IPromote has released a mobile advertising platform to help local businesses take advantage of the marketing capabilities of the mobile channel in a cost-effective manner.
For $5 a day, iPromote said small businesses will now receive instant mobile and PC Web-based ads. Local businesses will also be able to target locally in one campaign through iPromote’s local ad server, AdXpert.
“The iPromote mobile platform enables local businesses to obtain a turnkey display advertising solution in the mobile market,” said Michael Barr, CEO of iPromote, San Luis Obispo, CA. “We wanted to break down the barriers for small businesses to locally advertise on mobile devices in a cost-effective manner.”
IPromote is a division of 2KDirect and provides display advertising services.
Leveling the mobile playing field
IPromote has created a process for local business in which they can obtain Web-based and mobile ads instantly by using the URL of their Web site.
IPromote’s technology automatically detects images, text and other content from a client’s Web site and builds an online media package.
If a business has no Web site then a business can use their online directory listing. IPromote’s technology automatically goes to its stock photography database and places relevant photos into clients’ ads.
A business has total control of local targeting, budget and campaign duration.
“The addition of mobile not only gives our advertisers more reach, but also a competitive edge, since they are now advertising across mobile devices,” Mr. Barr said. “Mobile users are now obtaining relevant ads from local businesses in their area instead of the national ads that are currently on smartphones.
“For example, it is much more interesting to see an ad for the local restaurant in your neighborhood than a national ad,” he said.
Proactive eyeball catching IPromote is talking with some of the top mobile ad networks, which currently work with many of the most popular applications and mobile-optimized Web sites.
The company will also be directly integrating with mobile sites through current and near-term partnerships.
IPromote targets businesses in 30 verticals such as food and dining, health and beauty, real estate and retail.
Mr. Barr said display advertising is a highly effective way for local businesses to proactively reach new customers.
“Mobile advertising is a high-growth sector with no signs of slowing down,” Mr. Barr said. “As the smartphone market continues to grow, we will most likely see the amount of time spent surfing the Internet shifting to mobile.
“Location-based targeting is something that can be achieved more effectively across mobile devices,” he said. “Users tend to interact with mobile ads more than Web-based ads, which provides brand awareness for the advertiser.”
Everyone makes mistakes. It’s a fact of life. Every company makes mistakes, too. Are the companies that make mistakes the ones that fail? Only if they keep making the same mistakes.
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. I think whoever came up with that definition must have been in advertising. Too many brands try the same thing year after year and seem surprised that they lose ground to their competitors.
It’s easy to spend too much time worrying about making mistakes, especially in this business. We can get caught up in over planning, over thinking and over talking—not to necessarily ensure more success but to minimize the risk of our mistakes.
But the annals of business history are filled with business mistakes that led to huge profits—from the invention of rubber to the now ubiquitous Post-It note.
When asked about his invention of the light bulb, Thomas Edison is widely reported to have said that his first failed attempts weren’t failures at all, he simply discovered 10,000 ways that wouldn’t work.
In the end, people don’t remember the mistake, they remember how you deal with it, what you learn from it and what you make of it.
If you’re not making new mistakes, you’re not innovating. You’re not pushing the envelope. You’re not doing anything new. In other words, you’re becoming a commodity.
You need to learn to budget for mistakes. If you’re making new ones and not the same ones, they are an investment, not a liability.
• First, FOCUS all promotion efforts on your target market and your show objectives. Don’t fall into the trap of just getting a full list of registrants and sending blanket invitations. And don’t do something at the show that will attract everybody. You don’t want everybody in your booth, you want the right people in your booth.
• Be CREATIVE. You can be innovative without spending a lot of money. Look for ways to make it fun, different, and exciting.
• Try very hard to PERSONALIZE each mailing. Avoid using mailing labels and bulk mail stamps. Even if you get labels from the show management, take the time to retype the names on the envelopes. It makes a huge difference in whether or not your target even opens and reads it.
• It’s always better to plan for FREQUENT preshow contacts, rather than depend on a one-shot promotion. If a prospect receives a personal letter, a fax, and a postcard over a period of 3 or 4 weeks before the show, they’re much more likely to remember you and stop by.
• Give them a compelling REASON to visit you. Do you have a show special they can take advantage of? Do you have a new promotional product line or service? Make sure you say that in your promotions. The top complaint from attendees regarding promotions is the fact very few actually give a good reason to visit.
• And make darn sure you send any preshow promotions out EARLY enough. It is truly distressing to hear over and over again from attendees about this. It’s far too common for an attendee to return from a trade show and find several invitations waiting in the pile of mail that arrived while they were AT THE SHOW! Send everything to ARRIVE at least ten days in advance. What a waste of promotional dollars when a preshow communication doesn’t get there before the show.
Social media is no longer just a cool toy for the nerds. It’s an established platform that can advance multiple phases of your business, including marketing, sales, customer service, and recruiting. I’ve put a few of these uses in the chart below.
What Social Media Can Do
Branding
Company news
* What people are saying about you
Positioning
Expertise
Other Marketing
PR & Communications
Product updates
* Industry news
* Competitive news
Sales
* Lead generation
Promotions
Sell distressed goods
Customers
Problems
* Suggestions
Questions
Other
Recruiting
Funding
Background checks
* Top 5 small business uses according to a survey
in Ad-ology Marketing Forecast 2010
For the next couple of weeks things got so hectic that there was no time to worry about the promise made to Mr. Prakash and the next meeting due.
A scene I was beginning to picture increasingly with graphic images of dangling Damocles’ swords and me as the hapless Damocles. Uneasy, however, did not seem to lie our modern day Dionysius’ head. At least, to all outward appearance.
I tried calling Karan Sabjan for his opinion on whether the Big M would be interested. Sabjan thanked me for adding years to his life by giving him his best laugh of the month.
This was one situation where I had nothing further to contribute. Either one knew how to get to Amibath Machchan or didn’t. I didn’t.
Feeling a bit like Pandora, with thoughts leaning increasingly towards aftermaths of usual Greek tragedies, I decided to broach the subject with LL.
As the days went by, this was not easy though. Surely he wasn’t avoiding me?
With the next meeting just a couple of days away, I redoubled my efforts to corner LL and ask him for strategic guidance*.
*This is polite subordinate to boss management-speak for: Hey, you got us into this mess, and this time, you’ve gotta get us out.
“Get me Prakash”, said LL.
Having got him on phone, LL proceeded to tell him how his father had an urgent though minor surgical procedure due on the very same morning of the next meeting scheduled and could we reschedule it? Mr. P was fortunately off to Denmark and so the next meeting was fixed up to be a whole two and a half weeks away.
Admiring this adroit manoeuvre; I admit it freely, would have never thought of it – we heaved collective sighs of relief, but I felt the figurative dangling thread fray a bit, and the sword inch closer.
But LL had thought of something.
There were only two possible approaches as advised by LL’s role model Confucius:
One – Man who run in front of car get tired.
Conversely, also known as – Man who run behind car get exhausted.
Two – He who will not economize will agonize.
Next meeting, Mr. Prakash walked in fully expecting to see Machchan ensconced in our humble office abode. In his best suit and tie too. Mr. P, I mean.
LL informed him that we had contacted the Big M and that he had quoted an astronomical rate similar to his Badur contract.
I adjusted my expression accordingly so as to try look like we were the sort of people who had Machchan on call.
Knowing fully well Mr. Prakash would have never been able to loosen his purse strings to this extent, LL then commenced upon a severe campaign against using celebrities in advertising. Having embarked upon the celebrity route once, you are stuck with them forever. You’ve got to continue using a well known face else all will be lost. The fickle customer would move on. The astronomical fees you pay would have to be permanently budgeted for.
In short, hiring a celebrity for advertising would be like riding a tiger. You couldn’t ever get off.
And what if the celebrity you’ve chosen lost popularity suddenly? Made a racist slur or in a drunken haze drive over a number of innocent people on the footpath. It would rub off negatively on your brand. A dreadful fate indeed.
Having made this convincing argument, LL decided to hammer the final nail in the coffin.
Amibath Machchan, while shooting in a rural, drought prone area for his next film, had insisted on a truckload of mineral water bottles. No, not for distributing amongst the thirsty populace as you may be excused for imagining. The popular brand of bottled water was used by him – wait for it – to bathe.
As LL would have it, this generated a lot of controversy and criticism for the Big M. In reality, it was soon forgotten.
This same region incidentally was an important one for Mr. Prakash’s brands, generating a substantial amount of sales. As LL drew an eloquent picture as to what would have happened had we paid so many millions for the Big M; Mr. Prakash’s disillusionment was complete.
Having reacted true to type, he now thanked us fervently as we had been personally responsible for saving him from a fate worse than death.
It took him only another ten more minutes to decide that he had actually arrived at this conclusion himself and claim that he had already planned to decline the offer for Machchan’s endorsement should he have been ready and willing.
It is just as well the Big M would never know how far he fell from grace in our conference room in that one hour.
To soften the overall blow, LL suggested several second and third level Bollywood stars but Mr. Prakash was now a staunch convert to our cause. He happily agreed to endorsement from a humbler actor, known for playing character-led roles, suggested by Karan Sabjan.
Thus concluded another successful chapter of a highly strategic, skilfully played zero sum game.
Awe inspiring movie making…; Creativity at its best…; Technological innovation transforming into silver screen magic…; Intriguing way of unveiling the plot and storytelling…; Top notch technicians….; Celluloid beauties and Screen idols…; Personal touch moulding century old story lines into modern-day novelties… This is how I would think of most of the Hollywood Box office successes and their reasons for raking in the millions and made them Historical master pieces worth watching over and over.
The story in Bollywood is a tad different. They thrive on sensationalism, fantasy, demi god heroes, script and lyrics and music to create success and draw the crowd. For decades it has been the family values and tradition that they utilise to define the plot. Very few movies stand apart and have experimented and travelled the Road less travelled. There have been far more people taking these bold decisions off late.
Coming down further south and seeing how Box office success was and is created in Kollywood….
For several years it has always been Hero centric movies in the Kollywood. Right from MKT Bhagavathar, M.G.R, and Rajinikanth to the current crop of heroes, its been all about the hero worshipping the mother’s feet, speaking bold dialogues on the face of the camera, dancing around trees with gorgeous actresses (most of them totally alien to the Tamil language) and pouncing on the bad gang. Again the ones who take the other road are very less here too. But there has been a prominent rise of one particular force in one of the biggest film industries in the world.
That force is nothing but – “Marketing and TV media publicity”. This has been the reason behind several latest successes (in terms of box office collection). Even though most ofthese films might get only average rating from a traditional film critic, they all have managed to earn decent returns. Sun Pictures with with backing of Sun Network’s array of channels, FM stations, political muscle and marketing acumen has made a string of medium budget movie releases. All have been above average on earnings. The group buys distribution and marketing rights of many Minimum return-guarantee films and plans the release of all of them on a sequential manner. Targeted, well planned list of trailers get released day after day, building momentum gradually right up to the release day. This is followed by half an hour interactive programmes with the Movie team (Director, Actor, Actress, Producer and comedian) on each of their channels. Dont forget the Audio release, Movie preview, Movie Launch functions aired on a 3 hour time slot. This is what we call Fully Loaded
This is one aspect of the force. the other aspect is that it has become a blessing in disguise for the movie production houses who find it difficult to market and bring in the needed RoI for their films. This has helped them to recover whatever they have invested with a decent margin and thus encouraging them to produce more movies. It has also helped a lot of new comers get chances to prove their mettle. Overall even though the movies run just because of the marketing genius, this new found success formula has extended the shelf life of medium budget movie makers.
Can the same tactic work out for other products genres too ??!!
Reflecting back on the noughties (2000-2009) there are plenty of high profile cases of businesses built with high expectations but which failed to deliver. Many of these are examples of products being developed with little or no understanding as to whether or not there was a market demand for it.
In this post I analyse the much publicised example of the dot-com disaster Pets.com.
Build it and they will come… won’t they?
An all too common error at all levels of business from small garage inventors to mega corporations is a tendency to create products and services in a state of isolation and then task marketing and sales teams to “go out and find a market”. It’s quite an insane approach when you think about it. It would be like gluing a toaster onto a skateboard, calling it the Roadtoaster 5000 and then asking a friend to find a few thousand people who’d like to buy it.
There may be some anomalies, but the vast majority of successful products are developed following an analysis of a market – to identify if there are any needs or problems that people are facing, how important these needs are, how many of these people there are, if they would actually pay for something that meets their needs, if any competitors are already serving those needs and what it would take to offer a more compelling proposition than them.
Throw in a bit of basic segmentation, targeting and positioning and you would then have the beginnings of a business case to then look into developing a product to meet those needs. That in itself is a multi-step process because it may not be financially viable or even technically possible to meet the needs.
In short: Don’t build a product and then look for a market to sell it into. Look for a valid market requirement or need first. Then you can go about developing a product.
It’ll make squillions
Launched in August 1998, Pets.com was created to sell pet food and accessories via the internet. The premise was that you could “buy online and cut out the middleman” and “take advantage of Pets.com’s strong buying power”. Users of the site could browse through different categories, choose products they like and have them conveniently delivered to their home. Think Amazon’s original premise – books – but for pet products.
Interesting concept right? Sure, but Pets.com did no market research before launching. They made a lot of big assumptions: that pet owners would want to buy online and knew how to (remember, this was 1998); that selling pet products alone was compelling enough (as opposed to say an online supermarket which could sell pet supplies and other groceries); that people wanted to have such pet supplies delivered and were happy to wait a few days, rather than just driving down to the shops and getting it now.
But market research and validation of ideas seemed to be unimportant back in the heady early days of the information superhighway. Within a year of launch it had been acquired by venture capital firm Hummer Winblad (who amazingly still list Pets.com on their timeline of acquisitions!) and industry executive Julie Wainright. They even got Amazon.com on board as an investor.
Here’s the product – start marketing now!
With cash in the bank and fire in their bellies, Pets.com’s owners spent big in marketing communications and developed a brand around a sock puppet character that was regarded as either hugely entertaining or incredibly irritating depending on whom you spoke to.
They then poured cash into a massive advertising campaign, launched in January 2000 with a Superbowl TV commercial with a media price tag of $1.2 million. This was followed by intense online, print, television and radio advertising as well as a massive publicity push that saw the Sock Puppet make an appearance in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.
Awareness skyrocketed. Everyone was talking about Pets.com. The site was hit with traffic as people began to place orders. A month later Pets.com went out and raised over $80 million dollars in its IPO.
There must have been a lot of back patting and happy Friday afternoon drinks. Pets.com was on a roll. The money would surely start pouring in, wouldn’t it?
A flawed business model
Pets.com’s owners soon noticed some issues. They discovered that demand wasn’t anywhere near as high as they had estimated. They may have been perplexed – why wasn’t Joe Sixpack in Suburbia placing orders? Didn’t he realise how awesome Pets.com was?
Pets.com had obviously not heard of the simple AIDA model (Awareness -> Interest -> Desire -> Action). Their massive marketing campaign had certainly generated a lot of Awareness and some Interest. But it wasn’t translating into sufficient Desire and certainly not to enough Action. Not enough people were ordering products and those that did were ordering only small amounts.
Had Pets.com actually done some research and investigation it could have known this in advance. Pets.com did not offer a compelling enough value proposition – there was simply no market requirement for home delivered pet food.
Whilst this meant revenues were much lower than expected, it also meant that costs were higher than necessary. Pets.com had invested in massive warehousing facilities to store all the dog food they figured they’d sell. This was a fixed cost that could not be avoided and it made a serious dent in their sales profitability. To make things worse, Pets.com went so far as to offer discounted and even free delivery which given the physical size and weight of the product was hugely expensive.
Sales did grow due to aggressive pricing and the massive marketing spend, but this only meant that Pets.com was losing money on most sales. The model was unsustainable. It was argued that this was just the nature of building a new business but even a fifth grader running a lemonade stand knows you need to charge more than you pay otherwise you won’t be in business long.
RIP Pets.com
In November 2000, Pets.com folded after having burned through $300 million in less than two years. Over 300 people lost their jobs and the site was shut down. CEO Julie Wainright said in a statement ”It is well known that this is a very, very difficult environment for business-to-consumer Internet companies. With no better offers and avenues effectively exhausted, we felt that the best option was an orderly wind-down with the objective to try to return something back to the shareholders.”
Whilst it was a high profile example of dot-com foolishness it was not an isolated occurrence. It’s still astounding that so much money was lost at the time. It’s hard to accept the argument that people simple overestimated the potential of the internet. Sure, that may have happened but Pets.com’s entire business model was flawed with apparently no real understanding of some very basic business models (i.e. you have to make more money than you spend!).
What would a product manager do?
It’s unlikely that we’ll see this sort of extreme silliness again. To be fair, over the past ten years a lot of niche specialist pet supply stores have started up but they operate at a much more scaled down level and have focused their product offerings and services on specific market segments.
As outlined at the beginning of the article I still see many examples of products being developed with no preliminary research, analysis or investigation to see if there is actually going to be any need for the product. This inevitably leads to wasted money, time and effort.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Once again, the lesson of the story is simple:
Don’t build a product and then look for a market to sell it into. Look for a valid market requirement or need first. Then you can go about developing a product.
NOTE: This blog post of mine was originally published on the brainmates website. brainmates provides product management and marketing consulting and training services for leading organisations in a range of industries. And I work there so check them out!
