The Beatles - Rock Band

As if the Beatles have not sold enough records to music fans of the past four decades...they are now targeting a whole new generation of 'Rock N Rollers' with a partnership with the video game makers of the famous 'Rock Band' video game. "The Beatles: Rock Band" is going to be released in early September and will allow players to follow - and perform as - members of the legendary group. The game will include 45 Beatles songs from their extensive catalogue and they are predicting even better sales than the previous versions. Great Marketing Partnership leveraging a channel that clearly communicates to younger audiences.

Can Twitter help you sell more?

Can Twitter help you sell more?

I was having a conversation with a friend over coffee earlier this week about Twitter and discussing whether or not the famous 'micro blogging' tool could actually help small and medium sized businesses sell more of their product. I'm often asked by members of the aforementioned group if Twitter can help them with their business and as I am not currently using Twitter, I can only speak from what I have learned about from others and give opinions based on my observations.

For those of you who don't know what Twitter is; it's an online 'micro blogging' tool that allows individuals to broadcast messages of 140 characters or fewer to others who choose to "follow them". Most people use Twitter to follow their favorite celebrities like Oprah Winfrey who recently adopted the technology. There are apparently over 10 million Twitter users, but it's yet to be determined now active they all are and what the true profile of a Twitter user is.

If you are looking to leverage Twitter to sell more of your products, you need to treat it like any other part of your Marketing Mix. It's basically another communications vehicle or Marketing Tool that enables you to build and foster relationships with customers and hopefully be able to sell them something should they like you as a result of actively "following you". By engaging in a dialogue with others and finding out about them as they look to find out more about you, then with any luck; you will be able to sell more to those who are interested.

If you are selling lots of a given product and doing well in your small or medium sized business, it's usually because you have done a good job of relationship-building. Twitter allows one to access millions of people who can eventually become "followers' on either a local, national and international bases. I heard recently that someone found their job on Twitter because they actively followed a Manager of a given Company that they were a "fan" of and was able to build a relationship with this person as a result which eventually led to a job offer. Not bad at all.

As a specialist in Partnership & Channel Marketing, I would advise on being cautious when introducing or discussing your products and services with people on Twitter. If you are selling through Channel Partners and using Discreet Vehicles to sell and market certain products; you need to be careful and ensure that you don't create any channel conflict with suppliers and vendors alike. That type of scenario could result in serious damage to your business. Twitter, like any social media based application, is available to the masses, so you need to really think through the strategy before opening your account and looking to acquire "followers".

Would love to hear more on how you use Twitter in your business. Maybe it will inspire me to get on it myself! Comments please!

Download this Song @ iTunes says YouTube

I'm wondering if this new partnership between iTunes and YouTube is driving sales revenue for both parties?

When you pull up a song from your favorite band on YouTube a message pops up in the screen asking if you want to download this song at iTunes? It's a nice application and a great place to target music lovers, but I am not sure that visitors to free content sites like YouTube are interested in paying for music...

Your thoughts are welcome!

Transactional Selling versus Partnership Marketing

Are you Transactional Selling with your Key Accounts or are you practicing Partnership Marketing?

Here is the difference:

1. TS does not necessarily leverage your key account partners' brand, their assets and provide opportunities to truly enhance their offering and build better products, as a result.
2. TS is usually shorter term and 'tactical' in nature as opposed to being 'strategic' and providing longer term value.
3. PM is a full-on commitment by at least two (2) parties who are helping each other to meet their sales and marketing objectives together.

What are you doing?

Partner Locally

KFC is the leading American based Quick Service Restaurant in China with McDonald's on their tale. It's estimated that KFC has over 2,000 locations and McDonalds has just over 1,200. With so many choices in China for easy access 'take-away' food, including the local varieties, it's no wonder that McDonald's has set up a partnership with Sinopec, a gas or 'petrol' station company with over 30,000 locations across China.

It's a great move for McDonald's to Partner locally with a brand that is strong in that market and not just another American brand.

Will Big Mac's become China's favorite food much like Chicken Tikka Marsala is in the UK and Mexican is on the way to doing in the USA? If it does happen someday, the Chinese can thank Sinopec for hooking up with McDonald's.

Partnering with Media that has an Impact on Buying

There is a lot of hype around social media and virtual networking sites, and marketers are diving in and keeping an eye on the emergence of these spaces, yet an interesting study from eMarketer illustrates that advertising in such media channels might be a waste of time if you are looking to influence Internet users to buy:

And the most influential media is

TV leads the way along with Magazines and Newspapers. With the 'print' side of it struggling, perhaps their is a better opportunity to partner efforts with leading publishers as opposed to paying for advertising. Leveraging a special offer for their customers and cross promoting their offering in return, could prove to be a valuable model given that advertising spend is harder to come by in this down-turn economy. Whatever the case, we need to get more creative and we need to leave the experimentation aside and focus our efforts on what produces results.

Sharing Customer Communications

I'm often asked about how to communicate with end-customers once a Marketing Partnership is formed and how to deal with certain matters. Naturally, it depends on what the matter is and how the parties have agreed to divide the 'customer communication' responsibilities, yet what I often recommend is that the party that is best capable to deal with it based on resources, knowledge and expertise is the one that should take on that responsibility.

I'll reflect on a scenario that came up recently with one of our leading clients. The partner-brand that we had 'partnered' them with had a query from one of their end-customers regarding my clients' offering. It was a complicated matter so the partner-brand brought it to our attention. Upon hearing about it, my client did one better than provide 'wording' to the partner-brand for a response to the end-customer and their query - my client advised the partner-brand that they can have the end-customer contact them directly and gave email and phone number information for a qualified individual who could respond to their questions and concerns.

When you partner with another brand, you need to know about their business and what they are doing, but when it comes to specific details that surround questions about their industry where they are the 'experts' - let the 'experts' handle it. A good practice in advance of forming the Partnership is to run through potential 'customer service related scenarios' that could arise once the partner program is fully executed and to assign responsibility and develop a flow-chart for how the parties should effectively deal with each type of example. This will ensure that there is no confusion once all is in motion.