A Guide for Prioritizing Marketing Communications by Nick Scarpino (Marketing strategy , Marketing learning)
A Guide for Prioritizing Marketing Communications by Nick Scarpino (Marketing strategy , Marketing learning)
Nick Scarpino is a Senior Account Planner at Google, where he works with data to uncover consumer insights within the travel industry. He has an undergraduate degree in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame and a Master's degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University.
Guide Marketing strategy , Marketing learning by Nick Scarpino
I am here today to talk to you about a
topic that I love marketing
communications now that is probably
something you don't hear every day but
it's true I love marketing
communications but what does that mean
well there are many different aspects to
marketing you got things like pricing
distribution that type of thing
the communication side of marketing
really deals with all the different ways
that you can get the word out about
something right it's just a fancy way of
saying that so by show of hands how many
of you have ever played the game whirly
ball alright okay so yesterday in
rehearsal nobody raised their hand I
thought am I the crazy one or are they
the crazy ones so TEDx organizers go
play whirly ball right okay so for those
of you who don't know what whirly ball
is it's a fantastic game it involved you
play with your friends and family it
involves bumper cars it involves banana
scoop or wiffle ball basically I'm just
telling you to google it after this
because it's awesome and you should all
play I say Google a lot so two friends
of mine actually like whirly ball so
much that they left their jobs in
Chicago and they moved to the Twin
Cities in Minnesota to start a whirly
ball there because they don't have on
there and as they're getting ready to
open the doors for the first time
they've started receiving phone calls on
a near daily basis with different
advertising opportunities that makes
sense and so as you as they consider
each advertising opportunity
individually they actually all seem like
great ideas but they don't have all the
time and the money in the world to make
everything happen so they'll get local
questions like hey are you interested in
advertising in our marketing our
community marketing calendar that goes
out to all the local we printed out it
goes to all the local homes in your area
that sounds like a good idea they get
questions like are you interested in
putting an ad on a placemat in the diner
that's across the street from your
worldy ball location sounds like a good
idea to write but then like I said they
don't have all the time in the money in
the world and those are just the
opportunities that they're being
presented with they also have all their
own market
in communication ideas as well right so
they've created a website they've built
a Facebook page the opportunities are
seemingly endless in marketing
communications and they're constantly
changing so 20 years ago every
advertiser out there wanted to put an ad
in a local newspaper in order to reach
their target market six or seven years
ago every single person every company
out there wanted to go out to myspace
and reach their customers how many of
you have ever had a myspace account okay
that's good but things change right
things change so how do businesses
prioritize marketing communications when
everything is changing all the time
that's what I'm really passionate about
that's the challenge that every business
today is facing and it's really
difficult in particular for small
businesses and nonprofits that probably
have very little to no marketing
resources at all noted psychologist
Barry Schwartz wrote a book called the
paradox of choice he gave a TED talk of
the same name it's one of my favorites
out there and in that talk he does he
describes how when human beings are
faced with an endless amount of choice
it actually damages that the human
psyche it paralyzes us it renders us
incapable of making decisions at least
to a certain extent so he says that in
order for us to make the best decisions
possible we need to narrow down that
endless list of opportunities and we
based on a certain set of criteria and
then we can really feel good about our
decisions as we go forward so that's why
I'm here that's why I'm passionate about
I am passionate about helping businesses
in particular small businesses and
nonprofit organizations narrow down with
a certain set of criteria that I've
created all the different marketing
communications opportunities that are
out there so if you're thinking about
starting your own business if you're
thinking about starting your own
nonprofit organization perhaps you're
looking to ignite a little change of
your own that was a theme for today yeah
I got that in there maybe this will help
you but if you're just maybe thinking
about one day maybe you're already
working at a great company maybe you
just want to get the word out about
something that else that you're
passionate about I hope what I'm going
to present to you today
we'll help you so I brought today with
me two different lists of this criteria
that we're going to look at and the
first list is called the five marketing
communication must-haves there are five
marketing communication tactics that are
so important you have to do all of these
before you do anything else in fact if
you have limited time and money which
everybody does I want you to start with
number one and I want you to go through
as far as you can through number five
and hopefully you can get through all
five right so without further ado what
is the most important thing you can do
in marketing communications it's that
you can utilize your physical physical
location if you have one so if you have
a store or any place that you interact
with customers on a near-daily basis it
is likely your most expensive asset that
you have so you really need to squeeze
all of as much value out of that asset
as you can what does this mean in
practical purposes it means putting a
great sign out front of your building
that's kind of an easy one it just tells
people who you are and what you do it
means if you have foot traffic by actual
people walking by driving boating
whatever you do whatever they do it
means putting out signs that say things
like what your specials are and things
like that or giving away free samples
things like that now a great example of
this is the Chinese restaurant that's
just down the street from my house they
do a great job of utilizing their
physical location even when disaster
struck this is a little hard to see but
a car drove through the front window and
walls of this Chinese restaurant it's
very hard to see but they boarded up the
walls right here and they spray-painted
a big thing that said open on top of it
okay
that's a great way right but that's not
even the coolest thing watch for the
coolest thing the coolest thing is they
put this sign on the front door we are
open come in and enjoy delicious Chinese
food food was so good that a car had to
come in as well in you
good right that is an awesome way to
utilize your physical location so I want
you to do as my local Chinese restaurant
does and utilize your physical location
all right the number two marketing
communication must have or number one if
you don't have a physical location is
that you need to build and maintain a
website a recent study by Google came
out and said that 60% almost 60% of
small businesses do not have a website
which is really a shame because when you
think about it a website is one of the
least expensive marketing communication
tactics you can possibly implement it
gives you 24-hour access to customers
and prospective customers and you can
control the entire message on the site
so everybody needs to have a website now
right next to that Chinese restaurant is
my local dry cleaner and super low cost
dry cleaner of Naperville Illinois it
has a website it is literally a mom and
pop shop a mom and pop on the place
there are only two of them but they have
a great website it lists their location
it lists all the services they offer
their prices how to contact them etc so
if they can do it you can too so I want
you to do as my local dry cleaner does
and build and maintain a website number
three this one's easy
you need to offer a way to speak to
somebody at your business the most
obvious way is with a phone a phone line
right you can also do advanced things
like have a video chat or have just a
regular chat feature on your website
because nothing will ever replace you
the importance of human to human
interaction when dealing with business
as a business you can offer your
customers empathy you can upsell them on
something if that's appropriate you can
just answer their questions and tell
them where you are that that's what they
need to do so the best example I've ever
seen of this is mo the bartender from
The Simpsons now mo is a sole proprietor
he's a one-man band he owns that bar and
he manages that bar he serves all the
drinks and even he has a customer
service line and no matter how many
times Bart Simpson will prank his
customer service line he answers that
phone every single time and he tries to
give the best customer service possible
right he always goes and looks for the
person who ever starts asking
Seymour butts you know that so I want
you to do as mo for the Simpsons does
and offer your customers a way to speak
to somebody at your business number four
you need to be found by your target
markets right now all around this
country and around this world somebody
out there is looking for whatever it is
that you're selling or whatever cause
you're supporting if you're a nonprofit
organization and it's really important
to get in front of those people at the
right time in the right place now if
this is happening online and it's
happening online I work at Google I'm
telling you this that means that you
need to get in front of people if you
sell something it means you need to show
up on Google and on Bing it means that
you need to be on Amazon and on eBay if
those are relevant to your business
right you got to show up where people
are looking for you a great example of
this that I hope will resonate with
college students as most of you are is
that I just recently did this Google
search
I need pizza now all right and look at
the first result this is I did it for my
house again I use a lot of local
examples so RP knows pizza delivery
right that gives me the address it gives
me the store information the pizza menu
of the locations it gives me everything
I could possibly want to know about
satisfying my need for pizza right now
so I want you to do as sarpy knows pizza
delivery does and be found by your
target markets number five of five the
last one the last thing that you must
implement is you need to engage
customers within one community so what
does that mean it means giving your best
customers a way to interact with you and
all your staff and your company and
things like that and a way to engage
with each other this can happen in a
variety of different ways but the most
obvious one the easiest one to give you
would be something like a Facebook page
right I can interact with this brand
they can answer my questions I can put
it out socially things like that but it
doesn't have to be online
and the key thing is is that you don't
have to do everything when it is online
you don't have to be on Pinterest and on
Twitter and on Google+ or you should be
on Google+ but you don't have to be
I don't have to have a youtube account
and all these kinds of things right you
don't have to do everything you just
have to do one really well that's the
key word up there just one and like I
said it doesn't have to be online my
local library has a wonderful kids
program that my son attends quite
frequently in which anybody from the
community can go and they can bring
their children and the children get to
interact with the library staff they
build a community right they get to
interact with other children it's
wonderful so I want you to do as my
local library does and engage customers
within one community all right so we
talked about the five marketing
communication must-haves right that
answered questions like what should I do
right now but then there's all these
other opportunities out there in
marketing communication kind of like I
was telling you with my Worley ball
friends so how do we make decisions how
do we set marketing communication
priorities when we know that five years
from now everything is going to change
what do we do now and how do we plan for
the future
well I've created a second list that I
brought with me today and this is the
list that I call three factors for
setting marketing communication
priorities there are three factors by
which you can measure every single
marketing communication tactic idea out
there and these three tactics these
three factors can actually be summarized
in just seven words now it's getting
late so I'm going to go through these
but then I'm going to ask for a little
audience participation so just start
getting mentally prepared all right so
the three factors for setting marketing
communication priorities can be
summarized in just seven words and they
are target markets shareable experiences
and return on investment now I need help
here I want you to say these with me
we're not going to say the numbers we're
just going to say those seven words all
right I need to get hear it loud they
got to hear you at home a lot of friends
that are watching the live stream we
need they need to hear you okay so let's
do it together on the count of three one
two three target markets shareable
experiences return on investment now
here's a crazy thing in rehearsal I
thought nobody's going to say anything
I'm gonna have to do this again I'm
gonna have to chastise people and say
this is TEDx to me
millions of people are watching around
the world and they're going to watch
this effort that was really good but I
still want to do it one more time
because you know this is all time done
this is scripted right okay so let's do
it one more time so that everybody
around the world can hear it I want to
count of three one two three target
markets shareable experiences return on
investment you have no idea as a
marketer how happy this makes it's just
a beautiful this is beautiful people
chanting about marketing this is great
this is great okay so to illustrate that
I want to give you an example I want to
give an example that brings all three of
those things together and the example
comes from a job that I used to work at
before I came to Google I used to work
for a wonderful nonprofit organization
called IES abroad that's actually based
here in Chicago and I've actually talked
to a few of you how many of you studied
abroad with IES this is lye hands that's
good great did you like it
good all right all right so for five and
a half years I worked in the marketing
department there and it was a wonderful
experience and so we had a very small
but mighty marketing team that we took
on the challenge in my last year there
of we really wanted to come out with
like a new branding campaign our goal
was always to increase the number of
students at local colleges who are
studying abroad right so is abroad
functions a lot like a college we send
us college students on study abroad
programs as many of you know so we
thought to ourselves how can we appeal
to our target market of current college
students who had not yet studied abroad
that was our target market okay
so what we came up with was a message or
Letten that we called your world
redefined so to a potential student a
student just like many of you who are in
college right here the idea was that
this message would show you that if you
studied abroad your world would be
redefined but then we wanted to go about
activating this message how do we get
the word out how do we tell people this
in an open and honest way well what we
did was we came up with this idea we
printed on eight and a half by eleven
white pieces of paper plain as day blank
redefined and we sent this to all of our
current students who are studying abroad
all around the
world thousands of students are studying
abroad we just printed this on a flyer
sent this to him and we said would you
please tell us something that has been
redefined by your study abroad
experience and if you want to would you
please share that with your friends and
family the reaction and the the
creativity that came out of this was
truly inspirational college students are
really creative so I want to show you a
few examples of how people started
sharing this on their social media
accounts they started creating photos
they created videos they took our
message off those pieces of paper I'm
going to show you a few examples here's
one this is a student in Spain she is at
a soccer game and she is showing you
that football has been redefined to her
by studying abroad
this student little hard to see is in
Morocco and riding on a camel she is
showing you that transportation has been
redefined by studying abroad these
students man I'm telling you in
marketing it is like the greatest thing
in the world when somebody takes your
slogan and does something else with it
these students put this on their
t-shirts after they had run a race in
Spain and they were saying that working
out had been redefined by their study
abroad experience these students are on
the Galapagos Islands off the coast of
Ecuador they are having a class there
and it's hard to see but that student in
the Middle's sign says that for her
class has been redefined by studying
abroad this student is near the Berlin
Wall and she has shown you how freedom
has been redefined for her by studying
abroad read it
college students are really creative
it's hard to get there that's not the
Machu Picchu overlook in Peru that's
hard to get to getting high has been
redefined by studying abroad I can't end
with that my mom's in the audience all
right so last but not least again it's
really cool when people put it take that
off of your sign and they stick it on
sand for example these students have
written holiday redefined they even used
are brackets that is so cool so for
their vacation their holiday had been
redefined so now let's think back to
what we talked about target markets
shareable experiences return on
investment our target market was current
u.s. college students who had not yet
studied abroad
this tactic had clearly reached those
people because they were their friends
who are already studying abroad were
sharing all their stuff with them right
they were sharing these pictures with
them in videos and things like that it
was awesome speaking of sharing
shareable experiences that was number
two right clearly we had created a
shareable experience and we had
encouraged our current students to share
that message and that experience with
their peers so it was great
lastly return on investment I'm not
going to go into specific details but
the campaign was very successful this
launched about four years ago it still
continues today it was very very
successful our small but mighty
marketing team won several awards when
it came out and it was great everybody
loved it they still continue to use it
today so it was obviously very
successful so that's really it I've gone
with over you the five marketing
communication must-haves we've talked
about the three factors for setting
marketing communication priorities and
so I hope that if you're looking to go
start your own business or nonprofit
someday again igniting a little change
of your own I hope we remember these but
if the only thing I've done for you
today is convince you that you need to
check out Worley ball or that you need
to study abroad if there's still time
left I think I'd be okay with that too
thank you very much
you