Not in a good way.

Tropicana’s Bottle Redesign Shrinks Package Size and Sales

Tropicana replaced their signature 52-ounce orange juice carafe with a slimmer, 46-ounce, more traditional-looking bottle. The bottle’s smaller girth allowed more facings (bottles to fit on the shelf).

The new bottle required less plastic to make the cap, and was designed to be easier to open, pour, and close.

There was no campaign to announce the change or the benefits.

Customers saw a smaller, more generic bottle in place of the carafe. They were not happy and showed their displeasure by walking away.

Tropicana’s sales fell 8.3% in July from the year prior (per Circana sales data). And they continued to fall.

Sales dropped 10.9% in August and plunged 19% in October. By then Tropicana had ceded 4 percentage points of their market share to competitor Simply Orange.

Why Customers Balked at Tropicana’s New Bottle

While Tropicana recommended a price decrease due to the 6 fewer ounces, some retailers were slow to implement it, leading to media headline cries of shrinkflation.

Shrinkflation accusations may have gained readers’ attention, but it was not consumers’ primary gripe with the change.

Image source: Designalytics

Designalytics Founder and CEO Steve Lamoureux reported that in a study of 2,000 orange juice (OJ) consumers, when asked to choose between the two package options, only 49 (less than 2%) cited shrinkflation among the reasons for their selection.

The shrinkflation-as-driver-of-lost-sales argument fell apart right there.

In the same study Designalytics found:

• 42% opted for the carafe because of its visual appeal
• 19% liked specific structural features of the carafe design
• 10% perceived the carafe to be easier to handle, open, and pour

The carafe’s success since it replaced Tropicana’s carton in 2011 came in part because customers liked the way it looked. Its distinct design made customers happy to use it and have it grace their breakfast tables.

The new bottle’s generic design removed that differentiation and aesthetic.

Consulting Customers Upfront Is Cheaper Than Begging Them to Come Back

A Tropicana spokesperson told CNN the redesign addressed feedback from customers, making it easier to pour and close. While they may have heeded customer feedback on the carafe, it appears they did not seek any on the redesigned bottle.

Tropicana’s spokesperson continued to say, “Changes can take time, and after just a few months, we’re continuing to do what we can to help shoppers get accustomed to our new look.”

If you must address your package change one-on-one with customers, you’re going to lose many who won’t bother to engage.

Hiring Designalytics to conduct consumer research on the bottle before launch would have been exponentially less expensive than Tropicana’s sales loss.

Déjà Vu

This is not Tropicana’s first packaging misfire.

In 2009 the company redesigned their carton with a more generic label. Customers complained and rejected the new look. After 6 weeks of backlash and a 20% decrease in sales ($30 million), Tropicana changed the label back.

All told it is estimated the 2009 failed package change cost the brand $50 million.

At the time, Neil Campbell, president at Tropicana North America, said it was not the volume of complaints that led to the change back. Those were “a fraction of the percent of the people who buy the product.”

Tropicana reversed course, he said, because the criticism came from “our most loyal customers” and “we underestimated the emotional bond” they had with the original package.

He also noted that they were reaching out to every single customer who complained.

Just like Tropicana is doing now.

Avoid Tropicana’s Blind Spot

If Tropicana had communicated the benefits prior to launching the new bottle, would they have stemmed the tide?

We’ll never know, but you can avoid this catastrophic scenario with your brand. Before making a major change:

• Understand what drives your brand’s appeal to your customers, especially your loyal ones, before you design something new. If Tropicana knew 42% of customers liked the carafe’s visual appeal upfront, they may have directed their redesign team to retain that shape.
• Test new initiatives – designs, products, services, formulations – with customers to get feedback. That Tropicana did not invest in consumer insights on their package change to uncover the strong resistance bewilders me. I’m guessing the people involved were either different than in 2009 or failed to think such a backlash could happen again.
• Heed customers’ feedback and adjust as needed. Ignoring it can cost millions.
• Communicate new benefits before and during the launch. Shaping customer understanding upfront can aid adoption. It beats losing customers and having to woo them back one-by-one. And it is way cheaper.

If there is one thing I wish for you to remember from the Varsity Marketing Newsletter, it’s this: There is no substitute for talking to your customers, understanding your brand’s place in their heart, and building on that.

***

My Sabbatical & Future Plans

My sabbatical was not only a celebration of my company’s 25^th anniversary, but a needed break. I’d had the sense for a while that it might be time to do something new. But I couldn’t determine what that might be while keeping my business going.

My two guidelines for sabbatical were:

1. Break my routines
2. Follow my curiosity

Some routines proved harder to break than others. Not going down to my office daily was easy. Shedding the sense that I should be writing or working every morning took weeks.

My curiosity led me to some wonderful experiences and at least one painful one. In addition to spending more time with friends and family, I:

• Fashioned a 4-day writing retreat in the Berkshires where I stayed in a 1735 carriage house
• Attended a WIT (Words, Ideas, and Thinkers) panel discussion between Ruth Reichl and Monica Truong, moderated by Aleksandra Crapanzano
• Heard Mariah Frederiks talk about her book The Wharton Plot at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home
• Took a book coaching webinar
• Perused an exhibition on the life and work of Guillaume Lethière at The Clark Museum
• Had a mineral bath and massage at the Roosevelt Baths & Spa in Saratoga Springs
• Showed up at book events for 3 author friends
• Went to a World Series game (Yes, the pain is here. No, I don’t want to talk about it.)
• Was awed by The Polonsky Exhibition of the New York Public Library’s Treasures
• Saw Hadestown on Broadway

I read and read and read. I took many short trips.

Small changes I made include:

• Making my browser default page blank instead of the front page of The New York Times
• Consuming less news
• Spending less time on social media overall

It took over 2 months for my brain to recharge and a bit longer before my next path became clear to me.

What’s Next

As I looked to see where my curiosity led me, I realized it was to more time with books and authors.

It is time for me to move on from studying and consulting on brands and marketing. I will be winding down my consulting work over the next few weeks.

I’ve enjoyed finding my voice by writing this newsletter and Teenage Wastebrand. I’m excited to help authors find their voice and share their ideas and insights.

This week I began formal training to be a nonfiction book coach.

I’ve been dabbling with this for a few years now, ever since Mark Schaefer asked me to give him feedback on his manuscript for Cumulative Advantage. We’ve worked together on two more books since then.

My training will take 6-9 months. I’ll be building my book coaching business at the same time.

While marketing will still factor into my work as I help authors understand their readership, query agents, pitch publishers, and promote their books, it will no longer be my core focus.

Which is why this issue will be my last Varsity Marketing newsletter.

You Fabulous Subscribers, You

Thank you for reading my newsletter. I so appreciate your attention, your comments on my blog, your email responses, and the many conversations we’ve had.

Many of you have been with me the whole way, from my first issue 13 years ago this month.

I’ve loved hearing about your experiences and answering your questions. Our interaction has educated me, pushed me further, improved the newsletter, and brought great joy.

Supersized thanks to those who forwarded or shared the newsletter, recommended it, suggested topics, or referred potential clients.

You can continue to find past newsletters here for the next several months.

And if I decide to start another newsletter related to book writing, you’ll be the first to know.

The Varsity Marketing Newsletter may be ending, but my gratitude for your welcoming my issues to your inbox will go on forever.

Additional Gratitude

Thanks to my family for putting up with my penchant for sharing our stories and for allowing me to do so.

Thanks to my daughter Fiona for her help, thoughts, and challenges on the newsletter. Years ago, after I taught Fiona the meaning of the word blanched, she challenged me to use it in a newsletter. I achieved that here.

Thanks to my son AJ for suggesting topics and providing editorial feedback on some issues. After a client requested a meeting on Skype, AJ commented the platform was passé and I should look into that, leading to one of my most popular posts.

And last, but never least, thanks to Dan, my number one supporter, cheerleader, and editor. Also, the love of my life.

Photo credit: David Ossam

***

Just for Fun

Hear the cast of “The Office” serenade Michael Scott with a farewell song, “9,986,000 minutes” (2 minutes)

Enjoy the von Trapp children bidding “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound of Music (2 minutes, 29 seconds)

Thanks again. ❤️

The post My Last VM Newsletter: Oops, Tropicana did it again appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

You know how your parents told you not to talk to strangers?  Well one day on vacation I not only spoke to a stranger, I invited her to my hotel room.

In October 1996 my husband Dan and I took an ABC Tour vacation to Asia.  My parents had taken the same tour six months earlier.  Among the highlights they mentioned were the free five-minute massages that they got from a group of Thai masseuses who hung out outside one of the temples in Bangkok.

The day we toured the temple, there they were.

A couple dozen unobtrusive Thais dressed in casual clothing and offering brief massages.  Each carried a small spiral notebook and pencil that they used to book appointments after the free massage was over.

When a young woman about five feet tall with dark cropped hair approached me and said, “You want massage?” I said sure.  Why not?  It was free.  What did I have to lose?

If it is possible to experience heaven standing in 100-degree heat at a crowded tourist attraction, this was it.

The woman’s petite size belied her strength.  She applied varying degrees of pressure to points around my neck and shoulders that released stress I didn’t know I had.  It was amazing how much better I felt after just five minutes.

When she pulled out her spiral notebook and asked if I would like to book a massage for the next day in my hotel room, I found myself saying yes.  I also heard myself give her my hotel name and room number and set a time.

Then she said “thank you” and moved on to find her next prospect.  The interaction was so quick that I found myself wondering if it had actually happened.

And wondering about the wisdom of what I had just done.

Humans, aka Prospects and Customers, are Loss Averse

Most humans are loss-averse.

Before we part with even a small amount of our hard-earned money, we want to know that it will be worth it.

More than that, we fear wasting money on something even if we think it will be amazing.

As Nobel Memorial Prize winner Daniel Kahneman wrote in his best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, “When directly compared or weighted against each other, losses loom larger than gains.” (Thanks to Nancy Harhut for making me aware of Kahneman’s quote in her excellent book Using Behavioral Science in Marketing.)

More recently Kahneman clarified that it’s not uncertainty or risk that bothers people, it is the fear of loss.

Sampling Removes the Fear of Loss and Builds Trust

Why did I give a stranger my hotel information and invite her to come the next day without even knowing her name?  Or asking how much the massage would cost?

Because she had proven herself an excellent masseuse by giving me a preview of what I would get if I hired her.

Said otherwise, she had taken away my fear of loss and the risk of hiring her by giving me a sample of her services.

Which is why sampling is the strongest tactic in your marketing tool box.

Faster than advertising, able to leap discounts and coupons in a single bound.

Food and beverage marketers have known this for years. That’s why you can sometimes eat and drink your way through your local supermarket.

But the secret is that sampling can work for just about any industry.

• Authors and publishers sometimes include the first chapter of the author’s next book in the one you just read, especially if the book is part of a series. Or they post it for free. Amazon.com allows you to view the table of contents or to read a few pages.
• Movies create trailers to spark your interest.
• Software-as-a-service companies like Carbonite, iContact, and Constant Contact give you a free trial period. Otter.ai (transcription) and Survey Monkey offer lower-level “freemium” versions for new users to try.
• Private schools hold events and give tours to get prospective students and parents into the building so that they get familiar with the facility and the community and have an easier time seeing themselves there.
• Painters, landscapers, and general contractors give free estimates so you can get a glimpse of their ideas and understand their approach.
• Restaurants will often offer a free sample of one or two wines before you commit to buying a full glass. My world changed when I discovered this.
• Professional service providers like investment advisors, immigration attorneys, and marketing consultants pen newsletters, host podcasts, and post videos to demonstrate their expertise and showcase their perspective.

Sampling:

• Builds trust in your brand via familiarity.
• Builds goodwill with your prospect.
• Kicks the prospect’s loss aversion to the curb and increases the likelihood that she will buy.

Which is why I invited that stranger to my hotel in Bangkok.

And guess what?  Dan had done the same thing with the man who had given him a free massage.

The next day at the appointed hour, the man and the woman arrived and gave us side by side massages.  Ninety minutes and perhaps the best $30 we’ve ever spent on vacation.

Do you have a great sampling or vacation story to tell?  I’d love to hear it.

***

Just for Fun

It’s a short hop from sampling to taste testing and food shopping.

Melissa McCarthy holds nothing back in this SNL “Taste Test” skit. (6 minutes, 49 seconds)

And she unleashes even more in this SNL “Supermarket Spree” skit (3 minutes, 9 seconds; thanks to AJ Traub for showing this to me)

Enjoy!

If you liked this post, you’ll love the next one. Get future posts right to your inbox by subscribing here.

The post Try Me appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

Panera is among the restaurants in our regular rotation. We have long considered it one of our healthier options. I love soup and salad for lunch. AJ enjoys a turkey sandwich.

Three visits ago, AJ noticed Panera had changed the turkey they serve. He still likes it, but not as much as the former one.

Last time I ordered Panera’s Fuji Apple Chicken Salad, I noticed they’d changed the chicken too. Gone was the seasoned, high-quality sliced chicken. In its place, smaller sliced chicken pieces with a mealier consistency, like I’d expect from a college cafeteria.

Ugh. Another change that lessens Panera’s appeal and takes me further from my heyday with them.

My Office Away From Home

I launched my company in late 1999 and have been working from home since then.

In the early 2000s, the Framingham Panera served as my office away from home.

Lunch cost less than $10. Drinks came with endless refills. The cacophony of other diners provided the perfect backdrop for my writing and creativity.

I arrived early. By noon, long lines formed and tables were hard to find.

During the 2008 recession Panera thrived while other restaurants suffered. Panera changed their plates. They refurbished their restaurants. Long lines continued at lunch time.

Around 2010, Panera opened a store in my home town of Natick. An 8-minute drive instead of 15!

The Natick Panera became my go-to for meeting new connections, in-person coaching sessions, and pitching prospects.

Around 2017 I stopped going to work there. Lunches with friends continued, though we noticed prices rising and portions shrinking.

The pandemic stopped the few regular lunch appointments I had there. Since it abated, I’ve rarely seen a long line or had trouble finding a table.

Panera’s Founding Promise

The Panera brand was born in 1993 when Ron Shaich, co-owner of Au Bon Pain, bought the 19-location St. Louis Bread Co. bakery-café chain in Missouri and renamed it Panera Bread. Panera means “bread basket” in Latin.

Shaich’s vision for Panera came from his consumer insights:

“It was very clear to me that about one in three fast-food consumers didn’t feel respected. They wanted real food in an environment that engaged them. They wanted to interact with people who cared. And they were willing to pay more for respect and foods that elevated them, not diminished them.”

Shaich (pronounced “shake”) sold Au Bon Pain in 1999 to focus on building Panera. And build he did.

Focusing on food quality (like antibiotic-free chicken), innovative menu items, infrastructure, and free wifi, Panera opened a new store every few days. By 2006, the chain had over 1,000 locations.

Revenue grew from $151 million in 2000 to $829 million in 2006. Panera went public with a stock offering in 2001.

Thriving During the 2008 Recession and Beyond

When the recession hit in 2008, Shaich saw an opportunity to increase Panera’s competitive advantage and invested big-time in the brand.

In addition to the new plates I noticed, Panera launched low-fat smoothies and new signature dishes. The company revised its salad line, launched new dressings, and moved to grow their own lettuce. Their salad business grew 30% during the recession.

Photo by American Jael on Unsplash

Panera increased their labor force, gave raises, and paid bonuses.

They refurbished stores and built new ones, taking advantage of lower construction costs which were down 20%.

Shaich explained his impetus to spend more while his competitors were cutting back:

“I believe the biggest detriment to other companies is intense overreaction. There is intense pressure for short-term results. I compete for two, five, 10 years out, but if you’re competing for the next two quarters I have a lot more options than you do.”

In 2010, when the brand was 17 years old, the company initiated several new programs to deepen its niche and reassert its fast-casual restaurant category leadership.

In my book Teenage Wastebrand, I call the impetus to reassert your niche leadership during your brand’s adolescence “Defending Your Varsity Spot.” Shaich’s focus on competitive advantage meant Panera did not wait for a crisis to act. Savvy move!

Investments in technology gave diners digital access, enabling orders via in-store kiosks and online. The MyPanera loyalty program and the 100% clean food commitment, including its “No No List” of prohibited additives, further set Panera apart.

By 2017, the MyPanera program had 28 million members. Digital sales hit $1.2 billion. Over 20 years, Panera stock outperformed its restaurant competitors and delivered 25%+ annual returns.

Panera Gets JABbed

JAB Holding Co., a private equity firm, acquired Panera in July 2017, ending Panera’s successful 26-year run as a public company.

Two years later in an interview with Boston Magazine, Shaich shared the reason he sold Panera. He said:

“I was profoundly worried. What I saw is that increasingly, our public capital markets have become short term…it’s putting increasing short-term pressure on our public-company boards and CEOs. The manifestation of it is the theory that the only role of a public company’s CEO is driving up the share price in the short term—to hell with employees and the communities you operate in.”

When the acquisition was announced in April 2017, Ron Shaich said he planned to stay as CEO. “They’ll have to carry me out with my boots on,” he told The Associated Press.

But in November 2017, Shaich stepped down as CEO, staying on as Chairman. He said it was “the right time for me to step down as CEO while still staying involved in the business.”

I suspect Shaich realized JAB’s goals were to milk the Panera brand for value and resell it in another initial public offering (IPO). They did not share his long-term, customer-focused philosophy and approach.

Indeed in 2021 JAB bundled Panera with two of their long-standing holdings, Einstein Brothers Bagels and Caribou Coffee, under the umbrella Panera Brands and announced an IPO.

Market conditions caused JAB to pull back on the IPO in June 2022, and announce they were preparing again in May 2023. The Financial Times reported on November 30, 2023 that Panera Brands had confidentially filed papers for an IPO.

IPO Prep Cost Cutting Reneges on Panera Brand Promise

To prepare for the IPO, JAB looked to reduce costs to maximize profit and make the stock attractive upon launch.

In November 2023, Panera cut its corporate staff by 17 percent.

In March 2024, Reuters reported learning from internal documents that Panera was  quietly removing signage that had “No antibiotics ever,” “Vegetarian fed,” “Grassfed Pasture Raised,” “Animal Welfare,” and any “Hormone” references.

This move was in tandem with relaxing their standards on chicken, pork, turkey, and beef to keep their sourcing costs down.

The sourcing changes would save $21 million.

Reuters also noted that 3 additives had been removed from Panera’s “No No List.”

Per Reuters, Panera’s polling research said they had a competitive advantage in associations with healthiness and responsibly sourced ingredients.

A presentation to executives advocated for the sourcing changes, but advised against ”further modifications to stances on chicken and pork confinement that would save another $8 million but pose a larger brand risk and would put us in a non-competitive position with our policies.”

Did they think we wouldn’t notice? I’m not the only one noting the chicken issue.

As of this writing (July 2024), Panera’s food beliefs on their website still tout antibiotic-free chicken.

In April 2024, Panera introduced a new menu which eliminated 47 items, including beloved items like flatbread pizza, chocolate chip bagels, Napa Almond Chicken Salad sandwich, and autumn squash soup (one of my faves).

Customers have been griping for months online about the brand’s decline, rising prices, shrinking portions, and menu reduction. One customer said on Reddit:

“Panera has gotten far, far away from what it was. Eliminating bakers and…going to pre-made frozen bread…People would come in for the fresh baked bread and soon what they will be getting will be no different than if they went to Walmart and bought frozen dough and cooked it at home.”

Matt Epstein’s video “What happened to Panera?!” showcases the brand’s downfall and went viral on Tiktok, garnering 12,700 comments.

Customer dissatisfaction is so widespread that the press has reported on it and has questioned Panera’s future.

Learn from Panera’s Missteps

While we can’t predict Panera’s future or know how their IPO will go, it is clear JAB’s actions have alienated and lost many customers.

Don’t let this happen to your brand. Specifically:

Don’t gamble with your brand. Ron Shaich built Panera into a fast-casual category leader and high performer by respecting customers and delivering “real food in an environment that engaged them.”

JAB gambled that Panera’s reputation for healthfulness and responsibly-sourced ingredients would mask cost-cutting moves that loosened the clean food pillars the brand was built on. They lost. Stay true to your brand’s promise.

Don’t try to deceive customers. Panera’s success rode on Shaich’s customer respect and astute insights. JAB’s cost-cutting pressure led Panera to shrink portions, increase prices, and renege on several clean food promises. Customers felt duped and departed.

Don’t disregard your employees’ stake in your brand. Panera employees took pride in the crafting and delivery of the food. Dismantling the brand’s artisanal practices and diminishing the quality disheartened them.

It’s not surprising that internal communications documenting compromised standards leaked. Employees may have acted to protect the brand.

Your employees deliver your brand experience. Compromising standards internally means a compromised customer experience.

Don’t do things you don’t want the public to know. Information has a way of finding its way to the internet. Transparency builds trust. Disclosures indicating you are trying to dupe your customers skewer that trust in record time.

Resist the lure of private equity. Unless you have the rare exception of a firm like Elliot Advisors who is investing in Barnes & Noble for the long-term, you are likely to find private equity investors demanding extreme cost cuts to launch an IPO as soon as possible. Brands needs to be nourished, not milked, to grow long-term.

It breaks my heart to see Panera sink like this.

You might think it would break Ron Shaich’s heart too. It might, but he is busy building brands including Tatte, Life Alive, and Cava through his investment firm Act 3 Holdings.

Maybe AJ and I will try one of those next time our cleaning crew arrives.

***

Just for Fun

Watch toy company president Irwin Mainway (Dan Aykroyd) defend his company’s questionable products like Bag O’Glass while showing how traditional toys like a Nerf ball can endanger kids. (4 minutes, 50 seconds)

Enjoy!

If you liked this post, you’ll love the next one. Get future posts right to your inbox by subscribing here.

The post Panera’s Cost Cutting Is Costing Them Customers appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

That was 2 days after Ethiopian Airlines 302 crashed, killing all 157 people on board. It was the second Boeing 737 MAX crash in 5 months.

Forty-eight hours after the crash Boeing had said nothing about it. The US had not yet grounded 737 MAX planes. I was scheduled to fly 2 weeks later from Boston to Portland, Oregon for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference.

All I could think was I am not getting on a 737 MAX. I checked the planes for my flights. And I have ever since.

Like many, I hoped Boeing would take the tragedies and subsequent investigation as a cue to overhaul their processes and brand culture.

Instead, the company has become a lesson on how to jeopardize your brand’s future.

How Boeing’s Brand Has Crashed

Boeing has long claimed safety as their most important value. They say they are committed to a culture of safety, and that “Every employee is empowered and encouraged to speak up if they have any safety or quality concern.”

But investigations into the 737 MAX crashes found that Boeing managers pressured the FAA to expedite the model’s safety certification and to delegate safety assessments to Boeing employees.

Mike Renzelmann, an engineer who worked on the MAX’s flight controls was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “They [Boeing] wanted to A, save money and B, to minimize the certification and flight-test costs.” Words in the article used to describe the 737 MAX design and systems included “patchwork,” “makeshift,” and “workarounds.”

In April 2019 a New York Times investigation found that Boeing pushed employees at their North Charleston, South Carolina facility to turn out 787 Dreamliners quickly, ignoring the safety issues they raised and pressuring them not to report violations.

At the time I wrote that Boeing’s stated values and behaviors were contradictory, creating confusion and lacking clarity on priorities.

Both I and Harvard Business School professor Amy C. Edmondson expected Boeing to do a full operations review, to make significant changes to fix the safety issues, and to heed their employees’ concern without retribution.

You would think 346 casualties and 2 years of grounding the 737 MAX would be wake-up call Boeing needed.

Yet on January 5, 2024 a door flew off a 737 MAX 9 on an Alaskan Airlines flight.

That prompted an FAA investigation where they found Boeing’s safety culture to be “inadequate” and “confusing.”

Nothing had changed.

Fifty current and former Boeing employees now seek to blow the whistle on manufacturing process issues to help the company reinstate safety standards.

Boeing’s claims to safety as a foundational value and a culture of safety don’t hold up.

Both passengers and customers are fleeing.

The Boston Globe reported that Ciera Wilson paid $150 more and went to the airport at 3:30am with her 3-year-old to avoid flying on a Boeing plane to her grandfather’s funeral.

A travel agent told of customers spending $250 more to avoid Boeing planes, while other customers canceled flights and drove the 1,300 miles from Boston to Orlando.

Passengers are taking extreme measures to dodge the brand!

The widespread sentiment has led to the cultural catchphrase “If it’s Boeing, I’m not going.”

Meanwhile, airlines – Boeing’s direct customers – have canceled and decreased orders. Boeing’s new orders are low, totaling just 4 in May 2024. For the second month in a row, no one ordered a 737 MAX.

Passengers and customers no longer trust Boeing. It will be hard to win them back, if not impossible.

Before Boeing can begin to win back their trust, the company needs to earn it among their employees.

Boeing’s outward emphasis on safety and claim to employee empowerment contrast with the cost-saving, time-expediting measures and retaliation for raising concerns that employees saw and endured.

For employees to deliver the customer experience a brand wants to reflect – in Boeing’s case, safety – they must have that experience themselves.

How Barnes & Noble’s Brand Has Resurged

Regaining customers’ trust involves a frank look at company culture and major changes. Barnes & Noble provides an excellent example.

After peaking at 726 stores in 2008, Barnes & Noble began closing stores in 2010 and were down to 600 when the pandemic struck.

The book-buying world wondered if Barnes & Noble would follow Borders Bookstore into bankruptcy, another Amazon casualty.

In 2019 Elliot Advisors, a hedge fund, bought Barnes & Noble and installed James Daunt as CEO. Daunt was a bookstore owner himself and had turned around British bookstore chain Waterstones several years earlier.

New Hartford, New York – Aug 18, 2019: Barnes and Noble Booksellers, with over 700 Stores Nationwide, Barnes and Noble Inc. is the Largest Book Retailer in the United States.

Daunt audited Barnes & Noble’s stores and pronounced them “crucifyingly boring.”

He said this publicly at the FutureBook Live conference in London on November 25, 2019.

Then he announced Barnes & Noble was going to “rip out the boring” and elevate the authority of their local booksellers.

When asked about his approach he replied, “How do you create an environment that’s intellectually satisfying—and not in a snobbish way, but in the sense of feeding your mind?”

While stores were closed for the pandemic, they were redesigned and refreshed. Daunt asked employees to scrutinize each book in their store and decide if it belonged there.

He decentralized book buying and empowered local store managers to craft their offer mix. He encouraged managers to curate selections based on their interests.

And he stopped taking millions of dollars of publishers’ promotional money that obligated them to push publishers’ favored books instead of what interested customers.

Sales in 2021 exceeded pre-pandemic levels and have continued to grow. Barnes & Noble opened 16 new stores in 2022, 30 in 2023, and plan to open 47 this year.

James Daunt recentered Barnes & Noble’s culture around having a good book store, told the world he was doing so, and backed his words with actions.

Recognizing employees as the frontline to the customer experience and as avid readers themselves, Daunt gave employees autonomy to decide their store’s book selection.

With the entire Barnes & Noble team focused on the reader’s experience, employees could deliver that experience to customers because they felt it themselves.

3 Keys to Your Brand’s Future

In the contrast between Boeing and Barnes & Noble, you can find 3 keys needed to ensure your brand’s future success.

1. Consistency

Your brand is the sum of all experiences and impressions your audience encounters. Consistency is crucial. It’s the only way you can build customers’ trust and keep it.

Boeing’s claim to safety and other stated values including “start with engineering excellence,” “lead on safety, quality, integrity and sustainability,” and “foster a just culture grounded in humility, inclusion and transparency” ring hollow.

They conflict with what employees and the public see from the company. They are losing their customers and passengers’ trust.

Barnes & Noble’s clear reader focus and employee empowerment show in their redesigned stores, revamped offerings, and improved customer experience. They are re-establishing and deepening customers’ trust.

Remember the adage that before customers buy, they need to “know, like, and trust” your brand? It’s true.

Deepening trust is the ultimate competitive advantage and the only way to build brand loyalty and spur repeat business.

Consistency requires you to spell out your brand’s purpose, values, and attributes and empower employees to deliver them. These become the pillars of your brand. They communicate to employees how you want them to act as they represent your brand.

Brands that hope to grow beyond a dozen people cannot rely on the business founder and top management to guide their every move. Nor would you want them to.

If you have not yet codified your brand’s purpose, values, and attributes, begin here.

2. Transparency

Gone are the days of the “employer brand,” which employers thought they crafted to attract candidates and influence employees, and which they believed separate from their “outward facing brand.”

The separate “employer brand” never really existed. The illusion held because unless you spoke to an employee, you didn’t know what the company culture was like.

Social media and review sites shattered that illusion. It’s easy for employees to share what they experience in your company and for anyone to see what they post. As Zappos founder Tony Hseih said, “Your culture is your brand.”

What does that mean?

The culture your employees experience is the brand experience they will deliver to your customers.

Boeing’s management pressured employees to behave in a manner counter to good safety practices. While Boeing’s employees prize safety, the Boeing culture hampered their efforts to deliver it.

Once James Daunt had infused Barnes & Noble’s culture with reader-focused imperatives, employees experienced that focus and were able to deliver that experience to customers.

Transparency supports consistency.

When a brand is transparent about its culture, you can see if everyone is getting the same messages and if management supports and abides their professed purpose and values.

If those conditions exist, employees can align and work in unison, enabling a consistent brand experience.

If not, customers’ experiences will vary depending on which employees they encounter and how those employees interpret their situation. The brand image will become murky. Operations may falter, as in Boeing’s case.

James Daunt’s openness about Barnes & Noble’s revised direction made it easy for employees to know and implement, and for customers to believe.

Ensure you not only codify your purpose, values, and attributes, but that you adhere to them, publicly and in-house.

3. Employee-first focus.

By now I hope you can see the crucial role your employees play in your brand. They deliver your brand experience. They have a direct role in building the reputation you seek for your brand.

For your customers to receive the brand experience you prize, your employees must have that experience and be empowered to deliver it.

Which means focusing on them first.

To Boeing, employees were cogs in a wheel they hoped to speed up.

Boeing’s pressure on employees not to report violations and retaliation for doing so undermine their statements about employee empowerment. Employees felt constrained and threatened.

To Daunt’s revamped Barnes & Noble, employees are the curators and deliverers of the reader experience.

Daunt knows the brand’s livelihood rests in the environment they create, the selection they offer, and the interaction they have with customers.

That’s why his first order of business after his assessment was to engage and empower them, and give them autonomy.

Your brand’s success depends on your employees. Ensure they have a great experience via clarity, consistency, transparency, and empowerment. Give them the autonomy they need to deliver the customer experience you want for your brand.

Be like Barnes & Noble, not Boeing and your brand’s future will be bright.

***

Just for Fun

Alaska Airlines took the fall for Boeing in this SNL skit. (2 minutes, 20 seconds)

If you have more time, check out this episode of Last Week Tonight Jon Oliver. With hilarity, Jon explains how Boeing’s culture issues go much further back and are due to a merger. Find out why many Boeing employees who manufacture the 787 Dreamliner would not fly on it …and why I still won’t fly on a 737 MAX. (32 minutes, 35 seconds)

Enjoy!

If you liked this post, you’ll love the next one. Get future posts right to your inbox by subscribing here.

The post Your Brand’s Future Starts Here… appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

I know the day I got on renown marketing consultant Mark Schaefer’s radar:  October 25, 2017.

My former client Dan Levine mentioned Mark to me earlier that year (thanks Dan!). I sent Mark a message on Twitter with a question on July 3, 2017. He was kind enough to respond, though he did not know me.

That kindness prompted me to look up his website, to sign up for his blog, and to buy his book Known.

I read the book in September. On October 6, 2017, I sent him a handwritten thank you note for writing the book, detailing what I got out of it.

On October 25, 2017, Mark messaged me on LinkedIn to thank me for my thank you note. He said it was a nice surprise. Now he knew who I was.

Over the next 16 months, I read two more of Mark’s books, The Tao of Twitter and Marketing Rebellion, and handwrote thank you notes for both.

When Mark created The Uprising, a retreat for marketing leaders limited to 30 people, he sent me an early invitation before opening it to the public.

When I arrived at The Uprising on September 30, 2019, he greeted me like an old friend and gave me a bear hug.

In August 2020, Mark hired me to be an editor on his book Cumulative Advantage.

In three years, I went from obscurity to having Mark as a client. Mark has since hired me to edit two other books for him.

Evelyn Starr and Mark Schaefer, Photo credit: Alex Ledesma

Handwritten Thank You Notes Set Your Brand Apart

I did not know all this would happen when I wrote that first thank you note to Mark. Authors put a ton of work and heart into their books. I like sending thank you notes to authors I enjoy. It lets them know someone appreciated their creation.

I handwrite thank you notes often. I don’t expect business to come from them and I never ask for anything. My focus is on expressing gratitude and building a relationship.

As you can see from my interaction with Mark, handwritten thank you notes are relationship-building power houses. They get you on someone’s radar fast and keep you there. I have seen them displayed in clients’ offices when I visit.

What makes handwritten thank you notes so powerful? And why are they better than thank you emails?

First, they stand out. According to technology research firm The Radicati Group, office workers receive an average of 97 emails per day. By contrast, the average American household receives just 10 pieces of personal mail per year, not counting holiday cards and invitations. While email inboxes overflow, a handwritten envelope in the mail grabs attention.

Second, they show you care. A handwritten thank you note represents thought and effort on the part of the sender.

Third, they elicit a positive emotional response from the recipient. Saeideh Heshmati, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University led a study on what makes people “feel loved.” Among the findings were “small gestures in everyday life” like people showing support without expecting anything back.

You’ve heard that the best brands establish an emotional connection in their marketing. Business owners often focus on the wording of their tagline or the storyline of their ads to do this, and that is important.

A handwritten thank you note can be even more effective.

Handwritten Thank You Notes Boost Your Business

About now you may be thinking “Well that’s all good but my time is limited. What’s the return on investment (ROI) on handwritten thank you notes? Do they scale beyond the single recipient?”

While exact results will vary by brand, handwritten notes’ ROI comes in the form of customer retention, repeat business, and word-of-mouth marketing.

Wufoo, an online form-building company, takes time every week to send handwritten thank you cards to customers. Customer Ops team leader Renee Morris reports that “out of the roughly 800 customers who received handwritten cards from us last year, 50% fewer folks left our product than those who did not receive cards.”

A 50 percent better retention rate means steadier revenue.

Online non-profit firm Donors Choose makes it easy for donors to help classrooms in need. Founder Charles Best conducted a study to measure the ROI of gratitude. He had his staff send handwritten thank you notes to half of their first-time donors. The other half received no thank you notes. The group who received the thank you notes were 38 percent more likely to donate again.

Handwritten thank you notes can increase the likelihood of repeat purchase or donation.

Beyond customer retention and repeat business benefits, handwritten thank you notes can generate positive word-of-mouth. Thanks to social media, that can scale to thousands of people.

I experienced this first hand when brand expert Denise Lee Yohn raved about a handwritten thank you note I sent her on Twitter. Denise has 17,100 followers.

My own experience supports the business case for handwritten notes. Thank-you-note-recipient referrals have led to six speaking engagements, twelve new clients, thirty-three research and consulting projects, one coaching engagement, four book editing gigs, and a three-year consulting stint on retainer.

I hope you can see now that handwriting thank you notes is a powerful marketing tool.

But the benefits don’t stop at your brand.

Handwritten Thank You Notes Are Good for Your Health

Handwriting thank you notes not only makes your recipient feel good, it can make you feel happier too.

Associate Professor of Human Development Steven Toepfer at Kent State University conducted a study where the participants were asked to write three “letters of gratitude” over the course of a month. Results showed that after each letter participants experienced higher levels of happiness and lower levels of depressive symptoms.

Scene on my desk several times a month

There is no downside to handwriting thank you notes and the upside benefits you and your business. The trick is to work it into your routine.

To get started:

1. Buy a supply of thank you cards. My favorite places to find great cards include:
   • Albertine Press (Cambridge, MA)
   • Em and Friends (Culver City, CA)
   • Ink Meets Paper (Greenville, SC)
   • Lori Portka (Asheville, NC)
   • Peter Pauper Press (Rye Brook, NY)

2. Buy stamps.
3. Make a list of people to thank. If you don’t have ideas, consider your top 10 customers, your best suppliers, your referral sources, and your employees.
4. Set a recurring appointment to write thank you cards and then honor it like you would an important meeting. My recommendation is to start with a goal of one thank you note per week. While that may feel low, it will add up to 52 at the end of the year.

I hope you enjoy writing thank you notes as much as I do!

***

Just for Fun

I was yesterday years old when I learned January 11 is International Thank You Note Day.

Also when I learned Jimmy Fallon writes thank you notes weekly on The Tonight Show.

Read some of his funniest ones. (2 minute read)

Read 6 famous thank you letters. Senders include Neil Armstrong, David Bowie, Roald Dahl, Johnny Depp, Ronald Reagan, and Rowan and Martin. (3 minute read)

Enjoy!

The post The High ROI of Handwritten Thank You Notes appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

Inside were two Alex and Ani bracelets. One charm had a script initial F, the other had a Jewish star.

I had never heard of Alex and Ani. But Fiona’s face lit up. Her excitement told me our 70-something cousin had nailed the gift.

Like anything you suddenly become aware of, I started to see Alex and Ani bracelets everywhere.

Friends of Fiona and other teenage girls had clusters of them piled on their wrists.

Alex and Ani opened a store near us in Wellesley, Massachusetts, an upscale Boston suburb. Fiona and I accompanied my son AJ when he went there to get a sweet 16 gift for a friend.

The store was an experience. Enthusiastic salespeople, all late-teen or 20-something women, greeted us warmly, asked our purpose, and offered help.

They wanted to know if the gift recipient believed in the transformative power of jewelry.

Display cases ran the perimeter of the small, rectangular shop, and contained bracelets with charms for every possible identity marker a woman could imagine: daughter, mom, grandmother, best friend, every initial in the alphabet, Red Sox fan, Yankee fan, insert-your-sports-team-here fan.

Other charms were emblems, like the tree of life and the Claddagh, which symbolizes love, loyalty, and friendship. Bracelets cost $30-$40 each.

The store’s aura, enthusiastic salespeople, meaningful charms, and affordable prices explained why these simple bangles were so popular among teenage girls.

Wellesley seemed to be a good market for them. I was surprised when the shop closed less than three years later.

Alex and Ani’s Insightful Start

Carolyn Rafaelian was granted a patent on “an expandable wire bangle bracelet” on March 23, 2004. The simple design put the focus on the charm that adorned it.

Having recently taken over Cinerama, Inc., her father’s costume jewelry factory in Cranston, Rhode Island, Rafaelian started a company to market her bracelets. She named it after her two eldest daughters, Alex and Ani.

Rafaelian understood that women chose jewelry to reflect their persona, to express who they are and who they aspire to be.

For this reason, she sought to infuse her charms with “positive energy” and studied symbols and runes.

The messages of well-being, empowerment, and uplift made Rafaelian’s creations irresistible to customers and flavored the brand’s early culture.

Photo by Marcus Bellamy on Unsplash

Rafaelian also proved a savvy and creative marketer.

In 2004, she sent Gwyneth Paltrow a bangle with an apple charm to congratulate her on the birth of her daughter, Apple. Images of Paltrow wearing the bangle gave Alex and Ani an immediate boost.

Alex and Ani’s Auspicious Ascent

Alex and Ani gained other celebrity fans like Anne Hathaway, Miley Cyrus, and Sandra Bullock.

Sales grew from $654,000 in 2006 to $2.2 million in 2009, the year Alex and Ani opened their first store, in Newport, Rhode Island.

As a leader, Rafaelian leaned into spirituality, using astrology, Biblical Numerology and New Age practices like tarot card readings to make business decisions.

After meeting Giovanni Feroce at a University of Rhode Island alumni homecoming event in October 2009, Rafaelian hired him as CEO in April 2010. She took the role of Chief Creative Officer.

Feroce was a former elite Army officer. He insisted on complete operational control.

Feroce struck deals with Saks Fifth Avenue and other department stores. He inked licensing agreements with Walt Disney, the National Football League, and the Marines.

Alex and Ani enjoyed distribution through hundreds of mom-and-pop jewelry stores, and opened nearly 40 branded stores like the one in Wellesley.

Sales soared from $4.5 million in 2010 to $230 million in 2013. The employee count reached 1,084 by the end of 2013.

In 2012, JH Partners, a San Francisco private-equity firm, purchased a 40 percent holding in Alex and Ani for $50 million.

A Billion at 10

On March 13, 2014, Feroce suddenly left the company.

Feroce told The Providence Journal his departure came over a difference with Rafaelian over how fast the brand should grow.

Feroce envisioned making Alex and Ani a lifestyle brand – think apparel, home goods, perfume, accessories, like Ralph Lauren or Michael Kors. He wanted to hire a team of designers to speed development.

A former executive said Rafaelian pushed him out, along with anyone loyal to him.

The exodus drained management and included the chief financial officer, chief technical officer, chief strategy officer, chief digital officer, acting chief operating officer, assistant general counsel and VPs of retail, wholesale, and transitional operations.

Though Rafaelian declined to comment, she had told The Providence Journal in July 2012 “The company’s an extension of me.”

My guess is Feroce’s desire to bring in a design team for other lifestyle product lines threatened Rafaelian’s view of the brand as an extension of herself. She could not give up control.

Rafaelian retook the reins as CEO, and never let go.

She continued her New Age and spiritual practices, burning sage to purge areas of bad energy and having shamans bless product inventory.

Sales reached $350 million in 2014.

In December 2014, JH Partners sold their 40-percent stake to British buyout firm Lion Capital LLP for $400 million.

That transaction effectively valued Alex and Ani at $1 billion.

Alex and Ani’s Rocky Adolescence

With Lion Capital’s investment, talk of an initial public offering began. Professional management sought to reduce costs.

I’m betting the Wellesley store’s high rent was a casualty of the cost cutting and the reason it closed in early 2016.

Alex and Ani took a $170 million loan from Bank of America (BOA) in 2016 to buy Cinerama, Inc. from Rafaelian and her sister. Acquiring the factory was seen as vertical integration move.

Rafaelian hired presidents, but undermined them. Harlan Kent, former CEO of Yankee Candle, lasted less than a year.

His successor, Cindy DiPietrantonio, left after two years in December 2017.

From the outside, Alex and Ani seemed to chime along, finishing 2017 with $550 million in sales. Rafaelian graced the cover of Forbes magazine as the poster girl for women billionaires.

Inside, however, turmoil reigned.

The brand lost much institutional knowledge with the top management exodus and struggled to maintain retail relationships. Alex and Ani closed stores, endured rounds of layoffs, and cut digital marketing and event budgets.

Employees who had loved working there now feared for their jobs.

Rafaelian hired a new CFO and tried to run the brand herself. She told a Forbes reporter, “I don’t listen, which is the best thing I do.”

The brand’s belt-tightening included a new direct-to-consumer strategy in 2018, aiming to have 75-80% of sales go through the company website or company stores within 18 months.

Mom-and-pop jewelry stores that helped build the brand were cut off. Retailers felt abandoned.

Sales dipped to $500 million for 2018. Interest in the bangles was waning. Earnings (EBITDA) plummeted to less than $10 million.

When BOA saw the earnings, they held the company in default of their loan and moved to liquidate it.

Lion Capital struck an agreement with BOA to prevent liquidation, which stipulated Rafaelian had to give up her controlling interest in the company.

Barely Alive at 20

Lion Capital brought in a new CEO, Bob Trabucco, but the ship was sinking fast.  Sales were down 40% in the fourth quarter of 2019 compared to 2018 and continued to tank.

Pandemic-induced store closings exacerbated the situation. Alex and Ani terminated Rafaelian’s employment in 2020 and filed for bankruptcy in 2021.

While some companies manage to rebuild during bankruptcy, Alex and Ani is swirling down the drain.

At the beginning of 2023, the company had 38 stores in the US. In June 2023, they closed 21 stores and their corporate headquarters overnight, leaving them with only 7 stores and no presence in their home state of Rhode Island.

Employees and store managers were shocked.

Equipment and furnishings left behind were auctioned off in November 2023.

Multiple creditors claimed unpaid bills.

Among them, Alex and Ani owed the town of East Greenwich, RI over $251,000 in back taxes, their corporate-office landlord nearly $458,000 in rent, and a local videographer $1,500 for video production.

It’s ironic and sad that Alex and Ani’s website recently launched a line of pearl products called “Stranded by Alex and Ani.” That’s how their employees and creditors felt.

Why Alex and Ani Imploded

How did a brand worth a billion sink to beans?

First, Alex and Ani’s founder could not step back when her leadership was no longer relevant.

In my book Teenage Wastebrand: How Your Brand Can Stop Struggling and Start Scaling, the diciest brand adolescent symptom I discovered was asserting independence.

Brands assert independence when they outgrow their founder’s skillset. The symptom is dicey because founders often fail to realize the situation or choose to ignore it.

Rafaelian ignored it.

Rafaelian’s insights on jewelry and spiritual leadership gave Alex and Ani a great start, but the brand needed professional leadership to grow. Rafaelian saw that and hired Feroce. He and his team grew the brand exponentially.

But she pushed him and the presidents who succeeded him out.

When Rafaelian tried to preside, the brand declined. Waning consumer interest and pandemic store closures turned the decline into a freefall.

Second, the founder’s hubris and conflicts of interest drained the company.

Rafaelian’s swift retribution against Feroce’s management team deprived the brand of relationships and institutional know-how. The company went from well-oiled machine to scrambling.

Rafaelian prioritized her control over the brand’s health.

True to her word, she didn’t listen to the presidents she hired and undermined them, depriving the company of professional leadership.

The loan to purchase the factory she owned burdened the company financially and put it at risk. Yet she entered the loan, which she stood to benefit from.

When BOA ruled the loan in default, it nearly killed the company. Rafaelian risked the company’s viability to fill her personal coffers.

Third, management chaos and investor-prompted cost-cutting alienated Alex and Ani’s constituents and commoditized the brand.

Waves of layoffs strained the company’s ability to operate, stranded thousands of employees, and demoralized those who remained.

Alex and Ani’s partners struggled to communicate with the company as their contacts were suddenly gone. When the brand became unreliable, they cut ties.

Mom-and-pop stores that provided the kind of personal selling that promoted Alex and Ani’s aura were cut off in favor of direct selling. As company stores closed, the brand lost many of its strongest advocates.

Alex and Ani’s website could not present the brand the way an informed salesperson could. The brand lost its meaning and differentiation.

Fourth, the brand failed to diversify.

The Alex and Ani brand stood for empowerment, wellness, and uplift. Feroce was right to look to expand beyond jewelry. When interest in the bangles waned, customers had nothing else to keep them engaged with the brand.

Alex and Ani succumbed to brand adolescence and is unlikely to recover.

If you are the founder, your brand’s survival depends on your ability to lead or find someone who can.

• Be honest about the skills, energy, and mindset you bring.
• Assess periodically what your brand needs to grow.
• Be willing to bring in a new leader if you are burned out, no longer having fun, or lacking the tools your brand needs.

Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn) and Clay Collins (LeadPages) shared their thinking when they decided to step down as CEO. You can see their thoughts and find questions to help you assess your CEO fitness here.

Moving on from Alex and Ani

JH Partners were the big money winners. They turned $50 million to $400 million in two years and got out while things were good.

Carolyn Rafaelian had her net worth plummet from $1 Billion to $100 million and had to sell some of her properties. She started two other jewelry companies.

As for Fiona, she has not worn her Alex and Ani bracelets in years. She said they became annoying because they clanked loudly and banged against the desk when she wrote.

It speaks volumes that she left her collection at home, thousands of miles from where she is in grad school.

Did you know anyone with an Alex and Ani bracelet or own one yourself?

***

Just for Fun

Saalt’s humor introduces teen girls, women and yes, even dad, to their period cup. (4 minutes, 34 seconds)

SNL mocks the charm-as-identity-marker gift giving. (1 minute, 34 seconds)

What Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo might endure if they had to cater to corporate interests (2 minutes, 44 seconds, h/t Rohit Bhargava)

The post Alex and Ani: A Billion-Dollar Brand at 10, Barely Alive at 20 appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

The colleague and I scheduled a 25-minute, get-to-know you meeting, standard with podcast hosts to see if you are good fit.

The meeting was scheduled for Halloween morning.

I sent a confirmation email the day before the meeting, my standard m.o. for upcoming meetings.

The podcast host confirmed our meeting. But early the next day he emailed saying he forgot he was supposed to volunteer in his child’s classroom for Halloween festivities. Could we please reschedule?

Of course.

We rescheduled for mid-November. He responded to my confirmation email for that meeting with a rescheduled appointment for early December, saying that day would work better.

In early December, he rescheduled for a week later. The following week he said he was immersed in year-end client work. Could we postpone until January?

I said sure.

Our mid-January meeting got rescheduled to a Friday in late January because he had a family emergency.

I was tired of bearing the onus of our schedule and did not send a confirmation email. When I didn’t hear from him, I thought the sixth time would be the charm.

Silly me.

I got on Zoom at the appointed time and waited.

Five minutes into our meeting time, I emailed him to ask if we were still on.

Ten minutes into the meeting, I posted on LinkedIn asking my connections how long they wait when someone doesn’t show for a Zoom meeting.

At 15 minutes, I left.

The following Monday the podcaster emailed an apology, saying he had “a hot fire to put out” for a client and had sent a message about the change that unfortunately did not reach me.

Could we reschedule for next week?

Your Personal Brand Reflects Experiences with You

When I read that question, the voice in my head screamed NO!

I don’t want to seem unsympathetic. Each reason the podcast host had to reschedule was legit on its own.

But the pattern signaled trouble. And unlike the early reschedule requests, I no longer trusted a future meeting would happen.

We had never met and yet he lost my trust.

How did that happen?

Your personal brand is like any other brand.

As I define it my book Teenage Wastebrand: How Your Brand Can Stop Struggling and Start Scaling,

“a brand is the expectation of what you will get when you interact with an entity based on prior experiences with, and impressions of, that entity.”

Other than my consultant friend’s initial endorsement, the only experiences I had with this podcaster were his five reschedule requests and one meeting no-show.

What Repeated Canceling Does to Your Personal Brand

Life happens. Everyone needs to cancel a meeting at some point. Most times the rescheduled meeting happens without a hitch.

When you cancel repeatedly, however, you convey unintended messages.

Successive cancellations:

• say the meeting is not a priority for you;
• suggest maybe you didn’t want to meet in the first place;
• indicate you don’t manage your time well;
• disrespect the other party’s time.

None of those messages makes a positive impression.

Multiple cancellations brand you as unreliable. You lose trust if you are unreliable, as I have in the other party.

Trust underlies every healthy relationship and differentiates brands. In my research, respondents often tell me they prefer working with a particular brand because they can count on employees calling them back and answering their emails. It sounds basic, but trust is key.

Once you have lost someone’s trust, it is hard to win it back.

How to Cancel and Reschedule In a Way That Boosts Your Brand Instead of Hurting It

Remember: your personal brand is the accumulation of experiences people have with you. Canceling and rescheduling are attention-grabbing experiences. How you handle them will color meeting attendees’ image of you.

Here’s how to handle them well:

Cancel as soon as you know you can’t make the meeting, at least a day in advance if possible. Giving attendees at least 24 hours’ notice helps everyone redeploy their time productively.

Apologize. Your cancellation or rescheduling makes more work for attendees, especially if someone else is organizing the meeting. Express regret for disrupting the original schedule and acknowledge the burden the disruption causes.

Give a reason. Be honest, transparent, and specific. If your reason is too personal to share, let them know a private matter arose. “Something came up” doesn’t cut it. Your ability to be clear and have a bona fide reason is key to retaining attendees’ trust.

Offer dates and times for rescheduling, if appropriate. Or let them know you will do so at your first opportunity. As the one causing the disruption, taking the lead to reschedule minimizes the work others must do to accommodate you.

If you won’t be able to attend any time, say so respectfully.

Ensure meeting attendees receive your cancellation message. I never got the podcaster’s email and waited on Zoom unnecessarily. You don’t want that to happen to your meeting attendees. Follow up before the meeting time if you don’t hear from them.

Last-minute cancellations merit a phone call or multiple attempts to reach attendees to ensure you don’t appear to have blown off the meeting. It’s disrespectful to just not show up and conjures ill will.

Thank people for their understanding. You imposed, they obliged. Express your gratitude.

Show up for the rescheduled meeting. This is the moment you seal the deal on people’s trust in you. Your participation restores faith in you and your value to the meeting.

If you must cancel a second time, either bow out so the work can continue without you or take the lead to reschedule the meeting yourself for a time you know you can attend. All your candor and gratitude mean nothing if you continue to inconvenience people.

How I Handled the Sixth Reschedule Request

Despite my frustration and annoyance, I wanted to give the podcaster the benefit of the doubt. Burning this bridge would help neither of us. I did not want to taint the podcaster’s view of my consultant friend who had introduced us.

I replied to his apology email:

“You are correct, I did not receive your email about the change. Sorry to hear about the hot fire.

“Next week does not work for me. I have much travel in February and am booked up for the next few weeks.

 “More than that, I think the meeting gods have it out for us. Our first meeting was scheduled for October 31. This will be the sixth reschedule by my count. I’m thinking we should stop fighting the universe.

 “Perhaps after a chunk of time passes, conditions will be more favorable.”

He did not respond. I’m okay with that.

As my 26-year-old son AJ said to me, any motivated person can find 25 minutes to meet.

Have you ever experienced a serial meeting canceler? I’d love to hear your story.

***

À la Mode

Image created using DallE2

Thanks to the 10 people who responded to my Inbox Detox article question about reading emails in light or dark mode. Five said light mode, three said dark mode, and one said both. Two decided to try dark mode based on my article. Let us know how that goes!

***

Just for Fun

As we gear up for this year’s Superbowl ads, check out The 20 best Superbowl commercials of all time. Let me know if you agree with their assessment.

My all-time Superbowl ad favorites are “Like a Girl” and “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry.”

Revisit the Monty Python skit that branded junk email as spam. (3 minutes, 19 seconds)

Enjoy!

If you liked this post, you’ll love the next one. Get future posts right to your inbox by clicking here.

The post How Canceling Meetings Can Hurt Your Personal Brand appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

“How do I let a company I want to be in touch with know they are sending me too many emails?”

Dan is an investment advisor. Investment funds flood his inbox with marketing emails.

I felt Dan’s pain on 2 fronts. First, as a recipient. I’ve been trying to tame my inbox too.

Second, as a marketing consultant. It’s hard to watch good brands test the limits of their email subscribers’ permission, frustrating them and endangering their relationship with them.

Sanity Savers for Email Recipients

If you find yourself with the same question as Dan – wondering how you can stay in touch with a company you like but not get overwhelmed with their emails – I’ll tell you what I told him.

Each marketing email you receive should have a link to manage your preferences. Often you can find it at the bottom of the email, near the unsubscribe link.

Here’s the bottom of a marketing email I got from BodyGuardz, a company that makes cell phone screen protectors:

You can see the “Manage Preferences” option in the lower right-hand corner, above “Unsubscribe.”

Like many companies, the preferences turn out to be my contact information, but there was also an option to “Snooze emails for 3 weeks.” They thoughtfully put that as a direct link in the bottom of the email as well.

Smart companies, especially those with multiple newsletters and marketing campaigns, will give you more specific options.

When I went to manage my preferences at my account’s firm, this is what I saw:

The accounting firm gets points for letting me choose what to receive.

Their inclusion of “Business Advisory Newsletter & Insights” and “Business Advisory Newsletter” confused me though. What’s the difference?

Holiday Inn began sending me a barrage of emails after I started staying regularly at one of their New Jersey locations close to my parents’ residence. Their options impressed me when I went to unsubscribe.

They had 2 marketing email options with descriptions that made clear what I would receive. A button below those options provided a one-click unsubscribe from all marketing emails.

Holiday Inn also took the opportunity in the right-hand column to ask about my vacation preferences.

They gained my admiration for their options, but lost me as a subscriber. Their proximity makes them my best option when visiting my parents, but I’m not interested in Holiday Inn vacations.

I’m happy to report that Dan found the manage preferences link. His investment fund companies have not made it easy to stem their email tide, however.

Some companies offer only an unsubscribe option (required by law). At that point you can try to contact a favored company and see if you can work the frequency down through customer service.

Many of us just unsubscribe in that situation. I do.

During the holiday season, retailers who email occasionally during the first 10 months of the year use the holidays as an excuse to inundate us daily.

The flood of emails has gotten so bad that I now hear revised lyrics when Andy Williams sings…It’s the MOST un-sub-scribe time of the year!

It’s not just Andy Williams singing that revisionist song in my head. Unsubscribes soar during November and December.

According to Jay Schwedelson, CEO of Outcome Media, people aren’t just unsubscribing because they are jaded from email volume. They are also reassessing what they want.

So how do you keep your company top-of-mind without losing a ton of subscribers?

Respect Your Recipients to Reduce Your Unsubscribes

As a business owner sending emails, I urge you to remember your feelings as a recipient.

If you don’t like getting daily emails from any one company, then don’t send that many yourself!

Like your parents said, treat others as you’d like to be treated.

It is hard to reconcile that golden rule with the benefits of marketing emails, especially if your business seasonality means the holidays make your year (I see you retailers).

Long-time readers of this newsletter and savvy marketers know email marketing generates great return on investment, $36 for every $1 spent.

But sending more emails isn’t always better.

You know what is always better? Sending better emails.

Here are 6 tips I picked up at 2 conferences this fall, MarketingProfs B2B Forum and GURU 2023, to help you improve your marketing emails:

1. Send from a person, not a company

With the volume of email we manage and spam infesting our inboxes, the first thing a recipient looks at is the email sender.

Recipients trust emails sent from a specific person more than a company.

Having your name on emails you send gives your recipients a chance to recognize you and increases the chance they’ll open them.

A company name is less personal, less likely to be trusted, and more likely to go unopened.

2. Protect your sender reputation

As senders, our first hurdle is to land our emails in our subscribers’ inboxes as opposed spam, junk, or promotions folders.

For several years, this meant ensuring your subject line avoided controversial or spammy terms.

Per Jay Schwedelson, the subject line no longer determines whether an email goes to the junk folder. Sender reputation does.

I’ll spare you the technical aspects of sender reputation (DKIM and DMARC) – your tech help can address that.

Major email services now look at the relationship your email address has with the recipient’s address to determine your sender reputation. Have you had an email volley?

To that end, when you send an email, entice your subscribers to reply. You can offer them something and ask them to “reply with” a code or a word to get it.

For Dan’s investment funds, the offer might be market updates or fund manager perspectives. For another example, see the end of this article. 😉

Schwedelson reports emails using “reply with” see a 400% increase in response rate.

Replies teach networks you are a legit email sender and increase the chance your email will reach recipients’ inboxes by 75%.

3. Rock your subject line

After noting the sender, your subscriber will look at the subject line to decide to read, save, or delete your email.

Short subject lines entice more opens. Jay Schwedelson says subject lines with fewer than 20 characters fare best, increasing open rates 19% for business-to-business emails, 24% for consumer emails.

Putting the number of minutes to read in the subject line increases open rates 20%.

Nancy Harhut, Chief Creative Officer of HBT Marketing and a direct and digital marketing expert, advises putting 1 word of the subject line in all caps for emphasis. Rhyming subject lines also help open rates.

4. Don’t abuse your list

Choose your email frequency carefully. Don’t flood your subscribers’ inboxes.

Besides the annoyance factor and higher likelihood of unsubscribes, having many unopened emails can hurt your sender reputation. That will make future email delivery more challenging.

Remember: your subscribers’ permission is precious and provides a direct line for you to continue your relationship.

How often should you send? There isn’t a blanket right answer.

GetResponse reports the average open rate for all newsletters in 2022 as 27.9%. (Thanks to you, my fabulous readers, my Varsity Marketing newsletter beats that handily. My 2023 open rates have ranged from 67%-81%.)

The typical open rate for once-a-week newsletters was 38.21%, per GetResponse. That drops to about 30% for those sending 4-6 times per week.

You can find typical open rates for different industries and more on email frequencies here.

5. Honor unsubscribes fast

Nothing irks a former subscriber like continuing to receive unwanted emails.

Companies that drag out the unsubscribe process not only generate ill will, but may find themselves locked out of other subscribers’ inboxes in the future.

According to Guy Hanson, Vice President, Customer Engagement at Validity, Inc., Google and Yahoo have announced new rules to stem spam and will be enforcing them beginning in February 2024.

While Google has said the rules will apply to bulk senders – those sending 5,000 or more emails daily – Hanson advises everyone to heed the rules or risk relegation to the promotions folder.

The rules include:

• Have an unsubscribe header or an unsubscribe option visible in the body of the message, preferably at the top.
• Require only 1 click to unsubscribe.
• Honor all unsubscribe requests within 2 days.

Make sure your emails meet these criteria.

As we discussed above, allowing subscribers to manage their preferences can help you stay in touch with recipients who want fewer or only specific emails. If you have multiple newsletters or email campaigns, offer that option.

(Also, Google is going to delete all gmail accounts that have been inactive 2 years or more. You may see some inactive gmail recipients’ emails bouncing as a result. If they haven’t opened an email from you in the past year, taking them off your list will improve your sender reputation.)

6. Plan for dark mode

This last tip took me by surprise. My only experience with dark mode has been when consulting GPS at night.

Pierce Ujjainwalla, Co-Founder and CEO of email service provider Knak, reported that 88.6% of phone users have been looking at emails in dark mode.

He warned that those of us using black font in emails will mean that our readers can’t see our text in dark mode.

I’ve not delved deep into this yet, but it’s got my attention. My new friend Jim McLeod conducted a LinkedIn poll about dark mode use and found 66% of the 90 people who voted preferred dark mode.

I hope you’ve found these 6 tips helpful. If you implement these recommendations in your marketing emails, you will see better open and response rates.

Now I would like your help, please.

Do you read your emails in light or dark mode?

Please comment below with light or dark to let me know. I’ll share the results in my January newsletter.

Thank you! 😊

***

Just for Fun

Julia Child with a potato dish that doesn’t go her way (1 minute, 40 seconds), h/t Jillian Hess

While it won’t reduce your emails, SNL’s “Leave Me A Lurn” will help in other ways. – SNL (2 minutes, 29 seconds)

See what was trending in Google’s Year in Search for 2023 (2 min read), plus video on most searched over Google’s 25-year history (3 minutes, 48 seconds) h/t Dave Pell

Enjoy!

If you liked this post, you’ll love the next one. Get future posts right to your inbox by clicking here.

The post Inbox Detox appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

Main Streets Market and Café bustles all day with customers popping in to take out coffee, tea, and pastries. It is also a restaurant with ample seating inside and outside, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

All customers enter through a screen door in front of the café.

Two steps into the café, customers encounter an initial space before the take-out counter. A two-tier, stainless-steel rolling cart bisects the space. Two black mats on either side of the cart indicate space for customers to queue up.

Below is the scene as we entered the café.

We walked up on the right, where the server in the picture is pulling the cart toward her.

After waiting 5 minutes, a server asked if we were having lunch. We said we were just looking for drinks and a snack. She replied the take-out line was on the other side.

She pointed to 2 small signs taped to the cart and apologized for the confusion.

Neither Dan nor I saw those signs when we walked in.

We queued up on the left side of the cart for 10 minutes until we could order our iced tea, coffee, and a muffin to share.

The tables inside filled quickly. While Dan waited at the take-out counter for the drinks and muffin, I nabbed a table for two near the front.

Another server approached me and asked if we were having lunch. When I said no,

she said the inside tables were only for dining with the restaurant. The outside tables were available to anyone though.

She apologized for the confusion.

I told Dan we needed to go outside and stepped away from the crowded take-out area to wait for him.

While waiting, I saw servers apologizing and redirecting other customers who got in the wrong line or seated themselves in the wrong place.

I felt better about my line and table errors but wondered how much time the servers spent apologizing and directing traffic.

Signs Hiding in Plain Sight

Main Streets Market and Café has a small entry space. It’s often crowded because their food and beverages are consistently great.

When I took a closer look at the café’s entry, I noticed the 2 signs I had missed were small and at shoulder height, while the “please wait to be seated sign” was low, maybe hip height, and didn’t say where to wait.

Retail environment expert Paco Underhill explains in his book Why We Buy that customers need a “landing strip” once inside the store, a “decompression zone.”

Customers are likely to miss signs placed right at the entry, he said.

Guilty as charged.

Instead, Underhill advocated putting signs about 10 feet into the retail establishment. For many stores, this will work. Main Streets Market and Café doesn’t have that luxury.

But café management still has incentives to fix the situation.

No Customer Likes to Wait

Since we were in the wrong line at first, our wait time from café entry to service stretched an extra 5 minutes.

By the time we reached the take-out counter, it felt like we had spent an eternity in the café.

The café’s ineffective signs were elongating customers’ wait time.

In Why We Buy, Underhill said waiting time is the single most important factor to customer satisfaction.

Longer wait times mean lower customer satisfaction. Some customers will just leave.

Improving signage would not only shorten wait time, it would free servers from having to direct customers, boost customer satisfaction, and perhaps prevent impatient customers from bailing.

According to research by the Signage Foundation, over 60 percent of businesses reported a 10 percent increase in sales after adding or updating their signs.

Help Your Customers Find Their Way

Here are 3 ways your brand can reduce wait times and help your customers find their way.

1. If you have a brick-and-mortar-store, use signage to enable customers to find their way easily.

Supermarkets number their aisles and list the item categories in each one.

Department stores post directories listing each floor’s departments and where to find restrooms.

I’m not a professional designer, but I’m not afraid to play one in a newsletter.

What if Main Streets Market and Café ditched the ineffective signs and put brightly colored arrows on the floor or on the black runners? Arrows on the left side could say Take Out. The right ones might read Eat In.

If they repeated the arrows across the runners, they would catch attention, help anyone who missed the ones closer to the door, and indicate more clearly where the lines should form.

I bet those signs would improve customers’ chances of landing in the correct line, reducing wait times and letting servers focus more on seating and serving than directing.

2. If you have a professional service, use your proposals to create a clear vision of what the path of working with you looks like.

Detail your process. Describe what you’ll do at each stage, and what you’ll need your client to do.

Spec out the timing, with proposed dates if relevant.

Present the cost to the client, specifying what is included and what you will deliver.

Make it easy for your prospect to envision doing business with you.

A recent proposal I wrote for a rebrand and website refresh specified four phases and detailed exactly what would happen in each, what I would deliver, when it would happen, and how much it would cost.

That clear vision helped the prospect see the way to their desired goal, and turned them into a client.

3. If you have a website – and if you are in business you should have a website – ensure it is easy for customers to navigate, find what seek, and buy.

Put your most sought information and offerings in your website’s menu. Ensure visitors can access them with one click or as few as possible.

Design each website page to motivate your customer to act. Channeling them toward one action (request information, schedule a consult, subscribe, buy) per page works best.

Presenting too many choices complicates decisions and increases the chances the customer will pass on the decision.

Remember, we customers don’t want to think hard while shopping.

Use big bright buttons for the action you want them to take and describe the action clearly.

Prepopulate forms when possible or better yet, make them unnecessary.

However you feel about Amazon, they provide an excellent example of product purchase pages.

The search bar, what most people need first, is centered at the top and highlighted in white against a black header background. Product categories are to the left. The words “Search Amazon” appear in gray, making it easy to see where to type your search.

Amazon knows people tend to look to the right. Product photos and information appear on the left. The bright yellow buy button appears on the right, demanding attention.

In the example below, Amazon highlights a holiday deal for me on the right in white writing on a rust-colored background, then uses the yellow button for me to “secure this deal.”

Super clear.

When I checkout, Amazon has my personal information and credit card on file, making it a single click to complete the purchase.

Speaking of checking out, check out the deal for yourself. 😉

Every Experience Affects Your Brand, Including Direction

Directing customers well is integral to all top-notch brand experiences.

Not doing so saddles your brand with unintended associations.

Months later, my image of Main Streets Market and Café comprises servers apologizing, a congested entryway, long lines, and confusion.

If I was in Concord and in a hurry, I might not bother.

Every experience you deliver colors your brand image. Take the time to direct your customers well. It will pay off!

How do you ensure your customers have an easy path to doing business with you?

More like this:

Jamming in Paris

Customer Disservice Reps

If You Promise Chocolate, You’d Better Deliver

The Free Dessert that Made Things Worse

…I guess food’s been on my mind. 😊

***

Just for Fun

Go on a road trip with the “Please don’t destroy” guys from SNL as they get lost. (3 minutes, 49 seconds)

See George Washington (Nate Bargatze) sketch out the future direction of the US for his soldiers in this SNL skit. (4 minutes, 50 seconds)

Enjoy!

If you liked this post, you’ll love the next one. Get future posts right to your inbox by clicking here.

The post Give Your Customers a Sign appeared first on E. Starr Associates.

David Sedaris is a renown writer and humorist who has authored 12 books.

He tours regularly, reading his essays and gauging audience reactions. His book tours are famous for their long book signing lines. He enjoys chatting with each reader and often asks them questions.

David Sedaris shared how he turns observations into stories and that it often takes him weeks to find an opening sentence he is happy with.

He and I spent 3 hours and 23 minutes together.

But he has no idea who I am.

Our visit came courtesy of Masterclass.

Masterclass is an online learning platform that features celebrities and renown experts teaching courses in their specialty.

My friend Ira gifted me a 14-day guest trial pass (thanks Ira!). I took David Sedaris’s Storytelling and Humor course.

As I looked at the 14-day trial offer and entered my credit card, I noticed the annual membership was $120 per year.

I remembered it being $180 during the first year of the pandemic when Masterclass ads popped up daily in my Facebook feed.

I wondered “why would they lower their price?”

Masterclass Arrives Late to the Online Learning Party

Widespread internet access and the high cost of higher education in the US gave rise to a host of online learning companies.

In 2002, Lynda Weinman shifted her educational company Lynda.com from in-person webinars to online courses featuring video instruction. Online video was new then. It took a while for students to adapt to it.

But adapt they did. Lynda.com grew to offer over 6,300 courses. Weinman sold it to LinkedIn in May 2015 for $1.5 billion.

Most of the other well-known online learning players launched between 2010 and 2012: Udemy (2010), Skillshare (2011), Coursera (2012), and Udacity (2012).

Masterclass appeared in May 2015, just as Weinman was cashing in.

Like any party late-comer seeking attention, Masterclass stands out with a key difference: celebrity instructors. Their tagline: “Learn from the best, be your best.”

Founders David Rogier and Aaron Rasmussen launched with 3 classes: Serena Williams teaching tennis; Dustin Hoffman teaching acting; and best-selling author James Patterson teaching writing.

Each instructor reportedly received $100,000 plus 30% of the revenue from their class.

Masterclass also invested in professional video production and set design for each course.

Classes sold for $90 each. Each class package included 10-25 videos, learning materials, interactive exercises (between students), and lifetime access.

Over 30,000 people bought Masterclass courses within the first 4 months.

Masterclass added dozens of courses each year and began offering annual subscriptions for unlimited course viewing at $180 in 2018, removing the $90-for-one-class option.

Pandemic Fuels Masterclass Growth Spurt

During the early part of the pandemic, you couldn’t go on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube without seeing at least one Masterclass ad.

The heavy ad spending worked. Masterclass capitalized on the captive audience, doubling revenues from 2019 ($44.5 million) to 2020 ($88.9 million), and adding another $29.9 million in 2021.

But when the world reopened and people began returning to workplaces in 2022, annual revenue fell to $94.9 million, a $23.9 million decrease.

Since inception, Masterclass has raised $460 million in venture capital. Not yet profitable, the revenue backslide likely made investors antsy. Subscriptions provide all of Masterclass’s revenue.

In May 2022 the company laid off 120 of their 600 workers.

While layoffs reduced cost, Masterclass’s survival requires raising revenues which means increasing subscriptions.

Now 8 years old, Masterclass has hit brand adolescence as it struggles to grow.

Masterclass Tries Too Hard to Fit In

In May 2023, Masterclass cut its individual annual subscription plan price by a third, from $180 to $120.

In a statement announcing the price drop, David Rogier, Masterclass Founder & CEO said, “By continuing to innovate the approach to our portfolio of content and making the platform more accessible, we’re not only unlocking potential in our members, we’re enabling them to realize it.”

I don’t know what that means.

It’s a jargon-filled declaration. Was the potential of members locked at $180?

The “more accessible” part I get. It’s the basic economic model we learned in school. You lower the price, more people buy.

I’m guessing Masterclass looked at their competitors, saw them offering free classes and cheaper individual courses (Udemy), and felt compelled to lower their subscription fee.

Antsy investors added pressure to sign more subscribers quickly.

Perhaps their smaller number of course offerings also pushed them to the lower annual fee.

But on an annual fee basis, they were already at the low end with the $180 fee ($15 per month). Now they are at the bottom.

Trying to fit in to your market arena by competing on price is a recipe for disaster.

Don’t Compete on Price

There is a difference between having a competitive price and competing on price.

The former means your price is within the range of what your industry offers. It removes price as a differentiator so your prospect considers your brand on other factors.

The latter encourages price cutting and becomes a race to the bottom. Once you lower your price, your competitors may follow. Then what is your choice? Lower it again?

Competing on price destroys brands, especially premium ones.

What Masterclass Needs to Learn

Masterclass offers a premium product. Professionally produced, entertaining classes taught by recognizable experts and celebrities.

They have been challenged all along to get users who are attracted for one class to stay and take others. (This may have been behind removing the $90 one class option in 2018.)

Dropping your price doesn’t address that challenge.

Increasing your value in the eyes of your subscribers and conveying that value well do.

To do that, you need to understand your audience, their wants, and how your brand fulfills them.

A New Yorker article in October 2021 reported that Masterclass had an unusually high renewal rate of 52 percent after one year. The typical student watches 10 classes, hopping from subject to subject.

But, the article stated, the time subscribers spend watching classes does not relate to their likelihood to renew.

Masterclass doesn’t know why their subscribers renew.

In the article, Masterclass’s chief product officer says of his efforts to understand and guide subscriber behavior, “Asking them why they like a class doesn’t give you very reliable data.”

This tells me that while Masterclass may have done lots of research to get class feedback, they don’t yet know the segments of their audience well enough to know what attracts them and what makes them stay.

It is true that people have a hard time relaying why they do what they do. That’s where consumer insights gathering techniques shine, and how I’ve helped my clients.

Unearthing customers’ motivations requires creativity. You must ask the right questions to get the answers you want, and often they are not direct or obvious questions.

The only way Masterclass will surmount their brand adolescence and get into the black is to get clarity on their customer segments, understand their motivations, and craft messages and services that resonate with them.

My Masterclass Experience

I only managed to complete one full class before my 14-day trial ran out.

David Sedaris’ course on Storytelling and Humor gave me several tips I’ll use in the future.

His approach also made me feel good about my own. We’re both students of the world, observing often, jotting down experiences, and asking good questions.

I did not subscribe, however.

Masterclass is known as the Netflix of online learning. A binge-worthy distraction is not what I need right now!

Have you ever taken a Masterclass?

***

For the Adolescent Brand in Your Life

If you and someone you care about has a brand struggling to grow, pick up a copy of my book, Teenage Wastebrand: How Your Brand Can Stop Struggling and Start Scaling.

Or grab the audiobook here. I narrated it myself!

***

Just for Fun

Masterclass’s ubiquity on social media platforms during the pandemic made it ripe for parody.

Andy Rowell Teaches Pooping (1 minute, 44 seconds)

Steve Emerson’s Masterclass on Daddy’s Money (2 minutes, 12 seconds)

And of course SNL delivered a Masterclass Quarantine Edition (2 minutes, 43 seconds), and another Masterclass Quarantine Edition (2 minutes, 58 seconds).

Enjoy!

The post Masterclass Makes an Adolescent Error appeared first on E. Starr Associates.