanding values
Values are one of the most important windows into a person’s behavior. Understanding someone’s values, in addition to their attitudes, lifestyle, and behavior, will contribute significantly to effectively communicating your business’s gospel to them and making them disciples.

The key is to find the elements that are central to customers’ lives and needs. Nike’s Just Do It campaign gave people the motivation to get off the their couches and start exercising. Marlboro’s cigarettes allowed people to adopt the spirit of rugged individualism into their own lives.

Roper top 10 values

Roper Starch Worldwide, a renowned market research company, conducted a survey a few years ago. They interviewed over 35,000 consumers in the U.S. and in 35 countries. Interestingly, they discovered a number of common values that crossed national borders.

As the world becomes smaller and people around the globe interact more, people all over the world are becoming more alike than different. They are listening to the same music, watching the same movies, and buying the same goods and services irrespective of national boundaries. According to Roper, the top ten shared values are:

1. Protecting the family (47%)
2. Honesty (38%)
3. Health and fitness (31%)
4. Self-esteem (28%)
5. Self-reliance (27%)
6. Justice (27%)
7. Freedom (27%)
8. Friendship (26%)
9. Knowledge (26%)
10. Learning (25%)

The study resulted in the creation of six population segments that share these values. The six segments and key message for reaching each segment include:

Creatives: The smallest group, at 10 percent of the adult population is Creatives, the “Renaissance People.” They are deeply involved in all areas of life and committed to learning and technology. They are the highest consumers of media, with a big skew toward books, magazines and newspapers. The key marketing message to reaching Creatives is: “Challenge my mind and broaden my horizons.”

Fun Seekers: At 12 percent of adults, Fun Seekers are the youngest group and represent the MTV generation. These are “Party People,” who focus on excitement, adventure, enjoyment and looking good. They are more global in lifestyle and more likely to frequent bars, clubs and restaurants. They devour electronic media, in particular music. The key marketing message for Fun Seekers is: “Entertain me with fun, friends and fantasy.”

Intimates: This group, at 15 percent of the adult population, are made up of “People People,” who value family, home, and personal relationships. They are heavy users of media that can be shared to create a common bond with others. This explains the phenomenon of a water cooler TV show, where people watch a particular show to discuss it with others the next day. The key marketing message for Intimates is: “Help me relax and enjoy life with those I love.”

Devouts: Devouts are “Traditionalists,” who have strong convictions and values concerning faith, tradition, duty, respect for elders and respect for the past. They represent 22 percent of adults and are mostly concentrated in Africa, Asia and the Mideast. They are least involved with the media and least likely to want western brands. The key message for Devouts is: “Respect me, my family and my way of life.”

Strivers: These are the “Workaholics” of the world and represent the largest group at 23 percent of the adult population. They hold material things extremely important, are ambitious, seek power and are driven by a desire for status and wealth. They value technology that will add to their productivity. Strivers are mostly middle aged, more male than female and found disproportionately in the developed and developing nations of the world, like Japan, Germany and the U.S. They have little time for media apart from newspapers. The key message for Strivers is: “Cut to the chase. Don’t waste my time. What’s in it for me?”

Altruists: These are the “Humanitarians” of the world, who are proponents of social issues and causes and place relatively higher value on social values and the world at large. They are generally well educated, older (median age of 44), and more female than male. The key message for Altruists is: “Enrich my life so I can contribute to the world around me.”

Which of these six segments best defines your top customer clusters? Using this resource will help you better understand your best customer and the values that mean the most to them.

Coupons and the wealthy
You would think that people making over $125,000 wouldn’t bother with clipping coupons. Surprisingly, 72% of people in that income bracket do! Don’t make assumptions about your customer and what motivates them. Most marketing mistakes are directly linked to inaccurate assumptions about customer preferences and motives.

Step 4. Create a psychographic profile
Generally, everything human beings do is dictated by two basic needs: the need to avoid pain or the desire to gain pleasure. Most people are not aware of these decisions on a conscious intellectual level, but it is always operating on a subconscious, emotional one. Which of the following best describes your top customer?

Are they very religious? If so, what religion?
Do they consider themselves liberals or conservatives?
What charities or causes do they support?
What kind of car do they drive?
What kind of activities or sports do they play?
Which TV channel or TV shows do they watch?
What magazines do they read?
What types of foods do they prefer?
What do they do in their leisure time?
Do they wear cologne or perfume? If so, which brand?

These questions can help you get a picture of the types of brands your customers responds to. Perhaps there is a consistent theme that runs through their psychological preferences that may be helpful in determining your brand image.

PRIZM
Another effective tool in helping to define your key customer the geodemographic system, a hybrid between a demographic and a psychographic tool.

The most popular is PRIZM (Potential Rating Index for Zip Markets) system, developed by San Diego-based Claritas Corporation. The basic principle of geo-demographics is that people with similar cultural backgrounds, income and viewpoints naturally gravitate toward one another and form relatively homogeneous communities. It is the familiar concept birds of a feather flock together. Once people have settled into a community, they naturally begin to adopt similar social values, tastes and expectations as their neighbors. This behavior is the basis for the system that classifies neighborhoods and their households into clusters or groups based on their underlying socioeconomic and demographic composition.

In the PRIZM system, each ZIP Code is assigned one or several of sixty-six clusters based on the shared socioeconomic characteristics of the area. The clusters each have snappy names and short descriptions from #1 Upper Crust, the elite multi-millionaires at the top of the nation’s economic hierarchy, to #66 Low-Rise Living, the poorest of the poor.

The sixty-six clusters are grouped into one of four urbanicity categories determined by population density. Then, each group is ranked by its affluence into fourteen segments.

If you would like a firsthand demonstration of how the system works, visit http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments and click on the Zip Code Look-up tab. Then, simply enter a ZIP Code and discover the top five clusters for that area.

Below is a breakdown of each PRIZM group and segment:

Urban areas have high population density. They include both the downtowns of major cities and surrounding neighborhoods. These areas often extend beyond the city limits and into surrounding communities and include these segments: Urban Uptown, Midtown Mix, Urban Cores (with Urban Uptown reflecting the most affluent, Midtown Mix the middle-class, and Urban Cores reflecting urban poor.)

Second Cities are less densely populated than urban areas. Areas of moderate or low population density surround them such that population density usually decreases on all sides of a Second City. They can be independent cities or satellites cities in major metro areas. Second Cities include these major segments: 2nd City Society, City Centers, Micro-City Blues

Suburbs have lower population density and are clearly dependent on urban areas or second cities. These would include: Elite Suburbs, The Affluentials, Middleburbs, Inner Suburbs

Town and Rural areas have the lowest population density and include exurbs (prosperous rural communities located beyond the suburbs), small towns, farming communities, and other rural areas, these include: Landed Gentry, Country Comfort, Middle America, Rustic Living

Profiling for quality
My advertising agency once handled the U.S. advertising for the Scottish Tourist Board. One of their main concerns was the cost of fulfilling inquiries from their advertising. Scotland, like many tourist destinations, produces a beautiful, full-color, very comprehensive and costly travel planner. Because of the cost to produce, print and mail the travel planners and the limited number of travel planners allotted for U.S. distribution, the Scottish Tourist Board wanted to ensure that these travel planners went only to those consumers most likely to visit Scotland.

Using geodemographic profiles and knowledge of how far customers were located from cities from which one could easily fly to Scotland, we developed customer profiles and compared each response from our advertising to see how closely it matched these profiles. The respondents were then divided into two groups:
Type A was our dead-center target group.
Type B were those that fell short on one criteria or another.

Type A respondents were immediately sent the expensive travel planner. Type B respondents were sent a postcard and given another chance to qualify themselves. If they did, they also received the travel planner. The objective was to ensure every marketing dollar was spent reaching a likely prospect to reduce fulfillment costs and boost the media spend.

We achieved Scotland’s immediate goal by having all of Scotland’s 75,000 Travel Planners mailed only to type A and qualified type B prospects. The real value in this system was evidenced in a follow-up survey from 26,512 respondents who indicated they planned to travel to Scotland within the next year. A whopping 34% response!

U.S. Census Bureau
Another source of customer data available is the Federal and State governments. We all know the Federal government collects and processes more data and information than anyone else in the history of human kind, regardless of the subject. However, it is less effective in disseminating this information in a productive way. Check out the U.S. Census Bureau’s website at www.census.gov. With a little patience and prodding, you can retrieve some useful demographic information about your target customer, such as age, sex, race and ancestry.

By following this process or first establishing your top 20% customer base, acquiring demographic information and determining a psychological profile, you should have an accurate representation of your “ideal” customer and his or her preferences, values and aspirations. This will allow you to design a brand that will appeal directly to them.

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Like me, you probably do not relish these situations. You now must invest hours creating a proposal and once submitted, you really have little control over the outcome. Questions or objections may be raised which you may not be given the chance to answer. You won’t know how your proposal measures-up against competitors, and there is always the possibility of a ‘hidden agenda’ and behind-the-scenes politics that you are not aware of.

For many, writing proposals is a fact of doing business, but there are many ways to improve the chances your proposal emerges the winner.

First and foremost, listen carefully to the prospective client. You must have a crystal-clear understanding of their business needs, ‘pain’ issues or objectives. Your proposal should mirror what they’ve communicated to you, before you offer any solution. That shows you’ve listened and considered their interests and are not offering a canned solution.

A winning proposal must do the following:
• Demonstrate your understanding of the problem or need.
• Provide a solution that effectively addresses the problem or need.
• Communicate the solution in a manner that the prospect will understand.
• Provide a convincing reason(s) to the decision-maker as to why your firm should be selected. What is the value-added or ‘big idea’ you can provide that competitors cannot? Show evidence of qualifications and competence through:

• Case studies
• Client list
• References
• Referral letters

Ghost the competition
If you know who you are competing against, raise issues in your proposal that strike at their weak points. Do not disparage your competition or mention them specifically by name. However, if you know a competitor’s solution is laden with features that do not specifically address the prospect’s core need and may, therefore, add additional costs in the future for maintenance and updates, be sure to point out the value of paying for just what is needed.

Alleviate the buyer’s fear
Every buyer has fears when entering into an agreement with a new vendor. Try to determine the buyer’s major fear(s) and alleviate their concern(s) in your proposal. Buyer fears include the following:

• Do they really know what they’re doing?
• Do they have enough experience?
• Do they have enough resources?
• Will they be expensive?
• Will they make me look bad?

If possible, quantify the benefits and payback. Show the decision-maker how much he/she will save, or how much more productive the organization may be. A convincing calculation of your client’s return on investment is more compelling than a slogan or cliché.

How buyers evaluate proposals

Proposals are evaluated on four strategic premises: cost, quality, technology and competition. Determine your strengths (and weaknesses) with regard to the prospect, their needs and these four options. Where can you provide the most value to support their strategy? Make this the main focus of your proposal. One clearly defined and integrated strategy will win-out over numerous unrelated and disconnected solutions.

Cost

• Is your solution the least expensive?
• Is your solution the best value?
• Does your solution provide the best R.O.I. (return on investment)?
• Does your solution save money?
• Does your solution save time (and thus money)?

Quality

• Does your solution offer the highest quality?
• Is your solution the most reliable?
• Does your solution provide the most measurable controls over processes?
• Will your solution yield the greatest customer satisfaction?

Competition

• Does your solution provide the best mix of desired elements?
• Does your solution give the prospect an advantage in the marketplace?
• Does your solution address a competitor’s weakness which you can exploit?

Technology

• Is your solution the most advanced?
• Does your solution provide the most flexibility?
• Does your solution eliminate or automate labor-intensive operations?
• Does your solution capitalize on leading-edge developments?

Do’s and don’ts of winning proposals

• Do write the proposal in a style that resonates and achieves a comfort level with your prospect. Look for clues of that writing style in the prospect’s own correspondence with you.
• Don’t title your proposal simply “Proposal for ABC Company.” Instead, write a title that states a benefit for the prospect, for example: “Proposal to position your brand to compete and win in the marketplace.”
• Do provide a clear rationale or a specific recommendation (preferably one that is fresh and imaginative) as to why the prospect should award you the business. Provide documentation to support your claims, such as articles, websites statistics, etc.
• Don’t use jargon. Reduce or eliminate it from your proposal. Even if your key contact understands it, someone else in their organization (who may also need to read and approve your proposal) may not.
• Do include (either within the proposal or separately) documentation to establish your credibility: references and client list, case studies, letter of recommendation, published articles, etc.
• Don’t use passive or subservient language. View yourself as a peer and equal partner with the prospect.
• Do keep your proposal short. It’s always tempting to throw in anything and everything related to the proposal. In reality, having read the Executive Summary and Pricing most decision makers won’t read the rest. At best, they’ll skim through sections of the document. A short proposal is likely to be looked at first, which means all others will be judged in comparison to it. That’s a distinct advantage if you’ve done a good job. An exception would be in pitches for very large projects, where proposals are often judged on the amount of information and documentation provided in support of the proposition.
• Don’t include lengthy corporate histories. Prospects aren’t interested in your company’s past – only in what you can do for them now!
• Do highlight your key points. Where appropriate, use bullets, headings and sub-headings, boldface type, color, borders, graphics, and anything else that will make your key points jump off the page. Many decision-makers skim proposals before they read them. This approach makes your proposal more “skimmable” and more likely to be read first. (See bullet point on keeping proposals short.)
• Do have the proposal read by someone unfamiliar with the project and the industry. Generally, the proposal should be written in a language that will be clear to the layperson. This is especially important in your cover letter and in the proposal’s Executive Summary.
• Do proofread the proposal. I recommend having this done by a professional proofreading and editing service.
• Do bind your proposals professionally.
• Do personalize the proposal with the client’s logo on the cover and their name in the heading of each page.
• Don’t email proposals. Emailing proposals may be convenient for you, but it puts the onus (and work) on the prospect to print out and distribute the proposal.
• Do FedEx the proposal. Sending the proposal via priority overnight delivery attaches a sense of urgency and importance to your proposal.
• Don’t send your proposal without a cover letter. A short cover letter should continue to build a rapport with the prospect; it should refer to the proposal’s key strategy, its supporting documentation, AND it should ask for the business.
• Don’t forget to ask for the business. Ask for it in the cover letter, ask for it in the Executive Summary and ask for it when you follow-up on the proposal. Being passive doesn’t work. You should be persistent and up-front when asking for the business.
• Do send your proposal and supporting documentation in a professional sales folder.
• Do call the prospect to notify them that the proposal is being delivered by FedEx, and arrange a specific call-back time (in two-three days, to give your prospect time to review the proposal) to follow-up on the proposal and answer any questions your prospect may have.
• Do include a copyright notice and proprietary language clause. This may offer some protection from having your proposal given to a competitor.

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Smart marketers understand the advantages choosing the right name provides. Hollywood, for example, has long understood this concept, with many movie stars changing their name to broaden their appeal to mass audiences. Do you think Tom Cruise would be as big a star using his real name, Tom Mapother?

Unfortunately, many businesses put little thought or consideration into this important decision, settling for names that do little to add or enhance their company image and reputation. As we shall see, this slapdash approach is not just confined to small, naive businesses – many large, sophisticated corporations are equally guilty of settling on generic, nondescript names.

Rules for naming your business, product or brand
There are always successful exceptions, but the following rules will serve you well in developing an effective name for your business, product or brand. These are not hard and fast rules, so if you find a name that really appeals to you, but breaks one, or more, of these guidelines, trust your instincts and go with it.

Rule 1. Avoid generic sounding names
Very often, businesses choose names that are too generic or overused. Names that use words like general, consolidated, international, or associates, fall into this category. Companies that use these terms may think they are positioning their company as long established or stable, but these terms are common to many businesses in existence and do little to differentiate the company or help create awareness for it.
For example, which company has a stronger brand image and is thus perceived to make a better tire: General Tire or Michelin?

Look at what happened to McAfee Associates, one of the top anti-virus software makers, when Network General purchased the company. Perhaps motivated by a sense of fairness, management decided to combine the names of both companies and split the difference, resulting in the name, “Network Associates” – a generic sounding name that lacks individuality or dynamism. The term “Network” has too many associations beyond its core business of anti-virus software, and the word “Associates” is a superfluous term. Compare Network Associates’ name to its top competitor, Symantec. Symantec is a stronger name and puts Network Associates at a branding disadvantage, which means that marketing is a tougher, uphill battle for Network Associates, and may be one of the factors influencing its continued loss of marketshare to Symantec.

Rule 2. Avoid initials or acronyms
Another common error is relying on initials and acronyms. This is so prevalent among businesses that I fear it has become epidemic. This usually occurs when a number of partners start a business and decide to use their initials to form the company name. I fear this is driven more by personal ego and lack of marketing savvy than sound business reasons.

If you call your company the SMC Corporation, what does it stand for exactly? When you use initials to identify your business, you lose the opportunity to quickly communicate key elements of your company image to your customer when they first encounter your company name. In the long run, this costs you more because a nondescript name requires more repetition (thus more advertising dollars) to achieve awareness with customers than if you had chosen a unique brand name to convey an image consistent with your core business and benefits.

Rule 3. Avoid names with too many words
During the 1980s, American Express wanted to expand into the brokerage services business – it purchased Shearson Loeb Rhoades and Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, calling the new firm Shearson Lehman/American Express. This was quite a mouthful and an example of how even large, sophisticated companies can make naming errors. The resulting merger so thoroughly confused its customers that the retail brokerage component was ultimately sold to Primerica and the firm again became known as good old American Express.

If you already have a long name, think about abbreviating or shortening it. International Business Machines, which violates Rule #1 and Rule #3, became simply known as IBM (which happens to violate Rule #2). This goes to show there are always successful exceptions to these rules when the company is exceptional at its core business and creates a powerful brand.

Why A Business Changed Its Name

A sports memorabilia company once called itself “One if by Cards, Two if by Comics.” When the owners originally came up with the name, they felt that it was unique, clever, and catchy.

Although it was unique and clever, catchy it wasn’t. It soon became obvious that it was just too long and cumbersome to be easily remembered. Even after 10 years in business, long-time customers still referred to them as simply “Cards and Comics,” which although descriptive, really didn’t provide enough substance to build a strong brand image upon.

After an extensive renaming exercise, they chose a new name for their business, American Legends, a name that fits nicely with their core business of autographed memorabilia of famous athletes and celebrities.

Good reasons to change a name

There is never a perfect time to change one’s business or brand name, and the impetus to change it lessens the longer a given name has been associated with a particular business. However, that doesn’t mean you should keep a name that is an albatross for your business and is not fully aligned with your long-term goals.

Here are some very good reasons to consider changing your company, product or brand name:

To realign your business with new goals, directions, or trends
Consider a name change if you discover your company, product or brand name has a perception that is out of sync with your business goals, direction, or industry trends.

After narrowly eluding bankruptcy, the International Harvester Company, one of the U.S.’s top manufacturers of heavy-duty trucks, decided to change its name to Navistar International Corporation. Donald D. Lennox, Harvester’s chairman, said at the time that the new name “would project a new profile for the company as a progressive, dynamic company navigating to the stars and a rosy future.” It was hoped that the name change would move the company away from the image of being “a sleepy Midwest giant,” into a more dynamic company. However, the name change itself was not enough to overcome internal and external factors, which kept Navistar mired as an industry laggard.

Recently, Navistar’s prospects have brightened with its stock tripling in price in less than a year due to the pick-up in demand for heavy trucks to meet the U.S. economy’s growing need for shipping.

To tap into brand equity
Consolidated Foods, a generic corporate name that breaks Rule #1, made a smart move when it renamed the company after one of its best-known brands, Sara Lee.

Soon thereafter, Sara Lee rose to the top of Fortune Magazine’s Most Admired Companies in the food industry. The company’s CEO, John Bryan, commenting on why the company image had improved, confessed: “The company itself was not any different, the only difference was the name.”

The management of Sara Lee was smart enough to understand how to leverage its most recognizable brand name in order to build value for the company in the eyes of consumers, the media, the business community, and financial institutions.

To differentiate between products
In 1986, Honda decided to launch a new luxury car brand to compete with Mercedes and BMW. Smartly, it didn’t call the new car the Honda Prestige or Honda Status. Instead, it created a separate business division and a new brand, calling the new car Acura. To the consumers who came out in droves to buy this car, it didn’t seem to matter in the least that it was actually made by Honda.

To reflect a change in business structure
When the Westchester Business Institute became a fully accredited 4-year college, it changed its name to the College of Westchester to better reflect its new academic credentials and to sever its past reputation as strictly a business trade school.

To counter a negative image
Colleges have been on a rebranding frenzy tear, with many institutions renaming and rebranding themselves so as to better position themselves in the competitive higher education marketplace.

In 2001, Beaver College, located outside of Philadelphia, renamed itself Arcadia University. Obviously this was a good move. College officials stated that the name change was to acknowledge that it had become a fully accredited university and to distance itself from its past as a women’s college, although I think there were considerable other factors that must have weighed in the College’s decision. This was a no-brainer. You wonder why a college founded in 1853 waited so long.

Naming Exxon

There are firms and consultants that specialize in creating names for businesses, products and brands, and although this is essentially a creative quest, many name consultants utilize specific algorithms to assist  in creating unique names that match a specific set of criteria.

It is rumored that Exxon was the first company to use to a computer to rename the company, which was originally called Esso.

They gave the computer a few simple conditions:

• It had to be two syllables. (See Rule 3 in main story).
• It had to have a double consonant.
• It had to start with an E and have an O. This condition was so the new name kept part of the Esso legacy.
• It had to be a name that wasn’t being used throughout the entire world.
• It had to have no meaning in any foreign language.

It was reported that Exxon was the only word the computer came up with that met all of the criteria above.