Marketing Definitions from the Top Marketers on Twitter

The SystemicMarketing web site and blog will launch next month, but in the meantime they have asked the top marketing book authors, marketing professors, marketing analysts, and CMOs on Twitter to share their favorite definitions of marketing. Here are a few, but the rest can be viewed on their website:

My definition of marketing goes something like this:

“Good ideas are a dime a dozen, but implementation is priceless!” - Mike Blaney

“Marketing is how value is created, commuted, and communicated from a firm or person to a customer.”
–Dave Aron, Associate Professor at Dominican University
www.Twitter.com/ProfAron

“Marketing encompasses activities that maximize the value to the customer and the return on investment when bringing a product or service to market.”
–Sam Decker, Chief Marketing Officer at Bazaarvoice
www.Twitter.com/SamDecker

“Good marketing is developing trust between a consumer and a product. Great marketing is developing trust between a consumer and a product without the consumer even knowing it happened.”
–Jesse Friedman, Professor at Johnson & Wales University
www.Twitter.com/Professor

“Marketing: to identify, acquire, and retain higher-margin clients.”
–David Harkleroad, Chief Marketing Officer at Hay Group
www.Twitter.com/DavidHarkleroad

Marketing is communicating to your customers and prospects what you want them to do and why.”
–Simms Jenkins, Author of “The Truth About E-mail Marketing” from FT Press
www.Twitter.com/SimmsJenkins

“Marketing is understanding customers’ needs, and then fulfilling those needs better than anyone else.”
–Jim Lyons, Professor at the University of Phoenix
www.Twitter.com/JFLyons

Marketing is telling a story to a targeted customer segment that they want or need to hear — resulting in some behavior change or transaction. In order to build a long-term relationship with the customer, the story must be valuable, relevant, compelling, and consistent, and must truly solve the customer’s pain points.”
–Joe Pulizzi, Coauthor of “Get Content, Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing” from McGraw-Hill
www.Twitter.com/JuntaJoe

Marketing is the process of persuading others that what you have is what they’ve always wanted.”
–Michael Stelzner
Author of “Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged” from WhitePaperSource Publishing
www.Twitter.com/Mike_Stelzner

“Marketing is an integrated communications process which develops messaging that attempts to gain attention from people in order to accomplish specific objectives.”
–Eric Yaverbaum
Coauthor of “Public Relations For Dummies: Second Edition” from John Wiley & Sons

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Are All Webmail Users The Same?

The big 4 webmail services are Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL and Hotmail and while their users should generally behave in the same manner there are subtle differences that a marketer should be aware of. The most obvious one is that Hotmail is used by more home users and I would think a younger audience versus Gmail which is used by a lot of business people.

MailChimp, an email distribution service studied success metrics for marketing e-mails sent through  these 4 services showed that Gmail users were most likely to open and click on e-mails. Another important metric, open rate, varied from a low of just over 20% for e-mail sent to AOL users to a high over nearly 31% among Gmail users. The click rate, or the number of times users clicked on links on e-mails sent to Gmail accounts was more than 7.4%, compared with rates between 4% and 5% for Yahoo!, AOL and Hotmail users.

Open Rates
Hotmail-23.8 %
Yahoo! Mail -24.5 %
AOL- 20.1%
Gmail- 30.9%

Emails Sent
Hotmail – 63.5 million
Yahoo! Mail – 54.8 million
AOL – 28.8 million
Gmail – 29 million

According to comScore, Gmail is the third-most-popular e-mail property among US Internet users, though it posted the highest growth rate between July 2008 and July 2009. Unique visitors to the service rose 46% to nearly 37 million.

Top  Email Properties (thousands)
Yahoo!Mail – 87,224 (2008) 106,166 (2009) Up 22%
Windows Live Hotmail – 45,886 (2008) 47,115 (2009) Up 3%
Gmail – 25,304 (2008) 36,959 (2009) Up 46%
AOL – 45,111 (2008) 36,407 (2009) Down -19%

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People Are Using Coupons – But How Do They Get Them?

In a post I wrote in April 2009 titled Coupon Use Hits Early 1990’s Level I reported that coupon

There's a coupon in here somewhere!

redemption in the fourth quarter of 2008 grew nearly 10% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007.

In 2008 there was a 5% increase in the number of coupons made available to consumers for a total of 317 billion coupons. This distribution is not just up over the previous year, but is back up to levels from a decade ago.  If there are 330 million people in the US that would mean there were 960 coupons distributed per person.

Text messaging and email are quickly emerging as ways to obtain coupons in the US, with 8.6 million (8%) of the country’s households currently using one or both of these methods to receive money-saving offers, according to an analysis from Scarborough Research (pdf) that explores and ranks the ways households obtain coupons.

According to the study consumers who obtain coupons via text messages and/or email tend to be young, affluent, educated and female, the study found. Scarborough data revealed that they are 14% more likely than the average adult to be ages 18-24; 51% more likely to be a college graduate or have an advanced degree; and 6% more likely to be female.

Ways Households Typically Obtain Coupons (%)

• Sunday newspaper 51%
• In-store coupons 35%
• Mail 31%
• Preferred customer card/loyalty card    21%
• In-store circulars 20%
• Weekday newspaper 17%
• Product packages 16%
• Magazines 15%
• Text Messages and/or Email 8%
• Internet Sites    7%
  (Source: Scarborough Research, Scarborough USA+ Study, Release 2 2008)

It is interesting how often we read about the demise of the newspaper, but I forecast it will be many years before coupons distributed through text messaging and email come anywhere close to the levels of newspapers.

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Halloween Cient Appreciation Idea – Custom Candy Box

You may think you are alone in celebrating Halloween, but nearly two-thirds (64.5%) of Americans were planning to celebrate Halloween in 2008 and spend an average of $66.54, according to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch. This compares to actual 2007 results showing $5.07 billion was spent and  58.7% of consumers saying they planned to celebrate Halloween. So don’t miss out this year.

Click for a larger image

The best way to celebrate with your clients and prospects and show your appreciation is by handing out treats in a Halloween candy box complete with your branding on it.

These candy boxes are the perfect size
4-3/8″ long by 1-7/8″ wide by 2-5/8″high plus the roof

They come in two styles; Jack-o-Lantern or Trick or Treat

They are food-grade and sturdy, glossy cardboard construction

You can have your logo or a message imprinted in the  2″ x 1-1/4″ oval (See below)

The Cost*
Qty   200 – $0.99 ea
Qty   300 – $0.89 ea
Qty   500 – $0.79 ea
Qty 1000 – $0.59 ea
* Plus $ 19.99 set-up fee. Slightly higher in Canada.

How will people celebrate Halloween? People will celebrate Halloween in a variety of ways

• Handing out candy (73.7%)
• Carving a pumpkin (44.6%)
• Decorating (50.3%)
• Dress in costume (35.3%)
• Throw or attend a party (31.1%)
• Take children trick-or-treating (33.6%)

Consumers will spend an average of $24.17 on Halloween costumes (including costumes for adults, children, and pets) in 2008. They also will be buying candy ($20.39 on average), decorations ($18.25) and greeting cards ($3.73).

Samples of 4 color imprinting of a message and logo. The “Talk to Keehn” imprint is the name of the client.

Imprint for Customer boxes. (Click for larger image. )

Click for larger image