Automate Marketing

1. Marketing Materials - Access and ability to customize proven, professionally designed, and nationally branded creative assets.
2. Advertising Funds - Traditionally administered as a co-op marketing solution, national advertising dollars are a lifeline to the small marketing budgets of local channel resellers.
3. Strategy - Local channel resellers typically don’t have the training, experience, or attention to develop, implement and execute effective cross-medium local marketing.
4. Execution - Local marketing requires knowledge of effective branding across multiple mediums.

In 2008, the 100 Thing Challenge created quite a stir on the web, motivating people to own fewer material possessions and cap that ownership at 100 personal items. While Dave Bruno’s challenge lasted for a finite period, some analysts think recession fueled decreases in consumer spending may represent a permanent trend in consumer behavior. 

When considered along with the 100 Thing Challenge, the idea of a permanent decreasing in spending leads to a challenging thought experiment for marketers: what if your advertising not only had to generate interest from consumers but also had to motivate them to displace another possession prior to acquiring your product?

• How does your marketing emphasize the value your brand provides?
• Would severely constrained demand change your approach to demonstrating this value?
• If yes, would that approach be different in Albuquerque, New Mexico compared to Augusta, Maine?
• How would you coordinate your efforts in different geographic areas across multiple mediums?
  

At Balihoo, we believe that knowledge and know-how to adapt marketing to local markets probably already exists within your Brand’s organization. Rather, what most brands are missing are the tools to execute locally.  Balihoo’s local marketing software simplifies and automates your local marketing strategy, enabling national brands to collaborate with franchisees and affiliates to drive demand and appeal to local buyers with local needs. Specifically for national brands, Balihoo provides tools to streamline funds allocation and administrative oversight of Co-op Advertising programs.  Take a look at our White Papers to see how our software can help both your franchisees, and affiliates to drive sales with creative and targeted campaigns tailored to the local level. 

• Total company buy-in is critical. 
• You don't have to be a process engineer to build a lean process. 
• Most of the time success happens as a result of a combination of common sense and an injection of ingenuity!  See these videos below for some great examples of human ingenuity with existing resources. :)

1. ‘Local Marketing’ Search Volume is Dramatically Growing—As a search term, ‘Local Marketing’ started growing in 2008 and has exploded in the last year, according to Google trends. Variations of this term have seen a similar explosion in growth. Balihoo coined the term ‘local marketing automation’ and owns that space as evidenced by it owning the top three Google search results.
2. Analysts' Increased Attention—Analysts like Forrester and BIA/Kelsey are giving increased attention to local marketing, local search and now ‘hyperlocal’ media trends.
   
   1. A recent Forrester “Distributed Marketing” report illustrates the ‘local marketing’ challenges. It was music to my ears and I was glad to see Balihoo was included as a vendor solution, although sad that Forrester didn’t give more attention to define the integrated approach Balihoo employs to combine ad building, co-op management and execution across all mediums. That approach is how we are changing the rules of the game. Seriously, a 30-minute demonstration will prove my point.
   2. A review of BIA/Kelsey blog posts illustrates the growing interest in local, hyperlocal and geo-targeting topics.
3. Steady Saturation of Mobile—the ubiquitous adoption of mobile phones has changed how brands can “connect” with consumers.
   
   1. Texting was slow to take off, but according to CTIA, the Wireless Industry Association, in ’09, 152B SMS text messages were sent monthly, up from 9.8B in 2005.
   2. According to the Pew Research, adult cell phone ownership has gone from 65% to 83% between ’04 and ’09 and 93% of 18-29 year-old adults and 75% of 12-17 year-old teens have cell phones.
   3. Smartphones and mobile devices--with the launch and adoption of the iPad and Kindle platforms-- are fueling a revolution in mobile computing.
4. Meteoric Adoption of social platforms and geo-location tools—Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter’s meteoric rise along with other evolving geo-location based tools like Yelp, Foursquare, and Groupon are changing the way consumers consume and share information. It presents huge opportunities and challenges for marketers.
5. Increased Acquisition/IPO Activity—The last few months have resulted in some interesting acquisition/IPO activity that affects local marketers including IBM’s announcement to acquire Unica, and ReachLocal’s $54 Million IPO. Other activity includes Yelp’s Rejection of Google’s $500 Million offer, Google’s subsequent launch of Google Places, and Facebook's announcement today of its geo-location solution, Facebook's Places.

1. Newspaper - Nope. They don't read it.
2. Radio - Nope. They don't listen to it.
3. TV - Nope. It is too expensive for the few channels that students watch.
4. Online displays - That has to be a good fit, right? Well maybe, but if you are too intrusive or disruptive to their online experience, they will be gone in a flash.
5. Email - That is the ticket, right? Everyone uses e-mail, right? Nope. Try again. E-mail is "too slow" for this generation.

1. Social Media - Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp
2. SMS Text
3. Mobile Apps

• 42% of U.S. internet users use Facebook daily (69% of which are FANS of one or more companies on Facebook)
• 88% of U.S internet users use email everyday (95% use it at least monthly)
• 93% of U.S internet users are subscribers (i.e. they have opted-in to receive permission-based emails) 
• 58% of online consumers check their email first
• 11% start their day by checking Facebook

1. Tend to share more information online
2. Prefer that brands maintain a solid distinction between how they communicate via email vs. Facebook
3. Engage with brands for entertainment or to be 'in-the-know' regarding brands' activities
4. Tend to be younger - 43% of high school aged teens begin their day on Facebook (compared to 22% who start with email)

1. Tend to more task-oriented online
2. Are more readily engaged through the use of deals, promotions or new product announcements
3. Less interested in providing feedback to brands on their products and services without an incentive to do so
4. Tend to be older

• Increased use of thumbnail images over pure text
• Clear link between the version you are looking against the assets you have stored
• Available actions are all available in one place (as your eye scans to the right (always above the fold))
• Clear focus toward action (i.e. conversion) on the page
• Clear differentiation between the master template and versions the user has customized

Every monster has a big shadow

That's what makes it a monster.

In fact, when you look the monster in the eye, when you calmly and carefully inspect the actual monster, you discover that he's not so bad after all. It's just the shadow that's scary.

When in doubt, ignore the shadow.

The below is a guest post from Evan Hackel at Ingage Consulting. 


The Best Strategy for Implementing Marketing Strategies

By: Evan Hackel

Evan Hackel is the President and Founder of Ingage Consulting, www.ingageconsulting.com. Throughout his twenty-five year career, he has seen the need not only for improved engagement but for an understanding of why engagement plays such an important role in any organization. Evan’s company works closely with the managers and leaders of franchises, co-ops, and buying groups, to help them improve their business practices. Evan can be reached directly at ehackel@ingageconsulting.com.

When it comes to creating and implementing marketing strategies, many organizations miss an opportunity to engage their franchisees, members, or dealers. Companies tend to just present their ideas and force them down through the ranks until they have reached everyone associated with the brand.  Of course, this is not really the case, but it can seem that way to recipients of the information.  Implementing a marketing strategy this way will only cause franchisees, members, or dealers to resist the new strategy. In general, people like to feel like they are part of the process; therefore, they respond better when made part of the process.  

In an ideal world, franchisees, members or dealers would enthusiastically implement all new marketing programs. In high performing organizations, there is a lot of enthusiasm and support for new ideas; communicating is relatively easy and there is a great deal of support for the efforts. But for many franchises, co-ops, and dealer networks, it is difficult to implement the organization’s message effectively and in the way that management would like. 

One of the best ways to ensure that a marketing plan is received and executed at all levels in the organization is to first, involve franchisees, members, or dealers in advertising groups. These groups, local or regional, will represent what is happening at the consumer level and be networking groups to support each other in marketing efforts.  It's important to use the groups to get input on the development of marketing plans; not just as a way to roll out a program.        

Another way to engage franchisees, dealers, or members in carrying out your marketing strategy is to create a brand council. The brand council should be involved in aspects of your marketing efforts.   Participants of the brand council should also be included in presentations to the franchise, cooperative, or dealer group and should be invited to write articles and postings for the organization’s intranet.   

Engaging your members, dealers, or franchisees in implementing marketing strategies is just the first step. Organizations need to measure and understand the success level of their current marketing plan. Of course, this is a good practice for understanding success and helping with future marketing efforts. It is also important for franchisees, members, and dealers to know that you are paying attention to them. Many of you, I am sure, are tracking sales, which is good, but there are intangible aspects to marketing efforts that sales alone can't measure. Having a report form for your franchisees, members, or dealers to feel out their opinions on the marketing efforts is a good way to get high-quality feedback. Ask questions like: how could we have made this local marketing effort better, would you do this again in the future, and did customers mention the local advertising? Report back to the group what you have learned. This will show you have been listening. 

The reports are a great idea for improving engagement and for learning more about the success of your marketing efforts, but you are likely to only get a small sampling of reports back. This is okay; the fact you are asking for feedback and that everyone knows they have the ability to share their thoughts and ideas is what's important.

How do you engage your franchisees, members or dealers with your local marketing plans? Do you have a brand council and how does that work? How do you get feedback on success?

1. The size and maturity of your organziation may cause a different contact classification on the company value axis (Simplify vs Eliminate)
   
   • In early stage companies your main goal is to try and find a market, and solve a problem, so many things that would be an irritant and up for elimination in a mature company could be very high value to a startup and something you want to understand better and simplify.
2. Customer types vary by company maturity
   
   • Startups, especially in the technology space typically make their first sales to innovators.  This group of customers has different attributes than the standard majority and because of their excitment over your product is less likely to be irritated by new and somewhat untested products/features.  Minimally this allows things to sit in the simplify bucket longer (see point #1) and even might allow some items to exist in the leverage bucket at least for a period of time.
3. Contact categorization will not be static.  For instance, something may start out in the automate bucket (eg - automating the ability to find out order status) but contacts may continue moving into simplify (we have automated it, but its not easy to find)

Ever think about what it means to be free? On this week shortened by our observance of the 4th of July holiday, I figure it's worth a neuro-cycle or two. I'll start by offering my sincere thanks to all our men and women in uniform for your sacrifices.  



Now, the concept of "freedom" can go in a lot of directions, but I'd like to spend a second talking about freedom of choice. One of the beauties of life in this great nation is that we get to choose: What to write... What to read... Where to live... What to drive... Ultimately, a lot of your and my freedom comes down to choosing how to spend our money. After all, isn't economic freedom really just the ability to use our time and ingenuity to create buying power, and then wield that power to get what's most important to us?

All that wonderful freedom creates a challenge, though, when it comes to effectively communicating with those free-willed (or is it willy-nilly?) consumers as they gleefully make their local choices. As business people, we want to *influence* those choices. We want those emancipated masses to choose... well... Us. But they're all thinking about themselves, and making decisions based on their individual values and preferences. So what actually compels each consumer to act -- to pull out his or her wallet and part with their hard-earned money? That, too varies immensely.

The way I see it, Balihoo's Local Marketing Automation platform is *entirely* about that freedom and variety: We provide the marketing software tools and services that enable national brands to maintain precious brand integrity while simultaneously empowering local affiliates (dealers, distributors, franchisees, etc.) to execute the marketing that is most likely to entice the unfettered consumers in their neighborhood to actually buy something. We literally make it easy for local marketers to grow their business by getting consumers to choose them. That, my friends, is a beautiful thing...

Balihoo. We're all about freedom. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

God bless America.
 

1. Reduction in local production costs - This is the value that is most attributable to Ad Builders that allow a local affiliate to customize an ad template without the use of a creative resource.  By leveraging these tools affiliates can reduce their local production costs by up to 90%.
2. Increase in brand integrity - This is the secondary benefit of a good Ad Builder.  Because ads are templated and the customizations can be designed to be in compliance with brand guidelines, the brand can rest assured that their investment into developing their brand is not degraded through rogue local implementations.
3. Reduction in local execution costs - If the LMA solution allows for execution across all media types, the brand can leverage their scale to greatly reduce execution costs across different media.  The economies of scale reach across transactional mediums such as direct mail, e-mail, SMS, Newspaper Circulars all the way to negotiated traditional media costs on a local level.  If the LMA solution selected does not offer full execution across all media types, this element of the calculation can be eliminated.
4. Improved local marketing execution - A great LMA solution will help to guide the users through a combination of training, professional assistance and in application education to become a better local marketer.  While the first couple benefits of the ROI calculation are great opportunities to reduce costs or negative impact on branding, this element can have the biggest impact on a local marketer's business.  So much of marketing today is waste, and the marketing landscape keeps getting more confusing, which is adding to the waste.  If your LMA platform can help to remove some of the confusion, and direct your affiliates to more effective marketing techniques, the impact on ROI can be dramatic.
5. Affiliate adoption - The final component of the ROI calculation is determining affiliate adoption.  All of the factors listed above are dramatically impacted by how many of the local affiliates take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them through the LMA platform.  You can create the best program in the world, but if the program is not adopted, then it will have almost no impact on your business and will certainly not deliver ROI.  This is typically the largest missing piece of any LMA effort.  In order to drive adoption the brand must invest in training, useful templates, strong co-op programs, and education.