By Annette Bourdeau / Illustrations by Graham Romieu
What I’m about to say may surprise you.Marketing isn’t all flash and panache, gimmicks and gadgets, or schmoozing and boozing. That’s advertising, and it’s a whole other story.
Sure, marketing is a sexy rock star in the world of business, but compared to accounting, operations and law, that’s not saying much. What’s more, behind the scenes, marketing does require a lot of hard work: research, testing, analysis, execution. Oh, and a lot of common sense.
It’s important work, though. You could have the best product, service or skills imaginable, but if nobody’s heard of you, you’re destined to fail. A good marketing strategy could mean the difference between being Coke or Clear Pepsi. It could also help your career take off. Do you want to be a whiz kid like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg or an oaf like Family Guy’s Peter Griffin? Marketing goes way beyond simply slotting commercials into American Idol breaks. It entails everything you do to increase your company’s profile and, ultimately, to get people to buy what you’re selling, whether it’s a product, service or even yourself (as an employee, not a streetwalker).
One popular marketing textbook, Contemporary Marketing Wired, offers this definition: “Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives.”
Sounds a little broad, doesn’t it? Well, that’s the tricky part of effective marketing: there is no trick. “Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet. If there was, somebody would have written a book by now saying all you have to do is one, two and three,” says John Leishman, the president and “chief executive geek” of Calgary-based Geeks On The Way. Leishman should know. Since launching his house-call tech support firm in 2001, he’s been testing a variety of marketing strategies – from buying ads in the Yellow Pages to issuing press releases to making old-fashioned sales phone calls.
It appears to be working. Geeks On The Way, which now has 40 employees and more than 27,000 customers, is one of Alberta’s fastest growing companies; it recorded revenues of nearly $1.9 million for 2006, an 85 per cent, three-year increase. “We’re like the plumbing of computers – when people realize they have a problem, that’s when they call us,” says Leishman, who invests in being easy to find when people need tech support. “We use things like Google AdWords and ads in the Yellow Pages. We don’t spend any money on branding.” (He calls Google AdWords an inexpensive way to get noticed. You buy specific search terms, such as “Calgary” and “tech support,” and a link to your website will appear on the right-hand side of the page when those terms are queried.)
Deciding how to get the word out about your business is increasingly complex, however. Technology is evolving and media consumption patterns are changing. People across all demographics are spending more time online, whether it be on Facebook, Flickr, Bebo or YouTube. Or they’re playing video games and texting friends while listening to podcasts. And if they are watching TV, they could have hundreds of specialty channels to choose from (and video recorders to skip commercials). So you need to get creative if you want people to discover your company.
That said, getting creative doesn’t necessarily entail diving into all of the latest trends or deploying outrageous media stunts. In many cases, it could mean the opposite. Blindly following everyone onto Facebook (by buying banner ads, creating branded applications or starting sponsored groups) isn’t a slam-dunk approach. Sure, TD Canada Trust had a successful foray into Facebook with its “Split It” application, which lets university roommates plug in their shared monthly expenses and calculate how much each person owes. But changing the wording on your point-of-sale brochures, as boring as it may sound, could help boost your sales a lot more. Do what’s right for your brand. Don’t be a lemming.
“When clients say, ‘I need to be on Facebook,’ my first question is ‘why?’” says Tasha Mazza-Kelton, a partner at Toronto-based Torque Customer Strategy. She recalls one telecom client that felt a need to beef up its online presence. Instead of agreeing, Torque launched a full audit of the company’s consumer-facing operations, concluding that the telecom had to change how it trained its in-store sales reps because they were taught to stick too closely to a robotic-sounding script. Rather than sinking boatloads of money into testing new online trends, the telecom invested in re-training and saw improved sales.
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