Marketing Tactegy

Social Marketing Strategy Refined

As the social marketing space moves into the mainstream, we need to take a more sophisticated approach to our social marketing strategies and tactics.  The more sophisticated marketers are moving from a shotgun approach to a more targeted approach with more reliable success.  Below are some thoughts on two approaches in order to get the discussion going:  The shotgun approach and the targeted approach.  I am very curious to hear how you are developing your social marketing strategies and what you are doing to measure their success and apply that to improved future actions.

The shotgun approach

The shotgun approach basically looks at the market, takes a couple of stabs at it and sees what sticks.  This has worked (presumably) in the past because social marketing has generally been able to deliver a lot of value at a relatively low cost.  And as with most new frontiers, it’s often hard to fail even with a relatively weak or non-existent overarching strategy.  In a fast growing medium just about anything can succeed, delivering a great results and with some ongoing tweaking the shotgun approach can quickly coalesce into driving meaningful Marketing ROI.

The analytic approach

An analytical approach to successful targeting of social media looks at the target consumer segments for our physical product or service and builds a cross-section of the social media active segments to determine potential high value micro-segment opportunities.  This approach focuses on the following questions:

• What are the consumer segments we are currently targeting?
• What is our penetration in those segments?
• What is the competitive penetration each of these segments?
• Are there segments available that offer some real opportunity and where we offer a strong competitive value proposition?

These are pretty standard questions for any marketer, but how does this backdrop apply in the social media space?

Just as we have to target our traditional media buys, so too must we target our social marketing activities.  With social marketing activities, however, we are competing on a different plane.  In the traditional media space we are competing at the category level with physical products and services.  In the social media space we are competing in the entertainment space.  Our social marketing consumers are spending their valuable time, instead of their valuable money.  They could be playing a video game, watching TV or participating in another social media activity.  The social media activity could be for some other category or it could be with a competitive social media site. 

In order for our social marketing to be successful we need to provide a high entertainment value in order to generate interest and develop enthusiasts in addition to delivering lots of visitors.  Our offering has to compete on this new plane.  We need to target the specific segment active in the social media space with specific entertainment activities that will drive brand value in this entertainment oriented target segment.  Once we have been able to drive improved brand value we know that this can lead to improved conversion (due to the mechanics of choice – see http://marketingtactegy.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/ingredient_bran.html) at some point in the future. 

In essence we need to deliver a social media experience that competes with other social media and entertainment venues consumed by our target audience that can positively drive brand equity in the minds of our consumer segments.   It is an entertainment product that provides value to our target audience.  Just as we need to understand the competitive landscape and opportunities to successfully launch a new physical product (or service) so too, must we launch and deliver a social media activity as if it is a new entertainment product competing for time with our target audience.

In my next post I want to talk further about how we can improve our brand results through our social marketing by understanding these micro-segments and how our messages in the social space can be used to potentially drive the value of specific, high-value brand attributes that feed the consumer choice equation.

If you have any other thoughts on this, I would love to get your feedback.  If you would like a more detailed discussion on choice, please visit http://www.Marketing-Calculator.com.

Marketing and marketing ROI in a Recession

Everyone seems to be writing on this topic so I thought I would also chime in.  Times aren’t great for marketers, unless you have a couple of key arrows in your quivers   It’s not easy to cope, when it seems like nothing is working, sales are down 30 to 40% and the company is threatening payroll cuts.  And the CFO and CEO are saying cut your advertising budgets by 30% or else.

As we put our plans in place to survive (and thrive) in this market, what we’ve seen from our clients is that consumers seem to be trading down.  Instead of purchasing extravagant or luxury items they are holding off until they have confidence about the future.  They are looking for the bare minimum, the absolute necessities and where they can get these at the best price.  Discount redemptions are going up. The value placed on a premium brand is falling.  Instead of shopping in their preferred channel, they are shopping in a channel known for low cost.  WalMart comes to mind.  WalMart reports they are doing very well across most categories, although this may also be due to lower gas prices. (February Retail Sales Stronger Than Expected, by Sarah Mahoney in MediaPost, http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101585)  Our own anecdotal evidence shows that other value brands and offerings also seem to be doing well.

Consumer behavior and choice

If this is the case, what has changed in consumer behavior and how can we potentially change our thinking to take advantage of this dynamic.  Here are a couple of thoughts and questions: 

1. Are shoppers simply trading down in their channel selection but purchasing premium brands in a value channel (as WalMart’s success might allude to).  Do marketers need to focus solely on lower price or will shoppers trade down in their channel selection and trade up once in the door?  Do we need to maintain our premium price in the value channel, or do we need to cut prices across the board?
2. If consumers have temporarily exited the category, how can marketers retrieve them in order to re-grow the category and then drive preference for their brands? 
3. Once consumers are shopping in the category how have consumer preferences changed and do brands need to change their messaging to take advantage of it.  Once consumers have chosen to purchase in a specific category consumers make choices based on a combination of their preferences for specific functional and emotional attributes.  For example, has the emotional preference for the ‘good value for the money’ brand attribute changed, or has the disutility of price changed?

I’m sure there are other questions we could start to ask ourselves and our consumers in order to determine how consumer behavior has changed and how we can potentially take advantage of these changes.

I would love to hear what you’re experiencing as you try and survive and thrive in the uncertain economy. 

I also have a question for you and that is, how do you see your marketing investments changing over the next two quarters (Q209 and Q309)?  Will spending be made to gain share in a down market, or will the finance team win and marketing will be cut to maintain margins?

I look forward to your views.