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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Marketing In A Recession - Strategy Series

Friederichsen, Whittemore, PerronWork continues feverishly on Marketing In A Recession 101, the Surfaces 2010 unlike-any-other, must-attend 3 hour workshop that the three brilliant marketers pictured here are presenting!

When last you heard from us in Connecting With Retail Consumers -- the first in our Marketing Strategy Series leading up to our 3 hour workshop at Surfaces 2010 -- Scott Perron from Big Bob's of America, Paul Friederichsen from BrandBiz, Inc. and I had just kicked off our first working session.

On Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 we got together in Atlanta for our second face-to-face meeting... It was intense!

Not only do we have a session title - Marketing In A Recession 101 - but also a description:
This packed 3-Part, 3-hour workshop takes the dealer through today’s real issues and offers real solutions for making marketing efforts and dollars work harder in today’s economy. Part One: Branding Basics – foundational to everything – from identity to positioning in the marketplace. Part Two: Advertising and Promotion – Sure fire strategies and tactics that you should know about and use. Part Three: Social Media – the hottest way to communicate and bond with your customers. Don’t miss this if you want to seize the opportunity to build your business in times like these.
The first few hours of this last working session focused on identifying goals for the workshop and then exploring the big ideas currently affecting consumers and retailers.

In terms of goals:

1. Simplify the complexity often associated with developing and implementing a marketing strategy.

2. Translate the concepts and framework into actionable and real life solutions by showing how a specific [yes, composite] retailer would apply and benefit from our suggestions.
Marketing Strategy in action
In terms of big ideas currently affecting the consumer marketplace that retailers need to pay attention to:

1. Retailers must focus on the customer

2. Consumers yearn for simplicity [eliminate confusion and Paradox of Choice]

3. To deliver a memorable retail and brand experience, consistency of effort matters: need to prioritize, delegate and make everyone accountable.

4. It's important to keep track of information

5. Don't forget about taking advantage of existing assets

6. Be female-friendly

7. Consumer shopping habits have changed radically: consumers start at an Internet search window which means that the Internet and digital visibility [especially with Google] matter; they are shopping more stores to obtain the best value. They trust others before they trust you.

Dave Foster, TalkFloorFor the second part of our afternoon, Dave Foster from TalkFloor joined us for an interview about the Surfaces Workshop.

The result: a five part TalkFloor TV series titled Whittemore, Friederichsen & Perron Preview Surfaces Workshop “Marketing in a Recession 101,” each approximately 10 minutes long.

In Part 1 he asked about our fictitious retailer, named Bob, a composite created from what many retailers are going through right now. We described the roles we would each play.

In Part 2, we focused on the opportunities available to retailers even in this environment. During the seminar, we plan on bringing fresh ideas and thinking to old problems, helping retailers get back to fundamentals and make better use of the new tools available. It's all about customers and relationship building. PS: Paul let out that there's a happy ending to our story!

In Part 3, Dave asked how to determine where to spend marketing dollars and what role online plays. Our response: think about the customer. What is it that she is trying to do? How do you help her? What is it that your brand represents, how do you integrate all of the elements of your strategy and how to you establish a relationship?

Our wisdom from Part 4: identify who your customer is and market to that customer. You cannot successfully be everything to everyone. We discuss the competition and urge retailers to engage with customers.

Finally, in Part 5, we encourage viewers to take advantage of the data already available on customers to create better marketing strategy and tactics.

Thank you, Dave!

Scott, Paul and I are next scheduled for a teleconference in September to walk through the first draft of our presentation.

I hope you plan on joining us at Surfaces 2010. The workshop - called Marketing In A Recession 101 - takes place Monday, February 1, 2010 from 9am to noon. Registration will start soon.

In the meantime, does this post trigger any other ideas?

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