Why everybody in a company is a marketer? (Really) Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at 00:54, in Labels: competitive advantage, copypaste economy, marketing, tomi heikkinen

Why everybody in a company is a marketer, service-dominant logic makes sense and people/competence is a key generator of competitive advantage.

Seth Godin delivers another online gem.

"So, how to protect your ideas in a world where ideas spread?

Don't.

Instead, spread them. Build a reputation as someone who creates great ideas, sometimes on demand. Or as someone who can manipulate or build on your ideas better than a copycat can. Or use your ideas to earn a permission asset so you can build a relationship with people who are interested. Focus on being the best tailor with the sharpest scissors, not the litigant who sues any tailor who deigns to use a pair of scissors."

Godin writes about how to protect your ideas in the online world. His insightful words however touch another interesting topic of how companies should approach marketing from a relational, competence based perspective.

Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad (1996 2nd ed.) talk about core competences and how they drive company’s competitive advantages. In their words, core competencies translate into substantial competitive advantages and are particularly relevant in the current economy. Companies pool these competencies by skilled recruitment and stakeholder network management.

We all know the old wisdom that everybody should be a marketer in a company. But this is especially true for knowledge intensive service organizations. Consider briefly the recruitment criteria of such a company. These organizations hire people of talent and potential, or in other words, for their competence. They are idea developers and results providers. Deriving from Godin’s logic, they have a basis to attract interested people (customers and other stakeholders) and thus create mutually beneficial relationships. If they these recruits are market oriented and capable of two-way communication, by hiring them the companies have just saved a lion’s share of their marketing budget. These organizations don’t have to worry about push sales tactics or brand awareness. They have word-of-mouth and natural pull on their side.

Robert Vargo and Stephen Lusch (JoM 2004) talk about a paradigm change for marketing from a goods-based business logic to a service-dominant logic, where services based on competencies are transacted with goods as mere vehicles for service delivery. I think they are after something right. In an online, hyperfast copypaste economy it is increasingly difficult to succeed with a product leadership strategy. So knowledge becomes an asset, and how you deliver your offering the advantage.

A organization where everybody who creates ideas is a marketer must truly focus on employee retention. These kind of companies adamantly consider their employees and customer relationships as their most important assets, even though as assets they are ungrateful and expensive. But investments in these assets pay off. Benefits diffuse to improve shareholder value through happy, ambitious employees, improved brand value, competitive advantages, enhanced customer experiences and longer, more profitable customer relationships. Take a company like Reaktor Innovations, a growing IT service success story that is constantly awarded as a Great Place to Work.

I’ve researched knowledge-intensive Finnish companies and SMEs like these have the best potential to become such organizations. A few are already and enjoy profitable double digit annual revenue growth rates year after year. So, are you recruiting people who have great ideas and helping them share and spread theirs and yours?

Should environment be a stakeholder in your company? Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 21:29, in Labels: business strategy, shareholder value, sustainability, tomi heikkinen

Companies around the world but particularly in the West are driven to develop their sustainability and their contribution to social and environmental issues. The aim is to create a closed loop of consumption that enables us to stop overusing the finite resource base we currently can capitalize. This is because we're permanently damaging the environment and it's ability to regenerate resources. The result is that in the long-term the environment cannot meet our current needs nor the needs of future generations.

In order for companies to systematically and concretely drive a focus and mentality of sustainability some suggest that environment should be considered to be a stakeholder of (all) companies. This way, the "voice" of the environment would be heard in companies, effectively establishing its presence in decision-making processes. It is a noble idea, but a flawed one.

The question, is environment a stakeholder in a company, boils down to how you consider environment from a means-end perspective. Is environment a mean for humanity's well-being or a end in itself? In a gut feeling, one might think the former represents a purely capitalist and liberalist point of view where environment is just a tool for humanity to be used as we wish, while the latter is a predominantly "green" position where environment itself has a value comparable to human life. These two views are extremes and are mutually exclusive, but there is a grey area in between.

The environment cannot speak for itself. We can't talk to a cow or a river and ask their opinion on matters. Who should then represent environment in a stakeholder conference? A person? But how can a person or a group of persons effectively and sensibly represent the needs of an awesomely complicated eco-system? If a person is doing the talking, isn't the person representing herself and other people who share certain ideals (like clean air for our children)? Doesn't it mean then that a certain way of utilising and treating the environment serves as a mean to reach their ends, their ideals? In the end, is it just humans discussing and advancing their own interests, how moral or immoral they are?

What is suggested here is that you can address and pursue sustainability while leaving it out of the list of stakeholders. Not regarding it as a stakeholder shouldn't denote lack of consideration. Even though environment is a tool for humanity, it's importance for human well being and survival cannot be underestimated. Companies as citizens of societies should pursue to respect environment even if it is considered to be a mean rather than an end by including their impact on the environment in their corporate strategy planning processes. A sustainability plan is a good start - companies can discover means to cut costs and gain new, profitable competitive advantages that create shareholder value. We still live in a world fueled by money, so we're better off rationalizing sustainability and making a good buck while sustaining the world for tomorrow.

How does marketing contribute to shareholder value? Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at 01:14, in Labels: job interview, marketing, marketing accountability, shareholder value, tomi heikkinen

A superb question to any marketer's job interview. Why?

By answering "correctly" (a vague term in real life I know), you..

1) show to the interviewer you understand the strategic, dual value purpose of marketing: Creating value both to the customer and the shareholder.

2) point out you fathom the importance of relationships in marketing and business as drivers of long-term value

3) can bring forth your understanding that marketing is not a one silo thing - but rather cross-functional, where the marketer (you) acts as a facilitator of customer orientation within the firm and an advocate of the customer to the other functions of the company

4) indicate that you are financially literate and understand the purpose of predicting and measuring financial, hard outputs - VERY important!

5) also show you grasp the role of marketing as the company's vanguard element whose task is to acquire critical market intelligence, both customer insight and external information about the environment around the company, and disseminate this intelligence across the firm and to the value chain participants.

6) prove you comprehend what brand equity is about and how brands create shareholder value

7) point out your appreciation of strategic marketing as a tool of resource allocation decision making

The list is hardly complete. But are you asking your prospective marketers this question?

The future of the marketer within the organisation? Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Saturday, October 17, 2009 at 12:48, in Labels: marketing, research

A bit of research from Finland, in Finland, in Finnish (sorry!)

The article states some research data regarding the number of companies who have let a marketing director into the board of management.. For example, out of the largest 100 companies in Finland, only 28 have a marketing director in their management team.

Is this a still continuing trend in Finland, or is there light at the end of the tunnel for the marketer? Is it an another manifestation of marketers' diminished role in top management decision-making? (As discussed by Sheth and Sisodia (Journal of Marketing 2005/69, pp. 11))

Not a happy sign for aspiring marketing managers.

The Little Guy: winner of tomorrow? Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 21:20, in Labels: business development, customer overdrive, problem solving, seth godin, startups

Seth Godin happened to post yesterday about understanding business development, a topic I too brushed in my last post about Solving outside the box. I brainstormed some key questions for a sales & marketing manager who would like to develop her business with the help of proactive, eyes-wide-open sales people.

Seth offers a great definition for the term:

Good business development allows businesses to profit by doing something that is tangential to their core mission. Sometimes the profit is so good, it becomes part of their core mission, other times it supports the brand and sometimes it just makes money. And often it's a little guy who can be flexible enough to make things happen.

I love his last sentence. It made me wonder: How much should today's startups, "little guys", rely on detailed business plans, and how much should be left open for flexible business development?

Consider how networked the business world is currently, and how networking further increases. Due to this, startups (and established businesses!) who keep their eyes and ears open are constantly and increasingly bombarded with new openings, ideas and possibilities. (To assess these, Seth offers in his post a great checklist of issues to go through.) For a businessperson who is not just sociable but competent and efficient as well these are an abundant goldmine of profit and fun.

So, are the winner startups of tomorrow the Great Networkers, who have the ability to surf in their general field of business, adjust their core mission and constantly absorb great new openings and possibilities, and thus are hugely profitable? I think so. Firstly I believe Great Networkers are also Great Personal Sellers, due to their ability to solve outside their box. Because of all the people in the world, the customers are most competent to tell the Great Networker how to better her business. And secondly their ability to surf in their business area also deters fatal customer overdrive, being too customer-oriented, that threatens all little guys serving the bigger and/or older boys.

Does your business plan enable you to be a Great Networker? Are you a little guy at the core of your business?

Solving outside your box Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 20:08, in Labels: personal selling, problem solving, tomi heikkinen

How much do you think your sales persons think outside and beyond your organization's current abilities and comfort zones when coming up with solutions to your customers?

How much idea power and effort do they employ when their customers directly or indirectly present a problem that they don't seem to be able to tackle with your current resources or offerings? Do you enable and help your sales people solve a customer's problem even if its not fully within the scope of your business? If yes, would it be profitable? Moveover, should you be bound by your current strategy or by your customers? Or both, or neither?

Something old, something new Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 09:54, in Labels: clichés, marketing, rohit bhargava, tomi heikkinen

A couple of interesting entries from the blogosphere that deserve a mention in my "social learning diary".

Something old: 101 clichés of B2B marketing. This site has been online for a year now, and they show the 101 worst communication clichés a marketer can use. A terribly funny blog, it also serves as a valuable tool for creatives to measure the differentiation of their communication. It's useful for ad agency types but also for any marketing people who strive to make their message simpler, easier to understand, more attractive but above all recognizable from the mass.

Something new: Rohit Bhargava writes very perceptively about the end of mass broadcasting era. His post is about media convergence of the social media and broadcast television: the possible future role of television is to be a broadcaster specialized in live events, it has a potential point of integration with social media that revolves around real time interaction and collaboration. I agree with Rohit, this is an interesting possible trend that is worthy of further monitoring!

Segmentation based on our competitive advantages? Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Friday, September 11, 2009 at 14:19, in Labels: chris fill, competitive advantage, kelly page, paul baines, segmentation, targeting, tomi heikkinen

Thanks to the upcoming Cranfield Experience(tm), I've been pre-reading Marketing by Paul Baines, Chris Fill and Kelly Page (2008). I'll possibly review the book later in depth, but many points have come to mind while reading their comprehensive, massive, but excellent textbook, and one in particular stirred some thinking.

The authors discuss the basics of segmentation and targeting. They go through both consumer and business market aspects of S&T, and while describing the business side of things, they mention some limitations of market segmentation. A particularly interesting point was that there is insufficient consideration how market segmentation is linked to competitive advantage. Moreover, market segmentation has not tended to stress the need to segment on the basis of differentiating the offering from competitors.

Why is this interesting? First we might consider what is competitive advantage. In rough layman's terms it means doing something critical to the customer so much better than the competitor OR having something critical to the customer that the competition has not. A sustainable competitive advantage furthermore is an edge that cannot be easily swayed from the supplier. However the competitive advantage is possibly two-fold: on one side, it's critical to the supplier because it enables it to differentiate from the competition. But on the other side, it might be critical to the customer - the supplier might have been selected because of the competitive advantage, ergo the offering should be vital to the customer's business. It is obvious not all businesses can have competitive advantages that are so remarkable. But shouldn't every business strive to develop advantages that become immensely important parts of the core businesses of their customers? Isn't it every CEO's dream?

Back to segmentation and targeting. A starting business, or even an established firm with a new business, should among other things consider their targeting according to their competitive advantages and their strengths. In other words, be both competition and customer-oriented. Key questions might be: What are our sustainable competitive advantages? For whom are we the most potent suppliers? Which advantage is most profitable? Who benefits most of our advantages, and are they profitable too? What kind of demands are we best suited to fulfill? Who are the customers to whom we could become a lifeline? A bit of blue ocean thinking too never hurts.

Maybe a well thought-out toolbox or a framework/mindset is in order? And maybe I just came up with a thesis project for myself?

How do we define our business Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Friday, August 21, 2009 at 10:45, in Labels: business strategy, customer overdrive, marketing myopia, segmentation, tomi heikkinen

In order to pursue profitable growth, companies need to define what exactly is their business. Levitt's Marketing Myopia turned heads and revolutionized executives' viewpoints in this regard alrady back in 1960. Others, Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor for example, have given other, similar perspectives for executives. Christensen and Raynor in particular have an interesting viewpoint on segmentation, which they describe in their book The Innovators Solution (2003). According to them, customers hire products [incl. services] to do specific "jobs". These jobs are as numerous as customers have needs. This is in other words a demand-based perspective that directs companies to align their businesses according to specific, select needs their customers have.

All in all, I think Christensen and Raynor have a solid perspective that deserves further observation. All businesses have long been seeking to become customer-oriented or customer-driven - many have succeeded while others have failed. But if companies adopt their perspective, do they face the risks of innovative stagnation and hampered business development caused by customer-overdrive? In many industries, small subcontractors and suppliers who chose to specialize in serving certain customers have hit rock bottom after these customers no longer continued business with them for varying reasons. They were customer-overdriven, and went bust because of it. These businesses had been entangled in processing and handling the current needs of their customers and had dismissed their own business development and innovation work.

Considering the different perspectives and these risks, I came up with this diagram, four perspectives to defining your business.



The diagram shows the classic perspective (aka "we're in the oil business and supply our customer with petroleum"), Levitt's marketing myopic (if you may) perspective, Christensen and Raynor's perspective and a fourth, Proactive customer-oriented perspective.

The fourth perspective is an attempt to fuse the best sides of myopic and demand-based perspectives. The myopic perspective's one groundbreaking advantage is that it expands the innovative horizon of the company - by defining business this way, new growth options become visible for innovative executives. Demand-based perspective's advantage is naturally customer-orientation. Combining these we achieve a viewpoint where we are customer-driven, grow as our customers grow, but also consider the larger horizon of business opportunities. Being customer-driven should not translate to being too focused in day-to-day customer demand satisfaction and to dismissing real out-of-the-box thinking and proactive satisfaction of hidden demands. While explicit and tacit information from customer and their ever-changing needs are essential for companies, they should not rely on them only, but keep a myopic perspective on their own business aswell. By doing so, they can enjoy being customer-oriented but evade risks mentioned above - and escape the danger of customer overdrive.

When does being human mean bad business? Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 19:59, in Labels: account management, customer service, seth godin, tomi heikkinen

Seth Godin delivers a delicious line of wisdom while he gives lessons from very tiny businesses. In his ending statement regarding customer service, he reminds that don't pretend you have a policy. Just be human.

In a world of big company customer service processes and irritating service policies, this statement is a breeze of welcomed air. Dissappointed customers want personal, understanding, friendly service. Customer service processes deliver impersonal, bureaucratic, cold service. But these "inhumane" processes haven't been created out of spite. They've been created to manage costs and to upkeep sound business.

Regarding both the obvious benefits of humane service and the reality of cost management, I wondered: Is there a tipping point where being too human leads to closing up the shop in the longer run?

I worked in a business sales organization where different account managers treated their customers differently. Our unofficial policy was be human - to a point. Some account managers were critized for how they overcared for their customers - execs felt resources were overspent on micromanaging and worrying about the whims of some customers. I'd like to point out that we never received feedback about bad service though. The execs couldn't however statistically prove that overcaring was unprofitable, as this type of account managers were among the better salespersons. Micromanagement was evident, but the management simply lacked the metrics for proving its negative impact. But clearly our organization wasn't close to the tipping point as business was good nevermind some overzealous account managers.

Customer service is about sales too. It's about managing the expectations of the customer. When the customer is unsatisfied, it is the customer service person's task to "sell" the customer a reimbursement or another reassuring action that returns the customer to a satisfied level, and hopefully even increases overall satisfaction to your brand. If the service person is successful, he customer modifies her expectations and "buys" the reassuring action.

Measuring customer service as a sales operation, could we measure the tipping point of when being too human is no longer good business? I think this is especially important to companies which have grown to a point where managing a single customer relationship requires the effort of more than two employees. At this stage, when one person, e.g. the account manager, is "being human" to the customer it no longer concerns the account manager only but will affect the workload of another employee. For example serving the extra demands of a certain customer might seem inconsequential to the account manager but put excessive pressure to a sales engineer who has to realize the (unprofitable) demands of the customer.

In the future, I'd love to hear actual experiences from businessmen about when being human meant bad business. Is there a tipping point? Or is there a best practice how being human can always or often enough be good business?

Thoughts on branding Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 19:39, in Labels: branding, Kevin Roberts, marketing, tomi heikkinen

The bottomline of your brand should be about trust: earning and keeping it. Your customer trusts you to offer the best value to her money everytime she does business with you. Consistency - maintaining this trustworthiness - creates loyalty beyond reason as Kevin Roberts tells us.

Let's use my trusted brands as examples: Google, Nokia, Amazon, Battery energy drink, Marabou chocolate. Before making a buying and using decision that relate to web searches, mobile phones, music & literature etc. I always consider them first. In a world of stupendously numerous options my relationship with is defined by their primacy. And many, many times I settle for their offering as I trust it has the best value to my money.

Trust is illogical to its core. A purely logical being would always compare all possible offerings before making any decision. But trust makes buying and thus problem-solving easier. A trusted brand is the preferred one and the foundation of any long-term customer relationship.

Thoughts about relevant CRM metrics Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 10:09, in Labels: CRM, WOM

Best A-customers are not necessarily the ones who bring in most cash directly, but those who create most word-of-mouth and thus bring cash in indirectly. They are that way most profitable if new customers are profitable aswell. But how can we measure the amount of WOM generated by each customer? How can we compare the amount of WOM to acquired new business and its profitability thus identifying the indirect value of WOM? Can any causality be assessed easily? If yes, how will we help and encourage our customers to talk about us?

Godfather marketing Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 18:39, in Labels: godfather marketing, marketing, mindset, seth godin, tomi heikkinen

Seth Godin does what he does best, makes the light bulb go on in his readers' heads that is, by writing about operating and marketing under the circumstances. Mark Pocock then writes about avoiding pushy sales person syndrome, brushing Godin's issue. Reading these followed by some thinking brought forth a painful realization. You know, those realizations you didn't want to have - when you realize what you had been thinking and doing for the past years was awfully dumb. Like finding out your fly had been open for the whole day (or worse!) and recollecting the smirks and funny looks of people who had been around you. Worst is that the thing you realized is bloody obvious.

My realization concerned my marketing mindset. Godin tells us as marketers we can change the circumstances of our customers in order to help them realize our offering is the best for them (and it is!). He uses an analogy from a famous scene in the Godfather, which I think is fantastic. Maybe because I simply love the first two Godfather movies. Pocock uses the words demonstration and showing not telling and urges the marketer to let the customer make her own conclusions before reaching a decision. Which the customer does, according to her circumstances. You don't win over the customer by pressuring her, you win her over by adjusting her perception and helping her think by herself. Pocock reminds us that everyone as a customer wants to feel in control during the sales process, and he's right.

I might just call my marketing mindset Godfather marketing henceforth. Respect your customers, adjust their perception by your communication. Is not the best marketing something that time and time again makes the customer herself realize matters that are important or relevant to her and that demonstrates that the best way to move forward is with the help of the marketer? Isn't this what pull is really about?

Why is a mindset important then? It helps to have consistent thinking, action and communication. On my office wall, next to my business mantra, I'm sticking Godfather marketing. Also what Godin and Pocock are telling fits perfectly with Kevin "Lovemarks" Roberts' ideas of Mystery in succesful marketing - don't tell everything, leave room for imagination and realizations.. or in Godfather's case, pure fear!

Best-practice street hussle marketing Sunny Beach style Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 21:23, in Labels: bulgaria, case study, marketing, tomi heikkinen

During my vacation I recently visited Bulgaria, tourist-filled but cozy Sunny Beach to be exact. Sunny Beach is a vibrant resort sprawling with numerous albeit mostly homogenous bar&restaurants. And like in every other major tourist resort, the streets of Sunny Beach were riddled with stalls and over-eager people trying to get you to buy stuff/into their restaurant. It didn't take long before I readied my marketing eye and really started to consider their activities from a proper marketing perspective. What could be learned? How would I develop their marketing? Hence my shot on best-practice street hussle marketing.

A good businessperson knows that a quality offering is the basis of everything. Each restaurant more or less offered the same foods, even though their communication mostly loudly promoted the wide scope of their variety of foods. I realized after a day of walking through the congested boulevards of Sunny Beach that same stuff; pork, veal, chicken, pizza, was served everywhere. Thus we can deduce that the "product" was the same among all competitors.

It was not a surprise that differentiation in communication and promotion were the keys to success. My favourite bit of differentiated communication was "Michael Jackson is going to dance in two minutes", shouted to a group of tourists by a employee of a beach restaurant. A bit inappropriate, gross even, considering the recent passing of the King of Pop, but I laughed (and went to have a dinner the next day). The same employee also always managed to keep a (genuine?) smile and vigorously seached for eye-contact when approaching prospective customers in the street - winner traits were positivity and genuinity. In one hand I saw many tired and apathetic, and on the other hand happy, but irritantly unsurprising marketers, but their energetic and exertive competitors were easy to spot. Not surprising: the importance of empowered people doing right things was again proven.

Flyers were the other key marketing tactic of the beach restaurants. Almost all listed the same boring typical meals offered and were filled with flashy pictures of their spaces and meals. Some had maps to illustrate the location of the restaurant. Like with husslers, they were monotonous and easily forgettable. I wondered how could the best marketers stand out of the competition if they all had more or less similar flyers? Of the dozen or two of flyers I collected, just for this blog post, only two or so included actual example prices of their meals. This is hugely important for prospective customers to assess the price level of the restaurant when making a quick decision where to get a dinner or a lunch. Even billboards standing next to restaurant exits rarely had the prices of typical meals. Customers were not given a chance to measure and compare adjacent restaurants. Horribly inconvenient and time and effort consuming for the customer!

Location and the facade were other important marketing aspects for the restaurants, but where the restaurants eager to improve their marketing, I'd believe aforementioned communication would the easiest (and cheapest!) aspect to develop. Starting with a bit of innovation in flyer and billboard design and seeking out the best employees to work as husslers would help many restaurants stand out in a crowd. Maybe then there would be more than one restaurant, Djanny, in Sunny Beach with a queue in the rush hours of the evening. It was however word-of-mouth recommendation that led me to Djanny..

My sales and marketing mantra Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Friday, July 3, 2009 at 15:07, in Labels: growth, mantra, marketing, sales, scottginsberg, tomi heikkinen

Grow by helping your partners and clients grow.

It's my new mantra. It's viciously obvious to anyone, but like Scott Ginsberg likes to say, one must remind him/herself continuously of the important values and matters that crystallize who and what you are and what you will become.

My mantra is about business with respect and collaboration. To business partners it means that I'm willing to give and I'm eager to help them become better. It's the same with my clients, in addition that I seek a bigger share of their wallet and heart and inseparably tie their growth potential to my own.

What's your business mantra?

I laugh at social networking startups Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 19:52, in Labels: marketing, networking, social media, startups

.. or so I thought.

Everytime I'd come across a new social media networking business, I'd shake my head. It's a social network for people who grow their own oranges. I intend to fund it with advertising.. and stuff. "OK, cool if its your thing", I'd say, "but think about the business model".

But soon I realized that there's two reasons why you shouldn't dismiss these startups/concepts off the bat.

1) Gauss. You need volume to bring out and elevate the best networking sites. There are a thousand composers for each Mozart.

2) Marketing. No, I'm not giving the entrepreneur a dime for traditional direct response or brand marketing in his network. But I will be interested in whether my offering is relevant and useful for the network. Having this figured out, I'll be interested in who is my spokesperson in the group - who will passionately talk about my offering and recommend it to others in the network. And if the entrepreneur is able to provide me answers to these questions, I might pay him for it.

Fax marketing aka Fax-a-spam Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 15:48, in Labels: fax marketing, seth godin, sustainability

In the hustle and bustle of the office, the fax machine beeps and whirrs. A fax has arrived. And also, it seems, a full-fledged marketing effort. Are you kidding me?

My office receives a couple of feebly targeted faxed marketing messages every quarter. Unsurprisingly, they mainly come from companies promoting their own fax marketing service. The latest I noticed on the trash bin was from yesterday. I was baffled. Fax marketing, it’s not an urban legend?

Similar to email marketing, fax marketers praise their low cost (only 3.5 eurocents per sent fax!), huge reach (fax numb.. *cough* contact details of over 100 000 companies!) and ability to target specific segments. Give me a break.

In the era of email.. ah nevermind, since the era of dinosaurs only few decision-makers have had their own fax numbers. Most companies, my clients for example, easily survive with one faceless company fax number which is monitored by an assistant/lobby clerk/other non-decision maker. With this in mind, how can these firms claim to have any ability to reach anyone their customers seek? In essence their business could be sending emails to companies’ info@company.com mail address. Granted, someone could actually read their fax, but if I was contemplating fax marketing I wouldn’t risk irritating my customer.

And talk about wasting resources. First of all, printing consumes electricity and paper and wears the machine. And a fax marketer isn’t consuming anyone’s paper (without permission!) He’s consuming his customer’s paper (1.5 eurocents a piece thankyouverymuch). Seth Godin would have a stroke. I’m having a stroke, between laughs. Fax marketing really isn’t 21st Century and it sure isn’t a part of any aspiration to sustainability.

So next time you receive a faxed, undesired marketing message, please remember to recycle the paper.

Business cases that never were Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 20:16, in Labels: branding, case study, Flickr, Kevin Roberts, Kodak, Lovemarks, marketing, social media

I am always told that hindsight is unconstructive, mainly negative and energy-consuming. It should be avoided at all times – after all, you should always look to the future and its possibilities and not waste energy on looking back.

Or should you?

I’m starting a series of blogposts about Business Cases that Never Were – writings and discussions that make use of hindsight and unexecuted, perhaps even unrealized opportunities. I am doing this just because to disprove the myth of hindsight’s negative aspects, and to generally inspire creativity and innovative ideas. The first case is simply called Flickr – powered by Kodak.

Flickr – powered by Kodak

I was reading Lovemarks – Future beyond brands by Kevin Roberts (CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi) the other day. Lovemarks is a compelling, vibrant book about the next level of branding, lovemarks that attract “loyalty beyond reason” in their customers. On pages 150 to 152 Kevin Roberts discusses a certain case of Kodak where the firm between 1999 and 2005 strived to connect with teens, enhance its brand position among them and capture the market of disposable one-time-use cameras in this segment. In the case study, their main fear seems to be (in addition to losing to their competition) becoming a disposable themselves, a fad like Polaroid.

The case study goes on about Kodak’s extensive marketing tactics that succeeded in reaching their target audience and steered (in their own words) Kodak towards a Lovemark. Their continuous goal is to remain authentic and relevant to the teen segment. The case sums up nicely how a certain Lovemark-oriented marketing perspective helped Kodak connect with teens, but I was left thinking about a lost chance for Kodak. Now, its 2009 and disposable cameras sound a bit from the leftfield. Sure, they are the low-budget choice, but teens love their digital cameras, because of their big memory cards and ability to share and edit their digital pictures – their life. The industry where Kodak operates, production of imaging and photographic materials and equipment, is in a world of trouble. I have clients in that same industry and discussions with them turn darker year after year, and digital photography is one of the main reasons. Retailers face bankruptcies as customers no longer develop their pictures but enjoy and store them in digital formats. And to boot, people increasingly purchase their photographic equipment from an often cheaper source, online.

How would we upgrade Kodak’s marketing efforts to 2009 while keeping in mind their business goals, continuous authenticity and relevance, brand preference and increased sales, presented in this case?

Life’s about sharing

Flickr is an open, free online photo and video management and sharing application where people can store and show off their magnificent pictures to the Internet. It’s hideously popular, and for a reason, thanks to its ease and (non-) cost of use and vibrant social community. Launched in February of 2004, it now hosts more than three point six billion images and videos. And it’s owned by none the other than Yahoo.

Kodak’s goal in Lovemarks’ case was to increase their share of market in photography equipment, in this case, one-time-use cameras, by connecting with a potential market of teens. For this example, we will disregard one-time-cameras and focus on other more relevant equipment.

What if Kodak had launched Flickr in 2004, or acquired it before Yahoo on March 2005?

What has been relevant to internet users in general and youth in particular since 2000? That’s right, social media, emphasis on social. In Roberts’ case study, Kodak claims to have gotten to grips with the youth market. In the past years Internet has become a major social playground for teens, a major part of their life. Kodak would’ve needed to be there too, should it want to remain relevant. And what is Kodak known for? Photography. Those Kodak moments.

What would it be/what would it have been?

In the fall of 2004, some exec in Eastman Kodak should’ve had a brain explosion. Realizing the same opportunities as we, he would’ve driven Kodak to the social internet community based on their main competence - photography. By creating a thriving community around their main business, they could attract customers and prospective customers. Kodak could have launched Flickr as a semi-independent, authentic, separate brand, being careful not to over-commercialize a service intended among others for sharp youth. Keeping it free and easy to use, just reminding that all this fun is powered by Kodak. Business-wise, their goals could have been to:

1) offer users easy possibility to develop their best images – direct them to their nearest Kodak retailer or even put out a service where people can develop their photos online by the nearest retailer
2) offer free advice to better photography, useful information on cameras and equipment (something Kodak does already, atleast in their UK website)
3) offer a easy, cost-competitive channel to purchase said equipment

This way, multiple benefits could have been reaped

1) Increase in crucial retail business
2) Major boost to brand awareness – “the little Kodak logo on every Flickr page”
3) Retained deep connection with youth – authenticity and relevance

Think about it: People sharing their Kodak moments online?

A bit about Cranfield University Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Monday, June 15, 2009 at 18:35, in Labels: cranfield SOM, cranfield university, marketing studies, transportdirect.info

Time indeed flies as the saying goes. I've been working and on my free time developing a marketing strategy for a bold start-up, so two months have passed without a single blog post. I'm hoping to be able to write about the start-up and its marketing plans, but for the time being, I regret I can't discuss them here.

But about Cranfield - I recently secured by accomodation there, so the final big issue concerning my Marketing studies is taken care of. I've heard horror stories about damp, drafty and unheated old British apartments but Cranfield's campus buildings (especially the one I'm going to accomodate) seem nothing like it!

For foreigners like me coming to the UK next fall, check this helpful website transportdirect.info. It's great when planning transportation within the UK after your flight etc. Also thanks to Cranfield's administration I have already become acquainted with another future Cranfield Strategic Marketing student, which is fantastic!

Cranfield SOM have developed their 2009/2010 course programme for Strategic Marketing during early Summer, and I'm even more excited about it (is it even possible?). They seem to have put some more flesh to it, and have included a course on digital media, or have atleast emphasized it on their integrated marketing communications course. Insight on digital/social media is a must-have these days in my opinion. Too much is happening in the Net for the marketer to be left out of the bandwagon. They've also added a course on ethics and sustainability in marketing. As excessive consumption is criticised around the globe, marketers of all industries face a moral dilemma - is my business a part of the Change to sustainability? Confronted with 21st century values, is my business viable and acceptable?

The interesting question however is, what is the next bandwagon after social media and 21st century ethics and sustainability?

All in all, it will be a busy year which I'm eagerly waiting for! And perhaps I'll come to know the answer!

Facebook, steal this idea! Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 17:25, in Labels: amazon, facebook, ideas, seth godin, web marketing

Amazon has the great recommendation feature that they have developed over the years. As their customer, I've found it very useful and helpful as it makes it easier for me to find new interesting music and books while browsing their site, based on my previous purchases and browsing history.

Now Facebook is a free web service and I sincerely hope they continue it that way. However, Facebook needs a steady cash-flow to support its business, so naturally web marketing is their key source of income.

What I'm suggesting is that Facebook offers service providers like Amazon a possibility to extend the helpful information over to its own website - for example, while browsing Facebook, I would be seeing reminders of upcoming books and music and some recommendations provided by Amazon. Naturally, I'd been approached by either Amazon or Facebook (the latter perhaps) previously and asked, whether I would be kind enough to allow Amazon and Facebook to exchange my user data (some "Seth Godinian" permission marketing there), so that Facebook is able publish marketing information drawn from the correct Amazon user's database.

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16th of July 2009 update:

Paul Dunay innovates similar Facebook/Amazon co-operation in MarketingProfs Daily Fix, check it out!

Learning objectives Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 18:44, in Labels: cranfield university, learning

I've been considering my main learning objectives for the coming studies in Cranfield University, 2009-2010. I find these important because they will help me assess my development after and along the studies and help me stay focused as the study year will undoubtedly offer many (positive and negative) distractions.

I've grouped my objectives into 'skill sets', which are: core skills, business skills and language skills.

Naturally, my main objective is to develop my knowledge and insights of marketing in general. Skills and know-how related to marketing are my 'core skills', these form the basis of my "marketing expertise".

Secondly, but not any less importantly, I aim to better my business skills, namely argumentation/critical thinking, presentation skill and the skill of asking the right question (rather than finding the correct answer). I link 'the creative mind-set' to the skill to assess the situation and come up with the right question of what is the problem and what is the next successful strategic move - abilities I personally rank higher than the ability to solve given problems. Also among important business skills I intend to monitor my team-working skills.

Thirdly, I hope to become a more fluent English speaker and writer. If nothing else, I'll bring back home a "present" of a pure Oxford English accent!

Of course these objectives might change over time, since it is only natural. But overall I feel it's important to have clear ambitions and objectives.

Why is it important to keep an open mind Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 22:06, in Labels: creativity, learning, self-development

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. - Alvin Toffler

I had the opportunity to participate in an interesting lecture/conversation today that concerned the topics of learning and learning management. The lengthy discussion afterwards touched subjects like the current situation, form and drawbacks of the public education system, methodology of learning, possibilities what new (social) technology and pedagogic research have to offer to learning (from children to grownups) and so on. The actual opening lecture mainly took a look on the necessity of learning management in firms – management of how employees learn the abstract knowledge of the firm (strategy, values, working culture) and learn to do their work better. Basically the subject of learning was intrinsically tied to communication.

I was drawn to the sharing of opinions because of the X factor, or the human factor. This clip was presented last in the meeting, but I feel I should present it now, check this out before reading further.

It’s the inspirational 2008 Latest Edition of Did You Know 3.0, a presentation of interesting facts pooled by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod.

Now I am a strong advocator of personal responsibility in the future world. An important aspect of this personal responsibility is continuous learning and self-development by reflection (hence this blog, for example). The Did You Know presentation sharply but implicitly points out how people from around the world have progressively better and increasingly equal chance to equip themselves with a proper knowledge base of their liking and how globalization allows them to compete for the most interesting jobs and other life opportunities the world has to offer. Take the view on future as you like.

Today’s discussion very much revolved around the matter of technology and the responsibility of the manager (in this case, the manager in a company or the teacher in a school) in the efficient and successful learning process of their “subordinates”. One participant however brought up the term of mindset – the mindset of an open mind, willing to learn new and unlearn past knowledge and habits. This mindset in my opinion is vital in learning – one has to have the personal motivation and the drive to develop oneself. Any technology or pedagogic breakthrough, a dramatic change in the schooling system for example, will not be enough to equip people to sustain themselves in the future world. It requires the right mindset, a childish point of view and a naïve belief that your mind is and always will be a tabula rasa that is always open for new knowledge, change, improvement and development. No matter how much you think you know about anything – your work, your modes of operation, your profession and so on. Combining the matter of creativity with a continuous open attitude towards learning and experiencing new a friend reminded me of one Pablo Picasso’s wisdom:

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

In addition, it’s good to remember Socrates’ words:

The only thing I know is that I don't know anything.

As a professional of your own area, are you willing to work, learn and live with an open attitude? If so, you're a good step ahead.

Post-graduate studies: I chose Cranfield SOM, Strategic Marketing programme Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 12:39, in Labels: cranfield university, GMAT, IELTS, marketing, post-graduate studies

A bit of personal reflection, and thoughts to young people in a similar situation.

For some time now I've been contemplating about continuing my Marketing studies. I already have a BBA on International b2b-marketing under my belt, but I've felt for some time that I want to deepen my knowledge and expertise in an academia, particularly abroad in order to hone my English.

I recently applied to three British universities, and was offered a place in each. My selection was Cranfield University's School of Management's Strategic Marketing programme. I'll explain my reasons later, after sharing my experiences of the application process itself.

The offers naturally didn't come without hard work, sweat (and almost tears). They required some test-taking, namely the IELTS English language test and the GMAT test. IELTS wasn't that difficult - I acquired the nearly-free preparation materials, went through them once or twice and got a very good average band score of 8 our of 9. GMAT on the other hand.. For those who don't know, GMAT is an originally American-developed test to evaluate prospective candidates applying to top-tier business schools. The exam evaluates your a) basic mathematics skills, b) your logical thinking and English language skills and c) ability to read and write on an academic level. I've never liked high school level maths, and hadn't practiced it properly for seven years, while I had trained my reasoning and English skills more or less daily. And considering the universities didn't care what the score for analytical writing was, my focus for preparing for the test was on practicing my long-lost (but quickly recalled!) mathematic skills.

I spent some month and a half training and training and calculating and calculating. And sooner than later the exam day arrived. I happily got an average score (logical thinking and English skills + maths) that topped the score required for an entry to Cranfield, but I was disappointed with my math score. Indeed, the exam proved once more that I'm more suitable for Marketing rather than hardcore Economics or Financing.. I was disappointed with my analytical writing score aswell, but needlessly to be honest, since my preparation and focus during the exam were not adequate, i.e. other areas prevailed.

About Cranfield. I'm thrilled! The teaching staff, the programme structure and the location were the winning combination that made me choose Cranfield over two other British universities offering great Marketing programmes. Cranfield, if I understand correctly, is more or less in the middle of nowhere in rural England. At first glance, this sounds bad, right? On the contrary! My goal is to focus on self-development, to learn new and seek new perspectives as much as possible, and what is better than to do so in an environment that is calm, peaceful and away from distracting temptations like continuous clubbing and partying associated with student life? Afterall, Cranfield is a university geared strictly to post-graduates, so I expect a laid-back, mature environment.

The Strategic Marketing programme structure struck my nerve in a good way when I was searching information about interesting post-graduate courses. It's logical, seems efficient and discusses all the topics I'm personally interested in regarding the wide theme of marketing, including themes like brand, key account and sales management. Of course I could be missing out on important topics which are of utmost relevance but of which I'm not aware of, but the programme content ensures my initial motivation level is at its peak.

And last but not least, the faculty in Cranfield SOM's Marketing programme is respected, experienced and professional - their books crowd my marketing knowledge source library!

So, off I go next September. Hopefully by then the overall quality of these blog writings will start to improve..

Delicious internet memes Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Friday, March 13, 2009 at 12:46, in Labels: internet memes, marketing, microsegmentation, relating to customers

A brief thought about one of my new favourite little themes of current marketing: internet memes.

Internet memes, as you know, are catch-phrases or neologisms (newly emerging words that might become part of mainstream language) circulating in the Web and used mainly by youth and young adults - active web users. Some forerunner marketers use them in their viral marketing efforts, often trying to introduce a new meme with a purpose of enhancing the promotion of their service or product. Best memes however are not created by marketers, but rather by "users" themselves.

Internet memes concern two other favourite marketing subjects of mine, microsegmenting and microtargeting in a social web context, e.g. tiny sub-cultures like specialized discussion forums that are numerous in the Web. I'll cover these in more detail in another post in the future. But in regard to these microsegments, rather than trying to innovate their own internet memes, marketers should actively scan the Web for the particular memes that are popular among their target segments, and pay homage to these, co-incidentally being careful not appearing as trying to rip off and commercialize the original, uncommercialized meme. Instead the purpose is to communicate to the target segment that the marketer is relating to it.

A fictional, very simplificated case-example: A current very popular internet meme is the (mostly) picture-based "rage" or FFFFFF- meme, used when something goes wrong or is negatively unexpected and causes anger, or rage as it is. A laptop manufacturer X, the marketer in this case, is trying to develop its brand recognition among young, 16 to 25 y-o men with certain other characteristics. The marketer's strategy includes campaign and a TV commercial. The ad has two guys sitting in a park, using their PCs without direct power supply, relying on their batteries. Both are happily going about the business, enjoying the sun etc. Suddenly, the other guy's laptop beeps, signalling imminent battery depletion before going off totally. The guy blinks and starts to curse "FFFFFFFFFFFFUUU-". Cut the audio before the -ck and show a black screen with a text: No need to rage: laptop X model Y now with a next-gen battery. And cut back to the other guy, smiling sappily, using his laptop X.

To a consumer, who is outside of the target segment and does not recognize this particular meme, the ad might seem odd, albeit usual piece of marketing, since funny ads have been around for ages. However, when targeted correctly, I'd wager this ad would cause some very positive reactions among the target segment. By recognizing the used meme and understanding that X is using the same language as they are, the target audience would feel that the big, corporate laptop manufacturer X is really relating to it.

Of course, this kind of marketing strategy requires a very quick process of meme identification, advertising production and finally implementation - the marketers need to be on the edge and enjoy the services of very lean and efficient suppliers to make the marketing efforts work in time, when the meme is still active and used. Also, the target segment in these cases would most likely always be very limited, so a full TV ad wouldn't be cost-efficient. But user-created internet memes could be a key instrument when companies seek mediums to relate to young consumers in general, and specified microsegments or internet sub-cultures in particular.

4 ways to improve your web advertising Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 18:31, in Labels: web advertising, web marketing

One of the big issues, forgive the latent pun, of current web marketing/advertising are physically large web adverts that crowd popular web pages. By large we mean either the pop-upish ads that fill the entire web browser when you enter, say the front page of your favourite financial news website, or the pop-under that enlargens to fill half your web browser when you happen to bring your mouse pointer over it (especially annoying while it happens to cover an interesting article you were trying to read). Big ads like these are supposed to be flashy, interesting and attention-stealing but often wound up being just obtrusive like traditional pop-ups back in the day. OPA, or Online Publishers Association (a prestigious not-for-profit trade organization for online content providers), released an announcement conserning a new set of principles for web advertising, especially in regard to physical ad sizes. While setting up the foundation for web advertising of good taste is generally a good idea, here are some quick ideas on how to improve your web advertising.

1) You have a second to make me interested. That's about the time I need to realize you've bombarded me with a big, browser-filling message and to move my mouse cursor over the big X on the top-right corner. Many ads, especially those that resemble TV commercials, are little stories that require five to fifteen seconds of viewing to be appreciated. But guess what? I've been educated by the marketing forces that big ads, like pop-ups, are distractive, a no-no. You need to change my mind, every time, in a second or so. Make me interested in your message during the first frames.

2) Make it work without sound. Often your flashy, expensive website commercial includes a well-produced live film with sound. How many times your prospective customer is going to stumble on your commercial during his working hours, on his/her office computer, and end up informing the boss and the rest of the office that he/she isn't working by the sound of your commercial booming through his/her audio speakers? If you had thought you had a second to grab your customer's attention, it'll now take him only half a second to dismiss your message while he frantically kills the audio and closes the ad simultaneously. The advise is thus obvious: either make it so that your commercial is shown online on non-working hours or design your message to function without audio.

3) Continuity: a lost jewel of print media. Remember the day when you still read newspapers ;)? Often they had series of ads, distributed evenly across the pages, so that when you first noticed the first ad on the front page, a supporting ad, or two or three, followed in the later pages. These together created a commercial "story" or just communicated a certain message effectively by means of nifty, alternating albeit repetitive ads. How come I haven't seen one single attempt to bring this popular mechanism to the world of web advertising? Consider a situation. You load the front page of your favorite news website. On the front page you notice a very interesting, perhaps funny, but not yet convincing ad from BMW. You continue by clicking on a link of an interesting article and proceed to the article page. The website registers what you saw on the first page, and presents you with an again-interesting follow-up ad for the original BMW ad, next to the full article you proceeded to read. BMW grabs your attention again, and makes you laugh/smile again. Interested this time?

4) Educate the customers how big ads really work. Rather than bringing my mouse cursor over the pop-under and consequently messing up my browser I'd love to know that every time I decide to click on that same ad, it'd just enlargen rather than forwarding me to another web page. Educate net users that its "safe" to interact with commercial messages. Get them to know that showing an iota of interest on your message won't end up disrupting their browsing, or clicking on an ad merely brings up more info, i.e. enlargens the ad. This naturally isn't the task of a single advertiser or content provider, but the work of the entire community.

Next up: thoughts on how internet memes can enhance your marketing.

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A summer update to this March post (3rd Aug):

Reactive Marketing coined by Gustav Martner and Gustav von Sydow pretty much sums up my thoughts on point #3

.. and something else. Posted by Tomi Heikkinen , Thursday, March 5, 2009 at 16:24, in Labels: creativity, emotion, marketing, strategy

Curious about the name of this new blog?

Admittedly, marketing is not only a limbic thing - limbic system being the part of the human brain concerning itself with things like emotion and intuition. Marketing is about affecting people's emotions, but it has its other foot on reason: strategies, processes, planning and rational decision-making. A good marketer needs to be best of both worlds, a combination of a sound strategic mind and a creative, intuitive vision. A certain very practical marketing professional, CEO of Ezpa Jussi Liimatainen put it well in a presentation today when he considered marketing "a marriage of emotion and reason". Blunt and simple? Perhaps. Do I agree? Totally.

But back to the topic: what's this blog about?

The purpose of this blog is to act as a virtual learning diary of sorts. I aim to develop and discuss my thoughts and experiences conserning marketing, marketing strategy, commercialization, new businesses, creative problem-solving and multilateral thinking in business. The one constant is the blog's bipolar point of view of creativity and intuition vs. strategic, rational thinking.

Of course, the author will try to maintain an interesting style of writing, that is, to draw comments and conversation from you, dear reader. After all, they are good ways to learn, both listening and explaining.