Marketing-Fix: 100-Words-On

“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.

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.

“Whatever.”

Colleague and wise art director Nick Mitchell suggested the phrase ‘emotional retirement’ describes those in business who’ve checked out long before official retirement age.

Symptoms of emotional retirement include:

• Dismissing possible success before investigating the facts—“our customers would never go for that.”

• Focusing on the downside before trying to succeed—“what if too many people respond and overwhelm the call centers?”

• Giving exactly what’s required or just a little less—“my work week is 38 hours. That’s it.”

There’s probably no simple cure, but we’d ask:

• Does criticism come from a constructive place? Or from approaching emotional retirement?

• Do others around sense this?

And most importantly:

• Everyone has enthusiasms how can we get them to bring those to work?

“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?

Do not expect an immediate call back

Do not expect free advice

Do not expect the answer you wanted

—Consulting Firm Landing Page

Ouch—but, thought-provoking.

Is this firm:

* So ballsy that you’ve got to know more?

* So honest that you might get great insights?

* So self-involved that you should avoid it at all costs?

We applaud ‘being true to yourself’—but at what price?

Three wise-men came to mind:

* Danny Meyer suggests hiring only empathetic people—for every position in the company.  Technical skills can be taught, being welcoming and caring not.

* Seth Godin suggests giving things away—after qualifying the ‘lead.’  A little ‘free advice’ might be worth it, if there may substantial benefits down the road.

* The Dalai Lama suggests that when you want something—give it away.  Period.

We’re there: Why not put it out there and see what comes back—before telling us what you won’t do?

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’?

“No one reads, their mail.  Everyone knows that.”

–Anonymous

Not so fast…

Clearly, we love email and we admire web sites and apps that deliver value (think of Yelp or Groupon).  Yet, our increasingly empty USPS mailbox makes us wonder if print isn’t being overlooked unfairly.

A new consumer survey found that:
•    Two of three preferred print catalogs to viewing catalogs online.
•    Six of ten preferred receiving printed bills, invoices and financial statements.
•    Eight of ten dollars raised for charity are from mail solicitations.

Direct mail is rarely the most cost-effective way to acquire customers today and the incremental value of multi-channel buyers is declining.  Still, we believe that print should be part of the mix.

To make it effective, we wonder how many have:
•    Abolished silos and integrated systems to accurately measure the value—and incremental value—of every interaction.
•    Created a integrated contact strategy vs. direct mail, web and email strategies.
•    Segmented customers accurately, based upon their transaction and product preferences.

It’s tempting to jump on the latest marketing trend.

For example, trendwatching.com recently suggested creating ‘brand butlers’ to improve the customer experience—and allocating marketing dollars there.

Brand butlers, wow!  Another nicety that—sounds great.

But, perhaps being first with the latest only makes sense when all aspects of customer service work flawlessly.

And how often is this true?

• Consider recent experiences with Fortune 100 companies:

• “Real-time” inventory systems that are repeatedly incorrect.

• “Customer Service Facilitators”—formerly known as tellers—who’ve mastered greeting, but not doing deposits accurately.

“Live Flight Status” that’s hours off.

Before embracing the new and novel, why not:

• Audit how well basics are executed.

• Augment what works to improve service.

• Evolve to the next level when it’s appropriate.

Let’s all clean house before hiring the butlers.