The Market-Intelligent Executive

How to Establish Yourself as an Internal Consultant

Consulting is a privilege bestowed by someone who has a problem and asks you to help find a solution.  And the key words are, "asks you."

Many corporate marketers and researchers are under the impression that they should be consulted when there's a strategic decision at stake.  That's not consulting.  That's wanting to be consulted.  There's a flaw in the notion that decision-makers somehow have an obligation to us. 

One corporate researcher shared his frustration with me about internal clients who were ignoring or running roughshod over him.  I asked him, "Have you earned these people's regard as a consultant?"  He looked back at me quizzically.  So, here's the essence of the pep talk I gave him.

• You're bright, inquisitive, ambitious, creative, analytical, experienced and many other qualities that helped make you a great marketing researcher.

• Being consultative requires more than a desire to be consulted.  Your internal clients need to see you as a thought partner who can help them define and solve their business and career problems, not just their research problems.

• Advocating marketing research is fine, but sometimes there isn't a sufficient business case for doing marketing research.  Applying a balanced perspective with clients rather than pounding the research drum will position you as fair minded and, therefore, more valuable to clients.

• Learn how the company makes money.  Understand how profitable each product is by unit and gross contribution to the bottom line.  Explore your clients' ideas on how operations might be streamlined.  That will help you think-through with clients where the biggest opportunities to help are.

• Help your client clarify what decisions are at stake, what the alternative are and how you'll choose one.  Ask about who's involved in making the decision and what their key concerns are.  Address these issues in the research design.  This will help your client begin creating alignment and support among other stakeholders.

• Show that you care about your clients.  Communicate your desire to help them succeed.  Ask them how you can help with other projects they're working on.  They'll appreciate your concern and will be more likely to bring you into their cadre of trusted advisers.

 

       --Jason Sherman, Whyze Group

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Getting a Grip on SEO

A recent American Marketing Association survey describes search engine optimization as among the new skills marketers feel they need to learn. 

Yeah.  That'll be the solution to marketers' woes.

As a gentle reminder (read "There's an Elephant in the Room" here) CEOs and others outside of marketing view marketers as lacking in innovation and communication skills, not SEO skills. 

So, let's put SEO in perspective.  It's just another marketing investment that you should consider based on the facts.

Having just evaluated SEO firms for my website, I've decided that it doesn't make sense to invest much more than I already have, but it might make sense for you.  I'm not an SEO expert, but here are some basics to help fellow neophytes get started.

What SEO Is

SEO consists of techniques for getting your company's website listed highly in response to searches on Google, Yahoo and other search engines.  SEO relies on website content, key words, meta tags, links and other devices that lure search engines into thinking your site is the be-all-end-all on specific topics, industries or products.

Cost

The costs of SEO are driven mostly by the time you or someone you hire invests in making your site search-engine friendly. 

Buying Placement on Keywords

You can buy your way into higher search engine rankings, but here's the rub...If you want to come up high in searches on the most commonly used keyword searches, it's going to cost you much more than if you get more specific with the keywords on which you want to rank highly. 

Here are a couple of examples:  My dentist pays $40,000 per year to be listed among the top results for searches on "dentist", "Cleveland".  A friend who runs bar tending schools on Long Island pays $25,000 a year to show up in the top rankings.  That's for "bar tending school", "New York".  Pretty specific stuff.

Now imagine what the investment would be for searches on your industry or your product category, particularly if you have national or international reach.  We're talking big bucks, but it may be worth it.

Overture

Www.overture.com (now called Yahoo! Search Products) includes a free service that will tell you how many searches were made last month on any combination of keywords.  For example, there were about 7,800 searches on "marketing research" in July.  Those searches produce several million listings, so getting to the top of those page rankings would be difficult for our boutique firm.  Searches on "market intelligence" were far fewer, but this is what we genuinely offer, so those are among our key keywords.

My advice (and, again, I'm not an SEO expert) would be to try unique combinations of keywords that are specific to your brand and unique product characteristics.  If you're an auto insurance company, for example, try "auto insurance", "New York" and "declining deductibles" if you offer that feature.  There will be fewer searches on those terms each month, but your chances of getting a higher page ranking are greater.

A Moving Target

There are hundreds of SEO firms out there working with thousands of businesses to get their search rankings higher.  SEO isn't an event, it's a long term commitment.  High search rankings today can disappear as competitors use new strategies to get their rankings over yours. 

Next Steps

• Read up on SEO.  It could be a powerful addition to your marketing mix.

• Talk to a few SEO firms to get a sense for how they can help.  If any promise that your site will consistently be listed first, walk away.  No one can guarantee that. 

• Try to winnow down your keyword combinations to those that differentiate your offering.  You're trading off volume for efficiency.  Ask your prospective SEO firm for their suggestions.

• Evaluate the business case for SEO, particularly if you're considering buying placement on keywords.  You might get a sense that your ROI will be higher for other kinds of marketing investments.  It's perfectly fine not to jump into online marketing investments if you've got better ways to spend your money.

      --Jason Sherman, Whyze Group

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Frustrated with Your Company?

I have a colleague at a Fortune 500 company who was once very frustrated with his organization's low level of marketing sophistication.  If you've felt similarly, take heed...Understanding your organization's execution maturity and how to improve it will help.

Execution maturity has emerged in consultant-speak (ah, leave it to consultants to come up with new buzz words) as a framework for assessing your organization's proficiency...in this case, its ability to transform market intelligence into profitable innovation.  Your company executes the process at a level of proficiency you can assess.

Execution maturity covers three dimensions: supply, demand and application.

Supply

This refers to the capacity of our organizations to develop useful market intelligence.  At the low end, market data is generated by an unskilled staff who collect secondary research or manage very basic surveys. Anecdotal reports from sales people and others around the organization might contribute more data.  There's no repeatable "intelligence process" in place. 

At the top of the scale are organization's proficient in marketing research, business intelligence and competitive intelligence. This is not to say that these same organizations demand this intelligence or apply it well.

Demand

This refers to what stakeholders ask for.  In mature organizations, decision makers are knowledgeable about different kinds of market intelligence and how to use it. 

In organizations where there's little maturity in demand, research departments are often peppered with lots of irrelevant requests.  (I used to get these on sticky notes at one firm that will remain nameless.) Often, these have little to do any decisions to be made (otherwise known as "CYA" research). 

Application

This refers to transforming market intelligence into profitable innovation.  It's not unusual for companies to be proficient at executing marketing research but inept at applying what's learned. Here are a few more things to consider:

• Dissemination.  Is market intelligence freely accessible to those who could use it or does it only reside in the heads of requesters?   

• Combining.  Are multiple data sets being combined to create powerful, proprietary views of innovation opportunities? 

• Decision rights.  Do users have the authority to act on the intelligence?  If not, then there will be little application value.

Implications for Marketers and Researchers

You might not be able to avoid frustration, but managing it is key.  To begin improving your situation,

1. Estimate your organization's maturity on each dimension
2. Selectively validate your assessments with trusted colleagues
3. If enough people with juice in the organization agree with your assessment, then you'll begin to gain traction
4. Get ready to act.  If demand is a problem, be prepared to educate.  If application is the problem, get more consultative in up-front intelligence planning.  If supply is the problem, look for external vendors who can complement your existing capabilities.

     --Jason Sherman, Whyze Group

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If you have a questions, comments or an article you'd like to submit to The Market Intelligent Executive, please email here.