Category Archives: Consulting

July 10, 2014 · 11:14 am

What’s Your Story?

I’m preparing to work with a client team on their marketing plan for the next year.

Bedtime Stories

(Photo credit: Robynlou8)

The group is excited to start talking about which media, various tactics we’d use across the social platforms they employ, and how we’d communicate to consumers. I’m pretty sure that I’ll bring the discussion to a pause by asking them to tell me the story before we focus on any of that. I’ll get several curious looks but I think that’s the most important question one can ask as the plan begins to take shape. Why?

The story is what defines everything else. If we’re going to be successful in touching the consumer we need to do so in a way that resonates with them and stories are the things that drive that connection.  Obviously the consumer needs to be the hero of the story.  Well, maybe the focus of the story is a better way to say that.  They will be confronted with an obstacle and that problem is solved by whatever it is you’re selling.  Seems pretty basic, right?

Take a look around you.  How many pieces of marketing content can you spot that have it backwards?  The product is the hero, the consumer just a spectator.  How many tell a coherent story (they have beginnings, middle, and ends)?  How many have a call to action, even if it’s subtle?

Once we all agree on the story we’re telling, the focus becomes translating that tome into each channel and each medium.  We may need to alter the story slightly to be more specific to the audience we’re reaching through a particular medium but the basic story itself needs to remain intact.  If we’re really doing our jobs well the message will resonate, the characters (which might be the product and the consumer) will be well-formed, and the call to action will result in whatever it is we want them to do – a click, read something else, give us an email or maybe even buy something.

Tactics are, frankly, the less-fun part.  Writing the story is fun and an important first step.  So ask yourself – what’s your story?

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July 9, 2014 · 11:52 am

Squirrels

In the movie “Up”, every so often the dogs interrupt themselves mid-sentence because a squirrel – or even the thought of a squirrel – appears. They stop the conversation or whatever else it is they’re doing to chase that distraction.

Squirrel

(Photo credit: likeaduck)

We don’t call them squirrels in business. They’re more like bright shiny objects or the next new thing. Sure, we call them something else altogether – market opportunities for one. In some cases, they really are. Most of the time, however, they’re just a squirrel that’s dashed across the business plan and provided a major distraction.

Consumers can be fickle.  For example, the typical mobile app is used fewer than 10 times before deletion and over a quarter of people use an app once after downloading.  If you’re working to monetize one of those apps, you have a very limited window in general.  Most businesses aren’t living in that fickle a world unless they choose to be there.  They do that by chasing squirrels.

So how does one distinguish between a legitimate opportunity and a shiny object/squirrel?  As always, it’s a combination of things; some consumer-focused, some business-focused.  With respect to the latter, any new business extension will require resources of some sort, even if it’s the shifting of existing support to the new thing.  Resources are finite in most businesses.  Do you have them?

Ask yourself if customers care.  We can point to any number of examples of being too early for the market.  GO had a mobile operating system and mobile, pen-based computers long before the iPad or iPhone.  NextNewNetworks was doing video long before there was broadband to support streaming.  WebTV was another.  In those and other cases consumers couldn’t understand what was in it for them.  After all, selling is about providing value.  How does the squirrel you’re considering do that?  Does it really provide sustainable growth or just a brief pop in revenues (and maybe not in profits)?

Looking over the horizon is the hardest part of any good business person’s job.  The great ones learn to stay focused on what’s in front of them while taking that peek while ignoring the squirrels.  Can you do that?

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July 7, 2014 · 9:33 am

Task Surfing

Think about how most of us live our lives these days.

surfing like a fox

(Photo credit: monkeyc.net)

If you’re like many folks you might feel as if there aren’t enough hours in the day to get your job done, to consume all of the content that appeals to you, and to sneak a meal in there every once in a while.  Part of what’s going on in media is that content providers are learning how to reach consumers in a timely manner, giving them access to the programming consumers crave across all platforms and devices at any time and without delay.  That same thing is happening in online commerce as well.

When we all started on the web 20 years ago, it was a novelty.  There weren’t a lot of sites, and not a lot one could do on the internet anyway so we surfed.  We followed links around from place to place taking it all in much as one wanders around a new neighborhood trying to get acclimated.  In the ensuing decades, that’s changed.  We live our lives on the web, and we do so through many more devices than were possible even 15 years ago.  We’re no longer newcomers to the digital neighborhood.  Which raises a question.

Why does it seem as if many designers are making art instead of commerce?  Why does it seem as if many sites are designed to be lovely interactive experiences but which obfuscate or delay the completion of the task for which the user came to the site in the first place?  Online shopping isn’t a recreational activity in my mind and I know there is research that supports that.  Most people shop or otherwise interact with a purpose.  How many webmasters keep that in mind as they build in splash pages, allow screen overlays to pop up, or otherwise the user’s path to completing the task for which they came?

No one web surfs any more and stops to notice a lovely design.  They surf the tasks which need completing.  There is a side of me that thinks high conversion rates with low time on site is a perfect representation of where we want to be as  consumers get to the places they want to go and act without delay.  What do you think?

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