The Wax Blog

23 Feb

Posted at 08:46h in Uncategorized by

Recently, I’ve been using the service Interact as a platform to create and host online quizzes. They offer both graded and outcome/personality type quizzes, and I’ve experimented with them both (see “What Kind of Marketer Are You?” and “Why the Media is Your Customer”). We know...

17 Feb

Posted at 08:52h in Digital Marketing, Sales by

[caption id="attachment_13016" align="alignright" width="300"] The best time to write emails, according to Grammarly, is very early in the morning.[/caption] The best time to write emails is in the morning. Typos can be embarrassing and can confuse the meaning of your emails, blog content and social media posts....

15 Feb

Posted at 08:13h in News by

What kind of marketer are you? Integrated marketing can be approached from many different angles. If you're a public relations person, you'll probably anchor your IMC plan from earned media and content marketing. Digital marketers may start with keywords and landing pages. Knowing your home...

08 Feb

Posted at 12:46h in IMC, Integrated Marketing, Public Relations by
Consider this - if you're in business today, the media is your customer. For communications professionals, the media is often their primary customer. However for everyone, really, the traditional and new media has become at a minimum a key influencer in the buying decision. Earned media is still one of the most powerful tools in an integrated marketing toolkit.  With stories at a premium you’ve got to understand not only your customer’s experience, but the unique aspects of the media’s buying cycle as well. the media is your customerAnyone in business today will have to understand and work with the media at some point. Digital marketers may encounter them on social media. New business owners may want media to write about their launch. Brand managers might choose earned media (or native ads) as a way to create or change a perception. For whatever reasons, the media is your customer. We all know that buying cycles are becoming increasingly self-directed and the media is perhaps furthest along in this transformation. For some reason people think that just spewing press releases and pitches at media will work. It doesn’t anymore. Some media folks get as many as 100 to 200 pitches a day, or more. Of all the personas we work with as integrated marketers, the media is the one that doesn’t need our help finding stories anymore. It’s out there for them to find, from viral videos to social media buzz. And since dealing with “marketers” was never the fun part of the job, it means that we could be left out. To reach the media, I would argue that you have to influence them from one step of their buying journey to the next, just like anyone else. Here are a few things to remember when the media is your customer:
  • Create personas for the media you want to reach. Most of the time, there will be primary influencers within the different types of media. These can be local TV reporters, bloggers in your niche, freelancers, etc. Each one probably curates information differently, and has a set of characteristics and behavior that can help you identify their buying cycle for stories.
  • Learn where they get their information. Content acquisition behavior is the most important aspect of behavior when the media is your customer. What’s great is that can ask them directly about it. Most journalists and bloggers will tell you where they like to curate information – they’re proud of it. Or follow them on social media and see what they post. This will give you some great information.
  • Place your content where they will find it. When you’ve discovered the common curation sites, this part is easy. It’s no different from the morning show producers looking to the New York Times for their stories as they did ten years ago. Just find their favorite places and post your stuff there.
  • Figure out the timing of their curation as well. I’m no media powerhouse but some marketing vendors like to get featured on this blog. A couple of them have figured out that I’m usually in social media (mainly Twitter) quite early in the morning. They often tag me at that time when I’m more likely to see it. Watch your media folks as well and do the same thing.
  • Support their ongoing stories, don’t just try to pitch. Find out how you can help. Maybe you’re an expert on a topic they write about frequently. Maybe they like to have content written they can spin into a unique post.  I guarantee if you become a trusted source on a particular topic, at some point they’ll do some nice things for your brand.
  • Measure the steps, not the stories. Find out the things that your media customers do that indicate progress. We sent out a pitch once for a blog that was written by a client’s CEO. Not a single person responded. But the traffic for that blog was the highest of any blog that year. Nothing else had changed. Identify a few simple measurements beyond direct response and track them.

01 Feb

Posted at 14:41h in IMC by

[caption id="attachment_12984" align="alignright" width="300"] Wax Marketing picks seven of the best marketing conferences in 2017.[/caption] There are about a million reasons why you should attend great marketing conferences in 2017. Everyone needs a place to begin or continue their journey, and a marketing conference is the place to...

16 Jan

Posted at 11:46h in Integrated Marketing, Project Management by
I came out of the technology industry into marketing. One thing that struck me immediately was the lack of planning that goes on in marketing and communications. In software, if we don't plan everything down to the nth degree we’ll be lost. Not so with marketing plans. Some directions are set but the smaller the company, the less planning takes place. Several of my clients (most of them mid-sized) have even admitted they hate marketing plans altogether.  And yet they still scratch their head when marketing fails to deliver what they need.

The point is that people build marketing plans that don’t work.

Over the years I've noticed six reasons why we hate marketing plans. Here some ways to get around those obstacles to create plans that are actionable, organic and will work.
  1. The marketing plans are not actionable. I’ve seen tons of very well-written plans that were the equivalent of being “oblique without being obtrusive.” In other words, they sounded great and didn't mean anything - there was no way to implement anything. For an actionable plan, you need to create tangible strategies and tactics, as well as timelines. Goals must be defined in a measurable sense with action clearly noted to achieve those goals. Action is the key word here.
  2. You’re afraid of setting goals. For many entrepreneurs and mid-sized companies there’s a fear of setting measurable goals. On one hand, people are afraid they may not meet goals and this could look bad for a marketer. On the other, usually the entrepreneur, there is fear that you might set the goal too low and miss some great revenue because your sales team feels they don’t need to do anything more. If you’re not sure, set quarterly goals and adjust as you go, rather than annual goals. Or place some kind of incentive for percentage over goal. You’ll get better at it as you do it.
  3. The marketing plan is written too early. I’m a big fan of writing marketing plans in January. This is because so many deals get put on hold until after the holidays. If you know the base of business from which you’re starting in the new year, you’ll create a much better plan all around. There’s just too much in the air typically in December, or November for that matter, to write a good plan.
  4. Writing the plan is an agony. Marcomm plans for my clients are usually about two pages long. They don’t take long to create because they identify the goals, strategies, tactics and measurements. If you’re still defining your product or your audience, it’s not time to develop a plan. By the way, defining your audience and target customers is an excellent activity to accomplish in the fall.