Relishio

By Garrett36 Pierson36

 Savvy advertising and marketing professionals who make their living by specializing in developing advertising campaigns and then offering marketing management know of the many non-productive pitfalls, gotchas and mistakes a business can make when trying to manage a campaign using in-house personnel.

These businesses may have had an unpleasant experience with a marketing or creative agency who either did not do what they promised, or charged for things like sent faxes, running up an already high invoice . As a reflex action to this experience, these businesses may try to bring the management of their advertising campaign “in-house” by utilizing middle managers and administrative staff to handle design and implementation. With staff already stretched due to budget cuts, creativity suffers when corners are cut, and soon the company’s brand falls of the radar screens of their customers.

Here are 10 mistakes businesses can make when trying to manage their ad campaigns in-house, along with tips on how a professional marketing management agency can help solve these issues:

1. Not seeing the “big picture”: When a business tries to craft their campaign without the aid of professionals, they frequently fail to look at all elements of the campaign, instead focusing on the false expectations of instant gratification. A professional marketing management agency will put together a comprehensive campaign using all available media, and will plan your next 12 - 18 months of marketing spending.

2. Avoid printing pre-press overcharges: When a business tries to use in-house or inexperienced graphic designers for their collateral sales materials, these jobs often are not prepared for the printing press properly. When these ill-prepared files get to the print shop, extra “pre-press” charges can be added to fix the mistakes. One printer we contacted said as many as 75% of files they received needed extensive work to print properly, which added greatly to the final bill. By utilizing a professional marketing management company, these expenses are eliminated and overall, your printing costs can be reduced significantly.

3. Everybody thinks they are a photographer: Companies often try to reduce costs by doing ad photography themselves. But while this is a cheap alternative to hiring a professional photographer, the final images usually are not ready for high resolution use in any media. A marketing management agency can show you why hiring a professional to shoot your photos makes sense for maintaining the highest quality in your imagery which in turn further polishes your brand.

4. “Desktop Publishing” is NOT real graphic design: The single biggest mistake companies make is having office personnel use commonly available word processing software to design sales materials or display ads. These jobs will look of poor quality and diminish your brand. Spend the money to use the professional designers at a marketing management agency to keep your image sharp.

5. Avoid spending on ineffective display ads: Without a trained marketing management professional working with you, it is easy to spend lavishly to put your homegrown ad in all the wrong places. An agency will sort out the available media buys and recommend only the ones with the best chance of success, which optimizes your ad budget greatly.

6. The “shotgun approach” is never a good value: Some companies who try to manage their own advertising plans will spend far too much targeting the wrong prospects. Use the right marketing management professional to research your market and determine precisely who to target, which will stretch your ad dollar farther.

7. Social media can be a “time suck”: You know people who have become addicted to social media sites, spending many hours online throughout the day. They try to put together a cohesive message, but usually fail miserably. A marketing manager from a professional agency can recommend a social media strategy that presents the same message as the other elements of your campaign.

8. Trust me, you are not a website coder: If you are trying to design and maintain your website in-house, it is costing you more in wasted time than if you had just hired a professional in the first place. By using the services of a marketing professional, your site will convey the same message as everything else you put out there. And if you add in the wasted time of trying to conquer the giant that is search engine optimization, you will spin into a money-losing downward spiral without seeing the results you sought. Again, leave this to the pros, it is money well spent. But always use the same person to create the site optimize it for search engine rankings.

9. Spending too little on your campaign: Top advertising researchers have concluded it takes seven impressions if your brand into the mind of a buyer before they contact you to buy. Seven. Anything less, and you could be wasting advertising money. While it will cost more up front to launch a campaign that uses enough different media and strategies to produce these seven impressions, a marketing management agency will produce this kind of effective approach that will send your sales numbers in the desired direction.

10. Using cheap online or offshore labor: Beware of the temptation to save money by using people off popular internet classified ad sites, as many of these might be amateurs without a legitimate resume posing as so-called professionals. If you do search online for graphic design and/or advertising people, make sure they have a business license and will gladly offer up verifiable references that you can contact. And if you choose to use the dirt-cheap labor found overseas, remember that they may not understand your U.S. market or will suffer language and grammar difficulties. All of these risks go away when you just spend the money to hire real marketing management professionals.

Author Dan Pimentel owns a marketing management agency in Oregon that specializes in campaign development for all businesses and has been in the advertising/printing trades since 1974. He posts frequently his blog.

Retail Secrets To Eclipse Your Competition

By Ron Pawlowski

 Recently I spoke about competitive surveys. Theyre a great exercise that your staff can carry out out in the field to see how you stack up against those you battle with for market share.

Once youve got your competitive surveys, what do you do next? You can take the information and compare your strengths and weaknesses to the competition. Strategically, you should address your weaknesses but more important than that, develop and strengthen your competitive edge. In other words, what do you offer that your competition doesnt? Consider these situations when you develop your competitive edge:

Your competition may be in a better location than you, but you offer better shopping hours.

Their store is newer than yours but you offer better selection.

They advertise more than you do, but your store is better staffed.

They offer a lot of the same merchandise as you have, but your pricing is a better value statement.

Get the idea? If you take inventory of your store against the competitive survey, you can develop A COMPETITIVE EDGE to close more sales. Here are some other factors that may help you build your competitive edge:

1. More locations and more buying power mean better pricing.

2. More liberal refund policies enable customers to buy with confidence.

3. Faster special order systems get products to the customer in days and not weeks.

4. Wide size selection or overall store selection.

5. More knowledgeable staff.

6. Private label brands.

7. Better customer staffing and service.

8. Better store design, ambiance and signage.

9. More convenient shopping with easy to navigate merchandise plans.

10. Special events and training seminars that help educate customers.

You can likely generate a dozen or more advantages for your store(s) through a team brainstorming session.

After youve developed YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE, make a poster with all of them documented and share it with everyone in the store or chain.

If everyone on the floor understands what makes you better than your competition, they can now use these factors as closing tools. Better selection creates better customer choices and higher buyer confidence. Special events build superior relationships with customers and loyalty. Multiple locations enable you to find specific items in other stores and transfer them in to your store for your customers convenience.

All of these components of YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE helps your team close sales and build loyalty!

TAKE ACTION TODAY:

Complete your competitive surveys.

Determine what factors are superior in your store compared to the competition. What is better about your store and what do you do better?

Connect your COMPETITIVE EDGE with actions on the sales floor that will close customers.

Train and share YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE with all your staff and help staff use the COMPETITIVE EDGE to close sales.

Learn More About The Retail Competitive Edge

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