How not to sell a commoditized product

I saw this on YouTube last night as I was working on packing for my upcoming trip to Estonia.  I laughed, not only because of Brian Regan's style but also because I've worked in consultative sales organizations as a marketer, sales consultant, operations/marketing person, or a combination of all three for almost 6 years. In these organizations, you would never (if you're positioning your product correctly and leveraging your training) sell your product in this way.

It got me thinking, however, because all products are eventually commoditized when the market gets penetrated, that differentiating your products as solutions to consumers' needs and values (if you're selling to consumers) or a business person's critical business needs and stated goals (if you're selling B2B) is critically important when your market is in this condition.



In light of that...  If you were this appliance sales person, how would you sell a refrigerator?

Social Marketing - Does it matter?

It seems as if a lot of companies are, whether internally or externally, starting to embrace this new paradigm of "social" communications and networks within their communications and PR networks.  You may have seen a few signs of these, such as:

• Companies are becoming more and more engaged on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter
• Internal social networking platforms like Yammer and Chatter are being experimented with, and being adopted with a good deal of success
• Corporate executives (especially at forward-thinking technology companies) are tweeting their thoughts, visions, and expectations
• Your marketing team has used the term "fan," "like," "follower," or "engagement" in any context regularly in the last year

I believe "social" is here to stay.  The fact that Facebook's ad impressions are set to (if they haven't already) exceed Google's is a decent sign of this new reality.  Now, the question is as brand-stewards, "what do we do with this?" and "Does our engagement in social media networks really matter?"  In the B2B marketing world, in particular, this can be a quandary because much of the emphasis here is on demand generation and "leads," which social sites may be able to create in the B2C world but if we are strictly measuring the value of social in this way in B2B, can the ROI be justified?  

Perhaps leads can be uncovered through social sites, but the danger is that if your behavior is dictated by this mandate that you could either or both a.) sabotage your potential success in social, and b.) underestimate the value of engaging in this world and thus never invest the time or resource required to be successful.  

However, I believe the the key is moving the perception of social from being a thermostat to being a thermometer.  

Social is a very poor thermostat, because with the instantaneous feedback of the social world (especially with external messenging) any messaging that you present to change perceptions can potentially be, if it is contradictory with the experiences of your customers, challenged immediately by those with different experiences.  In a world where over 40% of people trust "someone they know" versus corporate advertising, who do you think they will listen to:  The brand message or their "friend" that discounts the brand message?  This interaction puts you potentially in a difficult circumstance when you are at "odds" with your audience.  The thermostat "broke" if you will, because you intended to change the environment but the environment did not change.  

It is however a very good thermometer.  Do you want to know what your customers are truly interested in learning from you?  Do you want to know what the real perception of your brand and your products are?  Are you humble enough to listen, incorporate the feedback, and change if the feedback you are receiving and your brand are not in alignment?  If they are not, it is a powerful thing to tell your customers (who are committed to you with their dollars), that we are in this together and we are going to change for your benefit.  And if they are, how can you leverage the crowd that is surrounding and loves your brand?  When the love for your brand within and without is high, this is when great marketing goes viral.  This is when friends will recommend you.  

At the end of the day, social media is not just a "marketing" tool, it is really a community-building tool that can revolutionize how you learn about, communicate with, and create value for your customers and fans.  When we see it in this multi-dimensional way, we can truly leverage its power and see the results.   

Your Customers Brand You

You know it's rarely a good sign when people get creative with your company brand :-)

I'm on a Delta flight, leaving an hour and a half late (fortunately not as late as other Delta flights here), and when I put a comment on my Facebook wall about "what's up with the Delta delays?" a guy that I worked with during my road warrior work days commented with...

Don't you know Delta stands for Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport? 

And then another friend commented with...

Don't Expect Luggage To Arrive. 

For someone who has endured long delays and has had my luggage lost... not once, not twice, but at least three times by this airline, I had to laugh.  Why?  Because I've experienced this... it's pretty true. 

Being a marketing professional by training and trade, this intrigues me a lot, because you know that Delta isn't really trying to get this type of publicity and their PR department isn't exactly pumping out this message.  However, Delta does (if you see the billboards and other marketing they put out) spend millions of dollars every year to attempt to brand themselves as an airline that can take you everywhere and anywhere, where they still care about customer service, and that they have a personality (or at least that redhead that talks like William Shatner and waves her finger at you when she says that smoking is "not allowed" does).  However, all of those ad dollars and all of those branding efforts, you have to imagine, get wasted when you book a Delta flight to "go somewhere" and it's stuck on the tarmac for 2 hours, or is delayed by over an hour and a half, or when you arrive at this exotic destination you find out that your luggage is in an entirely other part of the world. 

What speaks louder?  The advertising messages... the PR statements... the cool new colors on the airplane? 

Or the fact that they lost my luggage... again? 

I think you know :-)

And back to Delta, and the fact that they can get me anywhere... 2 hours late.  Maybe with my luggage.  They do provide a good service, but at the end of the day these consumer experience issues do become part of a company's brand, whether they like it or not.  It's not just for airlines. 

At the end of the day, your Marketing department doesn't ultimately determine your brand; they can only attempt to define it in the customer's perception and drive awareness.  Your customers ultimately define the brand.  And for those brands that meet or exceed expectations, this is a wonderful thing.  For those that do not, it keeps Brand Managers busy, but can make a company look a little silly.  

As the acronyms and parodies can tell you.  Ha!