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During the course of my master’s in marketing program, Six Sigma became somewhat of a scary name. The certification was difficult and time-consuming to obtain. Any mention of Six Sigma gave me flashbacks of sitting at my computer listening to lectures. However, the experience taught me what Six Sigma is actually for and how it can give businesses a huge advantage. Six Sigma is a process improvement method used for enhancing marketing and sales performance. The Greek letter “S” (sigma) is a measure of variation, while is business Six Sigma is a measure of quality. It makes sense then that Six Sigma is utilized for its ability to transform the way many companies currently manufacture their products. Some well-known companies that have benefited from Six Sigma include Bank of America, Xerox, and Dell, just to name a few.

Six Sigma can be applied to marketing and sales teams in a variety of ways. Decisions are made based on the measurement and analysis of results. Activities are then further enhanced so that results can be improved even more. Although this should be the standard way that marketing and sales activities are managed, it usually isn’t, which is why Six Sigma can be so beneficial for this industry.

According to an article by Sales Performance, “Innumerable variables make marketing and selling challenging. For example, some direct mail campaigns generate a 1% return, others generate 1.5%; some salespeople close 20% of their deals, others close 30%. Would you like to know why some mailings get a 50% greater response rate and why some salespeople have a 50% higher close ration?” This is where Six Sigma steps in to pinpoint the root causes of these variations so that marketers can better identify what part of the processes need to be changed.

By focusing on these measurements, Six Sigma can suggest methods for evaluating sales activities and characteristic to determine what is causing variation in a company’s sales and marketing results. Marketers have been doing this for a long time by using things like split testing. Six Sigma allows marketers to take their older analyzation methods and apply them to marketing and sales processes. CMS Wire explains it best, explaining that “When applied to marketing, Six Sigma allows marketers to see problems through the eye of the stakeholders and customers, measure and analyze the results and improve upon the process.”

The bottom line is that most marketing projects can be assisted with a Six Sigma strategy because the process improvement method uses data to determine strategy and execution. Integrating the process into an organization can be a solid business decision, as it presents exclusive opportunities and challenges to transform its conventional role within the organization as it develops to capture the market’s voice and identify valuable processes.

Marketers oftentimes decide who to target by segmenting consumers into groups based on collected data. While creating these clusters, sometimes marketers fall into a trap of enforcing stereotypes, whether they be social, cultural, or based on gender. During these trying times where protests to ban discrimination are rising in many areas of our country, it’s important for marketers to refrain from exposing audiences to uniform messaging, especially if the messages can be deemed prejudice or controversial. This type of messaging can push potential customers into a bubble where they feel they must accept an ideal image that has been painted by marketers and can even sometimes prevent brands from truly understanding their consumer’s preferences.

There is, however, a remedy for this. With the digital era has come a golden opportunity to collect huge amounts of consumer information. Machine learning has significantly helped the marketing industry in this regard by turning all of this data into information that can then be utilized. Machine learning searched for patterns and is able to pick up on the intentions of consumers to make purchases. Additionally, information coming from browser cookies, social media, and previous e-commerce purchases, gathers and “memorizes” these behaviors.

So what does this all have to do with prejudice in marketing? Well, when marketers have the correct information that they need in hand, they can accurately pinpoint customer journeys and adjust what they are offering depending on each customer and also deliver these messages on the appropriate channels and at the right time to entice consumers to purchase.

An article by The Future of Customer Engagement and Experience elaborates further on this, stating that “Looking at a customer as part of a cluster may lead marketers to offer her/him a specific series of products, whereas looking at the individual behavior may lead to very different conclusions. As a beneficial side-effect, this, in turn, helps individuals eliminate the prejudice their specific cluster has locked them in when it comes to product preferences. Is this why, in parallel with the rise of more sophisticated customer profiling techniques, male toiletries has been one the fastest growing subcategories of cosmetics just over the last three years? Or why personal finance apps are flourishing, targeting long-neglected younger customers who want to make the most out of their limited spending capacity?”

Additionally, when it comes to content creation and the creative side of marketing, professionals must try to avoid utilizing stereotypical images. One of the purposes of marketing is to use images in order to elicit associations. This can be a problem when so many images have concealed associations that can spark reactions. Reactions to images and how they are interpreted differ extensively from person to person so sometimes ads can unintentionally propagate negative stereotypes. By putting these images out there, marketers run the risk of perpetuating prejudice and bias. However, by crafting exceptional and authentic images, the marketing industry can change the landscape and significantly decrease discrimination.

As COVID-19 rapidly spreads throughout the world, people were urged to stay inside. Being one of the world’s hardest hitting pandemics since the Spanish Flu, people heeded these warnings. The pandemic swept through businesses and affected some so profoundly by disrupting supply chains that many went out of business in a matter of weeks. Many marketers, however, began using this devastating period as a golden opportunity to push back. The pandemic has paved the way for changes to develop in consumer attitudes and purchasing habits. Many new trends might remain once the pandemic settles, as consumers continue adapting to the “new normal.” For the first time ever, e-commerce has become the only way that brands can maintain open communication with consumers, opening the door for companies to personalize marketing strategies in order to get their messages across to consumers making purchases in the midst of a crisis.

With fear and anxiety at an all-time high, many consumers have turned to panic buying in order to ease their minds. In order to develop personalized strategies, digital marketers have had to quickly learn to observe recent consumer patterns and understand what consumer behavior looks like in the middle of a deadly pandemic. In order to prevent themselves from going under, brands who want to survive must develop approaches to strengthen communication channels with their audience and readjust their omnichannel strategies. The beauty of these strategies lies in how they provide a uniform customer journey and smooth delivery for customers. A company that invests resources in getting this right and developing these omnichannel strategies may be around much longer than those businesses who don’t think outside of the box and depend on temporary solutions for closing in on these communication gaps. An article by Growth Rocket states, “If you think about it, even though current buying behavior defies traditional linear concepts of the customer journey before COVID-19, one thing that will remain constant until after the pandemic is over is the need for personalized experiences.” This couldn’t be further from the truth.

The development of smartphones and social media have given businesses the opportunity to connect with customers in exciting and immediate ways that were never before possible. Additionally, people have turned to technology as a means of communication as a consequence of isolation. These touchpoints have provided many tactical opportunities for brands to truly relate to their customers on a deeper level, understand their most basic needs, and build loyalty. By adopting a rounded approach to omnichannel strategies, brands have been able to push back, and even use the pandemic to their advantage, as in Peloton’s case.

Some basic steps that digital marketers can take in order to enhance omnichannel strategies are as follows:

• Fine-tune the products offered by the company
• Encourage generosity
• Stay optimistic
• Offer opportunities for contact-free payments
• Improve CRM systems

Consumers and businesses alike are dealing with a period of uncertainty. Creating solid strategies that can sustain a smooth assimilation of channels can protect businesses from insecurity and ultimate failure. With these guidelines in place, brands stand a stronger chance at making a comeback, no matter what life throws at us.

 

Marketing and sales are two areas of business that are so closely related, many people don’t realize the difference. After all, they are both directed at increasing revenue. In many smaller businesses, the same team of people oftentimes perform tasks in both of these areas. This makes sense because both these areas of business go hand in hand and need to work together. However, each role requires some specialized responsibilities that makes the two functions very different. There has always been somewhat of a debate as to which of these areas of business is more important, and who should be credited for contributing to the most success for a company. To fully grasp the differences, let’s define what sales and marketing are and how they bounce off of one another.

Sales involves teams who are in charge of selling a service or product. It’s up to sales to sell whatever the company caters to. Sales develops relationships with customers as well as channel partners. They are the ones that jump through hoops to make sure that their customer’s needs are being met. The world of sales is fast paced as salespeople tend to want things done quickly since their success depends on how fast they can work to push and sell something. In other words, the more people they are able to meet, call, message, and ultimately strike up a deal with, the more sales they will make.

Marketing, on the other hand, aims to understand the marketplace through the eyes of the consumer so that they can lead the company in the right direction. An effective marketer understands how to point the business to the customers and channels that the company should target in order to make a profit. With this information in hand, businesses can adapt their prices and messaging in order to be successful. Marketers focus on establishing connections with consumers and developing leads. Marketing departments point the sales departments in the right direction so that they know where to invest their efforts. However, unlike sales, marketing efforts cannot be rushed. An article posted on Medium by blogger Odolena Kostova on marketing and sales and which is more important, states that “Short-term oriented marketing campaigns are not likely to be that successful. Tell a marketer you need 100% more leads this weekend, they cannot help you. For a great marketing campaign, you need patience.”

So how do the two come together? As an article by Chief Outsiders best puts it, “Not even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes, and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for sales and marketing, but also for your entire organization.” This is a perfect example of “you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” Sales cannot adequately function without marketing and vice-versa.

This leads us to the final question. In the world of business, does marketing take a back seat to sales, or is it the other way around? The answer is neither. You can’t successfully run a business without a sales team dedicating themselves to pushing your products or services to consumers and sales can’t push those products or services without having a clear strategy as to where to focus their efforts. It’s a business battle that truly ends in a tie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIeFFSI4aWw&feature=youtu.be

Hi everyone! Aliciamarie here. I had a chance to sit down and speak with a Product Marketing Manager and ask her some questions about the industry. If this is a career you’re considering, you might want to watch to find out more!

Technology has had a major influence on how we sell and an even bigger influence on how we purchase. With the evolution of the internet and everything digital, retailers have switched over from selling products out of conventional brick-and-mortar stores and have begun selling virtually, or via a mix of physical and virtual stores. However, this has paved the way for various supply chain problems since businesses must now find a way to accommodate two separate markets. Retail stores sell the products they currently have in stock while some (not all) online businesses depend on third-party vendors to fulfill and send out these orders. The difference between the way the two sell products is that online retailers ship out various same day orders placed by customers while retail stores sell products to customers that they physically have in stock.

The role that omnichannel supply chain strategies play in the customer shopping experience is crucial. According to an article by Veridian, “A survey of the most important parts of a shopping experience found customers’ expectations are more than meets the eye. Up to 62 percent want to purchase online and have the option of returning it in-store, and 47 percent want promotions and coupons available through their smartphone. Approximately 44 percent want to buy online and have the option of picking it up in the store. This means omnichannel supply chain success is key to at least 62 percent of shopping experiences.”  Knowing this, how can marketers put omnichannel supply chain strategies into place to improve customer service? Omnichannel strategies allow businesses to create better customer experiences and offer the following benefits:

• The power to shop on any channel and pick up the product at a brick-and-mortar store, or the ability to have products delivered. Giving customers various shopping options help to create a positive customer experience and make for an efficient omnichannel supply chain strategy.
• Retailers can really focus on and cater to customers visiting retail locations. Omnichannel strategies allow customers to purchase online, reducing in-store traffic and allowing store employees to really focus their attention on the needs of the customers physically visiting the store, which in turn makes for a better customer experience.
• Omnichannel supply chain strategies function smoothly when all supply chain partners function quickly and efficiently. When this happens, prices are able to decrease, allowing customers to save money and purchase more!

The Amazon Effect has created a need for businesses to enhance their customer service. Rather than letting Amazon take over, supply chains can use omnichannel strategies to improve customer service and ensure that they always stay on top!

A good customer experience has become essential in order for a business to skyrocket to the very top in its class. It requires putting buyers and their needs first. Omnichannel marketing allows marketers to do just that and cater to customers with the care they expect. What’s special about this form of marketing is how it utilizes both online and offline channels to offer a unified experience for all customers.

Omnichannel marketing involves guiding customers from the very beginning of their customer journey through the very end and therefore tends to be very consumer centric. An article by Podium states that “Companies are no longer sending out messages that are only driven by what they want to say. Instead, they’re creating a comprehensive user experience by considering what shoppers want to hear, where they’re going to learn about a product, and what device they’re using.” The benefit of using this kind of omnichannel strategy is that a company can enhance their fundamental message for every touchpoint, which is what will ultimately get audiences to have an interest in what a company has to say.

You may be wondering how omnichannel marketing relates to new age customers. The omnichannel experience doesn’t just recognize that consumers are utilizing different channels in order to make purchases, but they are using multiple devices to do so. Gone are the traditional marketing days. Omnichannel marketing uses smartphones, laptops, and tablets to reach target audiences. In fact, consumers have changed so much that they will sometimes even use a variety of these options at once. For example, a customer may visit a brick and mortar store and then turn to their smartphone so pull up an item. If this doesn’t scream “new age marketing,” I don’t know what does.

An article by Adage on millennials and omnichannel marketing states that the best place to start is actually with millennials. The article goes on to mention that “No consumer segment commands more attention than millennials, who comprise 75 million U.S. customers with close to $600 billion in spending power. Despite cries announcing the end of traditional retail, millennials spend. A greater share of wallet at department stores than the U.S. population overall; 50 percent of the demographic prefer brick-and-mortar shopping over e-commerce; and 56 percent shop in-store at least once a week. But they are not just walking into the store blind. They’re actually visiting retail locations as part of a truly multichannel shopping experience: 67 percent of millennials buy on-store after doing online research first.”

Part of the reason that omnichannel marketing is so well suited to modern consumers is because it gives the customer the control in finding the answers they are searching for when they need them, and in the way that they feel most comfortable with. Consumers aren’t interested in having advertisements shoved into their faces anymore, which is the beauty of omnichannel marketing. It helps business grow out of old and traditional marketing strategies and take on new ones better suited to today’s market.

It’s vital for marketers to devise omnichannel marketing strategies that will best connect with customers while they move through touchpoints. The combination of retail channels is really a business’s key to success and will ultimately give them a competitive advantage over others and while omnichannel marketing strategies are not always easy to execute, the rewards are well worth the challenge.

Goal setting and strategy are two very different ideas that are often confused with one another, especially when used in the context of marketing. It is essential for marketers to understand the difference between the two. In order for a business to function smoothly, it must have a plan that works. Both strategy and goal setting are important parts of a business strategy, and although both terms are used interchangeably, there is a fine line between them as they both do separate things for the business. Let’s explore what makes them different.

In order to develop a strong business strategy, goals must be clearly defined. Without having defined goals and methods of supporting those goals, it becomes difficult to measure progress and adjust strategic plans accordingly. A goal is essentially the means of deciding what should be accomplished and doing whatever necessary to achieve it. An article by ItsGuru explains this idea best by stating that, “Goal setting emphasizes that goal setting is a three-part process. For better goal setting you have to do more than just set the goals. You have to try everything to accomplish it which means you have to set plans to make it happen. Make it clear in your mind the personal goals that you define as a new year resolution and business goals have a different purpose, but they share a similar goal setting process.” Goals are necessary to provide businesses with an organized structure so that they can march on in the right direction towards becoming successful. This is why goal setting is important. Once a goal has been determined and set, businesses and marketers alike become driven to accomplish those goals.

On the other hand, we have strategies. Business strategies are important for determining what a business must do to reach goals and objectives. An article by Thought Leadership Leverage states that “Strategy is an exercise in problem solving. While the problem may be as varied as the development of your platform, the launching of your book, the way you will gain market share of the way you will differentiated yourself and your content in the market place, these are all problems that a well thought out strategy is focused on solving. Goals that support the strategy are critical, but goals do not solve problems. Goals are a measure of progress. Goals support the strategy.” In other words, a strategy should have a list of specific goals that must be created in order to best assess the progress. A successful strategy has clear priorities and focuses energy on reaching goals.

Regardless of business size, goal setting and strategies are two important pieces of the puzzle that when set up correctly, can help a business grow exponentially. Both are different but equally important elements that are critical to a business’s success. Once a goal is developed and strategically planned, it’s time to achieve it!

Have you ever canceled a subscription to anything? Maybe you decided you wanted to switch gyms and so you cancelled your subscription to LA Fitness in order to join Orangetheory. Maybe grad school was keeping you too busy and you decided it was best to cancel your Netflix subscription. If you have, you contributed to that company’s customer churn rate. Customer churn rate is the percentage of your customer or subscribers who cancel or don’t renew their subscriptions during a certain time period.

This matters in marketing because it’s a very important metric for businesses who have customers paying for a product or service regularly. It doesn’t matter what a company’s revenue is. If their usual customers don’t pay for subscriptions long enough for the company to at least recover their customer acquisition cost, it may spell out trouble.

So how do we figure out a company’s churn rate? Well it involves a bit of math, but luckily, it’s pretty simple using the customer churn rate formula. An article by Hubspot gives the best explanation: “To calculate customer churn rate, designate a time period and tally up the total number of customers you’ve acquired and the number of customers who churned during that time period. Then, divide the number of customers who churned by the total number of customers acquired, and multiply that decimal by 100% to calculate your churn rate.”

Customers churn for different reasons, including bad customer service, bad on-boarding, lack of ongoing customer success, and more natural causes like outgrowing a product or service. Churn is ultimately bad, but inevitable. Cobloom mentions that “It’s important to track and improve your churn rates over time. 5 – 7% annual churn is a great benchmark to aim for – if you’re an established, mature SaaS company, primarily targeting the enterprise. If you’re earlier-stage, or targeting SMBs, expect churn to be closer to 5% per month.”

By reducing the churn rate amongst loyal customers, businesses will bring in higher revenue. This is because churn is directly associated with revenue. Some things companies can do to help reduce churn rates are to make great first impressions, exceed customer expectations, provide great customer service, listen intently to what customers have to say, and to figure out why customers cancel and try to fix it. It’s up to each company to find out where their holes are and patch them.

Worldview involves our beliefs as human beings about the nature of reality and the word. Think of it as a mental model of reality—a comprehensive framework of ideas and attitudes about the world, ourselves, and life. It’s mostly formed by things like our upbringing and background. It involves parts of our personality and our emotional connection to our environments and the people living in it. Perception is about how our brains interpret our sensory inputs and focuses on what we add to or take away from these sensations as we assign meaning to them. In other words, our perceptions of the world in turn affect our worldview. You may be wondering how all of this relates to marketing. A lot more than you may think. Well when it comes to business, perception is reality. According to an article by Compukol, if a perception has been created, whether it is actually true at the core, it is perceived as true and; therefore, everyone believes it to be what they perceive.

Let’s break down how this all related to marketing. A consumer’s underlying worldviews are important for marketing because they may provide deeper-level explanations for the purchasing decisions they make. Similarly, these worldviews and perceptions may influence the way marketers put together campaigns. Our worldviews determine what we think is possible, and what we think is possible will in turn influence the results we create or allow in life. It is important for marketers to understand perception and its related concepts in order to decide what factors will influence consumers to make purchase decisions. This is why businesses invest so much money in marketing and honing their customer service. They need to do whatever they can in order to favorably influence how target consumers perceive the brand.

Consumers synthesize the information they have about a company so that they can make a decision about whether a company offers any value to then. Consumer perception is an approximation of reality, and businesses try to influence these perceptions of reality. For example, a company may market themselves as a business that offers quality and convenient services so that consumers may perceive the brand as valuable, in turn generating more sales. It is no longer enough for a brand to be recognized. Consumers want to feel good about a brand and company and do businesses with corporations they can relate to with positive worldviews. According to an article by Duct Tape Marketing on how worldviews affect content, your unique worldview is the basis of one of the most important ingredients you can add to a successful marketing strategy: your unique voice.

Success requires differentiation, especially when it comes to business and marketing where there is so much competition. Marketers have to go all in, or not at all. Our unique worldviews and perceptions, when used as an advantage, can help us get there and market successfully.