March 26, 2009
How You Can Help IT Pros Weather the Storm – John Gallant, Network World, Inc.
Marketing in a Recession – Elyse Tager, Elymedia, LLC
What IT leaders need from you right now.
John Gallant, Executive Vice President/General Manager, Network World, Inc.
"Rule Number One: Never Lose Money. Rule Number Two: Never forget Rule Number One." — Warren Buffet
Normally, that’s great advice from the Oracle of Omaha – investment genius Warren Buffet. But when even Buffet struggles to make his way through this challenging economic landscape, what’s the average IT manager to do? Buffet’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, has seen its stock value plummet in the past year, from a high of $147,000 a share – yes, that’s one share – to a mere $87,105 as of this writing, a drop of more than 40%.
IT executives I’ve spoken with recently have seen their own budgets drop – some as far or farther than Berkshire Hathaway’s share value. Technology executives in the public sector are particularly hard hit as local and state governments deal with reduced tax revenues and greater stresses on the social fabric. A number of IT leaders have told me that they are now budgeting on a quarterly basis as their organizations try to figure out how the economic winds are shifting. Try executing on a ‘strategic’ plan under those circumstances.
In a recent roundtable with nearly 20 IT executives at Network World’s IT Roadmap Denver conference, I got an earful about the challenges that readers and attendees are facing today. So, as the discussion wrapped up, I asked how the editorial team at Network World can help them deal with these issues. The answers I got are important for our writers and editors, but they are every bit as relevant to tech marketers. The types of information that customers want the media to provide are things that tech marketers can also deliver – helping their own cause along the way.
Here’s what I heard:
- Show us how to optimize. Tell us how to get more out of what we already have. What's the low-hanging savings fruit that we can harvest? Of course, the press can do a better job helping people maximize their existing investments, but who’s in a better position to help people do more with your software or hardware than you? Be proactive: Help customers understand what features and functions exist in their current products that can help them reduce work or avoid spending. The reward: Deeper reliance on your products and a better informed customer base that’s in a position to buy more from you as the market evolves.
- Tell us how to avoid being penny wise and pound foolish in cutting costs. What are the dumb cost-cutting mistakes people make? As a provider to many different customers, you have access to a wealth of information about how smart companies are saving money and how others are making short-sighted decisions. Act like a publisher and share that information with customers. Interview your sales and support teams and get insights on what they are seeing in the field. Other customers are thirsty for the data.
- Help us determine whether our vendors are healthy right now. IT buyers are very concerned about the financial well-being of their providers. Obviously, this is less a question about big, publicly held companies like IBM and Cisco. But what if your company is smaller or privately held? What if you’re a startup? Be aware that financial stability is a major issue and think about what kind of information you can share to help buyers understand that you’re rock solid. Who are your big customers? Your big partners? How much cash is in the bank? The more you can share, the less risky any deal becomes.
- Help us understand where it makes sense to spend money in order to save money. In most shops both capital and operating budgets are under pressure. But many buyers say the bigger focus right now is reducing opex. That sets up a perfect opportunity for you to explain how your products can produce quick ROI and lasting reduction of operating costs. That kind of message hits home today.
- Show us the value of IT in a downturn. Customers are thirsty for information on how their peers are using IT to help their companies weather the downturn? What are the good news stories today about how IT is making a difference? Don’t wait for the press to ask you for great case studies – get them out to buyers and prospects ASAP.
- Report on the brain drain from vendors. Customers in Denver and in all the places I visit are complaining that they are losing key sales and technical contacts at even their biggest vendor partners. Knowledge about their companies and their IT environments is bleeding away. You can buck this trend and maintain strong ties to your best customers. They’ll reward you richly as their budgets pick up.
Your customers and prospects are facing unprecedented challenges right now. They need help planning, optimizing and just getting by. That presents a terrific opportunity to deepen your bond with existing buyers and capture the attention of new customers. Just put yourself in their shoes and provide them with the information and advice you’d treasure in a tough time.
If you’re doing something innovative to help your customers weather the hurricane, drop me a note at jgallant@nww.com
JGMarketing in a Recession
Elyse Tager, Founder and Principal, Elymedia, LLC
There is no escaping the fact that we are in the depths of one of the worst economies in decades. The media won’t let us forget it, as it dominates the headlines. But we need to keep our businesses growing and healthy, no matter how bleak the prognosis. Below are a few tips for all marketing and media professionals to help get through this:
- Keep marketing. The tendency is to pull in the corporate horns, and save the money for something solid – like payroll. But if your brand disappears from the radar, so will your customers and prospects when it comes time to think of buying again. You may need to scale back budgets, but keep brand and logo current and on peoples’ minds.
- Measure everything – accountability for every marketing dollar spend is more important than ever. Are you sure you know where past successes have been? I’m amazed at how many companies minimize the analysis of all aspects of past campaigns for the sake of trying something new. If you have not been measuring all marketing activities, start now.
- From a media buying perspective, think globally. Within the enterprise can you counter the tendency to silo and cluster as many departments together as feasible? Walking across the aisle or cubie, you may find opportunities to consolidate objectives or at least spends and get much better pricing for any media.
- Also from a media buying perspective, think long term. If you can possibly forecast 2 - 4 quarters out and make even minimal commitments, you can command much better pricing. The market is soft and softening. Take every advantage of it. We are pounding on pricing and not-so-subtly-nudging our clients to make even the most conservative of commitments past a single quarter and have been able to negotiate some great deals with this strategy.
- Stay close to your customer. Isn’t the old dictum 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers? The corollary of that is, in a down-turn, 95% or more of your growth will come from your current customers. Be sure you are emailing them frequently with new offers, discounts, thought leadership whatever is appropriate to your business to assure their loyalty. Are you sure you have captured your entire customer base? Does the training dept, or HR, or tech support have pockets of customers that aren’t consolidated on the main marketing database? Revisit your in-house email strategies, Newsletter schedules – CRM is the cheapest and most responsive marketing method. Now would be the time to start experimenting with Social Networks – to keep the conversation with your customer flowing, and at very little cost.
- Revisit your creative versions, current assets, and tried and true marketing activities for more cost efficiency. Can you put a new headline on previously used email copy, rework the abstract to a white paper so it appears fresh, and save money on creative?
- Don’t stop testing – even modest testing. You will still need to find new opportunities when the old successes tire and the economy turns around. The good news is that since demand is down, most types of media are willing to work with you on pricing. Your competition will be marketing in anticipation of that time – so should you.
In fact, all of this advice will stand when we are out of the recession. The marketers that focus on getting the most out of every dollar spent and on demonstrating marketing's impact on revenue will be in a good position to come out of the slump looking like stars.
Author Profile
Elyse Tager is founder and principal of Elymedia, an online and traditional media agency that has worked with many of the world's most recognizable brands, from Microsoft to PowerBar. With 20 years of executive marketing experience in direct response and 10 years of Internet marketing experience, Elyse has gained a thorough understanding of both types of media and how they interact. This depth of experience and knowledge has benefited her clients as they strategize marketing objectives in both on- and offline worlds. Contact her at info@elymedia.com.
Test for Success
Seth Rosenblatt, Vice President of Marketing, Autonomy Interwoven
With the current economic turmoil, marketers are faced with a difficult challenge. On one hand, they are being asked by management to slash their online marketing budgets. But at the same time, they are still being asked to increase online sales.
Increasing conversion rates is one of the best ways to get more bang for your online dollar. To tackle this issue, companies are turning to real-time testing solutions. Below are five tips to jumpstart real-time testing.
- Test before doing a Website redesign
Many companies assume that they should put off their real-time testing program until they complete a Website redesign, thinking they should get the site live, and then test to improve it. This is often a big mistake. Unfortunately, redesigns can sometimes lower conversions and, with no baseline, determining what is causing the drop may be difficult.
Alternatively, by beginning testing before the redesign, you can determine the most critical factors that influence conversions. Consequently, the findings can be used to fine-tune the site redesign and focus creative resources on the areas that have proven to move the needle.
- Think beyond the landing page
Most brands will kick-off their testing program by optimizing a static landing page. While this is relatively safe place to learn the ropes of testing, you’ll need to tackle the more mission-critical pages, like a product page or a credit card page, to realize greater improvement. For example, most e-commerce sites will send every transaction through the credit card page. So a 10 percent improvement in conversion on a credit card page will directly result in a 10 percent increase in overall website sales. - Let multivariable testing do the work
A/B testing is better than doing nothing at all because it tells you the best solution out of two possible webpage permutations. However, multivariable testing lets you find the best solution out of hundreds or thousands of possible permutations – and does the work for you.
Most business opt for A/B testing because multivariable testing seems complicated. And it is. The good news is that technology will calculate the complex algorithms for you. By leveraging multivariable tools, you can enjoy the benefits of testing more parts of your web page, more quickly, with more robust results.
- Don’t make more work for yourself
Initial tests will provide answers for how to optimally design your website but will also raise questions. You might learn that changing the copy on a submit button increases conversion, which may lead you to ask, “What will happen if we change the color of that button?” Here’s where it is critical that your testing technology enables you to test and control the entire page with one piece of code, rather than requiring on a separate piece of code for individual variables. This way the marketer doesn’t need to go back to his/her IT department every time they want to test something new on a web page. - Maximize results by optimizing for audience segments
Web visitors have different behaviors and needs. Visitors coming directly from a search engine are typically further along in the buying cycle than those who simply click an ad banner. Other criteria that could segment your audience include their location, demographic information, and even the time and day they visit. To maximize the value of testing, make sure your solution optimizes Web variables for specific audience segments.
The benefits from real-time testing can be substantial and have the potential to positively impact your company’s bottom line in a matter of months. Particularly in these economic times, there is absolutely no excuse to put off your testing and optimization program. If you do, you’re just leaving money on the table. Keep these tips in mind and you’ll find how easy it is – even with a lower marketing budget – to significantly grow your online business.
About Autonomy
Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, spearheads the Meaning Based Computing movement. It was recently ranked by IDC as the clear leader in enterprise search revenues, with market share nearly double that of its nearest competitor. Autonomy's technology allows computers to harness the full richness of human information, forming a conceptual and contextual understanding of any piece of electronic data, including unstructured information, such as text, email, web pages, voice, or video. Autonomy's software powers the full spectrum of mission-critical enterprise applications including pan-enterprise search, customer interaction solutions, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery, records management, archiving, business process management, web content management, web optimization, rich media management and video and audio analysis. Please visit www.autonomy.com to find out more.
Email Marketing: From Zero to Hero
Craig Kerr, Vice President of Marketing, iPost
We know 2009 will be a rough year, so take a deep breath. As the anxiety eases, the astute email marketer will realize that the current economic climate provides them an opportunity to be the hero who helps the business stay afloat and even thrive. But to be that hero, you’ll need to put on your savvy-business-person hat and likely rethink your email marketing approach.
Rethink your Math
Many businesses realize that email marketing is a cost effective way to drive sales. Unfortunately, some flawed math is preventing some companies from maximizing email marketing revenue. First, most email marketers are judged too heavily on the size of their email list. This myopic focus results in a simple math equation being calculated: “If I make X dollars with the current list, and I grow the list by 20 percent, then I’ll make 20 percent more money!” Keep in mind that you have to get working email addresses of consumers who will want to opt-in to receiving mailings from you. If not, you will hurt your email reputation with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and impact the future deliverability of your messages.
Second, this focus on list size gives rise to counter-productive habits like blasting out emails to everyone on the list. But the number of emails sent does not necessarily equate to gains in revenue and it often isn’t the most cost effective way to achieve increases in revenue.
Let’s face the facts: many of your customers do not want to buy more from you right now. Consumers are cutting back on spending, so getting more emails won't cause them to change their mind and decide to buy. In fact, it is more likely that you will annoy them and they will either opt-out or send your emails to their junk folder, which can also hurt your standings with ISPs.
Doing the Right Math Means Segmenting
So, how can businesses avoid this mess and use email in a productive way? A logical place to start is by analyzing your current list to determine the full, multi-channel ROI of your email marketing efforts and not just the cost or immediate revenue.
Also, segmented campaigns will make more money than if you sent constant emails to everyone and you will safeguard your ability to deliver emails to your customers. The 80/20 rule still applies. You will find that a minority of your customers generate a majority of your business. In fact, sometimes companies find as little as five percent of their email list yields a majority of their revenue.
Segmentation will enable you to send the right messages at the right frequency to your customers. Highly engaged customers can be emailed often, and are less likely to opt-out or flag you as a spammer – satisfying your urge to send more mails. Alternatively, customers with a low level of engagement are much quicker to opt-out and flag you as a spammer. Consequently, they need to be mailed less often, and usually need to be offered special incentives.
Segmentation + Targeted Emails = Success
On average, multi-channel customers are worth significantly more than single-channel customers. As a result, companies are starting to look at ways to optimize business across channels. Email is a superhighway that can move customers between channels – satisfying the needs of the customer and the company.
By using ROI and P&L to demonstrate email marketing’s impact on the rest of the business, online marketers can help the CMO demonstrate to the CFO and CEO the impact that marketing promotions have on the company’s bottom-line. This will highlight email marketers as being savvy business people who speak the same language as C-level executive staff, and position email marketing as having a positive impact on other channels instead of a source of cannibalization.
About iPost
iPost offers a broad array of email marketing and predictive analytic solutions to help companies efficiently drive multi-channel profits. Sending email is easy. Using email to optimize profit and loss, satisfy customers and cost-effectively market across channels requires the right tools, services and experience. As a pioneer in email marketing, iPost has provided the leading edge technologies and services to help hundreds of customers drive successful email marketing campaigns and promotions. iPost partners or integrates with MarketLive, Omniture, Coremetrics, Google Analytics, Omniture and more. iPost clients include Bakers Shoes, Bon-Ton, Brocade, Design Within Reach, Dylan's Candy Bars, Foster Farms, Garden Botanika, Kimpton, McNeil Pharmaceuticals, Meridian, NEC, Perricone, Totes-Isotoner and many more. For more information, please visit www.ipost.com.