Customer Crossroads

Will RSS Replace E-mail?

Eric G. Myers at ICE has an interesting post about the future of e-mail marketing, and its likely replacement with customized RSS.
His key points:

1. Other people are ruining it for everyone. 
2. People have to give more than they want to, to get what you have. 
3. Unsubscribing doesn't always work.
4. As e-mail effectiveness drops, costs rise.
5. RSS puts control in the hands of the user, which solves most of these problems, as well as letting users see previous content before they sign up.  [Sampling is often effective as a marketing technique]
6. RSS feeds are indexed by search engines

Yup. Other people are ruining it for everyone.  It's called the tragedy of the commons. The rise of trackback spam and useless Google search pages are the latest projects of these jerks. I think Eric's arguments make sense. He also has some suggestions for how to get good seats for this event now, before everyone gets in on the act.

[BTW, Eric is the only reason I have tags on this site, thanks to his tag generator, for which I am truly grateful.]

References:
Tragedy of the commons:  Wikipedia article here.  Scholarly article by Gareth Harden here, that speaks to this effect as it relates to pollution and overfishing.

Del.icio.us Tags: tragedy of the commons, will rss replace e-mail marketing, online customer experience

Get Cooking: Recipes by Phone, etc.

Working moms still want to have it all, and smart business people are trying to help them. And home cooked meals appears to be a big part of the picture.

Wireless Recipe Alerts Solve Dinner-Time Desperation Problem

One innovative idea I saw recently was a women's magazine that will send recipe ideas to your cell-phone via SMS text messaging.  If you like the sounds of say... enchilada pie ... just enter the code for the ingredients. After you get home, log in to the web site for the full recipe.

Not sure what you're going to serve for dinner tonight? No problem! Get great dinner ideas – and ingredient lists to go with them – sent straight to your cellphone. Once you've registered for the program, you'll automatically receive three text-message alerts a week (click here to learn more about text messaging) suggesting quick and tasty dinner ideas.

This just works on so many great levels:

1. It solves a real problem for a harried parent experiencing mealtime panic
2. It gets you in touch with the customer several times a week
3. Once they get to your web site, they pay for the service by casting their eyes over the paid advertising

I also loved that they explained text messaging in simple terms, and also tell you how much it will cost. See the site here.

Home Cooking in an Industrial Kitchen

Dream Dinners was the first of this new breed of service / retail concept: make a bunch of home cooked meals in a really big kitchen where you can do it quickly, stuff them in your home freezer, and voila -- fast and easy home cooking.

Whatever the merits of this approach from a time, cost or nutritional standpoint, the look of the website (above and top) says volumes about why this concept works. The little notes look like something from another generation, that had fountain-pen written recipe cards where the ink was smudged by little hands helping mom in the kitchen. It's loaded with emotion, reinforced by a simple design that evokes a (probably mythical) simpler time.

I can't imagine that this concept appeals to people who really like to cook. It's all about wanting to give your family home cooking, but not actually doing the home cooking. Or doing it much, much faster, without any of the chopping or cleaning up. But you can say you made it yourself.  And the recipes reinforce this, with titles like "Mom's Macaroni and Beef".

You might actually get better taste with Lean Cuisine, but there's no emotional satisfaction in that, is there?

Technorati Tags: dream dinners, wireless recipes, customer connections

Engaging with your customers - an art gallery gets creative

I haven't yet painted my self-portrait for the Art Gallery of Ontario's In Your Face project, but I still can, and you can too.  The deadline for submission of your 4" x 6" portrait is June 1.
The In Your Face project opens July 1, and is intended to be:

"an exhibition of portraits collected from the general public to celebrate the individuality and diversity of Canada ... In Your Face will allow everyone to become a creative part of the Gallery's future"

This major gallery is taking a step out to engage their audience and de-mystify their subject: fine art.

Even better, here are a couple of other things they have done:

• started a blog on their web site, part of which is devoted to this project
• set up a flickr photo blog for the project, where i found the amazing portrait shown above

Only a few months ago I was wondering when galleries would start posting podcasts instead of renting head-phones.  Well, AGO now has podcasts here. [only 2.5 days left to see the David Milne show...yikes!]

I am impressed by these efforts to engage with the public and get innovative.  They have moved a long way beyond putting some crayons and paper in the corner of the gallery for the kids. What are you doing to engage with your customers?  If a stodgy old art gallery can do this, just think what a nimble business organization could get going! 

Previous posts on engaging with your customers:

Connecting your customers with blogs, community sites and forums

Brand Lecturing is Out - Co-Creation, Sharing, Architecture of Participation is In

Teaching Customers: Football Classes

Technorati Tags: customer engagement, co-creation, in your face portrait project

Managing the Employee Experience

Organization effectiveness is the new six sigma, the new lean manufacturing, or the new balanced scorecard (pick one).  We're all starting to learn that no process can replace engaged people. 
And doesn't that just sound totally obvious when you say it out loud? Why did it take us so long to figure out?

A senior OD professional recently told me that she suspects there are more mandated coaching, leading and employee engagement activities in a manager's week than they have hours to work. So  the front-line staff may be happy, but their managers are drowning. 

Another executive wondered why their organization keeps building tools that head office think managers want, instead of the tools managers are actually asking for. 

A client is worried about engagement in their volunteer workforce, which numbers in the thousands, because they can't get along without all this free labour.

Everywhere you look, there is an item about the current and/or impending talent shortage. No one is talking about hiring boomers who want to work part-time, or will only take interesting work. I'm not so sure there is a shortage of that kind of talent. The articles are all about a shortage of entry-level professionals and knowledge workers, or mid-career managers. There aren't enough of those to go around now, and demographics suggests the problem will only get worse.

Add it all up, and you get a need to make organizations more effective at hiring, developing, deploying and retaining people. 

If this is your problem too, you might want to look at a report I read this morning published by Deloitte, which outlines the issue well, and offers some constructive ideas as well.  One of their ideas was to stop putting people in narrow confines of opportunity based on what they did in the past. I loved the examples they gave of successful executives who changed careers, the best of which was that David Ogilvy had no background in advertising when he started his agency.  And Ray Kroc sold milkshake machines.

• Deloitte Report: It's 2008: Do You Know Where Your Talent Is?  and Global Talent Pulse Survey: Becoming a Magnet for Talent

If need some fresh thinking, insight and inspiration on the general topic of people and their work, I can suggest visiting a couple of blogs that recently caught my attention: 

• Pamela Slim's Escape From Cubicle Nation had an amazing open letter to CEOs that is a must-read.  She followed it up with an open letter to employees that had a major dose of reality in it as well.

• The Alchemy of Soulful Work: Bailey WorkPlay blog, which recently had a truly inspirational post called The Greater Sin Is Not Dreaming Big Enough.

My own best tip?  If you don't truly love the people in your organization -- what one of my bosses used to call "the kids in the branches" -- you're sunk. No consultant in the world will be able to make your organization a great place to work. If you do love  them, start listening with your heart.

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Online Advertising and the Cowboy Bar Analogy

Microsoft's announcement that they intend to enter the ring and compete in online advertising has smart folk all over the place talking about whether or not they can compete or even win.
Of course, this is classic Microsoft non-innovation -- wait until an idea has legs, then buy a position or muscle in using established distribution power.  It's a strategy that has worked well for them, and may well work this time. 
What interests me, and what no one seems to be talking about, is the emerging dichotomy of players.  You're either selling advertising opportunities, or you are buying them.  You either have an online offering so compelling that people will find you without advertising -- in which case you can sell advertising.  Or you have to buy advertising to support the world of really compelling things to do online. 
The ends of this spectrum are relatively clear.  Cool blogs are over to the right. [Ignoring for the moment that successful blogs typically have promotion strategies.]  Free online gaming sites would be over on the right. Free information sites are on the right. 
Over on the left are the products and services who are supposed to foot the bill for all the stuff on the right. [Except for those of us who are essentially volunteers]

There are a handful of people in the sweet central spot -- like perhaps iTunes -- that can play for both teams. This group has to make their choices very carefully to preserve their brand value, and avoid getting pushed to one end or the other.

As I write this, I'm also realizing that the team on the left offers goods and services we are actually willing to pay for. Like cars, cell phones, tax preparation and music. That's why they can afford advertising. Over on the right we have a lot of free content -- in many cases, content that is offered free to attract you to the advertising. Or to attract you to the superior subscription service.

Cowboy bars work this way, too. Girls get in free. Cowboys pay a cover charge.

Where will it all end?  How much of the free content can we expect the product world to pay for?  And what happens when they start to get stretched too thin by all this fragmentation?

MBA via iPod

This morning I was browsing my bloglines feed and came across this comment in a discussion of Web 2.0:

"Audio Books on an iPod. I’ve listened to audio books for years, mostly on cassette tapes in my car. They fill in driving time with a motivational or teaching message. Now with my iPod I can listen to books anywhere. It is amazing to listen to business oriented books while walking through different business districts. These books suddenly come alive. This process has actually become the subject of a new blog for me. Called “MBA on the Run” it talks about using audio books as part of a personal MBA program. Simple technology that takes the message to the medium."

MBA on the Run is indeed all about listening to business books on your iPod. Not a bad business idea, but even cooler as a not-for-profit:

"All proceeds from book and technology sales as well as ad revenue over the next two years will go to help build a youth center and computer lab. Please consider helping out our future entrepreneurs and career seekers by buying books and equipment through links on this site."

I love the creativity that the web has unleashed in people. Before the web, this kind of cool idea might never see the light of day. Now, it can be up and running in an afternoon with no capital, no fixed organization structure, and no overhead. 

How to Manage Innovation in Your Organization

Managing innovation is as much about leadership and culture as it is about creativity.  This isn't just my opinion, it's the opinion of most of the executives participating in a project I'm involved in. Schulich Executive Education is sponsoring a year-long research project that is studying innovation management.

We've been meeting with diverse groups of executives for a few months now, and gathering their insights about what actually works. Unlike most research of this calibre, for which you have to subscribe and pay big $$$, Schulich is making these reports available to interested people, and kindly agreed to let me post them on my web site.  

Moderators Alan Kay and Rick Wolfe are leading the discussions with executives each month, and I'm extracting insights and compiling them into highly readable and informative reports.  [Of course I'm a bit biased.  But read them and decide for yourself]

Although we have talked in the sessions about product innovation, our focus is on innovation in every aspect of the enterprise.  How to organize it.  How to fund it.  How to measure and evaluate. How to hold people accountable.  And we are hearing some very interesting things from executives about what works.

You can download the first four reports from the Schulich web site, or here on my site. 
We'll be holding more sessions over the rest of the year, and planning a conference on the topic for 2007. 

If you have some ideas to add to this topic, or want to participate in the research, become a sponsor, or anything like that, please get in touch.

Technorati Tags: innovation, schulich

Marketing to Boomers: Fear of Falling

Boomers are finally a legitimate marketing target again, but most appeals focus on nostaliga and recapturing lost youth. As John Bradley pointed out in his recent column in Strategy, this is not what boomers are most worried about. 

"For the first time in our lives, we boomers are worried about money.  While we might have more than sufficient for now, we are suddenly confronted by the prospect that we may not have enough for later."

Bradley points out that the boomers are the first generation to face the prospect of being in retirement while still having children living at home, and still caring for older parents.

Having self-supporting children is actually a status-symbol. They don't have to be rich, they just have to be  living on their own, on their own means.

Because boomers have a fear of falling. Falling socially. Falling financially. Having spent so much of their lives spending on the best toys, they are worried about being unable to sustain the pattern.  And they are right to be worried, because few people have secure pensions anymore.

As Mr. Bradley so eloquently puts it,

"So if you want to profit from boomers the message is clear, forget about helping them cling onto their younger selves, and think how you can help their older selves stop worrying about ending up in the workhouse."

Technorati Tags: boomers, marketing

Elevator Speeches I've Learned to Despise

Is Your Sales Pitch Really Working?  Or Just Annoying?

We're all supposed to have an elevator speech.  Something that distills everything we are and everything we can do into a 10 second advertisement. 
At a recent business networking event, someone asked me what I do, and when I told them, offered this opinion, unasked: "You're going to have to tighten that up a lot more if you want to get business". Wow.  OK then.  Let me just get right on that. 

I felt great relief today to read that the Guerrilla Consultant, Mike McLaughlin, doesn't care for elevator speeches at all, and I have to agree with his reasoning:

• They are all about the speaker, not the listener -- in short, not customer focused at all
• They don't open the door to a real conversation -- which is the only way I've ever landed business -- or awarded it -- in my career
• They make you memorable for the wrong reasons -- the pithy wordplay, rather than the potential solution to someone's problem

I really liked that he doesn't want me to ask people "what keeps them up at night". I've always hated that question, too. [Like you think I'm going to tell YOU my deepest fears? Get a grip]

What Does Work

I get a startling number of cold calls by phone, mostly terrible.  I bet you do too.
But there was one voice-mail I returned recently, from a nice fellow at Flight Centre.  He was clear and direct, and told me why he thought he might be of some help to my business. He called back promptly. When we finally connected, he had good questions and listened carefully. And I plan to try his service on my next trip. I already forwarded his contact info to some colleagues. Pretty successful, but no elevator pitch.  He just communicated, asked questions, and listened.

What a radical concept. 

Technorati Tags: guerilla consultant, elevator pitch, listening to customers, flight centre