Mar 25, 2013 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, retail, Small business, Social Media
One of the foundations of mass marketing was to be able to segment your market, geographically, demographically, behaviorally, brand preferences, and so on.
In the old days of mass media, it was really the only way to target messages at those most likely to be receptive, match the media selection to the characteristics of your target market.
But what has happened in the social world of networked consumers and crowd sourced comment and content?
An acquaintance runs a wonderful patisserie in a rejuvenated inner city location. It is pricey, but the value is there, reflected in the range, artistic presentation, great service, and above all, pastries to die for. However, some of the comments on the review sites would lead to a conclusion that the products were overpriced, too fancy, and lacked character.
Standing in the queue on a Saturday morning just before Christmas, observing others, and listening to the comments, the penny dropped. Those in the queue were older, clearly successful, were regulars, and loved the place, whereas the casual buyer, the ones far more likely to leave a comment on a review site were most probably Uni students, on their way between the train station and the campus just down the road. These buyers were more liklely to want a cheap, filling, snack rather than a tasty work of art.
The lesson: Do not believe all your read on social media review sites, any more than you believe all you read in a politicians press release.
Mar 20, 2013 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Small business
Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal, early facebook investor, uses this term to describe the opportunity created by not competing, not being pushed into the competitive funnel of beating the other guy, rather they prosper by looking for ways to be different, to see an opportunity and grab it, rather than just doing incrementally better than the other guy at leveraging an established product category, business model, or process.
As an investor, he looks to invest in businesses where the founder has a clear view of the future, where the crystal ball has been rubbed and delivered a picture that makes sense, and disrupts the status quo, even if it has not been even contemplated before.
This story of Facebook turning down a billion dollars from Yahoo when it was still in Zuckerbergs Harvard dorm is instructive, and is perhaps a pointer to why Thiel has such a stellar track record. However, the simple notion of investing in businesses where there is no competition, where a creative monopoly exists, is compelling, and is one that should have far wider appreciation that in a VC appraisal. The successful business strategy book “Blue Ocean Strategy” is a tome that makes the same point in 300 pages, and has spawned an industry, so something must be working.
How are you developing your own creative monopoly? You do not have to be a multinational. Several local SME’s I have contact with have successfully created their own creative monopoly in their area, carved out a niche where the competition is minimal, and are doing very well.
Mar 13, 2013 | Change, Lean, Management, Small business
Manufacturing SME’s in this country (Australia) are under severe pressure, particularly in heavily trade exposed industries like food manufacturing.
Yesterday, Windsor Farms was put into administration, a month ago, Rosella went the same way and is currently being liquidated in a fire sale, Heinz ceased to manufacture here a year ago, Goodman Fielder is a shadow of its former self, the list goes on.
To some extent, most of the failed, and failing businesses have adopted some of the elements of “Lean” often just seeing it as a way to cut costs, rather than recognising the wider implications for enterprise culture.
However, almost always, the accounting function is the last to make any substantive changes. Partly this is due to the conservative nature of the profession and its training, and partly the fault is accounting convention and regulation.
To survive, SME’s need to remove waste in all its forms. The stuff on the factory floor is easy to see, what is harder to see is the waste in time, effort, and morale that occurs in offices. The core service function in any enterprise is accounting, so change here can have substantial impact elsewhere. It is my view that setting about changing the focus of the accounting function from compliance and the traditional view of the published accounts to one focused on waste in all its forms, can pay huge dividends.
There are some great resources around, even though the thinking is still emerging. The take-up is remarkably slow given the dire circumstances of much of the manufacturing sector, so there is the scent of competitive advantage as well as just survival in the air.
This interview with Lean guru Bill Waddell is a terrific explanation, Brian Maskell has a range of material available free on his great site that offers some real thought starters. A recent blog post by Brian also led to this front page piece in “Strategic Finance” magazine, finally the profession starting to recognise the implications of lean accounting.
PS. March 13, 2013. Another established SME, Spring Gully, a 70year old family company goes to the wall. There is simply nothing left in the fabric of food manufacturing in this country, and in the long run, we will pay a very high price for that generational mismanagement of a pretty fundamental manufacturing sector.
Feb 16, 2013 | Branding, Communication, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
I opined previously that it appeared to me that Facebook had cracked the challenge of monetising their site by applying semantic search to their billion users and their networks with the introduction of the “Graph Search” feature.
This post on the Social Media Examiner site goes into some detail about the way Graph search works, and when you think about it a bit, the value is huge to marketers, as it offers highly targeted search capabilities.
I am a tennis player, a member of a local club that has the almost unique distinctions of retaining its grass courts, being a century old, and having many truly great players as former members. Funding the maintanence of the grass is an ongoing challenge, one that threatens the future of the club as membership declines with the lessening popularity of tennis, and the changing demographics of the local area.
There are a series of semantic searches I, and my fellow club members (assuming they use facebook, which many do not), can now easily undertake. Using these connections, through the “friends” networks, we can identify potential visitors and members, and market to those “friends” networks the joy of the game on grass, (particularly on a hot day), the value of membership based on the availability of grass, the heritage of the club, and the social aspects of the great game. The searches would look something like this:
Friends: who like tennis,
who like tennis and live in the Sydney inner west,
who like playing tennis on grass,
who would like to try playing tennis on grass,
and so on.
As those searches are employed, ads by sellers of tennis equipment, marketers of sporting brands, tennis coaches, even lawn care equipment would benefit from the highly targeted, and empathetic environment.
Potentially a gold-mine for marketers, as the value of Graph search to those networked on facebook is substantial. Suddenly Facebook looks like it has the potential to pay a dividend to those donkeys who got sucked in by the IPO, and did not get out fast enough, unlike young Mr. Zuckerberg.
Feb 13, 2013 | Governance, Management, Operations, Small business
Ever put off a difficult decision? asked for more information that you know will not change the outcome? shuffled the responsibility elsewhere?
Most of us have, at one time or another, but we generally tell ourselves that we delayed the decision, sought a greater level of certainty, or something else when deep down we know that we have decided not to decide, or at least, used an artifice to enable us to not to act on the decision.
If all you have done is to kick the “pain-point” down the road a bit, you also generally realise that the pain when it comes will be worse for the waiting. In putting off the pain point, you have actually made a decision, one that will often come back and bite you.
I was reminded of this reality recently when the owner of a small business I work with failed to take a hard decision in relation to one of his employees. The inevitable conclusion to that employees departure was repeatedly put off because it is a small business in a regional centre, and sacking someone is hard, it becomes everyone’s business. It has become clear that the employee concerned realised the position, and rather than behave honorably, has committed the company to expenditure that is unnecessary, wasteful, and possibly terminal.
The price for deciding not to decide can be very high indeed.
Feb 8, 2013 | Branding, Small business, Social Media
Like most bloggers, I watch how many people visit this site, how many pages they access, how long they stay, and how many “likes” the posts get, and it feels good when the numbers go up.
However, these superficial measures do not really mean much.
What make the real difference is how much I write gets amplified, by reposting, commenting, and the number of click-throughs to the links included that occurs.
“Likes” are generally just passers-by, casual visitors, or “like-counters” who want you to reciprocate and “like” their site, when what you want is engagement, people who are touched or motivated in some way by the posts.
I would rather have one of those engaged visitors than 10 who just visit and leave. In Australia, there is an old expression, ‘Wombat”. Calling somebody a “wombat” is rarely complimentary, as a wombat is a slow, sometimes destructive native animal that eats roots and leaves, not complimentary when you add comma’s. Most visitors to your site that just tick the “like” button without thinking about what you have written, often not even reading it, are just “wombats”
