It Starts Here - With A Magazine

You can find this Derek Korn, Senior Editor, commentary in the September issue of Modern Machine Shop, but I think exerpts are worth repeating to highlight the value of a print magazine to deliver fresh ideas to your customers and prospects.

Pete Zelinski's own column conveys how video is becoming an increasingly valuable tool for presenting new machining concepts. That’s true, but our magazine, with its monthly batch of original articles, remains the best medium for introducing fresh ideas for shop owners and managers to consider. In short, the magazine is a mechanism for discovery that helps you refine subsequent online research. Besides, you can’t Google for something you don’t know exists.

Our continued focus on developing a good deal of (what we hope is) compelling content for the magazine and delivering it to loyal subscribers each month is reflected in the fact that this issue contains five feature articles profiling 13 shops. Plus, the timely topics we address this month examine key issues facing many of today’s shops as well as emerging technologies that can make shops more effective and efficient.

Our efforts in developing articles such as the features in the September issue feed our various electronic channels—there isn’t a Modern Machine Shop website, video collection, e-newsletter or blog without the work that goes into this magazine. Our various communication channels complement each other, but it all starts with the magazine.

Brand Building - Part II

Can small to medium-size companies build their brands?

The answer is yes, but it takes time and a real, long term commitment. The key is to develop an integrated marketing communications program. You need to understand your customers, your markets, your strengths and weaknesses, your competition, your distribution channels, your awareness level and current perceptions. The more intellence gathered, the greater the odds of being on target with strategies and positioning. Without this information, it's like shooting in the dark.

Long haul is the key.

A "start and stop" program doesn't work and is a waste of time and money. Creating a branding program involves more than advertising with a tagline. It is only a part of a total marketing program integrated with everything produced including advertising, email marketing, website, brochures, data sheets and PR. Everything needs to have the same "look and feel" to project the personality of the company.

Too many B2B companies view marketing expenditures as discretionary, to be cut immediately if sales soften. Some CEO's expect immediate results and kill programs after only a few months if they don't get them. This is unrealistic. Brand building is a long-term process.

Next time: Let's define branding.

Brand Building - Part I

Brand building is not new but it's a consumer marketing strategy more recently discovered in the business-to-business world.

So what's the big deal and why has the time come for branding in B2B and technology marketing? Partly, it's the natural evolution of an industry, initially being internally-driven by engineering, then becoming externally-driven by marketing, because of margin pressures and more competitors. The "window of advantage" had become smaller and smaller. By aggressively competing on features and price, it's been difficult for companies to create meaningful and lasting differences from their competitors. The customer is in effect buying a commoditiy and has no sense of brand loyalty because little is known about the company making the product or about service after the sale.

Many B2B companies have been slow to recognize the importance of marketing, but they are now becoming more receptive to brand building programs because of increased technology parity and fierce global competition. As competitive advantages disappear, brand building becomes a necessity rather than a luxury. So the need to differentiate companies by pesonality or image is rapidly increasing.

Next time: Can small to medium-sized companies build their brands?

The Price Of Chasing The Next New Marketing Channel - Part II

I'm not suggesting you stop chasing the next new marketing channel. But before you do, you should understand the strategic marketing implications of doing so. Perhaps before you leap, you need to master the channels already in use. Competitors may start using the next channel first, but the misuse of a new channel can be damaging.

Here are few things to consider before taking the plunge that will, at least, help you appear more strategic in deployment of a new channel.

1. Have the prospects you want to connect with and engage adopted the new channel, or are you getting ahead of them? Being first may be irrelevant if the markets you serve aren't ready.

2. Does your marketing staff have the skills to successfully implement a new channel? If a successful implementation requires complex new skills, and if it is too time-consuming or costly to acquire that level of competence, it may be too soon to tackle the new channel.

3. New channels have a steep learning curve and are costly. The adoption of a new channel may require configuring systems, upgrading technology, or even adding new systems or training employees. Before you embrace a new channel, develop a business plan to insure the investment pays off.

4. Have you established stable goals for the new channel? Otherwise, you may be in for a lot of rework... and that means lots of time and money.

The Price of Chasing The Next New Marketing Channel - Part I

Why is it that many marketers become so quickly enamored with the next new marketing channel? And at what cost?

What do I mean by the next marketing channel? For many marketers, the first new channel came in the mid-'90s with the creation of websites. And even though email started its humble beginnings in 1969, it wasn't until the '90s that it became a pervasive marketing channel.

In addition to email, marketers chased another channel: Internet marketing. In 1994, zero dollars were spent on Internet advertising. By 1996, US companies had invested $301 million dollars in Internet marketing primarily in the form of banner ads. By 2011, Internet ad spending was $32 billion. Yet we weren't content, and before we figured out how to strategically use our new channels, we charged off into new territory. In less than three decades, marketers had led heir companies into new channels -- many not mastering any of them. Our appetites for the new stuff seem insatiable.

Next time: Some things to consider before taking the plunge with your next new marketing channel.

In The Rush To Digital, Leave Room For Those Who Still Like Print

In an era where much of media mix is going digital, what is the best way to build brand awareness? I bring this up because many have been shifting more media dollars online. And, I believe it's a mistake to assume those who buy B2B products get all their information online. Just because it's a trendy thing to do, does it necessarily work?

Many B2B advertisers tend to think click-through rates mean something, and that a higher click-through rate means a better online site and a better ad. It's the measurement fallacy: people tend to think that what they can measure is what they want, just because they can measure it. And it's endemic in the online advertising industry.

Why would an advertiser risk missing so many prospects by going mostly or exclusively online? It is a strategy that can lead to lower brand awareness, a result from a few factors: pressure to be modern in a media buy; wrong assumptions that prospects have stopped reading magazines; and the belief that brand awareness can be achieved online.

While there are many magazines serving the manufacturing sector, most prospects read just a handful. Conversely, there are millions of Internet sites to visit. Most prospects visit dozens but don't stay long.

I have yet to see a more effective medium that magazines for telling a story and introducing a new product or brand. Online ads should play a key role in a brand's media plan. But not mostly or exclusively.

One Size Doesn't Fit All

About the only similarity between different media channels is the fact that people interact with them. Who interacts with each channel, how they interact, how long they interact, where they interact, and how long the information stays with them varies greatly between print, web, social media and so on.

Your challenge is to get your message out there in the most effective way possible, which means altering your message for each channel.

Here's an example: Traditional print advertising is a great place for brand awareness. Large imagery, basic inspirational messaging, and a strong brand presence are important here. A magazine is not the place to include a price list or provide much detail. Your website, however, is on the opposite side of the spectrum. Prospects come to your site for information. They want to know what you do, how much your products will cost, and why they should buy from you. It's important to have brand awareness throughout, but it has to go deeper than that.

Despite the differences between each channel, your prospects need to know they are dealing with the same company. To do this, you need to identify who you are. Whatever you are, identify it and carry that feeling throughout. Once you've done that, look at each channel and identify who interacts with it and how.

Marketing Dilemma: What's Your Niche?

Every company has to maintain a unique value proposition to own a share of customers' minds for their brand. For a brand to be number one or two, it has to occupy one of the following positions in customers' minds:

Be the best in its class.

Have a unique set of attributes.

Be the cheapest.

If a brand does not "fit" one of these perceptions, then it has a "fuzzy" value proposition for most customers. Brands exist in the mind and represent a collection of experiences over time. The mind is like a dripping sponge of brand value perceptions. The only way anything new can get in is to replace what already exists with a newer brand value perception.

Typically, brands lose positions as the result of the introduction of faster, better or cheaper solutions.

Every marketer must compare their company's unique resources with specific customer's changing requirements and select those that the company can satisfy better than competitors. When this is done well, and promoted effectively, a brand will "own" a position in the mind of a certain set of customers and prospects.

Every market consists of customers with strong and weak perceptions of competitor's levels of satisfying their specific requirements. Marketing in its simplest form is analyzing customer requirements in depth and then modifying product offerings and related value propositions so that they "fit" better with the requirements of a certain segment of the market than their competitors.