Marketing-Fix: 100-Words-On

It’s a natural reaction.  We’ve all had it.  And it suggests a myopic tendency.

Before engaging an expert – who’s very possibly someone ‘just like’ you – consider two things:

Your customers probably aren’t you. How could they be?  You’re immersed in the details of telecommunications, apparel, insurance…whatever.  They’re seeking solutions not minutae.

Your customers expect you to be them. Ask questions, chat ‘em up, think like them.  Deliver what they want – concisely and fast.  They’ll be loyal customers and become fans.

With these in mind, how about finding experts at “wide-eyed innocence”? They can peer in, ask questions, focus, distill and deliver clarity.

As Roy Williams (the wizard of ads) suggests: we’re all uniquely unqualified to market ourselves.

“Listen, I know what our customers want, they’d never want [insert 'fact' here].  No offense, but that’s just a waste of time and money.”
-E Marketing Manager

“That is so…1951, and it’s 2011.”

According to Marketing Sherpa only 46% of electronic marketers actively test
emails, landing pages and such.  True or not – this amazes.

Testing’s never been easier, faster or cheaper than today. Two examples of simple, but powerful testing we’ve done recently:

* Subject-line testing limited to the difference between using ‘watch’ versus
‘see.’  Open rates improved almost 20% with ‘watch’ and click-throughs
increased 15%.

* Content-testing in retail emails that offered product details as bullets
versus paragraphs.  Conversions to sales improved 15% with using full
paragraphs – unexpected, but long a standard in ‘snail mail.’

We’re inclined to believe that we ‘know’ what works – understanding our
customers better than they do, but it’s not true.  From conducting focus groups
to quantitative research to multi-channel testing and being inquisitive wins.

P.S.  If you’re as intrigued by testing as we are check out: www.whichtestwon.com.  It’s fun, provocative and reinforces that our gut can be wrong.

“What’s worse then email spam?  Bacon”

-    Dave Spur, Future Fundraising Now

Dave Spur – always intriguing – recently wrote about the increasing level of unwanted opt-in email we receive.  Bacon he calls it.

He suggests only 18% of commercial opt-in email is wanted/opened and fully 61% deleted.

We’ve moved from spam overload to inbox overload.

Industry leaders like Coremetrics propose sophisticated solutions, but our in-bin suggest that many could start by stepping into customers’ shoes and testing simple options:

Be relevant – take a page from Amazon and tailor your messages to what you know about your customers.

Deliver the right frequency – I mean, does anyone want “exciting offers” from TheatreMania 2 or 3 times a day before tuning out?

Get to the point – how much information do people need?  Williams-Sonoma promotes ‘last chance’ All-Clad sales with a subject line and a link.  That’s direct!

“The best wine we’ve tasted all year”
-Moore Brothers, wine merchants

“How does your garden grow?”
-Neiman Marcus, luxury retailer.  And garden center?

Moore Brothers – a savvy little company – deserves kudos for a clear message that implies a strong consumer benefit: try this wine; we loved it you will too.

Neimans – ostensibly a savvy behemoth – gets two thumbs down.  The ‘humorous’ subject line doesn’t relate to them, or the featured product.

In contrast, M & M Mars uses humor relevantly*.  For example, a focus group of sharks prefers humans who’ve eaten Snickers Squareds to ones who haven’t.  Like Moore Brothers, they deliver a clear benefit: eat Snickers or M&Ms – you’ll feel better.

Reminded us of advertising pioneers like David Ogilvy or Peter Rogers who encouraged marketers to be:

• Smart – but accessible to all.

• Direct – stay simple and clear.

• Humorous – when it serves your brand message.

* You might not like talking sharks or amourous M&M’s but Mars domimated Q1′s most effective TV ads.

Make it clean.

Make it clear.

Make it crisp.

It works for directions…and marketing

A friend asked us to help find some new vendors.  We were struck by how easily important basics can be overlooked.

A few examples – names omitted to protect the ‘innocent’:

• A firm ‘leading the one-to-one personalized marketing revolution’ has a website without contact options: no contact link, no phone number, and no email address.  Complicated – and doesn’t inspire trust.

• A ‘cutting-edge, multi-media design company’ presents crisp, clear landing page.  On subsequent pages navigation moves from top to side – to top to side.  Confusing – and suggests challenges delivering clarity for clients.

• An ‘integrated communication specialist’ opens with a novel-length, jargon-laden mission statement.  Verbose – and ignores today’s communication by tweet.

One closing thought: Be curious and critical.  Apply the same rigor to your own work as you apply to others efforts.

We’ve quoted it often:

“Give them what they want and when they want it.  That’s how you keep them satisfied.”
—Waller and Schell

Facebook, Twitter and similar social sites focus on community and connecting. So, many worry that selling here risks violating a social contract that says: we’re just ‘friends.’

Still, many of us ponder how to make direct marketing work in these environments.

Quidsi’s – soap.com / diapers.com – Facebook app offers a brilliantly simple solution:

Current customers can purchase directly from their ‘My List’ without leaving Facebook. And wouldn’t many soap.com purchases be ‘re-fills?’

Seems real simple and widely applicable. Why not start with:

• What do you most want from your customers?

• What do they most want and expect from you?

• What do you do to deliver on their expectations – simply, quickly and cost-effectively?

There’s no need to make things complicated – or grab every sale.  Why build a jet fighter if a kite will do the job?

“Great. For the price of good.”
-Volkswagen Passat billboard

We loved this headline for the new VW Passat. Hall-of-Fame worthy in our book – but why you might ask?

• It celebrates the product as better and different. Sometimes what we’re selling might not be objectively the best.  But a marketer’s job is buffing and polishing product benefits until there’s a reason to buy.

• It ignores the competition. Just up I-95 from the Passat billboard we saw this: “Mazda 323. What a Corolla wants to be.”  Ugh.  If the Mazda’s better – tell me; don’t even suggest I drive by a Toyota showroom and compare.

• It’s bold. The headline is catchy and concise.  And, it says the Passat is unequivocally fantastic and suggests that if I’m a savvy shopper – regardless of price point – I should consider a Passat..

Bottom line: The ad is Great… for the price of good.

“Kirk, we read these 100 words, but what do you do – exactly?”

OK, that smarted.

Then we wondered: How can businesses avoid being inward-focused self-referential when marketing themselves?

• Be Clear – be concise. We read by scanning, think in sound bites and write with tweets.  Marketing ‘targeted solutions’ with a dense 6-panel brochure or a
  website with 12 options isn’t targeted.

• Be Clear – avoid jargon. Explain what you mean.  DRIPs can be dividend or direct-mail programs.  VPVH – ‘viewers-per-viewing-household’ confused even our CMO friends.  And, they’re chief marketing officers – not chief merchandising officers.

• Be Clear – deliver specific benefits. Generalities tempt, but ‘easy and
  elegant’ could apply to an algebra proof, a casserole or – yes, a hotel.  Does
  ‘providing intelligent cost solutions’ mean anything?  Or just sound good?  Why not say: ‘We deliver cost savings. Guaranteed.’

Back to me, I’m a ‘marketing troubleshooter with a creative bent.’  Hope that’s clear.

Seen on a large billboard on I-76:

“We guarantee you top results for every search engine…

Call us at…”

Our first reaction was—huh?

Outdoor advertising has its place for many campaigns.  But to sell expertise in Search Engine Optimization, it seems dubious.

Three thoughts struck us:

• If we were looking for an SEO expert, we’d contact a pro, like Michael Stalbaum @ createtraffic.com—if not we’d be online googling various search terms.

• We’d want a strategic marketer. Using billboards to sell search doesn’t feel smart.  Billboards are broad-based and consumer-focused.

• We’d want a partner that optimizes our spend and ROI. Outdoor on a major highway can’t do that—it’s expensive and hard to measure.

Our take away:

Think smart.  Act smart.  Look smart. Accentuate and amplify what you’re great at before jumping into the unknown.

“Whoever is winning
at that moment
will always seem invincible”
-George Orwell

Business coach and sage, Roy Friedman re-introduced us to Appreciative Inquiry.  This encourages success by looking at strengths and maximizing them, instead of ‘fixing’ problems. This reminded us to:

Look inward: Nordstrom leveraged their great service tradition and now offers customers real-time access to inventory across all channels.

Look outward: Apple surveyed the failed tablet computer landscape and believed in the potential.  Applying their unmatched skill at intuitive user-interfaces—voila, the i-Pad!

Look out: while Google stumbled with the Google phone, by making the Android operating system available to all, they’ve surpassed both Apple and RIM/Blackberry in ‘smart phone’ market share—in six months.

There’s never time rest on your laurels.

When the going gets tough—innovate.  But why wait?