Marketing spend that drives value

Carpedia Consulting (Pty) Ltd – www.carpedia.co.za – Marketing spend that drives value

Marketing spend that drives

value

Werner Hess

Marketing is

often thought of

as a creative

rather than a

scientific

endeavour. -We

think differently-

Marketing is a

science and

campaign

selection and

execution is all

about spending

the right money,

for the right

reasons in the

right places


Introduction Newcomers to the sales environment may perceive the sales We recently had the privilege in working with a very successful FMCG company. Our brief was to ensure marketing spend optimisation. The brief included campaign selection, messaging and deployment. This particular campaign focused on the bottom end of the market and specifically Living Standards Measures - levels 1-5. The lower end of the market posed some specific challenges in terms of placement and messaging. The company had done extensive market research to define their actual consumer profiles for the product group and had a significant data base available on specific consumer segments. They also asked us to review and critique the campaign plans and to give them an untainted no holds barred feedback on all aspects of the campaign. Interestingly, the CEO of the company led this initiative and his objective wasn’t to prove marketing wrong, or to decry the work that they had done in the past, but simply to review and understand whether the marketing spend was carefully aligned with brand and sales objectives. In fact, marketing welcomed the initiative as they felt that a constructive critique of their thought processes and execution plans would be useful in terms of improvement endeavours. In this paper, we share some of the approaches that were taken and results that were achieved on behalf of this client.

An impartial analysis of key

marketing initiatives can go

a long way in terms of

making your marketing

initiatives more measurable,

creating an opportunity for

continuous improvement


Goals and objectives – marketing plan review

We found that a really simple place to start a review would be to understand what the

marketing objectives of specific marketing initiatives were and how the marketing plan was

constructed to meet the goals of objectives.

While we did find clearly spelt out goals and objectives, the goals and objectives were

defined along the lines of what the company hoped to achieve with the marketing plan,

rather than what the campaign needed to drive. A goal of “ selling more product’, or

‘improving sales’ or even ‘increasing sales in an area’, was found to be vague and we had

the feeling that goals and objectives definition was more designed to appease management

of the noble objective of driving sales, rather than achieving something very specific.

In a workshop, we revisited the goals and objectives of the campaign and were able to get

consensus that a goal that pointed to something very specific that wasn’t being achieved,

would lead to better direction for the campaign. Something along the lines of “ influencing

and converting fringe populations” or “ becoming a more attractive option to brand

switchers” or “ penetrating specific under- represented segments’ would have given the

campaign more meaning and more importantly, would have directed thinking into the

marketing plan more effectively.

Which consumers are you targeting?

As a result of the weak definition of the goals of objectives of the campaign, specific

targeting was also poorly defined. In the absence of “who am I actually talking to in this

campaign?” lead to a universal statement of value, rather than a message aimed at specific

consumers, making it attractive to them to consider the offering. The specific groups of

consumers that we refer to are in fact the target market. Who is your target market? Can

you profile consumers that make up your target market, were questions worth asking?

Here we found that the company had done some really good research in terms of defining

their consumer profiles and the research had even gone as far as to point to specific

consumer profiles, not being current customers. This research pointed to possible target

segments that would switch brands under the right conditions. This segment was in fact

quantified by the research, enabling marketing to target specific groups with sniper-like

accuracy.


A psychographic and demographic profiling exercise carried out by the research company

very accurately defined the opportunity for gaining more consumers. We even had a very

good view of who these potential consumers were and what their possible preferences

were. While there were some doubts from some of the marketing team as to the accuracy

of the profiling data, we found the data to be invaluable in terms of who potential

consumers were, and what they looked like. If you do at a point in time

embark on market research, you need to have confidence in the results,

despite the fact that the results won’t necessarily fall within your current

paradigms.

Where are the potential consumers?

This seems like “the million dollar’ question: If we had a fair idea of what the

demographic and psychographic make –up of our potential consumers are

and we can correlate some life cycle and behavioural data of our target

market, then all we need to know is where they live, in order to reach them!

It appears that the million dollar answer to the million dollar question is ; If

we could profile potential consumers, we need to know how many

consumers live a specific area, or more accurately, live within our

geographical presence! What this means is that we should be able to tell

how many potential consumers live within a certain city or suburb, where

through campaign activities, I‘ll be certain to reach them! Sounds

impossible!

Introducing Market Scope

The concept of geo-spatial marketing solutions is very well developed in the

USA. In fact, a geo=spatial view of a specific area forms part of the basic

research that every fast food retailer and certainly every service station undertakes to

determine the size and make-up of target market segments before they establish a new

outlet. Similarly, Market Scope is an excellent tool that companies can put to use to quantify

the number of consumers within a specific profile definition, that live in a specific city, town

or suburb.

Market

research is

often

essential.

The

challenge is

to separate

current

beliefs

from

market

research

findings.


Market Scope is a software solution that incorporates demographic data sets within a

spatial environment (like a map) so that marketers can gain insight into the demographic

composition of a geographic area.

When we talk about “ where are the consumers” in the previous paragraph, this software

can help marketers pin point how many males with in an age group 16-25 live in Randburg.

Let’s say for argument sake the answer to the question is 120,000, Randburg would certainly

be a suburb where we would target our advertising and promotional activities, specifically

when we compare it to Marlboro, where the same demographic only represents a target

market population of 23,000.

This is where a scientific approach can help drive accuracy and return on investment.


Getting practical

Back to campaigns and marketing spend. We

analysed a proposal from a marketing services

vendor, who correctly identified a billboard strategy

to appeal to consumers who were not customers yet.

The concept was that people who were likely to

change, needed to be converted by some means. One

of the most effective ways of reaching consumers in

the LSM 1- 5 segments, was to use billboards as a

medium. Billboards needed to be supplemented with

an additional medium, and it was decided that

community radio could be a strong support medium

for a largely visual outdoor campaign. We liked the

approach. However, we did not like the spend

proposal.

The spend proposal revolved around ”billboard

saturation” and 960 sites were selected in 2 major

cities. Needless to say, the campaign costs were

heavy to say the least and we immediately

questioned the placement of billboards. What we

found was that the logic used by the vendor for

placement was entirely based on availability, rather

than exposure potential.

Market Scope came to rescue again, as we were able to reduce the billboard placement by

50% by placing billboards in areas of high target market population saturation. What this

basically means is that we launched 4 billboards in Randburg and reduced Marlboro from 6

to 1 billboard.

Exposure

placement

needs to be

“designed.” By

simply placing

exposure where

vendors have

sights just isn’t

effective


Messaging

Our client supported 12 brands nationally. The challenge of exposing different brands that

were dominant in certain areas, were well met with a combination of billboards and local

community radio.

The messaging did however pose a problem of a totally different nature. How do develop a

message that attracts new customers, while at the same time keeping it relevant for existing

customers.

After leading a workshop to address this particular challenge, the concept of promoting the

intrinsic product muscles was found to be a way out .While wholesomeness and health

were specific and unique product attributes associated with the product, the relevance to

existing and new customers was universal.

Results

• What was significant about this project was that we were able to get the marketing

teams to think differently and to question the logic of what companies normally

perceive as standard procedure. All too often in our interaction with marketing and

advertising vendors, they would refer to “everyone does it that way” as the logic

applied to execution.

• The company further underwent a mindset change. While marketing teams are

usually thought of as being the ‘creatives” in the business, it became clear very

quickly that creative input is what you get from your advertising company.

Marketing teams are all about making decisions around where and how they need to

spend, and how they could possibly get a return on what’s invested.

• The billboard site selection exercise was exactly a case in point. Whereas the

advertising company identified 960 sites, we used Market Scope to calculate

deliberate target market exposure, and were able to deliver a more effective

placement solution. Billboard sites were contained at just over 400.

• While savings paid for the project, the client actually got what he paid for. Insight

processes and systems that managed to drive behavioural change within his

marketing team. Understanding that a scientific approach can help them achieve

their goals and objectives effectively.


About Carpedia Consulting…

Carpedia Consulting is an internationally relevant management consultancy firm, dedicated

to assisting clients to improve sales and profits through the implementation of improvement

programs. Our approach is what makes us unique. The way we design, develop and execute

our programs is hands-on, solutions-based and excellence driven.

Our programs are customized to the needs of your organisation and are designed to ensure

significant and sustainable improvements are made both internally and externally – by the

sales team, for the customer.

www.carpedia.co.za

About Werner Hess…

Werner Hess has spent 20 years of his career in various sales, marketing and leadership

positions with Bayer, Triad Electronics, GE and GE Plastics before serving as managing

director of GE Plastics and Polymerland. Werner’s first experience in the world of consulting

came about when he joined Proudfoot Consulting as Director of Business Development,

which included several international assignments in Europe and the USA, leading sales

effectiveness projects for global clients. Werner’s current company, Carpedia Consulting is

a specialist niche consultancy focused on sales and profit improvement.

Werner’s latest book, The Science of Selling has just been published and reveals

approaches, systems and processes that can be implemented to create a successful sales

platform.

Werner can be reached on: [email protected]


Carpedia Consulting (Pty) Ltd PO Box 1701 GALLO Manor 2052 Building 2 Country Club Estates Woodlands Drive Woodmead Sandton South Africa Tel: 27-11 – 258-8813 Fax: 27-11- 258-8511 Mob: 27-82-888-0228

Email: [email protected]

www.carpedia.co.za

Marketing spend that drives value

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