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?
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
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.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
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!
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!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
I have data, but I need information
I have a confession: I am a statistics and data junkie. I’m not sure where it came from… perhaps it’s from my love of baseball growing up, from playing Fantasy Football (in which I never missed a Fantasy playoff in a league I’ve played in), or tracking the Rivals star status of Texas A&M’s football and basketball recruits to assess whether I should get excited about the upcoming seasons or start blogging in support of a coaching change. Regardless of where it came from, I have built my post-MBA career on an ability to leverage data to decipher insights and recommend future strategy. Especially working in the BI space, I have found that organizations that understand the importance of leveraging data for competitive advantage tend to be more successful than others.
This is a good time to be an analytics professional. Today, like no other time in history, there is a plethora of data in the world. From organizations siphoning terabytes (and even pedabytes) of operational business data into massive data warehouses, to all of the information you can search for on Google, to the clickstreams of your website visitors, to the massive amount of data aggregators providing syndicated lists & analyst reports, to all of the chatter on the blogosphere and Twitterverse, we are swimming in an ocean of data and organizations have an endless appetite for it.
In fact, every company can probably say these two things: 1.) We have too much data and 2.) We don’t have enough data.
Or perhaps this is what they are saying:
- “We have too much data” We are having a difficult time getting value out of the data we have.
- “We don’t have enough data” We don’t know what we don’t know or need to know.
Both of these statements/issues are related. I have heard multiple times, especially on consulting engagements, this term: “We are data rich, but information poor.” This is a good statement, because it recognizes the reality that a company has a lot of data at its disposal (like most organizations) but that’s all it is… data. It means that the organization is spending a lot of energy collecting and delivering data but what it really needs is information… insights that can drive actions that get results.
How do I do it? How do I take all of the data I have, or better said want to collect, which has limited value and transform it into information and insights which are extremely valuable?
At a high level, here’s how you make it happen
- Follow Steven Covey’s rule from “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and start with the end in mind. In order for your data to be effectively leveraged, you must first ask the question: “What do I want to learn?” and evaluate the questions that you will answer through your data.
- Pre-define your data to support the questions you want to answer and develop systems to ensure that it is consistently collected and codified according to this definition. Your data must support your analysis, rather than your analysis support your data if the quality of your information will drive the maximum value you want to achieve. This is the hardest work, because in many cases you may not know what you don’t know yet. As a result, this is fluid process.
- Collect data consistently, accurately, and with proper governance. This is especially important when your analytical data is coming from many sources in your organization. If your organization is truly going to be data and insights driven, then data governance and data quality must be a high priority and governed at a high level in the organization.
- Review, analyze, and refine often. Once you start gaining insights, you will start to ask deeper questions and create a market for intelligence in your company. At this point, we would start over at #1 and once again ask the question: “What do I want to learn and how do I need to collect and define my data to get me the answer I need?”
This is key to truly becoming data-driven. Good data is intelligently conceived and is supported by good processes. You can’t have good processes without good data and you can’t have good data without good processes. The two work hand-in-hand. It is hard work, but the value that insights can give over mere data is well worth the effort to align an organization from being a data consumer to an insights creator.
Friday, January 15, 2010
The power of the unexpected
Anyone who watched (or know someone who has) American Idol on Wednesday night has probably heard about an audition of a 62 year old man that is known as "The General" who can regularly be seen downtown. Generally, Idol doesn't allow anyone older than 28 in to audition, but they let this guy come in and showcased his audition at the end of Wednesday's show.
He performed his original rap, and Simon's words were "I have a horrible feeling that song's going to be a hit."
He's right... I'm not certain about the "horrible feeling" or that it's going to be a hit, but the latter is true. The original video has gotten over 33,000 views on YouTube yesterday and a total of 19 "Pants on the ground" videos have been posted. In addition, "Pants on the Ground" was a consistent trending topic on Twitter, which highlights the buzz around this episode and how the word has gotten out virally.
American Idol appears to have gotten the buzz it needed after the drama surrounding Paula at the end of last season. They knew that providing a twist; a surprise; the unexpected would grab viewers' attention, which is one reason I feel that The General, while not "contestant status," was invited to audition.
The water cooler talk at the office is that (and I think this may happen) an Atlanta rapper may pick it up and cover it. Needless to say, viewers have a new reason to tune into Idol.
What's interesting to me is that while The General's audition was very unconventional, it was consistent with the Idol brand (namely the practice of putting up "losing" auditions during the first episodes) and at the same time added to it. I'm sure that some marketing genius at American Idol was thinking that... after all look at the amount of editing they gave to "The General's" clips.
He performed his original rap, and Simon's words were "I have a horrible feeling that song's going to be a hit."
He's right... I'm not certain about the "horrible feeling" or that it's going to be a hit, but the latter is true. The original video has gotten over 33,000 views on YouTube yesterday and a total of 19 "Pants on the ground" videos have been posted. In addition, "Pants on the Ground" was a consistent trending topic on Twitter, which highlights the buzz around this episode and how the word has gotten out virally.
American Idol appears to have gotten the buzz it needed after the drama surrounding Paula at the end of last season. They knew that providing a twist; a surprise; the unexpected would grab viewers' attention, which is one reason I feel that The General, while not "contestant status," was invited to audition.
The water cooler talk at the office is that (and I think this may happen) an Atlanta rapper may pick it up and cover it. Needless to say, viewers have a new reason to tune into Idol.
What's interesting to me is that while The General's audition was very unconventional, it was consistent with the Idol brand (namely the practice of putting up "losing" auditions during the first episodes) and at the same time added to it. I'm sure that some marketing genius at American Idol was thinking that... after all look at the amount of editing they gave to "The General's" clips.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Vegas Style Marketing
1-to-1 targeted marketing is the dream of just about any sales and marketing organization. It is highly coveted and extremely difficult to attain to, especially if you have thousands or even millions of customers to serve.
However, there are some industries (or better stated companies within industries) that have come very close to reaching this nirvana. One company and industry that is often cited as a leader in 1-to-1 is Harrah's Casino in Las Vegas (or Harrah's worldwide), but other gaming companies have started to follow suit and are attempting to play catch up. At one of their casinos, a "guest" playing on the casino floor that is starting to lose consistently will at an opportune time be greeting by a casino staff member that will offer the guest show tickets, free dinners at a buffet or restaurant within the casino, or another valued commodity to avert the possibility of the guest having a negative experience (and potentially keep them at that facility). Implementing this 1-on-1 guest rewards program has been very successful for this and other gaming companies both in terms of customer satisfaction and ROI that they are considered models in the world of high-touch database-driven marketing. You may have heard the phrase "Vegas-Style" when referring to CRM database marketing before and this is one of the reasons why.
Given that I've worked at the company that supplied many of these companies with the underlying technology that drives this 1-to-1 CRM success, I am familiar with the keys to success in making an effort like this happen. While the ROI is significant; the effort, energy, and investment required to realize this dream is also extremely significant.
So what are the keys to success? Here are, at a very high level, a few required steps:
1.) Committing to create a single, 360-degree view of the customer: As long as the data that a company uses to drive decisions regarding customer interactions is disintegrated, there is no possibility of being able to market Vegas-style. There must be a single source for customer data that is strictly governed at a high level in the organization and is considered the single source of truth. This is important because whenever a customer interacts with you and this interaction isn't aligned with other interactions they have with your company, then that interaction cannot be factored into your relationship with the customer. In a case where customer data exists in multiple places in your organization, each group that interacts with the customer will have their own version of the truth, and those versions can conflict with one another. In that case, your company can look schizophrenic to your customer, which does not help your brand. Implementing an effective 1-to-1 strategy requires consistency and consistency requires accurate, complete, and well-governed data. In this world, giving data governance the appropriate attention, visibility, and authority is paramount to your success.
2.) Committing to marketing based on data-driven customer insights: The reason that Harrah's dual-active data warehouse understands when to alert the casino staff that a customer service professional is needed on the floor is twofold: First, Harrah's spent time reviewing the behavior of its guests from the casino data and knew with a certain degree of certainty when those "points of frustration" would occur and decided as an organization what the rules of engagement would be. They knew not just intuitively when to make an offer, they reviewed the data and knew exactly when to act. Second, they took the data analysis and decided as an organization what the rules of engagement would be based on insights. These rules were built into the database, along with a certain degree of flexibility to ensure that the personal touch would not be lost. However, the decision to act was decided, vetted, and justified prior to that high roller losing a quarter of a million on the slots and the show ticket giveway action put into effect.
The true value of data analysis is on the front end strategy development side of the marketing process. While it is valuable to analyze "what happened?" once a campaign has completed, it's value is not nearly as significant as the value of predicting "what should happen and how should we drive behavior based on our insights about the customer?" In fact, "what happened?" gains a lot more value when the strategy itself is based on rock solid data-driven insights. This creates a feedback loop where future campaigns can be refined and strengthened based on validated or perhaps invalidated insights and assumptions.
3.) Committing to align your organization around the roadmap: The "Vegas Style database," once the insights were analyzed, the customer data completely consolidated, and the rules of engagement decided upon, defined the going forward marching orders for interacting with the customer. This is not only key to developing consistent communication with the customer but it is paramount to strengthening the company's brand. A brand, being a "promise of value," is built over time when the customer's experience with you consistently matches up with their expectations of you. When these expectations are high and they are consistently met, then your value to them and their loyalty to you grows. To achieve this, everyone on the organization needs to be working from the same playbook, the same customer data, and the same M.O. - it's why the West Coast Offense won the San Francisco 49'ers four Super Bowls in the 80's and is why Harrah's consistently "wow's" it's visitors with it's guest service.
At the end of the day, 1-to-1 marketing is not technology-driven, even though it is technology-enabled. It is a strategic decision that requires investment in organizational alignment and cultural focus in addition to the technology. It is worth the effort, however, as people in the gaming industry will attest.
However, there are some industries (or better stated companies within industries) that have come very close to reaching this nirvana. One company and industry that is often cited as a leader in 1-to-1 is Harrah's Casino in Las Vegas (or Harrah's worldwide), but other gaming companies have started to follow suit and are attempting to play catch up. At one of their casinos, a "guest" playing on the casino floor that is starting to lose consistently will at an opportune time be greeting by a casino staff member that will offer the guest show tickets, free dinners at a buffet or restaurant within the casino, or another valued commodity to avert the possibility of the guest having a negative experience (and potentially keep them at that facility). Implementing this 1-on-1 guest rewards program has been very successful for this and other gaming companies both in terms of customer satisfaction and ROI that they are considered models in the world of high-touch database-driven marketing. You may have heard the phrase "Vegas-Style" when referring to CRM database marketing before and this is one of the reasons why.
Given that I've worked at the company that supplied many of these companies with the underlying technology that drives this 1-to-1 CRM success, I am familiar with the keys to success in making an effort like this happen. While the ROI is significant; the effort, energy, and investment required to realize this dream is also extremely significant.
So what are the keys to success? Here are, at a very high level, a few required steps:
1.) Committing to create a single, 360-degree view of the customer: As long as the data that a company uses to drive decisions regarding customer interactions is disintegrated, there is no possibility of being able to market Vegas-style. There must be a single source for customer data that is strictly governed at a high level in the organization and is considered the single source of truth. This is important because whenever a customer interacts with you and this interaction isn't aligned with other interactions they have with your company, then that interaction cannot be factored into your relationship with the customer. In a case where customer data exists in multiple places in your organization, each group that interacts with the customer will have their own version of the truth, and those versions can conflict with one another. In that case, your company can look schizophrenic to your customer, which does not help your brand. Implementing an effective 1-to-1 strategy requires consistency and consistency requires accurate, complete, and well-governed data. In this world, giving data governance the appropriate attention, visibility, and authority is paramount to your success.
2.) Committing to marketing based on data-driven customer insights: The reason that Harrah's dual-active data warehouse understands when to alert the casino staff that a customer service professional is needed on the floor is twofold: First, Harrah's spent time reviewing the behavior of its guests from the casino data and knew with a certain degree of certainty when those "points of frustration" would occur and decided as an organization what the rules of engagement would be. They knew not just intuitively when to make an offer, they reviewed the data and knew exactly when to act. Second, they took the data analysis and decided as an organization what the rules of engagement would be based on insights. These rules were built into the database, along with a certain degree of flexibility to ensure that the personal touch would not be lost. However, the decision to act was decided, vetted, and justified prior to that high roller losing a quarter of a million on the slots and the show ticket giveway action put into effect.
The true value of data analysis is on the front end strategy development side of the marketing process. While it is valuable to analyze "what happened?" once a campaign has completed, it's value is not nearly as significant as the value of predicting "what should happen and how should we drive behavior based on our insights about the customer?" In fact, "what happened?" gains a lot more value when the strategy itself is based on rock solid data-driven insights. This creates a feedback loop where future campaigns can be refined and strengthened based on validated or perhaps invalidated insights and assumptions.
3.) Committing to align your organization around the roadmap: The "Vegas Style database," once the insights were analyzed, the customer data completely consolidated, and the rules of engagement decided upon, defined the going forward marching orders for interacting with the customer. This is not only key to developing consistent communication with the customer but it is paramount to strengthening the company's brand. A brand, being a "promise of value," is built over time when the customer's experience with you consistently matches up with their expectations of you. When these expectations are high and they are consistently met, then your value to them and their loyalty to you grows. To achieve this, everyone on the organization needs to be working from the same playbook, the same customer data, and the same M.O. - it's why the West Coast Offense won the San Francisco 49'ers four Super Bowls in the 80's and is why Harrah's consistently "wow's" it's visitors with it's guest service.
At the end of the day, 1-to-1 marketing is not technology-driven, even though it is technology-enabled. It is a strategic decision that requires investment in organizational alignment and cultural focus in addition to the technology. It is worth the effort, however, as people in the gaming industry will attest.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
"So much cooler online"
The other day, I saw a tweet come across my feed that made me laugh out loud. It stated:
"I still hate Comcast, but @ComcastMarc_NE makes me hate them less. Good customer service guy." (from @617patrick)
This tweet illustrates that importance of authenticity and ensuring that the interactions that you have online and in social networking as a company align with the reality of your brand. Comcast has been very successful with using social networking, and specifically Twitter, to improve their customer service.
A banner at Dreamforce evangelized their success story with social media, claiming a 46% increase in their net promoter score as a result of using SalesForce for Twitter to engage with their consumers. They have a team of customer service reps (like @ComcastMarc_NE) that strictly look for complaints on Twitter (which I can imagine based on the staffing in this organization and my own personal experience that there are many) and start conversations in the attempt to resolve their cable, internet, or phone issues.
However, as we can see (and a lot of us that use Comcast can attest), the offline interactions many of us have with Comcast haven't changed much. They are giving us one image online with their "Twitter Ninja" team and another one with the contracted technician that visits our home and does very little to meet our expectations. Are they like the guy in the Brad Paisley song "Online" who works at the Pizza Pit, drives an old jalopy, and lives with his parents yet portrays himself as a hot model from Malibu with extraordinary tastes?
At the end of the day, being successful with marketing in social media requires authenticity, and is not a highly-effective image management mechanism. Customers today are very savvy and can tell, and in many cases will call us out if we are "so much cooler online." News does travel fast in the social networking world. The good news is, if we are authentic online and offline, serve our followers, customers, and fans well, and deliver on our brand promise in every channel it will do wonders for our brand. Good news also travels fast.
"I still hate Comcast, but @ComcastMarc_NE makes me hate them less. Good customer service guy." (from @617patrick)
This tweet illustrates that importance of authenticity and ensuring that the interactions that you have online and in social networking as a company align with the reality of your brand. Comcast has been very successful with using social networking, and specifically Twitter, to improve their customer service.
A banner at Dreamforce evangelized their success story with social media, claiming a 46% increase in their net promoter score as a result of using SalesForce for Twitter to engage with their consumers. They have a team of customer service reps (like @ComcastMarc_NE) that strictly look for complaints on Twitter (which I can imagine based on the staffing in this organization and my own personal experience that there are many) and start conversations in the attempt to resolve their cable, internet, or phone issues.
However, as we can see (and a lot of us that use Comcast can attest), the offline interactions many of us have with Comcast haven't changed much. They are giving us one image online with their "Twitter Ninja" team and another one with the contracted technician that visits our home and does very little to meet our expectations. Are they like the guy in the Brad Paisley song "Online" who works at the Pizza Pit, drives an old jalopy, and lives with his parents yet portrays himself as a hot model from Malibu with extraordinary tastes?
At the end of the day, being successful with marketing in social media requires authenticity, and is not a highly-effective image management mechanism. Customers today are very savvy and can tell, and in many cases will call us out if we are "so much cooler online." News does travel fast in the social networking world. The good news is, if we are authentic online and offline, serve our followers, customers, and fans well, and deliver on our brand promise in every channel it will do wonders for our brand. Good news also travels fast.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)