The Road To Distinction

For years, we’ve watched traditional mass-media television gradually lose its effectiveness as the proliferation of cable and satellite systems fractured the market into a wide variety of niche programming options. This niche, demographic specific programming model has always been the strength of radio, but marketing budgets rarely, if ever allow the luxury of hitting every niche market, so the total addressable market is actually decreasing.

While in many instances this specialization is a good thing because it lets marketers more tightly target specific market sectors, but it is also bad in that it is more expensive to target many small markets. In addition, ROI is driven down even further, when you consider typical advertising effectiveness metrics versus smaller market counts. In short it’s getting more expensive to reach fewer people, and especially in these weak economic conditions, traditional media is not nearly the option it was even three years ago.

Clearly those trends are not going to change, so marketers have to find ways to make their marketing more effective. The explosive growth of the digital market, and social networking have dramatically changed the game for marketers. There have never been so many opportunities for cross-media marketing integration. But how many are truly integrated. Just making the creative look similar across platforms is never enough, it needs to actually work together and drive customers to interact.

Every marketer’s objective should be to build a personal bond with each customer. Of course it’s a lot easier said than done. Wouldn’t it be nice to go back in time to the days of the door-to-door salesperson. Someone who would not only shake the customers hand, but get invited inside to personally demonstrate and sell all the benefits of their product. Of course those times are long gone and even the internet, which is often referred to as a more personal way of customer communication, is actually more anonymous than personal.

So, how can we get back to a more personal customer relationship. One answer may lie in the often forgotten, or more likely ignored medium of direct marketing. Sure, being direct meets all the buzzword compliance tests, but very few organizations actually do it right. Direct marketing can integrate a personal marketing approach including email, traditional mail, text messages, and a custom web experience that is more personal than can be accomplished with any other method.

Over the last year, through some of the worst economic times in recent history, Beals Cunningham has heavily invested in the development of a new totally integrated direct marketing technology to make marketing more personal than ever. Watch for more information to be released shortly.

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Justin Thompson has joined Beals Cunningham to focus on direct marketing. Justin brings years of experience and contacts in the direct mail industry, and will make BCSS direct marketing campaigns more effective than ever. From list brokerage and management to creative execution and delivery, Justin will deliver a positive return for your direct marketing investment.

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Since the mid 1990’s Beals Cunningham has been producing websites and other online interactive projects with Flash and traditional HTML coding. While these have often included database and e-commerce integration, the one thing that was consistent was that the client didn’t have total content control. Sure they had control of the content that was in the site, but they didn’t have control of updating their content themselves. If they needed something changed they needed to come back to us or another web designer.

While we haven’t really promoted it, at the end of last year we transitioned all the BCSS web production to Content Management System (CMS) based sites. This is what our clients have always asked for, but the technology was just too expensive and too complex to be very user friendly. We had been following, testing and simplifying the technology over the past few years, and finally decided that it was time to make the switch.

BCSS CMS based websites put you in control of your content. So now, after we complete the initial development of your website, we will thoroughly train your personnel to modify and maintain the content of your site. So, no matter what time of the day or night you need to change something – you can just log in make the changes. No additional costs, and no waiting.

BCSS CMS based sites completed so far this year:

Cooper Medical – a design/build firm
Rose Rock/Union Bank – a financial institution
Fort Sill Apache Casino – a regional casino
Kickapoo Empire – a tribal business development firm
Creek Nation Casino – a regional casino
Kickapoo Casino – a regional casino

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When the economy turns south, consumer spending takes the first hit. It starts with discretionary spending. That new plasma TV that looked so good last month just isn’t the draw it was only a few days ago. The number of trips to the store are curtailed. Then finally brand preference itself is challenged.

This is the time invisible (value) brands can not only survive, but thrive. There are generic brands, private-label store brands, and captive brands. All of which stand to benefit from economic downturns.

In fact, Walgreens recently announced that their Walgreens brands and their exclusive captive branded product lines increased sales by 15% last quarter. This is proof that when consumers question paying that “brand name” premium for the buying confidence, positive experiences, and comfort the high profile brands offer, it is the generic brands that stand to benefit.

Since many of the big brands also produce the private label generic products, in most cases they will keep their sales volume at the expense of their premium brand margins. These markets are controlled by the stores themselves, since they lack the branding and promotion of the premium brands. So what is the best way for marketers to kick-start their private label and captive brand sales.

Believe it or not, in-store sampling is probably the most powerful marketing tool in that exists. In a recent research study, 35% of consumers who tried a sample, bought the product during the same shopping trip. 58% of those then reported that they would buy the product again after trying it.

There is no other medium that can match those numbers, and while it is mostly brand name products doing the sampling, in my view that should change, as sampling can provide instant credibility and buying confidence to the generic brands.

This same survey divided the consumers into three segments: acquisitions (new to the product), conversions (those willing to buy after sampling), and retentions (those who had purchased the product before). 85% of retentions who sampled the product said they would purchase it again, compared to 60% of conversions. In total almost half (47%) said they would look to purchase it in the future.

But the true power of sampling was that a whopping 24% said they bought the product they sampled instead of the item they actually went to the store to purchase. That says volumes about the potential of private-label, and captive brands.

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There is no doubt that search is the darling of digital marketing. But, getting people to the website is only half the battle. First, a significant portion of the search terms are partial or full company and product names, which really shouldn’t be credited to paid search. But then, once you kick out the people that didn’t know what they were searching for or were looking for something you don’t offer, your content will determine what happens next. So, the question becomes have you taken the time to develop relevant content that will keep prospects on your site?

In regard to content, do you really need the same information on a website that you put in brochures and catalogs? The answer is no. When people come to the website they are not only looking for assurances that you offer the product they need. They are also looking for buying confidence. They are looking for information to make them comfortable buying your product, other than just product specifications.

Every company is unique in how they need to be positioned in the marketplace, which can often dictate much of the information that needs to be conveyed. However, there are intangibles that people need to feel good about the purchase decision. Depending upon your business and markets these intangibles can have a big effect.

For example, someone who is buying for their company has their job and family’s future to consider when choosing a product. No one wants to lose their employer’s trust or their job because they bought an inferior product. With consumer products, purchasers are typically more willing to take more chances, since they only have to answer to themselves. Therefore pricing is a bigger issue with individual consumers than with businesses. Although it is often a big influencer at the beginning of the buying process, but the price effect wanes at the time of the final decision.

When designing the digital presence for your brand, it is critical to consider both the tangibles and intangible content that will impact customer decisions. It is never as simple as it would seem.

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Beals Cunningham is happy to announce that industry veteran Joi Marcum has joined Beals Cunningham Strategic Services to focus on new business.

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We’re proud to announce that the International Finals Rodeo has named Beals Cunningham Strategic Services its agency-of-record.

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Last week, Cambell Soup announced it is rebranding its Cambell’s Select Gold soup line under its V8 brand. The Select Gold soup line never gained enough traction under the Cambell Soup brand as a restaurant quality soup brand. While I can understand Cambell Soup having trouble establishing a premium soup brand that is on the shelves next to their condensed soups we all grew up with, it will be interesting to see if the V8 brand will resonate.

V8 successfully stretched its brand from the niche vegetable juice category to the fruit juice market in 1997 with first year sales of over $100 million, but I don’t know if V8 soup is a natural progression. I don’t think V8 soup could be positioned in the same role of Select Gold as a premium line, but it might resonate as a healthy vegetable alternative. Hot V8 juice doesn’t sound appealing, so it will be interesting how they bring a cold beverage into a hot category.

Mike Cunningham
Chairman

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Branding is psychological and sociological in that it combines both tangible and intangible attributes of a company and its products. A brand embodies the perception of the brand in context.

The perceived value of the brand is as individual as the audience it is targeted at. It can be positive if someone or an acquaintance has had a good experience with the brand. It can be neutral if they are aware of the company or product, but have not tried it or heard anything about the brand. Of course it can also be negative if someone or someone they know has ad a bad experience with the brand.

In most cases the direct brand experience or word-of-mouth is the key. When someone has a bad experience with a brand it can taint their perception for years. But on the other hand when someone has a positive brand experience, they will forgive any brand weaknesses for a long period as well.

As the principal of an agency it is somewhat painful to recognize that brand awareness campaigns pale in comparative strength with actual brand experience, word-of-mouth, and even product packaging. Today, branding is not so much about reaching the mass markets with awareness campaigns as it is in finding ways to enable organizations to make a direct connection with relative consumers.

The reality is that brand strategy is not a function to be fulfilled with by the marketing department, in fact it should define the entire business strategy for the organization as a whole. The brand promise should flow throughout the organization from the executive suite to the maintenance staff.

It’s not just the marketing and sales staff that needs to be singing from the same hymnal it is the entire brand organization. It is somewhat shocking to think that 72% of companies in the United States do not have someone in charge of managing and maintaining the customer experience. Every point of contact with the market should be cherished, and carefully maintained to ensure customer satisfaction. When there is a problem, the customer service personnel must be trained to work with the customer to fulfill their brand expectations, since making up for a problem is one of the best opportunities to win over a customer, and all their friends as well since these are the stories that genuinely deliver customer loyalty.

I know that as an agency we have changed almost everything we do to maintain a focus on not only the marketing and awareness of a brand, but to also focus on delivering solutions to saturate the brand’s values throughout our client organizations to maximize their brand value and business performance.

Mike Cunningham
Chairman

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