What is marketing?

A basic definition

Since working for myself I am amazed at how many organisations still equate the term marketing with advertising. I’ve lost count at the amount of times I have introduced myself to someone at a networking meeting only to be told “that sounds great but I don’t have the money for advertising at present”. Let’s therefore start with 4 commonly accepted definitions.

Marketing is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others

Kotler.

Marketing is the management process that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements profitably –

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).

Marketing is essentially about marshalling the resources of an organization so that they meet the changing needs of the customer on whom the organization depends –

Palmer.

The right product, in the right place, at the right time, at the right price –

Adcock.

What they all have in common is that the word advertising is nowhere to be seen but that the organisation and its relationship to the customer is the prime focus.

Too many organisations struggle because of the narrow minded view in which marketing is seen instead of embracing it as a function involved in all areas of the process of getting the customer what they want, when and where they want it and at the right cost.

Remeber these important elements:

• Marketing focuses on the satisfaction of customer needs, wants and requirements.
• The philosophy of marketing needs to be owned by everyone within the organization – everyone.

Contact David on 07790 012893

Marketing History

A history lesson showing the future

Last week I worked with year ten pupils from 2 comprehensive schools in Birmingham. As part of a history project they have to conduct market research and write a marketing plan outlining their plans to increase visitors to a particular place of historcal interest. I have to say that despite many negative reports about education in this country these pupils were enthusiastic and full of ideas. I’ll be working with them again in the near future as they plan and produce sample promotional material and hopefully I’ll put samples on the blog.

Jargon buster

A guide to designer technical terms

Information you may find useful. Some you may know but hopefully some you don’t.

font
An alternative name for typeface.

image resolution
This is determined by how many pixels are used digitally to recreate an image. High resolution image files (suitable for print) should be at least 300dpi (dots per inch) at print size. Low resolution image files (suitable for on screen use) are between 72dpi – 120dpi at 100%.

COLOUR

spot colour
Any area of colour that is designated to be printed with a specific ink (for example, a Pantone colour), rather than being reproduced with process inks.

process colour sometimes called four colour process
Colour produced in printing by combining the four CMYK inks, used for full colour printing.

cmyk
Cyan, magenta, yellow and black – these are the printers primary colours.

Pantone
An international printing colour system which provides an accurate method of matching and controlling colours.

rgb
Red,green,blue – colours are defined in this way for on screen use – for example, white is R:255 G:255 B:255.

indexed colour
A way of defining colour in an image from a specific colour pallette rather than from RGB values. Most commonly seen in .gif files used on the internet.

greyscale
a greyscale is an image reproduced only in black, white, and tints of grey.

bitmap
an image containing only pure black and white, with no tints of grey.

duotone
an image made from tints of two colours.

FILE FORMATS

.eps
Encapsulated Postscript – an image file containing all the information required to rip the file to print (this information can only be read and cannot be altered or added to unless the user has the relevant software).

.tif (tiff)
Tagged Image File Format – an image file that can be altered and extended.

.jpg (jpeg)
A compressed image file format most commonly used for photographs displayed on the internet.

.gif
An image file format that uses indexed colour rather than rgb or cmyk colour values. Popular on the internet due to small file size.

.pdf (Portable Document Format)
A MAC/ PC secure file. Documents created using a variety of different software packages can be easily converted to pdf format, retaining the appearance of the original. The pdf files can then be viewed on any platform using Acrobat Reader software. Pdf files can be used to send visuals and proofs digitally, as an alternative to printed proofs.

PDF files are commonly used on the internet to provide downloadable versions of printed documents.

PDF files can also incorporate interactive elements, navigation buttons, multimedia clips and so on. These features can be used to create quality digital presentations, portfolios etc

.ppt (powerpoint)
Powerpoint is part of Microsoft Office, and can be used to build interactive digital presentations.

.swf (flash)
Macromedia’s Flash software is a way of making animated web content. It can produce sophisticated web pages/effects, but the viewer needs to have the flash plug in downloaded to their web browser for the page to function.

PRINTING                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

CTP                                                                                                                                  Computer to Plate means that the printing plate is produced directly from the electronic artwork file with no need to produce films. This reduces production costs and makes last minute corrections a little easier.

bleed
Any printed area that extends over the edge of the page (ie where there is no margin) is described as ‘bled off’. There is usually a bleed of about 3mm on artwork to compensate for any slight irregularities in the trimming of the printed document.

GSM
Grammes per Square Meter (gsm2) – printing paper weight measurement.

gloss paper
A coated paper that has a reflective, smooth surface.

matt paper
A coated paper that has a duller surface which produces a flatter image/ colour with minimal glare.

silk paper
A coated paper that is somewhere in between matt and gloss art paper Premium quality coated paper.

uncoated paper
A general term for papers whose surface has had no mineral coating applied after the body paper is made. It usually feels less smooth and is much more absorbent than the coated papers which affects the way printing inks dry. This affect leads to slightly differing colours when compared to coated papers because more of the ink is absorbed. For more accurate matching, a different colour may need to be specified. Uncoated papers are good for writing onto and are used for stationery and documents that have forms for filling.

PROOFING

digital
A digital proof is output directly from the file and reproduces a colour proof without the need of outputting film. These laser prints vary in quality (hi or lo res) but are usually of a greater accuracy than office laser printers. These proofs are relatively cheap.

chromalin
High quality and colour accurate printer’s proofing method. Chromalins are produced using light sensitive film, which then becomes tacky upon exposure. Coloured powder is then dusted over the film and sticks to the image area. For each colour a separate film is used and built up in layers.

Wet proof
Produced from the printers final metal plates, onto the correct stock, this proof gives the truest and most colour accurate version of a finished printed item. The increase of CTP makes this form of proofing cheaper, especially on jobs with a low number of pages. This option is the most expensive and if changes are made new plates have to be produced.

Concise branding

A quick guide to branding

In the 1980’s a brand was generally the name given to a fast moving consumer product normally found on the shelf of a supermarket. Its main audience being the customer.

When the company or organisation wanted to reach a wider audience, it was usually thought to be using its corporate identity. This was considered the tangible manifestation of the organisations corporate personality.

 Today, however, this tangible manifestation is more likely to be referred to as the corporate brand thus providing the word ‘brand’ with the ability to represent both the organisation as a whole and its products and/or services. Furthermore, the word ‘brand’ has also developed more financial meaning than others that are often used such as ‘identity’ and ‘image’

 Over recent years, branding has become a significant part of the management activity within large organisations. Often a complex, multi-faceted process it can be simultaneously a marketing, design, communications, and behavioural resource. These various facets make it difficult to categorise but branding activity can generally be summed up in the following:

Branding

-          should be felt throughout an organisation, touching and influencing every area and every audience

-          is a design, marketing, communication and human resources tool

-          is all embracing because it brings together the disparate activities of an organisation into a coherent whole

-          enables the strategy of an organisation to be visible to its audience.

However, the use of branding in the above ways is not limited to large organisations. Everyone has audiences and how you are perceived by them usually determines how successful you can be. How much consideration do you give to yours?

Partly adapted from material by Wally Olins (The Brand Book)

Free print and collateral review

I have recently undertaken a print cost review for a national healthcare company and outlined potential savings of up to 40% on a print spend of £150K. They are now using my report to renegotiate with their suppliers.

If you are looking to save costs, I will and come in free of charge for upto 1 hour and review what and how you purchase your marketing material. If suffiecient savings can be made the details will be outlined in a ‘paid for’ report together with an action plan. Contact me david@dlhvisualcommunications.co.uk

Outsourcing

Helping SME’s

For many of us, the word ‘outsourcing’ conjures up images of corporate call centres or local authority refuse collection: not the kind of thing that would interest a small business. Yet any firm that doesn’t prepare its own accounts, maintain its own computers or design its own website is effectively outsourcing part of its business.

As Martyn Hart, chairman of the National Outsourcing Association, puts it: “Small businesses are probably the largest users of outsourcing. They just don’t call it that, and some don’t realise that outsourcing is suitable for them.”

Outsourcing by small firms appears to have increased during the last 12 months. It’s difficult to say whether the recession has been a direct cause, but debt collection services and invoice financing have been growth areas, perhaps because of increased difficulties in obtaining prompt payment or worries about the financial solvency of customers.

“More and more of our clients are outsourcing,” says Business Link advisor Matthew Perkins. Accounting is a popular area, he says, with firms that are too small to have enough work for a full-time bookkeeper using the services of a qualified freelance for a day or two each week rather than muddling through for themselves. Payroll outsourcing is well established, and other aspects of human resources management are increasingly being outsourced, such as keeping health and safety policies updated in line with legal changes.

Often outsourcing is seen as the best way to obtain specialist skills in a number of fields that small firms either couldn’t afford to employ, or simply couldn’t attract because they can’t offer sufficient career progression. Another important benefit is enabling business owners to concentrate on more strategic issues such as growing the company and acquiring new business. “Outsourcing is especially good for that ‘growing pains’ time when there’s a lot to manage and business owners can get overwhelmed,” says Perkins.

Outsourcing can help to maintain that flexibility and capacity for rapid action for which small firms are renowned. Instead of taking on additional permanent staff as soon as the economy shows signs of picking up, companies that have downsized because of the recession may prefer to use outsourcing to meet the extra demand. “It’s a contract with a control knob where you can have more or less,” says Hart.

The one thing small firms can’t automatically expect from outsourcing is to save money, says Perkins (unlike large organisations, which routinely expect cost savings thanks to economies of scale and competition in the market). The real value is more likely to come from time savings and access to skills. And because the function being provided is the service provider’s core specialism and not yours, they should make a better job of it, too.

Almost every aspect of a business can theoretically be outsourced, except one. “You shouldn’t outsource your company’s core competence,” says Hart. Of course that means knowing what your core competence is – not always as obvious as it sounds, say the experts – but it’s likely to include the core skills which are the reason your customers buy from you, anything that’s unique to your business, and the brand and reputation of your company.

It’s important to define what you are trying to achieve before you start, says Hart – preferably in terms of the outcome rather than the process (eg I want my accounts on the fourteenth of every month with less than one error per 500 invoices). Don’t tie yourself into a long contract, and make sure you can vary the terms to suit changes in your business.

It’s also important to retain some element of management control and an understanding of what’s going on, says Perkins. Dumping all your receipts in a shoebox and handing them to your accountant is unlikely to achieve the best results. Whatever the function being outsourced, ultimately it’s still your business and your responsibility, and it’s your reputation that’s on the line: outsourcing should give you time to focus on these elements, not the excuse to palm them off onto someone else.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/business/mybusiness/thinkdifferent/6232516/Outsourcing

Internal communications

communicating with your staff

Communicating with your staff should be a core activity within your marketing strategy. It motivates and creates a team environment in addition to closing the rumour mill.

This does not only apply to large organisations but also smaller ones particularly where staff come into direct contact with your audience. The following are starting points to creating an effective internal communications strategy.

1. Communicate continuosly,  not only when there are important policy notices to be sent out. That way when major issues occur the lines of communication will already be open.

2. Use technology. Marketers have seen the emergence of a plethora of technologies that can help employers communicate with their staff. These include email, PDAs, MSN and pop-up alert systems and video streaming.

3. Don’t use jargon. Guy Walshingham, MD at Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, a business writing consultancy, says, “The language you use to communicate with your employees sends out clear messages about you as a company. Your company handbook, intranet, even your recruitment ads, all shout out what you stand for as a business. Communicating well through them will help create a healthy and happy company culture. So be careful what, and how, you write.”

The basics of good business writing should also not be overlooked. “Avoid spelling mistakes and typos. Make your writing clear, to the point, relevant and engaging to the reader. Avoid jargon. Most business writing can be cut virtually in half and say the same thing. Often the best advice is to write it as you’d say it.”

 4. Give it to the best communicator. Internal communications is one of those areas of business activity, like corporate social responsibility, that tends to fall between several departments. Avoid interdepartment arguments by nominating your best communicator or using outside assistance.

 5. Encourage a two-way dialogue. Give your employees the opportunity to give their feedback or ask questions otherwise they will feel that their point of view is of no importance and will consequently lead to lower morale and productivity. Popular formats for this can include question and answer sessions, staff forums or surveys.

6. Remember the internal aspect of external marketing. Amy Grundy, board account director at Intelligent Marketing says, “Imagine you’ve spent thousands of pounds on a national advertising campaign promoting your brand. The response is amazing with customers flooding into your stores find out more. Unfortunately they’re greeted by a member of staff who has no idea about the campaign, cannot answer any of the enquiries and is unenthusiastic. The bubble bursts and the excitement dies.”

She continues, “There is no point promoting an external message without getting buy-in from the inside first. Your staff are the best brand advocates you could have, so you need to get them on side.  allocate sufficient budget to communicating with your internal audience. It’s probably your most important audience so it’s foolish to see such communications as a waste of money. More importantly, the big budget spent on a high profile ad campaign could well be wasted if customer-facing employees don’t know about it.”

7. Keep it simple. Paul Sweetman of Fishburn Hedges advises businesses to keep it simple. He says, “Effective internal communication is a pre-requisite for sustained business success. During times of change it can smooth the process and help deliver the required change more quickly and with a greater degree of employee commitment. However, it is most effective when it is based around simple processes and not over-complicated.”

guerilla marketing

marketing on a limited budget

The words guerilla and marketing may not be obvious bed fellows but put them together and you have a a low cost, high impact way of marketing a product or service. Rather than rely on money, guerilla marketing relies on your imagination to create the same result. This is an ideal tool for those organisations, large or small who have limited funds for advertising and marketing.

What is Guerilla Marketing? simply put it is a method of communication that is unconventional, unexpected, sometimes interactive and often in an unexpected place creating short term high impact at relatively low cost. The object is to create a buzz around what you are doing that ripples outwards.

The term was defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing and has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks.

Levinson identifies the following principles as the foundation of guerrilla marketing:

• Guerrilla Marketing is specifically geared for the small businesses but can work in those large organisations that do not rely on committee decisions.
• It should be based on human psychology instead of experience, judgment, and guesswork.
• Instead of money, the primary investments of marketing should be time, energy, and imagination.
• The primary statistic to measure your business is the amount of profits, not sales.
• The marketer should also concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.
• Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering too many diverse products and services.
• Instead of concentrating on getting new customers, aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.
• Forget about the competition and concentrate more on cooperating with other businesses.
• Guerrilla Marketers should always use a combination of marketing methods for a campaign.
• Use current technology as a tool to empower your business.

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