by nick on September 1, 2010
Detractors would say it’s childish to email your customers reminding them of such menial tasks as cleaning a vacuum filter, but I really like this email from Dyson. No selling, no offers, no coupons, no upgrades, no end of season bumf… just service.
No, it doesn’t help the till ring today, but it’s a great example of email marketers following my TRaP rule:
Timely – Dyson’s example is just perfect. They knew when I purchased and with typical usage they know when I should clean the filter (for another example, think baby products as your consumer’s child grows).
Relevant – if you’re a sports provider and know I’m a guy interested in rugby, don’t send me content on women’s golf (unless you know of a natural correlation).
Personalised – make it as much about me as possible. Do I think I’m just part of a corporate mailing list or a special and respected customer that you’ve paid attention to?
When I say personalised I also mean with permission. Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing is every bit as relevant today as it was when it first printed a decade ago and is a must read for anyone looking to grow their database asset.
SMEs will always struggle to mine the data needed for TRaP and they’ll argue over text versus imagery, along with style over content and sell over service, but if they want to unlock the potential repeat custom (acquisition, even, in some cases) they need to put their thinking hats on.
by nick on August 21, 2010
I met someone this week that thinks they were burgled because they tweeted that they were away from home (i.e. London, when their location says Brighton). Such scare stories are only more likely as location-based services begin to make traction.
Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt, Yelp etc are still in their relevant infancies but with Facebook launching Places and smartphone take-up sky rocketing, these services/games are going to thrive. They’re not there yet simply because the reason for broadcasting isn’t compelling enough.
Somewhat negatively for a social media darling, Chris Brogan wrote recently, “I’m just not always keen on decloaking for social-only reasons.” I wouldn’t if I was him either; with 146,000 Twitter followers he’s going to be mobbed and spammed big time.
Users are struggling to find a real value in location at the moment but with generation Y willing to publish everything about themselves, I can’t imagine decloaking and revealing location being a worry for them. It’s more likely the opposite as they ‘like’ and ‘check in’ at bars, cafes, clubs, shops and places all over world.
As usual, John Battelle voices the clearest business connect, “…location aware services are not yet a cultural habit, in particular ambient ones. But it won’t be long before we assume that our public presence is, in effect, a search, one for which we will expect a response from any number of potential respondents.”
There are some clever early adopters though. Example: Daily Candy will point you to ‘current local happenings like designer sales, spa deals, and underground concerts,’ as you travel around New York, but we’ve not really seen anything yet.
So marketers will create places pages inside Facebook and scramble to offer you discounts to broadcast you’re in the cinema, coffee shop or wine bar. And, inevitably, the privacy debate will become mainstream news (read ACLU’s concerns).
Location is marketing’s unconquered frontier (and privacy the debate to come). But not for much longer.
Photo credit: Kerryvaugan
‘Follow us’ and ‘Stay Connected’ buttons are now as commonplace on websites as the word ‘like’ is ever-present in a teenager’s vocabulary.
I’m seeing it in the most unlikely of businesses this year. This photo was taken at a country park. Do you really want to follow and interact with the tweets of a park (it certainly isn’t Disney)? How about the Trainline? Or Firefox?
Yes, Facebook is hooked into 8% of the world’s population (26 million in the UK) but when such buttons become ubiquitous clichés, what will you do to stand out?
by nick on March 14, 2010
Smith-Harmon has released a study of American retail email trends for last year. Unsurprisingly, 2009 saw record volumes distributed.
It states that the 100 largest retailers sent an average of 132 promotional emails to each of their subscribers. That’s an average of 11 emails a month and 2.5 per week, per subscriber (peaking at 15.4 in December). Overall, top online retailers sent 12% more promotional emails in 2009 than they did the year before—and 39% more than during 2007.
You’ve got to wonder if we’re going to kill the golden goose here. The overwhelming number of emails threatens to neuter your subscribers’ inbox. I’d argue consumers are becoming numb to special offers and super savings.
This is about perfecting frequency, not necessarily content. It’s a nexus that lies between maximum engagement (revenue in most cases) and maximum disengagement (unsubscribers). Think about consumers’ distain for physical junk mail promotional mail shots. It’s not too much of a leap to imagine that feeling about your inbox - even if you did volunteer your address.
by nick on January 17, 2010
It’s pretty much a given that SMEs are more likely to be passionate about what they do than lumbering corporates answering to the City. Let’s be honest, most SMEs don’t tend to start a gardening business if they can’t stand the sight of grass.
Unfortunately, that passion can overrun into myopia where those in business only play to themselves – the People Like Us syndrome.
I’m sure you hear it in your office all the time: I’d never buy it for my home (so I assume my customers wouldn’t either)… my wife wouldn’t like it (so let’s leave it out of the catalogue)…. I’m not sure we’ve the market for that here (because they wouldn’t pay for it themselves).
It’s said that ‘me’ and ‘I’ are some of the worst words to use in a sales pitch because the customer doesn’t care about you or your likes and dislikes relating to that car, that printer or that fridge freezer. They’re not buying for a complete stranger (i.e. the salesperson); they’re buying for themselves to satisfy selfish reasons.
People Like Us is the other side of the same coin to be avoided in business.
by nick on January 6, 2010
In the movie, The Untouchables, Kevin Costner’s character, Elliot Ness, sits on horseback overlooking the US-Canadian border. He’s there with his fellow Untouchables and the Canadian Mounties to arrest Al Capone’s men running contraband whisky across the border.
The Mounty Captain says to his troops, “Let’s take the fight to them, men.” Turning to Ness he says, “As you know it’s half the battle.” Ness replies coldly, “Many things are half the battle. Losing is half the battle. Let’s do what is all the battle, winning.”
Before Google Reader, in the days when I’d buy The Sunday Times, I’d head straight for the business section and the big interview within it. The interviewees were typically folks that you couldn’t name in a line up; maybe a telecoms or hotel chain CEO. But what became familiar every week was the ‘half the battle’ line.
Each would say something like, “Gaining market share has been our key objective.” Or, “In this business, retaining customers is the most vital aspect of our jobs.” Others would point to market dominance, or a diverse portfolio of projects, or customer satisfaction, or retaining capital, or driving earnings per share (at least news for the market to create a drive). And so on…
Who am I to disagree with those leaders? Yet every time I hear a Big Cheese/Chief Exec stating so adamantly that X is half the battle, I’m reminded of that movie scene.
The one thing that the whole group of interviewees had in common as a key to running a great business? No, it’s not chasing a profit, as some could be CEOs of charities. It’s communication. Without effective communication, none of those leaders would achieve their goals. It’s the binding glue around which all successful organisations are built.
Example:
To win football’s Premiership title a team needs to score more points than all its competitors. Ultimately, to score more points you need to win more matches (not just draw). To win matches you need to score more goals than your immediate opponent. Therefore it all comes down to scoring goals. Why then don’t you see football managers scream ‘score a goal’ all throughout their matches and for hours at time on the training ground?
Because successful football requires thousands of components to fit into place. Only after hundreds or even thousands of actions from the whole team of players, support staff and management (passing, running, talking, teamwork, patience, skill, understanding, tactics, etc) can a goal happen. It is the result of ALL those actions. To perform those actions to the highest standard the team needs effective communication both before and during the match.
Shouting ‘make a profit’ to your team is as effective as Alex Ferguson telling the team doctor to score a goal – NOW!
How do you communicate that with your team? What’s the #1 thing they should have front of mind and how are you getting that agenda across to them? Isn’t that more than half the battle?
by nick on December 31, 2009
I used to work for someone who claimed proudly that he knew almost nothing about our product and he certainly wouldn’t use our products. He would even speak derogatorily of those who did. With pride he’d say, “I’m a businessman, I don’t need to know about a product to sell it.”
Of course there’s quite a parcel of truth in his arrogance: your estate agent didn’t live in your house before you bought it and Dr John Davis doesn’t really know what childbirth is like. But we all want our salespeople to be empathetic, don’t we? We demand advice and expertise and the only real way of gaining that is through experience.
Just how our teams communicate that to customers is as much a marketing issue as website copy or advertising budgets. And it might be worth reminding them that ‘do what I say, not what I do’ is even more unpalatable now than it was as a child. Would you take health advice from an obese, alcoholic, chain-smoker?
by nick on December 12, 2009
Yet another naval-gazing award ceremony took place last week where BSkyB were claimed Britain’s Most Admired Company from Management Today.
Clearly, MT’s judges didn’t base the trophy on Sky’s email campaigns. If they had, MT wouldn’t discover personal, relevant and timed messages – their emails are more like blanket mini-billboards.
Every week or so Sky point me to sport I don’t watch and movies I have no interest in. Considering they have the digital knowledge of everything my household has watched for a couple of years, they display zero wherewithal in their emails.
A few ideas for Sky’s marketing team to increase email PR (personal and relevancy):
Croudsourcing – people who liked X and Y (stuff my house has seen) also watch Z on Wednesday at 10pm
Follow on – if you liked The Apprentice you’ll love our top three business programs (some you may need to pay for)
Bundles – we’ve prepared three bundles of viewing which we think you’ll like. Please pick and amend them. These can be uploaded to my box and amending them lets Sky’s brain know and next week’s bundles will be even more relevant.
DVD iLike – Sky should ask me about my DVD collection to better profile my tastes. You could even take into account my book collection as well (I always think Amazon miss a trick here by only tracking purchases).
I am infinitely more likely to engage with, and probably upgrade, because of the relevancy of the above. So why do they torture my inbox with High School Musical and the Ashes?
Thorough email PR like this is way beyond the data mining systems at SMEs but surely Britain’s Most Admired could up the ante?
by nick on December 5, 2009
I was asked this week, ‘What does a manager really do?’ It was a fairly innocuous, rhetorical, jovial question from a well-paid, senior person.
The graduate switch flicked and I immediately thought, ‘seeing that the company’s goals are met’. After all, it’s the leader’s job to define and create those goals and aims, and it’s management’s job to realise them. Right?
But managing people is rarely a squeaky clean affair. I’m not a huge supporter of lofty job titles as they can often cause internal problems, but anyone claiming to be a ‘Manager’ will find themselves wearing several hats (in no particular order):
- go between
- consultant (to those above and below)
- amateur psychologist
- negotiator
- dispute resolver
- idea instigator
- organiser
- governor
- role model
- decision maker (the buck stops and all that)
- communications expert (surely THE key to management)
- soldier (ever metaphorically fallen on your sword?)
- captain
- big brother/sister (you need to eat more, drink less, curb spending)
- counsellor
- teacher
- steward
- servant
- policy pursuer
- change agent
- supporter (of others, of the different viewpoint – perhaps the weaker voice)
- challenger (of the status quo)
It strikes me that a manager who only wants to manage isn’t anywhere near up to the job. The seven-letter title is low-balling the variety of commitment needed in all but the safest of environments.
by nick on November 8, 2009
Most business leaders don’t need a poll or a study to arrive at the conclusion that managers are the largest reason for staff resignations, but the news this week sends us straight there.
Of course direct departure isn’t the only symptom of poor management. Professor Mike Kelly, director of public health, NICE said to the BBC that more than 13 million working days a year are lost because of work related stress, anxiety and depression.
How much of that is directly attributable to managers and bosses is pretty impossible to pin down, but haven’t we got to admit there’s likely to be an element of cause and effect there?
Photo: one of the UK’s most feared managers, Sir Alex Ferguson (image from Wikipedia)
by nick on October 28, 2009
Most people think the saying ‘first impressions count’ is all about clothes or hair. They’re wrong (to a degree). It’s more about attitude than anything else.
How you carry yourself when you enter the room; how you interact in the opening few seconds; your handshake; your eye contact; your confidence.
It’s the X Factor test. Contestants stroll out on stage and before they sing a note the judges have formed an opinion. I’m guessing that original sniff test of an opinion is correct in the vast majority of cases (Susan Boyle is the notable exception).
I had the horrific experience of calling an ambulance for a heart attack victim recently. Of course, just having the medics arrive released some of the pressure in the room (help had come!) but their attitude was exemplary. They were: calm, authoritative, professional, clear communicators, even humorous with an obvious chain of command.
It’s largely natural, but like most things, we can teach ourselves to improve our attitude. These medics clearly had.
by nick on October 7, 2009
Plenty has been said about Dixons’ comparison ads lately. They’re a blatant come-on aimed squarely at John Lewis, Harrods and Selfridges. They invite consumers to research with their competitors and then convert to Dixons for stronger pricing.
This is primarily a drive for Dixons’ website, with their retail sites only operating at airports. The strapline is, Dixons.co.uk: the last place you want to go.
These are more ‘designed’ than the comparison ads seen from the supermarkets. By using rivals’ fonts and colour pallet, they’re well and truly ‘up yours’ ads.
Having seen them for a while, I still can’t fully decide if they’re touting an honest and clever reflection of modern shopping habits or even pushing a wee bit of a class divide.
Either way, I think they’re a bellwether of what to expect from copywriters this winter, where ads will be thin on superlatives and hard on competitors. The Christmas run-up is getting all in your face – don’t skirt around with clever copy, get down to brass tacks and call your competitor out. Just look at Tesco and Asda for more evidence.
by nick on September 25, 2009
I recently heard comedian Frank Skinner being interviewed by Dermot O’Leary on his Radio Two show. Skinner, former host of his own guest TV show which ran for six years, said that TV is rather unreal. With his makeup applied, his shirt choice amended to avoid a camera clash, specific timing, outtakes, warm ups, breaks, editing and so on, Skinner called it ‘manufactured.’
He went on to say that radio is much more authentic – like two blokes sat at the end of the bar in the pub. Just raw conversations really, making radio much more true to itself (I’m paraphrasing here).
Social media is described as many things, both good and bad. How about thinking of social media’s offer of authenticity as an opportunity for companies to host their own radio show?
by nick on September 19, 2009
John Battelle recently said, ‘Marketing is now like moving quicksilver. The marketer is the publisher and visa versa; the consumer is now both… that we should rethink, ‘our brand in the market’ as, ‘our conversation with the market.’
I’d like to chirp a complimentary point about synergy with product (otherwise it’s all about the sell and very little about substance). As I see it marketing, branding and product are now *more* than joined at the hip. They’re our own holy trinity of business.
All three are separate but suddenly they’re one and the same. They’re more than interlinked – they are each other. If marketing was a message or a story about a product/service, it has now become the book itself.
Simple example: the iPod was an instant phenomenon because of the product and how it made people feel, not because of its raw above-the-line marketing efforts. Great products and services are a conversation starter for me, how about you?
by nick on September 11, 2009
Audi is on the change. Silas Amos over at JKR Design blog praises their logo touch up and I agree. They’ve applied some Photoshop botox to rejuvenate their concentric circles and the font choice has been modernised. Not particularly noticable now but, when viewed on a timeline, the amendments/path of change becomes significant. Check out Budweiser’s logo timeline to see what I mean.
Audi is also rumoured to be launching an electric car at the Frankfurt motor show. Again, not particularly groundbreaking until you look at the marketing that’s preceding the show.
They’ve launched a micro site with video clips showing the power of electricity. The lawnmower clip could top the YouTube spoof chart and clearly took some producing. They all finish with, ‘on 9.15.09 electricity will be untamed.’ That’s the date Frankfurt opens.
The thinking is that ‘untamed’ doesn’t sit too well with an A3 owner with a pram in the boot. So is it implying something far sportier? Perhaps a Clarkson-heart-attack-rendering electric R8!
I understand the concept of a hero product within the line – which the R8 surely is – and I get that the Prius is de rigueur with Californians, but if electric cars are to make a pragmatic difference then I cant help but think the world’s fleet managers need to get on-board. Reliability, efficiencies, keen prices and whacking great big tax incentives for an electric A4 sounds like a winner to me.
Either way, it’s a hat tip for Audi who’ve had a terrible year but look to be pushing on with aplomb.
by nick on August 12, 2009
A while ago, I had the pleasure of listening to Google’s Robert Swerling talk saliently about site design. The brief version of his presentation:
- Velocity – give it fast and let them get on with other things
- Visibility – don’t surprise consumers
- Value – provide real value
- Variation – never come out of beta (love that line)
As I find myself saying more often: business is mostly simple; but it’s not easy.
The Times is reporting on a modern classic. The Facebook faux pas is a recent phenomenon witnessed too closely by the head of MI6 as he was outed by his wife on her Facebook wall.
From the piece: …entries by his [Sir John Sawers'] wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.
As Yoda said, “Be mindful of your thoughts Obi Wan, they betray you.”
Dustin Curtis was so appalled by his experience at American Airlines’ website that he drew up a redesign and sent them an open letter.
I did exactly the same thing recently. My aunt’s ouiji board is more in touch with web design and best practice than what a company had created for a young, energetic start-up I know. So I redesigned it and set them my creation. My chosen patient wasn’t anywhere near the scale of AA, but its foe pars put it on the critical list and, like Dustin, I simply couldn’t resist.
But unlike AA, if I had published my critique (instead of sending privately), the site’s owners wouldn’t have noticed. AA did notice and their response is here. How about you, are you awake at the wheel?
If and when your company is mentioned online are you listening?
Adam & Eve are on the up. Not only did they win the John Lewis account earlier this year, but the ‘young communications company’ has also secured the enviable task of creatives at Williams F1.
What an exciting and innovative client Williams F1 will be. Still, you can’t help but wonder what their view of having RBS in the stable will be. Will it make courting new sponsorship deals more or less likely?
Either way, Adam & Eve will take encouragement that financial companies are still willing to pay £80m to get themselves onto footy shirts. Surely then, the O2s, Intels and Ciscos of the world would like a slice of the F1 pie?
I’ve just caught up with my Sky+ recordings of Channel 4’s Big Chef Takes on Little Chef, where Heston Blumenthal worked on a revamp of the Little Chef restaurants (I know it finished weeks ago, but I’ve been busy, OK).
The project finished successfully with the flagship Popham restaurant being rolled out nationwide, but the classic, and avoidable, failure was in communication. It became an example of how not to introduce change into a business.
These two aren’t natural bedfellows: Heston’s not a chef, he’s more of a food scientist, and Little Chef isn’t known for its quality of late. What did the two sides want out of the project? What was their motivation? What was the bigger picture for both?
The management rhetoric flowed from LC’s managing director, Ian Pegler, “I want blue sky thinking,” “show us the wow factor…” All of course are completely subjective and make it very easy to dismiss results as falling short. I appreciate he didn’t want to stifle Heston’s creativity, but he seemed desperate to avoid clarity at all costs – no aims, no objectives. This put them at loggerheads several times with Heston very nearly withdrawing.
I think they could’ve made life easier for all involved by targeting ‘Mondeo man.’ He (to continue the sexist noun) travels the country from meeting to meeting and despises the overpriced junk in Motorway stops. He spends £6 on coffee and a croissant rather than eat the drivel they serve in the café.
When Mr and Mrs Mondeo are too shattered to cook, where does the family go to eat? Harvester, Taybarns, McDonalds? Possibly. Little chef? Certainly not.
That’s where I’d have calibrated our positioning and targeting efforts from the beginning: business travellers for breakfast and lunch, families for dinner (remembering that breakfast is the cash cow for this chain).
They should’ve spent more time talking to each other, not the cameras. They operate at polar opposites of the food industry: one in a pub where dinner costs £250 per head, the other behind the desk of 400 Little Chefs. Change like this demands both parties really understand all view points of the project.
Photo credit: Wolfiewolf
I love making lists. Of course it’s nothing compared to the palpable pleasure of completion by crossing tasks off. But if you want to get multiple and complex lists out of their silos, you’re looking at making a mind map.
You can botch these together in Word, Powerpoint or even Excel if you’re determined enough, but I’ve found a couple of better solutions:
Mindomo – this is a web-based platform that serves ads to pay for its free basic accounts. It’s surprisingly fast, very easy to use and comes with enough features to create a professional looking map. Dragging topics around and rearranging is very easy. You can format in 12 fonts, add some symbols alongside your text box and even upload your own images.
It’s an impressive package – lightweight and intuitive. The only thing I feel it’s calling out for is the ability to save as a PDF. Remember it’s in the cloud so backing up becomes a screen print.
Mindmap Pro – software available for PC or Mac from the Concept Draw team. This feels like a well-built piece of software but it can be a bit unintuitive e.g. holding CTRL and scrolling your mouse ball won’t zoom in/out. It’s also not as easy as Mindomo to place a topic and its subtopics exactly where you’d like.
That said, it looks slick, is very robust and has some nice extras regarding brainstorming and task scheduling (although no Outlook or iCal sync up).
Conclusion – if you need a one-off visual map for a meeting next week then Mindomo is perfect for you. However, if you want to work offline on several maps that you want to own yourself then you could do far worse than spending £140 on Mindmap.
Extra – I’ve also been told about mindmeister.com. It’s another web-based system that looks on a par to Mindomo, although I’ve not tried it for real. My fear with these web-based systems is if their business model fails and they unplug it one evening, you might well see your precious maps obliterated….
At first, ‘How did we do?’ sounds like a question designed around self-improvement, right? Wrong. It’s usually a worthless platitude on par with a client/supplier asking, ‘How are you?’ They don’t care that you had toothache or a head cold last month and that your fridge packed up last night.
The overriding majority of people who’ll ask ‘How did I do?’ or ‘What do you think of my new widget’ already have a strong opinion before they ask, and are unlikely to be open enough to have you or others change it. The course has been set, the training is done, people have been hired, the script is written, the ads are booked, the product is in play – don’t make me change all that.
Next time you’re asked, ask them what they do with the feedback? If the project manager was outstanding does he/she get that fed into their appraisal system? Perhaps they qualify for a bonus? If the sales training was a dire waste of time, will the course be changed? Bottom line: will the feedback be actionable or are we just making polite platitudes?
If I’m fortunate enough to receive your feedback I’ll want your unfaltering honest opinions, not some lame schmoozing which equates to a lie. And ‘good’ or ‘nice’ do me no favours either because they don’t help me change and improve what I’m doing – they cry for more of the same (which doesn’t take me forward).
I’ll take the whole truth please. How about you and your team?
Photo credit: Gaetan Lee
Detractors would say it’s childish to email your customers reminding them of such menial tasks as cleaning a vacuum filter, but I really like this email from Dyson. No selling, no offers, no coupons, no upgrades, no end of season bumf… just service.
Just read