Nov 17, 2009 | Marketing
The notion of marketing to “friends” on social networking websites has great superficial attraction, after all it is a free audience, with presumably something in common.
This has led to an explosion of banner ads and offers of various types on these social sites, but is it a good use of resources? The research indicates the cost often outweighs the result, as click through rates are very high, pretty obvious when you think about it, people go to social sites to connect, not to be the target of an unsolicited ad where they have the choice to ignore it.
On the net the word “friend” can mean someone who is simply too sensitive to push the “ignore” button, but who has no connection to you at all, so they are not friends in the sense that they have any sense of mutual affection or obligation.
The net has enabled hordes of random people to become “friends” but it really means nothing until there has been a meaningful exchange of some sort. It is possible to have millions of friends, but who needs them!
However, social networking opens the opportunity to connect to people who in pre-net days you would have had no chance of meeting who share something that makes the opportunity to “meet” potentially valuable to you both, but to create the value, there has to be an exchange.
I guess we need another word, one that means “friends on the net who we have not necessarily met in person, but with whom we have a connection we both value”.
Nov 16, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Marketing
Not just the “bits”, the original target of Moore’s Law are halving in price every couple of years, lots of other things are as well.
For many goods and services, the whole notion of charging at marginal cost has been thrown on its head, because in many cases marginal cost has become negligible.
The internet has created the most competitive market the world has ever seen.
Barriers to entry are almost zero, and the marginal cost of production is zero. Therefore, how do you price this product, as price has always followed the marginal cost in traditional models.
The consequence is that over time, as things evolve on the internet, the for “free” component will increase, and the audience will increase, in numbers, but those who want “depth” will still be prepared to pay for it.
Disruptive innovation has used this model for 150 years.
Jell-O, effectively dried granulated gelatin in a box was given away in the 1880’s as a means to develop a market.
Linux software is the best known recent example of free stuff on the net, but it is every where, so the marketing challenge is to evolve a business model that enables you to make money when giving it away.
On of my clients has a unique information product that offers useful generic information covering an industry, but then has the scope to generate very specific and competitively useful information for individual enterprises and situations at a much deeper level of analysis. The debate about the best pricing model is proving to be very interesting indeed.
Nov 16, 2009 | Change, Innovation, Marketing
In the welter of new media arriving almost daily, is there an element of individuals being empowered to exercise their right to make their own choices after a lifetime of being told what they want by others.
Boys are taught from an early age to want a sports car by the role models and advertising thrust at them, and girls are taught what to want by magazines and their peers and role models, but do we really need most of it?
After several generations of honing the ability to filter out the mass market advertising we do not want to see, perhaps twitter and the other emerging social networking tools are an opportunity to express stuff that was previously just a personal consideration. The marketing implications of this ability to filter communications coming in, and respond directly to those that attract us for some reason are as important to marketing as Henry Ford was to automobiles.
Nov 12, 2009 | Branding, Management, Marketing
It is easy to create something, post it on u-tube and sit back and hope it goes “viral” giving you a turbo charged marketing program for not much money.
This rarely happens, as the punters know an ad when they see one.
The real challenge is to first identify those who love your product, and have the propensity to shout about your services, and set about delighting them, then they may send your message viral, but even if they just talk about it over the back fence to their neighbor, they will be your marketing department. Word of mouth, around forever, is really just person to person viral marketing, and we always knew it worked, it is just that now we have person to potentially millions, and we think it should scale up arithmetically, but it doesn’t.
There is not much use telling those who do not care, or who do not care enough to do anything positive, or are satisfied where they are, so focus your attention and passion on the few who will make the difference.
Nov 11, 2009 | Branding, Innovation, Marketing
November 10 was the 40th birthday of “Sesame Street” perhaps the most influential television program ever produced, and it still brings adults a laugh, amongst the serious messages to kids.
I noticed early in the day that Google had Big Bird on their masthead, but did not know why, then about lunchtime, the Cookie Monster appeared, then later, the whole gang, by which time, I had realised the significance. This brought a smile, but more important, engaged me, a 58 year old bloke, with their brand in a way I would not have thought possible.
Search engines are now pretty much all the same, they all do a good job of finding stuff, but only Google has become a verb! This is because they have done a superb job of engaging their consumers around the world in a range of ways, and have innovated relentlessly to ensure they remain the first point of call on the net for most.
The determination creativity, and discipline of this effort is exemplified by the attention to detail that must have gone into someone dreaming up the idea of changing of the masthead three times during the day. It is easy to do, very hard to think of, but hugely engaging to anyone who opened Google on the 10th, probably half the connected world.
Nov 10, 2009 | Innovation, Marketing
Our society is obsessed with the elimination of risk, even little ones that really make no difference, and we spend huge resources insuring ourselves against the possibility that something will impact on us in a way we do not like.
Local councils ban kids riding skateboards in parks, teachers ban running in the school yard, to get a permit to have a table on a footpath outside your bistro is harder than designing a nuclear device, at least the instructions for that are on the net.
What is this all about?, we spend most of our time and resources on the negative stuff, rather than the positive stuff, being different, diverse, interesting, having a go, all in the name of ensuring we do not offend anyone, ever, under any circumstances, no matter how whacky they may be.
What a way to run a country, no wonder we are in the shit.
I was telling my 28 year old son about the anti Vietnam war moratorium marches a few weeks ago. Showing my age here, but we got out and made a noise, challenged the status quo, made a difference, had a blast, and changed the world for the better, and most people there were there for the energy, the ride, for the excitement, and as a side benefit, to meet girls.
Where is that passion now? Isn’t it time we brought some of it back, if for no reason other than we are boring ourselves to death. The flip side is what an opportunity to be noticed by being other than boring!
