Customer Crossroads

E-mail should be friendlier: email marketing crimes you should avoid

E-mail marketing is big, big stuff these days. Possibly bigger than ever, as it has become so difficult to reach overloaded people.

When people let you into their inbox, you really should treat them with a little respect.

Here are a few of the things I'm not liking right now, (and hoping to heck I am not guilty of the same.)

Auto-responders

When someone replies to your mass e-mail, it is really kind of rude to send them a note saying you can't be bothered to read your stuff. We read their stuff, didn't we? You were all charming and witty and talked like we're kind of buddies, because that's the tone people take now. But hey, you're busy over here, and won't be responding.

Well, at least it's honest, I'll say that for it. Except for the "thanks"part, which is clearly all liar-pants.

I got one of these today that had a list of alternative ways to contact. Not bad, but still not great. Especially the part that says "If you are a customer... " Hell, yes, I'm a customer. I thought you knew that? And this from a specialist in e-mail marketing, no less.

In today's charming incident, I got a SECOND auto-responder, with this charming message tacked on at the beginning. I'll let you decide how you feel about the tone here.

This was Lead-Pages, but honestly it could have been many others.

Unsubscribe Options

I have a couple of modest little email lists -- the biggest is only about 1,000 names. But I do try to respect the time of people who are on that list. And I've been working harder at giving them options of what they want to see and how much of it.

It's amazing to me how often we DON'T get options. You can either get all the repeated sales pitches, or get nothing at all, even if you are a customer.

Again, I'm picking on LeadPages because they are handy, but it's a big club. Here's what I found when I tried to cut back on the messaging.

First attempt was to unsubscribe, thinking I would get options. Here's where the unsubscribe link goes. All or nothing. Well, as a customer, I can't really choose nothing without missing some potentially important stuff. This is when I wrote them a letter and got the offending auto-responder.

I realized there was a second option in the e-mail, so went to have a look at it. It sends me to a leadpage option to choose how many blog posts I want to get. But I'm not subscribed to the blog. And this wasn't actually a blog post.

 

My take

This is certainly not the only example. Only yesterday, I received unsolicited email from the wealth management group at CIBC Wood Gundy, a rather biggish enterprise. When I unsubscribed, I got a second email from the sender asking for feedback, telling me he was only 25 years old and trying really hard, blah, blah, and would really like to know why I unsubscribed. [I am NOT making this up - who could make this stuff up??]

I like LeadPages services, and would recommend them. Heck, I HAVE recommended them. Their product is easy to use, and seems to work well.

But I think they could be a little more customer friendly. Not just sound all customer friendly.

What's your take? Who's doing a great job on e-mail that we should give a shout-out to?

My credit card just sold my so-called relationship

I've had a gold CIBC Aeroplan card for a number of years that I have used for business expenses. More than a decade. And charged a ton of business expenses, keeping a good credit record. I liked that card. I chose it from a bunch of other bachelors vying for my favors, and have felt proud to have it in my pocket. It has served me well.

But then the card portfolio got sold to TD, and I got sold along with it. Now, let me be clear, I know TD to be good organization, and I have other accounts with them. But this was not my decision.

This is not proving to be a great customer experience

First, the emotional hit. I was happy where I was, and it felt really odd to find out that they really didn't want a relationship, despite saying that for years. Me and my business could be sold, just like that. I seriously considered cancelling and moving on, and may still do that. The goodbye letter from the old bank did not communicate an essential message of thanks for business done in the past. Or communicate any empathy about the fact that they, not me, made this decision.

Then letters from the new guys started to arrive. And the hassle-factor set in.

New card. Several letters. New card number. New PIN number. Reminders that I need to change all the regular payments going through the card. (Guess what guys, it's a business card, and there are a TON of regular charges!)

Oh yeah. You can't do a thing before the big switchover date. You can't input the changes into all those other systems in advance -- they won't take the new card number. You can't change the PIN in advance. The letters have warned me that I should take BOTH the old and the new card, and the new secret PIN with me if I just happen to be traveling on that date. (Yes, I do just happen to be traveling on that date.)

My Director of Everything guy tells me that the entire online history of the account will disappear. You know how we keep getting told we should stop getting paper statements because we'll always be able to get the information online? That would be incorrect, I have now learned. (Sorry guy. Guess you'll be doing some downloading over the next few days prior to the switchover!)

I was a little concerned that I have booked travel on a card that will no longer be active. Travel companies have a way of not liking that. I asked the nice lady on the phone about that little problem. She seemed to think it was a highly unusual situation (uh, nope), and wanted to know when, exactly, I had booked the travel? (Huh? how is that relevant? Months ago.) No useful information to impart. Kind of suggested I should have called a different number. (You mean NOT the one printed on the back of the new card??)

I'm not giving them my heart this time

All the letters are filled with blah-blah-we're-wonderful-blah. It's all going to be great. I should be really happy. And please make sure I carefully read the many instructions and fine print. 

So far, it's been a ton of work and annoyance, and we're nowhere near done.

And the new card isn't pretty, either. I may have to put some Hello Kitty stickers on it. Cause right now, it looks like it's all about them, and I want it to be all about me.

But here's the crucial thing. The letters are just so much boilerplate marketing-speak. I'm not going to give them my heart this time. I'll collect the points for now. But at the first good offer from someone else, I'm moving. I would have done it this week if it weren't for the fact that -- yes -- I am traveling, and can't wait for a new card to show up from some new guy seeking my affections.

My take

We in the marketing corner talk a lot about relationships. But the truth is that this is really a one way street. I think consumers may be catching on. What do you think?

What's your take?

I'd love to hear your reaction. Am I just being silly? Should I be grateful I got sold?

Related articles

Is loyalty a one way street?

Should you turn simple transactions into sales opportunities? Yes, but there are rules.

What's your WIFM?

I got an enquiry today from a construction company that needs a new tag line for their business. They specialize in green construction.

The owners have identified that there is little WIFM in just telling someone you specialize in green construction. And that that's a problem for them.

WIFM of course if the What's In It For Me, and your customer communications need to make that clear.

It's not just big marketing behemoths that need to offer benefits, we all do. So I was pretty impressed that a small local home builder would identify this marketing challenge and reach out.

I'm more of a specialist in finding customer insight and using it to create some sort of innovation, but I was happy to pass his enquiry on to a marketing rock star that specializes in small business.

It's a great question to ask yourself. What's your WIFM?

The reciprocity principle

I was reading this little interview with Jeff Walker on Forbes. He's an internet marketing guru guy that seems to have made a small fortune for himself and for his clients.

I thought it was kind of cool that he is in the same coaching program I'm in. [The platinum version, I'm guessing?]

Here's what I wanted to share with you -- he advises "First give, then receive."

"The days of shoving product and services down the throats of blind customers are over."

I used to hear this advice on personal success and motivational tapes that I played while driving when there were still cassette players in cars. The reciprocity principle, it was called.

I'm a big believer in the reciprocity principle. You want fire? Put in some wood. You want testimonials? Maybe you should start by giving some, instead of asking for some.

What Jeff Walker is on about here is not personal networking advice, however. He is saying this is now true for marketing. It's good advice, for those who will listen.

Which social network can get you business? LinkedIn is for B2B

I'm a big fan of the work of CB Whittemore (@CBWhittemore), who I have previously interviewed on this blog. When I was building my presentation "Hate Selling? Build Profile Instead", she kindly provided me with some compelling examples, and this wonderful quote:

LinkedIn is for your professional network; Facebook is for your personal network; Twitter is where you find kindred spirits"

Obviously, this is not the whole story, and she would be the first to tell you that Facebook can be a fantastic marketing resource for consumer-oriented businesses. Today, I'm talking B2B however, and just found proof for this.

HubSpot has data to back this up, which I discovered via David Meerman Scott's excellent blog, WebInkNow.

The chart shows how many visits were converted to leads based on a 2011 study of more than 3,000 B2B companies.

My take: if you are selling to business people (even if the service you are selling is only quasi-business, like personal training, for example), you absolutely must be on LinkedIn. And be there in a thoughtful way.

Resources

A Social Media Case Study: Using social media in a traditional industry: Flooring the Consumer Blog
January 2009

Using social media: focus on the message, and bridge new and old January 2009

LinkedIn 4x better for B2B leads than Facebook or Twitter says HubSpot study April 2012

Everyone thinks they are Don Draper now: the Wizard's curtain is open, and nobody minds

 

Don Draper, of Tv's Mad Men, fictional ad agency executive

This week in a focus group, a consumer respondent said something like this to me:

 

"Your client needs to fire their current agency and hire some young marketers with fresh ideas that will re-energize their brand for launch in a new market. The stuff you are showing us is dated and will never give them the lift they need."

This is certainly not the first time I have heard such sentiments expressed by people who are considered to be average consumers in some sense (we try not to invite marketing professionals, advertising people, competitors, journalists, and actors as a matter of routine).

I've had people advise me on appropriate positioning for a brand in the context of consumer research. And positioning -- let's be honest here -- is marketing-speak.

Consumers are so much tuned in to the marketing process that they want to give advice to the organization. Their advice may not be good advice, that's not the point here. The point is that they feel like stakeholders in the marketing process, not passive responders.

This trend is becoming more pervasive all the time from what I can see.

 

Oz is exposed, but no one minds

 

It's like the curtain on the Wizard of Oz of marketing is now open, exposing the insides. But instead of being fussed about losing the illusion, consumers are saying, "hey, you should have a social media site" or "why not make the illusion friendlier" or "reposition yourself as a sage, not an ogre", or "update that upholstery, it's hideous".

 

 

 

 

Trust in the digital era: Epsilon e-mail breach triggers notices from big brands

We've received four notices so far this week about Epsilon's e-mail security breakdown -- everyone from Abe Books to Best Buy has been saying sorry. The notices are a good idea, and probably necessary for them to limit / mitigate liability (in certain litigious market areas).

But I found these e-mails fairly alarming, especially when they kept coming.

But wait... there's more

Turns out that only 2% of total clients were compromised, and it was just e-mail addresses, according to Epsilon's press release. Initially, this felt reassuring, but then I started wondering... what does 2% really mean, when you are operating on this scale?

Elsewhere in the Epsilon website, I learned that they can send "15 million dynamic messages in one hour, or more than 40 billion emails a year."

Turns out that 2% of their clients amounts to about 50 companies, many of them of significant size -- according to this list. (I guess they used the 2% of clients number because the e-mails number was just too big and scary?)

So, finally I know why I am getting so many heartfelt notes from celebrities offering to help me improve my body parts, and have better date nights.

Resources

PC magazine posts more information here about the topic, and offers the suggestion of using a specific e-mail address for online shopping purposes.

But this solution means... if i actually want value-added e-mails and offers from a trusted business I deal with (e.g. Best Buy, for example, or perhaps a hotel or airline), I then have to wade through a ton of spam to get it.

Be interesting or be gone: reaching people in an age of communication overload

Ever get to the point with your e-mail where you're tempted to just Select All {Ctrl+A} and hit {DEL}?

I did today... but decided instead to spend a few minutes trying to clear things out.

I found a number of good intentions there --  someone I wanted to have coffee with back in 2008, and still haven't booked a meeting. [I'm sure W.S. has scheduling problems of his own to deal with... if he's even at the same company now. I have finally surrendered, and deleted this reminder to self.]

How the disciplined among us conquer e-mail

Then I came across this gem, a newsletter item about conquering e-mail.

The actual item, from Fast Company, dates back several months. I can certainly vouch for the veracity of the research, having currently got some 355 newsletter items in my newsletter folder [deleted at least weekly!]. Yes, I could unsubscribe to the stuff that I no longer want, but who's got the time for that?

There are a number of good tips in the article above... if you are the type who can use a disciplined system.

My purpose here, is not to discuss personal productivity. It is to remind you that your brand, your product, your incredible marketing communication, is in this giant morass.

Did you get my e-mail?

Do you, like me, get sales calls that start with: "did you receive my e-mail?" or even worse, "have you read the presentation I e-mailed you"?

Seriously, this is a ridiculous approach. No one has read your e-mail, okay?

Even the information I requested is quite often in limbo, in another folder marked "Must Read", that currently has 12 items in it. 

I can't get through the memory sticks, CDs and downloads that I brought back from the last few conferences.

So if you sent me a sales deck, and I opened it, I sure hope it had some useful information in it. Like pricing, for example. Like screen shots of your product, for example. If it was just circles and arrows, I can tell you now that we are all sorry we wasted our time.

E-mail is the proverbial tip of the iceberg...

I'm also behind on Facebook. People ask me if I saw their clever status update, or the link they posted to the video. [I only wish I had, it was probably really cool. And more interesting than most of the stuff that landed there.]

One smart fellow of my acquaintance has suggested that I would enjoy his book reviews posted on LinkedIn. I'm sure he's right, but I currently have a dozen interesting books sitting on what passes for a credenza, calling out to me.

Your communications have to totally rock

When I'm testing print communications, I often say something like "imagine you were flipping through this magazine". Because none of us have time to study anything that is not intensely interesting to us.

And we are all, the big and the small among us, subjected to astounding amounts of marketing communications. Political communications. And signs encouraging correct behavior. [Like smoking 25 feet from the door, and be sure to wash your hands properly. Don't stand too close to that door. Keep that bag away from babies...]

We can fast forward through your boring skip-intro. We have learned to blot out your boring banner. We are checking our smart phone while your trailer is playing. Heck, many people are checking their phones in the actual movie! I have recently seen people doing this in live performances -- so even messages we are paying to see are not sacrosanct.

This is your target -- skilled at filtering

This is the market you are trying to reach or trying to serve. Busy. Inundated. Unable to read it all. Wishing you were more succinct. Hoping your knowledge base has a good search tool. Skilled at filtering. And the young are even better than the old at filtering what is of interest and what is not. 

Social media certainly had a novelty factor initially. But it is quickly becoming a necessity, and bringing the same baggage. New channels are not displacing the old, they are adding to the load.

Yup, it's scary out there.

Marketing in a recession: Indigo MBA

During difficult economic times, lots of people take the opportunity to "reboot" by going back to school. Of course now, you need serious dough to do that.

Book retailer Indigo is positioning to tap into that trend by offering "the 12 month MBA" featuring  "24 books, 12 months. $0 student loans."  The additional pitch is an opportunity to discuss the books on the Indigo Community.

Very clever idea. And not a bad selection of books, either. (With the exception of Who Moved My Cheese, which surely must be added by way of contrast.)

Who else do you see that is doing some clever recession marketing?

Permission revisited: Don't pretend I'm a fan when all I did was say hi

In the previous post I shared a birthday coupon e-mailed to me by a photo printing company. I found it a bit annoying.

I was expecting one thing -- an electronic greeting -- and got something else. Yes, if I had read carefully, I would have known it was not a greeting card. But who reads their e-mail that carefully? I know I don't.

More to the point, a birthday greeting is a personal thing. It could perhaps come from a business if that business was my hair salon. I get a letter every year from a life insurance agent for a policy issued decades ago, and I find that rather charming.

This is not charming, despite the pretty balloons. This is an attempt to get me to buy something, disguised as a personal greeting. They are suggesting I'm a fan, when I am not.

So instead I unsubscribed.

Unsubscribing doesn't work as well as it used to, because there are so many lists being bought and sold, that I could easily wind up getting mail from this company again in the future.

My takeaways:

#1 Don't assume that someone who stopped by your website -- even if they gave you an e-mail -- is a fan.

And be careful trading on a personal and social occasion -- like a birthday or a holiday -- when you are not in a personal relationship. There are brands I'm connected to who could send me birthday greetings and I would be charmed. But they would actually give me something of value, instead of saying they want something of value from me. 

Moo, for example, could probably pull off a birthday greeting. Because I actually AM a fan, and a regular customer. But they are way too smart for that, because they are in the business of building loyalty, not pretending it is there.

Talking e-mail: An interview with Adam Piandes of Goldmail

I wrote about an interesting product called GoldMail a while back, which triggered some correspondence with Adam Piandes there. He kindly agreed to be interviewed for the blog, and here's the result.

Adam, can you remind me what GoldMail is again – it’s kind of an audio e-mail with a slide-show, right?

GoldMail is a publishing tool that lets you quickly and easily create an audio-visual message. As an example, we say that GoldMail allows you to put your voice over Powerpoint because it resonates with the business user. But you can put you voice over any content – or combination of content - jpegs, PDF’s, screen shots, etc.

Once the slideshow is arranged in a compelling manner, it’s time to record your voice over the slides and then share the message, which you can do by posting it on your blog, sending it by e-mail or putting it on Facebook and other social media sites. It’s about conveying emotion, connecting with the viewer.

Combining audio (voice) with visuals touches upon two different learning styles and retention rates skyrocket versus just sending an e-mail or leaving a voicemail … it’s a simple process: Create, Record, Share.

You can view a quick two minute GoldMail I created for this interview here

Wow, I love that you were brave enough to put yourself out there for us like that. Thank you!

Can you give me a snapshot of the company’s history? Who started this thing and why?

The idea of GoldMail was “birthed” by Tom Hakel, our CEO and David Simpson, our president in 2006 as an audio-visual messaging platform. They were investors in a “more complicated” collaboration software project and discovered two things:

1) People are “over contacting and under connecting,” as live meetings were getting harder and harder to get; general business communications (i.e. email and phones) were not nearly as effective as in the past.

2) Most people don’t have much time to learn new software and they are not technically oriented – they just wanted simple tools that have an immediate impact. 

From the on-set, GoldMail has been affiliated with a non-profit organization that runs summer school programs for middle school youth called Aim High. This organization is a shareholder of GoldMail, and this relationship is a big piece of who we are and what we represent. Also, the founders – at the outset -- wanted to create a tool that would help all non-profits spread their message. It’s cool for me because I feel connected to a great organization and because I’m a huge believer that we will have a long-term impact on fundraising efforts by non-profits everywhere, as we’ve already proven so in several instances.

I had no idea of the not-for-profit connection!

Adam, I know you see this as a product that anyone can use. Which may be true. But every product has a sweet-spot, a natural market of people who really appreciate the benefits and drive usage. What or who is the sweet spot for GoldMail?  I’m guessing sales people working in B2B sales, but who is it really?

Yes, it’s true, GoldMail can be used by anyone who is looking to humanize their on-line communication and wants to easily send messages that people remember. B2B sales is a key area, and this has been one of the early sweet spots for us.

Sales people use GoldMail to get their value proposition across in a personal manner; it enables them to inject their personality and to connect with a prospect or client. It’s nice because a sales person can send out a GoldMail message and the recipient can listen to it as many times as they choose and then can share it with others.

Most of our conversations, at GoldMail, with partners/clients get started with a GoldMail message. I can send a GoldMail message to the recipient as a way to introduce myself and the partnership opportunity or to follow up from a previous conversation. The end goal is to get a meeting or to take a conversation another step further. The response has been great, as we’ve formed some great partnerships using this approach.

One of our partnerships is with Constant Contact. GoldMail now enables their customers to better connect with their recipients, whether it’s to drive sales, to send out a marketing campaign, for fundraising, send a celebratory message or advocacy. Regardless of the intent of the message, GoldMail adds the human element that is so important in establishing relationships and is missing in today’s on-line communication.

I use Constant Contact (as do many), and noticed that they had announced this feature. It seems like a natural fit. Anything else?

We also see a lot of people using GoldMail for internal communications. I create a two to three minute GoldMail message for my CEO at the end of the every week to give him an update on all of my happenings on the business development side. He receives a GoldMail message from all of our departments and in 15 to 20 minutes, he has a great understanding of what’s happening in the company.

Of course, he is involved in the company on a more intimate level, but these GoldMail updates save him a ton of time. On the flip side, he sends the company internal updates on GoldMail’s progress and provides our investors with updates as well.

I love getting a GoldMail message for company updates because it makes me feel included and I always have a general sense of “who’s doing what” but more importantly, “why” they’re doing it. I know that our investors love getting these messages as well.

I hadn't really thought about the internal communication angle, but it makes sense. I think we're all hungering for some human touch, and corporate communications can certainly use humanizing.

What about your raving fans -- what can you tell me about them? Any compelling anecdotes you can share? 

We have fans from all walks of life. From the CMO at Accenture who uses GoldMail to add impact to his most important messages going to their broad management community and senior leaders to an area manager, working out of her home, for a well respected direct-selling company, who uses GoldMail to “increase sales by $2,000 in two days without picking up the phone.”

We’ve had so many incredible stories of how GoldMail has helped people communicate and improve their business; there’s one that sticks out for me.

One of our customers sent out a GoldMail message to notify their customers of some changes to their website. They received a bunch of requests for more information and one of these requests led to a conversation with a project manager that landed the company a $200mm project. They claimed that this never would have happened if they had not been using GoldMail to stay in touch with their longtime and new clients. Not bad for a $10/month investment.

A $200 million project, and they leveraged Goldmail. That's a pretty amazing story! I may have to rethink this ....

You and I chatted about a freemium model. And I see you have now launched this.  Dare I say "What took you so long?"  What kind of impact is this having on usage right now? What do people get for going from free to paid levels?

Ha! Yes, it has taken us a while to realize that people want things for free, hasn’t it! We sort of went about things in an atypical order to how you see things unfold these days. For a few years, we charged people for GoldMail by either a monthly or annual rate and in doing so, it forced us to learn more about our customers. We’ve been able to refine the product and get it to the point of where we are today. We have thousands of paying customers and recently launched our free version; we know that people will pay for our business version and for our enterprise version, which we’ll officially be launching in the coming weeks, so the upgrade path has been proven.

With the launch of the free version, the doors have opened for more partnership opportunities and the downloads have gone up significantly. As the word starts to get out on GoldMail and more and more people receive and see GoldMail messages, I believe the downloads will go up exponentially. GoldMail is unique in that it has proven to be an extremely useful business tool and also has a viral feel to it, as more often than not our customers come to us as a result of receiving and/or seeing a GoldMail message. 

That makes sense to me -- that people would experience it, then be interested in trying it.

The upgrade from the free (personal) version to the business version gives the end user longer recording time, unlimited active messages, full branding capabilities, reporting and tracking on the back end, the ability to administer multiple accounts and 24/7 phone support. For our enterprise version (GoldMail Synergy), a company has the ability to preload templates into multiple GoldMail accounts. For example, a marketing team can create the images and scripts for their sales team and then upload and edit these templates into each sales person’s individual GoldMail account. This way, the sales person can login to GoldMail, select a template for their message, record their voice and send it off to a prospect or client.

Well, I can't say that I'm a big fan of scripts... but I know organizations often are. No doubt many sales people do not have your skill or finesse, Adam.

To wrap up, what do you think the future of this market looks like? What will GoldMail be offering in a few years, and what will we all be doing with e-mail (or whatever replaces it)?

Our goal when we started GoldMail was that “one day, everyone who communicates across the internet will use GoldMail.” Our focus is to provide people with a tool that is easy and non-threatening and enables the creation of a personal and powerful message in minutes. GoldMail gives people a wonderful publishing platform to express themselves and to stay connected to others.

I think we’re going to see a lot more GoldMail messages being created by people who have “something to say,” an idea to share and will use the tool as a means for creating interesting content.

I’ve always believed that GoldMail is the perfect tool for the blogging community. Firstly, when used selectively, a good blogger can insert a GoldMail to connect with their readers and to add a voice to the person behind the blog. 

More and more bloggers are using video these days and video can be cool and a very useful tool, but I often find it difficult and not very appealing or engaging to watch a person talk into a camera. GoldMail differs in that it doesn’t “force” someone to get in front of a camera and it allows the recipient’s mind to effectively be stimulated and to retain information with the voice and visual combination. It also allows the creator of a GoldMail message to speak over graphs, pictures, data and other content that isn’t easy to share using a video camera. And, most of all, it’s very cost effective and very easy to use.

Getting in front of a camera is indeed a whole bigger level of commitment than just recording to slides.

We anticipate launching both a mobile version within the next few months, and GoldMail will add other requested features, but will always maintain the product’s simplicity and ease of use.

There are so many different means of collaborating with people these days; it will be very interesting to see what we’ll all be doing with e-mail. We’re excited because regardless of the platform people use to share information i.e. e-mails and social media, GoldMail will always enable people to communicate and “connect” with others with a personal touch.

Adam, this was great. Thank you for your time, and for telling us about the business. Personally, I'm getting so much sales-oriented e-mail that asks me to do all the work, that this could be a relief. I and the readers here will be interested to see how this evolves. Good luck with the business!

I’m not a regular blogger but thought it would be fun to demonstrate how GoldMail can be used in a blog. Thank you!

Adam provided a link to his blog, where he has embedded a Goldmail message. Click the image to see/hear it.

Are you building customer equity with cross selling? Or damaging it?

"A marketing tactic that boosts sales in the short term can have a negative effect on customer lifetime value." ^*

I heard a great story today that highlights this issue brilliantly.

A bank customer got a replacement credit card in the mail, with instructions to call to activate the card. After working through the automated process, the customer was asked to "hold for an agent". So they did hold. And hold, and hold, for quite a while.

When the agent came on the line, they said they wanted to tell the customer about their balance protection insurance. The customer said: 'This is a sales pitch!'. 'No, no, this isn't a sales pitch', claimed the bank employee. Customer indicated all he wanted to do was activate the card. Employee advised that the card was active after the automated procedure was complete.

This little interaction damaged customer equity, didn't it? It's so obvious. And easy to fix.
Either stop doing it altogether, or tell the customer in the recording, "Your card is now active. If you would like to hear about balance protection insurance, please stay on the line for an agent".

Holding your busy customers hostage like this is just dumb.

Had a good experience recently? Or a bad one? Send us your story. We'll publish a selection of the best ones.

Resources

* Marketing When Customer Equity Matters. by Hanssens, Dominique M, Daniel Thorpe and Carl Finkbeiner. Harvard Business Review, May 2008

Using social media: focus on the message, and bridge new and old

I've been very interested in marketer and author Christine Whittemore's approach to social media in the carpet industry, a space not necessarily well known for innovative marketing. She graciously agreed to answer some questions about the  two business blogs she is now responsible for. In this second article in the series, (read the first one here), we'll focus on how she keeps the target audience engaged, and metrics for success.

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Focus on the message and bridge the new and the old

Ms. Whittemore believes that the relative ease of using social media tools -- versus traditional marketing communications -- allows the marketer to “focus on your message from the beginning", rather than the mechanics of delivery. But there are no quick results.

“Regardless of your industry, you still have to start from scratch to build your credibility, reputation, trustworthiness and your voice - one post at a time. And, then, you have to find ways to cross-merchandise your posts by bridging new and old forms of communication.”  Among the methods Ms. Whittemore uses to do this cross-merchandising: sending out press releases about the blog, mentioning it at presentations, and listing the blog address on a business card to hand out.

Marketers need to be prepared for ongoing learning. “I’ve heard it said that there’s no such thing as a social media expert because we are constantly learning and figuring out new approaches to what we are doing", she says."It takes time to internalize what works, and it’s easy to miss the obvious.”

As an observer, I can see a very consistent and significant effort to cross-link to previously published posts, and to engage other bloggers with comments, shout-outs and links to related content. It's an impressive effort, and really highlights that this sort of initiative requires real resourcing and time commitment if it is going to work.

The personal rewards: clear thinking and disciplined process

When people ask me about my own blogging experience, one of the things I always tell them is that my writing has improved enormously. This is Ms. Whittemore's view as well.

"Becoming successful in this environment has definitely been a stretch." She is now responsible for 3 blogs (Flooring the Consumer -- the trade blog, Carpetology -- the consumer blog, and a personal blog about her community -- The Smokerise Blog).

She publishes two to three times a week on the business blogs, in addition to writing trade articles, press releases, website updates and presentations. “Although I enjoy the written word, I never considered myself a writer.  I do now!” 

She finds the glut of information a marketer needs to deal now with a challenge to process, and hopes that the writing discipline will help with that. “I’m hoping that it will also force me to process information more quickly as it’s hard to keep up with and share the wisdom that is available.”

Engage your target audience with relevant stories

Ms. Whittemore has found that ideas, stories and examples need to be very relevant to the audience, and not too abstract. The blog needs to communicate with passion and relate to the retail experience, whether it’s in flooring or not.

While this sounds simple enough, a quick read of her blogs shows the effort that goes into this. For example, the January 12 Flooring story was about holiday store windows, and links to three other articles about store windows, complete with images, and highlights the web sites of some of the most interesting ones, such as ABC Carpet and Home, and Bergdorf Goodman. Like all the articles in this blog, there is a highly personal tone -- she explains why she doesn't have more of her own pictures of windows due to family commitments over the holidays -- and a veritable link-fest of connections to relevant content, pictures and even embedded videos.

An example of the consumer oriented content is shown in the image above, taken from the December 12 post on Carpetology. The carpet-buying sheet is a consumer-oriented one page sheet that outlines useful tips for buyers, such as keeping a sample of the installed carpet to support warranty claims. This is the sort of material that is usually buried deep inside the corporate website, and probably doesn't reach nearly as many people as it might located inside social media. The blog posting goes on to talk about how all vacuums are not the same -- "beware the beater bar!" Practical, relevant advice.

Ms. Whittemore believes the challenge now is to find ways to connect online and offline effectively. “There’s so much rich and relevant content available online that all can and should benefit from. It’s up to us as marketers to figure out how to engage those offline conversations … and make it part of the rich online discussion.  Otherwise, we’re just talking amongst ourselves.”

This theme is the topic of a new social media initiative called Bridging Old/New, “that I hope you will participate in.” [Yikes!]

Measurement and impact: tie it to the business objectives

Many bloggers are free agents of some sort, and pretty much in control of where they spend their time. We may want results, but no one is looking over our shoulder and asking the question. An employee spending this kind of time on social media is going to have to justify it for at least one stakeholder. I was curious how Ms. Whittemore is doing that.

“The beauty of this digital medium” she said, “is that there are all kinds of measures available: visitors, pageviews, subscribers, bounce rate, time on page, comments, and more.” It all depends on the purpose of the blog. Which is why her measures vary across the blogs.This is truly one of the smartest things I have yet heard spoken on the topic of social media measurement: to have objectives, and link your measurement to the objectives.

“For Flooring The Consumer, I monitor subscribers over time, comments both online and offline (I get many offline or email comments), and whether posts lead to other conversations.

“For the Carpetology Blog, I monitor overall traffic and which terms visitors have searched on, whether they have come from or go to the Wear-Dated website (http://weardated.com), and key word rankings. 

“And then, I look to see whether traffic I refer to the website is better qualified and stays longer than traffic coming from other sources. The Carpetology Blog was launched at the end of December 2007; and we redesigned the WearDated.com website on June 1, 2008.  Although it’s still early, it’s exciting to be noticing improved results!”

External recognition is always nice, though, so Carpetology was submitted to the Forrester 2008 Groundswell Awards. The submission required quantification of the value of the blog, which Ms. Whittemore kindly shared with all of her readers in a post on the Flooring site. Note that the application was for the consumer site, but the sharing was on the trade site, a neat trick that continues to support the advocacy mission with retailers. Ms. Whittemore reports that that particular article generated some great feedback from readers. The site now also has a very short pop-up survey to gather feedback from readers. Few angles are missed here.

Focus on value for audience, not measures

Despite having a good measurement strategy for her own initiatives, Ms. Whittemore cautions that measures are built over time, and there are no quick fixes. “You will NOT see sustainable radical day to day changes across any of these measures.  For improvement, you will need to show up day after day and produce authentic, relevant and valuable content. So, don’t fixate on the measures; better to focus on your audience and how to create value for them.”

---

The third and final article in this interview series will be about the lessons learned from this work, and Ms.Whittemore's view of trends.

Using social media in a traditional industry: Flooring the Consumer Blog

A lot of businesses still struggle with how to use social media effectively to communicate with their end consumers. They don’t see their company or their industry as high tech, or sexy, or particularly cutting edge – in short, they just don’t see the fit of social media for their situation. Manufacturers and wholesalers of consumer durables might well consider themselves in this situation. Take carpeting for instance. I can't remember when I have seen this industry featured in a marketing magazine.

This is why I have been fascinated with the success Christine Whittemore of Solutia has had with her personal business blog, Flooring the Consumer, and have been keen to ask her a few questions.

Ms. Whittemore agrees the carpet marketing environment is traditional. “It’s not high-tech, and not promoted as high-touch – even though carpet engages the senses more than many home products.” Far from being cutting edge in retailing or marketing, price is often a more dominant feature than fashion or design in messaging.

So carpeting is a market few would see as ripe territory for new media.Stay tuned as we find out more about bringing social media to the marketing of a carpet manufacturer.

Seriously good statistics

Flooring the Consumer was launched in June 2006, and is now ranked as #108 on the Ad Age top marketing blogs, and has over 800 subscribers. These are seriously good statistics for a blog of this type.

More importantly, as you'll see in the coming posts, the blog is achieving business results. Ms. Whittemore is the Director for In-Store Innovation for the Wear-Dated carpet fiber division of Solutia, a $3.8 Billion company with 6000 employees. The company manufactures nylon fibers that go into residential carpet. Her work involves training, presentations, and thought leadership at retail for the flooring industry.

Below, authors of the Carpetology blog. The same team "elf themselves" at the Office Max site.

Born out of frustration with traditional marketing

The blog was born out of Ms. Whittemore’s frustration with traditional marketing to achieve her business objectives. “I had been flirting with the notion of a blog -- actively for 9 months prior to taking that step -- because I was so frustrated with traditional marketing, had things to share with my audience of flooring retailers and retail salespeople, and couldn’t get published fast enough and frequently enough by the trade press.”

In addition to this challenge, there was minimal budget for a traditional newsletter, and she felt these had become “inefficient” as a communication tool in any event.

After attending a Columbia Business School conference on marketing innovation, Ms. Whittemore says she realized “most of the people in the room not only blogged, but were also cutting edge marketers…  and true innovators.” She took her content ideas and her sense of urgency to work, and the blog was born.

About consumers and retailing, not just carpeting

There are now three blogs as well as a Twitter feed, and Facebook activity. The blogs each have a distinct audience. Flooring the Consumer is targeted to the trade, and addresses topics such as marketing to women, the retail experience and consumers in general.

Carpetology, launched in December 2007, is a consumer blog about all things carpet.

The third blog, The Smoke Rise Blog, is a community-oriented, more personal blog.

While the consumers are online, not all the retailers are. There are retailers keen to reinvent the experience, however, and these are the ones that Flooring the Consumer reaches, and that keep the author motivated.

---

Next up: how to keep people engaged with relevant content, and how to measure success.

Don't panic and do anything dumb: and do filter your lists

I want to give you a smile in these bleak times when doom and gloom are everywhere -- in the skies, and in the papers.

So I've got something amazing to show you. Check out the image of the direct mail piece below. Notice anything odd?

Now this is clearly a product targeted to women. That would be, for the most part, names with an honorific like Mrs., Miss or Ms. Not the Mr. that it was addressed to.

Conditions are challenging for marketers everywhere. These are times that call for original thinking, and often, for stepping back and maybe not doing what everyone else is doing.

And while you are at it, you should ensure you are spending those scarce marketing dollars in the most effective way. [Hint: clean those e-mail lists.]

Customer managed experience: Facebook lets you vote on ads

The great promise of the web to let customers manage their own experience has only started to happen. But I saw a bright light emerge on Facebook. There are little "thumbs up", "thumbs down" symbols, as well as a "next ad" symbol under each right column advertisement. So you can start to influence what kind of advertising messages you see.

I love it. What a great idea!

I've written about customer managed relationships before. We are still a very long way from this ideal. But this is the kind of direction we need to see, and will see eventually.

Virtual sampling lets you try before you buy

Miro Slodki pointed me to this interesting development from Cathay Pacific: a 3d virtual environment that lets you try out their cabins.

I thought the demo would only show me the luxury cabins. But brilliantly, it lets you experience all classes of travel, from economy to first. You can walk around on your own, take a tour, or watch an avatar take your place as you. It's pretty engaging (and certainly makes me want to fly Cathay Pacific!)

And of course doing something like this has amazing viral value. I'm not sitting here writing about another luxury airline, am I?

Engagement on steroids: Doritos grabbed me with their Quest

Browsing a blog today, I saw an ad for what I thought must be a new adventure game reality TV show: The Quest.

Turns out it is a very cool creation of the Doritos people. You simply have to start by looking at this engaging landing page, which has several interactive elements.

I've been addicted to Nacho Cheese Doritos for years, but I guess I've been too busy wolfing the stuff down to notice their cool new marketing. This thing really caught me in my Riven and Syberia soft spot, so I clicked around.

The Quest turns out to be a contest with puzzles, not unlike the PC games mentioned above. The contest builds to a finale with a $100,000 prize.

Fortunately, they gave me hints to help me with the first puzzle, because I only ever pick up the nacho cheese, and had no idea of the bizarre flavors now available.

Pretty cool stuff, this.

Good games of this type provide frequent reinforcement [not unlike gaming machines] to keep you wanting more. Talk about sticky applications -- if you want me this weekend, I'll probably still be working on the next puzzle.

My take

Makes me wonder, once again, why some sites have to be so dull and boring. Granted, this is a snack food. But I keep wondering what a creative bank could do with this kind of thing. Or any kind of online training.

The ugly dark side of permission marketing

Permission marketing was thought to be the salvation to getting connected to customers, and simultaneously getting control of spam. Well, we're experiencing it now, and it has some nasty side effects.

Here's one that I seem to be experiencing several times a week, and maybe you are too. [Or maybe you are in charge of a program like this, and just never gave it any thought.]

The bad old way:
[1] We got your address and just sent you stuff, like it or not
[2] Once we got your e-mail address, we just sent you stuff electronically, like it or not

The even worse new way:
[1] We call you to check if we can send you stuff. This is important, since we don't want to be spammers. We only want to send out material when we have your permission.
[2] If you agree, we ask you to confirm all your details, including e-mail. We may ask you a few other qualifying questions about your company. Don't worry that you're not getting any information here, it's all going to be in the informative attachment.
[3] We send you some e-mail -- usually it has an attachment that is a PDF file of a PowerPoint or a brochure.
[4] We call back later to enquire if you have read it. You did give us permission to send it. Is there some reason you haven't read it?
[5] If you haven't had time to read it, that's okay, we'll diarize to call you again.
[6] Still haven't read it? No problem, we'll keep calling.

What's the problem here:
Most of these programs are run by people who have no ability to answer questions about the company or its services. If they are salespeople, they don't want to take the time.

If you ask them questions, they tell you that the information is contained in the PDF, if you would just agree to let them send it to you.They would really like you to read it first, and THEN call with your questions.

Typically, these organizations know totally nothing about the company they are calling. [That would be me, my company. Or you and your company. They haven't read our web site. They haven't read our directory listings. They haven't read your stuff either. They have invested nothing so far.]

Even if I tell them I'm not interested because we don't do that type of work, they want to send me stuff anyway. And they call back anyway. They think my needs might change in future, and they would like permission to keep in touch.

Someone, somewhere, thinks this is good direct marketing. I hope you're not one of them.

Go back to the past to find the future -- find a real sales person:

Here's the thing. My boutique organization is getting two to three calls like this each week, and on rough weeks, two to three calls like this a day. I'm starting to not take calls from numbers I don't recognize. Just how much traction do you think you can get from this approach?

Real sales people talk to prospects. They don't waste their time talking to non-prospects. And they do this quickly and politely. I've encountered a few -- they are out there, and you can hire them if you look. They are worth their weight in mailing lists.

Before you embark on a program like this, ask yourself why anyone should invest any time at all reading about your company if you haven't invested in reading about theirs.

Buzz marketing: what it's like to be paid to buzz

A great little article showed up today in a sample magazine, describing the experiences of author Bonnie Staring as she tried being paid to buzz about products.

It dealt with a question I'd been wondering about for a while, namely, what is it like to be part of one of these paid networks of influencers?

Initially, it feels kind of cool getting new stuff, especially a toothbrush that she really liked herself. But later, she thinks she may be overdoing it with people.

Some of my closest friends have asked me to stop talking about the fall shows. And the toothbrush. And the vacation-planning website... They didn't need "the sell", they said (although they were happy to take the coupons and free samples). Huh. I hadn't thought of what I was doing as selling. I was just sharing my opinion, wasn't I? I asked my husband. "But before, you used to wait for someone to ask for it," he answered.

The author concludes that she is not really enough of a trend-setter to enjoy this type of thing, and that overall, she was "trying too hard".

One thing I learned that I did not know before is that legitimate word-of-mouth (WOM to insiders) networks insist that their agents disclose their participation in a paid network. Sean Moffitt, a WOM expert interviewed for the article says transparency is essential to avoid a very negative backlash to the brand.

Resources:
Word of Mouth Marketing: Smart or Sneaky? Homemakers Magazine, April 2008
Bonnie Staring's blog
Sean Moffitt's blog -- Sean is our local buzz marketing guru, and the founder of the Influencers network

Marketing savvy consumers and what this means for marketing

I was cleaning six months of paper out of the office last weekend. Predictably, after a few hours of energetic tossing out, recycling, and crisp decision-making, I started to drift, re-reading this and that, shifting paper from place to place. [But also ... uncovering things worth sharing!]

I heard Chris Barnham speak at the QRCA conference last October. I had a few notes on this presentation that seem worth sharing.

[1] the consumer has become more sophisticated. They see brand owner "intentionality" everywhere. And they want to know what the brand's agenda is

[2] consumers may like the brand but distrust the marketing

[3] the brand and the brand owner are no longer the same thing. the brand owner has become a force behind the brand with an agenda of its own

[4] when the brand owner is not synonymous with the brand, the brand is not a vehicle for the owner's message, it is the thing that is being experienced. The brand is a repository for meaning. A wonderful analogy to explain this: the brand is to the company as the novel is to the author. We see the connection, but we don't see them as the same. We experience the brand as text on its own. Another analogy: Macbeth is not just a story about witches, it has much more richness than that.

[5] this situation makes the whole awareness --> interest --> decision --> action model of advertising / brand communications pretty unhelpful in unpacking what is going on with a brand, and a consumers relationship to a brand

[6] the brand is instantiating the values and meaning of the brand essence.

[7] the reality of the brand is in the mind of the reader, the watcher, the experiencer.

Mr. Barnham made reference to G.P.Radford, and his book, "On the Philosophy of Communication". Radford says that before the 17th century, the word communication is more about sharing, participation and association. Our notion of the word communication implying transmission of a message is relatively new. We went from the notion of sharing an idea to the notion of conveying an idea.

In the new world of branding, this old notion of communication is back. The one being communicated with is in communion with the sender -- in fact, both are sharing the creation of the idea. [Co-creation anyone?]

So, where does that leave us?

According to Mr. Barnham, if the brand is the manifestation rather than the sender of the message...

Then marketing activity becomes the actualization of brand essence ...

And brand communication needs to refocus on 'sharing' rather than 'sending'.

More practically, when we are conducting research, we may be going down the wrong path if we ask what a brand is saying. We should ask how a brand is being.

These are biggish ideas, with heavy duty implications. 

Also learned from this presentation:

[8] red type on a purple background is practically invisible. But the message was so good I stayed with it.

You know advertising is hot when it's displacing IT among IT research houses

I always thought of Forrester as an IT-oriented research house. And then they were on stuff like supply chains and outsourcing. However, they are now getting talked about for their thought pieces on where advertising agencies are going.

This suggests two things to me:

1. Forrester is good at figuring out what's hot
2. Marketing, advertising, and brand building are hotter than they have ever been, but also under more scrutiny than ever.

I have other evidence of this trend.

The Globe and Mail, my daily must-read newspaper, never deemed marketing topics worthy of business coverage. [Well, any kind of coverage, actually.]  Not long ago -- within the last 18 months for sure -- they have added regular material on this topic. It's thin, but it's there.

Friday, I heard Terry O'Reilly speak at a conference on qualitative research. Mr.O' Reilly is a regular feature on CBC radio, and known for his expertise in advertising, as both a creator and a commentator. Here's one of the notable things he said on the topic of insight and advertising:

"Creative ideas born of intuition are the last legal means of gaining a competitive advantage over your competition."

I thought this was a) brilliant, and b) true.   

Forrester seems to think that advertising agencies are not helping marketing people connect with consumers and customers in a meaningful way. This is the summary of their recent research report, The Connected Agency: Partner With An Agency That Listens Instead of Shouts

"Today's agencies fail to help marketers engage with consumers, who, as a result, are becoming less brand-loyal and more trusting of each other. To turn the tide, marketers will move to the Connected Agency — one that shifts: from making messages to nurturing consumer connections; from delivering push to creating pull interactions; and from orchestrating campaigns to facilitating conversations. Over the next five years, traditional agencies will make this shift; they will start by connecting with consumer communities and will eventually become an integral part of them."

I have not read the whole report, but I am having trouble seeing this as news. And it's far too easy to just blame the agencies, who are under tremendous pressure to deliver results these days. But they can only do what they get a mandate and a budget to do from the marketing people. Surely marketers themselves must take responsibility for connecting with consumers.

And so must executives.

Being in the insight and intuition business myself, I can only agree with Mr. O' Reilly: we need better strategies. We need insights. We need innovation in marketing and advertising.

At the same conference where Mr. O' Reilly was a headliner, I presented with a client a case study on some innovative research we did together. When we got to the Q&A, the biggest question that came up -- which we brainstormed as a group -- was HOW to convince executives to do something less conventional than a focus group or a survey.

These researchers and marketers -- they want to deliver innovation, they want to deliver category-changing insight, but feel challenged to sell it into the organization.

We came up with a flip-chart full of ideas of how to do this. Things like: start small, start with intractable problems where there is motivation to try something different, and so on.

But as one of the research buyers said, "We want innovation, we want to do something new, and we want amazing insights, but we only want it once it's been done before. How do you sell this into the organization?"

Of course, we on the practitioner side have another challenge. Having promised these category-changing insights, we need to stand and deliver.

I only wish these insights that can change the landscape could be produced on demand. [I'll be hunting for a good one this week, wish me luck.]

How creative takes a key driver and works it

Fabulous article here by Joseph Carrabis, called Men and Women in General. He's talking about how to sell to couples. But it is also a lovely illustration of how you take an insight and translate it into compelling communication. 

This is often a challenge for clients, because enormous subtlety is involved. You can't just take the insight and translate literally.

Couples and jewelry

In this article, Mr. Carrabis give us some insights about couples: couples are comfortable and relaxed when they are touching.

"All humans -- regardless of language, culture, education, vocation and avocation -- carry with them a sense of personal space.

"People touch when they're comfortable with each other, and the degree of comfort is shown in shared body postures, shared eye focus, shared facial expressions and so on."

He gives us a second bit of insight, related to the jewelry category; a gift of expensive jewelry signifies possession more than our modern concept of love.  It relates to the ability to provide abundance for another person.

Then he suggests how to translate these insights into compelling creative.

You visually show the touching, the circle of closeness between two people, their emotional connection. And you show the jewelry right beside those touching hands. The jewelry is part of the emotional closeness. He has three images that illustrate the idea.

Couples and travel

I wanted to see how this insight might translate to another category. So I looked for other products that target couples. Sandals, the couples resort, seemed a likely candidate. And just look at these clips. The circle  of intimacy is very clear. Even in the group shot, the couples are closer together.

I loved the way the ads suggest physical intimacy without saying a word, and without crossing the line of good taste.

Couples and homebuilding

A building supplies site gives us this uninspiring photo on their 'build your own home' page. If ever there were a project that would make you nervous about your relationship, building your own home together would surely take the prize. But we don't have a couple lovingly planning their home, we have a harsh image of a sledge hammer slamming into foundation molds.

I wasn't able to find a better example in this category, actually. The home-building industry seems to be all about 'the stuff', not the people. Except I bet that's not totally true.

The difference in emotional impact between these two images is quite striking.

Brand slogans, brand positioning: behind the scenes with irreverent slogans

Apparently the United Kingdom is considering a new motto. Naturally, the droll Brits are proposing many laugh-out-loud possibilities. I think Dipso Fatso Bingo ASBO Tesco is my favorite, as reported by the TimesOnline.

It reminded me of the irreverent slogans that people create for commercial brands, to capture the essence of their customer experience. Perhaps you'll remember a few of these, and feel free to add your own.

IBM - "We're arrogant, and we should be"
Microsoft - "We put the work in networking" and "The glue that holds your problems together"
Apple - "If you wanted support, you should have bought Jockey"

A great list of bank slogans is here. My fave, for UBS: "You BS, so we BS"

A related category is what the letters really stand for. Here are a few I've heard:

Technology companies are a popular target: IBM - I've Been Moved;  HP - Help Please

The car category is rife with these: FIAT - Fix It Again Tony

As is banking: TD - Turn Down Bank; NCB - Never Coming Back.

The cellular industry, so rife with acronyms, is fertile ground for this sort of fun: enormous list here.

Doesn't it make you wonder what your customers would say if I put this question to them? "Come up with an irreverent slogan for Company X."

Something different in automotive marketing: Nissan Rogue City Guide

I actually read an automotive advertising supplement this week, a rare event for me. And came across an interesting effort from Nissan. I can get a widget for my desktop that will keep me informed of events happening in my city. I don't think my social life is quite up to this standard, unfortunately... but what an interesting way to connect with your customers! And clearly based on a lot of insight into their target customer.
You can check out their site here.

How to differentiate your organization: HOK architects

HOK architects (Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum) are a wonderful example of differentiation. I made this decision after reading about them in John Bentley Mays' column recently, Great architecture, using less 'stuff' in The Globe and Mail. Mays was interviewing the firm's chairman, Bill Valentine.

Here are a few of the things he said that really captured my attention, and are frankly inspiring.

On waste:

"I'm really interested in using less stuff -- less drywall, less steel, less concrete. We waste [materials] like there was an endless supply of everything."

On HOK's mission:

"At HOK, there are actually very few rules. But the one thing we hope to do, the thing that binds us all, is to enrich people's lives. Not to try being on the cover of every magazine. It's about being helpful in this crazy world we live in, especially in Western culture, where there's money being spent on all kinds of super-crazy things. ... If we can get ourselves wrapped around enriching people's lives as a goal, architecture can be a social implement."

"I know Frank Gehry, I like Frank Gehry. But the whole idea of how twisted can the next thing be, how expensive can it possibly be, how rare a metal on this one -- it's all a step in the wrong direction. I'm hoping HOK will push solving simple problems. That's our glue. We communicate with each other a lot, and try to have a good time, and we try to be helpful. It's that simple."

On architecture's relevance:

"I really worry that, in our profession, there's a schism between what real people think and what architects think. People know what's comfortable. The great cities are seldom [clusters of] these superglassy gizmos."

What this has to do with differentiation:

This firm has put a stake in the ground on who they are. Nothing could be clearer than what the chairman is saying about being helpful, avoiding waste, making things better for people.

They are not trying to be Frank Gehry. They are not trying to be anyone else. They are trying to be the best possible version of themselves. This is the essence of marketing differentiation. It's not so much about the marketing as it is about the mission.

And this no doubt is a major part of the organization's success. Because this firm has some 2,100 employees around the world, and billed $475.8 million USD last year.

Resources:

HOK web site

"Great architecture, using less 'stuff'", by John Bentley Mays, Globe & Mail, Sept. 28, 2007

Are they consumers or customers? Getting your marketing lingo straight

When I first started in the marketing research biz, a friend and mentor told me I needed to fix my language, and start referring to the target of research activities as "consumers". I'd been marking myself as a neophyte among all the advertising and packaged goods people  by calling these folks "customers".

My real problem was that I'd crossed over from a world where the buyers of your services have individual names (financial services), to a world where the buyers of your goods are largely a nameless mass (most consumer products).

After a little research, I found the definition and compiled and created the list below, adding some handy-dandy examples for each attribute.

With this convenient de-coder list in hand, you too will be able to spot people who have crossed over in some way, and are calling apples by an orange name.

What's the difference between a product and a service, really?

Here's a nice definition for a service:

"Any act or performance offered that is essentially intangible and does not result in ownership of any thing"

                    - Prof. Brian Engelland, MSU

There are many more attributes that we can dig down into, however, to understand why services and products are very different. Here's my list.

You are dealing with a service when...

[1] Production and consumption are hard to separate. Examples: travel, investments

[2] Intangibles form a large part of what is being purchased. Examples: insurance, consulting

[3] There is no change of ownership. Customers typically rent a service, rather than owning it. Examples: credit card or loan, hotel room

[4] A sale that does not happen today cannot be recovered in the future. Examples: empty seats in a theatre, lost interest on a mortgage

[5] Customers must evaluate the purchase decision with few tangibles to go on. Examples: health care

[6] Output quality is variable, and depends on the performance of individuals. Examples: Hair styling, interior decorating, surgery

[7] Manner of dress, body language, and expressed language form part of the brand experience.  Examples: air travel, retail banking

[8] Cycle of purchase is repeated through 'rental payments'. There is no smooth movement through a consumption cycle, and there are frequent 'moments of truth'.  Examples: health club membership, anti-virus software rental, weight-loss groups

[9] Employees behavior and knowledge is central to delivery and quality. Examples: financial planning

[10] The memories of the experience may be as important as the experience itself. Examples: vacation travel, theme parks

[11] There are high degrees of customer contact during production. Examples: health care, spa services

[12] Competing offerings may differ in how much of the work of production is shifted to the buyer.  Examples: online brokerage vs. full service, self-serve vs. full service gas station

[13] Suppliers assume real economic risks (exceeding the revenue potential) by choosing a given customer. Some interested customers must be rejected. Examples: credit cards, insurance, auditing

[14] Customers assume real economic risks (exceeding the fee paid for the service) by choosing a given supplier. Examples: mutual funds, home insurance

[15] Everyone calls them clients, users or customers, rather than consumers

So now you know. There you have it. Try to keep your customers and your consumers straight now, okay?

Understanding the difference between customers and consumers gives you some important insights into underlying truths that truly do affect decisions about marketing and other real world issues.

Resources:

The graphic came from the Prelinger Archives, from a composite movie called Much Better.

Why trust is essential to your brand and your service: lessons from the lemonade stand

Walking through my neighborhood yesterday I passed a lemonade stand. I may be steeled to the solicitations of street people, but this little girl had me licked. Fortunately, her lemonade was a) good, and b) only 25 cents a glass.

She was pretty little, younger than the girl in this picture. And she really wanted to hand me the glass and take the money in the same instant, with the same hand if possible. She wasn't yet used to the trust that pervades even the simplest of business transactions. She didn't want to take the money first, but she also didn't want to hand over the lemonade without getting the money. [We worked it out without spilling a drop.]

This interaction reminded me that trust is fundamental, even foundational. The simplest exchange relies on it. I imagine the earliest hominids trying to make exchanges.  It isn't easy to transact if one person can't go first.  [After all, you don't want spilled lemonade all over the place].

There are mechanisms in business to transact with people you don't know and don't trust, but they're all complicated things, like letters of credit. Even then, we would consider most people foolish to do business with anyone they actually do not trust at all, regardless of how secure the transaction seemed. So even things like credit cards, which resolve many risks related to payment, don't overcome the trust gap. If people don't trust you, they can't do business with you.

Very often, we trust first, and distrust later. You earn the distrust by losing the trust.

What all this means to me is that any loss of trust with your customers is not minor. If you make promises you don't deliver on,  you have proven yourself not trustworthy. If you surprise people with hidden fees, you have proven yourself not trustworthy. There are a gazillion ways to erode trust, and really only one a few ways to build trust. You build trust by doing what you say you are going to do and doing it in a fair, open and transparent manner.

Custom-manufacturer with clever marketing idea: Freddy + Ma

Custom manufacturing really seems to be taking off, and here's another example: Freddy & Ma, makers of custom handbags.

Pick a basic style, choose a leather color, then go wild on fabric choices, from a fantastic selection of fabrics. So many wonderful possibilities, and a very engaging interface.

And how did those clever people entice me to their web-site? They offered TypePad bloggers a generous discount on a bag. And look at all the free publicity they are going to get from this, to say nothing of new customers.

Eisenberg on the future of marketing: "Brands don't work the way they used to"

Thanks to Howard Kaplan at Grok.com for posting an audio link to a presentation by Jeffrey Eisenberg  on the future of marketing.

Eisenberg has a lot of interesting things to say about how marketing is changing because of the web, and other new communication technologies.  Here were a few of the things he said that made me sit up and take note:

"More and more money is coming online. More and more advertising is going online. And as more and more money gets spent on advertising it becomes more expensive. It's the simple law of supply and demand. And the people who can't convert high enough will not be able to afford that traffic. And when they can't afford that traffic they will either go bankrupt or get bought by somebody who can afford that traffic. "

"Brands don't work the way they used to ... Take a look at a company like Starbucks. Can anybody name a major brand, not a brand extension, but a major brand that in the last decade has been created primarily through advertising? Nobody. I've never met a crowd that could. If you think of companies like Yahoo and Google and Starbucks and Amazon, these companies have been built by experience and by word of mouth. Marketing doesn't work the way it used to."

"64% of people go out of their way to avoid companies that over-market to them"

Jeffrey Eisenberg is co-author of the bestselling book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?

Co-creation and fashion brands

Reader Sophie R. is studying at the London College of Fashion, and sent me some questions with respect to her dissertation on fashion management. I thought her questions were interesting, and hope you do too.

Sophie: What has changed in the last decades in terms of : consumer behaviour, ways of consumption?  What do the consumers expect the most from the brand today?  Is consumer behaviour in fashion different? If yes, what is different?

Susan: With the advent of the internet, many people expected brands to become less important. This hasn't really happened, except in commodity purchases, where quality and status aren't that relevant. When faced with overwhelming choice, a brand that you trust can help you make a decision. In this sense, brands are even more important.  The big change with brands is that we no longer choose a brand for life; most of us are pretty fickle when it comes to our brand selections.  Another big shift is that we may be luxury brand purchasers in one area of our lives, and bargain purchasers in another, without finding anything inconsistent about this.
This trend is very evident in fashion, with the success of knock-off houses like H&M and Zara providing inexpensive access to high-style and design. Yet luxury brands still have tremendous presence, whether it's a Prada handbag or an Omega watch.

Sophie: Could you explain in a few words the concept of co-creation? How does the consumer react towards co-creation? How could you qualify the presence of co-creation on the market place   
nowadays? Does it have implication on any brands’ success?

Susan: Co-creation is about bringing consumers into a closer relationship with the brand by inviting them to take part in the creative process. This could be by letting people propose advertising. Or it could involve giving customers tools to customize and personalize their purchase. Mini Cooper gives customers an enormous array of customization options, for example. 

We would still want our brand to make sure we look good at the end -- my assumption is that BMW is not going to let me design an ugly Mini. So I can trust the brand, and experiment within the brand's boundaries.

A brand should only choose the co-creation route when they can make it fit into the brand promise -- co-creation is likely not for every brand. A brand that is all about stability, for example, might not be a good candidate for co-creation. I think most financial institution brands would struggle with this concept.

Sophie: Why is interaction important for the consumers? How can co-creation influence consumer behaviour?

Susan: Consumers don't want to be passive recipients of dispensed wisdom from big companies. There are a multitude of personal styles at work today, especially in the fashion world. There are so many 'looks' now, that we can all do almost whatever we want.

Let's consider a fashion organization that is conducting creative design workshops with their target customer on a regular basis. The customer involvement in the creation process will ensure that the product that emerges makes sense. This is a lot more than a focus group -- this is an ongoing involvement of customers in the creation of the future of the brand. The internal designers have the last word, but they have greater access to involve the customer in creation.  I don't see this being relevant for all consumers, but for those that are really engaged with the category or the brand, and are opinion leaders in their segment.

Sophie: Can you describe the role of Internet in the development of co-creation? How does Internet help brands to interact with the consumers?

Susan: The internet has provided a means of communicating with customers on a large scale, and allowing tremendous efficiencies in creating supply chains that can accommodate a lot of customization, and customer interaction. Web 2.0 applications like MySpace give people the opportunity to create and interact on a huge scale. This is now setting the standard for what we expect to be able to do generally.  So the internet has simultaneously improved the ability to create two-way communication, and raised expectations for it.

I expect that people like Madonna have always been able to enter into a dialogue of co-creation with designers like Gaultier. Patrons of the arts have had some co-creation capability since the time of the Medici. But the presence of the internet, and the general flattening of the global economy, has brought this possibility to a much larger number of people -- it has democratized co-creation.

Sophie: Is co-creation a short term phenomenon or a long term change?

Susan: We don't usually want to give up things we have learned to love. So I would say this is a trend that has long-term legs. But no organization, fashion or otherwise, should think this relieves them of the need to be cool and be design-focused, or to understand their customers and segments. In fact, that need has never been greater.

Co-creation does not mean telling me to go ahead and do-it-myself. It means bringing my ideas as a consumer / customer inside the company, creating an ongoing dialogue with this group, and giving them more influence over direction. In this sense, we could consider co-creation as the next phase of evolution of  Voice-of-the-Customer thinking. Except VOC is often a survey, and co-creation is much more connected, more of a dialogue.

Sophie: Last words: suppose you have one advice to give to brand’s managers who want to co-create with consumers, what would it be?

Susan: I think I've said enough already, and am going to throw this one out to the readers. Readers, how would you answer that one?

So Sophie - if you get an A, send us a gold star, okay buddy?

Loyalty Program Points for Orange Juice

I just got an offer from Aeroplan to earn points by buying specially marked boxes of Tropicana, and then entering the numbers on them into my Aeroplan account.
Interesting concept.

[Forget for a moment that they promised to only send me relevant and important e-mail...how do I untick "juice offers"??]

This feels very new and innovative. No idea if it will work, but I suspect they have realized that we're not cashing in coupons the way we used to, and they're trying something new. Now if the store could just do this on my behalf somehow, we'd really be cooking here.

Keeping up with the connections

Sean Moffit at Buzz Canuck has created a wiki to enable more connectedness among the Canadian bloggers, called the 1 percent army. (Aren't lists fun?) Now someone has proposed that we have a virtual meeting in Second Life. [Which means I need to visit again soon, and re-learn how to walk, fly, and talk...Just as soon as I finish my GST return...]

The wiki has a wonderful quote attributed to Victor Hugo, and totally appropriate not just for this wiki, but for this year:

"One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas." (Victor Hugo / 1802-1885)

At the same time, a client said to me today that "blogs are so passe ... it's all about podcasts now." Indeed, she may be right. It's hard to keep up. People keep asking me how I keep up. If only...!

Dunbar's number: or why you can't have all the coffee dates you want

I was thinking about something called Dunbar's number recently, which seemed to fit one aspect of this keeping up issue: I can't keep up with all the people in my network.

Dunbar studied primates and their social networks, which had an average size of about 50. Based on this work, he predicted the average size of human networks would be 150, based on our brain size. [whatever...]. Turns out that he was pretty close to right.

I heard an O.D. consultant describe that number as the campfire circle -- the number of people who can form a ring, and still feel like part of a shared bonfire experience.

In an actual coffee date with a very interesting person today, we discussed the formation of networks of resources among entrepreneurs, and how one might facilitate more of that kind of good thing. So people can find a good lawyer, a good banker, and so forth. The challenge is, if you're not careful, you reinvent the Yellow Pages. And it's been done.

But you can't have coffee dates with that many people, or even exchange e-mails regularly with them, no matter how interesting they are. Not if you want happy clients, at any rate. Eventually you just have to let go, and hope you bump into them at a conference somewhere. And hope they don't think you're a snob, or arrogant, appallingly disorganized, or just a plain old jerk of the first order.

I have had e-mail replies to notes I sent to people who I imagine to be much busier and more connected than me, such as Seth Godin and Warren Bennis. How on Earth do they do this? Do they have a small army of executive assistants? I can't even keep up with my comments page, and let me just apologize right now if I've offended you by not sending a personal note, as I used to be able to do.

What is the Dunbar's Number for brands?

With all this connecting going on, who's got the time for strategic thinking out there?

And why do you think anyone has the time or interest to read your lame advertising, listen to your direct marketing call, open your multi-page PDF brochure, or anything else that isn't completely compelling?   

Indeed, why should anyone develop a connection to your brand? If you aren't in the inner circle of brands, maybe you'll just be disconnected, like a friend we used to have that we don't have time to have coffee with anymore. We still send them the Christmas letter, but it doesn't have a personalized PS. It's a lingering remnant of a past relationship, a memory, a memento of something that used to be relevant.

This is the joy, and also the challenge of social networks and all the cool technology that enables them. I am now in touch with researchers around the world, but didn't have my neighbors in for coffee. [And what with global alarming, we may not even bump into each other shovelling snow this year]

And somewhere in my inbox is at least one invitation to coffee from December that I still haven't answered, from an interesting person. If only one could make a living going for coffee, e-mailing and of course writing blog articles.

References:

Dunbar's number, according to Answers.com is here.

Amusing version of Dunbar's number and what it means for man's inhumanity to man is here. 

Buzz Canuck's list of Canadian bloggers is here.

[Imagine what such a list would look like if it were U.S. bloggers... I think it's called Technorati?]

Global Alarming: the re-branding of an issue

We are having unseasonably mild weather here, a subject I discussed with a cab driver a few days ago. He told me about the cold conditions in Pakistan, where he still has family, and where the temperature now drops below zero on a regular basis -- something entirely new.
This triggered the usual blah, blah about "not sure if it's really global warming, it's not getting warm everywhere"...  followed by him saying he was calling it "global alarming".
Well, didn't that just make me sit up and take notice.

Imagine if this thing had been properly branded from the outset. You wouldn't need a science degree to get it, because we all get this when we hear the weird news about weather. We might have been a lot farther ahead.

Whatever you call it, expect it to be BIG in 2007. It might even displace innovation as the topic de jour.

Marketing Segmentation: shameless plug alert

Warning: shameless plug coming: I'm telling you about an upcoming speaking engagement. If you hate this sort of thing, skip this post. 

I'll be talking at an upcoming conference on market segmentation to be held in Toronto on Dec 14 & 15. Sue Ince, one of my colleagues, is also on the agenda, talking about multi-dimensional methods and similar quantitative methods. She's forgotten more about this stuff than most people ever learn. So it should be a useful event. Full details here.

And if you do attend, and you're a reader, please introduce yourself! 

Market Segmentation: Looking for stories and examples

I'm putting the finishing touches on a presentation I'm giving soon on market segmentation. The specific topic relates to successful implementation.  [Hardly a one hour topic, more like a book, but that's another story]. 

So who are the heroes of successful marketing segmentation these days? What are the stories we should be celebrating or wringing our hands about?

If you have thoughts on this topic, war stories to share, or ideas about who has done this well, please comment, send me an e-mail, fly a trial balloon etc. Like Yankelovich's February 2006 article in Harvard Business Review (a masterpiece on this topic, but you will need to buy it if you don't subscribe), I want to focus on taking action in the business to respond to the segmentation. 

Marketing with YouTube

This morning I received an e-mail from speaking coach Mark Bowden. He had been interviewed on CBC Television about the local mayoralty race. And he included a link to YouTube where he had uploaded the video clip.

Brilliant small business marketing!  He gives people the chance to view the clip with an easy link and load, rather than sending us to an archive that may have the clip embedded in a longer program. He adds his one-slide marketing message at the end. And he doesn't even have to host the bandwidth for this.

I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of this.

Why marketing is more important than ever, but not in the marketing department

We have a paradox in front of us these days.

One group of people is decrying the problems of the marketing department, and talking about what the future marketing department will look like. 

The other group is saying how important customers are, and how the knowledge traditionally held in the marketing department is now critically important to business sucess. 

Both of these things are true.

Some of this came into focus for me recently while reading John Bradley's column in Strategy Magazine, "Balls, bollocks & cocks on the block". Bradley compares the performance of Shopper's Drug Mart (a large retail chain here in the great white north) with Kraft, and finds Kraft wanting.  Specifically, he sees Kraft attempting to build direct customer relationships via recipe delivery thingy "What's Cooking", and finds it problematic that they never bothered to close the feedback loop.  They didn't fine tune their recipe delivery based on his selections, and they didn't follow up when he unsubscribed. He attributes this to underfunding of a good idea.

On the other hand, he sees Shoppers Drug Mart as disciplined and integrated, having avoided the fight for resources that plagues organizations with multiple brands.  Here's the stuff I circled and tore out:

"In my experience, probably the biggest impediment to radical change in a business is the brand management structure. No surprise really. After all, it was invented for the express purpose of generating a Darwinian battle for resources; not for realigning organizations. And once a brand management structure is in place, the danger is that the rest of the organization thinks that marketing is something the marketing department does rather than something the business does, which makes single-mindedness even harder to achieve.

"The bottom line is that marketing-driven companies have the ability to push through and implement radical change; marketing department-driven companies don't. The clock is ticking as much on the traditional brand management model as it is on the big ad agency model."

All businesses have a larger service component than they did in the past, even manufacturers like Kraft. And services require integrated thinking because they involve delivery on an ongoing basis. Services are intensely operational.

When brand management was introduced to a lot of service companies, they brought this legacy of siloed thinking with them into the marketing department. We seem to finally be through that phase of evolution.

If you are in an industry where customer experience is a key differentiator, strategic marketing is going to be the job of every senior person: thinking about what customers to serve, and what the value proposition is. 

Tactical and functional marketing is what will be left in marketing: media buying, creative production, research co-ordination. But they are not going to be running the place.

References:

Another perspective on this issue is here at Church of the Customer

Who's talking about you?

It's important to stay on top of the buzz, to see who is talking about your brand. There's not much excuse now that there are such great tools to do this online. Here are a couple of examples:

Technorati and other blog search engines will tell you who's linked to your blog.  I track this but forget to check, and as a result missed that Buzz Canuck named us as one of Canada's top 20 talking about WOM (Word of Mouth) and related issues. And Converstations gave us an honorable mention in their blue-ribbon blog list. [By the way, thanks!  You guys made my day putting me in such good company!]

These search engines can also be searched for your brand name, and will tell you who is blogging about your brand. [Bloggers just do this for fun.]  You need to do this to stay on top of the buzz.  It needs to be on at least one person's job description to monitor, summarize and distribute.  Or hire a service to do this for you. And if no one talks about you in a blog, you are either dead or really boring -- a finding in itself.

Google alerts will send you an e-mail anytime a given topic has something new that they've indexed.  This is how I keep finding out about other people who share my brand name -- the artist, the PR consultant, the joke-book author, the career counselor who specializes in creative types, and one day recently, the crook.

Social tagging software such as del.icio.us allows people to tag and categorize things they find online that they want to visit again, without using bookmarks on their browser.  It's a very handy tool.  See how many people have saved access to your web pages by putting your company name into their search box.

I know I'm not the world's expert on this topic -- anyone care to add a few more tips to this list?

Bathroom Marketing: reaching customers where they least expect it

I recently saw a new twist on advertising in bathrooms -- flat screen video. Your intrepid blogger took incredible risks capturing this photo for you inside the ladies room.

A second terminal was kindly placed outside the ladies room (below), no doubt to serve the ever-present line-up of women, or perhaps their male partners who are patiently waiting for them.

Anything that can reduce the annoyance of waiting is usually a good thing for customer experience. 

As every space your eyeballs may roam continues to be colonized by commercial messaging, it is going to be harder and harder to be heard by anyone at all.   

The Brand as Idea

One of the best explanations of branding I've ever seen was in a New York Times article, The Brand Underground, by Rob Walker.  Here it is:

"Branding is ... a process of attaching an idea to a product. Decades ago that idea might have been strictly utilitarian: trustworthy, effective, a bargain. Over time, the ideas attached to products have become more elaborate, ambitious and even emotional. This is why, for example, current branding campaigns for beer or fast food often seem to be making some sort of statement about the nature of contemporary manhood. If a product is successfully tied to an idea, branding persuades people -- consciously or not -- to consume the idea by consuming the proudct. Even companies like Apple and Nike, while celebrated for the tangible attributes of their products, work hard to associate themselves with abstract notions of nonconformity or achievement.  A potent brand becomes a form of identity in shorthand."

There it is folks.  Print this one out and stick it on the wall.  Branding is a process of attaching an idea to a product. (or service).  It's not a logo. Period. Full stop. [I know -- I'm preaching to the converted here, but wasn't that a beautiful expression of the idea?]

Corporate Blogging: It's not about the blog, it's about the authenticity

People are now researching corporate blogs: what makes them effective, how to do it, etc. Answering someone else's questions on this helped me get clarity on my own thinking. [Children and coaches excel at this, but I made do with a survey.]

Corporate blogs are an interesting phenomenon not because they are blogs, but because of the characteristics of the communication:

• Uses a personal, not a corporate voice
• Shares information in a way that feels more like a conversation than a brochure.  Stories, personal insights, and opinions, not just factoids
• If successful, are as much about the reader as the writer -- not unlike being a successful newspaper columnist.  The best blogs are interesting in their own right.
• Characterized by honesty and authenticity -- both attributes that are often seen as lacking in corporate communication and marketing generally

Do you need to have a blog to have authentic communication?

No, of course not.  You do need to have a culture that is comfortable with these characteristics, however.  Consider the differences between Ikea and most financial institutions. Ikea's communications feel authentic, but I don't think they have a blog. On the other hand, they have so many raving fans that blog about them, perhaps they don't need a blog of their own.

There is a real risk of damage to a brand if a corporate blog is not well handled.  Most of my clients are financial services related, and these corporations are characterized by high degrees of centralized control over communications.  However, they could still have successful blogs. My suggestions would be these:

• Find a topic area that has enough content to stay fresh.  You really need at least one new post weekly.
• Find an individual who enjoys writing and speaking and already does some of this in their role at work.  If they are representing the company, they need to be someone who could give a media interview without asking permission, and senior enough that they can use good judgement in how they handle a topic.
• Writing takes time.  You can't just add it on to someone's current to-do list.

Regardless of whether you have a corporate blog or not, you still need a blog policy to cover the employees that might want to have blogs of their own -- unofficial ones. There are lots of good ones around online that could get you started.

My take

Honest communication and transparency are the critical elements in corporate blogging, not the format of the communication.  Authenticity and transparency are becoming increasingly important to business and brands, and corporate marketing generally, and blogs tend to be good places to express these concepts. But you don't need a blog to have authenticity.

Resources:

Initial study by Nora Ganim Barnes from the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth: Behind the Scenes in the Blogosphere

New study, Nora Barnes and Eric Mattson, "Thinking like a Blogger". If you can add useful data to the study, here's the link to the survey. Their cutoff is August 23, 2006.

What Integrated Brand Messaging Looks Like

I received a nice insert in my newspaper recently.
Even before I looked at it, I knew what company issued it.

Typeface: clear, clean look, very open, san serif.  Always the same.

Colors: bright, often changing, but something about the colors and the way they work together sends a clear message. The corporate color is there, but it isn't the only color.  These people have put the whole rainbow to work, and very effectively

Words: friendly, low key, and uses words a customer would use.  It's all about the customer, not about the company.  And there's just the tiniest bit of humour, always a refreshing change in this category.

Do your marketing materials work this hard?
This kind of consistent messaging is a high standard for any organization to reach, large or small. 
It's not just consistency that counts.  It's consistency that means something to your target audience, and that helps them engage with you.

And consistency is in tone, product design, everything you've got. 

So kudos to Scotiabank for doing such a consistently good job on this. 

Technorati Tags: scotiabank, integrated brand communications

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

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?

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

Do Your Customers Trust You?

Public relations firm Edelman released their sixth annual global trust barometer study, available online (click the chart). 

Among the opinion leaders surveyed, "someone like yourself or your peer" is the most trusted source of information about a company, exceeding even doctors and academics in most of the countries they surveyed. And we have much greater access to the opinions of "people like me" through the internet.

If people lose trust in your company, they won't purchase your products or services (70-80%), they'll tell other people bad things about you (70-80%), they won't invest in your shares (65-75%), and they won't even work for you (40-50%).   

The communications channels that worked so well in the past-- controlled messaging to specific stakeholder groups like investors, analysts, employees and customers -- are being supplanted by horizontal peer-to-peer communications.  Articles in business magazines are still a trusted source of information about a company, right up there with family, friends, and peers.

Beyond this lack of confidence in traditional sources of information, they see a "yearning to move beyond the simple act of consumption of information to social networking." 

Remember that co-creation trend we talked about a few days ago?  Well here it is again.

Edelman's recommendation? "Smart companies must reinvent communications thinking, moving away from a reliance on top-down messages delivered through mass advertising."

Other ways to develop trust:

The most important drivers of trust are company of origin (not easy to change), industry (not easy to change) and company behaviors (this ball's in your court). 

Quality: the quality of your products and services is a key driver, but not sufficient (Sony piracy scandal). 

Accountability: companies that put their name on their products show that they are accountable.  Unilever realized a big lift in their trust ratings as a result of putting their corporate brand on their packaging: people know them now, not just their brands.

Attentiveness to customers: showing you understand and care about their needs, (P&G). 

Employees: Showing concern for employees is especially important in some labour markets.  But communicating with your employees is also critical:  "they want contextual information on the business, including the company's strategic direction, how decisions are made, and competitive issues."

Being socially responsible: participating in disaster relief efforts (Wal-Mart), being environmentally responsible (GE), and cleaning up your third-world-labour issues (Nike) are all good for increasing trust. The social responsibility program must be consistent with your core brand values to make an impact.

CEO: celebrity CEOs are no longer a trusted source of information.  In fact, CEOs and CFOs are now among the least trusted sources of information. 

Our take:

However distasteful it may be, you are going to need to become more transparent, more open, more consistent in all your activities if you are going to build and keep a strong brand.  To get the dialogue going, look at how Amazon has brought customers into the communication and co-creation of the product, and see what you can borrow or build on from them.

Technorati Tags: Co-Creation, Edelman, Building Trust, Branding

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

I've been documenting examples of a trend recently that I call Content Co-Creation.  Turns out other people have spotted this too, and have written some interesting posts on the topic:

Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users calls it sharing:

Sharing knowledge, lessons learned, product reviews, tips and tricks, links/bookmarks, and even photos

She points to Tim O'Reilly's definition of Web 2.0, where he labels this the architecture of participation:

Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.

Co-Creation in Action

Here's a good example of what I'm talking about.  The Lance Armstrong Foundation has created a donation site where you can upload a photo of someone who has battled cancer into a mosaic.  You can be part of the creation of something special that a lot of people will see.  It's much more personal and more connected than simply sending a cheque in.  As the copy on the site says, "we want you to be part of it".  [Thanks to Jennifer Rice for bringing this to my attention]

My Take
Tremendous energy is going into anything and everything that lets people become part of the conversation. If your brand is only doing one-way communication, you are missing out on an opportunity to become part of a richer dialogue with your customers.
Risky? Maybe.  But if you want to differentiate -- and you do want that -- you can't wait until everyone else is doing it to get started. 

Let's Try a Little Co-Creation: Send in Examples
Seen a good example of this trend?  Please post ideas, links, thoughts...

Technorati Tags: content co-creation, marketing trends, Lance Armstrong, Cancer Mosaic

Demographics: What's Happening to 50+

Until recently, the only marketers interested in the over 50 crowd were in either the wrinkle cream or the cruise lines business. That's all about to change. 

There is increasing evidence that 50+ are not looking to retire anytime soon. 

Several services for job seekers over 50 have sprung up.  The latest I heard about is here: Prime50, which was recently purchased .  Here's what Prime 50 said in a recent press release:

Prime50 was formed after extensive research indicated a looming shortage of skilled people in the workforce as a consequence of the steep decline in the birth rate since 1965...

It became all too apparent that employers were laboring under many myths and false perceptions about this age group. Many employers' assumptions about the 50+ age group were inaccurate.

...research also indentified a number of employers who, tired of constantly training replacements for job-hopping younger workers, were actually turning specifically to the mature workforce. What these employers have discovered is that, in addition to bringing a wealth of experience, the 50+ tend to stay on the job significantly longer.

Putnam Investments, an investment management firm, surveyed 1,726 US retirees in December 2005, for their "Working Retired" study, and had some pretty interesting findings:

• 7 million of the recently retired had returned to work after an average of 1.5 years in retirement
• They estimated that about 1/3 of retirees are now working
• Just over half work part time, just over a third work full time, and the rest are actively seeking work
• Their average household income is high, at $87,000.
• Most still have a mortgage (60%) which is less than half paid off
• Two-thirds wanted to go back to work to stay happy, healthy and mentally active, and to enjoy life; the other one-third had to go back because they did not have sufficient savings to retire.
• They are working in jobs requiring similar skill levels to what they had before retiring
• Those in the survey had an average age of 61.

The Big Opportunity

There is a big opportunity for financial services firms here, as William T. Connolly, head of retail management at Putnam pointed out:

"Their retirement investing needs will be different from any group that has come before them. Our industry must recalibrate its planning assumptions for advising these investors, as well as the 75 million Boomers that come after them"

While people are still working, they are still spending money on everything from clothes to cars. 

The prize will go to companies that start finding opportunities in the 50+ crowd by creating products and services that meet their unique needs, and starting to understand the segments that form this large and growing group of people. 

Technorati Tags: retirement, marketing to 50+, how retirement is changing, financial planning 50+, financial services for over fifty, over fifty, marketing over fifty, Putnam Working in Retirement, Prime50