Marketing Science and Art

This morning I read a quick post from Seth Godin's blog on whether marketing is a science or art (hint: its both).

This got me to thinking: no question that with my strategic planning background I fall into the science category in most cases, and I totally agree with Seth that the main problem for us science-types is that humans are the wild card in the "system". The artist side of marketing is much more likely to better understand the human wild-ness and react to that creatively and passionately that resonates with actual humans. However, as a science-type marketer, I come back to the fact that much of business can be measured (sales, profit, return on investment, shareholder value, debt-to-equity, share price, etc.). When it comes to marketing, many clients at the end of the day are going to be forced to tie their marketing to these measurable metrics.

So, how do you balance the two? How do you look at art and creative and make it "fit" into these business metrics? Fact is, often you can't, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Outstanding art will often fall flat because it doesn't generate sales. Terrible creative will often excel because it does generate sales.

As Seth says at the end of his blog, "Figure out what sort of marketing you're going to do today and go do that" and I couldn't agree more. The challenge for us as marketers is to not think of these two sides of marketing as adversarial. I believe the two complement each other very well. When they work together to understand the relationship between wild card humans and bottom line business metrics, advertising works well for clients.

Photo credit: Gaetan Lee, 2007, via flickr.com

Berkley Downtown Development Authority

I have decided to volunteer with the Berkley DDA. Basically, my drive behind this is twofold: first, because I live here, its in my best interest. Secondly, Berkley is in dire need of some branding. The city does not seem to have a strong image with the folks that I've talked to. Why not? Unfortunately, I can't answer that without some wild speculation, but I'm good at wild speculation, so here goes...
Berkley for a while had a campaign that was "Berkley is unique" - the goal I think (can't stress enough, this is all speculation/personal opinion), was to not get lumped in with Royal Oak and become something different than that sort of restaurant/bar scene. While it may be unique, that doesn't really communicate a strong message of what it means for the community to be unique.

However, having said that, there are a lot of things that the DDA and city overall does very well. The city hosts a very successful art fair, a Dream Cruise parade/party, and a holiday parade. In the last year or two there are several new businesses that have been attracted to Downtown Berkley. I know there has been parking issues in the past, and the DDA is actively working on those issues.

So, I'm tossing my hat into the ring to help. Here's an except from the letter I am sending them that talks about my vision for Berkley:

For Berkley’s downtown to flourish, I envision a community that has several anchor businesses that provide a wide variety of options for individuals who wish to keep their dollars in the community, with a wide variety of business types (e.g. restaurants, bars, clothing shops, music shops, etc.). I recently saw an estimate of the amount of dollars that Detroit residents spend outside the city of Detroit, indicating how much “lost” revenue there is for Detroit businesses. I think a similar study for Berkley would be a fascinating and eye-opening assessment of how the DDA needs to target businesses to move within the city.

In my unresearched, personal opinion, I believe there are two key demographics that are driving the future of the downtown in Berkley – families and the “subculture” of young urbanites who use scooters and bicycles for transportation. The Berkley DDA should focus on attracting business that fit these niches (or really ANY niche as long as it is well defined and substantiated) for its downtown business development work. Catering to both groups will hopefully result in an attractive, lively downtown with strollers, scooters, and pedestrians sharing the pavement on their way to local businesses.

A fresh start to the year?

I've been busy with mostly planning for myself for 2009 so far. What about you? Do you have your goals for 2009 finished?

About this time year, it seems like everyone has written a blog entry about how to make plans or how to lay out and achieve goals, etc. So, I'm not going to take the usual track of business planning. I'm going to call it life planning. Stick with me here, I'm hoping this won't get too mushy for you all...


My wife is reading the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" for a class she's taking. I read it several years ago. I can't say that I liked or disliked it. For me, at the end of the day, it's a self-help book. I was able to take something from it, but it did not convert me into a vocal advocate or naysayer (as these books tend to do for some folks). It was just another self-help book to me.
Anyway, she read a passage that she really likes and shared it with me. The passage was about how the word "love" used to be a verb, but now thanks largely to Hollywood its considered more passive, a feeling, and therefore its not something you "do" (well, except maybe after dinner and drinks, but that's a whole different blog!).

I've also been hearing a lot recently about "The Secret" (yeah, I know both of these are older books, The Secret is from 2006 I think and a movie now, but I've been hearing a lot about them just recently). Now, I have to admit, I couldn't bring myself to finish this book. I'll give you that there's something to this theory of the "Law of Attraction" when it comes to human interaction, but the whole theory that the law of attraction will make you thin (see above link for book excerpt) or rich, seems... well, a little far-fetched to be useful. You may also be thinking that this is counter to the Seven Habits assertion that you have to "do" something, and I can't argue that.

The point is that there is something to take from both of these, and here's what I got: You gotta do something to get what you want, and positivity breeds positivity in your life. This is not really a change for me - for those that know me, know that I'm generally always positive and I've never thought you could just sit around and wait for stuff to happen to you.

So, those are the glasses that I'm wearing as I look at goal setting. Positivity can only come when my life is happy, so that's part of my strategic planning for '09. I can only be positive when I take action, so that's part of my plan too. Sales numbers for your business or department are easy to set, but how you get to those numbers require a lot more thought. So, I encourage you to think about the "whole" you, as you set goals for 2009.

Happy Planning!

How about a little optimism here?

I am often critical of ads or just foisting my opinion about them on unsuspecting folks who don't realize they asked. I recognize that this can come across as a somewhat pessimistic attitude towards marketing sometimes. With all the rest of the pessimistic economic news these days, I thought I'd put together a positive message with some useful information for you.

With all the bad news that we're being bombarded with these days, its easy to forget that now is a perfect time for nimble companies with well defined products for well defined customers.

That's a big concept so lets break it down a little:
Nimble companies - Many entrepreneurs that I talk to are encouraged by the economic news right now. Why? Because as the big corporate competitors are cutting on products and marketing, that's opening up an opportunity for entrepreneurs who can fill the niche left behind. But the key word here is "nimble". The risk in the market is still there, and you have to be ready to react (or better yet preempt). For example, a coffee shop that I've worked with in the past serves clientele who are professional, high-income, and are willing to pay for a high-quality product. However, the shop found that as Starbucks and another independent coffee shop closed, he was starting to see a different clientele - younger, not as affluent, more interested in quick foods to go with their coffee. Within the week of recognizing this trend, the shop partnered with a deli to offer cold sandwiches at the shop and introduced a new blend of coffee for 99 cents. However, he didn't change the current offerings and actually upgraded his chairs in order to keep his appeal to his current more affluent customers.

Well-defined customers - Most entrepreneurs that I know come to me and say something similar to "I've invented this new widget and it does X, Y, and Z" or "I've noticed there are not any widget stores in Cityville" and then they go on to talk about their product and how it will be successful. In my years in the research world, I've always found this to be the backwards way to approach the problem. Start with describing your customers. I always work to guide the conversation towards, "I've invented this new widget, and the reason it will be successful is because it solves X demographic's problems with X, Y, and Z." What this does is change the way you look at things. Seth Godin, a writer on marketing, said just yesterday on a webcast from bnet that the key to success is to seek products for your customers, not customers for your products. It takes a little creativity and a lot of hard work, but I couldn't agree with this theory more completely.

Well-defined products - As a marketing consultant, I am constantly attempting to explain to my friends what it is exactly that I do. It's an interesting challenge for those who are not in the business world (but that's ok, they don't need to know what I do). However, my potential clients do need to know. So, I've spent the last three weeks developing a very long list first of everything I offer, then I've narrowed it down into a more focused list based on the customers who I have identified as my targets. So, while I can design logos and do copywriting, my ideal clients do not care. They do care that I create marketing plans, identify targets, and develop tactics and advertising creative briefs to provide direction.

I can hear the folks getting ready to tell me now, "but if you are nimble, shouldn't that mean offering a wider variety of products to a wider audience?" I say not exactly... The target customer may be of a wider variety, but I still have to know who they are and what they are looking for in order to offer a product that caters to them. The coffee shop widened its product offering, but only after identifying what the customers wanted. If you can't identify a customer for the product, ask yourself, why would they choose me? The coffee shop didn't see that Starbucks had offered sandwiches and jumping to the conclusion that he probably needs to in order to pick up those customers. He identified what the customers wanted.

If you focus on those three things, you'll have an excellent start to an outstanding marketing plan.