Utility Marketing: Usefulness Creates Connections

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Utility marketing certainly isn’t a new idea. In fact, André Michelin launched the first Michelin Guide in 1900, less then 10 years after the inflatable tire was patented. What began as a simple marketing ploy to get Parisians driving more (thus buying more Michelin tires) has grown into a global business, spanning more than a century.

But in the last couple of years branded utility has truly come of age. More and more, we see brands providing useful tools and services to forge connections with consumers. Additionally, the penetration of web enabled devices and the massive popularity of iPhone apps are playing substantial role in this new maturation – elegantly illustrating how branded utility can foster an ongoing relationship with people.

By providing frequent, helpful interactions with consumers, these applications can quickly become a meaningful part of their daily lives. This regular contact can be a supremely potent way to establish trust and build brand loyalty.

The mindshare these often small, simple utilities garner can offer a tremendous return on investment. This is not lost on deft marketers with increasingly tight budgets.

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5 Shocking Marketing Statistics

Shocking Junk Mail Statistics & Environmental Damage

Marketers say they use junk mail because it's cheap. But this begs the question - "cheap for whom?"
While taxpayer subsidies to the logging and fuel industries might indeed allow advertisers to stuff your mailbox for mere pennies on the pound, the fact is that junk mail exacts a heavy cost on Americans' quality of life and on our environment.

1.Junk Mail Kills 2.6 Million Trees Every Year. I assumed each piece of "standard mail" was junk mail (this is only about 50% of the total volume of US Mail) and assumed that junk mail uses 2 sheets of paper (1 envelope and 1 letter), found the number of sheets of paper per tree, and did some math. Of course some junk mail is only a postcard, but some is a catalog. And some does use recycled paper. But I did not factor in any of the damage caused by all those trucks burning gas to deliver all the mail either.

2.Every US Household Gets 6 Pieces of Junk Mail Each Day. I took the total volume of junk mail and divided by the number of households and the number of mail delivery days and got the answer, which is 6.3.

3.In 5 Days We Produce Enough Junk Mail to Reach the Moon. I took the width of a business envelope (8-7/8 inches) and multiplied by the number of junk mail pieces and divided by the number of inches to the moon, and saw that we could reach the moon 61 times per year with our junk mail. If you divide the number of mail delivery days by 61, you get 5, which means every 5 days we could reach the moon again with our junk mail.

4.Junk Mail Produces 1 Billion Pounds of Landfill Each Year. If you take the 2.6 million trees killed each year and convert that into pounds of paper, you get roughly 2 billion pounds. Even if you assume half of that is recycled (I saw an estimate of 45% on Wikipedia) you still have 1 billion pounds of paper going into landfills

5.Junk Mail Weighs Almost Double the US Military's Tanks. Our junk mail weighs nearly twice as much as all the US tanks in the world, combined. If you take the average US tank at a weight of 67 tons (a ton is 2,000 pounds) and divide the total weight of paper from junk mail by that number, you find that junk mail produced each year weighs the same as over 15,000 tanks. According to Wikipedia, the US military has about 8,000 tanks. By the way, a tank weighs about 40 times more than a standard car.

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Marketing Vs. Sales

Sales and marketing jobs often sound very similar, but they’re very different disciplines requiring different skill sets. Find out what sets them apart and which career path is right for you.

By Kelly Burkart, Star Tribune Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing jobs often sound very similar. You may even see crossover in keywords or categories as you search employment ads. So, does that mean marketing and sales careers are one and the same? Can you be successful at one as well as the other?

"Sales and marketing are two very different disciplines requiring different types of people with different skills," says Scott Zosel of Zosel & Co., a Minneapolis-based marketing consulting firm.

Sales: Building Relationships

Sales roles are about one-on-one relationships-from prospecting to closing a deal and all the phone calls in between. Wherever customers are in the sales process, salespeople convince them to take the next step. And, for salespeople, successful relationships help breed more business through referrals and networking.

Marketing: planning and tactics

Marketing is a business support function that paves the way for sales with promotional materials and an understanding of target audiences. Marketing plans, which may include sales strategies, are created at the executive level to guide more junior marketers in executing tactics, including ads, web pages, print brochures and more.

Choosing your career path

An entry-level career path in sales may include training from a mentor, but in general, you'll jump right into selling. On the other hand, marketers may start out with tactical or support roles and grow into more strategy, planning and consulting.

For mid-career professionals, "it's probably easier for a marketing person to go into sales," says Zosel. After years of executing tactics, marketing people may be attracted to the personal interaction and relationship-building of a sales job. On the other hand, Zosel says that "sometimes the top sales performer will be moved into a marketing management position, and it doesn't usually work. He or she may be too focused on the front lines and not interested or able to take on the responsibility of managing marketing tactics."

In the long run, "usually salespeople are the ones to advance to the top executive spots within a company. They're the relationship builders, while the marketers are more technical, analytical and process-oriented." Remember, you need to know your strengths and think about your career goals in order to choose between the two disciplines.

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7 Esentials of Email Marketing

For those of you who are doing email marketing, and there are many of you out there,you belong to either of the two categories. You either use basics of email marketing : login, put together a newsletter and hit send.
Or if you're smarter, you take time to leverage the POWER of email marketing for their businesses.

If you want to boost your revenue, it's time to take things to the second level, by following these easy 7 steps that make sense!

LESSON ONE: Segment Your Customers
(Do little boys (in general) like Barbie dolls for Christmas?)
Since your customers are quite diverse, sending one email newsletter to everyone is not the best way to reach them. Instead, carefully review your customers and then segment emails by a variety of criteria, including geography, zip code, product, by company, how someone has responded to email in the past, etc.

LESSON TWO: Measure Email Metrics
(If the audience doesn't laugh, is the comedian funny?)
After sending out newsletters, carefully measure the analytics of each email campaign by strategically to see how successful the campaigns are.

LESSON THREE: Consistency of Branding
(Ever wonder why every McDonald's all over the country and much of the world looks the same and serves the same basic food?)
While it's easy to send out emails that look one way one week and another way weeks later, it's best to have consistent branding so your customers (or whoever the recipients are) recognize your newsletter and it gives you a more professional look and feel overall.

LESSON FOUR: The copy you use is important
(Why do newspapers have copy editors?)
While you own your company, and are quite smart, you most likely are not a specialist in the "written word". You probably don't know how to most effectively write in a way that best causes the reader to do the action you want them to do.

LESSON FIVE: Email drives social media and web traffic
(Is the Super Bowl for the sport or for the commercials?)
Your business might be different, but the goal is going to be similar. You are sending an email to get the recipient to take some action. Social media is "cool" but you can use email marketing as a powerful tool to drive your audience to your social media feeds or whatever you would like them to do.
Although Twitter is great, especially for those of us, sitting at a desk all day and typing, many business owners are too busy on the phone, meeting with clients, nurturing their staff and doing 'real work' to read a Tweet. Email marketing is perfect for these busy business owners.

LESSON SIX: Online Marketing Gives You More Money
I'm sure that many of you who advertise use direct mail, Yellow Pages and other traditional means of marketing. While these methods have their place and can be useful in some cases, email marketing and overall online marketing will give you a MUCH bigger return on your investment.

LESSON SEVEN: How Frequently Should You Email?
(Do you call a new date every day?)
One of the biggest tips we learned was that you don't want to send your newsletter TOO MUCH, to be annoying but not TOO LITTLE so your customers forget about you. Above all, know your customers and know what's best for them.

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The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

According to the father-daughter team of Al and Laura Ries, a brand name is a name (a Proper Noun in fact) in the mind of the consumer that conveys a single proposition about a particular product or service. The power in a brand name lies in its ability to positively influence purchasing behavior. In an increasingly cluttered information society, a powerful brand image can act as a guidepost for the consumer in making a purchase decision. 

This book is the definitive text on branding. It provides you with pairing anecdotes about some of the best brands in the world, like Rolex, Volvo, Starbucks and Heineken. This book tackles one of the most challenging marketing problems today which is branding on the Web. By reading this book you will learn not only how to build a brand, but how to keep it alive.

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Marketing Your Business from the Loo

Ya that's right, this post is about Washroom Marketing.

As the name suggests, it’s advertising in the washroom, literally. Something like putting the advertisement and pamphlet about a product in the loo. This is a place our eyes can never miss.
9 out of 10 times its gender specific, and when you are in the loo, you might as well read it. Most of us have taken newspapers to the loo, which infact is filled with ads. There have been questions about the privacy issues in the washroom, but I can’t figure out how privacy comes into picture here. There is no camera there in the washroom, unless and until the advertisement is hiding a cam under it. I don’t think just placing something for you to read there doesn’t lead to invasion of privacy.

Admedia's Gowen stresses that the advertising has to be appropriate for the venue, not the immediate context of the washroom itself. He cites the Lucozade campaign, and recent work with T-Mobile that targeted washrooms in clubs and bars. "The washroom panels aimed to target young adults when they were out socializing and in a venue when they were likely to be with their friends and texting.

"We would never say that washrooms would not be right for a brand. I don't think there's anything special about them—people don't see them as an inappropriate environment."

If you are one of the few for whom privacy is important, then prepare for disappointment. According to IBAA's Turner, the market is picking up. "Washroom advertising is hardly new, but it is emerging as an important player. We are finally getting the national buys that the medium deserves."

So public toilets will no longer be such a safe haven. But a trip there might be more fun.

Moreover it’s a sure shot method of reaching the customer. He/she will read it without any disturbance. And ya for everyone’s information there are companies too for washroom marketing like Positive Media of UK, IN YOUR FACE media corp.Cintas Corp. and many more.

When it comes to marketing it really does pay to think outside the box. I'm telling you, the marketing communication world is getting weirder by the day…

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New take on an Old Phrase

The Optimist says, "The glass is half full."

The Pessimist says, "The glass is half empty."

The Marketing Consultant says,
"Your glass needs re-sizing."

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