Tag Archives: Marketing and Advertising

July 18, 2016 · 11:02 am

How Facts Can Be Fiction

I was discussing some numbers with someone the other day. It was clear from the conversation that she was taking every bit of data as gospel. I tried to explain a few important things to keep in mind when working with data and as I thought about it perhaps my thinking could be helpful to some of you out there in screed-land.

We all want as much certainty in our business lives as we can get. Part of that is wanting all of our numbers to be facts. They’re not. You may be familiar with the term “sampling error.” Basically, it means that the data is off because the sample from which the data is drawn is not representative of whatever it is you’re trying to measure. While you might think that, for example, your analytics measure everyone, they don’t. Most of the data we read uses some sampling. Sometimes it’s a timing issue – financial data, in particular, can be skewed based on where we might be in a business calendar or where those who pay us are in theirs.

The point is that there are error rates involved with many of these “facts” because these facts are really just estimates.  TV ratings, for example, are probably the most widely known estimates and multi-billion dollar businesses involving networks, agencies, and marketers revolve around numbers everyone knows are not particularly accurate. There are error rates.

Here is the advice I give people. Figure out what questions you’re trying to answer and then find as many different sources of data as you can. If possible, see if you can get multiple people to interpret those data sets. In theory, they should all come up with the same answers. It’s critically important that you NOT tell them what position you’re trying to support (can you find me some information that says we should do XYZ). That is a recipe for disaster because it encourages people only to look at data or interpretations of data that supports what you or they already think is true. That is turning “facts”, which are already often on shaky ground, into a larger fiction, and that’s not what we’re after, is it?

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Filed under Consulting, Thinking Aloud

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July 13, 2016 · 10:41 am

Hi. What Do You Need?

I bet each of us has someone in our life from whom we never hear unless and until they need something. You know the type. When you’re in touch with them everything is great and you’re BFF’s. The problem is that the only times you’re in touch come when they are having a problem. When you reach out just to say hi, it’s crickets.

Many of us conduct our customer activities in exactly that mindset. They never hear from us unless we need something (generally we need them to buy something). A recent  Salesforce survey of nearly 4,000 marketers highlighted the fact that many marketers are increasingly focused on customer satisfaction and customer engagement as their top measures for success, and the way to spur those measures is through an ongoing presence that is customer focused. In addition, high-performing marketers are creating journeys for customers, with 65% saying they’ve adopted a customer journey strategy and 88% saying it’s critical to their marketing success.

This is what the CEO of Salesforce had to say about the results:

The rise of the connected customer is forcing marketing to evolve from delivering outbound campaigns to managing personalized experiences that engage the customer from day one and guide them through a seamless journey with the brand. The results of our research show that high-performing marketers that change their mindsets, tactics and technology to embrace a customer journey strategy will reap the benefits.

In other words, we can’t just show up when we need something. Think about something as simple as the Amazon Dash button. If you’re not familiar, Amazon describes it a Wi-Fi connected device that reorders your favorite product with the press of a button. If you run out of Red Bull, push the button and Red Bull shows up. It’s always there, ready when you need it. Is that walking the customer through a journey? I think it is, in a very simplistic manner.

When the phone rings and it’s this particular guy, I know I’m going to be asked for something. How do customers feel when your email arrives? Any differently?

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July 12, 2016 · 10:02 am

Selling To The Sold

I read a piece this morning about how political campaigns are doing a bad job of using the data available to them. The main thrust of the article is this:

It doesn’t make the most sense to continue advertising to a voter after they’ve already made a decision about which candidate they’ll choose on Election Day. While inefficient government spending seems as inevitable as death and taxes, it is still shocking how much budget is wasted marketing to voters who have already demonstrated an affinity one way or another.

You might be sitting there smugly saying to yourself that it’s typical of how politics is out of touch with the real world. After all, many campaigns are marketing organizations that come together for a relatively brief period of time with a basic short-term goal: convince 50.1% of voters to buy your product by a date certain. Our businesses, on the other hand, are in it for the long term and need to garner on-going and repeat business so we’re forced to be better at marketing. But are we?

I’d suggest that we’re really not. Many of us spend a good chunk of our money trying to convince another brand’s partisans to switch to our brand while spending inefficiently against the “undecideds” that are more open to choosing us. That thinking is why a lot of money targets the young. In theory, they are less locked-in to any brand. But why stop there?

We need to spend less time selling what’s already been sold and focus on growing our consumer base. Yes, reinforcing and thanking your current user base is important but it should take far fewer resources than finding and convincing those who are both open to a brand message and ready to buy. You probably aren’t going to turn off your “base” and you’re never going to convince the other brand’s base no matter what you do. You with me?

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Filed under Huh?, Reality checks

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