Tag: marketing

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Version 1.0

Version 1.0 IllustrationI have to say that the number of comments I’ve received about my posts about the WOW customer experience has been gratifying. Some comments have related to the need to get things to market now and letting quality and functionality follow, which I find incredibly short-sighted in the majority of cases, while others have agreed with me about the need to get things right the first time if you want to avoid headaches in customer support down the road or the actual failure of your company due to bad product reviews.

The best comment, however, came from my good friend Peter van Geijn in Munich, Germany. His company sponsored my seminars and workshops in Germany in the 1980s and he recently reminded me of the story I used to tell about Version 1.0.  It goes something like this…

Did you know that the only people who never miss a development schedule milestone are software design engineers?  That’s right, software engineers. If today was the day they were supposed to deliver the product, today is the day that they will deliver it. It will be called Version 1.0.

It will be missing a lot of the originally specified functionality, of course, since there was no time to implement it all during the unrealistic management-dictated, all-too-short schedule, but it will be delivered today.  As Version 1.0.

It will also like contain a large number of “undocumented features,” known in the old days as “bugs,” that will have to be addressed in a future version release. But it will be delivered today. As Version 1.0.

Marketing and sales people hate Version 1.0 because it makes selling the product successfully more difficult and causes customers to complain to them — a lot. It also makes it difficult to get early testimonials and delays the purchase of large quantities of the product until the bugs are worked out.

Designers don’t mind. They keep cranking out new code and patches for the bugs. Sometimes it’s great job security and other times it isn’t. If it isn’t there’s always the next product for the next company to be developed.

Customer support managers love it for the job security reasons as well — subject to the risk of no job at all if the product can’t be fixed in time to save the company.

If the product was developed with OPM (other people’s money), top management will get rich in any case and move on to start another company where they can dictate another unreasonable schedule for a product that must do everything, cost nothing and be done yesterday. It is called Version 1.0.

I’d love to hear your experiences with products that fit this mold. Please share them and thanks for reading.

 

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Media Selection for Your Target Markets

Design to TestAre you a “spray and pray” marketer who tries to sell your product or service to anyone and everyone?  How is that working for you?

To be most effective you need to find people with problems that you can solve. It’s best if you are the only solution, fairly good if you are one of a few with a good reputation and not so good if you are one of many and have to compete on price.

Once upon a time, many years past, I marketed expensive automatic test equipment for the electronics companies of the world. Doing that gave me the opportunity to learn some important things. One of those things was that the design of the product to be tested had a lot to do with the time, effort and cost of generating an effective test program and with actually testing the product in a manufacturing environment. Another was that design engineers couldn’t care less about manufacturing test because that was someone else’s problem. They just had to get the functionality right on a very tight schedule. The third thing was that test engineers, who had to solve the problems that were “thrown over the wall” from development engineering to manufacturing test, were desperate for help.

Thus came the opportunity to write a book. It contained all of the techniques needed to make complex electronic designs much easier to test. The initial self-published hardcover version sold for $95 (in 1978 dollars) and it was advertised in Electronics Test magazine to the small portion of electronic engineers who worked in the manufacturing test environment.  Why not in Electronic Design magazine, with its much wider audience? Because the design engineers who read that magazine didn’t have the problem, even though they were the only ones who could implement the solutions to the downstream problems.

So while the book taught design techniques, it was sold to the test people who could then use it as a lever to convince engineering and top management that the topic was important enough to warrant a book being written about it. And one that contained the tools needed to make the economic justification for designing things to be testable as well as functional.

This is but one example of using the right media selection to get the message out to the people with a problem to solve. Much more cost effective than trying to sell to the “unwashed masses.”

Comments, please. And thanks for reading.

 

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Please Use Other Door

Doors

 

How do you feel when you are about to enter a place of business and are confronted by doors that are patently unfriendly to you, the door user?

The doors on the left in the illustration are a prime example of this. If you are the business owner, why pay for two doors when only one is usable? And why is it that you as the customer are always carrying something in the hand or arm that prevents you from using the other door?

And should you push to open the door or should you pull? If both sides have handles for pulling, you’d think you should pull, right? But how many times have you run into doors where that doesn’t work? I know I’ve met those unfriendly doors many times in my life.

How complicated would it be to put a push plate on the side of the door that needs pushing to open it and a pull handle on the side that needs pulling? Or make the doors pull both ways? Or push both ways?  Is this rocket science?

What has the design of doors have to do with marketing?  A whole bunch, it turns out. You want people to be in a friendly, pleasant and receptive mood when they enter your place of business, don’t you? Of course you do. So why make them angry and frustrated with a poorly designed entrance to your store before they even get inside? Isn’t that completely counterproductive to what you are trying to accomplish?  Of course it is. So don’t do it!

If you are not a brick and mortar enterprise, is your website design and implementation just as guilty of frustrating your prospective customers as the physical doors illustrated in this post? You might want to take a second look, or have someone unfamiliar with it take a look for you. You could end up really surprised — pleasantly or unpleasantly! What about your business pages on your social media sites of choice?  Are they easy or hard to get to and/or navigate within or around? Is there some semblance of logic to the navigation paths?

Everything your business does needs to be considered in light of your marketing objectives. Don’t make yourself difficult to do business with. Because people will go elsewhere if they can’t get through your door.

Comments welcome, as always.  Thanks for reading.

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Italian Goulash

Italian GoulashIn a significant departure from what I usually post, today I am going to give you a recipe and cooking instructions for a meal that I invented from necessity in New Jersey many years ago, transported to the Bay Area and actually had a good friend from Rome, Italy, prepare when he and his wife got home. I still have the certificate from them stating that this dish, which doesn’t resemble goulash in any way, was actually prepared and very well received in Italy.

It takes some effort and a fair amount of time to make this dish, which should serve four people, but the result is nothing short of amazing.  I guarantee it and many people, including my boys and anyone else who has partaken of it, will attest to that.

Ingredients:

  • 16 oz Oscar Meyer center cut bacon
  • 16 oz Ore-Ida Fast Food French fries
  • 1 or 2 green pepper
  • 1 or 2 sweet onion
  • 8 fresh eggs
  • 2 cups grated cheddar cheese

In a large skillet:

  • Cut bacon into ½” pieces. Fry until golden brown. Remove from pan and drain on paper towel. Reserve bacon grease.
  • Cut potatoes into ½” pieces. Fry until crispy and golden brown in bacon grease. Remove from pan and drain on paper towel. Reserve remaining bacon grease.
  • Dice pepper and onion and fry in remaining bacon grease until slightly soft.
  • Add bacon bits and potatoes back into pan with medium heat. Mix thoroughly.
  • Scramble eggs and pour into pan. Stir until bacon, potatoes, peppers and onions are well coated and until eggs are almost done.
  • Add and stir in grated cheese until melted, removing pan from heat to prevent anything from burning.

Serve immediately with salt and pepper to taste and toasted sourdough bread.

You might wonder what this recipe has to do with marketing, and that’s OK. Please make this dish and comment on this post, or use the website contact form, to provide me with your opinion about it. I will then reveal the secret connection.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.  Mangia!

 

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Some Results I’m Proud to Share

Today marked the first presentation of The Marketing Seminar/Workshop that I’ve been developing over the last couple of months.  We had a small but diverse group — from telecom to radio to on-line learning to association management to interior design to multi-level marketing to web-based business-to-business and business-to-consumer networking to solar energy and more — and the session was, frankly, a smashing success.

You can see how the participants rated the session’s overall quality, the content, the speaker — me — and the materials, and what some of the participants who made comments on the evaluation forms had to say. I have to say that I’m pretty proud of these ratings and comments. And I extend my sincere thanks to all of the participants. They were great.

Today’s session was priced very inexpensively — $45 early bird/ $55 regular — so that there would be enough people to get a real feel for the successful development of the content and the materials.  The next public session, which I’m planning for sometime in October, will be about twice today’s price.  Why?  Because it is worth it. And because I can’t make a living giving my expertise away at too low a cost.

Will the next session be worth that increased cost to you? I think if you look at the infographic embedded in this post you’ll agree that it is.  If not, write to me and tell me so. I’d love to hear from you.

p.s.: If you don’t want to wait until the Fall to get the benefit of participating in this session, I do offer in-company versions. :-)

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Seven Steps to Success

Marketing-Strategy-Development-Process-FlowOK, the drawing is a little hard to read on this post. You can find the full sized version on my Pinterest business board, but I really want to talk about the steps in the process and not the pretty picture itself.

The drawing shows the seven steps in the process that I recommend when it comes to developing a marketing plan and the strategies and tactics that make up its details.

It makes the assumption — and watch out here, because assumptions can be dangerous! — that the items in the funnel are fixed. If they are not, then you’re actually in better shape than if they were. If you can play with the product, the packaging and the pricing, the promotion part may become much easier as you look at your markets, messages and media.

External data on markets, messages and media alternatives needs to be gathered and analyzed within the constraints of the business such as budgets, product and goals. The validity of the decisions made during the preliminary and subsequent decision-making processes is directly proportional to the validity of the input data.

Do not skimp on this step. Doing so means putting the results in jeopardy and potentially wasting a lot of energy, time and money with do-overs or faulty implementations.

Marketing strategies and tactics have changed with changes in technology, the economy, buyer demographics and behavior and message delivery mechanisms such as social media. But the basics still apply. You need to develop and deliver clear concise messages that will resonate with your prospects and customers so that they respond positively to your calls for action.

When the initial analysis is complete, it’s time to discuss the preliminary results. Challenge each assumption. Validate every data source. Take advantage of the expertise of everyone who can contribute to the development of a successful strategy or who may be impacted by or charged with implementing the tactics resulting from the final strategy.

  • Then IMPLEMENT the agreed-upon strategy in the biggest, best and most complete way possible. DO NOT hold back or hesitate. If you believe in what you have developed, go for it!
  • MEASURE the results of implementing your strategy and the effectiveness of each tactic.  Because if you can’t measure you can’t improve.
  • Use CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT methods to fine-tune your strategy over time, discarding things that don’t work and emphasizing those that do.

You will get out of a formal marketing strategy development or review/improvement effort a set of benefits commensurate with the amount of time, effort and expertise put into the strategy development process.

This post was excerpted from my Marketing Strategy Development e-Book.  If you’d like a copy, please request one here and I’ll be happy to send you one. And I’d love to have your comments on the process recommended above.  Don’t be shy!

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Walnut or Mahogany?

Boy playing piano

You are all probably familiar with the multiple “P”s of marketing” — Product, Packaging, Price and Promotion, to name the ones most often written about — but have you thought much about the “M”s?  By that I mean Markets, Messages and Media.

When I was growing up in my father’s piano and organ store in Southern California I had the privilege of being exposed, very early on, to a great many people who were very good at crafting messages. Some were marketing messages, some were sales messages and some were what are called closing questions — the kind of questions to which there is only one answer, and that answer is “yes.”

We were taught not to ask ” Would you like to buy now?” but to ask things like “Would the walnut or mahogany finish look best in your living room?”  Or “Would delivery on Tuesday or Thursday be most convenient?” Or “Who in the family will be taking the free lessons,  you or your child?” These are sales closing questions but they bring to mind another story with a message.  One about messages.

In my salad days, piano stores tended to locate themselves fairly close to each other. You could often find three of them within visual distance of each other — one on a corner, one in the middle of the street and one across the way. This was as true in Los Angeles as it was in Malmo, Sweden (which was one of the many towns I visited where I was able to confirm this phenomenon). And we were also taught that to get a (typically female with a child) prospect to return to our store with her husband (completing what is called the “total buying unit”) that we had to get the messaging right.

Our pianos had great features. Eighty-eight keys, some black, some white. Three solid brass pedals — none of that plated stuff!  A 5-ply pin block, staples to the 51st hammer, thirteen ribs on the sounding board with the 10-year warranty and a flange on the harp. Are you bored with features yet or shall I explain them further and add a bunch more? I thought not. Turns out that most high quality pianos exhibit these (or similar) features. So how do I get my prospect back in my store?

We conveyed a message of benefits! Our pianos had “singing tone,” a characteristic that would make it resonate with the voice of a child taking piano and voice lessons and make that child sound like an angel. I would demonstrate it to a prospect since it was “of a highly technical nature.” The other pianos in the other stores didn’t have that benefit. Because the salespeople in those stores didn’t know the secret of singing tone.  Nor do you, but if you’d like to I’ll be happy to tell you the whole (very long) story over coffee someday!

Our message was a benefit.  A personal benefit. The only kind that usually works consistently when presented to the proper target market using the most effective media. So in addition to the “P”s give some thought to the “M”s. You’ll be amazed at the results.

As always, your comments pro, con or otherwise are welcomed and I’ll be happy to respond to them.

 

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Creating the Customer WOW Experience

I am flabbergasted. Incredulous. Blown away. Still in shock.

I  just came from a meeting of 50+ people who listened to four very bright and sincere customer service/customer support representatives from start-up companies in Portland talk about how they create the customer WOW experience when confused, disgruntled, frustrated or just plain mad customers call in because either they can’t use the product the way they want to or the product doesn’t perform as advertised or something else has gone awry between product functionality and customer expectations.

Hold the phone here, please! Why is customer support charged with creating the WOW experience? Why is top management charged with forecasting how many customer support people will be required based on sales volume? What if — and this is a revolutionary concept, I’ll admit — the product actually worked when it was delivered? What if it had a logical “idiot proof” set of controls or an error-resistant operational flow?

During the meeting I was taken back to my days in the 1970s when I taught electronic engineers how to design circuits to be easier to manufacture, test and service.  In fact I wrote the first book on that subject — Design for Testability — and later authored Managing Concurrent Engineering, a tome that proselytized the simultaneous design of a product so that it functioned as designed, could be economically duplicated in manufacturing, could be tested thoroughly to be fault free when shipped to the customer and could be serviced quickly and economically when it did fail.

When trade-offs had to be made between product functionality and the “-ilities,” product functionality almost always won out. In fact “feature creep” was one of the key problems that caused delays in getting products to market. But product functionality testing, or design verification as it was called, was held in the highest regard because the cost of shipping something that didn’t work as advertised could be huge enough to put a company out of business long before it could fix the problems in the product.

As I sat down to write this I noticed that Casey Wheeler had shared Seth Godin’s blog entitled “What’s in the box?” in the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network group on LinkedIn and that Michael Temple had commented on it by quoting Guy Kawasaki in The Art of the Start as follows: “… too many start ups try to work out ALL the bugs before taking their idea to the market. The only way to know if what you have to offer will work is to get it out there. Correct the mistakes as the feedback comes in. In time, you will perfect what you are trying to develop, but you will need the public’s help to identify what needs to be corrected.”

Well I beg to differ with Mr. Kawaski, folk hero to so many product developers as he may be. Because product development teams following his advice are the reason that four customer support people are still holding meetings like this for 50+ people audiences 40 years later! It is incredible. Shocking. Deja vu all over again for me. I’ll repeat my earlier question: What if the product actually worked?

I’ll be the first to admit that perfection is nigh impossible to achieve in a first product release. And that there comes a time when you must declare the product finished and get it out into the marketplace. But if you know it has issues, sell it initially to early adopters smart enough to work around those issues, not to the non-techie masses who need customer support people trained not only in solving product problems but in dealing with frustrated customers as well. Can we at least think about these issues early on in the development process?

OK.  Got that off my chest. I think. I have lots of stories about getting things right the first time instead of doing them over again. Including Deming’s story about the Japanese and the American companies making toast. I’d be happy to discuss my opinions on this subject anytime and welcome your comments. What do you think?

 

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Glitz, Gilt or Gold?

Glitz-Gilt-Gold Which of these three words most closely describes the kinds of products or services that you or your company provides to its customers? It makes a difference when you think about your target markets, your messages, your packaging and pricing and your media selections (among other things).

Glitz, an extravagant and often tasteless display of wealth, is often associated with the newly wealthy. These folks put on garish, ostentatious airs in an effort to impress their peers or their public. They want to provoke envy and feed greed. Glitz is pretty easy to recognize.

Gilt can often be used to turn ordinary objects into glitzy things that shine with false value. Or it can be used effectively to put just the right sheen on an object of art that has real value. Gilt has no intrinsic value, other than the minimal amount of gold used in its application, but it may have considerable artistic or aesthetic value. Or practical value, such is in the gold plating of electrical contacts for maximum conductivity.

Real gold, on the other hand, has real intrinsic value in today’s world based on its scarcity and the demand for that scarce resource.

What do you sell or provide? If your customers are those who want glitz, you’ll want to get your messages to them via media such as fashion magazines, give-away bags at celebrity events and ads in high end publications that cater to the rich and famous.  With the emphasis here being on famous. They want the world to know that they can afford all the glitz in the world, useful or not.

If your customers want gold, you’ll most likely reach them through referrals. They often have no desire to be glitzy or to show off their wealth. They just want to enjoy it and they travel in circles with similar folks often from old or earned money. They are not usually showoffs and they most definitely usually avoid glitz like the plague. The silk underwear might cost thousands but it is worn underneath the expensive but understated suit or dress — not on the outside!

And then there is gilt. This is where things get tricky. Your product or service needs to be attractive enough to warrant the attention, however brief, of your prospective customer if you are to have any chance of making a sale. And gilt, by itself, is neither good nor evil, given that it is used effectively and the underlying product or service provides real value to the customer at a mutually acceptable price. If this is your type of offering in the marketplace, and the vast majority of products and services do fall into this category, you have your work cut out for you in terms of coming up with the right strategies for your markets, message and media.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on the words above, I imagine many readers would like to know them. Opinions one way or another are welcome.  Let us hear from you.

 

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The Business of Selling Likes, Follows and Views

Shotgun Marketing ImageI am a bit confused. I’ve been getting emails and social media messages lately from companies who want to sell me untargeted likes, follows and views.  For $30 to $100 (or more) they’ll get 1,000 or 2,500 or more people to like my Facebook business page, begin following me on Twitter or viewing my videos on YouTube. What I’m confused about is why on earth I would want to gain likes, follows or views from people from all over heck and gone who most likely have absolutely no interest in doing business with me.

In days past I’ve “bought” lead lists for snail-mail and email marketing campaigns and used them with varying levels of success. But in all cases I was using targeted lists, where I specified genders, ages, income levels, zip codes, occupations and, depending on the sophistication of the lead list seller, even whether or not they were dog owners, boat owners or mobile home residents. So I knew that the message I would be sending had at least some chance of being of interest to the people on the list.

When you are doing a proper job of marketing planning and strategy development, doing some research on market niches where your products or services might be needed is basic to the process. So is identifying the characteristics of the people who make up the target markets so that you can hone your message to resonate with them. And, depending on where you sell your products or services, geography is a fairly important element as well.

And these people want me to buy untargeted likes, follows and views? I think not. Even if they did have such nice things to say about my website and how they’d love to have lots more people see my content because it is so special. Baloney! I bet they have robots that troll the web for any and all new websites, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platform account holders and postings to YouTube (and probably Pinterest, Vimeo, SlideShare, etc.).

Given that their automated systems can very cheaply send messages to virtually the whole world of people on the internet, they’re going to get some customers. People who don’t have a clue about real marketing. And yet these sellers of likes, follows and views are smart marketers who make excellent use of untargeted lists simply because they know that there are enough suckers prospects out in the world that they’ll reel enough of them in to sustain their own business. So for them, and maybe for a worldwide company looking to build brand awareness, untargeted lists might just work.

But will they work for you or me? How much new business will you get from having 2,500 random people having clicked a button?

I’d sure like to hear your opinions on this topic. Your comments are warmly solicited.