The Ice Cream Effect on Web Businesses

According to the International Dairy Foods Association, in 2007 30.5 % of ice cream sold was Vanilla.  Chocolate was next coming in at 10% with Choc Chip coming in at 5.7%.   The next 50 flavors collectively didn’t add up to the top three combined.

The best web businesses also get a disproportionate amount of traffic in similar scales to the top three ice cream flavours.  The best e-commerce sites, business-to-business sites per industry sector, charity sites or whatever sector you’re in, the big players usually dominate the majority of the traffic, leaving the smaller players to lick up the rest.

So common sense would say that if you’re going to open up a web business, it should be selling ‘Vanilla’ and you should try to be leading the top three vendors.  Well, back-in-the-day that might have been a strategy worth considering, however the dominance of the big players is extremely hard to shift, now that the web has matured somewhat.

Say your ‘Vanilla’ product was to sell denim to the masses. You have all of the top brands in stock and the price is right.  How do you get attention?  Your differentiators are too small to cause viral chatter, display ads too costly to start building brand and both paid and natural search are closed out due to heavy competition.

The answer more often than not is “DON’T DO IT”. Only ‘lick what you can swallow’ and go for a niche say, Rocky Road Ice Cream and lead the lovers of this niche taste.  Getting 30%, 10% or 5.7% of this smaller market is a lot easier to dominate and is more profitable than going up against the Vanilla behemoths.

The talent, cost and effort required to dominate the niche can of course be calculated before committing to entering the market.  For example, run a Pay Per Click campaign and understand the search terms that cause clicks before you build the website. Feel out the market size and propensity of the customer to purchase before commissioning a website.  Then take your findings and build the web strategy around the customer’s tastes, not yours.

Every week I see businesses that spend money on becoming web enterprises only to see their dreams melt because they didn’t do the web research, monitor the competition on the web or truly understand the customers’ propensity to purchase.  They achieve only fortuitous conversions all because the customer seeks out the best in market. The web enterprise chose to sell Vanilla when they really should have gone Butter Pecan.

Offline marketing isn’t dead … but silo marketing is

We’re all getting a bit tired now with claims that offline advertising is dead, and it’s time to put to bed the rumours of its death as nothing more than great exaggerations. But why are so many happy to herald its demise?

It’s clear to everyone involved in the world of communications that we are experiencing consumer behaviour change at a staggering rate. Intuitively we know that things aren’t as they were.

On a technical level intelligent mobile devices, faster internet access, cheaper hardware, an ever improving web and the social media revolution have all been catalysts for change. Societal upheaval has complemented this, as trust in big business has never been under greater threat, and traditional religious and class influences are weakening on a monthly basis.

Angry Customer - grrrrrrr!

This has led to a cynical, marketing-proof, knowledgeable consumer, confident and armed with independent thought.

How have we as marketers reacted to this change?

Therein lies the rub, as there has been no consistent response to the new opportunities brought about by changing consumer behaviour. Too quickly we have rushed to our comfort zones, too often (though not exclusively) along generational lines. It seems the new generation of marketing executives fresh out of college overvalue online communication, particularly social media, and are too quick to dismiss offline communications out of hand. At the other end of the professional generational spectrum, groups of battle hardened senior managers, who have been through too many fads to believe the latest one, have neither the patience nor the inclination to listen too carefully to the hyperbole laden promises of online marketing.

Evidently neither party is correct.

Companies who have grasped the opportunity this change brings have implemented a vision which ensures that the senior management are challenged to think about the power of digital marketing, and fresh eager young executives are given clear guidelines and targets around how their online marketing activity fits wider marketing and commercial goals. In short, senior and junior staff are united, not divided, by a common language.

Used to its fullest potential, the ability to integrate online and offline marketing correctly is the most exciting opportunity we’ve had in years to influence consumers at all levels.

Woolly cardie, slippers and tank top nowhere to be seen?

Proof, were it needed, that offline marketing is alive and well, is the new 90 second M&S advert featuring the fabulous five – Dannii Minogue, Ana Beatriz Barros, VV Brown, Lisa Snowdon and Twiggy. It’s stylish, sassy, sexy, confident and dramatic; a good old fashioned above the line campaign to influence consumer perceptions and challenge the notion of M&S as frumpy and dated.

Unsurprisingly it has generated a significant amount of comment online, particularly on social media and discussion forums, not all of which are commending its stylishness and fabulous production values. Ranking high in Google are forums and blogs containing comments such as “But these are not just clothes, these are M&S finest quality cardies and slippers” and “This is not just a tank top, this is an M&S tank top”.

What a massive opportunity for M&S marketing people to listen, engage, respond to and challenge preconceptions online to complement the offline above the line showcase advert. When M&S, and others like them, embrace the huge opportunity this affords, we can put foolish talk of the death of offline marketing behind us, and look forward to a new more integrated future.