Mar 18, 2010 | Marketing
Sometimes academic research evolves to support what common sense has told us for years.
A standard phrase in the marketing lexicon is “look at it from the customers perspective” an obvious and logical strategy, not often used for a range of reasons, largely associated with the manner in which firms organise and conduct their operational, strategy development and governance processes, but largely driven by common sense and experience.
Now there is research, and books coming that supports the notion of the “outside in” company. At last, common sense appears to be making a formal appearance.
Mar 17, 2010 | Communication, Leadership
It is often said, in one way or another, that the key to success is a willingness to fail, because only by taking risks, not accepting the common wisdom or status quo can you be sufficiently different to be have the chance tosucceed.
J.K.Rowling is possibly the most successful author of the last 50 years, not only on her own behalf, but her creation Harry Potter, spawned a whole new genre of stories, and yet, she was for a long time a “failure”
Now she is sharing her experience with Harvard graduates, usually associated with extravagant success in a commencement speech, not to be missed.
Mar 16, 2010 | Marketing, Sales
For fifty years, good marketing meant efficient use of advertising funds, driving distribution, segmenting markets, usually on socio-economic status and usage patterns, development of brand awareness and purchase intention, a flow of range extensions, and staying out of trouble.
The last 10 years have seen a sea change, and none of the above really counts any more, because everyone knows how to do it, marketing has become commoditised, and being just as able at “marketing” as everyone else leads to punishment in the market.
What is needed now are genuine insights, new connections, stuff that cannot be copied, customers who are advocates of your brand, and true creativity, not just another colour.
Lip service has been given for many years to the concept of “Customer Value Proposition”, but it was in the context of mass marketing, and mass markets where it evolved. The concept is still valid, it is just far more difficult to execute, as it needs to be applied many times to market segments, often approaching one customer only.
Failure to recognise the new individual focus of marketing, and reacting by enabling a conversation between yourself and your customers, will lead to punishment in the marketplace by way of increasing irrelevance.
Mar 15, 2010 | Change, Marketing, Personal Rant, Social Media
From time to time we stumble across something that offers a “Eureka moment” an opportunity for insight that clears the haze, explains something in a way that makes such obvious sense, we wonder why it took so long.
Clay Shirky’s notion of “Cognitive surplus” is such a moment.
His central thesis is that we spend time, huge amounts of it, consuming various forms of media, and he concentrates on TV, but surely most magazines rate a mention, because we do not know what else to do with the surplus time, but when we wake up, and find an alternative, we embrace it, enter Wikipedia, open source software, facebook, and many more.
The wake-up is that we realise that rather than being passive receivers of stuff, we can create something ourselves using the tools of the web, and no matter how trivial it may be, it is more rewarding than sitting watching Desperate Housewives. This is a seismic shift in the way we live our lives, and our kids are going to have to deal with it, but what fun that will be, and how enriching it will be for their lives, so much better than dumbing out in front of Gilligans Island.
Mar 14, 2010 | Change, Marketing, Social Media
One of the huge advantages of the web is that the small can look big, and professional, and able to tackle any challenge, and most important, confident of success.
In order to achieve this on your site, you need to spend a little, perhaps a little more than you would like, but the returns will be there when you generate the opportunity to over deliver to a customer.
On the other hand, the worst thing you can do, having built the expectation, is to under-deliver.
Sounds a bit like life before the web.
After the hype of the last 10 years, we are increasingly able to see the web as just another tool, and like all tools, you need the right one at the right time, and be able to use it effectively in order to get a result.
