Tag Archives: Consulting

January 13, 2015 · 11:50 am

Hitting The Bullseye

I spend a lot of my day working with clients on tech.  If it isn’t about how to implement the latest and greatest platform in other marketing efforts, it is about using the data we’ve gathered via web, social, and other business analytics to improve tactics and guide strategies.  We look at a lot of numbers and at a lot of methods with which to gather more.

One of the things I feel it’s critical for me to do is to play the role of a Cassandra of sorts – to see the future but to hope I’m believed a lot more than was the figure from mythology.  The one thing I keep “prophesying” to them is that we can stay on course and out of trouble if we keep our eyes focused on the customer.  They can’t become just aggregations of data.  They’re not just numbers.  They are the reasons why we’re in business.  They have names, faces, significant others and maybe even children.  They’re us!

Much of the ad and marketing technology today has little to do with the customer.  You might think that odd since much of it is based on getting to know the customer on a very granular level.  That’s true, except the focus is on the technology and data, not on the customer.  Thinking about social media is important but only after we’ve spent time thinking about the customer.  Are they on social platforms?  Why?  What are their expectations when they use them?  How do they want to interact with brands in that space, if at all?  Sure mobile is important but a discussion of mobile apps needs to begin with an investigation of how your consumer base behaves on that platform.  “Build it and they will come” is tech centric, not human centric.

Start with your business objectives and your consumer needs.  Move to technology and data after that.  The consumer is the bullseye, not the platform.  Thoughts?

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October 8, 2014 · 10:30 am

The Road To Understanding

A piece from the eMarketer group caught my eye yesterday.  The headline was Marketers Can’t Avoid Technology Anymore.

Figure 1: Simple schematic for a data warehous...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Off the top of my head it made me wonder who exactly was trying to avoid it since there isn’t a single company that comes to mind where technology isn’t sort of a big deal.  As it turns out, the article was about a subset of tech, big data, and how professionals need to up marketing technology investments if they hope to make sense of this data as well as to focus on integrating technologies and data across channels..  No doubt with a big caveat.

This hints at the issue:

April 2014 research by Accenture also found big data was top of mind for the majority of executives worldwide, with 59% saying it was extremely important. Of course, technologies are needed to make sense of and combine all of this information, and Accenture noted that using such tools to understand big data could transform an entire enterprise—if done correctly.

It’s the “done correctly” part that’s the caveat.  The road to understanding doesn’t begin with technology.  It doesn’t begin with a fully integrated series of systems or a huge data warehouse.  It starts with something much simpler that’s often overlooked.  It starts with some basic questions.

  • What do we need to know?
  • Why do we want to know it?
  • Once we know it, what actions can we take to use it to grow our business?
  • How is what we have going to improve our relationship with our customers?
  • When prospects encounter us, whether online or off, which of these data points will help us convert them to customers?

My guess, based on a fair number of experiences, is that many of the aforementioned companies are just puking up data instead of using the data to develop actionable business information.  The eMarketer piece concludes this way:

Companies that avoid implementing and using marketing technology to make sense of data have an uncertain future. Nearly 80% of execs agreed that companies that did not embrace big data would lose their competitive advantage—and possibly face extinction.

I agree with that but if they don’t do the above while traveling the road to understanding and having asked some questions before they embrace and develop big data, extinction is just as likely.

What’s been your experience with this?

 

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September 23, 2014 · 12:19 pm

Why Should They Bother?

If you’ve spent more than a few minutes here on the screed you’re aware of my unbridled passion for golf. As any golfer will tell you, when all else fails and your game hits rock bottom, it’s time for new equipment.  As sure as the sun will rise it’s always the tool and not the carpenter. From where does one buy that new driver that is going to solve all of one’s issues? The answer to that is actually instructive for most businesses.

A golf ball.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In general, one either goes to the pro shop at your local club or to a golf store. Of late most of those golf stores are located in cyberspace. This has hurt the big brick and mortar golf chains badly. In fact, not long ago Dick’s laid off 500 PGA Pros and is scaling back its golf business.  After all, the irons are the same not matter if you’re buying them from the manufacturer (who will sell direct), a big box retailer, the golf store, eBay, or your pro shop.  Suddenly, while every brand of club is different, once you’ve decided on the make and model the club itself is the same no matter which source you choose.  This has placed pressure on margins.  In this case, as is the case in many other businesses, the internet wins every time.

The real question is why should a consumer bother going to the golf store?  In the case of Dick’s, they did exactly the wrong thing.  eBay can’t do proper club fittings – making sure the length, lie, and swing weight are right for you.  Sure, you can get golf lessons from YouTube but that’s not nearly as good as having one on one instruction.  The shop at my club will put new grips on my existing clubs, extending their life.  I’m certainly not going to mail them someplace to have that done.

In other words, every business needs to figure out why consumers should care about them – why they should bother.  Price works for businesses without a human touch.  In fact, the move toward more personalization for web-based businesses points directly to the advantage any real-world business will have: the human touch.  We’d rather speak with humans.  Don’t automated customer service lines frustrate you?  I don’t want to press 3 if my issue involves an odor of gas – I want to talk to a person NOW!

We need to think about how our brands and businesses can get consumers to care.  Otherwise we’re completely vulnerable to someone who will do what we do and sell what we do for a dollar less – free shipping included.

Make sense?

 

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