#5: Evaluating communication channels
"If 92 percent of people use the web to evaluate purchase options, why do we only spend 20 percent of our budget on our website?"
Most people don't realize that all of our marketing efforts flow through our website at one time or another. Whether it is a search campaign, which obviously starts the buying cycle by linking to the website, or whether it's a print ad that has the URL, no one today will pick up the phone and ask your sales people to explain the product or service; they will find that information on your website. So getting that right is critical!
Recommendation: Build some real world user personas and use cases observing how easy it is to find your product/services (as if you are that customer); or better yet have five random people go to your website and watch them (no guiding).
#4: Removing ROI
"What will be the new ROI?"
ROI is absolute, but if a company bases all decisions on guaranteed ROI, that company would not have started in the first place. Much of marketing is testing, research and learning how to effectively communicate with our customers. So our budget must reflect this, or our company will never see incrementally better results.
Recommendation: Fight for R&D in your budget so you will have the latitude to discover the one killer campaign or marketing idea.
#3: Willingness to take risk
"We never really did much for SEO, because there are no guarantees and we know nothing about it."
Today's technology is intertwined with marketing (CRM software, web analytics and important elements like search engine optimization). As premiere marketing executives, we are not so comfortable with the technology side of the equation, so we shy away from what we don't know because it poses a big risk for us. So, we must go out there and talk to those who do know. We must educate ourselves and get over the fear (as President Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"); otherwise, we risk a massive opportunity lost.
Recommendation: Find your most feared technology element and search for a consultant or educational material to just educate you first; THEN, decide on what your next step will be.
#2: Education
"We really need help on how to proceed with next year's planning… we don't really know where to start."
This one ties nicely into #3 as we need to first seek the education before we make decisions. Online marketing is so new and constantly changing that if we don't take the time to educate ourselves (team, boss and agency), then we will be stuck with half-baked opinions vs. hard and true factually based best practices with which to drive our efforts.
Recommendation: Find an educational event on the online marketing areas of greatest interest and treat your key stakeholders -- go to this event and learn from the experts.
#1: Understanding human behavior
"Why would anyone want to go to a website and read the user reviews or ratings on our product/service when they can just call us?"
It may seem strange, but human behavior is what drives all marketing. It's the understanding of how your customers behave that drives which communication channel (TV/radio/print/online) you choose to spend money in. It is the behavior of your customers that drives your messaging to resonate with them. And now, human behavior has changed forever. The preferred method of communicating is electronic (email); the preferred information source is online (RSS); the preferred pre-purchase research channel is Google. So, we must go back to human behavior again -- as was witnessed in the 1950s with TV -- and understand what it takes today to get the message out, loudly and clearly, forever embedded in the memory of our customers/clients.
Recommendation: Watch and observe your customers' behaviors.
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Aaron Kahlow is the CEO and managing partner of BusinessOnLine, as well as founder and chair of the Online Marketing Summit. Read full bio.
