How to beat a 41-year low in consumer confidence or how feasible is truly integrated marketing for short consumer technology purchasing cycles when they are psyched out?
Okay, so no great news here on consumer confidence, but we still have to market and sell consumer electronics and technology products. Consumers are still considering which technologies, what brands and where to buy them, so while consumer technology marketing is no longer a catwalk we have to be darn efficient at what we do and how we use marketing. The old logic is to pare back on brand and squeeze hard on offers. In itself this is not a bad model; however we can no longer just rely on quick pricing actions to win the day.
Consumers are far savvier then they were in the last economic downturn. They shop, shop, shop - and that needs far more integration in communications than just a price action. In fact, price actions without effectively integrated push- and pull-based marketing are going to leave a lot of money on the table. Price actions alone will not reach enough potential buyers and we will be discounting to those already likely to buy from us. The intent here is to lay out six primal components for great integrated consumer marketing in a recessions-based environment.
There are six elements to tie together for the best (most efficient) consumer technology marketing programs in this tough climate.
- What drives leads
- What content works in each choice
- Do lead choices also build awareness and preference
- What experiences do they want in the channel
- What messages are needed at each stage
- What are the optimal communications
Here are some facts that should sculpt how difficult it is to just rely on one or two elements.
Even short cycle buyers need push and pull, welcome push and pull. In the US 55% of PC-type products take between four to thirty days from the light bulb going off to the actual purchase occurring. This leaves quite a few days and weeks for bad marketing to not work or the failure to integrate properly letting valuable marketing dollars slowly drip or spill out of the funnel. In the US the purchase process for 25% of PC-type products is less than three days – what we call the Thursday-to-Saturday event. Even these targets will surprise you with the amount of integration they need, so push or pull is not an option for these targets either. You might think we Americans are unusual and you would not be wrong to think that. Similar data in PRC (Tier I – IV) show an almost identical separation of timeframes for purchasing. The age of push or pull is well past us all – no matter where we are in the world of consumer marketing.
If we look at the comparative demand generation activities for short and long buyers we seem some fascinating push and pull type situations. You have no choice but to integrate for the short weekend buyer or the longer contemplated buyer programs in this tough climate.