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. 

• 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

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

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

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

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?

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.
 

• 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.

• 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

• Decide as Late as Possible

• Reach: While it pales in comparison to the nearly half-million billboards that line America's highways (sigh), DOOH now exceeds 150k screens nation-wide, and reaches 2/3rds of the population.
• Location, Location, Location: Only 150k screens? Yes, but many of those are in places where we're better able to distinguish the audience's mindset.  At the gym?  Perhaps you'd like a sports drink?  At the doctors?  You might like some aspirin.
• Interactivity: Remember that part about OOH being static?  So much for that.  DOOH's pictures are not only moving, but interactive.  As dated as it is, this brilliant example from Nike through agency R/GA still gets me excited about the potential of a huge glowing wall.