Archived post. Originally published 9.23.2010.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sharing my morning with the CFO RoundTable, an incredibly active and engaged group of finance professionals who meet monthly to network and participate in professional development programs. (Disclaimer: The CFO RoundTable is a client of mine).

The topic of yesterday’s program was ‘Mastering Your Budget Process,’ a panel discussion dedicated to discussing the best practices in creating, implementing, and managing corporate budgets. It was incredibly timely, especially as most of us are currently in the process of planning, negotiating, or submitting their 2011 budget requests.

Now, let me preface this by stating that I am one of those marketers who actually likes having a budget. I believe that everyone, even us marketers, needs a number to work against, and I have always treated my budget as a benchmark of the pace and success of my program.

However, what I realized yesterday is that while we marketers often discuss how to effectively measure and justify what we spent, we spend little time discussing how we manage the budget process itself – how do we best work with our finance teams to get the money we need versus the money they can spend?

So, from the mouths of CFOs, I give you a few tips to help ease your budget process this year:

Be Detailed and Organized
When a member of your finance team asks exactly what you plan to spend $20,000 a month on next year, they’re not being a pain. They’re doing their job. Being coy with how you plan to spend your 2011 budget does not bode well on your future relationship with your finance team, nor does a sloppy spreadsheet. Do yourself and your CFO a favor and itemize your budget requests, as well as organize them in a way that's easily understood by your finance person. The better that you can equip your finance and executive team with information, the better chance you have of pushing your requests through.

Anticipate Monthly Spend
No one, especially your CFO, likes surprises.

Let's say, for example, that the executive and management teams have agreed upon an annual marketing budget of $250,000, which equals an estimated monthly spend of $20,800. Everyone is happy.

However, what you have failed to mention that $80,000 of that will be spent between May and June for a brand new trade show and campaign. This, my friends, is a surprise that no one, especially your CFO, wants to see. 

By ignoring important expenditures such as spikes in monthly spend, you catch your finance team off guard, which may affect your company’s ability to pay your vendors on time (bad thing), or even worse, negatively affect the company’s cash flow (really, really bad thing. Don’t even get your CFO started on it. Especially if they’re one of those who writes ‘Cash is King’ on their white board.)

Help your finance team look like heroes and help protect your company by demonstrating what your monthly estimated spend will be. Break out your annual expenses by month, as well as itemize the one-time costs that can blow your budget out of the water. The more detailed you are with your finance team, the better prepared they will be to predict and plan for your expensive months.

Establish Clear and Productive Lines of CommunicationIn my own experience, I have always tried to build productive and open relationships with my finance teams. While sometimes contentious, I’ve found that the better I can understand and proactively meet their needs and concerns, the easier our conversation is on spend and ROI.

Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s not. Most CFOs and other finance folk understand the importance of getting out into the field and talking to departments about their budgets, and others don’t. People are people, after all.

The best thing you can do for your CFO is schedule a monthly meeting to review your financials. Discuss the prior month’s spend, the next month’s budget, and any other additional costs you foresee along the way. Use this time to talk through your department’s financial health and program results, and discuss ways to either improve or sustain your success.

Remember, the more information you can share, the better your CFO will understand your budgetary needs and requirements to sustain a profitable program.

Understand that ‘Budget’ Doesn’t Always Mean ‘We Have Money’
This is especially true in today’s economy. Just because you have an approved budget does not mean that the company has the money to back it up.

This could be for a myriad of reasons – sales have slowed, business partners have not come through the way the company predicted, you’ve lost a good percentage of your customer base, and so on. Whatever is the case, sometimes you may be asked not to spend the budget promised to you, simply because the company can’t support it at the moment.

Is this a permanent problem? Hopefully not. However, taking advantage of your open and productive relationship with your finance team, you can proactively discuss solutions and pathways that will still ensure that your programs come to fruition, all while protecting the company cash flow.

Of course, these are but a few of the ways that we can effectively work to improve the relationship between finance and marketing. Do you have a best practice or tip that has helped to improve your budget process? If so, please share it in the comments section!

Archived post. Originally published 9.2.2010.

In a recent post titled "It's 9:00am: Do You Know Where Your Customers Are," I challenged all of us to discover a method that puts us right in front of our customers, rather than in their inbox, mailbox, or blog reader.

I'll admit - I did cheat a little bit. I kinda sorta already knew what I was going to do. But all is forgiven, right? Awesome.

For the next month, I'll be holding office hours at Mass Challenge, a startup competition designed to help entrepreneurs turn great ideas into great companies. This is my second week working with the contestants, and so far, it's been a great experience. I am continually impressed with the passion, dedication, and intelligence of these companies, as well as their openness to embrace new ideas, or be reminded of simple truths of managing a successful business.

It's also been a great reminder to me to stay true to my own personal and professional goals, and that with dedication and some sweat equity, I can conquer anything. 

I'll post updates on my experience with the group over the next month or so. Stay tuned!

Archived post. Originally published 8.24.2010.

Let’s start with a personal story:

5 months ago, I dropped a really, really well-paying, full-time job and launched Red Plate Marketing. Hands down, it has been the scariest and most thrilling thing I’ve ever done in my professional life.  Frankly, I had no business quitting my job and starting off into the unknown – two small children, a mortgage, and a grocery bill that outweighs the national deficit all depend on me to support them.

It was a scary change. I got over it. Looking back now, I could not have made a better decision.

I tell you this story to tell you another one.

There are still brands and companies out there that refuse to participate, in even the smallest way, in social media.

Do you need to sit down for a minute? It’s ok – I’ll wait.

Now, let me preface this by stating for the record that I do not believe that all social media is right for everyone. Not everyone needs a Facebook page, Twitter feed, or the like. However, I do believe that every company and brand can benefit from a tailored blend of social media tools that can activate and motivate your audience to move your message forward.

Agreed? Awesome.

So why are these companies still refusing to even test out new social media platforms to engage their audience? Well, change is scary. The uncertainty of the unknown can immobilize progress.

Yes, change is scary, but you have to get over it. I’ll be the first to attest that the benefits and rewards that you can reap on the other side far outweigh the reasons to stay put.

While the refusals can vary as widely from “it’s a fad” to “I don’t have time to write,” there are a few objections to incorporating social media tactics that are common among these companies, including:

1. We can’t control it.
   No, you can’t always control your message, and really, who wants to? It’s exhausting.  Any new marketing platform, especially those that enable direct interaction with your audience, takes a level of control out of your messaging.
   
   But think about it for a second – could you really control your messaging in the first place? Can you control what a reporter writes about you? Can you really control what a customer says about you to a peer? No, you can’t. So drop the shackles and open up. You have no idea how far your message and insight go when you’re not standing in your own way.
   
   
2. There is no value in this.
   Imagine trying to broach the conversation of starting a Facebook page with someone who isn’t in marketing. If you’re talking to a parent, they’re most likely picturing their son’s Mafia Wars games and all of the pictures that they were never supposed to see from spring break last year. Sort of hard to translate how that works in business, no?
   
   So skip the chunky dialogue about SEO and metrics for a second and try to think about social media this way: It allows you to forge deeper relationships with your people. The more transparent, communicative, and open you are, the more approachable you will become to the people that matter.
   
   
3. We’ve tried it before and it doesn’t work.
   If I had $1 dollar for every time that I’ve heard this, I would have no need to work. I would be firmly planted on a dock by a lake somewhere, soaking up guilty-pleasure Dean Koontz books.*
   
   The best response I can give to this objection is that just because it failed once, does not mean it will fail again. If you believe enough in the cause, take a lesson from the failure and demonstrate how you will never allow this to happen again. Not only is this good marketing management, it’s really just good business sense.
   
   
4. What if we screw up?
   Of course, they don’t say ‘we,’ do they.
   
   I read a great quote the other day from Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!, whose motto is to “Fail Fast Forward.” If you screw up, so what – learn quickly from your mistakes, and keep moving forward. No growth can be achieved by sitting on the sidelines.
   
   
5. What if our competitors see it?
   This is really one of my favorites.
   
   For some reason, companies go through a phase where their competition can know nothing of what they do. Maybe their investors pull them aside and threaten to beat their puppies if word gets out that they (gulp!) launched a new product. Or maybe they’ve been burned in the past by a sales person that had a bit too much to drink and shared something super-nuclear with their friendly competitor.
   
   Whatever the case may be, you cannot stop communicating with your audience purely out of the fear that the competition might get wind of it. And quite frankly, if you get there before they do, you are given that much more time to establish the conversation.
   
   Look at it this way – whether it’s a newsletter, a blog, or an article, your competition is going to see it. Your best bet is to stay focused on the audiences that really matter – your customers, your influencers, and your prospects.
   
   
6. We don’t want our employees wasting their time with this.
   Now, there are two sides to this coin – we don’t want our marketing people to take their eye off the ball, and we don’t want our other employees wasting time online.
   
   Let’s start with the first half of the objection: Good program management on part of any marketer involves the distinct ability to multi-task and deftly integrate marketing tactics so they produce one cohesive vision. Besides that, all of your marketing should be geared toward opening and defining a two-way conversation. Social media is just one more platform to add to the mix.
   
   Now, for the second half of the argument. I am in agreement that online activities can be a complete time-suck. That’s for your HR team to figure out. However, to argue that you do not want to incorporate a blog or other social media means into your marketing program because you’re afraid that your employees might spend time online and read it is a bit misguided. I know of no better way to educate your team than by giving them easy access to your thoughts, news and updates online.

Net net, while it can be a seemingly overwhelming and scary task to incorporate social media into a marketing strategy, get over it. The benefits that open and transparent communication offer far outweigh the safety of the sidelines.

*Don’t lie to me. I know you love him too.

Archived post. Originally published 8.18.2010.

Trent Hamm, author of "The Simple Dollar" posted a fantastic article the other day on OpenForum titled "Be Where Your Customers Are."

The premise of the article is an easy one - take your product directly to your customer, and they'll buy. Sounds simple enough, right? 

Unfortunately, no, sometimes it's just not that simple. Business and day-to-day operations happen, which pulls the focus away from simple tactics like this, and forces small business owners to rely on impersonal outreach to communicate with their customers. 

Sure, social media has helped to turn this tide by opening a deeper and more engaging relationship with an audience, but is that really more powerful than taking a product and physically putting it into the hands of a potential customer? No, it's not.

So my challenge to you (and myself!) is the same as Trent's - find one way to bring your business directly to your customers. Eschew the inbox, the newsletter, and the phone call for a bit and devise a plan to invest your time and energy to physicallybe where your customers are, and put your service or product into their hands.

To keep myself honest, I'll post my plan and update on its results within a month. If you're game for the challenge, tell me in the comments! 

Archived post. Originally published 8.15.2010.

First, let’s agree that everyone, even the best marketer out there, has bad pitches on bad days.

We have all bombed campaigns, have been stuck in the purgatory of voicemail, and have sat hoping that anyone, anything even, will click, call back, or respond.  I don’t care how much you’ve prepared and research – it happens to everyone.

This does not necessarily mean that you have a bad marketing idea on your hands – it just means that your message, for whatever reason, isn’t sticking the way you thought it would.

I’m of the mindset that the simplest explanation is often the correct one. So, before I completely kill a dog campaign, here are a few of the simple steps I take to rethink my outreach:

1. Consider the message
   Take another look at the message and copy you have. Is it clear and concise? Is it targeted and compelling for the audience you’ve selected? Is the language active and engaging? And most importantly, does it make sense?
   
   If not, try to come up with a few variations of the message that still communicates your main points, but approaches them from different avenues. After this exercise, try a few tests to select groups to see if any provide a greater return than your original.
   
   
2. Consider the offer
   Sometimes, a great offer is really just a dud.  
   
   Case in point – a few weeks ago, I received two offers from companies I do business with. One offered the chance to win a free mortgage payment if I moved to e-statements, and the other offered the chance to win an iPad if I took the time to answer a survey.
   
   I clicked to move to e-statements, and ignored the iPad offer. Why? Believe it or not, I don’t care about having an iPad, but I do care about my mortgage payment. And if offered the choice between the two, I’ll go with the chance to win a free payment. Besides, the time commitment itself was too much. Ask yourself: would you spend your time on one click to get a free mortgage payment, or spend minutes of your time and multiple clicks to win a piece of hardware that you don’t want in the first place?
   
   The point here is not to make mortgage payments for people. Rather, it is to know your audience and what’s truly important to them. Every day, we are offered with thousands of chances to win big. By demonstrating up front that you understand the needs and wants of your audience, you will win their attention every time.  
   
   
3. Consider your vehicle
   If your message and offer seem spot-on, the next logical step would be to consider your delivery vehicle.
   
   Certain people react only to email, while others will devour your blog. Some appreciate every piece of direct mail they receive (yes, it still works), and others choose only to pay attention to their Twitter feed.
   
   The best marketing campaigns work when you have a series of tactics working in tandem to deliver your message. For example, if you are relying solely on email marketing, consider adding a public relations angle to it by offering up a complementary customer story to a relevant publication that your audience reads.  Or if you have social media avenues, make sure to post content that relates to the campaign in order to get your response rates up. Not only will this cast a wider net and appeal to your fickle audiences, but you can also take this opportunity to find out which outlet garners the most response. 
   
   
4. Consider your audience
   Of course, this part assumes that you are working with a list that has agreed to receive information from you. If not, see here.
   
   Outreach campaigns work best when they’re delivered to a relevant and targeted audience. This means that rather than blasting your entire database, you deliver only to a specific segment of the list.
   
   If you are in fact blasting to your entire list, experiment with segmentation by breaking your list among job titles, known interests, location, and so on. However, beware: While segmentation of your database offers you the opportunity to test a wide variety of messaging and campaigns, you can overdo it. Be sure that you run a quality check on your lists to ensure that the overlap of people receiving campaigns isn’t overwhelming. After all, the last thing you want to do is spam your targets with too many messages at once.  
   
   
5. Consider the season.
   Ah, summer. Good for cookouts, blow-up pools and water gun fights, and miserable for marketing. 
   
   Why, you ask? No one is home.
   
   If you are running a tried-and-true campaign, and no one seems to be responding, the season might have something to do with it. For example, holiday weeks and the late summer are the absolute worst time to run a demand-generation campaign, while the fall season and early in the year are fantastic times to do so. Of course, your inbound marketing should be consistent year round; however, you might notice a few dips around these times as well. 
   
   If you find that this is the case, consider an alternate campaign until a better season hits. You never know – what failed in July might just succeed in September.

Archived post. Originally published 10.15.2009.

For those of us who might be building out Facebook pages in lieu of email marketing, prepare yourself: A recent study shows that many adults are more willing to share information with marketers via email rather than social networking sites.

Check out the article from Adweek here.

Does this mean choose one tactic or the other? No. Keep the Tweets rolling if that’s what works for you.

What this does mean is that before taking the leap (and budget!) with any new tactic, you must internalize the process by which you develop productive, trusting relationships with your prospects. If social media is the key to finding and nurturing new customers, then by all means, invest in that tactic. If it's not, then perhaps it's time to put the blog, Facebook pages, LinkedIn Groups and Twitter aside for now and develop whattruly delivers on your goals.

Archived post. Originally posted 10.23.2009.

I am a new mom to two amazing little creatures: Joseph, 8 months, and my stepdaughter Eve, 7 years. Before them, I had cats, who are incredibly low maintenance in comparison.

In becoming a new mother, I became a new consumer, and by that I mean I consumed everything. I was on the hunt for information about anything (diaper rash! whooping cough! rickets!), and while I had the ‘What to expect’ books, my doctors, and even my mom and mother-in-law, nothing could soothe me better than kicking back with my laptop and surfing mom-to-be sites.

And ice cream. Truckloads of ice cream.

I quickly found Babycenter.com, and signed up for their prenatal newsletter which marked each week of my pregnancy. Now I receive weekly newsletters for each of my children that detail what we might experience this week in milestone achievements (he crawls…backwards), things to watch out for (she repeats everything I say to everyone), and other small items which shed just a little more light into why my children do what they do.

The company is a trusted resource for me because they’ve earned it. Time and time again, they’ve delivered relevant, engaging content that piques my interests and needs. And in turn, I am an active, avid prospect for them, who will willingly reads every piece they send me, and click on advertisements if they interest me.

Want the same experience with your marketing? Here are a few tips to help shape a trusted relationship with your prospects: 

• Remember how you met
  Your first encounter is the most important one, and sets the stage for how your relationship will fare. Keep a record of the search terms they used to find your site, the pages they spent the most time one, and so on. If you met in person (i.e., an event, introduced by a partner, etc.), make sure to transcribe the issues and interests identified in the conversation. Make sure each piece of communication delivered thereafter somehow encapsulates this knowledge. 
• You are only as good as the information you share
  Pretend that you’re a customer, and read all of the materials that you send them in a month. Is it timely, conversational, and customized specifically for them? Does it provide solutions that they can apply in their own efforts? Or is your material one big, generic product pitch, sent in 5 different email designs. Do yourself and favor and forget about your products and services for a bit, and strike up a new kind of conversation with your prospects, which focuses on their needs only.  
  
• Grow with your audience
  The reason that the Babycenter newsletters work so well is that they grow with my interests (the kids!). Each week profiles new content tailored just for their age group. The same strategy should be applied in your marketing efforts. Take some time to identify the stages your leads are in - did you just meet, or have you been speaking for awhile? What are their interests, and how can you tailor your outreach to demonstrate your knowledge of the topic?
  
• The zero-effort effect
  The reason that any marketing works is that it requires minimal time and effort from the prospect.  For example: how many steps do you ask your prospect to take to get to the information that they want? Is it easily found on one click, or are they required to register on your site to download content? And once they find your content, how much time does it take them to read it? Take a load off of your prospects shoulders and decrease the amount of time and effort it takes to learn about you. 
  
• Are you (gasp!) fun?
  Ask yourself: If you’re not saving the world, why the gravitas? Think about the tone and experience you’re setting for your prospect. Do you want them to enjoy the experience they have with your company, or do you want them to be in a constant state of fear? While there are certain issues and topics which require a serious tone, when you can, relax the rhetoric a bit, and you’ll find that your prospect will as well.

Archived Post. Originally published 11/20/2009.

These days, it’s easy to get lost in the shine of new marketing. Why focus on the basics when you need to focus on blogging, tweeting, friending, managing your group on LinkedIn, etc.

Not to say that these programs aren’t important; however, if the programs that have proven results are slipping because you’re too busy keeping all of your new ones up to date, it’s time to step away from the publish button, and reevaluate why you’re there in the first place.

It’s not that social media is a distraction. In fact, when it’s done right, it opens doors to your customers that no other platform has done thus far. The problem is that your marketing has veered off course from the strategic to an overload of the tactical.

How can you tell if you’re there? If you haven’t looked at your overall marketing plan for more than 3 months, you’re stuck in the dregs of tactics management.  I won’t lie – I’ve been there too, and have built and cut enough programs to know where my balance is in terms of programs that work well, and programs that require more work than they’re worth.

So what are my rules of thumb for good marketing programs?

They Scale.
The most important part of any program is that it can grow or downsize with you with medium to slight effort on your part. I’m not advocating a ‘set it and forget it’ mentality about your programs; however, if you spend a little more time and focus in the implementation phase, you won’t have to waste as much time (and frustration) in general maintenance.

They are Measurable.
All good programs have easily recognizable milestones, such as audience reach, leads generated, pipeline impact, etc. Then there are others that, well, don’t. Table the programs that can’t be easily measured or attributed to your pipeline for now, and invest your time and energy in those that do.

They are Repeatable.
Programs that work are programs that consistently deliver. Sometimes they vary slightly, and sometimes everyone just has an off day, but, ultimately, the programs that should stay your highest priorities are the ones that bring in the highest-quality leads for a low CPA. Note that I didn’t say ‘bring in the most leads’ – quantity doesn’t mean anything to the salesperson that has to call all of these people.

They Return.
The value of any program should rest solely on its return. If it’s a vanity program (you know one if you’ve got one), kill it. If it’s a program that has lagged behind the others, kill it. If it’s a program that has consistently met or exceeded your goals, give yourself a cookie. You’ve found a good one.

Anything else? What are other characteristics of good marketing programs?