Project Management is – fundamentally – a simple process

You simply:

• Define what you want to accomplish
• Determine how you are going to accomplish that, who will help, and how long each of those tasks will take
• Do it
• Enjoy the results.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. It is complicated by people.

• Personalities,
• Overly optimistic and pessimistic estimates, and
• CYA plays.

For marketing projects involving technology it is further complicated by people.  The technology may be a billing system enhancement, an interactive web-based ad, or a new product.  One way or another you are pitting your red/yellow/green hat marketing personalities (energetic, creative, emotional, positive) against your black/white hat technology personalities (critical and facts). 

The way through this is to use a defined project methodology that enables the Marketing people to generate creative solutions and to know when they will be able to actaully use them, and the IT people to know what they need to do, and how to deliver it.  That methodology might look something like the following:

Advertising Methodology - (4) Goals / Objectives

Now that you know the brand, you can learn and understand the campaign that you are being asked to run. What are the goals or objectives of the campaign (e.g. brand, retail, communication, etc.)? What does the client believe they need you to do? As part of the overall Strategy exercise, you might find that you need to help them learn about better objectives as you proceed through various iterations of this method:

• Who are they trying to communicate with?
• What are they trying to tell them?
• What do they want them to do?
• What is the time horizon for them to do it?
• What’s the urgency that a customer should respond to?
• Why?

As you learn more about the company, the brand, and their objectives, you may need to ask each of these questions several times (of both your client and yourself) in order to understand the branding, retail, or other communication goals of the upcoming campaign.

Advertising Methodology - (3) Understanding of business strategy and brand

The old adage of “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” is an important one. We’ll come back to that, but we’ll start with a new adage, “you can’t advertise what you don’t know”. What does that mean? Start at the top. Understand what the company is all about:

• What’s the overall business strategy? For instance, Porter’s generic strategies include: Cost Leadership, Differentiation, & Segmentation
• What is the brand all about? What are the marketing and brand plans, and how do they align with the business plan? What do Senior Management believe the company stands for? What does the company stand for in its constituents' eyes (customers, employees, suppliers, etc.) and how do they believe the company supports the brand promise?

Get to know that, and you're over the first hurdle to creating great advertising that works.

Advertising Methodology - (2) A "V-Model" for Advertising

The “V-model” for Advertising represents how strategy must be considered as a critical part of creating and executing an advertising campaign. Of course, depending on the Client, the campaign, the available budget, and so forth, this methodology would be customized for the Client. To that end, there may be fewer or additional steps to take throughout the Advertising Campaign method.

So, here it is ... the "V-model" for Advertising:

Weaknesses with Advertising usually happens before the Creative process takes place. So, over the next several days I'll focus on the things that happen up to the point that an Advertising Plan is created. Watch for:

• Understanding of business strategy and brand
• Goals / Objectives
• Target Market
• Purchase Funnel
• Media Influences
• Competitive Analysis
• Purchase Channels
• Message
• Advertising Plan

Advertising Methodology - (1) Introduction to the "V-Model"

Most advertising campaigns pull at a subset of activities that allow an Advertising Agency to produce a TV commercial, a newspaper ad, a banner ad, or some other “media insert”. Imagine if you will the conversation between the Advertising Agency and the Client,

• Client: I want more people to know what I sell, … I want a TV ad, … and my budget is $x.
• Advertising Agency: [pause on a brief consideration of the stated goal. Then, toss out easy or crazy creative first, second, third idea, etc.. Concepts that could win awards. Concepts that could change their world. Then ... Make a leap of faith at a Concept and heads for the Pitch.]
• Client: [Salivating] Let's do it.

After that, all that is left is the actual production of the creative and some media buying. No one ever measures the results. So, the campaign must be working.

Hmmm … There must be a better way!

There is, and it starts with a "V-Model". A "V-Model" is a representation of a project that aligns "Responsibility" for activities horizontally on the diagram. At the same time, as you step through it from left to right (i.e. from top to bottom on the left side of the "V", and the bottom to top on the right side), you get a clear representation of the steps necessary to deliver the project. Here's what a simplified "V-Model" might look like.
In this diagram the train of events for a project is simply:

1. Senior Management has a vision of what they believe they need to achieve results
2. Middle Management boils that concept down and provides instructions to their teams on what to build and potentially how to build it.
3. Workers (be they knowledge workers, laborers, or a combination) set out to design and build the "thing".
4. Workers (preferably other workers than those who designed and built the "thing") subsequently test the "thing" - perhaps by editing it, running it through a formalized test (e.g. a focus group or systematic IT testing) with the goal of ensuring the "thing" works or fails, and then getting the Builders to fix it as necessary.
5. Middle Management reviews the results of the test and makes the decision that what was built actually works as it was supposed to, is what they asked for, and more importantly, will deliver on the vision. They sign-off to put the "thing" into "production".
6. The "thing" produces results which either are satisfactory to the Senior Management or are not. If they aren't then the Senior Manager failed at any or all of (a) the vision, (b) ensuring a good system was in place to communicate the vision and requirements in order that the right "thing" was produced, or (c) creating, uniting, and aligning a great team that could produce.
   

... Next up in this series, we'll look at a "V-Model" for Advertising. Stay tuned.

Trends for 2009: #13. Online Interactive Marketing will grow

Okay - I know this may seem somewhat repetitive, given some of my other Trend titles included:

• Integrated Interactive Campaigns
• Paid Search Advertising
• Online commerce will continue to grow
• Online advertising will continue to grow

But, there is a subtle difference here that is important. So, on we go ...

Online Interactive Marketing will continue to grow ... but ... most Marketers will continue to be more familiar with traditional media than the boundless opportunities provided to them by the online world. Even as marketing budgets are slashed and traditional media crater in their reach and effectiveness, many Marketers will not take advantage of the new opportunities that are available cheaply, easily, efficiently, and effectively online.

Some things for Marketers to focus on in 2009:

• Determine and Pursue your Social Media strategy: First off you have to recognize the value in engaging significantly and frequently with your prospects and customers, and then look at the opportunities you have to "monetize" your involvement. You need to develop a long-term social media strategy, plan, and related tactics. You also need to invest in getting good people and training them to do the job right. Tactics you may employ include:
  
  • Publish your own blog - content you might publish includes your Executives views on your culture, your ad campaigns, your product, your people, stories from your customers, and your company's history.
  • Participate in other blogs and reviews - use Techorati, Google, IceRocket, and others to track blogs and reviews where your company's name shows up, or where topics that are important to you show up. Create a "company blog spokespersa" (which could actually be several people, so long as they stick to the persona). Participate in blogs. For instance, if someone gives your product a good review then thank them for that. If someone gives your product a bad review then see what you can do to resolve the problem.
  • Add Reviews to your Site - There are two companies out there who can help you get product reviews up on your site fast. They are Buzzillions and BazaarVoice. Either of these two companies can get you up and running fast.
    

• Produce some Online video: Video continues to grow in importance on the web. A good analogy is that Video is to Text on the web as TV is to the Newspaper in traditional media (i.e. Video rules in terms lasting impressions). Reasonable quality video cameras are selling for about $100 (albeit it makes sense to invest in higher quality for commercial purposes). Publishing video couldn't be easier with the likes of YouTube and similar hosting sites available for FREE. The message ... produce some video.
• Produce TV-like commercials specifically for the web: In the "old days" you might have produced a TV commercial and then posted it to the web. That won't do any longer. Now it is important to shoot TV commercials specifically for the web. How are they different? First off they are typically lower video quality. They also might be shorter. In TV-land, the viewer must sit in front of your ad for 30 seconds. On the web, they will leave you more quickly. On the other hand ... your ad may be several minutes long. On the web you can produce an "advertising epic" - so long as it is truly captivating. People will gladly watch your entertainment, and maybe even forward it off to friends, and you won't have to shell out for a bunch of TV air time. A big way to make your online ads different is to allow a viewer to interact with the commercial. Perhaps the viewer should be able to select characters in the ad, then choose various changes to your plot line.
• Create Software as an Advertising Media: Build out Google Gadgets, desktop applications, or other similar software that will help your customers connect with you. There has to be real value in the software. But, if you build it, they will come. Plus, they will buy from you!
• Build your Opt-in Email List: Email marketing is likely the cheapest and most effective way to reach out to people who have already volunteered to be your customer. If you don't have an inhouse opt-in email list, start one. If you do have it, make sure that your emails are personalized and effective.
  

Will I be right? The year will tell!

• Follow this blog and watch for the next marketing trends I'm forecasting for 2009.
• Feel free to contact Market GoGo to discuss this further.

Trends for 2009: #12. The demand to build bulletproof cases to gain project funding

As economic times tighten the Accountants tend to rule the roost. It is a catch-22 in a sense, as I have already talked about previously in some of my other "trends for 2009" and random blog posts. The essence of a low-cost business strategy will help lead to long-term overall success. However, this also makes doing business challenging at times.

To succeed with starting a project in 2009, you are going to have to get it past your bean counters. This means that:

1. You will need to be VERY confident in the business benefits, and will need a good model to show how you will achieve those. To that end, you will may also need to point to 3rd party experts who can back you up on the likelihood of achieving the benefits.
   
2. You will need to have solid cost models, including IT, marketing, etc., etc., etc.. The departments that will have to spend to support your project will need to agree to the estimates you put forward, and indeed may have to sign-off on them for the CEO.
3. You will need to ensure that you build in future flexibility. With uncertainty comes the need to be flexible through the downturn, the eventual upturn, and every crazy thing in between.
   
4. You will need to have plans for substantial risk mitigation. In easier times, risks like project budget overruns or late delivery were all right given the speed that the economy was moving. That won't be acceptable in the foreseeable future.
   

What's a marketer to do in 2009?

• Spend a lot of time planning. In fact, set up cross-functional teams to help you do your planning,
• Get your teams trained in good planning methods, and
  
• Rely on standard and proven project management and financial models.

At the same time (and seemingly counter-intuitively), don't be afraid of being a Disruptor. Make your case and go for it. History has shown that being conservative in a recession isn't necessarily a good strategy. Grab an innovation and pursue it.

Will I be right? The year will tell!

• Follow this blog and watch for the next marketing trends I'm forecasting for 2009.
• Feel free to contact Market GoGo to discuss this further.

What is Market GoGo?

Market GoGo is a specialized Marketing Consultancy, based in Calgary. Market GoGo focuses on a few things that will help you to make your company more successful. Those things are strategic in nature, and focus on things that many companies just don't have the experience or the depth to do. Those things are:

• Brand Audit: A review of the "personality" of your company or a particular "brand" your company represents. It covers a wide swath of customer interactions and experiences with your brand from brand standards (signage, lettering, colors, etc.), to advertising, to customer service representatives, to your website, to your positioning statement, and so on. The goal of a Brand Audit is to help you understand your brand's assets and customer perceptions and subsequently to make decision and changes that will ultimately help you to drive more sales.
• Web Marketing and Advertising strategies: Web Marketing is all about doing five things as part of your Web Portfolio: Get prospective customers to your website, Convert prospects to customers, Up-sell and cross-sell to customers, Provide online service to customers, and Get customers to come back to buy from you again. This portfolio runs the gamut from bidding on Google text ads, to banner ads served by Advertising Networks, to mapping the web sales process flow, to researching customer behaviour on your website through analytics and customer research, to opt-in email marketing, and on, and on, and on!
• Project Management of your Strategic Marketing Projects: Marketing Project Management ensures that projects are delivered on-time and on-scope by the "delivery partner" (e.g. an IT Development Team or a Product Development Team). The Marketing Project Plan also ensures that the Marketing specific tasks - such as Communication and Advertising - are put in place at the right time.
• RFP Response for your B2B opportunity: Writing an RFP response is an arduous task. It is also one that you may not get to do enough, and consequently you aren't practiced in crafting a great response that will catch the attention of the team that both crafted the RFP and will review your response. Your response should get you noticed, and get you to the "next step" in the negotiating process.
• Aligning your Contact Center's Behavior with your brand: Most Contact Centers or Call Centers focus on technologies and practices that will drive cost-cutting through their business. For example, the use of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems has been lauded by the Call Center industry as a great way to cut costs. But just find a customer who REALLY likes dealing with an IVR. Wouldn't you like your Call Centre's behavior and technology to provide the appropriate brand experience that your customers expect? That's the goal of Market GoGo's Contact Centre Strategy Approach.

Contact Market GoGo to find out more about how we can help you with your Branding and Marketing.

Trends for 2009: #5. Simple Strategies ... Back to the Basics

When times were good things were easy. It was easy to get a new customer. Consequently, it was easy to ignore a customer, since there was always at least one (and likely many more) new customers waiting to take their place.

2009 brings an entirely different playing field. As an example, I heard an interview on the radio in late 2008 of a couple of Realtors. It appears that they are actually having to learn how to market and sell again. In their "good old days" all they needed was a listing and potential buyers would flock to the property to participate in a bidding war. Those glory days are long gone.

What are the basic strategies to focus on in 2009?

• Branding - What is your brand promise? How does your company support it? (Does your company support it?)
• Retail Ads - To paraphrase David Ogilvy, a good ad is one that sells your product. 2009 is not the time for airy fairy branding ads. 2009 is the time for simple and honest ads that educate people about the value of your product and scream out at them to take action.
• Customer Retention - The cheapest customer to sell to is an existing customer. It is time to revisit and work your current customers to remind them that you are a low-risk and well-known value for them (of course, I'm expecting that you really are). Reselling, upselling, and cross-selling are all ways that you can make ends meet (and maybe even eke out a profit) in 2009.
• Customer Satisfaction - It is almost like hearing the same message twice. If you are going to revisit your current customers, then you better ensure that they are happy with your product or service, and make real steps to bolster your customer satisfaction.
• Real Return on Investment - Projects you undertake in 2009 better have real and demonstrable ROI (and they better have it fast). The Accountants will be watching every project nickle like hawks (except, of course, their own International GAAP projects which will likely be "non-discretionary", unlike keeping their company in business which is, of course, discretionary ... ooops, did I write that out loud).

Will I be right? The year will tell!

• Follow this blog and watch for the next marketing trends I'm forecasting for 2009.
• Feel free to contact Market GoGo to discuss this further.

Expect Failure but Plan for Overwhelming Success

The internet is a neat place. It is pretty simple to dream up new concepts and create new things provides. Or maybe you mashup some existing concepts and create something new. Revolution, evolution ... change!

But, the internet is also a tricky place. There is no guarantee of success. You might believe that you have THE neatest concept and it might be put together brilliantly. But, if no one visits it and if the people who visit it don't like it, then you are doomed to failure as a result of your concept's failure. On the other hand, if it takes off it can really take off. Your site could become a viral success and overwhelm your servers, your payment processing, your supply chain, or your customer service. Now you find that you are doomed to failure as a result of your concept's success.

When you start a Web Marketing Project you will normally start by putting together a business case. A business case is (in it's most basic form) simple math:

-(Startup Costs + Year 1, 2, 3, ... n Operating Costs)
+ Year 1, 2, 3, ... n Sales or Savings
= Net Benefit

The costs and benefits you use for the business case should be as comprehensive as possible, and should be as conservative as possible. This requires suspending your belief in your concept and attempting to be as objective as possible. If the Net Benefit is positive, then you should do the project!

A few notes:

• To be technically correct on this, you should really use a "cost of capital" and calculate a Net Present Value. You can calculate this easily in Microsoft Excel.
• For a web project, I wouldn't look out more than three years to see the Net Benefit turn positive. Two years may even be pushing it.
• Operating costs include fixed and variable costs covering everything from IT development and operations, to software licenses, to handling customer service inquiries, to processing orders, to handling returns, and so on.
• Be sure to factor in planned growth for things like additional servers, licenses, customer service costs, and so forth.

That will give you your base case. Now it is time to apply the Web Business Success Law (I just coined that phrase). It is simple ... "Expect Failure, but Plan for Overwhelming Success."

Applying the Web Business Success Law:

• Expect Failure - What if your conservative estimates are too optimistic? If you launch the concept and nothing happens, what is the worse thing that can happen to your business? Be prepared for that.
• Plan for Overwhelming Success - Alternatively, what happens if your estimates are much too conservative? If the concept takes off and you become an overnight internet success story how will you scale the business? Plan carefully for that.

What does all this mean for you? First of all, you will need to really understand your Web Strategy in order to plan the path to success for your concept. Then you will need to put together a solid Web Marketing Project Work Plan, including:

• Project Charter - Describes what the project vision is, how the project will be performed, who is involved in the project and in what roles, what the risks are and how they will be mitigated, and other similar factors.
• Project Plan - The GANTT chart which shows what will be done, task dependancies, who does what, how long each task will reasonably take, and even how much the project resources will cost.
• Project Budget - The budget describes the financial implications of the project including software, hardware, expertise, training, system maintenance and system growth over several years.

Contact Market GoGo for help with your Marketing Project.

What will happen with your Marketing Budget?

According to a new survey which is featured on BtoBOnline.com most Business-to-Business (b2b) Marketers intend to maintain or grow their budgets next year. This is interesting - even exciting - news when faced with the ongoing reality of the growing recession.

From the article:

"The online survey of 211 b-to-b marketing professionals was conducted in November. It found that 31.1% of marketers plan to boost their marketing budgets next year, while 43.5% plan to keep budgets flat. About one-quarter plan to decrease their marketing budgets next year.

"Significantly, of those planning increases, one-quarter intend to raise them by more than 20%, and nearly 9% plan increases between 15% and 19%."

Echoing the results of a MarketingProfs survey featured in this blog last week, the BtoBOnline study found that marketers will focus on web marketing, with 66.5% of marketers planning to increase their online spending. The reasons are pretty straight forward - online costs less than traditional media and delivers trackable results.

It is time to get started on your online marketing and advertising. Market GoGo can help you plan your Web Strategies to help you attract prospects, convert prospects to customers, upsell and cross-sell, serve your customers online, and get your customers to come back for more.

Contact Market GoGo to get started.

Have you seen Hancock?

Hancock was released earlier this year and is out on video now. In summary it is a story about a down-on-his-luck superhero who has fallen way out of favor with the public. That's one way to look at it. I was more intrigued by the Branding theme in the movie. Really, the superhero in this movie is the Marketer!

As a quick overview:

• Hancock is loathed by the public
• Hancock is "discovered" by a PR consultant
• PR consultant recognizes that Hancock's brand is way out of line
• PR consultant works with Hancock to revitalize the brand
• Hancock is golden!

Want to be a Marketing Super Hero? I recommend two things you need to do to start that:

1. Watch the movie.
2. Do a Brand Audit of your own company, product, or service to find a path to becoming golden.

In today's economy, The Low Cost Strategy will Win (Part 2)

Yesterday, you and Market GoGo took some time for some deep thoughts about Porter's generic business strategies, and focused in on the Low Cost Strategy. Today, we will spend some time together thinking about the factors that make up a Low Cost Strategy, and thinking about some things you might consider for some Marketing Projects in the near future.

A Low Cost Business Strategy features tactics which emphasize efficiency, including:

1. Products designed for easy manufacturing
2. Emphasizing low-cost advantages in promotions
3. Efficient distribution channels
4. Incentives based on quantitative targets
5. Process (re-) engineering
6. Investing in technology to reduce costs
7. Standardization, resulting in economies of scale and experience curve effects
8. Tight cost controls and continuous search for cost reductions
9. Sustained access to inexpensive capital
10. Preferential access to inputs such as raw materials, components, labor, and so on
11. Close supervision of labor

• Items 1 to 4 are things that a Marketing Team is responsible for, and which it brings to Finance and Operations.
• Items 8-11 are owned by Finance and Operations they bring these back to the Marketing Team.
• Items 5-7 are things that are universally applicable.

Let's look at items 3, 4, 5, and 6. You can kill these four birds with one stone, and that stone is Web Marketing. Here are examples of each in action:

• Efficient distribution channels - What could be more efficient than the web? For a moment, consider the web exclusively as a sales channel - that is just your website and not the opportunity for advertising. Typically you have a relatively fixed cost for your website. It doesn't matter if you sell one widget or a billion. Once you scale for your sales, the cost will remain fairly consistent, and will be very small relative to the costs you'd need to spend for a similarly sized store-front or sales team. Similarly, go out and price an advertising campaign in the (dying) newspaper industry, and compare that to action-based keyword advertising on Google. The order of magnitude lower cost difference you will find in web-based advertising and the order of magnitude action difference you will find there too is boggling.
• Incentives based on quantitative targets - Imagine you are an airline, and you pay a 10% commission to Travel Agents. If you have $1Billion in sales, you'd be paying your travel agents $100 MILLION. Imaging what you could do with your website for $100 million. Now you can't replace your entire traditional Travel Agent team with your website, but you can go a long way in doing so at a substantially lower cost. Some food for thought ... maybe the budget for your web marketing should be set as an incentive! The better your Web Marketing does, the more cash is available for it do to better.
• Process (re-) engineering - To put your business on the web, one of the first actions you need to take is to map your business processes. This applies to every activity that you are putting on the web. Let's say you are going to reallocate your advertising budget from traditional newspaper and out-of-home media to that new-fangled web stuff. The first thing you should do is figure out how you conceive, create, approve, and publish your ads for the traditional world. The next thing is to look at how you will do that for the web world. Then apply those lessons back to the traditional world and cut out all the fat you can from all processes. In the end you will have processes that are aligned, and engineered for efficiency.
• Investing in technology to reduce costs - If the web isn't technology, what is? It is time to invest in fixed assets to reduce your business costs. Map out business processes for attracting prospects to your site, closing sales, upselling and cross-selling, serving customers, and getting them to come back to your store again. Then turn theses business processes into a technology road-map that will help you automate your business processes for advertising, selling, and serving your customers online.

You and Marketing Team need to get going on Low Cost Business Strategies. Contact Market GoGo to see how we can help you do this.

In today's economy, The Low Cost Strategy will Win

It is time to invest in technology and do a marketing project that will both:

• drive costs out of your business, and
  
• serve your prospects and customers better.
  

Why? Well - there's an "old" book by Michael Porter that is simply titled Competitive Strategy. In it, he talks about the three generic business strategies. Once you've read the three, you find you sit back and say to yourself, "Well, that was kind of obvious." But it is kind of like Newton and gravity. Sure, everyone knows that an apple will fall. But, making the observation and then learning from that is what gives you the advantage moving forward. So, the three strategies are:

1. Low Cost: The low cost leader gains competitive advantage by being able to produce at the lowest cost. You can sell things for the same price and have more profit, or more cash to do battle with, or win a price war and still make a profit.
2. Differentiation: Making things "special" will satisfy the needs of a segment of customers and create a sustainable competitive advantage that will make customers less price sensitive. It will also allow a producer to charge a premium. Some of that premium will need to be used to pay for the additional costs in making the product or service "special".
3. Focus or Niche strategy: The producer focuses on a narrowly defined target market. Inside the Niche strategy, a company can either focus on a sub-strategy of differentiation or low cost. Typically, a Niche strategy is adopted by a small firm.

(As a side-note, it is important that a producer chooses ONE of these three strategies only. If a firm attempts to pursue two or more of these strategies, they end up stuck in the middle and are DOOMED to failure.)

So ... let's look at this in practice. As the recession takes grip on shoppers, they are heading to the low-cost alternatives. Want to buy electronics? Where will you go?

• Will you go to a specialty TV Home Theatre store? Not likely. There are few, if any, stand-alone home theatre stores anymore. You will find some Service Providers (not even Retailers really) in the Yellow Pages who can help you out if you are spending $50k on a home theatre. Where they do exist, these Service Providers are purusing the Niche strategy
• Will you go to a big-box electronics store? Maybe. These Retailers are struggling, and while they want to be Differntiating their services, Electronics are getting much easier and much cheaper. Plus, the price concious consumer is really shopping around. And where they are finding themselves is in the Electronics department of ...
• THE LOW COST SUPPLIER. That's right, the place you are likely to end up now to buy your Electronics is Wal-Mart. Reuters reported today that Wal-Mart is about to sell an iPhone for $99. $99!. In that article they make special note of:

"Wal-Mart has been gaining market share and clout in the recession as cash-strapped shoppers seek out its low prices."

What does all this mean for you? First of all, you will need to really understand your brand, and the business strategy you are pursuing. Also, you will need to understand the maturity of your industry and your positioning in the group. Subsequently, you will need to look at how you manage your brand to gain competitive advantage in an economy that appears to be slumping for the next year or more. Finally, you will need to launch Marketing Projects that will help you achieve your Brand and Strategy goals.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for "part 2" of this post, and more thoughts about Low Cost Business Strategies, and what you can do to win!

Fruitcake Bashing Season has arrived

Where does time go? I can't believe we are back into December again. There is a funny website over at The Great Fruitcake Recycling Project that pokes fun at Fruitcake in a whole new way.

Will this go viral? Who knows. Certainly by blogging about it I'm helping it to go viral. However, I do think they have some work to do to really make it viral. There just doesn't seem to be enough fun stuff to do or experience when you hit their site.

The trick to "viral" is that you can't really force something to be viral. You can plan the stink out of a project with the great wish that it becomes viral. But, really, viral just "happens". It happens because people are so intrigued with an idea or an emotion that they want other people to share in it with them. In any event, attempting to become viral is just one of the tricks of the trade of Web Marketing.

All-in, the Great Fruitcake Recycling Project is worth a look.




Contact Market GoGo for help with your Web Advertising Strategy.

What is Market GoGo?

Market GoGo is a specialized Marketing Consultancy, based in Calgary. Market GoGo focuses on a few things that will help you to make your company more successful. Those things are strategic in nature, and focus on things that many companies just don't have the experience or the depth to do. Those things are:

• Brand Audit: A review of the "personality" of your company or a particular "brand" your company represents. It covers a wide swath of customer interactions and experiences with your brand from brand standards (signage, lettering, colors, etc.), to advertising, to customer service representatives, to your website, to your positioning statement, and so on. The goal of a Brand Audit is to help you understand your brand's assets and customer perceptions and subsequently to make decision and changes that will ultimately help you to drive more sales.
• Web Marketing and Advertising strategies: Web Marketing is all about doing five things as part of your Web Portfolio: Get prospective customers to your website, Convert prospects to customers, Up-sell and cross-sell to customers, Provide online service to customers, and Get customers to come back to buy from you again. This portfolio runs the gamut from bidding on Google text ads, to banner ads served by Advertising Networks, to mapping the web sales process flow, to researching customer behaviour on your website through analytics and customer research, to opt-in email marketing, and on, and on, and on!
• Project Management of your Strategic Marketing Projects: Marketing Project Management ensures that projects are delivered on-time and on-scope by the "delivery partner" (e.g. an IT Development Team or a Product Development Team). The Marketing Project Plan also ensures that the Marketing specific tasks - such as Communication and Advertising - are put in place at the right time.
• RFP Response for your B2B opportunity: Writing an RFP response is an arduous task. It is also one that you may not get to do enough, and consequently you aren't practiced in crafting a great response that will catch the attention of the team that both crafted the RFP and will review your response. Your response should get you noticed, and get you to the "next step" in the negotiating process.
• Aligning your Contact Center's Behavior with your brand: Most Contact Centers or Call Centers focus on technologies and practices that will drive cost-cutting through their business. For example, the use of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems has been lauded by the Call Center industry as a great way to cut costs. But just find a customer who REALLY likes dealing with an IVR. Wouldn't you like your Call Centre's behavior and technology to provide the appropriate brand experience that your customers expect? That's the goal of Market GoGo's Contact Centre Strategy Approach.

Contact Market GoGo to find out more about how we can help you with your Branding and Marketing.

What's so important about a Marketing Project?

Is planning, running, and delivering a project for a Marketing department any different than delivering for a Finance department or an Operations Department? One short word ... YES!

There is a dramatic difference between a Marketing project and any other project. A Marketing project is a time-constrained activity that needs to deliver so that:

• Press Releases, Advertising, and other communication can be coordinated for the launch,
• Sales teams can be made ready to go,
• Call Centres can be informed of the change, and
• You can make a whole bunch more money!

On the other hand, if a Finance project runs late, the CFO gets a little bent out of shape. Sales don't plummet or jump. No one goes to jail. (Well, okay, I guess that could happen but typically it won't be the fault of the project. Unless of course the project required a big paper shredder.) Similarly, if an Operations project runs late you can forecast the delay, and people can get ready for the whole thing.

That's why things need to be handled a little differently for a Marketing project.

Have a look at how Market GoGo will help you plan, manage, and deliver your Marketing Project in order to make it (and you) successful.

I was reading a great blog and LinkedIn question today by Patrick Byers. In it he posed the question "Will the economy kill creativity?"

My answer to that ...

The economy may not kill creativity, but it will beat it around for a while.

It is time for the accountants to do battle with the marketers. For the past 15 years or more the Accountants have had to dream up projects to suck the life out of companies (SOX, Y2K, etc.). Meanwhile, Marketers have been able to run rampant with poorly performing ad campaigns and nary a concern for their own brand. It didn’t matter. The economy was so strong and people were so crazy about spending every last dime and then some (a lot of some apparently), that no marketer could do wrong.

Now it’s time for the Accountants to have their revenge! Over the next year or more every Marketing effort will be pecked to death and creativity will die.

So - it is time for Marketers to “start again” and do some navel gazing to make sure they are doing the right thing. The right place to start is to clearly understand your brand and to be able to own a word in the consumer’s mind with respect to your brand. From there, you can start again on your marketing plan, and ultimately some great and successful marketing projects.