Doing the medium – market, message match – 3

B2B, Character, Marketing, media, medium, messaging

Assuming you agree with my opinion – that I shared in the first two posts on this topic – that we should first look at the market and then decide on the medium and message, today is a take on the personality or characteristics of each medium. Again you may not agree with my view, but this view has helped me characterise what kind of message would be good for what kind of a medium.

But before we get into that, there’s some clarification with respect to what I consider as a message. The message and the medium kinda go hand-in-hand and the characteristic of the medium will put constraints on the type of message. Since I primarily deal with B2B, most of my terminology would be related to that kind of customers. However even in the B2c segment you would have similar kind of messages.

When it comes to B2B, a message could be a white paper, a case study, a webinar on a given topic, an email, a physical seminar or event for a specific product/service, a physical or virtual conference to showcase the company and a whole lot of others. The size of the message could vary, depending on the medium you are using as well as the duration. So a webinar could be 45 minutes talking about the features and benefits (the message) or it could be a full day workshop , where you are teaching the nitty gritty of the product (another kind of message). Since the workshop is more long form your message will need to be designed accordingly.

Now coming to what I started with, each medium has its own character. A conference is a good place to send a message en-mass while an email is something more personal one-to-one. An email expects a response, to take the next step, a conference is primarily one way. Like a bill board is a one way medium in the B2C segment.

So when you are sending an email its got to be personal, short and expecting a response. On the other hand a webinar would be something which is longer with minimal interaction planned, expect maybe at the end. You can’t use the message that you would put out in the webinar in an email and vice-versa.

So device your message based on the medium that you intend to use.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Doing the medium, market, message map – 2

campaign, content, Marketing, media, medium, messaging, single target market

In the previous post on this topic, I had given my views on why starting with the medium first is not a good idea. As a matter of fact a lot of people may give a lot of focus on the message also. No doubt creating the message (all kind of content) is a creative capability and requires skill but sending an amazing message to the wrong audience will be ineffective.

Let’s take a few examples, to showcase my logic.

Suppose you were selling lingerie but your database or list of people to whom you were sending the message was primarily men, there’s quite a big chance that the campaign would not be successful.

Suppose you were selling diet pills for men and your database primarily had women and lean men, would you be able to sell a lot of packages of your diet pills.

In both the the above examples you may have some success either because the amazing message you wrote got the spouses buying somethings or relatives buying something but it would not be what you are actually looking for.

On the other hand even a mediocre message to the right list will get a large response. This is not to underscore the importance of copy. It is however important to emphasize the importance of identifying clearly the single target market that you’re focusing on.

Hope I have been able to place my viewpoint clearly over the last 2 posts. I would to hear if there are any counter arguments that any of you have to the logic I have placed. Please list your comments below.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Budgeting for Marketing Activities – 6

budget, campaign, Marketing, media

In this last part I would like to take a very short comparison between different types of media and what needs to be kept in mind. I am not an expert on the different media and their costing methodologies. You would be well advised to look at some experts , especially if you intend to go the online and social media way.

So I will start with the physical media like print ads or physical letters or events. The positive about these is that once defined, the prices more or less are constant. So from a predictability perspective this is good. On the other hand, you only come to know the response to your ads or events after the whole thing has taken place.

So if you have targeted to do an event for 100 people and on 10 come on the day when it’s planned, the event has failed and you have spent all your money which was budgeted. So testing with physical media is a lot tougher , time consuming and expensive.

On the other hand with online and social media, you can do simultaneous testing of various ads and also put a limit on your spend while doing the tests or while running the campaigns. You can also stop an advertisement after running it for just one day on most social media platforms.

The downside with social media is that you don’t understand the algorithms that are running behind the selection of the people to whom the ads are being shown and when the site will change the rules / algorithms. So you are at their mercy. However if you have a diversified mix of social media sites giving you results then the whims of one particular site will not impact the business too much.

I hope you gain from these quick tips for doing a budget. Will look forward to hearing your comments.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Budgeting for Marketing Activities – 5

Assumptions, B2B, budget, campaign, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, media, single target market

In the last 4 posts we started with nothing but a napkin and created a rough budget that you can spend every month so that you can hit your target of 10 leads.

While most people you talk to will say Maths is tough, here it’s the reverse. Making 5he budget using math is the easy part. But even if you spend $1600/- on Google or Facebook every month (to understandwhere this has come from, read the 4th part of the post on this topic) , you won’t get leads and you may end the year with no orders but $25000/- gone.

The reason for that , whether you’re using LinkedIn or Google or print ads, these are all only media at the end of the day. Someone has to respond to your ads. If no one responds to the ads then you don’t get the leads.

So you have to test for two things here – if the media is right and if the message is right. My assumption is that you have defined your single target market earlier. If not, then that will be the first step.

Not everyone is comfortable, or using the same media. Some people maybe more comfortable with LinkedIn and not okay with Facebook. In some cases the media you are wanting to use, may not have the ability to target the people who are in your Single Target Market.

Next you have to test your ads to see what gets people to click or respond to an advertisement. You have to change them until you start seeing a response. Then you need to make changes keeping the one that’s getting you a response as the benchmark, or what is called as the “control ” in copyrighting circles.

In marketing there’s no such thing as failure, its all about experiments. So you keep testing various hypothesis till you are able to figure out the best combination of media and message for your market.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!