2016 Chapter 1:
A Longer Discourse On Marketing
Okay, first let’s clarify: this
isn’t the marketing book I promised. This is marketing as a primer—how to set it up for success, what’s an agency and when to use one, blah blah—and marketing as done by Schiit—what’s right, what’s wrong, where we’re going, etc. The hope is that this chapter can do just two things:
- Illuminate the sometimes-murky waters of marketing for people who are interested in the, ahem, “art.”
- Provide some guidance to companies looking to market in the audio neck of the woods.
And, well, yeah, some of this content may appear in the marketing book, but this is more laser-focused, and more about us. You see, I do listen to you…
So, Why Do You Need Those Marketing Pukes At All?
This is what I’m asked the most, at least by people who aren’t in marketing. (Unsurprisingly, marketing people think they are absolutely indispensible, but, ah, we’ll get to that…)
I think what they’re really asking is this: “After we’ve seen some of the highest-paid people in the company cavort with trendy agency types, lounge in meetings over lattes, travel to exotic locations for trade shows, hang out with cool directors and photographers, and maybe have an affair with the actors and models, how the hell do they get off with the easiest and coolest job, when I have an ******* boss breathing down by neck for impossible coding goals with yesterday deadlines?”
Weeeeellllll…where to start?
First, marketing really isn’t as cool as it looks, whether you’re talking Mad Men or real life. Marketing has its own pressures, not least of which is being blamed for crap sales when the product is really the crapifier—and by “blamed,” I mean “fired.”
Second, yeah, I know, your salespeople already know all their prospects, they don’t need marketing’s help with that, marketing gets to play while they do all the tough work.
Third, yeah, I know, your engineers are second to none and the products should sell themselves, just look at the 167 new features they added to your new thermometer (and in their list, only #74 and #151 are differentiators from the competition, but I digess.)
And this shouldn’t be an apologia for marketing. Let’s get down to the core question, which (I believe) is:
What does marketing really do for a company?
Okay. Deep breath. Done right, marketing
can mean more new sales, more repeat sales, happier customers, and faster growth.
Note the “done right.” Done wrong, marketing can piss people off, help kill crappy products faster, lose any sense of purpose or measurability and just burn money, or even take the company to the edge of bankruptcy.
So how do you do it right? I’ll get to that.
For now, let’s talk about the necessity of marketing. Marketing, in its most basic form, is about informing potential customers about your product or service. You need a new car cheap, cool, we make the most reliable and inexpensive cars. You need a new smartphone, great, we have one that runs on atomic power and never needs charged. You need something to clean your windows, we have a robot servant that also makes sure your kids are safe.
Okay, so I’m getting a little wacky there. But you get where I’m going:
all companies need some form of marketing.
With no marketing, nobody will know about your product or service, and by definition, you’ll have zero sales. This is not the recipe for a successful business venture.
Now, the arms-crossed crowd is getting grumpy. “Ah, come on, I know plenty of “best kept secret” products that really sell themselves and don’t need marketing.”
Oh really?
So you know about a product that comes in a white box with no text, nothing at all to identify it, no way for someone to know what it is or where to buy it…and it sells?
So, when you go to the store, all those shiny packages there yelling about how their brand of overly-processed GMO corn+flavor enhancers is better than any other—those are not marketing?
And so, when you drive by a roadside stand, that hand-lettered sign saying, “Straberry’s $3” is not marketing?
Aaaaand so, when you read an article in the Wall Street Journal about new trends in smart thermostats that lists products by name and URL, that’s not marketing?
Marketing is far more than annoying ads. It’s can be as innocuous as identifying what you do…and it can also be the most brazen, blatant, and irritating thing out there.
Where marketing gets its evil reputation from is when companies go too far. A little packaging and PR? Sure. Running some text ads on Google Adwords? Sure. Taking out a spread ad in a magazine? Sure. Blaring a constant barrage of the same commercial every 5 minutes over every radio and TV station in sight? Annoying. Spending $100 million to have your name supplant the beloved name of a major stadium? Boo. Laser-etching your logo on the earth-facing side of the moon? Truly nasty, that.
Again, I’m getting silly. But you get the point. Companies need marketing, if for no other reason than to let people know what they do.
More sophisticated marketing builds on that, to target the kind of people who are looking for what you sell…and to tell them why it’s better than other products. And if your marketing pukes are good, that’s what they do—and that’s why you need them.
When To Market, and When To Shut Up and Fix Things
Let’s start with something very simple. You should NOT be marketing unless you have three things:
- A clear definition of what your product or service is.
- An identified audience who is, or should be, interested in your product or service.
- At least one unique advantage your product or service has over the competition.
“But—“ you begin.
NO. There are no “buts” here. If you don’t know what you’re making, who wants it, and why it’s better, you’re done. Gone. Outta here. Don’t even bother marketing, because it will kill your product dead even faster.
Okay, I’ll be nice and allow three questions.
“But my product or service is entirely new, I don’t know how to explain what it is,” You ask. Well, then you should figure out how to communicate what it is and why someone would want it. Because if you can’t do that, how do you expect to ever sell anything?
“But my audience is everyone,” you say. Or, “I don’t know who my audience is.” Two comments: your audience is
in no way everybody. Unless you have ten-figure marketing budgets, in which case you can claim, “Well, probably pretty much everyone who has enough money to buy one of these after seeing our ad.” And, if you don’t know who your audience is, where they hang out, and what they like, figure it out now—before ever embarking on a single ad. No...before doing a
business card.
“But my product looks like everyone else’s, it’s not really unique,” you say. Well, you better find some way it’s unique, or you’re going to be in a world of hurt. Is it less expensive? More functional? Prettier? Made from diamond-hard alloy reverse-engineered from UFOs? Designed by hermit monks living on a 58 square meter island 1000 nautical miles away from any major landmass? There are always differentiators. Just make sure they really are different, and
that they matter in a good way. The fact you have a high-res display ain’t gonna sell your smartphone, and the fact that your smartphone display is 8.7” diagonal may be different, but it is NOT good.
So, do you have those three things? Then you can start marketing—or, in other words, creating the words, visuals, and outreach plan to communicate what you do and why it’s better to the target audience.
“No, wait a sec, I have those three things, but I don’t know how to create the words, visuals, or the plan,” you say.
And I grin. Because that’s where marketing can—and should—earn its keep: helping companies with a clear vision of what they do and why it matters connect with people who just may care enough to spend money on them.
And that’s where the “marketing village” comes in. Because many companies don’t have all the talent necessary to go from that three-item list above to an effective, measurable marketing campaign.
So let’s talk about the players.
All the Pukes in a Room: The Marketing Village
Before we go any farther, let’s talk about the kinds of pukes—er, I mean,
people—we have in marketing…and who they work for, because lots of them may not be company employees.
First, the organizations. In addition to the company marketing their own products (let’s call them the Arglebargle Widget Co, or just Arglebargle, for convenience), there can be many other organizations involved in their marketing:
- Marketing Agency. This is a “catchall” kind of marketing company, one that does many different things to help a client like Arglebargle get the word out, and drive sales. They may do websites, ads, PR, branding, direct, and collateral design under one roof. A marketing agency is a good choice for a smaller company with limited budgets, because they’re usually more focused on results.
- Advertising Agency. You’d go to them for the “serious” ads—television ads, big glossy print and outdoor work, etc. This is kinda a throwback in today’s world—an agency that only produces, and places, advertising. Sure, there are some agencies out there that strictly do ads, but the line has blurred between ads and experiences—especially online—so expect an ad agency to do websites, branding, and other things these days.
- Design Agency. These agencies focus on the visual side of things. You’d go to them for packaging, collateral, business systems (fancy-speak for cards/letterhead/envelopes), display graphics, presentation design, info graphics, etc. Sometimes put down as the “pretty picture guys.” Many are not very strategic, but this isn’t always the case.
- PR Agency. These are the guys who are connected with the press—they have the contacts with editors that help them get your news in print (or online) and your products reviewed. Of course, PR now has a strong online and social component, so the lines get blurred with what’s next.
- Social Media Agency. This is an agency that creates, manages, and sometimes provides strategy for your Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, ad nauseum, if you are silly enough to waste a lot of time on this. They are usually pretty useless for micro-social strategy and implementation, like activity on Head-Fi, for example.
- Web/Mobile Agency. These are the guys who build your website or create your apps. Of course, your marketing agency, ad agency, or design agency may also be able to do that too.
- Branding Agency. These guys are, at least theoretically, the strategists. The ones who figure out what you should say to differentiate yourself from the competition. The ones who come up with powerful, emotional ways to say it. The ones who wrap it all in a compelling visual experience that sets you apart. And sometimes it works that way. Sometimes it goes off the rails, and you get delivered a brand that doesn’t look or sound anything like what you are. This is the component that most companies should keep in-house as much as possible…because nobody knows who you really are as well as, well, you.
Then, the contractors. Because sometimes you don’t need all the agency baggage to get something done, especially if you have the core of your branding in-house. And believe me, there’s tons of agency baggage. But I’ll get to that.
- Video Producer. Because you need to have some video shot, edited, and a voiceover and effects added. Whether it’s an educational video or for a commercial, there are plenty of producers who are available to help you out.
- Graphic Designer. Like a design agency, but cheaper and with less pretention and infighting. Providing you can do the strategy and words, much less expensive than the full agency treatment.
- Photographer. Because you need pictures. Good pictures. And believe me, you don’t want to do them yourself. That’s its own rabbit hole.
- Illustrator. Because you need something illustrated—a product diagram, an infographic, a cartoon. And it’s not like you usually have an illustrator sitting around the office.
- Copywriter. Because you need good copy. And writing is hard.
- Various contractors. Because you can get people who will write PR, help you with shows, put content on your website, etc, etc—all the various little marketing tasks.
So now you’re probably sweating a bit, thinking, “Holy crap, I have to hire all of these?” and “Why doesn’t any large company simply do this internally?”
Well, to be short, “no” and “holy crap,” respectively.
The longer answer as to how many of these dudes (and dudettes) you have to hire is, “Depending on how much you can do internally, and how great your needs are, you may not need to hire any of them at all.”
However, the likelihood that Arglebargle Widget Co, a small start-up, has the staff or time to take everything on, well, that’s pretty low. So you may end up hiring a graphic designer to execute an ad you came up with, or even a contractor to help set up a trade show.
And, assuming that Arglebargle knows its product, audience, and differentiators, knows where they hang out, and can put together copy for an ad or brochure, that may be all they need.
Aside: the more you can do in-house (without going broke or overburdening your staff), the better. Yes, I know, the agencies will howl, but there is nobody who knows Arglebargle better than Arglebargle, especially when the company is just starting up. A key component to Schiit’s ultra-efficient marketing is simply the fact that I do all of the strategy, copy, and visuals, do some of the press interface, and we use a contractor to make sure I don’t screw up the trade shows. That’s it.
And Schiit isn’t the only company that acts this way. One of Centric’s former clients had a CEO who was intimately involved with their marketing. Any marketing item that could affect revenue—from a trade show graphic to an ad or the website—was under his direct review, and he gave specific input. Nobody doubted who was running marketing, even though he had an in-house staff to manage much of the day-to-day aspects of it, and an agency to advise and execute. The success of this approach was evidenced by the company growth—from $80MM to $450MM while we were working with them.
Now, as far as the question about why a big company doesn’t just hire everyone they need in-house, well, that’s both simple and complex. The short, verbal form would be, “Well, because they’re expensive…and they’re also fickle.”
Let me explain. Hiring a full in-house art department, brand management department, copywriting, video production, ad placement, PR, etc, etc would be extremely expensive. And, unless the company was exceedingly large and in need of literally boatloads of content (think Target—they use an in-house agency), those people would usually spend most of their time sitting around.
And, at the same time, creative talent is unique, in that many of them want the prestige of working for an agency (usually thought to be better than working for an in-house department), or they would rather freelance…and they tend to move around pretty often, to where job opportunities seem better, so they may not be with the company long, even if they take the job. This, by the way, applies on both the “art side” and the “programming side.” Both should be considered creative.
Because of the cost and uncertainty, then, most companies like Arglebargle prefer to contract with the agencies and freelancers on an as-needed basis, to produce the specific marketing items they need.
Which leads to an interesting dichotomy: Arglebargle and its agencies or contractors have different goals.
For Arglebargle, it’s simple:
- They want to have a project done
- They want something to be effective
- They want it to fit within a specified budget
- They want to have it work with what they’ve done before
- They want it on time
For an agency, it’s also simple, but different:
- They want ongoing work, not projects (think retainers)
- They want to do something cool that wins awards
- They want more budget than the cheap-ass client provides
- They want to radically redefine your direction
- They want the time to do it right, even if that doesn’t fit your schedule
And yes, I know, not all agencies are like this, but the fact is: most agencies don’t want project work, most agencies are looking to do cool stuff, and most agencies would rather radically redefine your look and message, rather than build on what came before.
So be careful…and know that you may be working at cross-purposes. While what the agency proposes may seem cool, make sure you’re not funding a Shiny Marketing Object—a “cool” new tactic with no guarantee of success.
Schiit’s Marketing and Herding Cats
I mentioned above that a lot of Schiit’s “secret sauce” is simple: I do most of the marketing from start to finish. What I didn’t get into, though, is why that’s good, what we’re doing, what happens when I can’t do it, or what we’re doing this year.
So let’s talk about that, and then let’s talk about a general prescription for doing marketing right (or at least right-er—herding all the marketing pukes…er, I mean cats, in the same direction.)
First, let’s talk about what Schiit has done, and what we’re doing this year.
In the past, we’ve done a website, a few online and print ads, and trade shows. Oh, and we post what we’re doing on Facebook, for some reason.
This year, we’re adding a few print and online ads, and a show or two.
“Whoa, big change, huh,” you might say. “Don’t go wild or nothin.”
To which we say:
Exactly.
Getting distracted by Shiny Marketing Objects can quickly eat your budget. Sure, we could do an all-out social program, or create an augmented reality app, or produce videos, or do lenticular animated tip-ins, or heat-activated urinal billboards…but these are highly speculative, expensive tactics that may or may not work.
See, the thing is, success in marketing is usually pretty boring. In fact, it can be summed up in just two principles:
- Stick to the stuff that’s measurable.
- Make sure it pays off before doing more of it.
This means that our primary areas of marketing are:
- The website. It’s a direct-sale site, so it’s where the money comes in. This is the most important thing for us, with a bullet.
- Micro-social. Like this book. We’re present where our customers are. This is very important.
- Online ads. Because they are 100% measurable and trackable down to purchase.
So why are we engaging in trade shows and print ads? Aren’t they less measurable? Yes, they are. But with the success of #1-3 above, we can now speculate a little. And by “a little,” I mean, “A
real little.”
- Shows are where you are going to see the press, and get coverage on new (or existing) products. They’re important.
- Print ads, in the past, we’ve done to support the shows. Now, we’re venturing out into Stereophile very deliberately—to let them know about our multibit DACs, and to prime the audience for upcoming 2-channel products. In this case, we’re building a foundation.
Note that nowhere in the above are there any highly speculative or expensive tactics. This is based on my experience of 20+ years in marketing. While cool, they are more risky. So they should be left until you’re literally bursting at the seams with extra money. Until then, focus on your product, and do the simple marketing stuff.
You’ll also note that nowhere in the above are any focus groups or research. We’re close enough to the market that we don’t believe we need it. We also have enough confidence in what we’re doing that we don’t believe we need to second-guess, delay, or get a different opinion on what’s coming. We could be wrong. We’ll see.
So what does this all mean to a company wanting to do marketing right? Well, much of the above. Let’s sum it up:
- Start by defining your “first 3.” Don’t move an inch until you have this down. You can go crazy and flesh this out into a full message platform, but that’s a bit crazy, especially for a small or start-up company…and beyond the scope of this chapter, anyway.
- A clear definition of what your product or service is.
- An identified audience who is, or should be, interested in your product or service.
- At least one unique advantage your product or service has over the competition.
- Determine with what you can do yourself. Can you do copy? Layout? Video? Programming? None of the above? All are fine answers. Just be honest.
- Determine what conservative, measurable tactics will be most critical to your success. If you’re selling affordable products direct, a great e-commerce website shoots to #1 immediately. If you’re selling a very sophisticated and expensive service, your sales presentation and collateral may be as important as your site. General rules include:
- E-commerce is always #1 if you’re selling direct
- Online ads are easy to measure and tweak, offline not so much.
- Mass social is almost always a loser, first-thing; however, engaging in micro-social communities that are predisposed to be interested in your product can be extremely important—and it’s measurable
- Don’t discount “old” tactics like direct mail—it still works, especially high-end direct mail—and it’s easy to measure
- Print ads may be worth doing, especially in niche industries
- Don’t get wrapped around an axle on “brand look” or how something “feels,”—these are just excuses not to do something
- Hire in-house, contractors, or agencies as needed to help you execute these tactics if you can’t. Just know that their goals may not be the same as yours:
- Always have a firm grasp on the “first 3.” Go back to that as a reference when they present something to you.
- Reject anything that doesn’t support your “first 3.”
- Pay attention to fine print on contracts—number of revisions, who owns the artwork, etc.
- Measure and refine before you do anything else. Okay, so you’ve gotten a site in place and you’re running online ads. Great. That doesn’t mean it’s time to go out and embark on your augmented reality app. Instead:
- Make sure Google Analytics is installed on your site
- Make sure it’s tracking sales, or, if you’re a leads-based business, that you’ve set up goals to track
- See who’s coming from what referral sites, keywords, and ads
- Do more of what works, and less of what doesn’t
- Go back to #3. And do the next thing on your “conservative, measurable tactics” list.
And yeah, I know, Google Analytics is a whole marketing course in it self, as is Adwords (online/mobile search ads). That’s beyond the current scope of this chapter. However, if you don’t have the time or inclination to learn about these things, know that you can always hire a contractor or an agency to help you—and DO IT.
Listen to them. Learn what works.
Because marketing that doesn’t work is nothing more than ego—and can be, eventually, the downfall of the company.
