Horizontal marketing is a form of promotion that thrives on creativity and fosters a collaborative relationship with neighboring businesses and even competitors.  Horizontal marketing occurs when two or more businesses that overlap clientele join together in their marketing efforts.  For example, a printer company and computer company bundling their products for a special discount.  The two companies are both trying to reach the same audience.

 

MSNBC recently featured an article written for Entrepreneur.com by Sarah Pierce that along with some real examples listed three benefits of horizontal marketing. 

Branding. Marketing. Advertising. According to a recent article written by Karen E. Klein for the small business online section of Business Week, these three can easily and often are mistakenly interchanged.

Ms. Klein recommends thinking of marketing as a toolbox. Within that toolbox are all of the tools a firm can use to motivate or persuade a consumer in a certain direction. These tools include advertising and branding as well as market research, direct mail, public relations, etc. Advertising is primarily a tool for communicating the desired action or reasons to take the action. It can come in the form of TV and radio spots, billboards, web banners, or in magazine and newspaper print.

On the other hand, branding is something that happens before the advertising rolls out. It is one of the first steps in the marketing strategy. The brand is the identity or personality of the firm. Branding is the process of creating that identity. The other aspects of the marketing strategy are either internal to develop the brand identity or external to communicate that identity to the consumer.  

Effective branding goes even farther than just communicating to the consumer. Rob Frankel, a branding expert, states, “Everyone knows about cancer but how many people actually want it? Branding is about getting your prospects to perceive you as the only solution to their problem.  Once you're perceived as 'the only,' there's no place else to shop.  Which means your customers gladly pay a premium for your brand." Successful branding isn’t something just accomplished by big companies either. Many small businesses have developed effective brands. To read more about branding, see this Special Report at BusinessWeek.com.

There are two broad areas of marketing, offensive and defensive. Offensive marketing efforts are aimed at attracting new customers or market share. Defensive marketing efforts are aimed at retaining existing customers or market share. Defensive marketing is often seen has secondary or has a white flag compared to offensive marketing strategies. This is not necessarily the case. Many areas of defensive marketing are appropriate throughout the product life cycle and will even support and minimize the cost of offensive marketing. (Fornell, C., & Wernerfelt, B., 1988).

 

One such area is customer complaint management (CCM). It is important to distinguish between complaint retribution and warranties or guarantees. A warranty or guarantee will replace or repair the problem. Complaint retribution may or may not. Complaints are not always immediately fixable. For example, if an individual complains to Apple that their new computer is too slow, then Apple is not going to custom build a computer for that individual. Apple can, however, log the information for later projects or offer to exchange the computer for a different model that does meet the customer’s criteria. Historically, managers have looked at customer complaints in a negative light. Some were even financially punished if the number of complaints reached a certain level.   Research has been done across a variety of industries, including e-commerce, and has found that customers should be encouraged to complain. The basic premise is simple. If a customer can be retained, this will almost always be less expensive than attracting a new one. The cost of the CCM system does need to be accounted for, but many options exist that are quite cost effective.

 

One of the most popular methods is a toll free telephone number. The toll free number allows the customer to complain without incurring additional cost, which would even further diminish the value derived from the product or service acquired. As long as the complaint line has not been delegated to a machine, this method provides quick attention to the customer and knowledge to the firm. The firm can then act to retain the customer, if feasible. This format is quickly being replaced with email or blogs. This technology allows for a quick response time and less cost. The important thing is to listen and then act. To learn more about customer complaint management by Fornell and Wernerfelt, read A Model for Customer Complaint Management or Defensive Marketing Strategy by Customer Complaint Management: A Theoretical Analysis .

There are literally millions of active blogs on the Internet. Most are of personal interest, but a growing number, like this one, have been developed to serve their clientele and business. As of 2006, 10% of small businesses were using blogs as part of their marketing strategy. The size or available resources are not the defining factors for a business to create and maintain a blog. The question has become, is the blog appropriate for their business. The New York Times examined this question for an article in their Small Business section last month.

 

Small businesses can use a blog to promote an event or give their customers an inside look at their business. But for it to be effective, clientele must already be going to the Internet to learn about the business. For example, the local Wendy’s probably wouldn’t have too much use for a blog. But the local entrepreneur selling her fitness video/program through her website could benefit from a blog. If she posts about new diet ideas, alternative exercises, or other fitness information that would be of interest to website visitors, then the blog could help drive sales and awareness. One such blogger is Mark Seigel of GolfAsian.com who blogs at Thailand Golf Zone. After a year of blogging, he estimates that his web site traffic has increased by 50% and an additional $250,000 in new business was a direct result of his blogging efforts. His blog is an extension of the website and promotes his travel services as well as his firm. 

 

Another advantage to blogging over other forms of medium is the variety of ways to track how many people are reading your blog, how they are finding it, and, to a degree, what they are doing with the information. This means you can begin to customize your postings and content to the desires of your readers. This will reinforce and create new traffic. The trick is to not get lost in the numbers. To read more on this topic from self-proclaimed business blogging coach, Shonnie Lavender, click here . Or visit the Blog Squad at Better Business Blogging.

A long used metric for measuring success of a product or business is customer satisfaction. One reason customer satisfaction is important is because of the sharing of information that occurs between consumers. In other words, people will talk and will listen to each other. As reported by the International Herald Tribune, a recent Nielson study found when it comes to advertising, 55% of Americans trust traditional advertising mediums. But 78% trust their friends’ word on products or services. 

 

A recent book by John H. Fleming, Ph.D., and Jim Asplund called The Human Sigma argues that the long held definition of customer satisfaction is misleading if not entirely incorrect. They claim it needs to be better refined to measure the emotional satisfaction of a customer, not just the rational. The emotional satisfaction is based more on the loyalty the customer has to the firm. An excerpt of their book may be read at the Gallup Management Journal website.

 

Whether you believe that your customers should be emotionally attached to your product or not, their satisfaction will have an impact on your bottom line. It costs five times more to replace a customer than to keep a customer. (Dr. Roger Best, Marketing Management: Strategies for Growing Customer Value and Profitability) In this digital age with blogs, instant messaging, and email; information and opinions (good and bad) about your product or service can spread quickly and without you having any direct control over it. Dissatisfied customers, in particular, have a forceful impact. It is estimated that a dissatisfied customer will tell 8 to 10 other people about their experience.(Best) And that does not include the hundreds or thousands more that will read the experience in a blog or other posting to the Internet that becomes permanent. Bottom line: You need to find what adds value for your customer, then satisfaction will remain high and loyalty will develop. 

Throughout my academic career, when a professor wanted to illustrate a math problem or transaction example, the product of choice was the widget. The widget could represent anything and was completely arbitrary and fictitious. The widget’s days of anonymity are over.

 

Web 2.0 technology has brought us an actual widget. The widget is a small application that is downloaded to a user’s desktop. It then provides a constant link to the provider’s website while also providing some other useful information or service to the user. For example, clothing merchant Due Maternity fashioned a widget that is a countdown clock for the mom-to-be and a link to DueMaternity.com for special promotions, pregnancy advice and products. Retailer JCPenney’s widget is a calendar that also showcases daily and weekly specials and will remind the user of upcoming gift giving events. The items showcased are linked to the appropriate pages at JCP.com.

 

Given the widget’s newness and relatively quick take off, research firms are only now starting to track their effectiveness. In the above example, Due Maternity recognized an initial expense of $600 and click through sales of $7500 after the first 45 days. They forecasted $75,000 by the end of 2007. The widget can be an inexpensive method of creating value for and a relationship with your customer base. To read more about the widget, visit InternetRetailer.com and search 'desktop widget' or click here.