Tag Archives: public relations

Your aspiring customers can be more valuable than your paying ones…

12 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Media

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My recent article about the Koala team’s overzealous belief of their brand awareness reminded me of a story about one of my first bosses, Sir Peter Abeles.

Sir Peter built the TNT global transport and logistics empire, which at one stage owned Ansett airlines. I was the National Marketing Manager of TNTGroup4, which was where I got loads of hands-on experience building databases and using direct marketing techniques for B2B and consumer marketing.

Sir Peter Abeles

Reg Ansett, the visionary founder of Ansett Airlines, bought Hayman Island in the 1950s and turned it into Australia’s most luxurious island holiday resort. Of course, the only way to get to the island back then was with Ansett Airlines. (BTW this was many decades before I eloped to get married on Hayman Island)

Back in the 1980’s after TNT bought Ansett – and consequently Hayman Island – the company made a huge investment in refurbishing the Hayman Island Resort. Those in the hospitality industry will know that all resorts eventually get stale and require deep pockets to bring them up to date.

After completion of the refurbishment, Sir Peter flew to Hayman Island to inspect his heavy investment. He attended the soft launch to the travel trade and left the island feeling comfortable about its new direction. Upon landing in Sydney, Sir Peter would normally be collected by his personal driver, but on this occasion his driver was unavailable.

Hayman Island Resort

So Sir Peter took a taxi. The first thing the cabbie asked Sir Peter was “where have you been?” Beeming proudly, Sir Peter said “Hayman Island.” The cabbie immediately replied “where’s that?”

Suffice to say, Sir Peter politely explained where and what Hayman Island was, while discreetly seething under his breath. As soon as he got back to work, he demanded to see the Hayman Island marketing team, to get an explanation as to why a taxi driver at Sydney Airport hadn’t a clue about Hayman Island.

The mistake the team made was simple. It had micro-targeted a “luxury audience” by advertising exclusively in the Ansett magazine, upmarket lifestyle, fashion and travel magazines, as well as through media releases to travel writers. The problem with this niche-tactic of course, was that only those who could immediately afford to go to Hayman Island saw the advertising.

Nobody who aspired to go to Hayman Island, or who would save to go for a holiday there, had seen the advertising. They were not aware the Hayman Island Resort existed. So when Sir Peter said “Hayman Island” when answering the cabbie’s question, he didn’t get affirmation from the driver about his decision. Sir Peter was expecting something like “wow you’re lucky, I dream of having a holiday there.”

Holiday envy…

Part of the process of a considered purchase, such as a luxury holiday, home, car, camera, bed, lounge etc is the reinforcement by colleagues that your decision is a good one. Or even one they envy. It’s part of what drives our ego.

This is why your brand advertising should not just reach those most likely to buy, or those who buy regularly, but also those who might buy occasionally or dream of buying. Sales growth comes in distinct ways depending upon what you’re selling. Fast moving consumer goods such as groceries for example, have different buying patterns to high-value considered purchases.

Growth for high volume (often unconsidered) purchases comes from:

  • Convincing current high volume customers to consume more of your product
  • Converting high volume customers from a competitor to your brand
  • Getting more occasional users to buy your brand when they are in the market

Read Byron Sharp’s book; How Brands Grow for more detail.

Growth for low volume considered purchases comes from:

  • Additional purchase by a current customer
  • Converting a customer from a competitor to your brand
  • Getting first-time buyers to buy your brand

So, regardless of your product category, when marketing to consumers, you want as many people to know about your brand as possible. This includes those who will buy your brand and those who wish they could buy your brand. It’s why brand advertising, publicity, social sharing and review sites are all important tactics.

B2B is a different kettle of fish – you can often put every customer in the category on a floppy disk (ask your parents if you don’t know) and communicate with them based on where they are in their buying cycle, often driven by contractual arrangements or tenders. That’s for another article.

So don’t forget your aspirational customers, they help your paying customers justify their purchase and may eventually become your customers too.

Hmmm, it’s almost 20 years since my bride and I eloped. Maybe I should plan a quiet family celebration at home? Not likely. I suspect my bride aspires to at least a week back on Hayman Island.

I wonder if the resort has a past customer deal…

A throwback to Bryce Courtney and a different time in advertising…

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Advertising, Copywriting, Marketing, Media, Social Media, Thought Leadership

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Local ad industry legend and author, Bryce Courtney (deceased) used to write a weekly newspaper column called The Marketing Pitch.

In today’s buzzword-filled fake marketing industry, his articles would probably be labelled as “thought leadership delivered as part of a content marketing strategy, designed to increase customer engagement using earned media” – though I believe he was paid to write the opinion pieces, which would technically make it journalism.

In the real marketing world, his column is simply known as publicity.

I recently found this article titled “Today’s women are in a decidedly ugly mood“. It could never run today, but it shows how much the industry has changed in the last 25 years.

Imagine trying to publish this sentence today; “Hasn’t someone told a young woman that life is not a dress rehearsal and that you only get a few short years to be pretty and plenty of time after that to be plain looking?”

It was a different time back then. Click on the image to read the full article:

Should all alleged Content Marketers be sacked on sight?

13 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Advertising, BIG DATA, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Media, Sales, SEM & SEO, Social Media, Thought Leadership

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Your headline is one of the most important parts of your content. It attracts the reader to continue to read/watch/listen.

Of course I don’t believe all content marketers should really be sacked – it’s merely a figure of speech – but hopefully, given the current trend in animosity towards content marketing, the headline will attract readers:)

Like many, I’m concerned about marketers being duped by the latest new-new thing in marketing – another label for something that’s decades old. This time it’s content marketing and if you follow Gartner’s Hype Cycles, it seems content marketing is on its way out as we read – making room for the next bright shiny digital object. Mind you Gartner predicted there’d be no mail by 2000.

Gartner Hype Cycle

Content Marketing heading into the abyss…in the trough of disillusionment

Creating content is not new to marketing. In fact, creating content has been in our culture since mankind stood upright. Think cave paintings to record content and communicate to others.

Check out this image from a 17th century book:

1742

The headline reads “Contents“. OMG dear reader – physical evidence of content creation in publications.

As you well know, the majority of books (including ebooks), magazines documents et al, begin by listing the content you will find in the publication. Who’d have thought hey?

So why do alleged marketers claim the creation of content is new? Whose interest are they really serving?

I can only go from my humble experience, as like most marketers I’ve been creating and curating (to us a digi-term) content since nappies. More than 30 years ago when a Marketing Manager of TNT I wrote a weekly editorial article in the Daily Mirror – an afternoon newspaper in NSW. The column was called Property Protection and gave tips on home security to readers. Accompanying the column was an ad from TNT Alarm Systems – one of the brands I managed.

So the reader saw the content in two parts – the paid content in the ad and the editorial content. The editorial wasn’t earned content – I wrote it free of charge as an “industry expert”.

Let’s move forward to 2015 and rewrite what I just wrote, but using “digital content marketing language“.

I published content in the Daily Mirror, alongside the paid media. Interestingly it wasn’t earned media because I published it free of charge. It wasn’t owned media, as Rupert owned the paper. And it wasn’t paid media because that was the ad below it.

It was thought leadership delivered as native advertising, as part of my content marketing strategy. WOW, WOW & WOW!!!

Not only was it all that – but the UX (user experience for the digitally challenged) was omni-channel wonderfulness, as the reader was able to turn the page using their finger and read both the paid ad and the native advertising in an integrated format, without having to leave the platform. Unf***gbelievable. The content was consistently presented on the user interface – that’s the page, in case you’re wondering.

You get the picture.

Yet despite all the evidence, a whole content marketing industry is booming.

There’s even a private company called The Content Marketing Institute. It’s nothing of the sort – an institute that is – but don’t you wish you’d invented that money-making-machine? Call yourself an institute and you gain faux credibility and get the gullible to part with money. Hats off to the founders for getting away with it – brilliantly I might add.

Interestingly, my mate Drayton Bird recently wrote that the founder of said “institute” believes content marketing is a fad and will only last another couple years. But hey, they’ve made their money.

So here’s today’s first lesson – if you think creating content for marketing purposes is new, you need to go back to marketing college or leave the industry – you obviously know little about marketing.

Lesson number two – if you think consumers have miraculously changed their DNA and don’t consume paid ads, you are deluded and need to go back to marketing college or leave the industry – see above.

Lesson three – if you think the future is about brands telling stories without any proposition to entice you to buy (short or long term) see lesson one.

Here are some insights from an earlier post:

Amazing Insight 1: Customers don’t really care about brands

Amazing Insight 2: Customers don’t want relationships with brands

Amazing Insight 3: Customers don’t want to engage with brands

Amazing Insight 4: Customers don’t want to join a conversation with a brand

Amazing Insight 5: Customers get pissed off if you irritate them with irrelevant content marketing about your brand

But maybe I’m preaching to an empty church?

empty church

I should jump on the content marketing bandwagon and open a content creation and curation company.

But I cannot call it a content marketing agency, as there is no such thing – it’s a commercial impossibility.

It’s against the law of natural commerce to call yourself a content marketing agency. An agency is named because it earns commission from publishers for placing paid media as their agent. This is why they are called advertising agencies.

Given the entire purpose of the content marketers is to create content that isn’t for paid media – only for earned and owned media – then by its very nature, a content marketing agency cannot exist.

There are no paid media commissions involved. So there aren’t any agents – which means there are no agencies. Simple really.

So any alleged content marketing expert calling their business a “content marketing agency” should therefore be sacked on sight for fraudulent misrepresentation – oops…

 

P.S. I’m running a content marketing seminar in Brisbane in two weeks. If you’re interested you’ll need to register today by clicking here.