Management Consulting Among Top Growing US Industries for Jobs

December 28th, 2009

Interesting list from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. It predicts that “Management, scientific and technical consulting services” will be the number one growth industry in terms of the most wage and salary employment growth by 2018. Here’s the growth top 10:

  1. Management, scientific and technical consulting services
  2. Offices of physicians
  3. Computer systems design and related services
  4. Other general merchandise stores
  5. Employment services
  6. Local government, excluding education and hospitals
  7. Home health care services
  8. Services for the elderly and persons with disabilities
  9. Nursing care facilities
  10. Full-service restaurants

Source: MC

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IT vendors’ marketing budgets down 8.3% plus some useless advice from IDC’s CMO Advisory Service

October 21st, 2009

Just in! B2B has recently published IDC CMO Advisory Service numbers that say IT marketing budgets are down an average of 8.3%, the typical vendor has reduced its marketing staff by 10% and that more than 6,000 marketing jobs will be lost in the IT vendor community this year. That news is not surprising, but it is interesting even if it is not universally true. Some IT sectors have expanded their budgets.

What’s seriously worthless is the CMO Advisory Service advice for 2010. I truly hope there was more to it than was published. Here’s what was published:

1. Senior marketing executives should maintain reporting and budget control over the marketing organization;

2. Be prepared for a recovery by having marketing plans ready to go;

3. Be ready to hire strong talent when hiring freezes are lifted;

4. Expand digital marketing to include social media and other techniques.

In other words, be prepared to (1) pull your head out of the sand and do your job…next year. (2) Jump on the bandwagon.

Thanks for the advice. I’ll get right on it. How much do I owe you for that generic wisdom? Do you have change for a dollar?

Here’s some specific advice that can make a difference sooner rather than later.

Marketingsage’s advice to CMOs

Marketingsage has a video and a white paper with practical advice for IT marketers struggling with the recession. They were published a while ago, but the strategy is relevant so long as buyers are restraining their purchases.

However, if you’ve already cut your program budget and your business is struggling for sales and cash, you may be entering the middle phase of recession management – the one where the CFO takes over as CMO because marketing is not helping cash flow with all that twittering and blogging. The day it happens may be your last day on the job so take the CMO Advisory Service’s first piece of advice: maintain control.

Step 1: Turn fixed budget into discretionary budget that can be used for marketing programs that drive sales and sales leads. Here’s how.

Cut research, cut all-talk-no-action advisors, cut giveaways, and cut long distance events. If it has to be printed or shipped, consider whether you can deliver it electronically. If you are paying a PR agency over $10K per month for a monthly press release, then dump them. Reexamine the payroll vs. program budget to see how many sales leads you are getting for the total payroll and program investment. If you must, cut payroll to fund sales programs. If the sales and sales leads are not being generated and the firm is in decline then everyone’s job is in jeopardy.

Get the CFO and CEO together to discuss the facts of life: no programs, no leads, no sales, no revenue, no market share, no shareholder value.

The time it takes to generate awareness, interest, demand and sales is measured in quarters, not weeks so timing is critical. In a recession it’s harder to find buyers so marketing promotions must reach further – further than a sales team can reach cost-effectively without promotional help. Buyers take longer to make decisions so you must nurture prospects for longer – that requires tools and collateral. Buyers buy for different reasons in a recession so products and positioning may need to be changed and re-launched.

Invite the CEO and CFO to think about every $10,000 spent in terms of leads missed and sales opportunities lost. Measuring and reporting the cost-per-lead and leads-per-sale ratios helps keep people focused. The perception that these numbers are never good enough drives the right kind of cross departmental improvements in a recession.

What cost-effectively drives sales leads and sales? In general, pay-for-performance advertising programs, product-focused PR (not all PR), lead nurturing by email, local vertical trade shows and channel sales incentive programs. Here’s a chart of what promotions actually work.

Social media activity generates an ROI for a small number of highly publicized “case study” firms. However, the time (payroll expense) some firms are investing would generate a higher ROI if it was spent on what’s known to work, not what might work. The problem is, most firms are not including the cost of payroll so they think social media is a low cost promotional tool. It’s not.

Step 2: Execute early enough to make a difference, measure, adjust, execute again.

Not having the in-house team to execute lead generation programs is a lame excuse when there are firms like Marketingsage to help. Marketingsage is a full service marketing firm that helps other marketers and business executives increase revenue by cost-effectively generating sales leads, building brands, launching products and developing sales channels. With Marketingsage you can add expertise, bandwidth, specialized tools and contacts when you need them, for as long as you need them.

Lastly, you must not only do the right thing for the company, but you must be seen to do the right thing. You need to be getting and producing monthly reports (like those delivered by Marketingsage) that show your sales leads, publicity wins and ROI. You need this information to continually optimize your marketing investments and to get your colleagues to support your efforts. Additionally, you need reports to justify your budget and mitigate the impact of the inevitable office politics that result from too few resources to go around.

Admittedly, ruthless cutting and focusing on leads generation at the expense of other priorities is tough and can easily be criticized as short sighted. It is short sighted. However, this strategy may help you survive another day to work on that post recession plan, hire strong talent when the hiring freezes are lifted and to digitally socialize to your heart’s content.

- David Lamont

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Display-Ad Clickers Nosedive 50%

October 8th, 2009

A recent MarketingCharts article reported some comScore and Starcom MediaVest research that indicate that the number of online Americans who click on display ads has dropped by 50% since 2007. Some of that may be due to the recession, but 50% in 2 years is a shocking decline in anyone’s books. But are the statistics anything other than a shocking headline?

I tend to believe the downward trend, but don’t feel any need to panic. We base most advertising recommendations on the cost-per-lead (sales opportunity related requests with actionable contact information), not clicks or exposure. This approach keeps us focused on what clients care about – results, not activities. So although I’ve noticed that it has gotten more difficult to achieve a desirable ROI with display adverts, that difficulty just pushed Marketingsage towards other methods – different types of online promotions and different ways to capture leads.

Nevertheless, I’d like to understand what’s going on when display adverts lose 50% of their clicks in just 2 years.

First of all I don’t believe the trend is universal across all web sites. We advertise on one site where our client’s results have improved with additional display-type adverts. The marketing savvy publisher summed it up when I shared the nosedive statistics with him. He responded: “People want to buy stuff and need information to guide those processes.” He manages advertisers to keep them relevant to the editorial content. Other publishers just take the money and run (any advert).

Advertising has always worked when it’s visible and relevant. So what’s behind the decline in display advert clicks? My thoughts:

Web visitors are still clicking on promotions, but not necessarily banners. Publishers have introduced text adverts, video, white paper libraries and other information delivery vehicles that are easier to find when searching for information.

Many banners are poorly placed. A highly relevant banner that can be seen when someone is reading a related editorial will get clicks. The reason why banners are not tailored to the editorial is the fact that someone has to customize them and that takes time and money.

Lastly, there’s banner blindness. Web visitors ignore display adverts because they are obviously adverts. The more in-your-face the adverts are, the more people go out of their way to avoid them.

- David Lamont

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FTC: Bloggers must disclose payments for reviews

October 5th, 2009

From December 1st, 2009, bloggers will have to disclose freebies or payments they get for reviewing products. Penalties include up to $11,000 in fines per violation.

Many products require time and equipment to conduct do a proper review.  It’s these hard-to-review products that many people want to see reviewed. Therefore, I don’t believe that all paid product reviews are bad –  so long as they are factual, impartial and open about their compensation.

Hopefully this wise law will curb the large number of company sponsored (but not clearly disclosed) review sites that currently exist. However, the commission reportedly stopped short Monday of specifying how bloggers must disclose any conflicts of interest so beware the small print buried deep in the reviewer’s web site.

News source:  http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20091005/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_bloggers_ftc

FTC: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

LinkedIn Discussion: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?discussionID=8369966&commentID=-1&viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=36393&trk=view_disc

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Business Owners Smile More Often

September 17th, 2009

There was an interesting article in the 9/16/09 edition of the Wall Street Journal (D1, p1, p2). It’s about recent data from Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index. They found that among various occupations, business owners are the happiest. “In the broadest, most comprehensive survey yet of how occupations affect happiness, business owners outrank 10 other occupational groups in overall well-being, based on a landmark survey of 100,826 working adults…” The article generally attributes happiness to a person’s control over their work, not the hours worked, or the responsibility taken on, or the money. I can relate.

I work long hours most days (any 12 hours I like ;-) helping our clients market and sell their products as well as promoting our new marketing consulting franchise. We invested a lot of money in our business so I live with more risk than most employees ever will. However, I do have the ability to choose who I work with. My partner and I have turned down potential marketing clients and franchise candidates just because we don’t think we would work well together. It’s a very liberating feeling to be able choose who you will work with as well as what you will work on. Additionally, I don’t have the stress of a long commute (it used to be 2+ hours per day) and I don’t have to travel (much). If the kids need me, I’m there.

Some people may think that being a self-employed marketer is less secure than holding a regular job, but I don’t see it that way. Because I can have multiple employers (clients), I am less vulnerable to changes in the market.  The reality is that the average tenure for an employed CEO is about 3 years. It’s even less for their VPs of sales and marketing. Typically the marketing staff jobs also change when a CEO or VP changes. At the very least, employed marketers deal with the constant stress of changing priorities (set by others), job insecurity and the usual office politics. For many, these issues are more stressful than meeting deadlines and doing marketing well.

So I agree with the survey. It’s good to be your own boss. If you’d like to join me why not check out this video on how to become a successful (self-employed) marketing consultant: www.marketingsage.com/consulting. It may be time for you to smile more often.

- David Lamont

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Cloud technology marketers could walk-the-walk as well as talk-the-talk

September 1st, 2009

When it comes to marketing you could say that my head is in the cloud. Mind you, that only applies if you are in the IT industry and you know what a cloud is. In IT, cloud computing is basically infrastructure as a service. The servers, switches, storage, applications, you name it, are somewhere else and you don’t need to own them to use them. You may not even care where they are as long as you can use what you need, when you need it, and achieve a lower TCO.

Of course, cloud computing has similarities to the early days of mainframe-based computing as well as the xSP and SaaS providers with a pinch of virtualization thrown in. I’ve helped sell all those technologies, except the mainframe. I may be dating myself, but I’m not that old. Here’s the thing for all you cloud heads:

The cloud computing model you want your customers to embrace can also apply to your marketing. And there’s at least one cloud marketing company that’s inviting you to walk-the-walk as well as talk-the-talk. Of course, it’s my marketing company (I’m not about to talk about some obsolete old-world firm.)

Marketingsage is a cloud marketing firm. Not just because its people know the buzz words, or even because they understand cloud-enabling technology. Marketingsage’s entire business is modeled on the same value proposition that’s making cloud computing so compelling in today’s IT marketplace. Read on and you’ll understand.

Marketingsage provides clients with a host of integrated marketing services as needed for as long as they are needed. Clients get integrated PR, advertising, SEO, email, creative and other services at the level of intensity they need and can adjust the mix of services they use on the fly. Recognize that? Change the words “PR, advertising, SEO, email, creative” to “processing, storage, provisioning, developing” and you’ll get it.

With typical agencies you buy and manage what you need separately. It’s as old school as buying a server, then a RAID, an operating system, host adapters, cabling and all the enabling application licenses from separate, barely compatible, vendors. Of course you also need to employ a crew to set everything up down the hall in an expensive, air conditioned, energy- sucking data center. Finally, once you’ve paid for it and gotten it all working together, you only use 10% of it. Not so smart, when all you really want to do is sell more of your widgets!

So is Marketingsage like a cloud provider? Yes, insofar as we can deliver an on-demand, flexible, relatively inexpensive, turn-key service. Yet, we are more than the sum of our parts because we have our own exclusive systems, including proprietary software, that increase our productivity way beyond that of typical, single-service agencies. Plus, everything is run by people who know what they are doing in the IT marketplace. In our world, that’s generating sales leads, building brands, launching products and developing sales channels for businesses like yours.

Join me in the marketing cloud at www.marketingsage.com. The air is good up here.

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Success Stories: How new marketers got their first real marketing job

August 23rd, 2009

This page has some success stories from people who just got their first marketing jobs. They responded to a question posted by Marketingsage on LinkedIn.

Our related article, Advice for new marketers on how to get your first real marketing job, can be found here:
http://www.marketingsage.com/Wisdom/W2W-First-Marketing-Job.html

 

Success Stories

Realizing that I am not new to marketing and my experience may differ from today’s marketers I asked the following question on LinkedIn: “For new marketers: How did you get your first real marketing job?”

Here are some great replies:

Chris B, Marketing & Communication Manager

I started my first job in marketing in May this year. It was a hard time to get a job anywhere, so I figured some extra effort would be appreciated. I created a plan of action in which I explained how I would tackle the tasks in the description and a timeline with milestones. This shows so much more dedication than just mailing a resume, that it will definitively make you stand out.

Although the tasks change by the day, I know they appreciated my efforts, because it ultimately got me the job.

Be different by going the extra mile. If you are just doing what everybody else does (sending a resume) than I can tell you for sure you will not stand out.

 

Ian D

I’m not really a recent graduate, but thought I’d reply nevertheless as my career began whilst still at University, and I wasn’t majoring in Business or Marketing at the time.

Back in 2001 I obtained some work experience working for a UK company called Campus Marketing. My job title was ‘Student Brand Manager’ and it was my responsibility to generate brand visibility for a pharmaceutical brand targeting the student market. This required setting up events, flyering, spotting sponsorship opportunities and obtaining listings with University suppliers, and managing projects, all new skills.

The role was badly paid, but the experience gained was really instrumental in projecting my career forward on graduation. I learned a range of valuable skills and got a taste for working with real brands, as well as being offered the chance to gain accreditation from the CIM for the work I undertook.

I was watching the news today which was speculating over the prospects for recent 2009 graduates and I feel for them. My advice would be to gain any type of career focused experience whilst still at uni you can, be this volunteering in summer holidays or helping out local firms one afternoon per week, do something which will make your CV stand out and show that as a graduate you’re serious about the career path you’ve chosen.

Best of luck to those starting out, it’s a competitive industry at the best of times and when things get as tight as they are now, only the most focused and well prepared are likely to get where they want to be.

 

Tessa C, Public Relations/Marketing Coordinator

I got my first shot at a Marketing gig in April 2009 (nearly a year post-grad). My advice to anyone starting out is get as much experience as humanly possible. Find an internship. If you’ve already done one, do another. My job actually came after completing my second internship.

I also suggest staying up on trends in the industry. You might be finished with school, but you should continue to keep learning as much as you can. Don’t know anything about Twitter? Take the time to learn it.

Networking is also a big part of landing your first big break in Marketing. Career fairs and other networking events are great places to make connections that may secure you a new job.

 

Denise R

Serendipity. I was temping at the office across the hall and was asked to temp at the marketing company. Two months in, I realized it was my calling in life. My background in retail, communication skills, French, Spanish and German, my eye for detail, my love of color, my focus, proficiency in Excel…The only thing that would have inhibited it would have been a formal education in marketing. It would have prevented me from considering the opinions of others.

 

Archana S, Marketing Manager

When I was about to graduate I just wanted an internship/job. I happened to land an internship in a financial services firm and then my next job was in the same industry and capacity but with a deeper role. So I guess an internship in marketing is a great way to test the marketing field as well as a gateway to the field.

Keep in mind that you’re learning and that marketing is a field where the results take a while to materialize or you may never really be able to measure them. But nevertheless it’s a field where everything is “trial and error”. You keep doing it and changing it till you get it right.

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Their’s a simple reason why Google is eating Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s lunches

August 6th, 2009

As a user of Google Adwords, Yahoo Search, Microsoft adCenter and other paid search advertising systems, it’s easy to understand why Google is on top. The other guys have vastly inferior products that are cumbersome to use. Yahoo and Microsoft are a chore to use and Google is easy to use. Google also has lots more features to make it easy for advertisers to see what they are getting.

Since I’m paying for clicks and the cost of such clicks is not differing substantially between search engines it’s easy to see why marketers don’t bother struggling with Yahoo, Microsoft and others. If the cost per click or conversion was significantly cheaper on Yahoo or Microsoft I might give them a break, but it’s not.

Frankly, it appears that the product managers at Yahoo and Microsoft never use their own products or else they’ve become so used to the convoluted system that they fail to recognize that customers may not see things the same way they do. I’ll bet they’ve never tried to use their own customer support systems either.

At the end of it all Microsoft can buy Yahoo or these companies can otherwise cooperate, but until they realize that they need to create a superior product and than take advertising budgets away from Google, they’ll be spinning their wheels.

As always, good marketing starts with a good product.

-          David Lamont, CEO MarketingSage Corp.

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Strategies for older job seekers who struggle with the age barrier

July 4th, 2009

I just read a July 2009 article by the Associated Press highlighting the struggles of older job seekers in this recession. They quote Labor Department statistics that show unemployed workers 55 or older were jobless an average of nearly 30 weeks, compared with about 21 weeks for those under 55. And the jobless rate for those 55 and older rose to 7 percent in June, the highest for that age group on records dating to 1948. It’s obviously tougher for older job seekers and there are no signs it will get any easier.

Stereotyping was listed as one reason why older people struggle to get jobs. Employers assume that older workers are more expensive. They also assume people won’t stay as long in jobs that pay less than they earned previously. In some cases, employers fear that older people won’t have the skills to work with the latest Internet technology. This is especially true for many marketing jobs.

Essentially some employers are concluding that if they have two people who can do a job, the candidate who is over 55 represents the riskier hire.  I think to some extent many hiring managers are also intimidated by the possibility that an employee may be more skilled or experienced than they are. As such the more experienced employee is seen as a threat by the hiring manager. As with many corporate decisions, the desire to mitigate risk trumps upside potential.

Of course it is a shame that someone’s experience works against them and that some very talented people feel the need to “dumb down” their resumes. At the same time I don’t dismiss the reality of the situation, so I’ll suggest a couple of strategies for older, highly experienced, job seekers.

The first is to aim higher, not lower. Instead of looking for jobs for which you are qualified or overqualified, seek jobs that would represent a promotion or challenge for you. The higher up you go on the corporate ladder, the more valuable your hard-earned experience becomes and the more likely that you won’t be expected to personally manage all the details of today’s Internet dominated works.

If this means seeking a vice president’s position then you’ll need to approach CEO’s directly because such jobs may not be advertised. Many high level jobs are filled using recruiters, but you may find that a recruiter will not pay any attention to you unless you are a perfect fit for a position they feel they can get paid to fill. You might network with venture capitalists and consultants who help with corporate strategy.

While high-level jobs may not be advertised, you can often discover a need by simply reviewing a firm’s web site and press releases.  Since top-level managers are usually listed on the web site you can see if a key position is missing. You can also deduce who the hiring manager is likely to be and therefore who you should approach.

The second strategy is to consider working as a consultant – a real one, not a “between jobs” consultant. As a consultant, your years of experience make you more employable, not less employable. Being overqualified for a consulting job is usually seen as a benefit. Consultants are hired for their experience, expertise, contacts, bandwidth, tools, cost savings (vs. payroll), alternative perspective, political power and independence. Job security as a consultant comes from having multiple clients and not being dependent on one employer. Additionally, when firms cannot hire employees because of hiring freezes, they often turn to consultants to get the job done. Hiring a consultant can be the less risky decision.

Of course, consulting is not for everyone and although it’s easy to call yourself a consultant, it’s not so easy to make a good living as a one. Consulting is a business, not just a job. It requires a business model, an investment and dedication as well as that hard-won experience you’ve achieved throughout your long career.

If you want to consider consulting you might take a look at the MarketingSage online video on becoming a successful marketing consultant. MarketingSage offers franchises to help qualified people get into the marketing consulting business. The 15 minute video takes a look at the role of professional marketers and the business of marketing consulting. It explains what marketing services providers do, and highlights some of the traits important for success. Additionally, it provides an overview of the market for marketing services and outlines how to get into the marketing services business. The video is available at http://www.marketingsage.com/consulting

Both these strategies play to the strengths of older more experienced workers.

-          David Lamont, CEO MarketingSage Corp.

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New MarketingSage.com Web Site

July 2nd, 2009

The marketingsage.com web site is undergoing its third major redesign since 2001. Now that most users have larger screens, we’ve moved to bigger web pages. We’ve also moved the pages from the left edge towards the center. More importantly, we’ve added new content, including videos and this blog.

Hopefully, we’ll get all the changes right the first time we post. But if we don’t, please let us know.

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