Marketing-Fix: 100-Words-On

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.

The scene: a local gourmet grocery.

“I guess that $3.99 is a lot for one small tomato.”
–Barista turned checkout guy.

The conversation continued: “would it be okay if I charged $3.99 a pound?”

Proactive, customer-focused and empowered I thought. And related the tale far and wide.

Not everyone agreed:

Weren’t the tomatoes priced? No.
Wasn’t the price right in the computer? Don’t know.
How could the kid ‘steal’ from the store? Whoa!

We’re wondering—again: should employees be revenue-centers or cost-centers?

Treating them all as assets makes sense to us.

Front-line or not, employees from dishwashers to neuro-surgeons are the most important—and often only—contact that your enterprise has with customers.

Two thoughts:

• Encourage employees to be the customer—maybe bending a rule or two.

• Empower employees to be the company—not ‘giving away the store’.

If in doubt that employees are the face of your just Google your company and read the comments.

“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?

First, New Coke

Then, New Tropicana

Now, the New O, The Oprah Magazine

Business people tire of our products and marketing campaigns long before the consumer does. It’s natural—we live with them everyday.

There’s an urge to shake things up—or start over—at the slightest hint of staleness.

We’d suggest: proceed with caution. And, ask a few pointed questions:

• What do we represent to our customers? Have we really ‘drifted’ from delivering what we do best for them—or not?

• Do our product offerings remain relevant? There’s no need to ‘retire’ things before their time.  Remember, many people resist change.

• Does our marketing reinforce our brand image? To us, BMW delivering ‘the ultimate driving machine’ will always trump BMW ‘delivering joy.’

• Do our changes make sense—or just make work? Years later KFC is still just Kentucky Fried Chicken with a shorter name.

“We really need to email less often.”

“Of course, they need to be more effective.”

Clients have been suggesting communicating less frequently to reduce ‘clutter’ and ‘email fatigue’ while expecting better results.
Wholesale reductions in frequency rarely make sense. For optimum results, we consider:

• Relevance. If you’re a promotional retailer—say Bluefly, Gilt or Wine Express, daily communication keeps customers engaged.  Hearing daily from your accountant wouldn’t be relevant.

• Realness. Recently, applying the discount offered in a Hertz email promotion doubled the cost of renting.  We needed a car, but the bogus promotion quashed the sale.

• Ready-to-go. Don’t be creepy, but ‘know me’ and make it easy to engage.  There’s only seconds to spare between clicking-through and abandoning your email.

Finally, be inventive. Subject lines and creative treatments still dramatically affect results.  Who wouldn’t be intrigued by FTD’s subject line encouraging you to: ‘Tell your boss how you really feel about him’?

“It’s Sony.  No, no, I can show you.”

“I have no what it’s called.”

“Just a regular old phone.  A Verizon?”

Okay, we’ve all heard it hundreds of times: surviving rapidly changing times with overwhelming choice and message bombardment requires pushing the envelope with compelling product offerings and distinctive marketing.

It’s become cliché, but how many succeed?

Trendwatching.com’s video: Blanding vs. Branding stopped us in our tracks. Watching dozens unable to identify their cell phone brand suggests less than we’d hoped.
A few thoughts:

Listen to outliers. The ‘offbeat’ or ‘weird’ might make sense.  Twitter, who knew?

Move way outside your comfort zone. Coach’s colorful, next-generation Poppy collection may be successful because it’s so “not Coach.”

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Group-think kills great ideas and carries many dubious projects too far.  Did anyone need a Lincoln pick-up truck?

Happy Valentine’s

Embrace love with Mauboussin from February 9th thorough February 14th

Mauboussin offers you 15% savings on all its collections*

and invites you, for any purchase**, to dinner for two at the Lowell Hotel on February 14th

–New York Times, February 9, 2010 p. A7

It’s a mouthful, but a tempting proposition from Mauboussin the tony French jeweler.

Our first thought: that’s a bold, arresting way to build business.

Seeing asterisks, we read the fine print. Restrictions included:

• Six complete collections of jewelry are excluded.

• Eligibility requires a “minimum $1,100 purchase.”

• Mauboussin only “covers the first $150 per couple.

Our second thought: never hire the legal department–or Ebenezer Scrooge–as your marketing guru or copywriter.

Our third thought: begin with the end in mind.  Strategy matters.

This effort misses on many counts:

• Misleading language creates suspicion, alienating customers.

• Over-promising and under-delivering dilutes brand credibility.

• Using out-dated, expensive mass media to deliver a very targeted message/offer is costly and sub-optimal.

We love challenges and know that many of us could have made this idea work.

Happy Valentine’s, restrictions apply.

Just do it?

Why do it?

or

How do it, best?

Reading an excerpt from Dov Seidman’s “Why HOW We Do Anything Means
Everything” (Wiley, 2007), one central hypothesis struck home:

How now trumps who, what or why.

With ever-greater transparency, information and misinformation flows more
freely, innovations become commodities faster, and the perception of
certainty devolves.

“Just do it” doesn’t cut it.  There’s little wiggle room for mistakes.

We’re thinking about our:

- Actions—aligning what’s said and done publicly with the customer’s
values/expectations. Did it make sense for Whole Foods’ CEO to publicly
oppose health-care reform?

- Interactions—treating colleagues, associates and customers impeccably.
Did Wal-Mart believe locking workers in stores overnight could continue
unnoticed forever?

- Reactions—seizing control of the situation and messaging when
inevitable problems arise. Did Tiger Woods believe that the National
Enquirer and Fox News would let a sensational “personal matter”
go?

Integrity isn’t optional, it’s expected.

Yesterday: E-bay

Today: Google

Tomorrow: Facebook?
Reviewing OneUpWeb’s excellent “Holiday Special Report”, some interesting facts popped out.

Average Internet usage increased incrementally to 12 hours a week with heavy users online up to 42 hours!

Social-networking skyrocketed 115% and may dramatically change marketing playing fields:
•    Average social-network users now spend 15 hours a week updating, linking, tweeting and connecting.

•    Facebook and YouTube combined now have 25% more unique monthly visitors than Google.

•    25% of social-network users link to a company, product or service.

A few thoughts:
•    Re-consider paid advertising—social sites can deliver very targeted eyeballs cost-effectively.

•    Virtual” brand ambassadors become critical—every social network link affects your reputation directly.

•    If social networking strategies remain “in-work,” get on it!

The “new” basics

The “new” classics

The “new” traditions

The same old snooze?

Observing retailers and others retreating to safety in merchandising and marketing may make sense for the “great recession”—but will it deliver the season—or critically, a direct hit with consumers in this economy?

Black twinsets, exhortations to “Believe” or engage in the “Joy of Giving” in retro campaigns and sparsely decorated stores feel as lazy and off base as demanding that I “want it.”

Especially in hard times, success requires viscerally connecting with customers:

• Engage—create powerful messages that stop us in our tracks.

• Inspire—offer amazing products and services that move us to call, click or visit.

• Excite—deliver an unbeatable value proposition to close the sale.