Since I’m off enjoying a few days at the beach, I thought I’d just pass on some wisdom from Seth Godin.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/08/awkward.html
technorati tags > seth godin, awkward, product, strategy
Archive for the 'strategy' Category
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I run across a lot of marketing managers that continue to think of their brand as their logo. Obviously there is much more to your brand than just your logo mark. I’ve read all of the classic brand definitions and here is mine:
Your brand is defined by the individual gut feelings of those people that has been exposed to your company and/or products and services.
Notice that they do not have to be current or previous customers; nor do they need direct contact with your offerings or corporation.
One thing that we tend to do with customers is get them talking about brands they favor. Doesn’t matter who or what. But it’s all about describing the company without necessarily talking about their products. Here are some examples:
Nike
- fitness
- athletic
- speed
- innovation
- not as globally focused as Adidas
Chase Manhattan
- late fees
- always merging w/ another bank
- lots of direct mail
Red Lobster
- hopefully fresh
- suburban
- decent substitute for the real thing
- average
Adobe
- in touch w/ the creative industry
- don’t screw up the Macromedia apps
- trusted
A lot of product-driven companies like to talk about product features or industry jargon. No normal customer thinks that way. Most users are very pragmatic about their brand impressions. It’s basically a bell curve. They love a few brands, hate a few brands, and most are just stuck in the middle. If you can become loved, you’ll grow profitably. Preference leads to loyalty and that’s a powerful position.
If you’re responsible for marketing products, I contend that you must know what your customers and the general public think of your brand. Overlay that with your desired brand adjectives. If there is a gap, you’ve got a problem. And unfortunately you cannot fix it immediately – simply because you cannot completely control your brand. The best you can hope for is alignment between those gut feelings about your company, products, services and your vision.
What do you want to be known for? And don’t cop out by saying “exemplary customer service” or “industry leading whatever” or some crap like that. It’s hard work to change gut feelings. But you can with innovation and communication – and time. Consistent alignment is the primary driver of brand strength.
Do you have an alignment issue with your brand?
technorati tags > branding, marketing, strategy, alignment, brand promise, gut feelings,
This image from Hugh Macleod got me thinking.
Trust in a seller/customer relationship truly is paramount. Big advertising blew it – people are sick of being screamed at. Big business blew it – employment for life? The social media push is all about trust. It’s an amplified globe-shrinking Word of Mouth push. It is about customers taking back control and recognizing the power of their tribe.
I’ve seen it happen a thousand times – and I’m guilty of it myself. Once a creative firm (in-house or outside) sells a new idea; the client usually jumps right into “so how are we going to do it”. I’ve always thought they should be more concerned about ensuring their brand is elevated in the eyes of the customer instead of the technical details. I’m sure the thought process is “if I understand how it’s going to work, I’ll be able to know if it’s right”.
Most clients are focused on the wrong thing and it’s puts them at a disadvantage that is next to impossible to overcome. Focus on what your customer wants to hear (the why), not the technology (the what or how). Focus on solving the true business problem that’s prompting you to market/publicize/advertise/etc… Be brave enough to peel back the layers and write an honest creative brief. Make trust a priority.
technorati tags > marketing, branding, advertising, priorities, strategy, customer, trust
I’ve used the SCAMPER methodology for brainstorming quite effectively over the years.
SCAMPER stands for:
- S – substitute
- C – combine/create
- A – add
- M – modify/magnify
- P – put to other uses
- E – eliminate/elaborate
- R – reverse/rearrange
This is a great way to get your creative juices flowing. We’ve all seen that ingenious little tweak on someone else’s idea that sparks a new flurry of ideas. The SCAMPER methodology allows you to create in bitesize chunks. Instead of having to have an ideal moment of inspiration, these techniques get your brain thinking in ways that you may not be used to.
Let’s take a basic pencil.
S – substitute pencil for crayon, marker, chalk, lead, paint anything that play a similar role
C – combine pencil with lead pencil, #2 pencil, pencil and pen, pencil and paper
A – add pencil to a messy desk, journal of dreams, a sketchbook
M – magnify a part of the pencil you want to focus on – clean erases, visual display of how sharp the lead is and how much is left
E – what would a pencil be like without the six sides (easier to hold or harder), is it better w/ blue lead, does the audience need a pencil/pen combo
R – is there a way to rearrange a pencil? Not sure, it’s pretty well baked.
After a while, you can see how these methods get you thinking differently about a simple pencil. It’s easy to put yourself in the shoes of the Dixon-Ticonderoga marketing manager planning his/her next campaign.
Anyway, use the SCAMPER techniques to find new solutions to problems. Once you begin to understand and apply each letter, you’ll be able to dissect how other companies came to their conclusions on product names, features, and design.
technorati tags > brainstorming, techniques, scamper, product, development, features, design
According to Forrester, North American 18-26 year olds are integrating technology into their lives faster than any generation previously. They spend twice as much time online as baby boomers. Almost half have broadband at home. Whether its blogs, IM, or social networks like Facebook, Gen Y is driving technology consumption.
It’s amazing how much this trend is changing the face of America. Pay phones are gone. Travel agencies are very hard to find. Land line phone subscriptions are falling. To most folks in the blogosphere this is not new news. But I’m still surprised at how many corporations are not embracing the shift.
Loyalty is the key to long term growth. The Web 2.0 trend is only exposing & amplifying what has always happened. People have always recommended products the love and bashed products they hated. Technology has enabled those local conversations to happen globally. It has created massive tribes of like-minded consumers with the power to shower explosive growth on a company or tank it.
Now more than ever you must make products/services that customers will love, not just be satisfied with if you want to grow. Keeping your customers happy is more important than short term Wall Street-driven changes. Be more competitive by beating the competition. Not by simply cutting price.
You should leverage technology to enable conversations. There’s still room for traditional market research, but you can learn a lot by paying attention to what is already being said. Before you had no idea what college kids in Idaho loved about your product without expensive focus groups that were automatically filtered because they’re staged research initiatives in a controlled setting. Now you can just tap right into Bebo, MySpace, Flickr, del.icio.us, xanga, etc… The list goes on and on.
Here’s the key; take advantage while you can. Every corporation on the planet is heading down this same path. If you don’t beat them, all you’ll hear is corporate marketing crap that is coming not the users themselves.
technorati tags > forrester, strategy, customer, loyalty, marketing, technology, integration
I was reading this post from Olivier and I realized that he is describing how a large percentage of the American population consumes.
There are lessons to be learned.
- Most of time, consumers will tire of your products/services
- Comfortable and safe is only tolerable for so long
- The products that work today probably will not tomorrow
- Brand loyalty is hard to generate and harder to sustain
- Consumers are human, not statistics.
- Listening is better than analyzing.
- The “what have you done for me lately” attitude applies to products/services as much as people.
technorati tags > branding, consumers, customers, market research, trends, product development
Great post from Mary Schmidt.
The summary is that “dumbing down” your marketing so that it seemingly appeals to all audiences is the wrong thing to do. That tactic will appeal to no one. On the other hand, simplifying your message so that it’s easily understood and actionable is key to connecting with your customers/clients/prospects/etc…
New technology, being constantly connected, and having fewer hours in the day have created an environment where people are demanding more control over their marketing & sales exposures. You have to keep your message short, unique, value laden, and available on their terms to gain traction.
technorati tags > marketing, advertising, strategies, consumers, messaging, targeting
I had to include this post from Godin… It’s good enough to be considered professional development for a lot of marketing managers and company presidents.
Why do some organizations look great… and get great results from their design efforts and ads… while others languish in mediocrity? I think it has little to do with who they hire and a lot to do with how they work with their agencies and designers.
Here are the things your design team wishes you would know:
- If you want average (mediocre) work, ask for it. Be really clear up front that you want something beyond reproach, that’s in the middle of the road, that will cause no controversy and will echo your competition. It’ll save everyone a lot of time.
- On the other hand, if you want great work, you’ll need to embrace some simple facts:
- It’s going to offend someone. If it doesn’t offend them, then it will make them nervous. The Vietnam Vets memorial offended a lot of people. The design of Google made plenty of people nervous. Great work from a design team means new work, refreshing and remarkable and bit scary.
- It’s not going to be easy to sell to your boss. That’s your job, by the way, not mine. If you want me to do something great, you’ve got to be prepared to protect it and defend it. Come back too many times for one little compromise, and you’ll make it clear that #1 was what you wanted all along.
- You can’t tell me you’ll know it when you see it. First, you won’t. Second, it wastes too much time. Instead, you’ll need to have the patience to invest twenty minutes in accurately describing the strategy. That means you need to be abstract (what is this work trying to accomplish) resistant to pleasing everyone (it needs to do this, this and that) and willing, if the work meets your strategic goal, to embrace it even if it’s not to your taste.
- Help me out by pointing out the work you’d like this to be on a peer with. If you want a website to be like three others (in tone, not in execution) then point it out. In advance.
- Be clear about dates and costs. Not what you hope for, but what you can live with!
- You don’t know a lot about accounting so you don’t backseat drive your accountant. You hired a great designer, please don’t backseat drive here, either.
- If you want to be part of the process, please go to school. Read design magazines or take a course from Milton Glaser or get a subscription to Before & After. By the way, that one link is the single best part of this post.
- This one may surprise you: don’t change your existing design so often. Not when your kids or your colleagues tell you it’s time. Do it when your accountant says so.
- Don’t get stressed about your logo.
- Get very stressed about user interface and product design. And your packaging.
- Say thank you.
What I like about this is that he’s not talking about an artist, he’s talking about a designer. There is a difference. Because the marketing communications & advertising industry has done a poor job of aligning itself with business, a lot of of business people still think of designers as artists. Designers are really just communication specialists. They are trained to find the simplest, most effective way to get your unique message out to your unique audience. They are simply proficient at another part of business. There’s no mystery to the creative process, but it may seem that way when people don’t follow Seth’s advice above.
technorati tags > graphic designer, marketing, relationship, management, professional, development, performance
Q1 Online Ad Spend Up 46%, MySpace Gets 17% of June Ads · MarketingVOX
Interesting fact; Yahoo Mail & MySpace account for over 50% of ALL online advertising clicks. That’s amazing.
technorati tags > online, advertising, myspace, yahoo, spending, budget, increase
Still think the blogosphere is just for early adopter fringe web users?
Think again. Check out some of the stats in this article.
- YouTube traffic doubles monthly
- MySpace is bigger than Yahoo
- Blogs can drive explosive growth or outrage
- Revolutionize customer service programs
- Senior citizens are the fastest growing blog population
User generated content or free for all communication; call it what you like but blogging and social media networks have really grown into their own over the last 12 months. Companies are launching new 3o second commercials solely on YouTube instead of paying $$ for network airtime. Fortune 5oo companies use MySpace to launch products to highly influential young adults w/ billions of dollars of purchasing power.
When a customer is happy enough or mad enough to talk about your product or service you should pay attention. In fact, you should encourage the conversation. That’s what web 2.0 is all about. The tables are turned and if you’re not taking the lead you will be left behind. Your audience is too savvy. They demand control over their experience with your brand and the ability to speak out about it – good and bad.
You cannot control your brand. You can only hope to guide it’s direction by knowing who you are, who your customers are, what they want, and who you want to be to them. If you think the world is small; the gap from CEO to customer is tiny. You don’t need a million dollar research program; just start a blog and pay attention.
The truth is that they’re already talking. They always have been. Read more…
technorati tags > blog, social, networks, media, youtube, myspace, marketing, advertising, customer, branding, web 2.0
