Marketers – particularly retail marketers – talk a big game about customer focus. And in our heart of hearts, we think we’re right: we are the internal champions of the customer, the voice of conscience that tries to ensure customer focus throughout all business activities.

But too often, marketers have trouble transitioning from “flash-in-the-pan” customer focus efforts to embedding that focus at the heart of the enterprise. It’s easy to get executive buy-in for one-off customer focus campaigns – and, perhaps, many of them. But without a central process for discovering customer needs and how they align to brand promise and strategic priorities, one-off initiatives are doomed to ineffectiveness.

That’s why Tesco’s Annual Customer Plan is so exciting. The UK-based grocery retailer – faced with declining profit margins, intensifying competition and some evidence of customer dissatisfaction – came up with a way to centralize ongoing consumer focus. In the process, they reversed their slide of the early 1990s, and regained their place as the UK’s dominant grocery chain. Read More »

For our major B2C research initiative this year, we’re looking into changing consumer purchase processes. So much has changed in the b2c world – economic downturn, increasing options, new information and influence sources – that we had to believe the way people buy has changed as well.

We’ll be talking a lot more about our findings at our executive meeting series and webinar series starting this summer, but we certainly have found some surprising things, a few of which we’ll talk about here.

First off – the purchase funnel is dead, or at least a lot less common than we think it is. Read More »

(The following is a guest post from David Sroka, President and CEO of Point of Reference, a customer referral program provider.)

The marketing department in B2B firms is typically responsible for producing “evidence” of satisfied customers in the form of case studies, quotes, press releases and videos. This customer content has plenty of uses and users, but arguably, the heaviest consumer is the sales force. Like other marketing “investments,” there’s an imperative to make decisions that garner the biggest bang for the buck. So how should the marketing department decide how to spend its finite budget when it comes to sales-accelerating assets like customer content? Start by considering the current range of available content relative to where it’s needed in the sales cycle. For instance, press releases and one-page success stories are perfectly appropriate early on in the sales cycle, but less meaningful and effective in the middle to later stages.  Full ROI case studies, often 5-10 pages in length, are overkill for the early stages when buyers are merely tire kicking.

To provide a framework for this approach we created a tool to help you link various content types to various sales stages: Read More »

It used to feel like a consultation – customers calling you early on asking how you can help them. Now it feels more like scratching a lottery ticket at the end of the buying process, knowing you can’t alter what’s printed under the security coating – you’ve either been chosen or you’re not. This year, we have heard repeatedly from our members that the B2B purchasing process feels increasingly out of their hands as customers shifted to doing much of the research and comparisons on their own, turning to suppliers only very late in the game. Informally, our B2B members feel that 70% (or thereabout) of the buying process is completely out of their control, and they’re grasping onto the tail end of the purchase process which used to be much more malleable. Is that fear warranted? Read More »

Late Sunday, AT&T announced that they would buy T-Mobile USA, the US wireless subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, for $39 billion in cash and stock. The deal would unite the second-biggest wireless provider in the US with the 4th largest, and would vault AT&T ahead of Verizon as the biggest provider in the country. It would also decrease the major wireless providers in the US to three.

We know that consumers are very attached to their phones, particularly smartphones, and that they’re becoming very important for online and brick-and-mortar commerce. The mobile carrier-to-subscriber relationship is among the more intense brand relationships in the marketplace, as the services they provide increasingly tie our entire world together. We also know that, in terms of American consumer satisfaction, the wireless industry is near the bottom of the league tables, right down there with the Postal Service and airlines.

Given these facts, it’s not surprising that, upon announcement of the deal, T-Mobile went all-out to convince its customers that the sale to AT&T would be good for them. The brand devoted a big space on its consumer-focused website to talk about what the sale would mean for existing subscribers:

Behind that big banner, though, things are a little bit sketchier. Only two documents, a press release and an FAQ, await customers wondering how the deal will impact them. Neither are particularly engaging. A little human touch would go a long way here: a video message from the CEOs of each company, or, although it might be tough to nail down, a more precise explanation of the expected service upgrades for T-Mobile customers.

The best-in-class example of this in recent months is Southwest’s acquisition of AirTran; we talked about it back in September. Southwest’s landing page for the deal, LowFaresFarther.com, was launched at the same time the companies announced the acquisition. The content concisely explains exactly what customers can expect to gain from the union of the two companies (new routes), clearly sets customer expectations (particularly around fees), and includes video messages from the CEO of Southwest and officials from AirTran. It even goes the extra mile and includes resources for employees and communities affected by the deal.

But the really interesting case is AT&T, which, as of today, has no messaging around its purchase of T-Mobile on its the front page of its customer-facing site. And, on first glance, why would they? The purchase shouldn’t affect existing customers of the purchasing company, right?

But AT&T could be leaving a lot of value on the table, in the form of uncommunicated benefits consumers will see as a result of the deal. Many customers report dissatisfaction with AT&T’s coverage, for instance; service could be improved in areas where T-Mobile’s coverage is strongest. Some new phone models may eventually be made available to AT&T customers, as well. T-Mobile’s FAQ document lays out some of the ways they expect coverage and service to improve, but if I’m an AT&T customer, what are the chances I’ll go to that site to learn about the changes?

Further, with the dwindling number of major providers in the market, there’s legitimate concern that data and voice charges will go up for lack of competition. Wireless bills are among the biggest bills consumers pay, beyond housing. When mobile bills comprise such a big part of monthly budgets, customers will have concerns over rates in the wake of mergers and purchases like these. A little human-centric messaging on the front page could go a long way towards influencing grassroots opinion on the acquisition.

The bottom line: when it comes to an industry as intensely personal as wireless, and in industries where competition has dwindled to the point that there’s legitimate concern over rising rates, both parties in a corporate acquisition have to reassure their customers about the changes ahead.

MLC members, for more on post-M&A messaging and branding, check out our research brief, as well as our profile of Southwest’s efforts after their purchase of AirTran.

By Kirsten Robinson

Since the dawn of film and television, product placement has been among the most subtle marketing tools.  For the right price, producers will seamlessly blend your brand into scenes and storylines.

Here we’ve included some fun facts about some of the more memorable product placement deals over the years– you might be surprised which ones essentially cost the featured brand(s) nothing! Read More »

Social media – and the internet in general – have been a bright spot for businesses in an otherwise dismal climate. But many have had their illusions about the web punctured in recent weeks, as the strategic downside of open, transparent communication has made itself apparent in the Wikileaks disclosures.

To recap what has been a complicated story: on November 28, the leak-publishing clearinghouse, in conjunction with several major newspapers, began to disclose a series of diplomatic cables between the US Department of State and its embassies throughout the world. Julian Assange, Wikileaks’ primary spokesperson, also announced that the next leaks the site would publish would be from a major US bank. In response to the publishing of these leaks, the US government strongly denounced the site, and national leaders – such as Senator Joe Lieberman – suggested that companies who did business with Wikileaks could be subject to prosecution. Read More »

The worldwide recession has changed the value set for a significant portion of your customer base.  By the day, we’re hearing of more members recasting their segmentation models to reflect new realities.  But updating segments is only half the battle.  To see frontline impact with new segmentation, marketers must get the new segments to “stick” with internal stakeholders.

Not long ago, LG Mobile developed a new segmentation model.  Marketing leaders at LG Mobile quickly realized that to engage consumer segments more effectively, they needed to embed these segments into everything that LG’s employees do. Marketing leaders began by asking themselves the question- Is the segmentation understandable, relatable and relevant? Taking this as a starting point, LG worked to sell the segmentation internally. LG followed a 5-step process to create an internal buy-in of the segmentation. Read More »

What can moscato teach us about marketing planning and skillsets of socially-savvy marketers?   More than you might imagine.

This sweet wine sourced from the Muscat grape was a rounding error on annual wine sales in the US.

Until Drake came along. Read More »

Seinfeld is one of the most popular shows in the history of American television, and is in many ways emblematic of the 1990’s. But have you ever considered that the show has a lot to teach about marketing strategy?

It’s true. Seinfeld was noted by critics for its unique focus on mundane human interactions, a large number of which included buying and selling stuff. From George’s Russian hat to the muffin tops to the famous J. Peterman catalogue, Seinfeld featured consumerism as a key element in the plotlines of many episodes, the result of which is a show that’s rich in lessons for marketers.

Here’s a look at a few key marketing strategies explored in Seinfeld: Read More »