http://www.first-thing-monday.com/ No-nonsense marketing comment and debate to fire up the grey matter. en Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:02:09 +0000 Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:02:09 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss first-thing-monday rss feed consultancy@thechurchagency.com webmaster@first-thing-monday.com Jamie has vowed to use his celebrity status to change society’s eating habits for the better, and strongly criticised Sainsbury’s over animal welfare. Sainsbury’s flapped about in a panic and published a number of ads boasting about its credentials. Then, out of the blue, Oliver retreated in a letter sent out to 150,000 Sainsbury’s employees, claiming his comments had been taken “out of context” and that “Sainsbury’s has the most to be proud of on this important animal welfare issue”. Can't help wondering if the fact that his contract is due for renewal in April had any bearing on things.

Yet again, Jamie been left with egg on his face. His campaign for high quality food in schools actually led to hundreds of thousands of children stopping taking school dinners. Now this chicken fiasco has led to both the Jamie Oliver and Sainsbury's brands being compromised. Sadly, their multi-million pound relationship may not survive, but hopefully things are looking up for the poor chickens. ]]> To cut a long story short, the research process confirmed, yet again, the age old problem that all organisations tend over time to introspection and become ever more inclined to protect the process than the customer.
The result in this as in so many cases was not just that customer goodwill was being lost, sometimes just for the lack of helpfulness, but also that the 'coal face' of the organisation was not tuned into (I might even say, not interested in) early warning signals of customer dissatisfaction. What's worse, even if they had been interested, there wasn't an efficient or consistent mechanism for taking action and rectifying the issue.
Customer Relationship Management seems a relatively new concept (at least the concept of putting it into action) in the business to business world, and yet everyone talks about working smarter and the language of consumer and retail marketing – lifetime customer value/share of purse, is readily employed by B2B companies... what is the block?

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Everyone I talk to faces the same dilemma – a dirty great big chunk of their marketing budget is eaten up by a couple of industry exhibitions from which they can see almost no benefit.
The same arguments (actually it's one argument in slightly different guises) is put up each time a new broom questions an old hand over participation – "If we're not there people will think we're on the way out", "Everyone expects us to be here", "All our competitors are there".
What a load of cobblers... there's no logic here. It's basically an unthinking herd mentality that defies logic. Try rehearsing the following;
Q. Is it the best return on any marketing investment we could make? Do we win more business from existing customers or win high value new customers?
A. Errr, maybe not. The people we really know we talk to regularly anyway, and the big decision makers of existing or new don't go...
Q. What would you do with all that money if we didn't go that would help us beat the competition?
A. (fill in gap here... ie more hospitality events/strategic discounts/dealer training)
Q. Is it any different for our competitors?
A. No, they say the same.
Q. So, why not let them go on wasting their time and money, but we put our budgets to where we could really do them some damage?
A. Coz were expected to be there.
Q. Do you need a hearing aid?
The main point is you can actually win competitive advantage by letting the other guy waste money, but to do that you have to make it easier for the organisation to take what appears like a bold step (but is in fact a tiny one).


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]]> On the surface it seems to be either the fact that the marketers want it, but the sales teams (or bean counters) perceive segmented messaging a marketing ivory tower... or the marketers see it as an agency ivory tower (designed to crow-bar more money out of them).
Of course that's the view from the agency side. Are we perhaps wanting to over engineer the answer?
Linda Bates, The Church Agency
]]> How, you might ask, could this be? Surely the site is now optimised for user and search engine alike.
The problem was three fold; a) The site didn't have a precisely defined role in a joined up sales process. b) It didn't have a focus on the precise mind state of the most 'ready-for' audience. c) It hadn't (as you'd expect from a) and b), been conceived and executed against a clear conceptual model.
In plain English, the site itself was like a beautifully designed customer hospitality suite manned by impeccable mannered staff all trained to talk in just the right way... to the converted. The problem with this? Even if there was a role for such an entity – it wasn't the prime role that the business needed. Of course the intention was that the site could talk to all customers – the existing and new, the lapsed and loyal. But in being all things to all people it served, as is always the case, none with particular effectiveness.
What the business needed was new business, new business that could be won at a lower cost and with a quicker conversion time than previously. The site actually had to fix a 'broken' sales process that extended way beyond the use of on or off-line media and into the entire process of lead generation, enquiry handling, field sales, data redemption and deal closing.
And this is the whole, more general, point.
It is only within the entire context of the business problem that the role of on (and off-line) media and activity can be defined, and within this broader view the role of interactive activity and the conceptual model for it can be defined.
Without such a broader analysis the role of an individual component such as a website cannot be precisely, and therefore effectively designed. In short the best practice in site optimisiation is of limited value if the site itself is playing a sub-optimal role in the first place.
So the question is, do you know... absolutely, positively... What your on-line presence could, should and would best be placed to fulfill and how all the on and off-line media, systems, processes and people that feed it or capitalise on it are organised to achieve maximum results?
If there is even a flicker of doubt, stop.
Let's get back to the case study mentioned above – they're web presence was akin to customer hospitality suite (less the booze and entertainment) designed to handle all visitors politely and gently. The business need was sales, and sales from a particular profile of audience for whom on-line was an early point of data redemption.
The right conceptual model for the site, and the processes that fed it with prospects and converted interest into 'demand' and 'action'... Was not a hospitality unit that talked to all, but a timeshare roadshow designed to convert 'marginal' customers.
Back to usability, eye-tracking, information architecture and all the other good words that your clued up digital development house will come up with...
These disciplines are the way to optimise the answer that you have created – the rest of the stuff – the business analysis, process analysis and the integrated approach that has to be defined is the first thing to do – it's called getting the question right before build the answer. ]]> You can define a conceptual model around a relationship, an experience, an interview or an occasion, but you have to have understood a lot about your consumer or customer first. The options they have, the state of mind they are in and their relationship with you at the point of contact. Defining it doesn't have to be a long process, but it does have to be rigorous, and we have a number of tools that help.
When you've agreed what the conceptual model is you then need to stay loyal to it throughout the visitor journey and make it work hard for gathering data, delivering messages and encouraging the visitor to venture to the next level of awareness, interest, demand and action (in the case of a sales oriented site), or satisfaction and loyalty in the CRM field.
Martin McInnes, The Church Agency
]]> All agencies claim it, but...
I spent this morning reviewing sites from 'integrated digital agencies'.... every single one of the 10 or so talked strategy, but showed tactical execution in the portfolio. All talked about offering an integrated on/off line service but it was clear that their business and their heart lay in digital.
Claims that include 'integrated' and 'strategic' are now devalued terms... basically it's like 'quality' or 'passion'... you just have to quote it. Question is how on earth, without wasting a day on 'informal' chemistry meetings can you sort out the strategic wheat from the tactical chaff?
I went searching for truly convincing 'integrated' propositions, but I didn't find one – at least not my terms of reference which was an agency outside the major networks and big London 'names' able to convince me that they could make sense of all consumer/customer touchpoints in the context of a strategic business agenda and then devise a media neural strategy which they could then, in part or full execute.
Perhaps it's too much to ask of any one agency, or maybe I just want to think that way because it suits our business model?
Martin McInnes, The Church Agency
]]> www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/A.Sasse/chi2003jens
The bluffers guide in short – if you are big but use a lot of irrelevant imagery (stock photo's etc.) it makes you look phoney and smaller than you really are... but if you are a one man band in a garage, some stock shots may fool some of the punters for long enough to trust you over and above your rivals.
There is actually a lot more to it than that, so take a read. It's the sort of thinking that helps discipline you, your colleagues, your design agency or web developers... anyone whose answer to a rather empty or text heavy page is to slap in a 'lifestyle' shot.
If it ain't got a role, it shouldn't have a place. ]]> Is it worth doing a sticking plaster?
Posted by: John | Monday 31st, December 2007 at 9:20 PM ]]> A few tips for setting the standard for content, editorial, and design for an internal newsletters:
1. Would people complain if 'the management' stopped you publishing it?
2. Would people pay for what you produce?
3. Is every article and every title produced on the basis of WIIFM (what's in it for me) from the readers perspective?
4. How does the newsletter reflect the broader strategy of becoming the 'employer of choice', or how well connected is it to your competitor brand?
If all the above seem to be talking a foreign language, you need help, or you need to stop wasting money publishing what you currently produce.


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