Tag Archives: Marketing and Advertising

October 6, 2015 · 12:13 pm

The Flashlight You Need

No one likes to wander around in the dark, tripping over furniture and the odd, misplaced shoe.  It’s why every phone comes with a flashlight app, right? On that note, I’ve ranted a number of times in this space about the need for every business to use a flashlight – the need to measure. “Measure what?” you ask? Like any good consultant, I’ll tell you that there is no one right answer to that. I can, however, tell you how to go about figuring it out.  

It’s more than answering “what’s important.” Obviously, growing revenue and profit is the standard answer. It’s the next layer – what makes those things happen – where we begin to figure out our Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). I like to start with current customers. How many of them are we retaining? What’s our churn rate? How do you reduce the attrition rate, and what percentage of the customers that have left have we contacted? What are their reasons for leaving? Among the people who stay, what’s their purchase frequency and average order value? Are those numbers growing?

Then maybe we need to fill up the bucket some more. How do we attract new customers? What are our conversion rates on whatever marketing we’re doing? What channels are performing, and which are performing better than others? What’s our ROI on marketing spend? How many prospects are we turning into leads? How many of those are we converting?

Finally, there are some KPI’s that are like chicken soup: they might not help, but they can’t hurt. What is our level of social engagement? Is our brand and/or content being shared? What are our general awareness levels? What is our brand image vs. those of our competitors?

You probably have every one of the pieces of data I mentioned above.  You have a lot more too, although it’s imperative to remember that if it’s not actionable it’s probably not worth bothering about.  Good questions and the data that answer them are the flashlights that help your business find its way in the dark.  Without them, it’s way too easy to get lost.

Is that helpful?

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October 5, 2015 · 11:17 am

It’s The Solution, Stupid

One of the great meme/clichés since 1992 has been the form based on James Carville‘s famous slogan for the Clinton presidential run:  The Economy, Stupid.  The popular version always adds “It’s” upfront, as I have done above.  The point of his slogan was to keep Clinton campaign workers focused on the main points the campaign was trying to make (it was one of three).  My point is to keep you focused on the marketing you should be doing. That introduction out of the way, let us address my point – it’s the solution.

The first point on all three lines L 1–3...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat with clients and listened to their spiels to potential investors or customers and come away not understanding why either of those groups would give the client any money.  I used to wonder the same thing from the other side of the desk when I was listening to people pitch me new partnerships or technologies when I was at the NHL.  In both cases the person speaking would explain the features of their product or company but they’d miss the most important point: how what they had solved a problem.  Actually, how it solved MY problem.

If you’re a marketer, you can’t assume your audience has any clue what your product does or what problem it solves.  I’m amused by the brands that go straight to paid search marketing or other immediate calls to action, never having done any brand building.  The classic framework for marketing (AIDA) begins with “attention.”  Branding campaigns get that attention and build awareness.  That’s the time to educate the audience on one thing: how the product solves a problem and why that solution is the best one for the audience.

So it’s the solution, stupid.  Identify the problem you’re solving, make sure it’s a big enough problem (one that a large number of people have, even if they don’t know it yet) and then market the solution. Advertising the product, not the solution, is a recipe for disaster.  Make sense?

 

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September 30, 2015 · 11:13 am

Gagging Your Customers

I love the Streisand Effect.  You know – some person or company takes umbrage at what someone else has written somewhere and decides to “fix” things.  Usually, that fix creates even more awareness of the original negative  item and so the attempt to hide it has just the opposite effect.  Some genius at a Florida company that sells weight loss products decided to solve the negative item problem in a different way.  It allegedly made false claims for their products, and then threatened to enforce “gag clause” provisions against consumers to stop them from posting negative reviews and testimonials online.  How great an idea was this?

Seal of the United States Federal Trade Commis...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a complaint filed in federal court, the FTC alleges that Roca Labs, Inc.; Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA, Inc.; and their principals have sued and threatened to sue consumers who shared their negative experiences online or complained to the Better Business Bureau, stating that the consumers violated the non-disparagement provisions of the “Terms and Conditions” they supposedly agreed to when they bought the products. The FTC alleges that these gag clause provisions, and the defendants’ related warnings, threats, and lawsuits, harm consumers by unfairly barring purchasers from sharing truthful, negative comments about the defendants and their products.

Hmm.  Maybe not such a good idea after all, huh?  Telling consumers that they would be subject to $100,000 in damages for posting reviews isn’t exactly embracing the customer.  In fact, I can’t really imagine a circumstance where preemptively threatening to sue a customer for anything short of non-payment makes any sense.  In this case, not only has the Streisand Effect kicked in but so too has a stream of legal fees and, potentially, fines and damages.  As it turns out, the FTC alleges that the product’s weight-loss claims are false or unsubstantiated – you know, the stuff they’re selling just doesn’t work. That will move a lot of product, right? Just to kick them a little while they’re down, the FTC also charges that the defendants failed to disclose that they compensated users who posted positive reviews.

The takeaways (none of which are news to anyone who has read this screed before): don’t threaten your customers, don’t lie about your products, don’t pay for fake reviews and don’t actually follow through and sue them when someone posts a negative comment (these guys did file a number of suits).  Sure, if someone is spreading out-and-out lies, you need to respond but hopefully not in court.  If what they are saying contains a fair amount of truth, however, the fault isn’t the customer’s.  Agreed?

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