Category Archives: marketing

Strategic Directions

With 2 successful conferences behind me, I went on vacation to Germany: we had so much fun seeing friends and family.

Coming back, I was fortunate to have several interesting projects brought to me. This attests to the effectiveness of my primary business development activity: deliver great work and invariably more interesting work results (so far, so good).

Over the last 2 months I have been working on projects as varied as branding-related research for the Stem Cell Network, a Nokia for Business marketing project, focus groups testing NAC Orchestra programming under consideration, developing a 5-year plan for NAC Music Education program evaluation and editorial work on defining 10 new thematics for Canadian Geographic’s Canadian Atlas Online Phase 3 (based on the 3 volumes of the Historical Atlas of Canada).

As I am observing politics, the economy and ‘nature at work’ in Canada and the US in particular, I am wondering about the new strategic moves that will be required both in my own and in my clients’ businesses. I know diversity of skills and continually honing my capabilities are important to my success – I already have a minimal environmental footprint in terms of my business. For my clients the answers will run the full gambit of business strategy: from investing in customer experience to attracting and keeping the right talent, from creating new products to becoming more effective and savvy communicators.

A marketing and a research perspective

I’ve been thinking about how to tell people about my consulting business in an easy to understand manner. Strategic Moves – Thinking : Business in a way does say it all. It encapsulates both an outcome and its underlying process.

In essence, what I am doing with Strategic Moves is to bring to bear a deeper understanding of my clients’ 360 environment (including their organizations) and help them make decisions that will move them forward. In that applied, practical sense, marketing research isn’t about the research results. It is about the insights, decisions and actions that follow the data and analysis. At best, the actions marketers – and thier agencies – take should be backed by deep insights derived from all manner of research and monitored and evaluated using analytical processes.

My positioning then is to bring both a professional marketing and research perspective to my clients’ business issues. I think of it as a fire-aim-fire brand – take a lot of action and learn from all of it to advance the business or cause.

Respect for the customer

Arguably, the most important asset a marketing researcher has is … a respondent. The Canadian industry association, MRIA, has created a Respondents Bill of Rights – and much effort goes into best practice development for research methodologies that both respect the respondent and provide insight on which to base business decisions.

What is the most important asset an advertising agency or a marketer has? I think the answer is … a customer. Not inventory, not intellectual property, not real estate, not world-class leadership, not strategic location, not stock price, not exclusive market rights, not employees (even though in my mind employees are intrinsically linked to the customer).

Why is it then, that there is so little effort made to care for the customer or the potential customer? Over 90% of new products fail and fewer than 50% of advertisements are effective – so why are they getting created and who are they really speaking to?

Instead of relevant, timely, opt-in, creative marketing activities, much of marketing seems to still be trying to yell louder or funnier or whatever at a fairly large group of people.

If advertisers want to be relevant then they might reconsider their focus and place the customer at the heart of business and marketing considerations. There are successful CRM implementations and there are impressive case studies of brands connecting with customers by acting on the knowledge they collect about them and creating many meaningful, memorable interactions.

Because it’s the customer that matters. Not so much mind share, or intent to purchase.
Instead, try measuring the degree of relationship a customer has with the organization and the degree of relationship the organization has with the customer.

It’s My Cornwall contest way to win trust

Over the last few months I’ve worked with a team from Banfield-Seguin on the City of Cornwall Economic Development Department’s rebranding and business / resident attraction programs.

We gained a great deal of insight from the research process, where we talked to a lot of people in Cornwall about Cornwall, conducted a review of economic development success stories as well as a reputation assessment based on news media and web coverage. Based on the findings, we felt that the next strategic move would be to give the people in Cornwall even more of a voice in shaping the city’s new brand story. We thought the benefits of that approach would be considerable: we would shift perceptions about Cornwall, earn the residents’ trust in the work, make it real and foster buy in to the process and its outcomes.

In close collaboration with the team, we came up with the It’s My Cornwall contest. With great local media support, and direct, on-the-ground engagement, for instance through a day at the mall to solicit on-the-spot video and audio submissions, we got more than 130 entries in 19 days. Then we short-listed the 20 best entries, and promoted voting: 5,071 votes were cast.

The energy and enthusiam generated was palpable. We even got CTV Ottawa coverage for this initiative. All that bodes well for the next steps in rebranding and marketing Cornwall.

NAC Orchestra season launch filled with good news

Last night, the NAC Orchestra got its new concert season underway – it was amazing: sold out concert hall, a fabulous Beethoven Festival kick off program, great energy on stage and in the hall.

Over the last year, I’ve led the NAC Orchestra’s Audience Development project. Working with many talented people at the NAC from music to marketing to production to management, I’ve provided research, analysis, insight as well as strategy process facilitation. Together, we’ve been plotting the strategic moves needed to build larger audiences.

The following is an excerpt from a press release the NAC Orchestra issued a couple of days ago – the kind of news that truly endorses the analytics, strategy and facilitation work:

“Subscription revenues have surpassed the $2 million mark with more than 13,000 subscription series already sold – over 800 more subscriptions than this time last season. The Beethoven Festival, led by Pinchas Zukerman – which includes several concerts in the classical series – has proved extremely popular with six of the ten concerts sold out in advance of Opening Night on September 19. Continuing strong sales bode well for the entire Festival and the full season of classical music programs. The TD Canada Trust Family Adventures with NACO led by Principal Youth and Family Conductor Boris Brott has seen a rise of more than 46% in subscription ticket sales compared to this time last season, while the CTV Pops Series under the artistic direction of Principal Pops Conductor Jack Everly has increased by 10%.”

“Success is attributed to a comprehensive Audience Development Programme on which the NAC Orchestra embarked a year ago using extensive research into its audiences’ interests and priorities together with analysis of 20 years of sales trends. Initial improvements include implementing a wider range of (and in some cases lower) ticket prices throughout Southam Hall to offer greater access; increased flexibility in packaging the classical, pops and recital series – a move that has resulted in a 37% increase in “pick-your-own series” sales; and adding more access to artists through post-concert talkbacks and live NACOcasts (podcasts) to complement the traditional pre-show chats. Other initiatives include additional interactive web features, starting with the Beethoven Festival; more comprehensive house programmes, and special appreciation events for new and long-time subscribers. And this is just the beginning.”