Marketing & Sales Archives - Anthony Davidson

Marketing & Sales

Strategy versus marketing

What’s the difference between strategy and marketing? Often it seems like we’re addressing the same questions or decisions – where to play, how to win, and what is required to succeed – but there’s a bit more to it. UQ MBA Alum Chris Gaffee posed the question as he discussed his journey from learning marketing in his MBA, applying this knowledge to his first startup, and then becoming a strategist at Monitor Deloitte. Marketing provided Chris with the ability to understand opportunities from a customer perspective and then develop go-to-market strategies for his product innovation. Through this startup, he learned first hand the challenges early stage businesses face when market conditions rapidly change as a result of a pandemic. And the strategic choices that need to be considered when deciding whether it is viable to continue. Ultimately, this experience influenced Chris to embark on a career in strategy consulting and to help clients solve complex problems around business growth. So what is the difference between strategy and marketing? Strategy is primarily concerned with the direction, goals and priorities for a business – decisions about why we are in business, what we are trying to achieve, and how we can do it. Marketing is primarily concerned with the way that value is created with customers, employees, partners and other key stakeholders – decisions about who we serve, what we offer, and how we engage. Thanks for sharing your journey and experience Chris. #strategy #marketing #valuecreation

Anthony Davidson August 16, 2022

Digital

Optimise marketing and sales

How do you strengthen the relationship and alignment between marketing and sales? Enable both areas to invest in helping each other succeed. Martin van der Linde has seen first-hand how dramatic the results can be. Martin kindly gave another presentation to my MBA students this week on digital marketing practice. As GM Marketing at Noja Power, Martin works closely with his Sales counterpart to optimize the marketing and sales process for this world leader in Medium Voltage Electrical Equipment. Integral to their rapid growth and success – doubling the size of their global business within 5 years – has been the commitment of the marketing team to generate qualified sales prospects using inbound marketing and the focus of the sales team in responding, developing and converting prospects. But there’s more to the story. The sales team plays a critical role in educating and assisting the marketing team to better understand the technical needs of different customers and the type of content that will resonate and attract customers to the Noja Power brand. This enables the marketing team to make the brand visible and relevant to prospects during their search and evaluation process. Using marketing technology to monitor interactions, better qualified leads that demonstrate intent can be generated for sales follow up, optimising sales effort and sales conversion. The marketing team also has a vested interest in understanding the effectiveness of the sales process, and how to contribute to improving it through better quality information about prospects. Thanks again Martin for sharing these practical insights about how to optimize marketing and sales performance. #digital #marketing #sales

Anthony Davidson August 9, 2022

Marketing & Sales

Make an impact with marketing

One of the challenges facing marketers is deciding where and how to make a difference. CMO Chris Jacko spoke to us about his experience in marketing roles and the importance of focusing marketing efforts to make an impact with limited resources. This involves tradeoffs – hard decisions about which customers to serve (and not to serve), which products to prioritise (and not prioritise), which data and analytics to focus on (and not focus on), and which marketing technology to leverage now (and in the future). Although marketing spend is often considerably higher than other functional areas, expectations are also higher about the impact that marketing should have on business performance. On one hand, this requires marketing leaders to educate stakeholders about the role and contribution of marketing. But in the end, it is about credibility, transparency and accountability – demonstrating the return on investments in brand building, lead generation and customer engagement. Thanks Chris for your insights and practical advice today. Much appreciated. #marketing #effectiveness

Anthony Davidson July 20, 2022

Consumer Behaviour

Shrinkflation

Shrinkflation is back! A recent article showed examples of grocery items that have shrunk in size while their price remained the same or increased slightly. The question is whether consumers have been informed of these changes. Package downsizing is a common way to keep prices down in an inflationary environment where consumers facing cost of living pressures. It works on the idea that changes in package size will not be immediately obvious to consumers. So the unchanged price does not alert consumers to the higher unit price. In marketing, this phenomenon is called the “just noticeable difference.” These days marketers have an ethical obligation to inform consumers of changes in package or price. In the grocery sector, supermarkets and online retailers must comply with the Unit Pricing Code if they sell certain food-based grocery items. Unit pricing enables consumers to quickly compare products of different sizes and brands in order to work out which one offers the best value. But how do customers know that the package size has actually been reduced if it is no longer available? An ethical dilemma! #marketing #consumerbehaviour #shrinkflation

Anthony Davidson June 23, 2022

Engagement

Spin or Engagement

Australia’s Federal Election on May 21 revealed some great lessons in marketing, especially the merits of spin versus engagement. Three lessons are worth noting: Don’t take your customers (voters) for granted and use spin or false claims to manipulate them – eventually you’ll be caught out and they’ll turn. Properly address the concerns/issues that customer segments (different constituents) face and offer a real alternative through the way you engage them. Invest your campaign money wisely and you’ll get a better than expected result. The success of the Independents and Greens demonstrates the effects of good marketing and engagement with well-directed spend. In contrast, the UAP only increased its national vote by 1.4% on a $100 million plus spend and lost the seat of “our next PM” Craig Kelly, showing the folly of spin, misinformation and poor marketing practices. I’m not going to miss those annoying ads and invasive text messages! #marketing #spin #engagement

Anthony Davidson May 23, 2022

Marketing & Sales

Make the Most of Martech

Choosing the right marketing technology for your business can be overwhelming with over 8000 martech solutions on offer. But the benefits are huge if you can streamline and automate marketing and sales processes. Fortunately major vendors in this space are creating platforms that make it easier to plug in other specialized and custom apps. So decisions about which software to incorporate into your martech stack really revolve around ease of use, functionality, cost and integration. Scott Brinker has identified 5 trends in marketing technology for this decade that present exciting opportunities: No Code tools that enable businesses to build their own websites, apps, workflows, chatbots, and voice assistants, as well as workflows, data analysis and machine learning; Platforms, Networks and Marketplaces that allow businesses to centralize and decentralize their marketing operations; The Great App Explosion which provides businesses with an array of new specialist and custom apps; From Big Data to Big Ops where businesses can leverage apps and automation to take advantage of big data Harmonising Human and Machine so that marketers are freed up to do more valuable work If you have 20 minutes to watch his video, it’s worth it. Understanding how the martech space is evolving is critical to making strategic decisions about your current and future marketing technology stack. #marketing #technology #martech

Anthony Davidson May 12, 2022

Digital

Developing Digital Marketing Capability

How does a local business become a world leader? Choose a niche to own, be the best at it, and put in place a global digital marketing system to make it happen. Big thanks to Martin Van Der Linde for sharing the story of Noja Power. Brisbane-based Noja Power is a world leader in Medium Voltage Electrical Equipment, with a global footprint across 104 countries. Unless you’re an electrical engineer, you’ve probably never heard of them. But their products are everywhere – typically at the top of your street’s electricity power pole. As GM Marketing, Martin has been responsible for developing a global digital marketing system to generate the sales leads and referrals needed to achieve the company’s growth objectives and revenue targets. Through the clever use of marketing technology, he is able to manage inbound and outbound marketing activities on a global scale. Inbound marketing activities focus on providing potential customers with information and education at each stage of their search and evaluation process. Once potential customers show purchase intent, qualified leads are passed to the sales team to begin the sales process. Outbound marketing is largely confined to tender platforms and sales-initiated prospecting with existing clients. How effective has it been? By switching the emphasis from outbound marketing (finding prospective customers and chasing them) to inbound marketing (customers search for a need and find us), Noja Power has been able to optimize its return on investment in marketing and create a more automated marketing system that can support company growth. Integral to this has been the close working relationship between marketing and sales who have shared responsibility for achieving revenue targets. Thanks again Martin for sharing the Noja Power story. #marketing #digitalmarketing #inboundmarketing

Anthony Davidson April 28, 2022

Branding

What Do Brands Stand For

Strong brands are valuable assets that contribute to sustained revenue growth. But the values behind the brand – what it stands for – is what’s most important. The rise, fall and repositioning of fashion brand Abercrombie and Finch is a great example. The latest documentary on A&F shows how an iconic all-American fashion brand was built from a forgotten 19th-century outdoors retailer to the epitome of late-’90s teen fashion based on aspirational values of being cool, attractive and mono-cultural. A&F’s brand strategy combined the sex appeal of Calvin Klein and the elite preppiness of Ralph Lauren at more affordable prices. Advertising showcased an army of “ripped” males and good-looking employees were recruited from college fraternities and sororities to be models and store workers. This “exclusivity” positioning ultimately backfired when it was revealed the company deliberately engaged in “exclusionary” practices in terms of hiring and recruitment – only hiring “cool white kids.” Subsequent lawsuits for discrimination forced the company to settle out of court and make superficial improvements to its increasingly controversial products and practices. But the damage was done when the company wound up in the US Supreme Court responding to a prominent case of religious discrimination. By this time, those offended by A&F’s brand positioning and marketing practices took to social media. Very quickly, the A&F brand became “uncool” with sales plummeting. A change of CEO led to a compete rethink of what the A&F brand stands for with new campaigns focusing on diversity and inclusion. What’s the lesson here? Douglas Holt says that an iconic brand enables consumers to think differently about themselves, and goes beyond the product – it’s the identity value that allows them to be at the cutting edge. This was certainly the case with Abercrombie and Finch. The brand deliberately depicted a lifestyle that was culturally relevant to its audience and connected with them on a deeper level, representing a certain selection of cultural values. The problem with iconic brands is that when accepted cultural norms shift, they must redefine their meaning within this new context. Brands like Apple, Coca Cola and Nike have done this well. Let’s see if it works for Abercrombie & Finch. #marketing #branding #iconicbrands

Anthony Davidson April 21, 2022

Advertising

Getting Cut-Through with Customers

How do you get advertising cut through if you’re being outspent? How do you get cut-through when a competitor outspends you in advertising? Clive Palmer’s UAP is set to spend $80 million on TV, print, radio, outdoor and digital advertising this election – seven times more than political rivals. If it’s a repeat of the 2019 election, it will “drown out” advertising from both major parties and maybe provide an indirect benefit to the Liberal Party. However, will it lead to UAP picking up any seats or prevent a major party from gaining office? Depending on UAP’s objective, the challenge is that they have low market share and low brand loyalty. In marketing, we call this the law of double jeopardy – brands with lower markets shares suffer both from low purchases and low brand loyalty. That means UAP has to spend much more on advertising compared to larger parties in order to get the attention of voters and convert a very small number of them. Businesses face the same challenge. To build a strong “sticky” brand, you need to invest in marketing communications that attract and retain the best-fit customers. If you already have a strong brand with a dominant market share, it is much easier to do this because of the double jeopardy effect, providing you have the right mix of content, media and channels. But if you have low market share and low brand loyalty, it’s much more difficult to draw customers away from larger competitors unless you have something compelling to offer. Even if you do, the challenge will be to reach them without being “drowned out.” Often, a better strategy is to target customers of smaller competitors who are a good fit. Then as you grow market share and develop a stronger brand, customers become your most powerful form of advertising. #marketing #advertising #doublejeopardy

Anthony Davidson April 14, 2022

Customer Experience

Marketing Professional Services

My colleague James Rimmer has some great insights on marketing in professional service firms, in particular the need to balance internal and external marketing efforts. James has led marketing teams in both local and international law firms and has seen how marketing can play both a strategic and tactical role in developing clients, identifying new growth opportunities and optimizing the client experience. As Director of Marketing and Business Development at Cooper Grace Ward, he works closely with the firm’s partners to guide the firms’ strategic direction, develop marketing strategies to grow new sectors, segments and revenue streams, and provide tactical support for practice areas to attract new clients and improve existing client relationship management. With 200 staff, it’s a juggling act that requires effective engagement with law firm partners and legal teams to prioritise where to focus marketing efforts to gain the best impact. James emphasized that internal marketing is just as important as the firm’s external marketing activities to get alignment and consistency with how clients experience the CGW brand. My MBA cohort had lots of questions for James, ranging from how technology is changing and disrupting law firm services through to how data is being used to personalise the client experience. #marketing #professionalservices

Anthony Davidson April 7, 2022

Weekly insights to help you run your business.

Strategy versus marketing

Optimise marketing and sales

Make an impact with marketing

Shrinkflation

Spin or Engagement

Make the Most of Martech

Developing Digital Marketing Capability

What Do Brands Stand For

Getting Cut-Through with Customers

Marketing Professional Services

Make an enquiry.

Book a discussion with me.