Since the visitor of the page is the only person who clicks the mouse and therefore decides everything, user-centric design has become a standard approach for successful and profit-oriented web design. After all, if users can’t use a feature, it might as well not exist.

Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is continued.

• Users appreciate quality and credibility. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to compromise the content with advertisements and the design of the site. This is the reason why not-that-well-designed web-sites with high-quality content gain a lot of traffic over years. Content is more important than the design which supports it.
• Users don’t read, they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.
• Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification. Very simple principle: If a web-site isn’t able to meet users’ expectations, then designer failed to get his job done properly and the company loses money. The higher is the cognitive load and the less intuitive is the navigation, the more willing are users to leave the web-site and search for alternatives.
• Users don’t make optimal choices. Users don’t search for the quickest way to find the information they’re looking for. Neither do they scan web-page in a linear fashion, going sequentially from one site section to another one. Instead users satisfice; they choose the first reasonable option. As soon as they find a link that seems like it might lead to the goal, there is a very good chance that it will be immediately clicked. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time. Satisficing is more efficient.
• Users follow their intuition. In most cases users muddle through instead of reading the information a designer has provided. Users act like “If we find something that works, we stick to it. It doesn’t matter to us if we understand how things work, as long as we can use them. If your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboard, then design great billboards.”
• Users want to have control. Users want to be able to control their browser and rely on the consistent data presentation throughout the site. E.g. they don’t want new windows popping up unexpectedly and they want to be able to get back with a “Back”-button to the site they’ve been before: therefore it’s a good practice to never open links in new browser windows.

So what exactly is Social Online Marketing? Social Online Marketing requires the use of Social Networking sites such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, Digg, Blogger , Twitter and YouTube to add/edit content for others to be able to access. Information placed on such sites allows consumers to not only view it, but also link to it and/or post their own comments about it. The end result of Social Online Marketing is to increase visibility on Social Networking Sites, create inbound links, and increase traffic to your website which can be tracked through analytics software.

Not only are Social Networking sites useful for Social Online Marketing, their content can also be informational to its viewers. Social Networking sites can allow people to catch up on trends in the Internet world. There are many blogs for example that offer information solely on Internet news. Social Networking sites don’t just give information on the Internet; they can also give readers access to almost any information imaginable.

Although consumers are in control of Social Networking websites, they don’t have full control; Social Online Marketers can also participate in these sites. Customers don’t necessarily want to be marketed to all the time, but they want to be communicated with, which can be done through online discussions. Consumers are out there expressing their thoughts, opinions, recommendations and complaints about your products regardless and not accessing/engaging in these conversations is ignoring an excellent opportunity. By engaging in conversations with your customers and hearing their thoughts, you can get feedback on what changes/improvements your product can use as well as give you and opportunity to address their views through your comments. All the hype of Social Online Marketing is causing an exponential growth of its users and its possible uses and an online marketing tool.

Before starting your Social Online Marketing campaign it is important to think about what exactly it is that you are marketing. Brainstorming about your Online Marketing goals should include research of your target demographic and your key competitors.

Once able to locate your target audience it will enable you to answer key points that define what Social Online Marketing tactics will be successful. The following are questions to keep in mind about your users when determining how to proceed in your campaign: where do they spend a majority of their time when online? (or sometimes even when offline) and what are their hobbies, interests and needs?

By researching your leading competitors you can gain knowledge of how they have tackled Social Online Marketing. Whether competitors have published in wikis, posted on blogs or created a Facebook Fan page they should all be easily traceable through their website. Many Online Marketing attempts can be found just by performing a link search of their website.

You can create a custom Social Online Marketing plan for your website since you now know who your consumers are, information about them and what your competitors have done.

Although Social Online Marketing is relatively easy to perform, it is nearly impossible to engage in every single website out there, nor is not necessary (in most situations) to use every form of Social Online Marketing. The more relevant avenues your campaign exhausts the more likely you are to have a successful results, which more often than not means the more time you have to spend on your Online Marketing campaign the better your results will be.

There are massive amounts of Social Online Marketing websites currently available, with literally hundreds of new ones emerging each month making it even more impossible to access them all.

Examples of Social Online Marketing websites include, but are not limited to:

1. LinkedIn is a Social Networking website that revolves around networks of professionals. Your professional network of trusted contacts gives you an advantage in your career, and is one of your most valuable assets. LinkedIn exists to help you make better use of your professional network and help the people you trust in return. Their mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. They believe that in a global connected economy, your success as a professional and your competitiveness as a company depends upon faster access to insight and resources you can trust.
2. FaceBook is another Social Networking website that gives users the ability to keep in contact with friends. People can publish notes, upload photos, view news from friends, join networks and so much more. By posting a photo of your brand on your companies FaceBook page it allows friends to view your product and hopefully generate traffic to your website.
3. YouTube is a video sharing/distributing Social Networking website. It allows visitors that don’t register the ability to watch videos or those who do register the ability to access the websites full potential, offering many of the applications that sites like MySpace do. YouTube is one of the fastest growing and largest Social Networking communities currently available, so it is a great avenue to perform Social Online Marketing.
4. Blogger is one of the more popular blogging networks. By commenting in open-ended conversational marketing it allows the community to have a lot of control over conversations. Social Online marketers can create their own blog to share specific information to the community and plug their own product/brand.

In most Social Online Marketing communities it is recommended to not start out by promoting your brand or website. If you start out by “spamming” you are likely to get kicked out of that social community. Not only could the site administrators off you from their site, but it could also scare consumers away from your direct online marketing tactics.

What is the next step? Initiating contact with your customers is important, but it is just as useful to continue to keep contact with them. You can’t just start something and not finish. Starting posts on a blog is great, but you need to show users that you are not just visiting, but are there often to listen to them. Customers are likely to add comments or thoughts to your posting which would in turn require a response from you.

Social Online Marketing sites are useful, but its content needs to be easily accessible by searchers. By making access to your Social Online Marketing attempts possible through a link on your website it makes less work for your users to view them.

So you were able to define your audience, locate your customers on the Internet, build a social relationship with them and promote your brand and website through Social Online Marketing. How can you tell if your Social Online Marketing techniques are working? Most analytic software allows goals to be set up and allows for the monitoring of conversion rates. (Note that you need to know what you are measuring first)

When just beginning your Social Online Marketing campaign it is recommended to perform one technique at a time. If using more than one Social Online Marketing technique it could be hard to tell which one elicits what results. To be certain which tactics work best, you should start your campaign by performing one Social Online Marketing form at a time. If you start a multitude of tactics at one time it will more than likely give you an excellent result, but will leave you wondering which one is better for me.

On the other hand, if you are familiar with Social Online Marketing and know which forms are necessary for your campaign it is best to perform more than more tactic at a time. By promoting multiple forms of Social Online Marketing at once it will give you quicker results than marketing just one at a time.

At Kompani Group we offer monthly online social marketing maintenance services. Ask us about what we can do for your company.

That is the principal function of trademarks – a unique identifier that signals to potential consumers the source of particular goods or services. Entrepreneurs and prospective business owners must be savvy from the start in choosing a name that not only accurately reflects their brand aesthetic but that also serves as a trademark, because all names are not created equal. There are some names that make excellent brand identifiers and work very well as trademarks, and others that do not work as well and may not qualify for trademark protection before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

So how do you select the right name for your brand? Here are a few Dos and Don’ts for choosing a truly distinctive trademark that will stand out among consumers and sail smoothly through the USPTO registration process.

1. Do Select a Fanciful or Arbitrary Mark: These types of trademarks are accorded the highest level of trademark protection by the USPTO because they are the most distinctive. Fanciful marks are picked right from one’s imagination, perhaps derived from another word or language or an amalgam of letters that have never been used before so they are novel in identifying any kind of goods or services. Arbitrary marks make use of known words or phrases to identify completely unrelated goods or services. These marks are highly distinctive and also work well as trademarks. Examples of fanciful and arbitrary marks include CLOROX® and APPLE®, respectively.

2. Don’t Choose a Merely Descriptive Mark: Words or phrases that simply describe your goods or services are not very effective as trademarks and are highly scrutinized before the USPTO. These marks are “merely descriptive” and often do not function as trademarks because they lack sufficient distinctiveness for consumers to associate the mark with one particular source of the goods or services. Consumers generally do not associate descriptive marks as a unique source identifier but rather as a description of what they are purchasing. Avoid marks that directly tell consumers what you’re offering. Don’t brand your highly innovative 360° rotating vacuum cleaner as “Rotating Ball Vacuum”, consider instead something like “DYSON®.”

3. Do Select a Suggestive Mark: One way to avoid a “merely descriptive” issue is to select a mark that is suggestive of what you are offering. These marks do not immediately call to mind what your goods or services are, but require some additional thought or leap of imagination. Suggestive marks are fairly strong trademarks and are generally allowed protection by the USPTO. Examples of suggestive marks include “RAYBAN®“ or “ALEVE®“.

4. Don’t Use Your Name or Names of Places: Proper names and surnames are generally not accepted as trademarks unless they have acquired distinctiveness for particular goods or services in the marketplace. This usually requires years of use and extensive marketing to establish the name as a brand and not merely a surname among consumers. Geographic names are also heavily scrutinized because the USPTO is reluctant to grant applicants exclusive rights in such names. Avoid marks that are geographically descriptive of your products, or, depending on the goods or services offered, marks that are geographically descriptive and likely to cause confusion among consumers as to the place of origin of the goods or services. Geographic marks are permissible when used in an arbitrary manner or otherwise unlikely to impact customer purchasing decisions regarding place of origin. Examples include “VINTAGE HAVANA®“ or “100% CAPRI”. The foregoing should not be confused with regional origin marks, such as “CHAMPAGNE” from France or “PARMA” ham.

Choose your brand name wisely. It is the means by which consumers will recognize and ultimately purchase what you are selling, whether it’s cars or canned fruit. Select a name that is unique, memorable and that stands out in the minds of your target customers. For more trademark insights and examples of fanciful, arbitrary, suggestive, descriptive and generic marks, visit the Frequently Asked Questions section at www.FlatFeeTrademark.com.

Making Design Matter.

The new Michael Wolk Design Associates’ web site has been launched. Kompani Group helped Michael Wolk convert his old site into a more user friendly showcase of his work. Check out the new site at www.WolkDesign.com

Making Design Matter. That’s our philosophy at Michael Wolk Design, and just like our design itself, it works on several levels. Making implies action. Our creative process doesn’t end in thought or discussion – it ends in creation. Every idea is developed to its fullest potential here, rather than passed off to someone else. Design is what we make. Anyone can create something functional, and anyone can create something beautiful – but true design will always accomplish both. PRATT had a motto – “Be true to your work and your work be true to you.” In my experience, being true to your work means allowing design – rather than money, politics, or other outside influences – to control the energy. Design is design; everything else is everything else. And we make design matter, in the sense that it needs to be physical. It transcends fantasy and speculation; it is exciting and inspiring, while remaining firmly grounded in the reality of time constraints and budgets. Most important of all is making design matter. Design matters to me – it’s what i love to do, and it’s what i do better than anybody else. Making Design Matter is what I stand for.

Myth no. 1 – Once you register a trademark you own it forever and for everything

Myth no. 2 – Registering a domain name offers all sorts of legal protection

Myth no. 3 – You can save money if you conduct the search yourselves.

Trademark Tip – Top 5 Reasons to Register Your Brand Name or Logo.

There a myriad reasons to protect your trademark, brand name, logo or slogan through federal trademark registration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Here are just a few of the top reasons why you should seek federal protection for your mark:

1. Trademarks are a part of your company’s intellectual property portfolio. It could very well be one of your most valuable business assets, albeit an intangible one. Trademarks can be accorded a value separate and distinct from other assets in your company. To illustrate, the Coca-Cola® trademark alone is purportedly valued at $70 billion. This doesn’t include other assets such as trucks, manufacturing and bottling facilities, etc., just the Coke® brand. The value of a registered trademark may be listed as a line item asset for companies seeking to attract potential investors or obtain financing.

2. A federally registered trademark grants you nationwide priority claim of ownership to the mark. A registered trademark provides constructive notice to prospective users and potential infringers of your claim of ownership to the mark. In the event of  a dispute concerning rights to use a particular mark, the registered trademark owner will have the benefit of the doubt vis-à-vis a non-registered user of the same mark for similar or related products.

3. In the event of any unauthorized use or potential infringement of a registered trademark, the trademark owner is entitled to seek redress in federal court. The registered trademark owner can bring suit in federal court for trademark infringement and prohibit the alleged infringing mark from being used in commerce in a manner that causes confusion with the registered trademark. Moreover, trademark owners may seek three times their actual damages suffered as a result of the infringement (triple damages).

4. If you are interested in obtaining international trademark protection for your brand, you will need to first have a registered or pending application filed with the USPTO. A federally registered trademark is the basis for U.S. trademark owners to seek international trademark registration. Upon filing your application, the USPTO assigns your mark a serial number (or a registration number, once registered). This number is used to submit an international trademark application under the Madrid Protocol System for International Trademark Registration.

5. Registered trademarks may be filed with the U.S. Customs Service to prohibit the importation of infringing foreign goods that may bear your mark or something similar (“knock-offs”). Many illegal imports attempt to trade off the established brand value of famous or well-known marks. Trademark registrations may be placed on record with the Customs Service so infringing products entering the country may be flagged, seized and possibly destroyed.

So there you have it, the Top Five reasons to protect your brand name or logo through federal trademark registration. There are other reasons, of course, including protecting your brand value and hard earned marketing dollars. For more information concerning trademark law, the trademark registration process, or for questions concerning your particular mark or brand, please contact one of our FlatFee Trademark attorneys at 1.800.769.7790 or info@flatfeetrademark.com .

The complementary nature of non-profit business incubators and for-profit incubators became quite apparent during our meeting with 5 Chilean government sponsored business incubators.

On May 16-19, 2010 the National Business Incubator Association, NBIA, celebrated its first 25 years by organizing the International Conference on Business Incubation in Orlando, Florida.   Amongst the more than 500 business incubators from all over the globe were 5 Chilean business incubators who all decided to visit Kompani Group to explore synergies between their non-profit incubator outfits and a for-profit business and strategy incubator like Kompani Group. The explorations trip for the 5 Chilean business incubators was funded by the Chilean Development Minister, and included Mr. Eduardo Aranda M from Gerente Incubadora de Negocios in Santiago, Mr. Etienne Choupay Magna from Pontificia Universidad Catolica De Valparaiso, Mr. Diego Gonza’lez Carvallo from Austral Incuba – Universidad Austral de Chile, Mr. Enrique Roma’n Gonza’lez from Penanova Incubadora De Negocios and finally Alvaro Bustos Torrebalance of SantiagoInnova.

For more information about the NBIA and this year’s International Conference on Business Incubation please visit http://www.nbia.org/events/conf2010/index.php , this year’s conference host University of Central Florida’s business incubation program at www.incubator.ucf.edu , or visit this year’s title sponsor Florida high tech Corridor Council www.floridahightech.com

With shrinking budgets and increasing environmental concerns, CIT has been exploring ways to reduce campus printing costs and consumption of supplies. One suggestion that has been made on several occasions is to use a font that consumes less ink and toner. To that end, we have selected the Century Gothic font for the campus choice award! The Century Gothic font looks good onscreen and on the printed page (at least for general purposes), and it uses 30% less ink than the most commonly used default font – Arial. This is a big deal because ink accounts for about 60% of the cost of the printed page, and it is not cheap — about $10,000 a gallon – with toner cartridges and drums not far behind.

As a result, and after consultation with the Technology Council, we have decided to change the default font for Outlook across campus to Century Gothic. Of course, you may change back to a different default font if you wish, but we hope you will “think green” as you make your choice. This change will occur the next time you reboot your PC.

In addition, we encourage everyone to switch to Century Gothic as their default font in Entourage for Macintosh, Word, and Excel. We did not do this automatically because it would mean wiping out all your other customized application settings. Be aware that changing the default font would only affect new documents and messages. In addition, you can always change the default font for any single document.

Please refer to our eHelp instructions for information on How to change your default font in Outlook, Word, and Excel and How to change your default font in Entourage, Word, and Excel on a Macintosh.

We have had numerous inquiries about how we implemented this change and our resources. Please see the links below for more information:

http://blog.printer.com/2009/04/printing-costs-does-font-choice-make-a-difference/

http://ca.tech.yahoo.com/blogs/the_gadget_hound/rss/article/3751

http://www.printgreener.com/pdfs/GreenPrint%20White%20Paper%20September%2008.pdf

http://pcworld.about.com/news/Aug282003id112199.htm

Source: University of Wisconsin – Green Bay

Owner: Camacho Cigars, Authors: Dylan Austin, Gianni D’Alerta

Background/Introduction:

Before we started this project we planned and built the following two sites for Camacho cigars – www.camachocigars.com and www.socialcigar.com (at first we did not reveal that Camacho was behind this site). Through the two sites we built a subscriber list of 4,500 people in less than one year. Since then we have also built www.room101cigars.com, and we are currently working on a new revolutionary social networking platform and corporate site for Camacho Cigars/Davidorff.

Kickoff of the BlackBand project:

To start off, here is an excerpt from the press release, post project:

“The campaign objectives for Camacho included the creation of an engaging, opt-in viral marketing campaign, a successful permission-marketing opportunity as an outlet to sample yet to be released products. A four-part web-series was created without mention of Camacho until the final “reveal” episode. The viewers followed the satirical Independent Cigar Review Bureau, a fictional agency, whose sole purpose was to educate the world about cigar selection, as they used humorous, guerilla-style tactics to enlighten three characters that represented the most common cigar misconceptions”

Process:

1. We launched the site with this page: http://www.blackbandproject.com/home-temp/
2. We blasted Camacho’s mailing list of 1000 and the social network we created while I was at Propeller of 3500 people, not as Camacho but as the fictional company. The amazing thing was that the idea was so interesting that we had a very low spam report.  We also ran rich media banner ads that actually played a trailer of the project on the websites the banners resided.
3. Once the person signed up they would get one episode a week that would build upon the myths and misconceptions of cigar smoking. The Buzz just keep mounting… people passing the links to their friends… it was huge… in the online cigar world.
4. After they registered they immediately received their first “mission” http://www.blackbandproject.com/d57s-1/
5. A week after that http://www.blackbandproject.com/6ku6-2/
6. A week later http://www.blackbandproject.com/hr4s-3/
7. And then the conclusion http://www.blackbandproject.com/b7x3-conclusion/

Results:

1. We gained 15,500 new subscribers! With that permission to market to them anything in the future. They are already expecting more from Camacho, and we won’t disappoint them.
2. Every cigar website was buzzing about the project, we even got more hits on our Black Band Project site in one month that Cigar Aficionado.
3. After the last video was sent… a month later people got 3 cigars in the mail. So for a whole month, every week… the conversations where about the black band project. Then when the cigars shipped, another huge buzz.

Another Excerpt:

“From day one, the campaign captivated the cigar industry and generated sweeping buzz across the country, with thousands of cigar enthusiasts discussing who was behind “The Black Band Project” on social media outlets, including Twitter, Facebook, and cigar-industry message boards and blogs.

End results:

1. 15,000 leads
2. 4,000 people got the cigars (people who watched all the videos)
3. 15% overall sales increase after the launch of the new product.

Clearing the Fog

Anyone with half a decent website gets bombarded with phone calls and e-mails everyday from people claiming that they can get you to the top of Google.  The notion that someone can make that claim without understanding your business thoroughly, your target clients, and the competition you face to reach those clients is completely baseless.  Choosing the right partner for Search Engine Optimization work can be very tricky.  Regardless of who you decide to work with, do your homework before making a decision.

Discovery and what you should expect

The first step to creating a successful search engine optimization strategy is to understand the business that wants to be found in the search engines.  Through discussions with you or your marketing team, the chosen agency can develop a thorough list of keywords and phrases which describe the products and services offered by your company.  From this list, the agency will then expand it to include keywords and phrases which will ensure that your business is found when customers are searching for your competitors.  The next logical step is then fine tune the list by reducing the amount of keywords and phrases, by eliminating those that are too competitive for the search engine optimization budget which has been allocated to the project.  It is also important to include keywords and phrases which your customers will search for, and not necessarily the ones you might use to describe your own business.

Setting the Budget

Most businesses that are shopping for a search engine optimization partner get easily frustrated when trying to determine the expected cost of the project.  This is mostly because you cannot pinpoint an exact cost for an exact result as you normally can with paid online advertising.  As explained above, the agency should work closely with you to determine a list of keywords and phrases for which you can achieve measurable results given the budget allocated.  In other words, it does not make sense to promise you a top spot in Google for a very competitive keyword if your budget does not allow your company to achieve those results.  If you have a set budget in mind, you should be given a realistic expectations level about the results you can expect with that budget.  If you have a certain goal in mind in terms of search engine rankings, your agency can tell you what budget will be required to achieve those goals.

A tried and proven Process

There are many facets to search engine optimization and it is too cumbersome to get into all of them here, but the essential elements are to ensure that your website is built in a way that is friendly to the search engines, modifying your website content to attract the consumers that you are interested in attracting, and building links from other websites to yours. Achieving higher organic rankings will have a tremendous impact on your business as a whole, and should be measured accordingly.

Timeline

If anybody has told you that search engine optimization can take months to show results, they were right.  Unfortunately this has allowed many scam artists to make false promises and charge their clients for months without doing anything until the client realizes that there are no results.  This is another reason why it is important to choose your search engine optimization partner carefully, and work with an established reputable firm rather than someone who calls you randomly.  It is also important to understand that Search Engine Optimization is not something that you purchase… it is an ongoing process.  While you usually can expect to see results within 3 to 4 months, it is also common to see companies drop off the search engines because they decided that they were no longer interested in investing into SEO since they had already achieved the high rankings they had hoped for.

Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools

With the implementation of specialty SEO plug-ins for the websites we build, you will have access to a comprehensive set of reports from Google Analytics. These analytics will give you insight on how your website is performing, and where people are looking when visiting your site.

Ongoing Support

Don’t have the time to update your site? Busy doing the things that company owners have to do to be successful in managing and building a small business? Some agencies will update your site and keep your blog, news and/or press sections full of current and relevant information about your company. Finding the right agency to facilitate your search engine optimization and related interactive needs, will allow you to concentrate on your clients.

Ask for their Unconditional Guarantee

Make sure that your chosen agency can assure you that they only use the most current technology and that you always will be managed on the most cost efficient, most user- friendly, and effective technology platform for your company.

Where do you go from here?  What more can you learn?  Although your products are ingenious and your marketing efforts stellar, hard as it may be to believe you haven’t already conceived of every Great Idea.  We all need to routinely challenge our thinking so that we continue to leap forward, we need to break out of the borders and assumptions we’ve always held about our company and our industry.  So occasionally this year, Kompani Group is going to talk about things we can learn from the most successful companies in other, completely unrelated industries.  Marketers in online retail have much, much more in common with traditional retailers than the few issues of format that set them apart.  And as for size, your revenues and budgets may have many more (or many fewer) zeros at the end than ours, but the fundamentals are identical:  getting our clearly defined message in front of customers and then delivering satisfaction.

There are brick-and-mortar retailers with broadly acknowledged reputations for superior service – been to Nordstrom or an Apple store lately?  Is there any reason why a retailer serving the online world can’t develop the same kind of reputation?

The question occurred to me this morning because I received another e-mail message from barnesandnoble.com.  “Chris,” it began, “you bought the last book written by so-and-so.  His newest novel will be released next month and we’d be happy to hold a copy for you.”  How cool is that?  (And equally important, how simple for them!) Although we know it’s just data manipulation, it FEELS incredibly personal.  “Somebody” at Barnes and Noble knows and uses my name, remembers what I’ve bought there before, and figures out what my previous purchases can tell them about my tastes and interests.  They’re my friend.

The principle is the same (though not quite as proactively executed) at many of the large, successful sites:  Netflix recommends movies to me based on what I’ve watched and rated before, and the behemoth Amazon suggests both new items that fit my profile and companion products that other customers like me have bought.

Is this difficult?  Absolutely not.  Every one of us has the same data base of customer descriptives and purchase history.  Not very many of us use it to anywhere near its optimal marketing capacity.

Let’s look for a few minutes at a retail success story that has been widely studied:  Starbucks.  In its off-line business, what does Starbucks sell?  And how in the world can they expect us to pay six or eight times as much for a cup of their coffee as we would pay down the street – and be happy about it?  Other coffee retailers have successfully moved coffee from a commodity to a differentiated product; only Starbucks has made coffee an experience.  In fact, Starbucks has made its name synonymous with the coffee experience.  They may have been in the headlines lately as they adapt to changes in the economy and in their marketplace – but isn’t that the point?  In the best of times and in the challenging times, they are the ICON – they define the coffee experience.

Is there any reason why a customer’s interaction with your offer, the process of selecting and buying whatever your product or service is, can’t be an experience?

That was a trick question, I’ll admit, because interacting with you  already is an experience.  There’s nothing you can do about that.  Every customer who buys from you (or chooses not to) is going to have an experience with you whether you like it or not.  The only question is what kind of experience are they going to find.

To explore how we can consistently make each consumer experience with us an excellent one, we’re going to look at some of the things Starbucks has done to become the clear leader in their field – such a dominant figure that there isn’t even a close second.

Before anything else, Starbucks had both a vision and a clear plan, which they’ve executed to perfection. Absolutely everything the company does is designed to give the customer a positive, perhaps uplifting, experience while purchasing a quality product.  Notice that “experience” comes before “product” in the sentence.  Because this is the goal, Starbucks is as much about people as it is about coffee – customers who respond to the experience, employees and managers who live the principles and values of the company.  These values – expressed as five principles and five “ways of being,” are published in The Green Apron Book, which every employee carries in the little front pocket of their apron.

In effect, this is Starbucks’ management marketing its concept to its own employees. None of the simple, common-sense ideas has anything to do with coffee – just as none of them has anything to do with secondary towing or cigars or Caribbean resorts (or whatever your own business may be.)  They have everything to do with how to personalize relationships, how to elevate customer interactions, how to preserve the intimacy of a small company even while working hard to become huge.

Starbucks’ store personnel are trained to remember your name and your favorite beverage (and that’s without a built-in data base.)  They understand the old Dale Carnegie saying that “a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” This not only says you remember them, it says they matter to you.  Starbucks’ customers, exactly like yours, are not looking for new best friends.  They just want a positive human-feeling connection and they want their needs to matter.

Retail is detail.  Starbucks’ Chairman Howard Schultz is fond of saying that.  The truth is that ALL business is detail, and the most successful businesses are intensely focused on the execution of details at every level.  The Starbucks’ training programs teach employees to zero in on the minute details that matter greatly to their customers; every aspect of the business that touches the coffee must reflect the highest standards possible.  The goal – which is really more a compilation of small things than it is one or two big, dramatic things – is a “felt sense” among their customers, a global emotional reaction to myriad tiny details that lurk below our conscious awareness.  The name “Starbucks” automatically triggers in us a feeling that has been created over time by the specific details of our experiences there. Researchers in brain activity have found that as much as 95% of what influences our conscious choices resides below awareness.  This is true about our interactions with anyone selling anything – some we feel happy about returning to, others we stress out about just at the sound of their name.

We have to work hard at getting the details right every time.  What percentage of unhappy customers do you think take the time to bring their complaints to management?  They just go elsewhere with a single click or with their feet.

Here’s a key thing that produces delight in customers, that keeps them feeling warm and fuzzy about you:  predictability.  Since consistency (in quality as well as in the customer experience) is a rare and valued thing, companies that master delivering it will ultimately thrive.  Even when something goes wrong (which happens), if the customer knows the problem will be addressed quickly, efficiently and with good humor – we win. Sometimes this contributes even more to a positive “felt sense” than if it had all gone perfectly in the first place.

The Experience is not the same as the Brand – and we all need to focus on building both.  Using Kompani Group as the example, here’s the critical difference:  if you are considering how you feel about Kompani Group, you are thinking about our brand.  If you are thinking about how you yourself feel as a result of your involvement with Kompani Group, then you are thinking about the Experience.  The latter begins by identifying emotions we want customers to feel as a result of their experience with us, and then working back to what the organization has to do to make that happen.  When our clients prefer the experience of working with Kompani Group, they will become committed to it. They will return to us with new projects, they will recommend us to their friends and colleagues (although probably not to their competitors.)

Finally, it’s important to note that the high visibility of Starbucks has engendered a fair share of criticism through the years.  Howard Schultz says he thinks that his “ability to act positively on any criticism is (his) most crucial leadership skill.”  Given and received in a wholesome spirit, there is much to be learned from criticism and much growth to be inspired.  But the world is full of people who have told Starbucks that they would fail, and why.  It’s still happening on some business pages today, just as there are those who wonder how you and your industry can effectively respond to a challenging economy or a changing competitive environment.  The key – for Starbucks and for smart business operators in every segment – is to choose to engage with the future, to reject the idea that the sky is falling, to believe (to know instead) that the sky is the limit.

Signed/Chris Barr