Dogs in the Balihoo office? You bet!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 by Kallen Hayes

The Balihoo office is a pretty productive place. Our employees are hard-working, enthusiastic, energetic, and extremely passionate about revolutionizing local store marketing. We work really well together and collaborate with a level of team spirit and cohesion rivaled by (maybe) only a few other groups.

AND... our mascot, 'Scout', is a dog.

Is this some crazy coincidence? I don't think so. And neither does the author of Manager's Best Friend, an article that appeared in The Economist last month. The article suggests, based on research done by Central Michigan University, that the presence of canine friends in the office space can improve teamwork and encourage team allegiance. Participants in the study who had a dog to "slobber and pounce on them" gave better feedback about their group members in the studied areas of trust, team cohesion and intimacy.

I'm glad Balihoo culture encourages canine companionship. We have a dog photo cork board, our meeting rooms are named after employee's dogs, Scout paraphernalia is all over the place, and we're always quick to hand-out one of our beloved Scout stuffed toys.

Just recently, our VP of Marketing, Shane Vaughan, got a new yellow lab puppy named Dexter. Much to everyone's excitement, he's been paying weekly visits to our office. Other notable past canine visitors include Wrigley, Max and Bronco.

It doesn't take scientific evidence to convince me that a canine companion can lift anyone's mood and therefore, at the least, create a more enjoyable work environment (although I might argue that bringing a puppy into an area occupied by females will most likely temporarily decrease productivity). But, productivity aside, we can all agree that enjoyable environments make for happier people, and I'm confident that happy Balihoo employees make for happy local marketing software customers!

Want to Grow Your Sales? Then Empower Your Channel

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 by Chris Keller

You’ve heard it a thousand times: Empower Your Channel to Grow Sales.

Sounds good, right?

Problem is that empowering your channel has always meant hiring more sales people who struggle to control the loose ends. It turns out that implementing channel marketing automation technology is a cost effective approach that will provide a tangible return on investment.

Reality

A recent call with a prospect illustrates the situation. Half of this prospect’s sales come from Group A, a handful of large, national B2C buyers with thousands of local stores. The other half of sales come from Group B, consisting of thousands of local and regional distributors with 1-5 locations. Logically, this marketer focuses the majority of his resources on the handful of big buyers who drive sales quotas.

The irony, while Group A does drive tremendous volume, and total sales, their fixation on price drives profit out of each transaction, resulting in commoditized products. In stark contrast, Group B tends to be very loyal, strong brand advocates, and more profitable (considering the very small amount spent on them currently). So the prospect neglects Group B.

Sadly, this is an all too common problem. Gerald Murray, Research Manager with IDC, recently released a study of channel marketing for large IT companies stating that, on average the IT company participants in his study have 19,000 inactive partners. Beyond IT, the problem pervades other industry sectors.

Solution

How then can the prospect cost effectively drive sales through the more profitable Group B? It turns out that hiring more people is not the solution. The increased human capital costs would outweigh the subsequent sales increase. The opportunity then must lie in the use of technology.

Murray from IDC tends to agree, though his solution is to implement partner relationship management (PRM) tools, though I don’t think that fundamentally tackles the channel marketing problems. Instead, I think a local marketing automation (LMA) platform includes the full suite of tools to solve channel problems. Also based on technology, it focuses on empowering the local channel reseller, a distinct difference from PRM tools that focus on tools for a brand’s channel marketing/sales organizations.

The LMA solution is scalable, cost effective, and ultimately places emphasis on local store marketing execution, a movement that is much more than a trend. To understand this as a solution, one must consider the MARKETING problems a channel faces:

Marketing Materials - Access and ability to customize proven, professionally designed, and nationally branded creative assets.
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.
Strategy - Local channel resellers typically don’t have the training, experience, or attention to develop, implement and execute effective cross-medium local marketing.
Execution - Local marketing requires knowledge of effective branding across multiple mediums.

What do you think? Are these the problems your channel faces?

Channel Marketing Software - Microsites/Dealer Locator Example

Thursday, August 26, 2010 by Shane Vaughan

Balihoo has recently launched a fantastic new function within our local marketing automation software - Microsites. One of the key use-models of this functionality is for product manufacturers who sell their products through a set of regionally distributed

dealers (channel). These manufacturers are using microsite functionality to be the landing pages on the back-end of the dealer-locator section of their websites. Let me demonstrate:

I'm interested in buying a new motorcyle, from Brand X. My first step is that I'll research the product online (which research proves) . First, I'm going to go the website of the manufacturer. Once I explore all of the options and determine what I'm going to buy, I'm ready to purchase it locally (this even has an acronym - ROBO - research online, buy offline). I punch my zip code into their dealer locator, and up pops the 5 dealers in my immediate area. Naturally, since I'm on the web, I'm happy to see that they all have websites. As I click into the dealer that is closest to me, I'm directed to their website, which represents several motorcycle brands, and in fact the Yamaha is on sale on their front page. Brand X has given me the info, the research and directed me to a dealer - however, because they lost control of that customer, they also lost the sale to Yamaha.

Let's contrast that experience with a motorcycle brand that is doing it right - Honda. (note - Honda is not a customer of ours, but they're doing a great job!). See the video below for the exact Honda experience:

Want to see how this could impact your brand? Hit us up for a live demonstration, we would be more than happy to show you!

1 vs. 100: Marketing in the Face of Constrained Demand

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 by Zac Monahan

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?

The thought begs a number of questions:

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.

The Key to Successful Marketing

Monday, August 9, 2010 by Phil Bear

I recently read a great list (I'm a sucker for Top 10 Lists - just ask David Letterman) on marketing blunders from major global brands. The one that stuck with me above all the rest was this one from Pepsi Cola:

"Pepsi's 'Come alive with the Pepsi Generation' translated into 'Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave'" for its campaign in China.

Someone needs dental implants.

Now, according to Snopes.com, this entire story about Pepsi and their marketing blunder is undertermined. Whether this is true or not is completely irrelevant to this blog. (I got to put a picture of a zombie in my blog, so I win.)

What I took from this particular top ten list (some within the list are confirmed true) is that even major brands still do not have local advertising figured out. No matter how well these brands are globally recognized, they still make mistakes when it comes to individual markets (I'll give you that China is a prettty big market, but the point still stands).

What national brands need is Balihoo. We have created marketing software that integrates digital asset management with administration into a simple online co-op marketing solution. It truly is a solution that someone has to see to believe. Luckily for you, our dear readers, the crack marketing group here has recently put together a two minute(ish) flash demonstration that gives you a better understanding of how we are revolutionizing marketing on a local level.

You can check that out here:
http://balihoo.com/coop-marketing/coop-marketing-demo.html

If that doesn't peak your interest in our marketing solution, then you must be dead inside. Or undead on the outside.

Her shirt has a stain on it. How embarrassing!

Got great customer service? Flaunt it!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010 by Kallen Hayes

A few days ago I encountered what struck me as a very unique online banner ad for Zappos.com. It was an image of a charming customer service representative with a speech bubble that read 'Happy to help 24/7". How interesting, I thought, that the message of the advertisement was focused not on Zappos' wonderful selection of shoes, their speedy (free!) delivery, or even their multitude of other clothing and home goods offered for sale on their website, but rather on their customer service! I figured it was not just a standalone banner ad that I had stumbled upon. I knew there had to be a good sized campaign going on with more of these charming puppets promoting Zappos famous customer service and quirky (er... charismatic) employees.

Perhaps I've been living in a cave for the last few months to not have already seen this retail marketing campaign on any other media outlets. After just a little bit of investigating, I learned the campaign, developed by Mullen, currently spans TV, print, and online video, and has already garnered quite a bit of attention for its trailblazing focus on the company's customer service department. The ads center around phone calls made by Mullen employees posing as actual customers making unusual (and rather hilarious) requests. The puppets fielding the phone calls are modeled off of real-life Zappos employees. Their responses to the requests are authentic -- the employees didn't know the calls were pranks. (I can't help but make a comical comparison to the Crank Yankers episodes).

The campaign is clearly taking the lead in a recent trend to bring customer service out from the dark cubicles of off-shore office buildings and onto the center stage of integrated marketing plans. Customer service has for too long been considered a cost center for companies, and hasn't received the attention and promotion it deserves. As service departments improve, it makes sense that this aspect of a business would naturally become a bragging point to attract new customers. Ann All supports this idea in her article, Customer Service: a Selling Point for Those That Get It Right. She says customer service as subject matter for sales and marketing is smart because great customer service is an excellent differentiator from the masses of other companies who've neglected that department.

As more customer interactions move to the online platform, companies are beginning to realize that their online presence --be it their website, their online chat services or their local internet marketing-- must convey the empathy and personalities of the people behind the technology. For Zappos, even their tagline 'Powered by Service' aims to draw the attention away from their highly advanced warehousing and shipping technology to the actual people manning their phones, executing orders, and happily on call to serve their customers.

I know for a fact that our company, Balihoo, is making great strides to reach out to our current and prospective customers to understand their wants and needs in order to continue moving forward as a customer-centric company. We want to design our local marketing software as an easy to use self-service portal while at the same time providing fantastic customer service to our end users seeking technical support or professional help with their media planning strategy.

Kudos to Zappos for being one of the first companies to embrace the new age of customer service and to step out with a memorable and entertaining campaign that rightfully gives tribute to its valued customer service agents. From the ads' featured customer interactions it's clear that the contagious energy and joyful attitude of the Zappos employees is easily perceived through every phone call and live chat conversation with their customers. As the bar for customer service continues to rise, I think Zappos is a clear front runner in the game.

A Simple Thought on Simplicity

Monday, August 2, 2010 by Kelly Mason

“In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

This sentiment by Longfellow has outlived its time. Longfellow was writing in the mid-1800's. If you were magically shot back to this era, think how quiet, how simple things would seem compared to today's world of iPod's and twitter and Jumbo Trons.

In building marketing software tools for local advertisers, this idea takes on a whole new level of importance. The more complicated the process, the harder it is to simplify, AND the more important it is to simplify.

You can have the coolest features ever, but if they're not usable, your users will call you out on it, as they should. When it comes to a new feature, take what you think should be there, and then strip it down to what absolutely needs to be there, and then make sure that is simple. When it comes to building local marketing software, which is complicated in its nature, it doesn't always work out that way, but I will continue to use this idea to check myself.

Transforming Granite

Monday, August 2, 2010 by Matt Borud

Last Saturday, Balihoo had the pleasure of presenting at the Granite Transformations annual franchise convention in New Orleans. Now this was a significant occasion for several reasons beyond franchise marketing - namely it being my first time in the Big Easy. After the celebration of Balihoo's arrival subsided, it was time to get down to business and talk local store marketing with some eager and engaged franchisees.

The marketing team at Granite Transformation has taken an active and aggressive approach to solving issues that countless franchise organizations face. How can a national marketing team better support local franchisees? Is your brand's creative material compelling and effective - does it help sell your product? How can your marketing team manage seemingly limitless local customizations for hundreds of franchisees across the country? How can you ensure your franchisees are using brand approved advertising material in their local advertising efforts, and how can you track and report on the results? How can your franchisees leverage Facebook, Twitter, local PR, SEO, blogs and YouTube? This list goes on and on - and frankly it requires much more than sophisticated ad builder software or someone to manage your local media buying. It requires a team of dedicated marketing experts each specializing in key challenge areas your franchisees face.

Kudos to Carl, the Granite Transformations FAC, and the rest of their marketing team for building a strong network of marketing and advertising experts for their franchisees to leverage. From PR to creative agency, online and social media marketing to franchise marketing software - Granite Transformation has covered their bases and giving their franchisees the tools necessary to thrive in a competitive and challenging market. There are certainly more hurdles to overcome, but the question becomes, whether you're a marketing executive, a franchisee looking for local marketing help, or a prospective franchisee checking out different opportunities - is your organization bold enough to take the steps Granite Transformations has taken to ensure they're franchisees have the most innovative local store marketing tools in the industry? If the answer to that question is 'no' - it may be time to reevaluate your franchise marketing strategies and talk with Balihoo about what we can do for your organization's marketing effort. Because at the end of the day, you're competing with Granite Transformations, whether for home improvement business, the consumer's limited budget and mindshare or your next well-qualified potential franchisees - and they just retooled like the Miami Heat.

From all of us at Balihoo, we're very excited to kick off our relationship with the Granite Transformations team next week. Thank you for your hospitality last weekend and the opportunity to partner - we're looking forward to a successful relationship!

New Advertising Services - We're Listening

Friday, July 30, 2010 by Betsie Richardson

When Nobel Biocare asked Balihoo to partner with them to provide local consumer advertising for their dental implant clinician clients, we jumped at the opportunity. We initially rolled out a subscription service that provides clinicians with a soup-to-nuts advertising campaign. We are excited to announce that we have added two new subscriptions to our service offerings. We have our clients to thank for communicating what they want, and we listened!

In the initial "Platinum" Subscription, we start by diving into the market to develop a cross-medium annual strategy with budget allocation, detailed tactics and demographic research. The service also includes a suite of creative material that includes TV, radio, print, direct mail, online, internet paid search - the full gamut. We load this material into our proprietary co-op marketing software where clinicians can customize it to their brand and objectives. Finally, we perform local media buying and post-buy analysis.

Having consulted with hundreds of dental implant clinicians over the past year, we have learned a lot about what they want in an advertising campaign. Importantly, we learned many clinicians are not ready to dive into a mass media advertising campaign, the cost barrier aside. They are simply not ready to see their name on TV or a billboard. This puts them in a defensive position with their GP referral base that they may not be ready to manage. They are, however, very comfortable with Internet marketing and hosting free patient education seminars through their local newspaper.

These learnings combined, we came up with the Gold and Silver Subscriptions.

Gold includes:

Print (newspaper & direct mail)
Online (Google AdWords bidding & E-mail)
Microsite (w/customizable offers that update immediately)
Media Buying
Account Management

Silver includes:

Online (Google AdWords bidding & E-mail)
Microsite (w/customizable offers that update immediately)

The Gold subscription includes material focused on marketing patient education seminars. Silver will eventually include microsites that market dental services other than implants (i.e. wisdom teeth, veneers, crowns and bridges, etc.) We will continue to deliver services as our clients ask for them and always welcome new ideas!
Are you a Nobel Biocare customer? Are you interested in local marketing ideas to grow your dental implant business? Go to www.dentalmarketing.balihoo.com to learn more or download our whitepaper here.

The Local Marketing Puzzle

Friday, July 30, 2010 by Paul Price

Are you a local advertiser who is trying to figure out the most efficient way to drum up more business? A few years ago when asked about local marketing, a small business owner may have expressed the kind of frustration this cat is feeling:

It was kind of hard and frustrating, especially with no opposable thumbs. And, as in the case of a color blind cat, it was difficult to really understand the effectiveness and results of your efforts. That was then. Now local store marketing is something a little more akin to this:

You'd think that it would be getting easier, right? I can reach out to individual consumers with all this new whiz-bang technology, right? But with all of the fragmentation of publishers, and new complexity that sits between them and the advertiser it can be a pretty daunting task to just understand the landscape, let alone achieve tangible results. We're talking about agencies, ad servers, media buying platforms, creative optimization, analytics, data suppliers and aggregation, data optimizers, ad exchanges, ad networks, performance analysis, print ad builders, yield optimization, social tools, publisher tools, etc. How do you make sense of all of these puzzle pieces and get them to work together seamlessly?

At the end of the day you simply want more people to spend more money in your store. It would be really nice if it were handed to you like this:

Ok, nobody is going to hand you a completely solved marketing solution. Every business and market is different, there is no perfect one-size-fits-all solution. But the tools and expertise to help you get there are available. Check out our white papers and cases studies to see how Balihoo, the premier provider of local marketing software and services, can help you solve your local marketing puzzle so that you can spend more time chasing mice and playing with balls of yarn. Oops, I got my analogy a little mixed up.

Guest Post - The Best Strategy for Implementing Marketing Strategies

Thursday, July 22, 2010 by Shane Vaughan

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?

Thanks for the guest post Evan, good information. I couldn't agree more, specifically when you're dealing with Local Marketing Automation. Whether implementing a new local advertising campaign, new channel marketing software or new local marketing software, it's critical to get buy-in from the key players. This will be one of the key drivers of adoption - in fact, we recently wrote a whitepaper identifying the key issues with adoption around new co-op marketing solutions, you can download it here.

Freedom

Friday, July 9, 2010 by Chuck Mitten

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.

Your Co-op/MDF Advertising Program Sucks

Wednesday, July 7, 2010 by Shane Vaughan

If you've ever been associated with the "delivery" side of a co-op or MDF advertising program, you've likely received an email/vmail/letter something like:

Dear Product Manufacturer,

Your Co-op advertising program sucks.

First, what are the specific rules and regulations? How do I know what's covered? What is my specific co-op advertising balance and what can I use it on? I've spent hours and hours working on this with my sales rep (is that the best use of his time?) and we still have no idea.

Secondly - thanks for all the product images...now I get to take them to my local agency and pay thousands to get an ad designed that I 'hope' you will approve. At least you're paying for most of the design fees, but wow, wouldn't those dollars be much better spent driving demand in the marketplace?

Thirdly - are you serious with this creative? It's a big, branded ad for your brand with a small little spot for my logo. Why would I spend money on this? Where is the demand-generation component? What's going to get customers to walk in my store and make a purchase? Where is the tracking? How do I know if this is going to work for my local marketing efforts?

Also, I see you've given me a print ad and a flyer. That's great and all but this is 2010 - where is the banner ad? What if I want to put up a microsite? PPC? Social media? TV? C'mon, marketing at the local level HAS to be integrated across mediums - I know you know that because that's what YOU do at the local level. Where are the other mediums?

Finally - 6-10 weeks to get my co-op/mdf money back? Really? And half the time we have to go round-and-round to get that (another great use of my sales reps time). Why can't you just give me an immediate discount on the marketing spend for the amount you're going to cover?

That's it, I've had enough, I'm going to market Competitor X from now on. Good luck with your big product launch later this year....

Any of these issues sound familiar? Did you know that using Balihoo's channel marketing software to manage your co-op advertising program can address all of these issues and more? Avoid getting another letter like this, request a free demo of our solution today.

The Sales Perspective

Tuesday, July 6, 2010 by Kelly Mason

This week I had the opportunity to be a part of a couple of sales calls. The purpose of having me on the call was to be able to answer the potential client's questions about our local marketing software from a technical and detailed perspective. It's valuable from the sales team's perspective, because it helps the client get their answers quickly, and it's also valuable to ensure that we don't under or over promise during the sales process. However, I'm now convinced that this process is a valuable one from a product team perspective as well, in more ways than one. We, of course, want the feedback directly from our customers. The obvious value is that it allows me the opportunity to gather that feedback and even expound on it real time, to dig a little deeper into the need. The other surprising advantage for me, though, was being able to talk about the product from this perspective, which I rarely get to do. I know the product inside and out, and know all the cool and sometimes surprising features it holds. Often times my conversations with internal and external customers means listening to their needs when it comes to local advertising to think through where the product needs to go next. Talking with a potential client in a sales arena allows me to listen, but also affords me the opportunity to speak openly and passionately about the product as it is right now. The client may have a different way of doing things but I can talk about why our local marketing software, while different, is the right way to go for their franchisees. It's important to step back and gain that valuable perspective.

See the Whole (Product)

Friday, July 2, 2010 by Kevin Donaldson

Companies are not just the sum of their parts.

One of the concepts of lean software development is 'See the Whole'. While one of the more abstract concepts, I believe it not only applies effectively to software development, but also at a much higher level.

First - See the Whole, does not imply that you need to/should ignore details but more importantly be aware of temptations to optimize parts at the expense of the whole. For instance, a common issue that befalls many a SaaS (Software as a Service) company is thinking of oneself as only a software company. There is nothing wrong with being 'primarily' a software company but very few companies can/should claim the term only and expect to be successful.

Even if you distinguish internally between software development and supporting/additional services, your customer likely doesn't know and/or care about the distinction. To them, they are interacting with you (the company) - not a specific department, tool or service. Its all part of the same experience.

The question is then: why do we organize our business's in a way that is so counter intuitive to this? Early stage startups often organize correctly simply due to the limited scope of offering and team size, but as a company grows and transitions, organizational silo'ing is an unfortunate side effect that is hard to prevent. This results in teams thinking about their part of the puzzle, and less and less about the whole picture. Even the discipline of product management falls into this trap. Product managers in SaaS companies typically manage software products only.

At Balihoo we have been going through a transition this year both in terms of growth and helping the organization think about our offering as a 'Whole Product'. Our product is not just a local marketing software platform, but the the collective set of everything that our customers interact with. Easy on the surface. At this point our discussions are limited to a subset of the organization while we work through the execution challenges, however simply re-orienting our focusing on the whole product has already increased our ability to 'see' better. Here are a few early examples:

Functional managers no longer localize their thinking about their piece of the offering but often think more holistically, which drives more questions and earlier identification of issues.
Product strategy now becomes a cross functional initiative and not just limited to the software. In the past we would release new features in our software and then identify 'wrap around' services. Now we think about these in advance, which creates a more well rounded product and hence a better customer experience.
New discussions on how to expand the product roadmap beyond just a focus on the software and its upcoming features to thinking around whole product priorities.

There are still challenges.

Operationalizing some of these concepts could create cross functional conflict
It could put additional pressure on our ability to stay agile (ie - seen as overhead on process)
It might be subject to interpretation and mean different things to different people
It will take some work to make it tangible to everyone across the organization

Nevertheless, creating a finely tuned machine should always be an organizational goal no matter how many leaks, squeaks and gear grinding is currently happening. Here's to Seeing the whole!

This is part of a series on thinking lean. Previous Posts:

Decide as Late as Possible

Marketing Software Tools Continue to Impress PART DEUX: Chasing Your Consumer

Monday, June 28, 2010 by Alex Fascilla

I'm exasperated as I reach the top of the 4th floor stairwell and jump-kick the steel bar that stretches across the fire door, gaining entry to a long hall. I'm sprinting now, the noise coming from the pounding of my feet hitting the end of the hall and bouncing back at the speed of sound, echoing throughout. I take a sharp left down an adjacent hall, immediately noticing a large window at the other end, stretching to the floor. "Should I Die Hard-it and dive through the double-pane glass, hoping to land atop the building below? Or do I Master-Key-Guy-Off-The-Matrix 2-it and duck into any one of the rooms I'm passing now at a rate of two per second, instantly launching me to a new corner of the earth?"

Neither, see, because I'm only figuratively escaping the pursuer. I know, boring.

In all actuality, last week, while scanning Eastbay for footwear that's a little less enclosed (flops) than what I've currently got, I 'picked up a tail' as they say in every cop movie ever made. Spending approximately three minutes looking at a particularly interesting pair was my first mistake. Unfortunately, this totally harmless activity gave the re-marketing 'parasite' enough time to 'latch on'. I know this because for the next three days a good 80% of the websites I visited featured multiple Eastbay ads--and not just any old banner ad, but a banner ad featuring the exact shoe I was looking at! Perhaps the most remarkable thing, however, was that this was on everything from big sites like MSN.com, all the way to little local news sites like KATV.com.

As I blogged in early March via an article in MediaBuyerPlanner, this re-marketing technology enables retailers to serve future ads on other sites to try enticing buyers that browsed but didn't buy into returning to remind them what they've left behind. The article pointed to how underutilized this marketing software tool really is. Well, I'm here to tell you, while parasitic, this technology is both ingenious, effective, and quickly becoming less than underutilized. How do I know they're effective? Well, allow me to finish the story...

...Being old-fashioned concerning chase scenes, I quickly choose the former, ripping my jacket off as I sprint and swinging it around my body to cover my torso and head as I punch through the curiously easy-to-shatter window. The jacket floats down into the alley below as I miss my landing, hitting the edge of the building's top, dangling with both arms fully extended, fingers curled around the lip of the stone that caps the building's waist-high wall. Kicking my feet against the edge of the building, I pull myself up and over onto roof and collapse with a grunt. I look up to realize I'm surrounded by goons. With guns. Caught.

That's right, I know re-marketing is effective because what really happened is I clicked on the damn banner ad the third day and bought the damn shoes hook-line-and-sinker. [To get the ads to go away? or because I wanted them? Hmmm...]

Nice work, Eastbay--retail marketing at its best. I can't wait for others to adopt this technology. I'm sure they can't either!

For more information on cool marketing software tools, download Balihoo's whitepaper here.

The Future of Marketing is Local.

Monday, June 28, 2010 by Phil Bear

It seems that every futuristic movie I watch imagines a reality void of individualism and riddled with technology. Filmmakers, it seems, believe in a future where, as we create increasingly advanced technology, we lose our humanity at the same rate . However, if real life has taught me anything about movies - it is that movies can be deceptive. Totally serious!

I've got spicy films that cost $34.99 for $40.00.

With the advancement of technology in recent years, it seems that everything is becoming more focused on sustaining and enhancing individuality: services like Twitter allow people to give updates on the most minuscule aspects of their lives, people receive news from friends and celebrities rather than subscribing to something old- fashioned like a "newspaper," and location-based services give you a notice on your cell phone if you walk near a favorite store.

With this shift in our priorities, and our focus, does it really make sense to market to the consumer with a non-personalized, generic message, in hopes that they connect with it?

Methinks not.

Local Marketing Strategy, the ability to take a national brand and customize for different demographics, needs to be the focus of every major franchised brand. Without the ability to connect to the consumer on a personal level, franchises are going to struggle to retain a customer base--no matter what the economy looks like.

Balihoo gives large brands the ability to reach out and connect with the individual, no matter the marketing medium. Our local marketing software gives franchisees the ability to access, customize, and execute a brand-approved marketing plan from one centralized web portal. Gone are the days of frustrated franchisees who don't know how they should market themselves. No longer will technology be stereotyped as the end of mankind. (See: Terminator).

Balihoo: Making the future of marketing bright, one brand at a time.

Let them know you're listening!

Thursday, June 24, 2010 by Kallen Hayes

A few months ago, during one of Balihoo's Friday morning trips to the local Starbucks coffee shop, I noticed an interesting display on the counter. It was a clear container full of green sticks with little mermaids adorning their tops. What caught my eye, in particular, was the message on the display. In case you can't read it on the attached picture, it says:

'Inspired By You! A great idea brought to us by YOU. Keep 'em coming - we're listening!
- MyStarbucksIdea.com

I was immediately impressed with Starbucks' proactive approach to connecting with their customers and letting them know they're listening. I quickly realized it wasn't about spilled coffee, the need to stir in four packets of sugar, or cute green mermaids. Starbucks easily could have produced the 'splash sticks' and simply started stocking them in their shops alongside the sugar packets and napkins. But instead, they took the time to create a new display and a friendly message to catch the eyes of their customers as they ordered coffee.

Connecting with customers is something all business should strive to do. And there is no better opportunity to reach out and show them you care than when you have clearly listened to their feedback and acted on it.

Being a growing company, Balihoo has a lot to learn from our customers. Although we already think our co-op advertising and local marketing software is pretty cool, we realize there is a long path of development ahead of us, and much of that path is yet to be mapped. We will have to listen to our customers and continue building our product so it doesn't just meet their needs and expectations, it exceeds them.

We're already doing a lot to give our current users the opportunity to let us know what they think about our software and how we can make it better. From our user experience study group, to email surveys and the feedback tool in the corner of our homepage, we want people to feel comfortable telling us exactly what they want.

And from my own experience interacting with our users, I'm going to agree with Starbucks that it's a lot more fun to make a big deal about a new product, new design, or new feature, than to quietly launch it and wait to see who notices.

Gaining Qualified Dental Implant Leads from Consumer Advertising

Monday, June 21, 2010 by Betsie Richardson

Being in the dental implant marketing space, we at Balihoo are often asked how to gain more qualified leads in local advertising. There are many consumer barriers to overcome with dental implant marketing. How much will this cost? Is it painful? Will it take a long time before I have functioning teeth?

These questions can be answered in a free-to-the-public education seminar. Now the doctor has the ability to speak in great detail to a captive audience of consumers, and they can ask questions in a comfortable setting where they are surrounded by people who also suffer from the discomfort of missing teeth.

Many dental clinicians - specialists in particular - run education seminars for general dentists to open a channel of patient referrals for dental implant procedures. These prospecting patients call the implant specialist's practice with a fairly knowledgeable understanding of the procedures available, obstacles and costs. The office staff is used to this "qualified" lead. Now try running a strong :30 second TV campaign like we do for many of our clients, and your staff is suddenly hit with an influx of prospecting consumers who have many questions about the exciting procedure they saw marketed while watching Oprah. Simply put, a :30 second TV spot cannot qualify a dental implant patient on its own.

In our integrated marketing plans, we often include such an education seminar in the annual strategy. The one medium that has proven most successful is...drum roll please...newspaper ROP. This "dying" medium is still highly read by our target demographic in most markets. My anecdotally-based theory is that consumers are value or event-shopping newspaper's advertisements. They can physically hold onto the paper, read your ad in detail and cut it out and post it on the fridge to remind them of the date.

One of our local clients held a patient education seminar last week. Running an integrated approach of newspaper, network TV and online advertising, they had a great turnout of 14 consumers. Nine of them scheduled personal consultations that evening. Needless to say, that client found their answer in seeking more qualified leads.

Download our white paper here to learn the three cardinal rules of dental marketing.

(Nobel Biocare taps into our local marketing automation software to provide a co-op advertising solution for their partner clinicians. Using our print ad builder, these clinicians tag their advertisements with their photos, logo and customize the messaging.)

A Year Ago...

Friday, June 11, 2010 by Sam Martin

A year ago this weekend stands out to me for two primary reasons. One, it was my birthday and I had to come into the office and work and two, perhaps even more important than the latter, the reason I had to work...we were releasing a redesign of our local marketing software. A release of this magnitude required a lot of testing to ensure that before we rolled it out to our customers it was smooth as butter.

I guess the reason I bring this up is because it brings on a feeling of nostalgia. To think of Balihoo a year ago today and compare it to what Balihoo is today we have, to simply put it, come a long way. We have brought on several new clients and helped many more local franchise owners implement successful marketing campaigns.

To revolutionize local marketing is what Balihoo is setting out to do and we are definitely making great strides down that road. To learn more about Balihoo and what services we can bring to you, download our whitepaper.

Here's to another year!