Norton Warner
Recession Strategy
11/05/2009 09:55 AM
Maintaining or increasing the advertising budget in a recessionary economy is essential to the long-term health of any enterprise. During an economic downturn or recession, most advertisers cut their budgets drastically. The two reasons heard most often are:
"People do not have the money, so our advertising would be wasted."
Nariman K Dhalla, in an article titled "Advertising as an Antirecession Tool" published in the Harvard Business Review, said, "Rather than wait for business to return to normal, top executives should cash in on the opportunity that the rival companies are creating for them. The company courageous enough to stay in and fight when everyone else is playing safe can bring about a dramatic change in market position."
Malcolm Moses, of Malcolm Moses & Associates of Boston, wrote in Boardroom Reports in the article "Recession Wisdom for Marketers,""Get more leverage from the advertising budget. Don't drastically reduce it. Companies that keep an advertising presence emerge from recession faster and stronger."
Norton is the author and creator of Marketing Firepower. Five decades helping businesses develop strategies, create campaigns, identify and target the most profitable customer and proper budgeting advice have all contributed to the Marketing Firepower information. Norton created Marketing Firepower to make his experience and success strategies available to businesses around the world.
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All-the-Time Advertising
09/02/2009 10:13 AM
Customer dissatisfaction induces a search for a new supplier of a product or service. Consumers who move into your community need new product and service providers. Condition changes also create new customer needs and wants. Since all these factors- customer dissatisfaction, change of residence, and condition changes-can arise any hour of the day, any day of the week, any week of the year, two strategies are necessary to increase your market share by attracting new customers, and a third strategy can also be productive.
1. Create awareness, understanding, and trust or preference before the customer need or want arises.
If you have reached prospective customers hundreds of times with your message, you have an excellent chance of moving them through the advertising communication process before the need to purchase arises. Either your name is on their shopping list or you have developed a consumer franchise in their minds.
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Testing Your Own Marketing Bridge
07/28/2009 01:06 PM
Advertisers sometimes buy advertising with the idea of testing the ad medium. There is nothing wrong with testing. A successful enterprise continually evaluates expenditures. Remember, however, that advertising may test your marketing bridge more than it does the medium.
Former president of Procter & Gamble, Howard J. Morgens once pointed out, "No amount of advertising can force people to buy things they do not want. Advertising cannot sell a poor product. It might induce people to try it once, but it cannot build an enduring business on such a product." Nor can advertising build an enduring business with a poor or ineffective marketing bridge.
There's an old story about a dog food company that developed a new product. Extensive marketing, distribution, and advertising supported the new dog food's introduction, but sales were poor nevertheless. The management brought the entire organization together to ferret out what the company was doing wrong in advertising and promotion. The answer emerged at a large group session when an elderly woman stood up and said, "I gave some to my dog and he don't like the damn stuff."
Naive advertisers are looking for that magic ad campaign, that enchanted medium, that inspired idea that will bring hordes of customers to their doors without any additional effort on the advertisers' part. Successful entrepreneurs must of course take risks, venture into the unknown, try new things, and take creative and innovative approaches. Sometimes, however, such an adventurous spirit leads businesses to try a medium and "see if it works." Advertisers say, "Let's give it a try" or "Let's give your medium a shot," as if they're offering the medium a brief trial period in which to show its stuff. Such advertisers usually jump from medium to medium, which undermines the frequency of impression that is essential for effective advertising.
Norton is the author and creator of Marketing Firepower. Five decades helping businesses develop strategies, create campaigns, identify and target the most profitable customer and proper budgeting advice have all contributed to the Marketing Firepower information. Norton created Marketing Firepower to make his experience and success strategies available to businesses around the world.
Vision, Leadership and Winning Strategy
06/30/2009 03:36 PM
A practical, dynamic, creative entrepreneurial vision is rare. Vision begets innovation and is a prerequisite to leadership. If you have a precise vision for your business, it can be your greatest competitive advantage.
Your competitors who have no vision will find themselves chasing yours. Running after your vision, your imagination, your innovations and your leadership, they will forever be in your dust, months, maybe years, behind you. They may imitate what they see as your success strategy, not because it is right for them, but because they're trying to catch and then overtake you. However, no one can copy your heartfelt commitment to serve your customers.
No one can occupy your mind, duplicate your thinking processes or experience your desire to win. No competitor can usurp your goal of customer satisfaction. Your competitor cannot be you. You are the competitive advantage. Only from your vision as the leader of your enterprise can a winning strategy emerge.
Author and corporate consultant Peter Drucker claims that business, "because its purpose is to create customers," has only two functions: "marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results. All the rest are costs."
The first function, marketing, was the subject of Chapter II, "The Battlefield" from my book, David Can Still Beat Goliath. The second, innovation, is the key to your strategy. Be innovative in ways that set you apart from your competition. Use innovation to establish a proprietary enterprise. If yours is perceived as a commodity enterprise, you could be fighting Goliath with an empty slingshot.
To create a winning strategy, you must learn everything you can about your competition, your own enterprise, and your most profitable customer. In marketing and advertising, the proper analysis of this knowledge is a source of power.
Norton is the author and creator of Marketing Firepower. Five decades helping businesses develop strategies, create campaigns, identify and target the most profitable customer and proper budgeting advice have all contributed to the Marketing Firepower information. Norton created Marketing Firepower to make his experience and success strategies available to businesses around the world.
First the Goal, Then the Means
06/01/2009 09:37 PM
Your strategy begins with a goal. Corporate consultant Peter Drucker claims that “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” Your goals predict the future of your enterprise. When you establish goals and commit yourself to them, you become a slave to the master you have created. Read More...
Norton's Notes: Advertising: Investment or Expense?
05/01/2009 04:15 PM
If a prospective customer enters your business and is greeted like royalty and made to feel important, and if she leaves having been treated as she feels she deserves, you are on your way to creating a lifelong customer and a positive center of influence. Clearly, the advertising that brought her to you was an investment.
If, on the other hand, she was attracted by your advertising but is met with... Read More...