Tom Martin: Positive Disruption

You Can't Buy Customers. You Have To Earn Them.

2009-12-08T07:42:00-06:00

Warning: this is an unfinished post. A thought I'm still thinking through and I'm hoping you can help me frame it.

Last night on a plane ride home from Chicago, I was reading Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone, by Mitch Joel (amazon link) and he ended one of his chapters with "You can't by community. You have to earn it." He's right with respect to community and I think in today's world, he'd be right with respect to customers too - hence the title of today's post.

As I look around it seems to me that consumers are getting increasingly fed up with poor products and poor service. They're no longer willing to accept substandard as acceptable. And they're taking steps to remove the substandard from their lives.

Why?

Maybe because it seems like today any great idea or service can be copied in days not months or years. And a good idea can be morphed and improved upon even quicker. With how easy information flows over the internet consumers are more quickly made aware of new options.

And it seems to me that today poor products and services fail faster. It used to be that it was hard for an upset consumer to share their story with more than a handful of friends/family/co-workers. Therefore, they had to be really upset or have a real bone to pick with a company before they'd invest the time necessary to give a company pause. But with today's social media networks, any consumer (not just social media experts) can tell the world about a substandard experience. And best of all, the world will listen. And then tell their friends.

No, I'm thinking the days of being able to just carpet bomb the consumer into believing that yours was the best or maybe only real solution are over. Sure there are other tricks to buy consumers. Just look at the wireless phone service space. Want an iPhone? You're stuck with AT&T, whether you like it or not. But even there, I think you'll one day see change that will mean wireless phone service companies will have to earn their customers loyalty each and every day -- just like the rest of us.

Anyone see this from another angle? A counter point or maybe something to add a bit more depth to this thought. Would love to hear.

Three for Thursday - December 3

2009-12-03T07:46:00-06:00

It's been a good week for cool things as a lot of them have found their way to my in-box. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it's because my newest Social Media client is a local restaurant group, but all of these ideas are ones that local businesses can use to drive more revenue.

Local Twitter Monitoring Tool
Mack Collier pointed me to Monitter. It's a web based, geo-targeted Twitter search tool that makes it really easy to search for keywords people are tweeting within a certain geographic area. He's got a great write up of the tool, so rather than blather on and repeat what he said, do yourself a favor and pop over to his post to read all about it. If you're a local business or a big company that sells at the local level, this is a pretty cool tool that could easily help you make more money.

Local Direct Mail is Alive
About a year or so ago I stumbled across Matter and signed up to see what it was all about. It was very cool. The idea was, you signed up, gave them a bit of information about you and then they sent you a box of matter -- real things from real companies. I really liked the idea, especially as it applies to local companies that rely on consumers within a specific geographic zone for business. Sort of a Valpak on steroids. The problem -- it was a UK only effort, still can't believe they sent me a box across the pond. But I figured it was only a matter (pun intended) of time before the idea showed up here in the USA. Seems someone at UPS must either be reading this blog ;-) or they too saw the Springwise post because now UPS is testing something similar with their Direct-to-Door service. The service delivers a small, custom-designed UPS Direct to Door Pak to consumers in select ZIP codes who were already receiving another package via UPS. Inside the package are samples from companies.

This is an interesting twist on the Matter model. Because UPS is already going to these homes and the Paks are not addressed to anyone, the carry cost is pretty light. On the downside, the brands don't really know who is getting their samples, but the do know what zip code and address got Paks, so for the local restaurant that wants to send a sample of a signature cookie or maybe a promotional item to folks that live within 5 miles of their store -- this works great. Personally, to make the idea really powerful, I think there needs to be more demographic targeting involved, but it's a great and interesting first step by UPS.

Mobile Payments
We live in an increasingly cashless world -- it's all plastic these days. So I've been really interested in the mobile credit card processing arena. While it isn't hard for companies to set up merchant accounts and get swipe machines, it is hard for local artists, non-profit groups (think your local PTA) to do the same. More importantly, when you look at the pop-up store trend, especially now at holidays, the ability to set up a "store" anywhere with little to no lead time or infrastructure (think mobile cart set up in a parking lot of a major mall for instance) is very hard in a cashless world unless you can somehow process payments via a mobile device. There have been other apps like the ProcessAway, which I think it only works on iPhones, but these apps require you to manually enter the credit card number. This takes time and is bound to result in mistyping and frustration. Enter Square. There are two things I really like about Square. First, it uses a card swipe reader that attaches to the 3.5 mic input jack that all phones have. This means no typing and if you process a credit card as a swipe vs typing in the numbers you usually get a better processing rate. Second, and as a consumer I love this one, I can register with Square and they'll affix my photo to my credit card. So when the business swipes my card, a visual confirmation screen appears, which pretty much ensures zero fraud -- which I have to think will prompt Visa, Mastercard, etc to give Square users a better processing rate due to lower fraud.

To me this kind of an app is a game changer. Now the local restaurant that wants to create some buzz can set up the equivalent of a lemonade stand and sell samples or take-out plates anywhere, anytime. So imagine you're at that local strip center of great shops this Christmas. You know the one that has not a single restaurant in it? You're starving but there are more discounts to be had. Out of the corner of your eye, you spy a small food cart from a restaurant you've heard about but never tried. You walk up and are informed it is in fact from that restaurant and today they've been invited by the strip center to serve light shopper friendly lunches. For just $5.00 USD you can choose from one of three hand held lunches. You of course are thrilled as the food looks great and you're starving so you buy two (of course you're shopping with a friend) lunches a soda and with tax you owe $12.50. You hand the vendor your credit card, he processes using Square and presto, the restaurant made a few bucks, exposed you to their food (which you love by the way) and the strip center just figured out how to add a virtually unlimited number of restaurants to their center even though they are 100% leased. Pretty cool eh?

So that's it for this Thursday's edition of Three for Thursday. What'cha think? Good stuff? Oh, and don't forget, if you see anything you think I'd like to cover here, be sure to email it to me. The link to my email is under my picture on the sidebar. And if you liked this Three for Thursday, there is an easy way to ensure you get each and every edition -- subscribe via RSS or eMail using the handy dandy links at the top of this blog. See ya next week.

What Are You Really Selling?

2009-12-02T10:25:30-06:00

tommartin

Be The Consumer

2009-12-01T10:35:18-06:00

photo by: kalel_mos

I'm fond of saying, "In order to change someone's mind, you first have to know where they're mind is at right now." To me it's a fundamental basis that underlies all persuasion. As a marketer, you are required to get inside the mind of your consumer. That's the basis for countless focus groups, surveys and IDIs that are fielded each and every year. But here is a thought that has been rattling around my head for some time and few conversations of late have pushed it to this blog.

Can you really market a product to people if you aren't one of them? Can I sell you Vodka if I only drink Bourbon or worse, don't drink at all? Can I really get inside your head and heart if I'm not one of you but have tons of great research about you?

Lots of marketers would say no, you have to be the consumer to understand the consumer. Niche marketing agencies are fond of this argument. They'll tell you that research can't get you that kind of inner understanding. But then many others (general marketing agencies for instance) would counter that with the right research and a true desire to understand the underlying motivations of a consumer market that yes, in fact the marketer can get inside the consumer's head and thus create motivational messaging.

Both marketers could line up case study after case study proving their point. And in the end, both would be right. So what's my point here? Why do I think you should be the consumer?

Because while research can get you inside the mind and often the heart of the consumer and can help you understand what they are thinking and how they will respond to certain stimuli, it can't help you innovate.

Only a person that actually uses a product or service can figure out new uses for said service/product. And that, to me at least, is where the money is at... innovation.

But that's just my two cents. What do you think? How are you approaching this all to frequent challenge?

Stop Campaigning and Start Conversing

2009-11-23T11:26:57-06:00

Tomorrow I have the honor of hosting Marc Meyer and Jason Breed's excellent hashtag chat, Social Media Hashtag. We'll kick things off at 12 noon Eastern/11am central. The hashtag changes every week but you can find this week's hashtag over at their site and by following #SocialMedia on Twitter today and tomorrow.

We'll be chatting about a topic near and dear to my heart: the need for marketers to break out of campaign thinking and embracing conversation thinking.

I've talked before about how I believe brands need to focus more on connecting with consumers versus just selling them stuff. I've pontificated on how brands need to stop thinking in terms of concepts but instead in terms of conversations and then use digital platforms and social media tools to create campfire conversations where their consumers can gather round and return often. And we've talked about how not to try and move from campaign to conversation -- ie, scanning social media platforms for key word mentions and then spamming the person who posted with that word or phrase. And lastly, we've talked about how brands can make themselves interesting or give consumers a reason to want to talk either with them or at least about them.

Well all of these disparate thoughts will come together tomorrow when I'm hosting the Social Media Hashtag chat. Specifically we'll try and answer three questions, but I'm sure more will develop organically within the conversation -- seems they always do.

1) What is the difference between a marketing campaign and a customer conversation?
2) How do agencies have to change in order to create conversations instead of campaigns?
3) What are some examples of brands or agencies that have succeeded in making the jump from campaign to conversation?

I hope you'll join in and contribute to the conversation tomorrow. I'm a big fan of these hashtag chats, and especially like Marc and Jason's. So I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. And if you can't make it, please leave your 02 below in the comments section.. I'm always looking for unique and insightful points of view to move this very important conversation forward.

BTW - if you missed the chat, it was great. But lucky you, there is a recap here.

photo credit: from chrisheuer

Three for Thursday - November 19

2009-11-19T07:30:00-06:00

Ok...time for another Three for Thursday, where I share three things I stumbled across this week that I thought were really cool.

The Future of Mobile?
Ok, so that the FTC doesn't fine my ass, this first one is actually an example from the firm I work for - Zehnder Communications. But really, that doesn't diminish the cutting edge cool technology that is powering this application. Layar is really interesting. It's like putting a heads up display (think fighter jets) on your mobile phone. This display allows you to superimpose virtual data over your physical world. The applications and opportunities are really quite profound.. this one we did for the Voodoo Experience was just the beginning of what is possible.

Like hiring a private investigator
Guy Kawasaki turned me on to Spokeo this week. Basically, if you have someone's email address you can punch it in and see a lot of information about them. Basically, if they've used that email address to register for social platforms like YouTube, Flickr, etc., you can quickly find their profile and check them out. I've done a few tests and while it isn't 100% accurate, it does give you a pretty good partial picture on most folks. Marketing applications? Think B2B, real estate, marketing/advertising/social media/trade shows -- basically anyplace where you'd kind of like to have an idea if you're talking to a real prospect or some crazy person prior to investing a lot of time in relationship building or prospecting. Give it a whirl... kind of spooky and might make you think twice about using a real email addy to sign up for anything.

Alarm System Industry Game Changer
Have you seen Sensr yet? Basically, you create an account. Then set up a web cam and the system monitors the cam. Whenever motion is detected, the system will email or text you an alert. So think about it. Why pay for an expensive alarm system that will likely go off when there really isn't a problem, cause your local police and your neighbors to get pissed and possibly get you blacklisted by the local police as a "do not respond" house? Instead, use this silent alarm system to notify yourself of a problem via your cell, which by the way you could turn around and call 911 from in mere seconds. Best of all, whomever has decided to break in .... yeah, they're caught on video. And the price -- right now it's free. Hmmm... make me glad I'm not in the alarm biz.

So what do you think? Have you seen anything lately that you think we'd all like to know about? Please share.

Painless Prospecting

2009-11-18T07:38:00-06:00

Earlier this week I had a chance to talk with a bunch of Realtors about how they might consider using Social Media and digital tools to sell more houses. During the course of the talk I mentioned how social media helps them to painlessly prospect. A few seemed to take the idea to heart and I thought I'd expand on it here as the whole concept, painless prospecting, is relevant to lots of folks who read this blog. And while this post is written with the realtor in mind, I'll take a chance here and there to more clearly explain how the same concept applies to us non-realtors.

Twitter Search
I showed them how you can use Twitter Search to help you monitor folks using keywords or making statements that might indicate that person is a candidate for your services. In this instance, we searched "Moving to New Orleans" and talked about how it is ok to simply follow folks that use that phrase. Don't talk @ them yet or even expect them to follow you back, many won't, but by following them, they'll get an email notifying them, which will make them aware of you and your offering. If you're doing a good job in your Twitter stream (being helpful, not looking like 'that guy' and appearing to be a real person and not a real jerk) then likely, and especially if they're truly in the market for your service, you'll get a follow back. Here again, that's not an invite to start selling, but if you're a realtor it's a great opp to start sharing great houses you're selling or touring - which you should be doing anyway. If they see something they like, they'll let you know. As for the rest of us, the same simple principle applies. Be out there, be helpful and folks will take you up on the offer now and then. Do it enough, and you can build a nice little stream of prospects that without requiring a lot of work on your part.

Blogging
Blogging is a great tool to prospect. Sure it takes a good bit of time and you do have to reach out and drive traffic to your blog via places like Twitter, cross posting on relevant aggregating sites for your industry, and making sure you show up in places like Digg, Reddit and others. But probably the single best reason to blog from a prospecting perspective is that Google loves blogs. They are keyword rich, constantly updated content that (if done well) usually result in a good number of in-bound links... all things Google likes. And that is where the painless piece comes in... a good blog has a far better chance of showing up in a keyword search on Google. So, as I showed these realtors, when I searched "New Orleans Real Estate Agents" I got a bunch of broker listings (Remax, etc) and only a single realtor site showed up. This same effect holds true for other industries -- you just have to make sure you're blogging strategically and thinking about things like URL naming conventions, keywords, etc. These Google searches can be prospects that would otherwise never find you.

Facebook
Riffing off the blogging approach, we talked a bit about how to use Facebook. Now if you're someone or a brand that expects to have over 5,000 "friends," then you need to create a Fan Page as Facebook has this crazy 5,000 friend rule. BUT, if you don't anticipate having that many, I'd suggest you just use a regular profile page. Why? Because while Fan Pages can have a lot of fans, you really don't get access to some of the really good stuff like their stream, and things like their birthday. If you are their friend, then you get to see that stuff. And if you're a realtor, seeing the birthdays of all of your prospects/clients is a great way to make sure you touch each and every one of them at least once a year with a personal message. But many of the realtors in attendance worried about combining friends/clients in a single Facebook account. So we talked a bit about how I do that -- and how a blog is a great tool for making this approach work. You see, Facebook will let you cross post your blog entries to your Facebook profile. So each time I write a post, it automatically pushes to my Facebook. It's very obvious in the update that I haven't typed anything, it's just feeding. And you know what, I've never had any friends get upset about it. In fact, a lot of them read my blog from Facebook -- even folks that I'd never think would care to do so. The point is, every couple of days, all my friends are quietly reminded that I'm in marketing, social media, advertising and while they may not be in a place to hire me now or ever, they might know someone that is or know of a great speaking opp at a conference or something and send those folks my name. If you're a realtor, using your blog this way allows you to remind all your friends (who very well could be your clients one day or refer business to you) that you're a realtor and even see the houses you're listing or touring. It's like the web 2.0 version of the yard sign. And if you're worried about them seeing that crazy picture of you in Vegas... well just set your privacy features and use lists. Really pretty easy to create that Chinese wall in your life.

And that's the point of all this social media stuff. By being out there, sharing great stuff, you're communicating, connecting and all that...but you're also prospecting. People are seeing your stuff and more importantly forming opinions about the type of person you are and that is the first step to doing business with anyone: you have to get them to like you and then trust you. And that's the point of painless prospecting.. it's a fun way to get folks to like you and trust you by doing stuff that frankly, you're already doing. Only now you're using all these great digital tools to cast that net wider and farther than you ever could before.

Now I'm sure there are lots of other great examples of using Social Media as a painless prospecting tool that I'm forgetting at this late hour... so maybe you'll help by tossing a few thoughts/examples out in the comments section? I'm sure everyone would really appreciate it. And who knows, maybe you'll cultivate a prospect or two? Just saying.

Three for Thursday - Nov 13

2009-11-13T08:18:41-06:00

Reposting this today because it didn't go live yesterday... so enjoy.

First up is Minggle which the really smart Jason Falls posted about recently. Like other multi-platform update tools, Minggle pulls all your various fees into one place and gives you the ability to post to all platforms in a single update. What I think is really nice though is Minggle gives you an option to selectively update. So for instance, if I'm about to do a marketing talk for a conference and I want to notify everyone, I can post that to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter with one update. But if I just want to post a business update (mabye winning a new client) on LinkedIn I can do that too and it won't post to FB and Twitter.

Second up is Readability. Earlier this week I commented on Twitter that it would be really cool if blogs had a "format for printing" button on each post so that I could just print a good post (especially longer ones) to read later. Luckily Mark Wanczack saw my tweet and shared Readability with me. It's a simple plug in for your browser. Get to any web page that you want to format for offline printing, click on the Readability button and presto, formatted for printing version. You can even set the type size, margins, etc. Very cool little tool.

And lastly, another one from Mr. Falls -- StreamThatCause.com. This is a great, innovative way for non-profits, churches, or school groups to raise money. A very web 2.0 update to the standard selling of candy, wrapping paper, etc. But instead of explaining the whole thing, I'd prefer you just pop over and read for yourself. Great concept and I'm sure you or someone you know can use this service for good.

Let me know what you think folks. And if you have a great idea or you've found a really cool tool/site that you think my readers would like, please let me know in the comments, via twitter @TomMartin or email me. Link up there under my pic.

The Modern B&B Hotel

2009-11-11T07:42:00-06:00

I've been doing a lot of traveling lately -- both for business and pleasure. And for whatever reason, my travels have often been booked in places like Hilton Garden Inn, Courtyard by Marriott, Embassy Suites, and Hampton Inn & Suites. The common theme in these types of hotels is good value, clean room, and usually free extras like WiFi, breakfast and in the case of Embassy -- my personal favorite -- Happy Hour.

These aren't the high end hotels with lots of high end services. That is a very different type of hotel and a different type of stay. No these hotels are clearly aimed at providing a good value for the traveler that basically wants a bed, some grub and free WiFi.

But as I sat an ate breakfast with my three boys this past weekend at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Jennings, LA -- a lovely hotel by the way for you I-10 corridor travelers -- it hit me. These types of hotels are the modern day Beds and Breakfasts. They basically give you both and the later is served in a quasi-communal manner, much like a true B&B. In fact, as I sat with my boys, an older couple seated nearby took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with us -- and of course, commented on the boys, especially the youngest (2yr old).

Which is exactly the kind of incidental conversation that makes B&B's kind of a cool alternative to hotels. Which is the point of this post.

I wonder why none of these hotel brands has or is exploring this kind of B&B'esque positioning. B&B's are known as quaint, cool and of course, higher priced. So by positioning as a modern day B&B for the 21st century, technologically savvy traveler, wouldn't they be putting themselves in a better position to justify a slightly higher rate? In the case of the Embassy Suites in Austin (link above) we enjoyed a great little happy hour and a truly good breakfast buffet -- and as a family of 5 (my daughter stayed back in New Orleans) total savings was easily in the $70 range -- which made my actual room rate near $79-$89/night... a pretty awesome deal for Austin, Texas on a Longhorn home game weekend.

And in the case of the Hampton in Jennings -- they had this really cool table designed for laptop toting business travelers (pic above) where you could plug into a central power strip, eat breakfast and chat with fellow business travelers that like you, were dining solo. If you don't know the value of a casual dinner or breakfast conversation while traveling solo -- ask a real road warrior -- they'll tell you dining alone is a huge pain and gets old quickly.

So what do y'all think? Should these value chains or at least one of them consider a quasi-B&B type positioning? Would they need to add higher end services or amenities like better bedding, etc.? Could they pull it off with an ad campaign or would they need to include some kind of experiential or maybe virtual experiential/social media component? Personally I'm intrigued but are you?

Creating Brand Passion - The Movie

2009-11-06T07:42:00-06:00

If you've been around this blog for a while you know how passionate I am about brands and more importantly, how you create and sustain brands for a competitive advantage. Earlier this week I was invited to speak at the Iowa Chapter of the American Marketing Association and to share my views on how brands, even every day brands, can create and sustain passion.

Here is the video of the talk -- as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Tom Martin as a speaker, and the concept of creating brand passion via the 9-steps I outline in the talk.