The end of the beginning

Greetings.

Something has happened. Cicero is not sure what it is but something has sparked you into life and each week more and more comments are being posted and sent through to this wee corner of the blogosphere. Some funny. Some serious. Some rude. All thought provoking. Thank you.

Tribute must be paid at the outset this week to the immense achievement of the men from Dalriada in overcoming the challenge last weekend from their antipodean cousins on the rugby field. This is more than their chariot loving Anglo-Saxon kith were able to do though heaven forbid that you might think this is a Ciceronic gloat. This was an inevitable victory for the Picts. It might have been a while since victory over the Aborigines was last achieved but remember that every defeat takes you one step closer to victory.

And so to this week’s lesson.

Last week Cicero was wending his weary way home on his wee bike after checking as usual before leaving his Top Secret State Bunker that as per normal the borders were safe and secure. Before long he bumped once again into his Marketing Professional Friend out enjoying the Capital’s sights and sounds with his team.

‘Out celebrating?’ asked Cicero to his MPF.

‘Yes. Our new marketing campaign starts tomorrow. It has been a hard road with many late nights to get the stuff out the door. And now our work is done we thought we would come out and let our hair down. Will you not join us for a wee dram’?

‘Not tonight but thanks anyway though I am surprised you think your work is now done. Surely it has only just started. Surely the hard work starts tomorrow. You have done the easy bit now the difficult stuff starts.’

‘You kidding me?’ queried MPF ‘What more can me and team do? It’s now down the business to handle the work my marketing is going to bring in. Our work is done. We can put our feet up, let our hair down and chill. You do know how to chill, don’t you, Cicero?’

‘There is lots more for you and your team still to do. What you have done to date is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is merely the end of the beginning’, said Cicero going all Churchill, not meaning the nodding dog.

‘Let me see what still needs to be done. Here are some examples in no particular order.

Firstly I assume you have a telephone number and a website linked to your campaign. And I presume that these are included all on your marketing material. Do they work? Do you really know they work? Sure a customer might ring and the phone answered but how knowledgeable is the person answering the phone? Do all the online links work? Will the search engines be ble to find you? Do you know all this for sure when the campaign breaks tomorrow? If I was you I would be testing your phone and internet links to destruction, fault finding and stress testing and finding and fixing anything that is broken before your customers do.

‘Secondly what are you doing about making sure the campaign works and does the business for the business. We have spoken before about the need to impress your Finance people but you will never be able to do this unless you can show, indeed prove, that the marketing investment will deliver. Can you do this? Will you, in say 3 months time, be able to show that you delivered a great return on marketing investment.

‘And thirdly, and more immediately, what will you be doing over the next few days to make sure that your online spend is optimised. Will you know what creative, what search terms, what sites are working for you, delivering customers cost effectively? Do you have processes set up to collect and disseminate this data? Have you got meetings in place to review what is happening out there?

‘Need I go on, my friend?’

‘Ok, party over, folks’, was the MPF's shocked response, putting away and locking up his wallet, much to Cicero’s approval ‘we have still got a wee bit of work to do.

‘Know what, Cicero. You might be a bit of a party pooper. Many might think of you as anti-social. But you are rarely wrong on matters marketing.’

And with that thought Cicero wobbled away into the night knowing that his work was done for the evening and that another marketing lesson had been delivered, heard and understood. Cicero went home a satisfied man.

And should you ever see a marketing team in chill mode with hair down and feet up, please do remind them of Churchill, not the nodding one, the other one, and make sure they are not confusing the end of the beginning with the beginning of the end or even the end.

Is it only me?

Last week you might have seen the news that rail fares were going to go up. And every year when this announcement is made some intrepid reporter will take up his post outside Waterloo station and many other enquiring and investigative journalists will take up similar positions outside other stations up and down and across this green and pleasant land. They will be there to gauge commuter reaction and response to this news.

And every year the answer is the same. ‘Appalling’, says one. ‘Outrageous’, says another. ‘Scandalous’, adds a third. And so on and so on.

What do you expect them to say? You must be as staggered as Cicero to think that there is a news editor out there who seriously thinks that he is going to find someone out there who is going to welcome the news that rail fares are going to rise. Cicero would love it if they found some member of the salatariat in favour of the extra cost of their journey to work because the extra cash was needed to improve the quality of the rail passenger experience and to ensure that the shareholders get a better selection of bubbly and nibbles at the shareholders’ meeting.

Is it only me who questions why every year this charade is played out across our railway termini and station concourses. The same thing is said year in, year out. It might be cheap television but it is hardly news, hardly the scoop of the millennium, is it? We have had Woodward and Bernstein reporting on Watergate: Kate Adie in Tiananmen Square; and even John Sargeant tripping over his feet to get an interview with Thatcher on the eve of her resignation. All great examples of dangerous and intrepid reporting designed to uncover truth and illuminate wrong doing. How does the standard of reporting on rises in rail fares compare?

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.