The BV Blog

We’ve talked before about how to grow your business by selling more to your existing customers. And during these economically challenging times, it seems like that advice is more important than ever, according to the top marketing mind at the nation’s biggest electronics retailer. From a marketingprofs.com interview with Barry Judge, Chief Marketing Officer at Best Buy:

Identify and focus [your marketing] investment on your highest-value customers. These customers are your most identifiable and reliable source of revenue and profit across your business; and because they are enthusiasts for your products or services, they will be most likely to continue spending in your categories during a down economy.

Smart businesses know they can’t afford to slash their marketing efforts just because sales are down. Smarter ones will go one step further and put their marketing dollars into efforts to expand their base by growing their sales to customers who are already sold on them.

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Marcia Yudkin is one of my favorite voices in the world of marketing and copywriting. In her Nov. 12th, 2008 newsletter she writes about turning what may be perceived as a negative aspect of a product or service into a positive selling point.

An ad in Writer’s Digest magazine shows a scene in the woods, with a Marlboro Man type wearing a fringed buckskin jacket, cowboy hat and jeans. His attention is on some sort of device propped on a stump in front of him.

The device is a $219 portable word processor that has been on the market since 1993. I remember considering it ages ago, then rejecting it because of everything it couldn’t do.

Take a look at the marketing copy accompanying this outdoor scene, though:

“No matter where you find yourself, this ruggedly portable, full-size writing tool instantly connects you with your thoughts - and nothing else. No email interruptions. No web-surfing distractions. No game diversions. Just non-stop writing capability: up to 700 hours worth on 3 AA batteries.”

The ad’s one-word headline sums up the product’s weakness creatively transformed into a virtue: “Focus.”

Brilliant!

List the weaknesses of your product or service, squelch the urge to apologize, and instead, conjure up a world in which the shortcomings help rather than hinder.

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The following piece is by Kenneth Hein. It’s called “Study: Brands Sold on Shopper Marketing Programs” and it appeared in the September 22, 2008 online issue of BrandWeek.

In-store marketing tactics have not only become actively embraced by marketers of consumer packaged goods, many rank it as one of their most effective tools, per a study released September 22. Deloitte and the Grocery Manufacturers Association polled more than 100 companies for the “Delivering the Promise of Shopper Marketing: Mastering Execution for Competitive” report.

Companies no longer look at shopper marketing as an also-ran idea. In fact, 60% of the manufacturers and retailers polled said they have “significant” shopper marketing organizations. This was up from only 6% last year.

Respondents expect to continue to enhance their shopper marketing budgets for at least the next three years. Why? “Retailers and manufacturers who are embracing shopper marketing and executing against a core set of principles are growing 50% faster than the categories in which they participate,” said Rob Holston, Deloitte’s shopper marketing practice leader. “This speaks to the promise shopper marketing holds for those who do it well.”

Nineteen percent of consumer packaged goods manufacturers and half of retailers rank shopper marketing as the most effective activity for generating strong return-on-investment. Overall, 75% of manufacturers and 86% of retailers studied ranked in-store marketing among the top four activities in terms of gaining strong ROI.

Still, only 5-10% of companies are considered advanced at the tactic. One of the main impediments for accelerating the practice is the cost of data collection and analysis, according to 70% of respondents.

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