5 Keys to Increasing Marketing ROI

With the new year in sight, one of the pressing issues for managers is how to improve upon the marketing successes in 2011.  While acquiring new customers is an obvious growth strategy, marketers must also use analytics to unlock the real secrets behind marketing success. After all, your marketing dollars should stretch well beyond customer acquisition.

Often companies will focus on “net adds” as a success indicator, and fail to recognize the revenue growth potential by meeting the needs of their existing customers. I am not saying it is by design, but top-line growth is “sexier” to the management, and extracting that incremental dollar out of your existing customers needs a bit more work than designing a catchy marketing campaign – right analytics focus can help solve for the latter. The following 5 steps seem to have worked in my experience.

• Know your customers – demographics, location, spending habits, targeted wallet share, etc.
• Identify and create a portfolio of products that aligns with your customers’ needs and extends your brand beyond core product(s)
• Build relevant external partnerships to extend your products beyond the core competencies
• Target the products offerings to specific customer segments and avoid the “one-size-fits-all” approach to selling  
• Lastly don’t forget to utilize all the available customer touch points including, social forums, newsletters, email and others

These steps need to be repeated periodically to capture any changes in market, customer needs, etc. But, the key is to consistently evaluate (say, during quarterly reviews) your portfolio strategy on all of the above drivers and refine as needed.

Remember, it is much cheaper to manage a customer than acquire a new one!

Small Business Cloud Solutions

According to US Census bureau, there are more than 5 Million small businesses in the US with less than 20 employees and spanning all industry verticals including, services, manufacturing, non-profits, etc. 

With technology changing at a rapid pace and resource constraints at these organizations, need for “pay per use” technology solutions has been gaining momentum. In a recent Parks Associates survey (2011), 50% or more of the respondents indicated that they would prefer hosted solutions in one or more of;

• Online security
• Back-up and recovery
• Site hosting, design and management
• Email, hosted exchange and other

The market need is for a portfolio that can not only be branded and managed, but also is affordable to the target small business market. Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and others have several bundles/pricing, but with a large set of options available, small businesses are finding it difficult to make the right choices – although, that may only explain part of the hesitation and low adoption currently seen.

Based on my recent engagements, I believe service providers should;

• Understand the needs of the target market segments, since one size probably will "not" fit all
• Build a simple portfolio of products that does not require an expert to be evaluated
• Minimize the number of integration points from various solution providers
• Include business class customer support as a key component of the bundle

The challenge for the service providers is to understand that there are few small businesses that will buy or, can afford the bundle of services on offer, at least in the current environment. However, pricing a-la-carte for the client may not be ROI positive, given the nature of diversified services as outlined above. It will be interesting to see the business models evolve over the next 1-2 years, where an “a-la-carte bundle” is not encumbered by licensing and integration challenges, as well as, is cost-friendly to service provider and price-friendly to customers at the same time.

Mobile Internet Opportunity

Mobile solution across Wi-Fi networks is a territory that has yet to be explored from the perspectives of consumer experience, usage and revenue potential. There are several challenges that will need to be addressed as the right mobile strategies evolve that cater to the needs of all stakeholders – is there a mobile portal on the horizon? Here’s what we know thus far;

• Consumers are mostly interested in their favorable apps, social sites, weather, local events and deals, for the most part
• Device types are proliferating but also offer consistent pointers to consumer preferences (read iPhone type of smart devices and tablets)
• Advertisers are not sure of relevant pages for high-value ads
• Wi-Fi providers want a piece of the revenue (advertising & search) pie, however small that may be, but they also see mobile Wi-Fi as a marketing and branding channel
• Technology community is faced with creating an experience that caters to all these groups and still be scalable for relevance and locations (zip codes or other)
• And, the winner between downloadable apps and web based applications is yet to be decided

The solution probably lies in simplicity:

• Consumers want access so they can do whatever it is that they do on the web
• Local content and promotions appear to be the most viable long-term revenue drivers
• Branding and in-store coupons present another monetization channel to the service provider(s)

Signing in to mobile Wi-Fi internet during your next restaurant stop or hotel stay should not be that “boring.”

Approaching your portal strategy & design

Portals or business websites are an important element of consumer branding and engagement. Defining a portal largely depends on the business and its “key” goals. And, goals vary widely as we go from business to business. For instance, shopping cart for easy consumer purchase (amazon, eBay, etc.), content promotion (MSN, Yahoo, Aol, etc.), account management (CapitalOne, Verizon, etc.), or brand presence on the internet (corporate sites).

While apparently disparate, these goals have a fair amount of overlap and managers see it as such, which is the primary reason portals tend to be “one size fits all” hodge-podge of “stuff.” In other words, managers often try to cater to their “diverse audience,” instead of focusing on the core products/services that the audience comes to their portal for.

I am purposely staying away from calling out the specific site designs that are prompting me write this article, but I am sure, if you see it you will know!

I believe all portals serve 3 common goals, irrespective of their market focus:

1. Improve brand image – this is letting the consumers feel a sense of pride as and when they connect with your brand. The key to achieving that is to offer the best-in-class product/service, complemented by such features as; intuitive/easy navigation, simple user interface, access to FAQs & customer support, etc.
2. Educate – from bringing most current and relevant content to the audience, or educating about your company’s products and services.
3. Drive sales – make it easy for the consumer to complete the cycle of product research to order (be it online or offline) – don’t forget to complement this with the industry best post sales support.

Note too that the above goals are not mutually exclusive, but need to complement each other, with focus on the key corporate objective.

 These goals are sure to address many of the seemingly divergent goals. But, if done right, we have the opportunity to create a great touch-point for our brand that will bring the consumer back and refer us to their family and friends (http://www.analyticsheaven.com/2010/03/one-metric-to-define-website.html).

The audience is always diverse, but our product or service – by design – addresses a specific need. The more we focus on the need, the better we serve our “diverse audience” through our communication vehicles (such as portal!).