Management Blog

Directors are still keen on marketing

Australian company directors are planning to increase marketing budgets in the near future despite sluggish economic conditions, Marketing Magazine reports.

Of the company directors surveyed, 94 per cent said they had no intention of slashing their marketing budgets, while 49 per cent said they planned to increase spending in the area.

Nearly 30 per cent of respondents said that increasing their marketing spend was necessary to maintain an awareness of their company's brand.

In addition, 14 per cent said a budget increase was a tactic that would keep them ahead of any competitors who had decided to reduce their marketing output in response to the slowing economy.

Do Not Call Register a big hit

The Federal Government's Do Not Call Register has been such a success that telemarketers soon won't have any householders left to call, Smart Company reports.

Figures indicate that 2.4 million telephone numbers have signed up for the Do Not Call Register since the service came into being in May last year.

However, the telemarketing industry is taking a positive view of the development with Rob Edwards, of the Australian Direct Marketing Association, saying he expected higher registration numbers.   

The Association says that if No Do Call Register figures continue to grow telemarketers will instead begin going door to door in a bid to engage in a personalised dialogue with consumers.

Mobile spam on the rise

Just when you thought spam couldn't get any more annoying, reports from the US show an increasing amount of junk mail is migrating to mobile phones.

According to The International Herald Tribune, telco executives and consumer groups are seriously concerned about the amount of unwanted text messages being sent to mobiles.

It's claimed mobile phone spam has the potential to be more problematic than email spam, as it is more invasive and can seriously affect productivity.

Just how big is the problem? Commentators say US consumers will receive 1.5 billion unsolicited text messages this year, a figure that's nearly double the amount received in 2006.

Getting SOE right

Many SMEs believe the internet can help their business to grow but are not devoting enough time and effort into marketing their site, according to a recent Daily Telegraph article.

Search engine optimisation (SOE) expert Jasmine Batra says there are a range of measures SMEs can take to compete with larger competitors in the online domain.

Batra's first tip is to check your site's key words. It's suggested SME operators put themselves in the shoes of their consumers to find the most relevant search terms.

Another way to increase visits is to constantly check web statistics via Google Analytics to see where visitors come from and how they navigate around your site.

Dodging marketing's silver bullet

SMEs need to beware of 'silver bullet' marketing warn Tony Gattari and Shaun Mooney in their new book Marketing Success.

It's claimed 'silver bullet' marketing occurs when advertising or graphic design agencies develop glossy and expensive campaigns without any means of measuring success.

Apparently many SME fall into the trap because they simply don't understand marketing, which the authors point out is not simply ads, a website, brochures or brand recall.

Gattari and Mooney say the key to successful marketing is to measure every activity with brutal efficiency; consistency also matters – don't just consider marketing when sales are down.

Web ads fail older surfers

Online ads are failing to hit the mark for older web users, according to a survey of 13,000 internet users.

The Burst Media study found only 19 per cent of people aged 55 and over felt online content was appropriate to their needs in terms of information, advertising and web site design.

In comparison, 76 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 and 74 per cent of survey respondents aged between 35 and 44 believed online content was satisfactorily directed at them.

Burst says the findings indicate advertisers are ignoring the needs of older web users and, in effect, missing out on capturing a largely untapped demographic.

Making word of mouth work

Three months is all it takes to see results from a sustained word of mouth campaign, according to Australian Anthill blogger Ben Angel. To kick-start your WOM strategy, the following tips are offered: 

Be a 'go to' person - establish yourself as an expert in your industry by identifying and talking about a specialist area

Talk it up - offer your services as an expert speaker at industry events and networking groups   

Mix it up - spread your expert message using various media such as email marketing, websites, competitions, trade shows

Go hard - speak in public as often as you can and send out as much content as possible during your three month WOM campaign

Who's who in social networking

To help marketers understand the quickly evolving world of social networking, UK firm The Future Laboratory has identified six user categories, B&T reports.

In summary, these are:

Essentialists - use social networking predominantly to stay in touch with friends and family (the largest group)

Netrepreneurs - enterprising individuals who use social networking to bolster their incomes

Connectors - people who use Facebook or MySpace primarily to pass on interesting links to others in their network

Transumers - users who consume online content rather than create the content themselves

Collaborators - people who work in groups to create events, ideas and activities

Scene breakers - use social networking to find new and emerging social scenes

A brand new colour?

If your logo contains four different colours, you may be sending out four different messages to your audience, Entrepreneur claims in a recent article on the relationship between colour and brand recall.

To impart a clear brand message it is better to use just one or two colours, the article suggests. In addition, you might like to consider the following tips before signing off on your new colour.

1. Market appeal - Select a colour that reflects the demographics of your audience

2. Stand out - To avoid audience confusion, don't adopt the same colours used by your competitors

3. New meaning - Think about the meaning or message a colour conveys

4. Time travel - Trendy colours, e.g. fluorescent pink, generally don't stand the test of time

5. Online optimism - Think about online uses; some colours reproduce better than others on screen

New ad laws on the horizon

The Rudd Government is proposing new laws in a bid to crackdown on misleading advertisements, ABC reports.

The legislation would force companies to mention the total price of a product; for example, airlines would be required to advertise the full price of an airfare, including tax and charges.

'Component pricing' - when a product is advertised without surcharges included in the price - may be banned, a move that would see car dealers force to mention on-road costs in their ads.