Marketing – Page 2 – Demand Generation Consulting

Between the Customer and the Bottom Line – Who Wins?

October 10, 2012September 8, 2018MattLeave a Comment

In the business of marketing it’s our job (among others) to drive new sales. Often, we get caught in the middle between a sales team that wants all-or-nothing, no holds barred tactics, and our own sense of ethical marketing. While gimmicks and tricks can help boost the pipeline in the short run, in the long run they can be a death sentence. Think about these facts from SCORE :

The High Cost of Losing A Customer

The lowest-ranking employee in a business can lose more customers than can be gained by the highest-ranking employee.
In the average business, for every customer who bothers to complain, there are 26 others who remain silent.
The average wronged customer will tell 8 to 16 people (about 10 percent will tell more than 20 people).
91 percent of unhappy customers will never purchase goods or services from you again.
If you make an effort to remedy customer’s complaints, 82 to 95 percent of them will stay with you.
It costs about 5 times as much to attract a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

The fourth bullet really stands out to me. 91 percent of unhappy customers will NEVER purchase goods or services from you again. In tandem with the last bullet, it’s plain to see that we want to do everything we can to keep customers happy.

The temptation is always there when it comes to e-mail marketing. It is simply too easy, and too quick to push a button to see if you can move the needle. Keep customer interests, not your bottom line, as the number one priority. The beauty of it all? Find where those two intersect and you’ve got a winner!

If you are asked to choose between pulling tricks to pull in revenue and honest, effective marketing, remember these stats!

Leadership Lessons From JoePa

January 28, 2012January 30, 2012MattLeave a Comment

I went to Penn State and though I’m not a huge college football fan, it was impossible to not feel the impact of Paterno’s passing in Penn State Land this week. So I wanted to pay tribute by sharing a few of my favorite JoePa quotes.

“You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.”

I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately. What’s the difference between good and great? I believe it’s being able to perform at a higher level consistently. It’s easy to be better one day a year, or one day a month. To be something different, you have to be able to deliver beyond all others on a consistent basis. That means consistency – When it’s cold outside; When you don’t feel like it; When you didn’t get what you wanted; When you feel like nobody is watching. You can’t build a reputation for excellence on, “Yeah, sometimes she does a really good job, other times she just doesn’t put the effort in.”

“Believe deep down in your heart that you’re destined to do great things.”

This one should probably go before the first one because it’s what makes that consistency a little easier to deliver. If you believe in yourself (really, really, believe) you can perform when the chips are down, because that’s what you were put here to do. To do anything less would be to deny fate. Have the audacity to believe that you can do great things and push yourself to do them.

“The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.”

This one is classic. I’m reminded of the Saturday Night Live skit where Sarah Palin is telling Hillary Clinton that you just “have to want it.” Hillary laments that Palin is probably right, if there was one thing she could have done more it was “want it.” The point here is that everybody wants success. You have to be willing to put the work in (and here’s that word again) on a consistent basis. That means two of Coach Paterno’s favorite things; studying and practice. For those of us not privileged enough to walk between the white lines, that means analysis and testing.

The Bad Service Hangover

November 17, 2011November 17, 2011MattLeave a Comment

Radio Shack.

If you would have asked me what I thought of that store about a month ago, I would have cringed. Aside from commercials, I really hadn’t been exposed to the store in quite a few years. You see, I had a bad service experience a number of years ago and really never bothered to go back. The problem I had was that I just ran in for batteries in the middle of a road trip and they asked me for every piece of personal information under the Sun — name, address, zip code… etc. I also seem to remember them trying to sell me other things, when I clearly just wanted some batteries.

Being a marketing professional, I understand what they were after, but I was very put off. I just wanted some batteries. It felt like they were adding my name to the no-fly list instead of making me happy that I stopped in.

In the aftermath, it took me years and years to return to “The Shack”. And it was really because I needed a specific adapter (again a really low price item) and couldn’t get it anywhere else. Even knowing this, I still didn’t want to go back, but I did. And I’m glad I did. My experience there was actually really pleasant. Someone helped me immediately and there was no interrogation at the register.

So in the end, I’m glad to see that “The Shack” is (at least to my knowledge) not pestering every customer for personal information. However, it serves as an important lesson for marketers. It’s always wonderful to think of the great insights and targeted campaigns we can pull off with all of that information, but we must ALWAYS consider the customer’s experience above all else. It’s a lot easier to market to a happy customer.

What about you? Do you have any bad service hangovers? Are you willing to give that business another shot? Why or why not?

The “Price Is Right” and Market Positioning

October 5, 2011October 5, 2011MattLeave a Comment

*I’ll leave it to you to decide what inspired this!

Don’t treat your brand or product positioning like Contestant’s Row. Often instead of competing against the larger group, contestants decide simply to bid one higher than the person beside them. While this is a smart move if you are the last contestant (and that is the highest bid), people in the middle of the bidding get caught up in the excitement and fall back on what they thought they were supposed to do when they had followed along at home so many times before.

Instead of surveying the competitive landscape and offering a unique bid that might give them a better chance to win, they effectively cancel out a chance to win by worrying too much about the person before them.

The bottom line is that in marketing simply bidding “one higher” isn’t going to work. You need to OWN a space in the consumer’s mind that is uniquely yours. I’m going to go Inception on you right now and place a reference within a reference. The Price Is Right has done a very good job of owning the daytime game show space. Can you think of any others that come close? By offering a unique blend of entertainment that combines excitement, unpredictability, and ever-changing setups, the show gives consumers a product that is unlike most any other game show.

There are two lessons to be learned here:

Old tricks do not work in every situation – Be aware of changing environments and be prepared to act quickly.
You aren’t always competing with the people directly beside you – By focusing solely on direct competition we can lose sight of the game. In the meantime, some other competitor swoops in and takes all the prizes.

Be proactive and identify (or create) a differentiator that helps you own a unique position in the target market’s mind. This way you don’t always have to react to what others are doing. Instead, you can build the game around the rules that you set. Sure they can be the last bidder, but you can be the host.

Do You Have a ‘Progression’ Plan?

August 26, 2011August 26, 2011MattLeave a Comment

Steve Jobs announced this week that he will be stepping down as CEO of Apple. As part of the succession plan, Steve recommended his replacement and rumors are that they have enough products in the pipeline to keep the company humming for the next two years.

In the context of marketing, we should be doing a similar ‘progression’ plan when it comes to our campaigns. I think often (and for good reason) we get swept up in the here and now. It’s also important to realize that this campaign or project will be completed at some point. Make sure to take a look at how it all fits.

One of the reasons Apple has been so successful is that there has been continuity across the product development and marketing. The iPhone fed off what the iPod built and the iPad fed off the iPhone. These products did not succeed by accident, it was a result of meticulous planning regarding brand and product development.

Step back and take a big picture look at everything, do these smaller projects and campaigns all fit with your brand strategy? Is there something tying them together that helps build brand identity? If not, why not?

3 Ways Netflix Could Have Handled Pricing-Gate Differently

July 18, 2011July 18, 2011MattLeave a Comment

By now, I’m sure you have heard, Netflix intends to split its streaming and DVD services in two. Customers that were once receiving DVDs and streaming, will now how to pay for both. Not so bad on its surface, right? It actually sounds like a smart move, separating the company into dedicated segments allows employees to specialize and deliver more expertise. The problem is not what Netflix is doing. It’s how it did it.

Netflix has grown a loyal following through the years by over-delivering when other carriers under-performed. Blockbuster charged way too much on the way out the door and the way back in (late fees). Netflix charged an acceptable amount and made going to the mailbox fun again. When most other streaming services suffered from frequent buffering and only allowed us to watch on our computers, Netflix delivered a strong, reliable solution that made consumers overlook the dearth of content.

Instead of building on this brand equity Netflix under-delivered AND under-performed. The brand began by alienating the enablers of its tremendous growth, its customers. Some customers (like me) did not receive notification of the change in a timely manner. The news exploded on social media and some customers had to find out from friends and the Twitterverse before hearing directly from the provider.

Recommendation Number One: The Customer Comes First
No matter what the message, it’s important that the first news of the change comes from the brand. Otherwise, the noise from social channels amplifies the negative and drowns out the positive. If your brand can get the first word in, it’s at least a building block towards understanding. Be proactive with the message.

Recommendation Number Two: Be Honest
The blog message that Netflix used to announce the pricing changes was informational in nature but I’m still questioning if the “Lowest Price Ever” angle is the best way to go. Consumers in this digital age are smart, and if they aren’t all smart, they’re probably friends with somebody that is. So let’s not try to spin this in such a positive light. Let’s be honest. What if Netflix were to lead off by saying thank you to all the customers for the tremendous growth. Then explain that in order to continue offering a strong selection and incredible service, we have to make changes. The low price angle just doesn’t resonate when, for most customers, it’s actually a price hike (to continue the same service(s)).

Recommendation Number Three: The Customer Always Comes First (and Last)
Now, let’s consider how Netflix is implementing these pricing changes. They go into effect immediately for new customers and in September for existing. Most of the posts I’ve read felt like this treatment was a slap in the face for existing, heretofore, loyal customers. These customers have helped fuel the company’s meteoric growth and they get a 60 percent price hike and a 45 day respite for their efforts? Why not reward those that have been with the company by grandfathering them in or offering special loyalty rates? In an age where competition is high and switching services is as easy as downloading a new app, customer appreciation is key. Verizon recently moved to tiered data plans but avoided similar outrage by grandfathering in current unlimited plans.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that Netflix has built its brand around convenience. A price hike is not convenient and finding out about it from second-hand sources is also not convenient. Be proactive, be honest, be consistent, and always think of the customer – or someone else will.

What Oprah Can Teach Us About Social Media

June 3, 2011September 8, 2018MattLeave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I set out on the great Twitter adventure. As much as I like to call myself a marketing professional, I was pretty late to the game with that. Nonetheless, I dove in head first trying to read, click, and absorb everything I could about what works and what doesn’t in the Twitterverse.

I’m still very much a novice and if you count followers as success, I’m pretty far down the chain, but I did learn a few things. Mainly, I’ve learned that a lot of people claim to have “steps” for social media success. My timeline is filled with “5 things” and “3 things” and “how NOT to’s” but after further observation, I realized that everybody is really just following the same formula — Oprah’s.

Yep, Oprah. She has succeeded by doing a few things very well. Not coincidentally, building a social media following is strikingly similar to building a media empire.

- Listen to Your Audience – This is probably the hardest of the steps to prove with anecdotal evidence. But I think it’s fairly plain to see that Oprah has achieved success by listening to the audience. This helps keep the show focused on issues that matter to that audience. By taking the pulse of the audience, Oprah had the ability to deliver what the audience wanted. Use searches or just browse your follower’s profiles to see what everyone is talking about.

- Be Authentic – One of Oprah’s greatest talents is the ability to relate to her audience as a normal person. She asks questions as a lay person, not as a celebrity. She also has very publicly struggled with weight issues. By publicly enduring these ups and downs (whatever they may be), she proved to her audience that they are all struggling with the same things. Common experiences help form relationships. This is Twitter’s real draw, we get to see behind the curtain. While it certainly can go too far, it’s important to let your audience know that you are human.

- Deliver Valuable Content – After listening to your audience to find out what they like and what they’re like; It’s time to deliver the goods. Convince the audience that you have something worth listening to, or reading, or talking about. Oprah does this by selecting experts that deliver no-nonsense advice for the problems that every day people are going through. This is interesting because Oprah isn’t necessarily developing the initial content herself, she is playing editor-in-chief and selecting which articles to publish to her audience. We can do the same thing.

- Be Consistent – Now I have to clarify, I’m not actually an Oprah watcher, but just about every woman I know is at least a fan and an occasional viewer. By delivering high quality content every weekday, Oprah has become a reliable, resource for day-to-day life. She will be hard to replace simply because it is so hard to deliver value on such a consistent basis. So the next time you think it’s too much work to send out an @reply or compose a blog, just be thankful you aren’t producing a one hour talk show. If you aren’t there delivering content every day, someone else is.

- Syndicate – Oprah is a very wealthy lady and part of the reason is because of the syndicated nature of her show. Her show is available in every market, every day, sometimes at two different times in the same market. This means her viewers simply have the opportunity to stay abreast of her content wherever they are. In recent years she has taken the syndication farther with O Magazine and yes, even Twitter! We have the same opportunity with social media. Take the content you create and syndicate it throughout your social networks.

If It Ain’t Broke – Break It!

May 6, 2011May 6, 2011MattLeave a Comment

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

But what happens when the going gets good? Rita McGrath via HBR reminds us that past success is not a guarantee of future profit. She’s right. It’s important (though all too common) for companies that experience success to be lulled by it as well. The once ubiquitous Nokia is scratching and clawing to remain relevant in the brave new iWorld (and as Rita states – RIM may not be far behind).

These two industry giants had once enjoyed immense popularity. But throughout the years, they started losing focus on delivering innovative products. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Wrong. While it can be quite alluring to sit back and watch the profits roll in, that success won’t last. The only way to remain relevant is to augment existing products while innovating new ones. Innovation is tough, really tough, especially the market-disrupting, status-quo destroying kind. It’s important though to pay attention to your product and to continuously look for ways to improve or make it obsolete. If you don’t, someone else will.

One way to brainstorm ideas is to list the attributes of your product/service. List the materials, the pros, and the cons of each. By separating the material from the whole, you are able to critically analyze the product (hopefully without too much bias). It’s important here to listen to consumers but also to remain aware that they may not know what they really want. As consumers I think we tend to think in terms of incremental innovation. How can we make this specific product better? While that type of thinking leads to some advantages, it won’t bring market dominance. To create a game-changer, we as marketers, need to strive for the discontinuous, disruptive type.

Find the unmet needs and meet them. And just when we have that need met – you guessed it – time to start over. Head back to the top of this post for help with that!