I got a note from Shannon Kavanaugh regarding one of the links to the Free Marketing E-Books not working, so I fixed it and checked the others too. Thanks Shannon!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Fixed Links
R U AN X-PERT?
Your brain can read the headline with relative ease to say, "Are You An Expert?"
We need to be much clearer when we are presenting ourselves and our expertise:
Welcome to this week's business insight by Shep Hyken. This
week's insight is titled:
Be an Expert
Our customers must have 100% confidence that we know what we are
talking about. Expertise is credibility. Our goal should be to
have our clients asking us where they should go or who they
should see for the services that we don't even provide. This
only comes from being a credible expert in our business. Your
customers' trust is so high that they respect and act on your
opinions. The more you know about your business, industry and
customers, the more adept you will be at finding solutions to
their needs.
Let's use Eveready Battery as an example. You know who they are.
They have the Energizer Bunny that seems to never run out of
energy. Eveready Battery maintains a close relationship with
retail stores. The company positions itself as an expert in
battery point of purchase. They offer to arrange a store's
entire battery display and this includes the competitions'
displays. They provide market information on what is selling and
what is not. More important, they act as a source of information
on all aspects of the battery market. They are the "category
manager." Retailers go to Eveready with any questions about any
aspect of batteries and how to set up their stores – even when
the questions are about the competition. What a powerful
position to be in!
Copyright © 2004– Shep Hyken, Shepard Presentations
Shep Hyken, CSP is a professional speaker and author who works
with organizations who want to build loyal relationships with
their customers and employees. For more information on Shep's
speaking programs, books and tapes contact (314)692-2200 or
Shep@hyken.com. (www.hyken.com)
Shepard Presentations, LLC
711 Old Ballas Road, Suite 215
St. Louis, MO 63141
Magic Words?
An excellent article from Small Fuel:
Super Effective Sales Words: Myth or Magic?
There is a long standing idea in the business world that using certain words will unlock sales, drive up profits, and generally make selling easier for you.
These special words, like “Free” and “Guaranteed”, are touted as being effective because they are based on scientific research and have a background in fields like NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).
Supposedly, we are pretty much hard-wired to respond favorably when one or more of these words are used.
But is all of that just hoopla? Or do certain words actually make a huge difference?
Read more to find out.
Some words DO work better than others
When you get right down to it, some words really do work better than others. If you pick any given time frame, you can usually find a few of these “magic” words—words that are being used very effectively to market and sell things.
But there’s a big catch: the “magic” sales words are changing constantly.
As the general opinion of the populace changes, so to do the words that work best when selling. Your market is being bombarded with sales pitches and advertisements constantly, and their opinions and ideas are changing very rapidly as a result.
What is cool and trendy one week might suddenly be a big looser the next.
How to find the magic words (hint: it’s not worth it)
Finding the special words at any point in time isn’t very difficult in theory. In practice, doing this yourself will take a lot of time and probably yield mediocre results. Here’s how it is done:
- Find a good source of sales data (Amazon.com works).
- Select a category and sample the top 50 or so items
- Graph the popularity of words used in ads for those items
- Repeat for several data sets and correlate with time
- Analyze the graphs and pick words that are trending up
As you can see, there is a lot of data collection and analysis involved. What makes it worse, this relatively simple analysis (there are more complicated ways to do this) uses existing products and ads as data points, so if you are trying to be seriously ahead of the curve, this isn’t the way to go.
In the end, finding the truly “magic” sales words can be very challenging. People pay marketing firms *ahem* good money for the service, and even with all of our resources it still isn’t easy.
For small business, sincerity is a better choice
Trying to stay ahead of the curve with sales letters and persuasive words is like running a marathon—you constantly have to research, adjust, and keep working. If you’re a small business, that time should probably be spent on more important things.
Instead of trying to find special words that will “unlock your sales potential” try basing your sales strategy entirely on sincerity.
One of the most attractive things about buying from a small business is the level of sincerity and personalized service. Most of us automatically assume that big businesses will cut corners wherever possible, and that they are really only in it for the money.
A small business that offers real sincerity and caring will out-compete even the most accurate and powerful “magic” words thrown around by the big businesses.
In a world filled with mistrust, sincerity is a very powerful thing. Don’t you agree?
Sphere: Related ContentSeth's What Every Good Marketer Knows-28
Each day I’m adding another tip from this list from Seth…
What Every Good Marketer Knows:
By Seth Godin
1. Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
2. Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.
3. Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.
4. Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market.
5. Marketing begins before the product is created.
6. Advertising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about far more than that.
7. Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
8. Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
9. Products that are remarkable get talked about.
10. Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your returns policy.
11. You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, once unfooled, talk about the experience.
12. If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget, you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers realize that it is an investment.
13. People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
14. You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.
15. What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love.
16. Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
17. Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade show booths, junk mail) are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work.
18. People all over the world, and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
19. Good marketers tell a story.
20. People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
21. Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
22. Effective stories match the worldview of the people you are telling the story to.
23. Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.
24. A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.
25. Living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to survive in an conversation-rich world.
26. Marketers are responsible for the side effects their products cause.
27. Reminding the consumer of a story they know and trust is a powerful shortcut.
28. Good marketers measure.
Obviously, knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Friday Final
Clickables from the day:
Time Preps Netflix-like Plan For Print Mags
Folio
In a burst of innovation, Time Inc. plans to unveil Maghound.com this September. It is a Netflix-like service in which readers can order individual issues of print magazines for a flat monthly fee.
Maghound.com allows consumers to choose titles from a variety of publishers via mix-and-match "subscriptions," where they pay one monthly fee and have the ability to switch titles at any time. Members can also cancel whenever they wish. The plan is to have 300 titles participating by the launch.
"There has been a paradigm shift in the way consumers shop, pay for and manage the services they choose--everywhere except for magazines," says Dave Ventresca, president of Maghound. "Circulation has always been publisher-centric. With Maghound, it becomes consumer-centric." - Read the whole story...
ABC Inserts Ads Into On-Demand TV
Advertising Age
Disney has taken a leadership position in scoping out new venues where people can watch TV shows and advertising can be part of the experience. The company has been testing if viewers will watch ABC shows on-demand through cable providers that disable the ability to zip through ads. It is now watching the results of adding more commercials to its Web-video viewer.
"We want to test all forms of advertising as we see our content migrate to additional platforms. We want to be in those new places and we want there to be advertising," says Mike Shaw, ABC's marketing head.
ABC and rival networks have to tread carefully with these ad experiments to avoid annoying viewers, say experts. "They need to be careful balancing the consumer experience with the pressure for monetization," says John Moore, director of innovation at Mullen. - Read the whole story...
Dunkin' Donuts Plays Hardball In Latest Campaign
by Laurie Sullivan
[Restaurants] The promotion targets on-the-go-adults who lead busy lives. "We want to be their support system, the place where they pop in for great-tasting food and beverage without waiting 15 minutes for an iced coffee or latte," says Scott Hudler, senior director of brand marketing at Dunkin' Donuts. "Like any other brand in our space, the way you build business is through loyalty." - Read the whole story...
Domestic Vehicles Draw More APEAL In J.D. Power Survey
by Karl Greenberg
[Automotive] Dave Sargent, VP of automotive research at the firm, says the eight most-improved brands are domestics. This year's Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout study saw the industry sink two points in how well it is pleasing consumers. Fuel economy is the culprit, he says. - Read the whole story...
Jim Beam To Showcase Others With 'The Stuff Inside'
by Aaron Baar
[Spirits] "We spent a lot of time talking about the liquid in the bottle. Now we want to articulate the behavior of the brand," Beam Global Spirits & Wine CMO Rory Finlay says. The brand will promote the individuals and organizations the company feels share the same attributes, which include character, integrity, trust and perseverance. - Read the whole story...
Suzuki To Pass On Detroit Auto Show
Shell To Open Hydrogen Refueling Station
Nike To Sponsor USA Basketball Documentary
Social Media Stereotypes
Preconceived notions are dangerous:
It's Time to Socialize, People!
- Those who donate to humanitarian non-profits
- Workers for government agencies
- Senior executives at large companies
Scott believes this argument tends to serve as a cover for those who feel most comfortable with traditional marketing channels like direct mail or billboards. And, should you encounter this rationale, you might want to borrow his standard response: "Nonsense! These days everyone is online. Executives use Google, government workers read blogs, people who donate money watch YouTube videos. And even if they don't go online at work, they do at home. Stop making excuses and reach your buyers in the way they want to be reached."
The post includes an amusing video, shot in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where Scott admits he found a market that really isn't online. "If you're selling camels at the Riyadh camel market," he notes wryly, "then keep marketing the same old ways."
David Meerman Scott provides a great piece of Marketing Inspiration by stating this fact in unequivocal terms: The time for finding reasons not to engage customers through social media is long past.
More Inspiration:
Mack Collier: Broadcasting with 'Social' Media
Elaine Fogel: Creatives: Stop What You're Doing and Watch This!
Ann Handley: Who's On First?
More is Better!?!?!
When this story showed up in my email, I thought, "someone's got a lot of free time and money to spend."
The results of the study is a no-brainer. The more someone is exposed to your advertising, the more likely they will remember it. Using different forms of media with the same message for your product or service in order to reach an individual consumer makes sense. We don't need to spend money on this type of research.
But someone did and I'll post the article in a moment, but first this consideration:
Getting someone to notice you and your ads is not the same as getting someone to spend the money on your product or service. Don't confuse the two. You need exposure, yes, but you also need a good ad that motivates people to action.
Multi-Platform Ads Sell More Product Adweek Compared to ads on only one platform, advertising on multiple platforms results in a higher percentage of consumers who purchase the product or service being advertised, according to new research by Integrated Media Measurement. Running ads more frequently also helps sales. Amanda Welsh, research chief at IMMI, says, "This shows ads on multiple platforms get consumers to engage in the target behavior," of buying things, which is "more important than reach." Consumers exposed to television ads for five movies had an average conversion rate of 5.52%, while consumers exposed to ads on TV and at least one other platform had an average conversion rate of 13.52%, per the research. That's an increase of 245%. - Read the whole story...
Stupid Ads
Labov & Beyond, a local firm that is hq'd in Fort Wayne, has a blog that they maintain. This week they picked up on a tv spot for US Cellular which I saw this week then forgot about it.
In a second, I'll share with you what they wrote, but the main problem I see, is it is forgettable. It does nothing, says nothing and does not distinguish the company from their competitors. How do I know?
Do this simple test. Watch the ad and then substitute any other cell phone company in there and you'll see it is simply a generic ad for a cell phone company.
Heck, take it a step further, you could make it an ad for shoes, or balloons, or toothpaste, or eye surgery and keep the video, just change the audio. That's a stupid ad.
Here's more:
Adventures in bad ads
OK, we’ll admit: The all-too-common site of someone walking just about anywhere in public, jabbering away loudly on a cellphone, bearing all sorts of details and insights into their personal or professional lives that we need not know about, tends to illicit one of two reactions from us:
1) Indifference
2) Outright hostility
It most certainly is not happiness. Especially if we’re already in a bad mood to begin with.
Which is why this sappy ad from U.S. Cellular grates on us so much. And we have a feeling we’re not alone. Another part of the problem is that the ad offers no product advantages or differentiating factors to separate U.S. Cellular from its competition. If the mere act of walking down the street will make the world smile, why would it need to be on a US Cellular phone?
Bad ad all around - especially because you will generate active negativity in those who view it (in the form of someone who, oh, feels compelled to go online and rant about it) as opposed to the afmorementioned indifference or even passive negativity.
Harumph.
Sphere: Related Content
Afternoon quick ones
Info from E.P.M.:
74% of Americans use the Internet for travel planning, and 21% use travel books, according to Platform-A, AOL's advertising unit. | |
87% of Americans who use social networking sites say that very few of the ads they see on those sites are relevant to their interests, reports Prospectiv. |
Just 4% of first-time car buyers between the ages of 18 and 23 are excited about the look and style of their new car, says Capital One. | |
48% of men own underwear that's more than 3 years old, including 11% who own pairs more than 10 years old, notes Jockey. | |
63% of Americans aged 55 and older believe their auto mechanic charges them a fair rate for repairs, compared to 49% of those aged 18-54, according to DriverSide. |
 | EPM Datafile Info: Publisher: Ira Mayer imayer@epmcom.com The EPM Datafile is an EPM Communications, Inc. service. |
| 160 Mercer Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10012 | P: (212) 941-0099 | F: (212) 941-1622 | |
Marketing Pieces
From Seth's Blog:
Five easy pieces
Never mind the "P"s. Marketing has five elements:
Data
Stories
Products (services)
Interactions
Connection
DATA is observational. What do people actually do? Wal-Mart uses data to decide if an end cap is working. Google Adwords advertisers use data to decide which copy delivers clicks and sales. The library can use data to decide which books to buy (and not to buy). Paco Underhill uses data to turbo charge retail. Data is powerful, overlooked and sometimes mistaken for boring. You don't have to understand the why, you merely need to know the what.
STORIES define everything you say and do. The product has a myth, the service has a legend. Marketing applies to every person, every job, every service and every organization. That's because all we can work with as humans is stories. I want to argue that data and stories are the two key building blocks of marketing--the other three are built on these two.
PRODUCTS (and services) are physical manifestations of the story. If your story is that you are cutting edge and faster/newer/better, then your products better be. Average products for average people is a common story, but not one that spreads. When in doubt, re-imagine the product. Push it to be the story, to live the story, to create a myth.
INTERACTIONS are all the tactics the marketer uses to actually touch the prospect or customer. Interactions range from spam to billboards, from the way you answer the phone to the approach you take to an overdue bill. Interactions are the hero of marketing, because there are so many and most of them are cheap. Unfortunately, all lazy marketers can do is buy ads or spam people. Which creates an interaction that belies your story, right?
CONNECTION is the highest level of enlightenment, the end goal. Connection between you and the customer, surely, but mostly connection between customers. Great marketers create bands of brothers, tribes of people who wish each other well and want to belong. Get the first four steps right and you may get a shot at this one.
Some questions marketers must ask: Does this interaction lead to connections? Do our products support our story? Is the story pulling in numbers that demonstrate that it's working?
In that light, what are you working on? If it's not one of these five, not going to seriously change the dynamic of your marketing, why exactly are you bothering?
My guess is that your organization spends almost all of its time on the interactions. Once you see the world through the prism of the five pieces, you can get in balance. Or, you could be Jack.
Sphere: Related ContentCustomer Focused Marketing
This recent story about a shopping experience at Target is an example of how to make sure you are customer focused:
On Target
When it started to get unmanageable, our colleague began to debate whether he should return to the front of the store for a cart, or ditch the extra stuff and get it later—perhaps at another store he planned to visit in the afternoon.
Just then, however, he glanced down and saw a small stack of hand baskets conveniently located in an aisle filled with the smaller items he was trying to carry. He took one, did some more shopping and wound up making a purchase that was four times the amount he initially planned to spend.
It's a good reminder to think about how your customers shop, and to consider the impediments they might encounter between selecting a product or service and completing the sale. If you reduce their effort, you'll in all likelihood increase your bottom line.
Making it easy for your customers to give you their money is essential Marketing Inspiration. Target's stylish campaigns, well-stocked aisles and good value got him into the store—but all it took was a simple rack of hand baskets to impress him with a thoughtful touch and quadruple the size of a sale.
More Inspiration:
Ted Mininni: The Marketing of Worm Poop
Paul Barsch: Rendering Real-Time Roaming in Rome
Lewis Green: The Real ROI of Blogging
Starbucking It
It has been awhile since I wrote about Starbucks and their marketing, advertising, history or anything for that matter.
I don't visit them as often as I used to. Only once, maybe twice a week now. I patronize my local, homegrown coffee shops where I feel more welcome. I can take my laptop into my local shops and catch up on some emails for an hour between meetings, which I can't do at Starbucks without paying extra for wireless.
(Although last week I had a meeting at a Starbucks and was able to access the T-mobile wireless automatically without any fees or sign-ups. Must have been a fluke.)
Yesterday, the woman behind the counter said nothing. No, "Hello", No, "How are you", She said nothing. So I waited for her to speak first. Finally, I told her what I wanted, she silently rang it up and asked for my name which she wrote on the cup. I was the only customer in Starbucks at the time, so why did she need my name?
2 minutes later when my drink was ready, did she call my name? Nope. She called out the drink.
Remember when Starbucks shut down their stores for retraining? It didn't stick.
With gas prices at record levels and consumers adjusting their spending habits, companies like Starbucks will suffer, unless they bring back the service and make it an experience to go to Starbucks, not just a cup of coffee.
For more on the Starbucks story, take a look at this from Customers Rock!
Re-Experiencing Starbucks, Update 7 - Listening to Customers
Posted by Becky Carroll on June 26, 2008
Slowly but surely, Starbucks seems to be listening. I blogged about MyStarbucksIdeawhen it first came out, and there were a lot of improvements to make. I believe Starbucks has made a real effort over the past few months that they have been up and running with MyStarbucksIdea. I have seen improvements on both the IdeaSite (new term?) as well as in person. Read on…
IdeaSite Improvements
MyStarbucksIdea was heavily criticized when it first came out. The Customers Rock! perspective on it was this - it is good to see Starbucks out there engaging their customers this way. And boy, have they been engaged! Thousands of customer ideas have gone on the site, with the majority of the ideas being about the coffee drinks themselves (no surprise here) and then the atmosphere and locations. What should these ideas tell Starbucks? First, it should tell them that customers are coming for the coffee, so make sure to get that right. Second, customers are still in search of what they used to have at Starbucks, that “3rd place” to hang out and relax with friends.
Maybe customers don’t come up with a lot of new or innovative ideas, but the dialogue is a great way for Starbucks to get inside their customers’ heads and see how they think.
In addition, I am glad to see Starbucks beginning to participate more in the conversation on the site, as well as soliciting direct feedback on how to improve the site. Be sure to click into that post and read the comments; you can watch a little mini-community forming as you go. 
Interaction with Corporate - In Person!
I also had the good fortune of interacting with two gentlemen from Starbucks Corporate recently. Apparently, part of their role is to go out and visit the Starbucks in their area to see how things are going. They stopped me on my way out of the line to ask me about “my experience”. I was happy to share my thoughts with them - about bathroom cleanliness (spotty), about the atmosphere (I like it), about my favorite drink (Passion Iced Tea, sweetened), about how the service seems on weekdays vs the weekends (better when they are busy, I think). I then revealed that I blog here at Customers Rock! and shared about this ongoing Starbucks Project with them. They asked me a few more questions before moving on to their meeting with the local supervisory team.
After they left, the employees there thanked me for my kind words and gave me a free drink. Thanks, guys!
Although I would have loved to see the visitors from Corporate commenting here on my blog, I am pleased to see a team out inspecting the stores and asking customers about their experience. Kudos to you, Starbucks, for getting out there and interacting face to face with customers. It is more valuable than you think!
Please Fill Out Our Starbucks Survey!
Jay and I have put together a short survey to see what you, our readers, think about Starbucks and its “re-Experience” project. Please take just a minute to click on this survey link and fill it out. You could even win, what else, a gift card to Starbucks! We will be sure to report the results here soon.
Also see Jay Ehret’s blog The Marketing Spotfor more Starbucks insight on “The Perfect Frappuccino”, as well as Meikah Delid who is keeping her related Starbucks series going with The Sixth Step for Starbucks. Thanks, Meikah!
Related Customers Rock! posts in the Re-Experiencing Starbucks project series:
Part 2: Transformation Starting
Sphere: Related ContentConsumer Choices & the Economy
Got this bit of research in my email this morning:
Friday, June 27, 2008
Half of Low Income Consumers Having Trouble Buying GroceriesAccording to a study from Information Resources, Inc., the lagging economy is driving a dramatic move back to basics and a reversal of decades-long trends for convenient and healthier foods. Roughly half of all consumers with incomes less than $55,000 per year say they have trouble affording the groceries they need, while nearly a quarter of those earning between $55,000 and $99,000 also say so. Among those with incomes over $100,000, 16% report having trouble. 42% of consumers say they have given up favorite food brands because of rising prices and economic concerns.
The "IRI Times & Trends Special Report: Competing in a Transforming Economy" report finds that escalating prices have bred high price sensitivity, driving declining demand across multiple categories, growth in private label, trial of lower-priced brands and accelerated channel migration.
Though changes in shopping and purchase behavior vary based on life stage and presence of children, those with lower-incomes report being the hardest hit.
| Consumers Having Difficulty Buying Needed Groceries | |
| Income Segment | % Having Difficulty |
| < $35K | 56% |
| $35K-54.9K | 44 |
| $55K-99.9K | 24 |
| $100K + | 16% |
| Source: IRI Economic Trend Database/AttitudeLink, May 2008 | |
Consumers are increasing purchases of basic ingredients and meal components, reducing restaurant spending and decreasing purchases of "non-essentials":
| Consumers Making Food & Grocery Trade-Offs (Previous 6 Months) | |||||
|
| % By Annual Income Level ($x000) | ||||
| Change | % of Total Consumers | <$35 | $35-54.9 | 55-99.9 | 100+ |
| Buy fewer individual serving pkgs. | 59% | 62% | 68% | 60% | 45% |
| Cut back non-essential groceries | 66 | 75 | 76 | 65 | 42 |
| Buy fewer prepared meals | 55 | 63 | 59 | 53 | 39 |
| Try lower priced brands | 50 | 62 | 55 | 46 | 35 |
| Buy smaller quantities of favorite treats | 55 | 69 | 58 | 54 | 34 |
| Buy fewer organic products | 52 | 59 | 56 | 53 | 34 |
| Buy more private label | 50 | 58 | 58 | 47 | 31 |
| Give up favorite brands | 42 | 58 | 52 | 38 | 19 |
| Buy fewer "healthy" products | 32 | 45 | 42 | 28 | 11 |
| Buy fresh produce | 30 | 46 | 33 | 27 | 10 |
| Source: IRI Economic Trend Database/AttitudeLink, May 2008 | |||||
Additionally:
- 53% of consumers report that they are cooking from scratch more now than they were six months ago
- Stores are seeing a resurgence in sales of frozen foods, perishables, and "center-store" items
Please access more information through IRI here, or Marketing Charts here.
Sphere: Related ContentSeth's What Every Good Marketer Knows-27
Each day I’m adding another tip from this list from Seth…
What Every Good Marketer Knows:
By Seth Godin
1. Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk.
2. Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.
3. Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers.
4. Share of wallet is easier, more profitable and ultimately more effective a measure than share of market.
5. Marketing begins before the product is created.
6. Advertising is just a symptom, a tactic. Marketing is about far more than that.
7. Low price is a great way to sell a commodity. That’s not marketing, though, that’s efficiency.
8. Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.
9. Products that are remarkable get talked about.
10. Marketing is the way your people answer the phone, the typesetting on your bills and your returns policy.
11. You can’t fool all the people, not even most of the time. And people, once unfooled, talk about the experience.
12. If you are marketing from a fairly static annual budget, you’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good marketers realize that it is an investment.
13. People don’t buy what they need. They buy what they want.
14. You’re not in charge. And your prospects don’t care about you.
15. What people want is the extra, the emotional bonus they get when they buy something they love.
16. Business to business marketing is just marketing to consumers who happen to have a corporation to pay for what they buy.
17. Traditional ways of interrupting consumers (TV ads, trade show booths, junk mail) are losing their cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new ways of spreading ideas (blogs, permission-based RSS information, consumer fan clubs) are quickly proving how well they work.
18. People all over the world, and of every income level, respond to marketing that promises and delivers basic human wants.
19. Good marketers tell a story.
20. People are selfish, lazy, uninformed and impatient. Start with that and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
21. Marketing that works is marketing that people choose to notice.
22. Effective stories match the worldview of the people you are telling the story to.
23. Choose your customers. Fire the ones that hurt your ability to deliver the right story to the others.
24. A product for everyone rarely reaches much of anyone.
25. Living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to survive in an conversation-rich world.
26. Marketers are responsible for the side effects their products cause.
27. Reminding the consumer of a story they know and trust is a powerful shortcut.
Obviously, knowing what to do is very, very different than actually doing it.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Thursday Afterhours News
Clickable headlines from my sources:
by Erik Sass Almost two-thirds of college students are streaming video and TV shows online, via services like Veoh, Hulu and Joost, as well as buying downloads from iTunes, according to Alloy Media and Marketing, which just completed the 2008 annual College Explorer survey. ... Read the whole story
by Erik Sass
The Boston Herald will cut 130-160 employees in the next few months, focusing on the production staff, according to Herald president and publisher Patrick J. Purcell, who announced the decision in a meeting with union leaders. The move will allow the company to avoid the expense of replacing its aging printing presses, some of which are 50 years old. ... Read the whole story
Sphere: Related Content
Southwest Targets Tomorrow's Professionals Via Games
by Laurie Sullivan
[Transportation] "The challenge is that many things will happen between now and the time when this generation reaches the age to frequently travel," says a marketing professor. "Their memory of this brand will erode throughout the years, so you continually have to remind them, but you can build loyalty if you start early because it becomes part of their natural choice set." - Read the whole story...
Aggressive Marketing Helps General Mills Beat Expectations
by Karlene Lukovitz
[Food] Chairman/CEO Ken Powell noted that the company's categories are staples with high percentages of household purchasing penetration, which bodes well even during recessionary economies. He described the company's strategy as a "virtuous cycle": Continuing operational cost savings enable greater resources for consumer marketing, which in turn drive top-line growth and operating profit. - Read the whole story...
New Toyota Campaign For Scion Is A Labor Of Lava
by Karl Greenberg
[Automotive] The microsite opens with an animation of lava erupting from a volcano in an urban landscape. The lava pours over a stock xD, the car melts, and reshapes into the Release Series vehicle. When site visitors click steaming manhole covers, they blow open to show vehicle features. The smoke-expelling billboards, which will roll through 12 cities, show the flaming xD RS 1.0 image. - Read the whole story...
Abbott Labs' Online Effort Addresses Teen Rx Abuse
by Aaron Baar
[Pharma] The effort is centered mostly on PR and education efforts through parenting media, web sites and blogs. While the Web site includes video of teens reaching into a medicine cabinet and emptying prescription bottles (with messages such as "Today, 2,500 teens will abuse these for the first time" and "Does your conversation about drugs include these?"), there are no current plans to turn the video into television advertising. - Read the whole story...
New-Car Shoppers Reconsidering In Light Of Gas Prices
by Karl Greenberg
[Research] Kbb.com's Jason Allan says SUV consideration between October 2007 and now has gone from 38% to 27%. The reason that drop isn't a lot bigger is that the SUV category represents traditional SUVs and crossovers, based on car platforms. "And there are still so many people who need three rows of seats." - Read the whole story...
As Slump Lingers, JCPenney Cuts Spending Plans
by Sarah Mahoney
[Retail] Still, some observers believe that sales are improving somewhat at department stores, and that JCPenney is particularly well positioned to gain when consumers do decide to return to the mall. Before the announcement of the revised expansion plans, for example, Deutsche Bank, citing slightly improved sales trends and its reliable earnings estimates, upgraded its recommendation from "hold" to "buy." - Read the whole story...
Calif. Newspaper Outsources Editing Tasks
CNBC
The Orange County Register in Southern California is trying a new way to cut costs: outsourcing to India. Mindworks Global Media in New Delhi will copy edit some of the paper's stories for a one-month trial starting next week. A smaller unnamed sister paper will outsource its page layout to Mindworks.
The company insists it's just a test, and it won't affect reporting or decision-making. The move is also not supposed to prompt more layoffs.
The Register has dropped from being California's third-largest paper to its fifth=largest and has sustained three rounds of layoffs in the past year. - Read the whole story...
Writers Ask FCC For Product Placement Rules
Variety
The Writers Guild of America West wants the FCC to make rules that mandate disclosure of product integration in TV shows.
In a letter, guild president Patric Verrone urges the agency "to require on-screen, real-time disclosure on TV programming where product integration occurs, in order to make viewers aware of the range of products they are overtly--and more often covertly--being sold."
FCC officials heard testimony about product integration last year and are expected to release proposed rules this year. Verrone wrote that embedding products "exploits the emotional connection viewers have with shows to sell a product and runs the risk of alienating an audience that expects compelling television, not commercials." - Read the whole story...
Old Media Is Watching Bloggers
BusinessWeek
Content recognition software is getting so sophisticated that traditional media companies can now track where and how their content is being used online. The dust-up between the AP and bloggers was just an early skirmish in what's likely to become a protracted war over media content that's published online.
Bloggers and Web sites are eager to ensure continued access to information, but media companies are intent on controlling or cashing in on the dissemination of their stories, videos and other content.
New systems automate the tracking job and do it less expensively than past systems. The new software can also automatically send out "takedown notices" that require sites to remove contested content, and the data generated by the software could be used to build a case against alleged copyright infringers. - Read the whole story...
Pirate Radio Gets a New (Digital) Life
The New York Times
In the old analog days, people who couldn't get on traditional radio turned to broadcasting illegally over unlicensed radio frequencies. But now pirate broadcasters can put their radio programs on the Web with a computer and a telephone.
BlogTalkRadio, which helps alternative broadcasters, just closed an initial $4.6 million round of funding led by The Kraft Group, the owners of the New England Patriots.
The service lets anyone host a live radio talk show over the telephone or Internet, complete with live guests and callers. Show creators get half the ad revenue. Recent participants include Brad Pitt and Senators John McCain, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. - Read the whole story...
MTV To Accept Political Ads
Advertising Age
ESPN Radio Will Go to Listener's Home
Mediaweek
In a bid to incorporate the audience into its programming under the guise of charity, an episode of ESPN Radio show "Mike & Mike in the Morning" is being auctioned off to listeners. Money from the auction will go to the V Foundation for Cancer Research. People bid online in early July and the winning bidder will have the show, hosted by Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, broadcast live from their home or property.
In all, 18 ESPN "fan experiences" will be auctioned off, ranging from tickets to sporting events to visits to ESPN headquarters. - Read the whole story...
Sorry, we don't want your money...
A friend of mine has been contacting other radio stations for advertising their business and I'm surprised at the different levels of customer service he has received.
He called one local station and asked for the sales manager, was told that he was out until next week.
He then asked if there was someone else that could help him with some prices for advertising and was told there's no one available right now!
I mean, why do they even bother answering the phone!?
In my email yesterday was this article on customer service:
You Tried Hard. I Like You.
Why? "Consumers recognize that effort is a controllable behavior, and as a result, feel gratitude toward firms that uphold their moral responsibility to work hard, even when they are working to market their products," claims the author. According to the researchers, customers can view a company's outstanding efforts as either general or personal. And in the great scheme of things, personal wins. Although customers are positively motivated in both instances, when they see a company's efforts as personal, they are grateful, and feel indebted to it. The Po!nt: Go the extra mile. Even if it doesn't make your product better, consumers will appreciate and reward you for your effort. Source: "Giving Firms an 'E' for Effort: Consumer Responses to High-Effort Firms" by Andrea C. Morales. Journal of Consumer Research, 2005.
Earn More By Doing Less
Sounds like a scam.... well if you believe you can discount your way to riches, you have been scammed!
One of the best ways to earn more is to give more, instead of lowering your price. Read more from SalesDog.com:
Stop Discounting and Earn Top Dollar
Employ these four techniques from Paul Johnson to establish your value, justify your price and avoid discounting.
Every dollar you discount is a dollar of pure profit you're giving away. Every effort you make to remove discounts can reap rich rewards.
When buyers see list price, they expect discounts to follow. By changing the way you address the relationship between pricing and discounts, you can stop giving away heavy discounts and escape the commodity pricing pressures in your business.
Here are four simple techniques you can use to wring every dollar you deserve out of your next sale.
Amplify the pain
First, find and amplify your buyer's pain. Before any discussion of price, your buyer must be truly motivated to make a change. In other words, make sure the buyer understands just how much it is costing them to not implement your solution.
The life insurance business has used this approach for years, because nobody wants to think about dying. The agent asks the prospective insured to think about all of the effects of being inadequately insured. Do you have enough money set aside right now to pay for a decent burial? How will the mortgage be paid next month? Who will pay for the children's college? These types of questions heighten the awareness of the buyer to the gravity of their decision, which increases the perceived value of the solution as well as creating a sense of urgency to make a positive decision.
But wait, you say, not all buying decisions are pain-oriented. Very true. Many buying decisions are tied to gain of some sort, whether financial, power, prestige, or comfort-related. Still, these gain drivers can be made even more effective by bringing in the pain elements. All you need to do is consider the flip side with the prospect.
For instance, if you are considering a new mattress on the basis of increased comfort, what will happen if you don't get the mattress? Will you, or do you now suffer from back or joint problems? Will you wake up tired, drag through your day, and be unproductive at work? Will you waste more time sleeping than you need to, because of lack of quality sleep time?
When you consider questions like these, the new mattress is no longer a luxury. Instead, it becomes a necessary tool that will cost you many productive hours at work and in your relationships if you fail to have it. With pain, we now have a motivated buyer with a sense of urgency.
Quantify the problem
The next step for maximizing your selling price is to quantify the buyer's problem. Often the buyer will need a little help with this. Some things are easy to quantify. For example, what would it cost if a company's website goes down and visitors can't access company information or conduct transactions? That may be easier to quantify than putting a dollar figure on what a bad night's sleep might cost you the next day.
You can quickly quantify any situation by going through a best case/worst case/likely case scenario. For instance, the best case situation for your website to go down would probably be in the middle of the night, perhaps on a weekend. You'd loose some traffic, but only a very small percentage compared to overall weekly traffic. The worst case might be to lose your website right after your company is featured on CNN. While this could happen, the probability is rather small. Now it's easier for the buyer to understand that a likely scenario could be to lose their website during a normally heavy traffic time, perhaps mid-day or early evening. With such a likely scenario clearly in mind, it's easy to understand how financially painful the loss would be.
Package your solution
A third tactic for maximizing your selling price is to package your solution. Don't price out components separately, but show a single price for fixing the buyer's problem. The price should include all of your offerings that are necessary to deliver the complete fix.
Once you've bundled your solution for a single price, it's hard for your buyer to shop elsewhere. The more of your offerings your buyer needs, the more difficult it will be to find another source that can duplicate that same set of offerings. Buying them à la carte from multiple sources will almost always prove to be more difficult, if not more expensive.
I'm amazed at how many companies believe they have to provide line item pricing because their buyers ask for it. Of course they ask for it! That's so they can nitpick each item and squeeze out a bigger discount. Most companies are a little high on some items and a little low on others, but still offer a great overall value. Your prospect will never point out the under-priced items, but you can bet they'll grind you on the ones that are a little high.
Pick a proud price
As you set the price for your offering, the last thing to consider is the cost of the problem the buyer quantified earlier. Remember that you are presenting a neatly wrapped solution to a buyer who is motivated to solve a painfully expensive problem. Their problem should be a lot more expensive than the price you are asking, preferably by a factor of three or more. Feel free to name your price, and pick a good one!
Your price shouldn't be exorbitant, but it doesn't have to be the cheapest in town. You deserve to make a good buck relative to the problem you are fixing. This is no time to be shy and leave money on the table. If you haven't been able to point out how their problem is costing them much more than the price of your solution, don't be surprised when you don't get the order.
To earn top dollar for what you offer, you'll need to amplify your buyer's pain, quantify their problem, package your solution, and make sure the cost of their problem is always much higher than the price of your solution. It's worth working a little harder to defend your pricing because another name for discount is pure profit. Use these techniques and you won't have to give either away anymore.
Paul Johnson is Founder of ConsultativeSelling.com. He works with organizations like ADP, Nortel Networks and AutoNation to convert sales trouble into double and triple digit performance breakthroughs. Discover the application and definition of Consultative Selling at http://ConsultativeSelling.com/. Call Paul direct in Atlanta at 770-271-7719.
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