A Random Jog

The Discounting Hangover

joshua duncan — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:40:09 +0000

We have spent the last month or so looking for a new bedroom and have been in and out of at least a dozen furniture stores. The trend seems to be huge sale, packed store or no sale, empty store.

Several of the stores were having sales where everything in the store was over 50% off. It kind left you with that used car dealership feeling wondering what was wrong or what you were missing. Additionally, the stores had so many people in them it was nearly impossible to find someone to help you with questions.

We were close to making a purchase at one store but it wasn’t having a sale. When we asked if they had anything planned, we heard that we had just missed the August sale but the October sale was right around the corner.

Prof. Tim Calkins often writes about the dangers of relying on sales to drive your business and what it can do to your brand. In his last post is he used the cash for clunkers program as an example. Prof. Calking warns,

Discounting is a bit like partying. Everything is wonderful and fun while the party rolls on. But inevitably the party ends and when the sun comes up the hangover remains. And in general, the bigger the party, the bigger the hangover.

Once your customers start expecting sales, it is going to be very painful to wean them off the juice. Especially in an industry where people can afford to wait to make their purchase.

We have not found what we are looking but are confident when we do, there will be a furniture sale waiting for us.

First Impressions Count

Favorite Product Posts August (and some from July) 2010

joshua duncan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:13:46 +0000

On Competitive Advantages:

So what qualifies as valid competitive advantages? Here are some candidates:

First mover advantage – you are the first to solve this particular problem in this particular way. (This could work for and against a business though. It’s much easier to launch a product into an existing category than to make your own product category.)

Deep knowledge about your target market’s needs and wants, enabling you to build something that solves their problems better than the competition has solved their problems.

Special soup technology nobody can easily copy, even if they hire away your chief engineer or read and understand all of your published patent applications.

Deep relationships with big fish at key potential customers (if B2B) that gives you a big head start on business development.

A team with domain expertise that can execute at twice the speed of their competitor’s team

Why Innovation Depends On Creative Approaches:

Crowdsourcing is a great concept, in theory, but in practice, you need to figure out what will motivate people to participate and what will drive them to maximize the quality of their contribution. By channeling participation through a game, the UW team recruited 57,000 contributors. Out of that number, enough people were motivated to achieve the highest score possible, thus increasing the quality of many individual contributions. That’s a far better result than the team would have achieved had they used an obscure biochemistry forum to post the question, “So, what do you think?”

Product Manager: Don’t Step On Your Long Tail…!

Your ultimate goal here is to be able to define a unique spot in the market for your product. You want to make sure that your potential customers view your product as being unique and unavailable from any other vendor.

Rupert Murdoch – Zero; John Nash – One:

Understanding your market involves not only knowing what problems your customers face, but also predicting how your competitors will behave. Competitive analysis is not just capturing a snap-shot of their products and positioning today, but also forming predictions of how they will respond to the disruptions you will create in your market by innovating. Markets are not static – you have to understand both how your customers’ needs will evolve and how your competitor’s offerings will change, in order to understand how your product will perform

Hybrid Feedback is Stronger:

As last week’s commenters pointed out, there’s a challenge in offering multiple choices vs. asking for freeform responses: You might get more responses but still be missing the root cause of customers’ concerns/problems/ideas. They’re right. Freeform answers alone are flawed. Multiple choice options alone are flawed. You need to use them both together in order to generate unstoppable, reliable hybrid feedback!

Startup Messaging:

The essence of my talk was that good messaging answers the following questions for potential customers:

What the heck is it? (meaning can you tell me in plain language what it is that you do)

Is it for me? (meaning does your messaging appeal to the segment that you are targeting)

Why buy it from you? (meaning what are the compelling reasons to choose your offering over a competing offering)

What every marketer, product manager, product marketing leader and CMO needs to know about content:

Whew… that was a long title, so is the presentation, but it is spot on. Marketing content isn’t a haphazard “get it done set of tasks” for us as marketeers and brand folk. Mark Fidelman from Seek Omega nails in 74 slides.

What Every CMO Needs to Know About Content Strategy

JetBlue – What Everyone Will Be Talking About

joshua duncan — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:41:35 +0000

Unless you have been out of the country (and I mean way out in the backwoods), you have heard a lot about a certain JetBlue flight attendant. JetBlue is no stranger to conversation, however, usually not this strange.

Normally when JetBlue comes up, it’s around how much better it is than other carriers. Looking more at what the company is doing, it was no surprise to find out that the experience JetBlue has created for its customers has delivered big results . FastCompany reported back in June that JetBlue was not only the top airline brand in the industry but also the #1 brand in the U.S when it comes to social currency.

Looking at the brand report and who else is in the top 5 (BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Apple), Jet Blue’s rapid rise is nothing but incredible. The airline is a little over ten year old and is in the same ranks as premium brands that have been around for decades. I also thought it was interesting that JetBlue was the only service company on this list. This is remarkable considering it is in an industry that is filled with customer frustration (mechanical break-downs, weather, and traffic control are just a few ways that your day can be spoiled while flying).

From FastCompany,

“People love to talk about JetBlue because the experience is so unexpected. Most airline travel has a particular pattern: small seats, bad entertainment, and little (if any) food. JetBlue breaks this pattern. Leather seats, your own entertainment system with dozens of channels, and at least some choice of food. People can’t stop talking about the experience because they have to express their surprise especially given the “value” price. They are so used to airline travel being poor, late, or uncomfortable these days that cases where a company seems to care and provide good service seems noteworthy. Satisfaction itself is unexpected.”

Following in the footsteps of Southwest, JetBlue eliminated a lot of features that added cost and complexity to the organization. Unlike Southwest, JetBlue wanted to be seen as more than just cheap so it carefully added customer facing features to improve the experience.

So if Southwest is the “Low Cost, No Experience” budget airline, JetBlue is the “Low Cost, Cool Experience” budget airline. Not a bad spot to be while the rest of the industry is busy consolidating unloved brands and merging legacy infrastructures (while finding as many ways as possible to nickel and dime you).

If you listen to JetBlue’s VP of Marketing, Marty St. George, talk about their product it definitely sounds like the company is constantly evaluating plans to keep customers satisfied and talking about the airline.

Speaking on the topic of adding in-air wireless to the fleet Marty commented,

This industry has a habit of adding-in product attributes that don’t really add up. We recognize that what the wireless world will be in two years onboard is really different than right now. People are using [wireless] for in-flight entertainment, their computer or iPad, and we don’t have that exact need because of the 36 channels [JetBlue offers]. At the same time, we have a customer base skewed younger, and more affluent, and we have done a good deal of research on the topic. We are down to the final stages of making a recommendation.

If I had to place a wager, my bet is that JetBlue will be the first airline to offer free wireless on all their aircraft in the next two years. While watching DirectTV is nice, being able to access the net from your laptop, smart phone, iPad, tablet, netbook, and PSP for free will be something that people will rave about.

It will be interesting to see if JetBlue keeps making the right choices to keep their customers talking. Keeping a brand cool over time is not an easy challenge but from the outside, it seems like the company is aiming high.

Picture Credit: Flickr

Recap – How to be a Product Marketing [Insert Buzz Word Here]

joshua duncan — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 01:46:13 +0000

I created a separate page for my presentation at ProductCamp Austin Summer 2010 here so that I was able to share a URL at the the event. Check out the deck and the notes that were captured during the session.

It was a blast working on the presentation with Bertrand and as to be expected, there were a ton of great sessions at the event. Set your calendar for next the next ProductCamp Austin, January, 2011!

Almost Time For Product Camp

joshua duncan — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:21:41 +0000

Product Camp Austin is tomorrow and it is going to be a full house with 600 registrants. I have been working on a session with Bertrand Hazard, VP of Product Marketing at Troux Technologies, on Product Marketing. Here is the session outline:

How to be a Product Marketing Genius, Ninja, Guru, Rock Star, Wizard, [Insert Buzz Word Here] (Session #PE521)

There has never been a more rewarding, yet challenging time for Product Marketers to engage with customers. The social media world has opened a new land of opportunities to tell your story. The question however is where one should focus its efforts given limited time/resources to be the most effective? Led by two Product Marketing practitioners, this Town Hall discussion, will focus on the what’s working today and what to look for in the future. The presenters will give examples from the industry and their experience while highly encouraging audience participation.

We are planning for a lively discussion around product marketing and have some great examples to share plus a few surprises. Hope to see you there!

Photo Credit: Flickr

Remember That Talk About Delighting Customers, Forgetaboutit

joshua duncan — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:58:43 +0000

Finding ways to delight your customers is a continuing challenge. What delights your customer now is most likely going to be an expectation in the near future. Marketers, including myself, love tackling this type of challenge. It involves getting to know your customer and applying creativity in developing a solution.

And more often than not, it is a wasted effort.

That is, according to Matthew Dixon, managing director of the Corporate Executive Board’s Sales and Service Practice. He is the latest to talk on HBR’s IdeaCast and brings up good points around customer satisfaction. Matthew is coming from a customer service perspective but I think it applies to all parts of the customer experience. To sum-up Matthew’s main concern,

Customers will punish you harder for failing at the basics than they will reward you for delighting them.

This make complete sense. You are not going to tell anyone to fly JetBlue because they have comfortable seats and DishTV if they constantly have travel delays and missed connections. If your phone doesn’t make calls, it doesn’t matter how nice looking it is, you are going to complain about it.

So how do you do this? I like the NetPromotor philosophy for tracking customer experience. It starts with the basic question, “How likely is it that you would recommend [product ] to a friend or colleague?”. From this question, you can track your cumulative customer feedback over time. If you see your score going down, its time to dig in and figure out what’s going on.

If you are not ready to do a formal NetPromotor program, there are alot other ways to get a gauge of your customer satisfaction – surveys, forums, social media, etc. Most important is to establish a baseline, even if it is semi-formal, and continue to monitor.

Bottom line, table stakes must be met before you can talk about what’s for dessert.

August is A Great Time For Camp – The ProductCamp Challenge

joshua duncan — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 01:14:09 +0000

ProductCamp Austin is back and is on a record breaking mission. The audacious goal is over 500 participants at the August camp talking about product management, marketing, sales, and development. Here is the ProductCamp pitch:

ProductCamp Austin is back, growing, and we need your help! For the 5th ProductCamp in Austin, to be held on August 7th at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center, we are planning on hosting the largest ever ProductCamp with over 500 participants. What’s great about ProductCamp? ProductCamp is a unique opportunity to learn from, teach to, and network with professionals involved in the Product Management, Marketing, Sales, and Development process from the Austin area! This experience is conducive to excellent one-on-one dialogue that is informative for attendees, presenters and sponsors. You will walk away more educated and better connected than you ever would have been electronically. You cannot replace face-to-face. Register today!

Here is what Forrester is saying:
http://community.forrester.com/message/6534

ProductCamp Austin wiki, features links to a number of posts people have written about the event in the past. These should provide you plenty of inspiration!

I will be going to camp in August, are you? I am planning on presenting a session again and will be posting a draft agenda here. Look forward to seeing you there.

BTW – no bug spray or tent required at this Camp. Just bring your ideas and experiences to share.

Picture Credit: Flickr

Yahoo, Death By 200 Paper Cuts

joshua duncan — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:25:38 +0000

Back in April of 2009 when Carol Bartz joined Yahoo as the new CEO, she discussed the challenges of their product portfolio and brining discipline to their product management process.

Techcrunch is now reporting,

In an email to all staff last week, new chief product officer Blake Irving told employees that he would be sending a two page document outlining Yahoo’s overall product strategy moving forward by the end of July. Later employees will be able to dive deeper into a twenty page document, and later still a 200 page detailed product strategy document would be available.

My gut call is that this is not a good sign (yes, I know when the ship is already sinking, it isn’t exactly risky to say it is in trouble). 2 pages is an acceptable length for a strategy document. I can even buy 20 pages for an in-depth overview of the various parts of the product portfolio strategy. 200 pages? That to me sounds like death by presentation that most employees will take a pass on.

To use a gardening analogy, when you are overrun with weeds you have to take drastic steps to recover lost ground. You can’t save everything, so sacrifices must be made and made quickly. If the plant can be saved you save it, but this is not a time for nurturing. What you hope to do is to pick a few hearty plants to focus on and try to build from there.

Back in 2007, I had a chance to hear Steve Miller speak while he was in the process of trying to turn around the auto part maker, Delphi. What I remember most from his speech was the sense of urgency he conveyed when talking about his turnaround plan. He knew that the only way to the save the business was to to take action quickly before it was too late to save any momentum.

I would like to see more action and less presentation coming out of Yahoo. What does Yahoo stand for? Which of their many,many products are they going to cut and which one are they going to bet the farm on? What’s going to be the rallying cry to galvanize the organization?

I personally think Yahoo has the resources and the brand equity to make the turnaround happen – plus wouldn’t a comeback from one of the pioneer’s of the Internet make for a great story? Let’s hope that there is more than talk coming soon!

Photo Credit: Flickr

Random Reading – A Holiday Recap

joshua duncan — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 01:31:39 +0000

Thanks to Mitch Joel for recomending Sir Ken Robinson’s talk at TED, Bring on the learning Revolution. A few great quotes from the video that I highly recommend watching:

It’s very hard to know what it is we take for granted. And the reason is, you take it for granted.

Life is not linear - it’s organic.

College does not begin in Kindergarten.

If you are doing something you love, an hour feels like five minutes.

If you are in the mood for a fun TED talk, check out Hillel Cooperman’s six minute talk, Legos for grownups.

For those of you still confused by the world cup, here is John Cleese’s take on the difference between Soccer and Football.

I thought HBR’s Why Friends Matter at Work and in Life offered some great words of wisdom,

The happy truth is that the people who say they’re not here to make friends don’t win. That’s true for reality TV. It’s true for business. And it’s true for life.

And on that note, hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend and are having an excellent summer!

Favorite Product Posts June 2010

joshua duncan — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:58:55 +0000

Startup Musings – An “Oh Crap” moment:

The product release was a textbook example of excellent teamwork and extraordinary efficiency in execution. The fatal flaw was mainly my fault. That kind of fatal flaw had happened before on a different platform. The lead engineer on the project hasn’t seen it before, but I have. I should have anticipated it and made sure SQA tested for the condition that would have triggered it. But I missed it. I was colossally lucky someone caught it before it was released into the wild.

Strategic Product Manager – Value Add or Added Value:

If you follow the edict (yes, edict) that value determines prices that determines cost, then your add-ons have value (assuming the cost is greater than zero) and therefore have a price that is greater than zero. So why offer them for free?

Business Insider – Competition Is Overrated: Stop Worrying About It And Just Build A Better Product:

Suppose you have an idea for a startup, and then do some research only to discover there are already similar products on the market. You become disheartened and wonder if you should abandon your idea. In fact, the existence of competing products is a meaningful signal, but not necessarily a negative one.

Spatially Relevant – Content, Content, Content

As you develop content and set it free, there are some key questions a marketer should ask since while content should be set free, it’s not free to develop:

Is this intended for the buyer/Analyst/Partners/Sales/Others?

How will this content influence your audience to do some?

How does this relate to your existing content/strategy?

Does this establish a new content theme, if not related to previous content and is it a sustainable theme?

Is the content reusable?

Neuro Science Marketing – Why Stories Sell

Short testimonials are not a bad thing at all. Letting potential customers know that other real people used your product with success is always a good thing. But turning a testimonial into a personal anecdote will greatly increase its impact. Adding a name, a face, and story will play to the way our brains evolved, and will be both more convincing and more memorable.

This also explains why word-of-mouth is such a powerful tool: if the story is told not by a celebrity or paid endorser, but by someone we actually know, it will be even more potent.

The Experience is the Product - The Phrase That Should be Banned from Product Managers’ Vocabulary

“That’s the way it’s supposed to work.” If you feel the need to say this, then you have screwed up.

On Product Management – Why I hate that Henry Ford quote!

You’ve heard it before haven’t you? It gets used all the time. Even Steve Jobs has used it in interviews. Unfortunately, the people who use this quote most often seem to be people who think they have all the answers or want to quash any discussion about getting outside validation of ideas or plans.

Product Bytes – Magical Thinking and the Zero-Sum Road

That gives us Mironov’s Roadmap Theorem #1: you can’t put something new into the current development plan without taking out something of equal or larger size. When stated this plainly, it should be as obvious as the law of gravity.

Magical Thinking and the Zero-Sum Road