Monthly Archives: March 2015

March 17, 2015 · 9:38 am

Staying In Second Gear

Imagine you’ve purchased a brand new Ferrari 488GTB.  You are now the proud owner of a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission which is in a vehicle said to be capable of 205 mph.  I don’t know about you but I would for damn sure want to find a place where I could get it out of second gear and let the machine perform to its abilities.  It would be a waste to leave it in second gear all the time.

English: Ferrari 458 Italia, pictured in London

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I thought about that as I read about the Relevancy Group’s 2015 version of the email service provider study.  What struck me was how many of those companies that rely on email marketing are underutilizing the wealth of data they have. Instead they relied on less advanced customer data attributes to segment audiences for email marketing campaigns.  As the eMarketer summary stated:

General demographic and geographic data were the most common metrics used for segmentation, and the only ones used by more than 35% of respondents. Meanwhile, other easily measured data points such as email clicks and open rates were used less frequently—especially the latter—and most marketers were unable to leverage metrics beyond the email realm such as past purchases and spending habits.

How very 2001, although I’m not surprised.  The sad reality is that many companies have no plan, no system, no KPI’s, and no ability to mine and utilize the bulk of the data they already have.  Just over a quarter of marketers have some sort of ability to create a single customer view across channels.  I suspect those of you who aren’t marketers have some of the same issues.  Data can live in silos or be fragmented across reporting lines.  A big problem which gets bigger every day.

How can we get the rest of the email marketing world out of second gear? Part of it is understanding.  It’s nice that many of the marketers surveyed planned to focus more on segmentation and targeting, ranking it the top email marketing priority for 2015.  But unless there is a better understanding of what’s being collected and a commitment to a single repository from which all stakeholders can draw, I don’t see them reaching  top speed in their marketing.  You?

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March 16, 2015 · 11:44 am

Don’t Be Boring

One of the constant challenges in using social media for a brand is building and maintaining your user base. In addition to your website, social is owned media and like any medium a bigger megaphone is better. OK, so not really an appropriate metaphor for social since we’ve talked repeatedly about the need to converse and not lecture in social, but you take my point. We don’t want people leaving the party before we have a chance to meet them and chat them up.

So why do people unfollow brands in social? Glad you asked because the folks at Buzzfeed and Fractl surveyed 900 social media users to find out why users unfollow, and what behaviors companies should avoid.  The short answer is you’re boring:

21 percent of survey participants said they unfollow brands that post repetitive or boring content. 19 percent say they would unfollow a brand on Facebook if the brand posted too often – more than six times a day. Other activities that cause users to unfollow are offensive activity by brands, and content unrelated to the brand.

That’s from the Social Times report on the study.  It’s a fairly widespread issue.  Over 25% of people report unfollowing a brand on Facebook in the last month and 12% of Twitter users did so in the last few days.  I’m not sure that this should come as a great shock to any of us.  No one likes to be bored or offended or badgered, whether in social media or at a cocktail party.  The problem is that many of us who manage content in those channels (social, not cocktail parties!) aren’t even aware that we’re being unfollowed.  But there are tell-tale signs.

Do you monitor engagement?  Every social platform gives us analytics.   Has there been a change in how people are reacting to your content?  Fewer shares?  Users tend to be quiet about their activities – they may just block you from their news feed or remove you from a Twitter list so you don’t get noticed.  When was the last time you looked at these data points to see if there has been a change?

Whether it’s social media or email (which suffers from a lot of the same issues according to the study), we have to converse and engage.  We can’t be boring or soon we’ll be speaking to an empty room.  That’s not our goal, is it?

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March 13, 2015 · 10:46 am

Will It Blend

the cheeseburger burrito from California Tortilla

Cheeseburger burrito from California Tortilla

It’s Foodie Friday and this week I have trendiness on my mind.  I came across a report recently from the National Restaurant Association. The What’s Hot in 2015 survey was conducted in October 2014.  They surveyed 1,276 members of the American Culinary Federation. The chefs were given a list of 231 items and were asked to rate each item as a “hot trend,” “yesterday’s news” or “perennial favorite” on restaurant menus in 2015.  You can read the results here – consider it “coming attractions” for what you might find on a menu when you dine out this year.

I’m not sorry to say the biggest declining trend (#1 in “yesterday’s news”) is the use of insects in dishes.  It appears that foams have run their course as well. Locally sourced ingredients – meat, seafood and vegetables – is the top trend.  How they’re used is a different matter and the winner there as a general trend is ethnic fusion.  These dishes are mash-ups from different cultures resulting in things such as a cheeseburger burrito or a poutine taco.  Since we live in a country of many cultures, this isn’t surprising.  But it is instructive well beyond food.

Great ideas are all around us.  Maybe they’re buried in the ways a competitor does business.  Maybe it’s something in an unrelated field (kind of like how we look at what food tells us about business each Friday).  We need to be looking constantly for sources of inspiration.  Mark Turner, in his book The Origin of Ideas: Blending, Creativity, and the Human Spark, says that “humans are innovative and good at creative thinking due to the ability of our brains to blend two or more ideas and create a new idea.”  While we can argue about how great an idea topping Kung Pao Chicken with crumbled goat cheese might be, the important thing is that as business people we need to avoid the Not Invented Here thinking and look everywhere for inspiration.

I read a quote that “anyone can combine hoisin sauce with chutney and put it over pasta, but the end result has to taste good.”  That’s a great point.  Not every piece of fusion business thinking is great just as not every blending of ethnic foods quite works (Curried goat ceviche?  Nah…).  Thinking out of the box and trying to combine good ideas into great ones is the point.  If they blend, it just might be magic.

 

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