February 26, 2011

The Top Ten Reasons Companies Outsource Their Marketing

Outsourced Marketing is a “best value” solution through which growing businesses are able to access a range of state-of-the-art services and resources. Results are shifted from an internal to an external marketing department. The benefits are numerous: in addition to a sizable cost savings, outsourced marketing allows you to better focus your resources, free up time of valuable personnel, project a more professional appearance, access better technology and capabilities, leverage increased flexibility, and more.

In today’s economic climate, outsourcing with the intention of decreasing costs has become increasingly important in order to attain or maintain a competitive advantage. According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, over 53% of marketing executives reported that they plan to outsource their marketing.

Cutting costs is just the beginning. The additional benefits of outsourcing lie in the value it creates.
  1. Improve company focus Outsourcing allows managers and key personnel time to focus on a business’ core competencies, where they are of more value.
  2. Access superior capabilities Outsource providers bring in-depth expertise in a particular area which helps companies better satisfy customers and increase productivity and efficiency.
  3. Access better technology You can tap into leading-edge technology that is used in conjunction with specified areas of expertise. Keeping up-to-date with such technology is timely and costly.
  4. Shared risk Outsourcing enables a company to share some of its risk, such as unstable workflow and capital investments. The outsourcing provider is able to spread those risks over multiple clients.
  5. Free-up resources Outsourcing allows a company to shift its resources to activities that have the greatest impact on bottom-line performance.
  6. Increase working capital The outsource provider share the investment as part of its own overhead.
  7. Improve cash flow Outsourcing a function that is currently carried out in-house may allow the sale of assets that are no longer internally necessary.
  8. Reduce operating costs An outsource entity can generally provide the same the function for less because of economies of scale, thereby reducing the functions cost to the business.
  9. Accommodate growth Outsourcing is ideal for companies undergoing rapid growth because expansion can occur more easily without derailing current operations.
  10. Alleviate management pressure Managing functions that can be outsourced is a significant drain on resources.
Source: The Outsourcing Institute


By Jennifer Pricci

February 15, 2011

Achieving The Coveted:Viral Marketing

Viral campaigns yield the highest ROI... Information about your product spreads naturally, like a contagious disease... only a good one...


I once read up on the 5 C’s of viral marketing:
Community, Compelling, Comedy, Charity, and Contest

Let's talk Community...

We all know that viral marketing in the social media space is all about communities. In fact, I would argue that communities play a larger role than most people think, both online and offline. They can build a brand, kill a brand, make a career, break a career, influence elections, etc. Think about it; from an offline perspective, life is community driven through PTA organizations, church groups, sports leagues, stay-at-home mommy groups, and various school organizations (sororities, fraternities) to name a few. And of course online, you have Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Stumbledupon and hundreds of other social media sites jumping in the scene daily.

Within each of these online/offline communities consumers are talking and having conversations with each other. And, they are sharing opinions, experiences, advice, recommendations and commentary about products, services and companies usually based on real personal experience.

THIS IS VIRAL MARKETING.

The challenge with viral marketing is that it’s not always viral, if that makes any sense... Often, marketers plan for and label their marketing plans as “viral” but 9 times out of 10, it never catches on. It’s the things that just happen by accident that become viral. Remember the Diet Coke and Mentos video? At first, Coca-Cola distanced themselves from the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos viral video phenomenon, fearing it would damage their reputation and brand; however, just recently that have fully embraced the concept and now there are over 7,000 consumer generated videos on YouTube, millions of pageviews, hundreds of comments, and favored by thousands of fans. The community here is not only the millions of YouTube enthusiasts, but also the micro-communities of people and their offline conversations about these videos.

  • Formulate your marketing message. Think about the product or service you are advertising and create a message that communicates the benefits and uses of what you are selling. A website is nonnegotiable.
  • Make the content on your website sharable. For example, you can allow readers to embed a funny video from your website onto their own blogs. An "email this article to your friend" link is another way information spreads from one person to another.
  • Use email as a viral marketing tool. Include a marketing message about your product or service in the tag lines of your emails and also include your advertising message in auto responder emails you send to those who email you.
  • Post your content on other Internet sites such as message boards and blogs. However, do this carefully; many forum managers are now aware of this practice and may delete your messages if they think it's spam.
  • Incorporate your marketing message into rich media. Video clips and Flash games are very popular on the Internet, so if you have a great idea for this medium your message will spread like wildfire.
  • Spread your message off line as well. Tell your friends and colleagues about your product or service and hand them business cards with the URL on them along with a catchy tag line, perhaps the same one you use in your emails.

What are you doing to boost your buzz factor?



By Jennifer Pricci