Apr 17, 2011 | Communication, Marketing
Marketing is mostly about storytelling, engaging people in the emotion of the value proposition, and every presentation you do is a selling opportunity, for an idea, a vision, and sometimes a product.
Presenting to an audience of strangers is for many people, an experience ranking with a session on De Torquemada’s rack.
Any speech, or presentation will be a failure, irrespective of the quality of the content, if the speaker fails to engage the audience, and like most things that do not come naturally, practice, preparation, and the assistance of those who have gone before, will make you better.
Here are 13 great tips on how to make the speech of your life, and once you get the hang of it, the buzz can be amazing, after all, how hard is it to get people to listen to you most of the time, and from time to time, if you get good at it, people will pay to hear you.
How good is that?
Apr 16, 2011 | Branding, Customers, Marketing
Most marketers will tell you what their brand stand for, premium quality, reliable performance, consistent taste, great service, and so on. Sounds a bit like a bunch of cliches doesn’t it?
However, it is just as valid to define your brand by what it is against, and often it seems the “againsts” are somewhat implied, allowing some latitude in interpretation.
The Green party in Australia is against native forest logging, Nike is against lounge lizards, Apple is against sameness, and closer to home, the SME Riverina Grove‘s brand is against average tasting mass produced “Italian” style packaged foods.
Think about it next time a branding discussion emerges, weather it be in a formal strategy session, or probably better, around the coffee machine.
Apr 12, 2011 | Customers, Innovation, Marketing, Social Media
It seems only a short time ago I stumbled across the reality that mobile devices and their GPS capabilities could be used as tools to entice customers in various ways, almost like spruikers outside “that” sort of establishment . Suddenly they are everywhere, and blogs are popping up to tell you how they work, spreading the word still more quickly, and the use is exploding in the US.
Today the iPhone app used by Tesco to market product offers direct to customers based on their purchase history was demonstrated to me by a Tesco customer. The purchase data is captured at the checkout, by swiping a Tesco card at the checkout, but you do not need the card, there is an app that provides the code by swiping the phone over the reader. Your product and brand preferences, baskets, purchase intervals, location, time of day, and a wealth of data is analysed, and tailored offers sent to your phone. This is a remarkably powerful marketing tool, now a relatively mature application (ie older than 6 months, and working) in the UK, and Tesco seem to be experimenting and innovating constantly, staying ahead of the game.
For Australians, most of this stuff is still fantasy, the “connected” group who think beyond facebook, have seen comment and descriptions, but not the application, at least not in Australia. However, it is just around the corner, coming to a supermarket near you!!
Apr 5, 2011 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
Following on from yesterdays somewhat cynical observations about the supposed ease of using viral marketing as an advertising “strategy”, driven often by cost considerations and dills who do not understand, it seems sensible to take a closer look at e-advertising, and the ways to target advertising to where it may deliver a marketing return, and hopefully eventually, a financial one.
Ads on the net have proliferated, from targeted ads that look like the stuff on TV or in magazines, to stuff, sometimes highly creative, posted by individuals, and that would never cut it in the advertising old days, but that leveraged the dynamics and connectedness of the net and have worked a treat. Predictably, the tools to manage placement have evolved pretty quickly as service providers seek an alternative to the disappearing revenue from traditional media.
The social media phenomenon of the web 2.0 has opened up another way to slice and dice potential audiences to target communication at those more receptive for some reason, but when you have a starting point of 600 million facebook, and hundreds of millions of other “opportunities”, Foursquare, Flikr, U-Tube, et al, the problem becomes one of analytics. Predictably there are a host of start-ups addressing the challenge of organising the data into a useable form, but the numbers are huge, and the organic unpredictability of an individuals capacity to respond to messages of all sorts makes this a real challenge.
I still fall back on the old fashioned formula of identifying a need, then over-delivering to customers, one by one, as the starting point. The difference is we can now conduct hundreds of small scale “experiments” using all the digital tools and low cost communication, the “experiments” themselves becoming the medium of communication exchange with highly fragmented potential and existing customers.
Apr 4, 2011 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Bosses, often with no idea of marketing, and the social networks and how to engage them seem to be increasingly thinking forget the TV, (good idea that in most cases) “just make a silly/funny/outrageous video, and it will go viral”.
Voila, marketing success at little cost, up go the profits.
Wish it was that easy, if it was, everyone’s’ creative baby would get a million views on U-tube, but it only happens to a few.
The basic rules of marketing and communication still need to be respected. Identify a problem for a group that your product solves better than any other, demonstrate the solution, praise the value, and build a relationship between the user and the product.
Making a video of cats that look like Hitler and dancing babies only work very occasionally, then usually only once, so be relevant. Take a look at the “virals” in Tom’s narrative of his cartoon in the link, they work!
Apr 3, 2011 | Communication, Customers, Sales, Small business
I’ve seen lots of customer service initiatives that promise “delivery by ……..” and no matter how quick that may be, there is still uncertainty about when it will be delivered, and customers will be anxious.
By contrast, “we will deliver at 3pm on the 25th” is very specific, and so long as you do deliver at the nominated time, every time, even if it is a few days longer than then quickest possible, customers just love the certainty.
