Make Marketing History

Say It Ain't So.

2009-07-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

Manuel Castells bored me rigid tonight while discussing his new book about power relations and networked societies, but he did suggest that a nugget of information is five times more likely to register in one's brain if it conforms to one's existing beliefs.

He suggested that this was why liberals listened to NPR and Republicans watched Fox News and that the media didn't actually lead opinions. I saw it as powerful confirmation of the idea that communications can only bolster what people already believe about specific products and services. If your product/service isn't credible, you can't convince people otherwise.

Let's Get Physical?

2009-07-07T22:59:00.000-07:00

Projects that translate digital content into something physical (combining the ease of the former with the tangibility of the latter) are all the rage in the marketing world. They speak to some basic human needs for tactility and possession and are a reaction to the increasing virtuality of many people's lives.

While I love the whole idea of this Nike project and its modernisation of the age-old tradition of chalking messages on the Tour de France road, I'm not sure it is physical enough. If yours is one of the 100,000 messages, what is the likelihood of your seeing it? The race is, after all, nearly 2000 miles and three weeks long.

Obviously, a lot of these issues will have been addressed but, in the context of such a huge "tarmac "billboard", is it personal enough? Or is it simply physical?

The Congestion Of The Crowd.

2009-07-06T01:47:00.000-07:00

Listening to Chris Anderson discuss his new book Free last week was an uneasy experience for me. Not because of my feelings about the limits of his argument, but because I realised I knew about ten to fifteen percent of the audience. While it was great to catch up with many of them afterwards, I was struck that my learning would be more differentiated and therefore valuable if I were in an audience of strangers.

This was confirmed a few evenings later, when I sat in an audience of strangers at a design seminar where various designers spoke of their influences and inspirations pecha-kucha style. Admittedly, I was there because I knew three of the nine people on stage, but that was pretty much all I knew. No prizes for guessing which experience was the more inspirational, informative and intoxicating.

Since you want to make your product/service stand out from the crowd, it really helps if you occassionally do so too. Looking at the world through different eyes is a great way to start.

I Am Not A Number.

2009-07-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

Two recent snippets of information that came my way.

Channel 4 Television commissioned some research into teenagers so as to better tailor its education programming. Urban Tribes revealed that 50% of them consider themselves to be "alternative" while only 25% admitted to being "mainstream".

Jonathan Ive, Apple's creative director, reminded his audience this week that "we don't do focus groups".

Knowing best is all about really knowing and not just receiving answers and assuming they represent knowledge.

Make Marketing Interesting.

2009-06-29T01:37:00.000-07:00

The resurgence of sales that follows an artist's death is just one example of the social aspect of consumption. Output that has been ignored in recent years suddenly become hugely popular and Amazon sales rise 700-fold.

It's all a timely confirmation of a recent New Scientist article that discusses the longevity of performers' careers extending beyond their peak. The reason? People are social animals who like/need to share common ground.

The human desire to find common ground in conversation pushes us to discuss already popular people.

The long tail of marketing is not one of low sales across a wide range of products, it's a long tail of continued sales across a wide range of time. Making your marketing interesting now will ensure that it remains interesting long into the future.

The Feel Of A Name

2009-06-24T16:39:00.000-07:00

A woman was explaining to me tonight how the url of her new venture was pleasing to type in the sense of the relative movements of either hand.

This had occurred by luck rather than design, but it makes one think. I'm personally a little sceptical about the positive impact of a product or service name - unless it is a spectacularly good one. But making it easy/fun to type might be a clever reinforcer and a way to utilise the impact of the sense of touch in a previously unconsidered way.

Holding Out For A Hero's Story.

2009-06-18T23:56:00.000-07:00

Intel's latest campaign takes the idea of creating a story to heart by looking at the concept of hero/rock-star in a different way and thereby differentiating their tone of voice.

Storyspace Is the New Airtime.

2009-06-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

Marketers have traditionally spent a lot of their budget on obtaining airtime or its equivalent in various media. Exposure was deemed to be the direct route to attention and maybe interest.

Purefold suggests the provocative alternative of focussing one's budget on acquiring as big a share of the "storyspace" as possible.

Their stories are creative-commons-protected, crowd-sourced ideas centred upon subjects suggested and sponsored by businesses. Yours don't need to be. But you do need to have stories around which a crowd will congregate.

What Do You Want Your Customers To Say?

2009-06-12T07:50:00.000-07:00

You're in a restaurant. You've been served and are eating your meal. Your table is then approached by a waiter/waitress and you can be asked one of two questions.

1) Is everything OK?

2) Is there anything else I can help you with?

Unless you're particularly belligerent or annoyed, your response to the first will probably be a polite "yes, thank you" regardless of the situation. You'll feel faintly patronised and the establishment will learn nothing about how to improve their service nor understand why you don't return.

Always ask questions that give you meaningful answers. You may not always like them, but it's far preferable to sticking your head on the sand.

Give And Take Marketing.

2009-06-10T23:56:00.000-07:00

I was told yesterday that Yahoo had recently upgraded their messenger service for mac users. Was that person happy? No, because after waiting a long time for this improved version to be offered, he discovered that he would have to upgrade his otherwise perfectly adequate computer in order to use it.

I imagine that would be frustrating enough if he had to continue to use the previous software, but I was then told that while launching the new version, Yahoo had decided to make the original obsolete.

Now my friend is I'm sure in the minority of messenger users, but who knows how sizeable a minority? Compelling a frustrated user to become a non-user unless he is prepared to spend a significant amount of money on a hardware upgrade seems to me to be a very perverse act for a non-hardware company to make. I don't see the upside for them. And I know their former user is intent on ensuring they don't have one.

Marketing Mugs.

2009-06-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

During eleven years of treatment for mental illness, performance artist Bobby Baker created a painting each day. Until August, a selection of them can be seen at The Wellcome Collection in London. They include a brilliant evocation of uncontrollable weeping and are all accompanied by captions such as

Terribly Tiny Dr T wearing her psychiatrist's shoe arriving in her shiny black Saab convertible to save our sanity.

and this one that particularly took my eye.

I drew quite a lot of mugs. I drank a lot of tea.

A nice summary of marketing's true aim. It's not about making your customers drink a lot of tea, it's about making your customers think about mugs which in turn will cause them to drink a lot of tea.

Authentic Vernacular.

2009-06-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

If it doesn't ring true, there's no way you will make a prospective customer believe it. In marketing, hope conquers nothing.

Value Judgements.

2009-06-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

Making general quality claims is bad enough. But as soon as you mention pennies and have the timerity not to mention what you'll be charging the customers, you've definitely lost them. How do you know what they consider to be good value?

They're the customers' pennies you're talking about, not yours. Customers judge value, not you. Don't tell them that you provide value for money, just make sure you do so unquestionably.

Addendum: Stella Artois' "reassuringly expensive" is the line they surely wish they could have used.

Nothing To Say?

2009-06-01T07:06:00.000-07:00

If you say something when you have nothing to say then, at best, you will bore people; at worst, you will annoy and alienate them.

Since they have limited attention to expend, people don't want to waste any of it on your non-statements, so you should only say something if you have something to say.

If you truly have nothing to say, then the best policy is to say nothing.

The corollary, of course, is the redeployment of some of the time and money you would have wasted by making a song and dance about nothing. A redeployment towards examining the pressing question of why your business is so uninspiring to you, let alone your potential customers, that you find yourself having nothing to say.

Smarter Recession Marketing.

2009-05-27T23:28:00.000-07:00

The reaction of many businesses to difficult economic conditions is to cut back marketing spending in line with general internal cost-cutting and to focus on providing value for money by cutting prices.

The former may reap some long-term benefits in helping to identify those marketing efforts that are most cost-effective, but it also suggests that marketing is viewed as an expense rather than an investment. Moreover, it also implies that you're in the same boat as everyone else and that you product/service is as vulnerable to a downturn as your competitors.

Wouldn't it be smarter to emphasise your difference from the competition and thereby your confidence in the value of what you're selling? Wouldn't it be smarter to emphasise the value for money you provide by focusing on quality, durability and relevance? Wouldn't it be smarter to think of totally different approaches and might there even be some mileage in showing their purchases to be a quasi-social investment in the well-being of the economy?

Cost-cutting is fine and entirely necessary where it is a case of trimming wasted effort and expense, but that applies at all times. As does the marketing imperative to be different, to be note-worthy, to be remarkable. It's amazing how many businesses forget that when times get hard.

Customer Satisfaction Cannot Be Bought.

2009-05-25T02:23:00.000-07:00

An awful lot of marketing is predicated upon the incentivisation of customers. Offer them financial discounts and/or perceived psychological benefits and they will buy your product/service.

In contrast, the Yale-based weight-loss site stickk.com is predicated on research that suggests that avoiding a negative outcome is much more of a behaviour enforcer. Facing a self-imposed financial loss if you fail to meet your target is apparently much more of a spur to continued action than being offered a positive reward.

The concept of opportunity cost which states that the true cost of something is having to forgo the next best option) seems to me to back this up and has been at the heart of my belief that not reducing customer irritation while avoiding blandness. A reward is nice, but inevitably short-lived. Having disappointment removed is less obvious but ultimately more noticeable.

Customer Data Should Help The Customer Too.

2009-05-21T03:06:00.000-07:00

Conference badges are simple things. You fill in a form for an event and some days, weeks or months later you're wearing a badge with some of that data on it.

But is it the data you want to appear on you badge? Have you ever been prompted regarding which lines of data (company or occupation for example) will actually appear on the badge or in the yearbook or in some other piece of potential self-promotion.

If you're collecting data, you're no doubt keen on building a database of attendees in a format that makes your life easy and will allow you to market to them in the future. Wouldn't it be better marketing if you spent a little time showing that you were also aware of the self-promotion opportunities that they wanted to exploit?

Letting them know/influence how their badge will look is just one very simple way of potentially delighting them. But because it falls under the label of conference administration and not conference marketing, nobody does it. The business world is filled with missed marketing opportunities and most of them will cost you nothing.

Look Behind The Customer Numbers

2009-05-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

Last year when I attended Innocent's first AGM, there was a lot of heated discussion about their test-marketing smoothies within McDonald's outlets. This was an act that certain evangelistic customers seemed to feel was a betrayal of their ethical principles.

Thus, at Innocent's second AGM this weekend, there was an expectation of a lot of dissent regarding the recent sale of a slice of the business to Coca Cola. That it didn't really materialise was a reminder that noise does not equate to strength of feeling. Later, in discussion with one of the founders, it emerged that they had received 260 complaints. For a compamy with sales of 100 million smoothies a year, that's a very small number.

I've always said that to create a great product/service, it's imperative to focus on eliminating annoyances for your customers, but you also have to keep the numbers in perspective. It's what lies behind them that counts - as evidenced by another number that I discovered. Specifically that, on their ninth birthday, 38 customers chose of their own volition to send birthday cakes to the company.

260 complaints versus 38 birthday cakes. I know which number I find more compelling.

Customer Facing Marketing (Update).

2009-05-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Two alternative approaches to dealing with the persistant complaining customer (i.e. me as detailed here.

One company accepted that I was right and they were wrong (or more specifically "somebody at the service centre doesn't understand how to do percentages") and a refund is coming my way. I conceivably may buy from them again.

The other accepted that I was right, tells me that I should have been kept better informed and then offers me a 10% discount on future purchases within the next six months. I have no incentive to buy from them again.

Right the wrong quickly and you may still have a customer. Act as if you expect repeat business from a dissatisfied customer and you won't.

Measurement Maketh Marketing?

2009-05-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

A number of recent conversations with advertising people have featured their defending of campaigns designed to "raise awareness" of a product/service. Of course, with the exception of the impulse purchase, it is probably important that a potential customer has some awareness of your offering, but I've always been concerned that awareness carries no inherent implication of action.

If your marketing solely raises awareness of your existence, it's more than likely raising an equal awareness of your category and will result in a general sales spike for you and your competitors. Unless your marketing prompts awareness coupled with genuine interest and, I would argue, a degree of real desire to purchase, then there is no guarantee that your sales spike will be better than your competitors.

In an age of metrics, building awareness has the advantage of being a goal that is reasonably convincingly measurable in terms of unprompted customer recall (though prompted recall still seems totally disingenuous to me). But to do so is to elevate measurement above effectiveness as your marketing goal. It's the difference between being Miss/Mr Congeniality and the one that everyone wants to date.

The 4 C's Of Social Objects.

2009-05-09T04:02:00.000-07:00

What the world definitively does not need now is yet another blogpost about social objects. I just want to remind you that regardless of what social media agencies might say, the social does not have to be about socialising in the sense of directly interacting or indulging in the dreaded conversation.

Consider that most quoted of social objects the iPod. It fulfils 4 C's of social media, but conversation is the last of them because it's specifically designed to isolate you from conversations. Remember that when you think of social objects in respect of your own marketing efforts.

Copying

Talking is just one way that we communicate. As Mark continues to tell us, ideas spread predominantly via copying. We see something that we like and we adopt it ourselves. We don't have to discuss it with the previous user. The "conversation" has happened anyway.

Confirmation

Confirmation follows from copying. Seeing the social uptake of something we've bought serves to confirm to us that we made a good choice. Nobody needs to tell us that, but every time we see it, we feel better about our decision and the product/service. A lot of marketing (think car advertising) works on that post-purchase reinforcement.

Communality

We see fellow users and delight in the realisation that not only did we make the right choice, but that the act of doing so ordained us with membership of a community of like-minded, savvy people. Our people, but not necessarily people with whom we have to have a conversation. Kathy Sierra summed it up perfectly when she wrote of the nod.

Conversation

And finally there is conversation. But it's not conversation about the product/service. Most of the time (as I wrote before) we don't want that. However, we enjoy conversations that spring from the preceding C's. Those are the conversations you want to inspire or simply faciliate amongst your users and prospects.

Interruptive conversations are much more interruptive than they are conversational and are the result of imposing an old communication model or a new communciation world. Avoid them and your product's social life will be a much richer and happier one.

A Nonsense Of Customer Service Urgency.

2009-05-07T10:06:00.001-07:00

We confirm receipt of your letter addressed to the Managing Director who has referred the matter for our urgent attention.

A member of our customer service team will get back to you within ten working days.

Can you spot the dissonance between the words and the promised action? It's not what you say that counts, it's what you do.

The speed of resolution isn't really that important either. After all, some problems are more complex than others. Thoroughness is good, but applying an arbitrary ten day response is not only daft, it's impersonal.

Will I be happy in ten days time. Who knows? Am I happy that it will take ten days before I get a clue of what they're thinking of doing? What do you think? The speed that matters is the speed with which you inform the customer what you're doing and not merely that you're doing something.

Your Prospect Is Always Right.

2009-05-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

Good marketing is about helping the customer, informing the customer and crucially about not frustrating the customer.

My friend Mark McGuinness has a new angle on this. We're used to companies buying up multiple versions of url in order to capture any browser search, but I've not seen it done on Twitter. Mark realises that people like me might mis-spell his name so he's anticipated that and ensured that when I made that mistake, I was still just one click away from where I wanted to be.

He could have opted for an easily spelled pseudonym, but this is better. Not only does he "own" his name (which in itself makes it easier for users to find him), he shows that he's thinking about what they want before they even get to him. Attention to detail costs very little and returns a lot.

Escape From Cubicle Nation.

2009-05-01T02:35:00.000-07:00

Pam Slim and I met in a non-descript corridor in the Austin Convention Center about six weeks ago. We'd known each other for some years. She was an early commenter on this blog and we'd spoken via phone and email on a frequent basis, but we'd never met. The fact that we immediately started chatting as if we'd seen each other yesterday speaks volumes to me and made me think.

Because if marketing is all about making people like your product/service so much that they want to hang out with it, wouldn't it be useful to ask oneself the question "What makes me like somebody?". Not with the aim of anthropomorphising your offering along the lines of the ghastly Microsoft Clippy, but to identify the traits that appeal on a human level.

For me, some that spring to mind are common sense, energy, intelligence, communication, transparency, realism, passion and fun. Pam has all these in abundance which is why I like her and which is why I think you'll like her book that came out yesterday. When the time comes that you choose or are forced to go it alone, you should have it (and her) by your side.

Customer Facing Marketing.

2009-04-29T01:49:00.000-07:00

If this were a conference presentation, you might call these case-studies but really they're just personal customer experiences I've had this week.

1) A made to measure order from a household furnishings store. Delivery time 3 weeks "but will probably be ready in two - we'll call you". Four weeks later - no call. The response to my enquiry, "it hasn't been delivered yet, we'll call you when it is."

No apology = No repeat sales.

2) A twenty month old television explodes. It's no longer under warranty and the supplier doesn't accept (yet) that they sold me a defective product. Repair quotes vary from person to person and ultimately a sliding scale discount is offered due to age of product. Throughout the saga, the staff have been courteous and tried to help, but the processes and the incomprehensible paperwork have made it seem adversarial.

No transparency = No repeat sales.

3) A bottle of beer in a case clearly had a defective seal and I suffered a less than enjoyable taste sensation. The other bottles, so far, have been fine. I return the defective bottle to the supermarket complete with empty carton. I barely have to say a word before I receive a complete apology, a free case of beer and a gift certificate.

No arguments = No end of repeat sales.

Sainsbury's - from whom I made the smallest purchase - understand that it's all about customer service and word of mouth (and always has been). The other two don't.