Jan 4, 2012 | Change, Communication, Innovation, Operations, Social Media, Strategy
In the communication revolution going on currently, the infrastructure to carry it all is vital, but how relevant will the 2010 infrastructure be to the world that greets it when it is finally completed roll-out in, when?, what was the last projection? ever?. The world is changing almost daily, the NBN as conceived by our political masters will be obsolete before it is 10% implemented.
In the October issue of “Wired” magazine is a fascinating analysis of the “Tech War” going on between Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. It is a must read for anyone in business, it puts a competitive context around the maneuvering we all see happening, but do not necessarily connect the dots.
We, the Australian taxpayers, are making a multi-generational investment in the NBN, billions of dollars spent by those well known, fast moving, tech savvy innovators in Canberra. Lets hope they know what is going on outside the cocooned environment of the “bush Capital that are all so pleased to live in.
Somehow I doubt they have any idea, and that is truly scary, and there will be a whole lot more of this sort of failure, and the accompanying spin before anyone in Canberra admits to a huge boo boo.
Jan 3, 2012 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Sales
We are in the middle of the post Christmas sales, an orgy of discount opportunities for consumers as retailers rush to clear stock, and take advantage of the behavior consumers exhibit every new year, “buy, buy, grab the discount”.
Whoops?
Have we trained customers to expect great deals post Xmas, do they put off spending at full price till the post Xmas period, not because the deals are great, but because they have been trained to do so?
Clearly the answer is yes, customers have been trained, just like Dr Pavlov demonstrated.
So, what else can customers be trained to do? When you think about it, the list gets pretty long.
Switch brands indiscriminately
Demand discounts
Be impatient and unforgiving
Expect free service, whilst getting a discount price
24 hour delivery
Limitless warranty
The list goes on, but to each, there is a positive side, customers can be trained to stay with the one brand, not to expect discounts and unreasonable service and warranty, not all of them, but usually enough to make the investment worthwhile, as the alternative is to go broke being the cheapest to all, rather than delivering genuine value to those who are prepared to pay for it.
What are you training your customers to expect?
Dec 22, 2011 | Communication, Social Media
The hard part about writing a blog, I have found, is not finding stuff to write about, but finding stuff that has not been written about before, or finding a new twist on an old topic, and then being sufficiently interesting to those who so generously give you their attention, that they take note.
The proliferation of sources of news and comment has sliced up the attention pie so completely, that getting and holding the attention of those who may be interested, and adding value to them in return is the real challenge.
Never has the old adage from Peter Drucker, “Communication is not saying something, communication is being heard”, been more accurate than it is now.
So, for you, one of that small group who have so generously given me their attention through this year by reading, commenting on, tweeting, and otherwise been a part of this wonderful tool of communication we now take for granted, I thank you, and wish you a safe and Merry Christmas. I look forward to continuing the relationship in 2012, and continuing to engage with you, by scratching your brain cells with interesting and useful stuff.
Dec 19, 2011 | Customers, Marketing
Ever thought about how markets happen, how the emerge, how they grow?
A new market has to have a first customer, most marketers look to the value proposition, the competitive landscape, the distribution channels, the mechanics of manufacturing, the service offering, but that is not all it is, there is another factor usually overlooked.
Somewhere, sometime, there needs to be a first customer, then a second, and with luck those will tell their friends the product is good, and the ball will start rolling.
However, for every new customer, there must be a first time, they must be persuaded to buy into a new market or product category, to overcome the barriers of habit, reluctance to take a risk, to be different, to move from something that they know is OK to something they have heard may be better.
I have not yet bought a Smartphone, but I suppose I will at some point, when the pressure is sufficient to get me to buy one, but that will be the first time I buy a Smartphone, it will be a hurdle, the second one will be much, much easier.
Getting people to buy their first is the key hurdle of any new market.
Dec 12, 2011 | Innovation, Marketing, Strategy
From bricks and mortar, to the web, and now to mobile apps. What is next for retailing?
There was a blue last week between the current and previous MD of David Jones, about who wore the blame for DJ’s being slow into e-selling, billionaire Gerry Harvey is often bitching about the unfair competition from e-tailers, and Australian post is gearing up to deliver parcels, as their snail-mail service is on its deathbed, certainly unable to support the infrastructure built for another age. Now the just released Productivity Commission report on retailing has recommended that the threshold for the application of GST on imported parcels drop from the current $1000, as soon as it is cost effective to do so.
It seems to me that there is a resurgence of alternative retail, new business models that leverage the changing environment, Harris Farm, Aussie Farmers direct, Kogan, and many others. By looking backwards to set the regulatory framework, we run the risk of compromising the emerging foundations of the future, and stamping on the wrong hat.
Dec 2, 2011 | Customers, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
How do you calculate the value of an investment in social media?
Any investment attracts the need to try to quantify the returns, both to measure the success of the investment when it is too late to do much about it apart from ensuring the same mistake is not made again, and to prioritise competing investment options against a limited pool of funds available.
Accountants love the discounted cash flow, and real options type analyses that prevail, but how do you do these on an investment in media, social or otherwise?
It makes sense to start to consider “data chains”.
Cause and effect;
Influence and action;
Believable and buy;
These are all examples of the chains of connections that are on the surface largely subjective, but lead to an outcome that can be measured. The task of measuring the return on the exposure that can accrue from a presence in Social Media, and even conventional media, is fraught with challenges, but with systemisation of the pools of data generated from your sales, customer retention, prospect identification, web analytics, and all the other data collection options now available, you can start to see the patterns emerging that can be used to calculate a return, even if there is a “fudge factor” present.
At some point you simply have to acknowledge that behavioral patterns are not easy to quantify, and even harder to predict, but by explicitly acknowledging the chains of cause and effect that exist, you can start to anticipate, if not predict, the returns
