Are you Ready to Buy?

Are you Ready to Buy?

Nov 4, 2016 | Marketing, Sales

Reality TV is about as far from Reality as you can get, but sometimes something useful emerges.

Just for the record, I do not watch this stuff, there are thousands of better ways I can think of to waste an hour. However, judging by the ratings and water cooler conversations, many do.

Sales happen when a potential customer encounters some sort of situation that requires a solution. They go seeking that solution firstly from those with whom they have a pre-existing relationship of some type. For a consumer product it is often represented by a brand they know and trust, in a B2B situation, it is those with whom they have successfully done business before, followed  by those they know have the solution they need, and in whom they have some level of confidence.

Back to the reality shows.

Expecting to make a significant sale without some sort of relationship being in existence just never happens, irrespective of how ready to buy the potential customer may be.

That  ‘Married at first sight’ show, throws two people together and expects them to make a successful marriage, while the world (or some small part of it) watches. You may as well turn up at a random hens night and ask the bride to be to marry you. She might be ready to get married, just not to you.  The ‘Batchelor’ series, of both persuasions, at least gives the protagonist a choice, but it is a limited and superficial choice, and as we have seen, also doomed to failure.

Making a sale is like building a relationship that ends in a marriage. It is a process that takes time, consumes resources, requires a great degree of mutuality, and even then does not always work.

Being ‘ready to buy” is not enough, they need to be ready to buy from you before consummation.

 

The A – Z of personal branding

The A – Z of personal branding

Nov 2, 2016 | Branding, Marketing, Social Media

In 1997, Tom Peters wrote an article for Fast Company,  titled ‘The brand called You’ which was probably the first articulation of this idea. In it he wrote  ‘It’s time for me — and you — to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that’s true for anyone who’s interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work’

Most people think about personal branding as a result of necessity. Suddenly they find themselves between jobs or careers, and recognise for the first time the need for branding, of the personal type. Usually that is the second best time to start thinking about it, the best time was years ago.

The nature of work is also changing, lifetime employment is a thing of the past. No longer are there any ‘safe’ jobs, economically and socially we have recognised that we need to look after ourselves, and the digital revolution has provided the tools to do so. The book End of Jobs is a compelling read, and persuasively makes the point after having looked at all the research. In these circumstances, you have become a commodity with something for sale: your time, expertise, experience and connections. In order to get the best price for that commodity, the lessons learnt over 100 years of product branding can be applied to personal branding.

The standard 4 step brand planning process that works for soap, also works for you.

First: What is the current ‘brand’ position? What do you do well, what do you do poorly, how do others see you, and what do they say when you are out of the room. You may need to ask a few friends and acquaintances for the honest truth, and be prepared for some surprises.

Second: What you would like it to be?  You really need to think hard about how you want others to see you, leaving it to chance is not usually a good idea.

Third: How do you set about bridging the gap. Once you know the objective, you have a chance to plan and execute activities that contribute to the achievement of that objective.

Fourth: Implementation. This is the hard part, being proactive, consistently, over time, while reviewing and revising as necessary.

There are some pretty simple steps that can and should be taken by every professional to effectively implement a personal branding routine. None of it is particularly challenging, but does take a little bit of time.

  • Register your name or digital handle as a domain if possible, but you need an ABN in Australia to register a .com.au domain. Without an ABN, make sure you claim the ‘domain’ on the social platforms, particularly LinkedIn. Each platform does it a bit differently, but it is worth the small effort to figure it out. In my case, I have allenroberts.com.au and StrategyAudit.com.au as my domains, and Strategyaudit is the handle I use throughout the digital channels to give me leverage.
  • Apply disciplines to yourself. Having determined the sort of brand you want, ensure that everything you do on line adds a little to the project. No cat photos on Linkedin please, and have a separate Facebook page for your brand if you feel compelled to post those photos of yourself being compromised in some way. Best not to be in that situation at all now that everything is potentially public, no matter how hard you try to be private.
  • Build a library of content that reflects what you are good at, and what you like to do, the sort of things you would like people to think of as ‘yours’. This does not necessarily have to be extensive, but it has to be curated and representative of your personal brand. Spreading the content across platforms gives you leverage, and an opportunity to repurpose the things that work well for you. In my case, the primary vehicle is the bank of 1400 plus blog posts on the StrategyAudit website, as well as an active presence on Linkedin, Facebook (as StrategyAudit) Twitter, and other digital platforms.
  • Every digital platform is different, serving a different purpose for its users. It is reasonable therefore to vary the branding approach. Different narrative, photos and content are the start.
  • Recognise that ‘browsers’ of platforms see ‘headlines’ just like the old days of newspapers. They may move beyond the headline, dig a bit deeper, if their interest is piqued. In most cases, your photograph is a significant part of your headline, so having them taken professionally makes good business sense. Many skip this simple step, as it is so easy to take your own and just upload. However, it is nowhere near as good as having a session with a professional. It will also give you options of using different photos on different channels, reflecting the character of the channel and yourself.

I recently had a session with Sam Affridi from Hero Shot Photography, a photographer I met through a business network. He suggested I rethink my headshot and the message it’s giving to my different audiences. As a result of the conversation, he took a series of photos for me, all designed to better reflect the differing messages I try and send on different platforms. He did a great job, and I now have a ‘bank’ of different shots that can be used as an additional communication tool in my headlines in various  digital spaces. This replaces the one photo I had, that at the time I felt was pretty good but had over time proved to be sub optimal. It was enlightening to see how much thought went into the session and how my ‘brand’, what I want my clients and potential clients to feel about me, was a deliberate element of each headshot. As Sam puts it “creating a flattering portrait is the easy part. Creating one that’s specifically engineered to appeal to your ideal customer is worth spending time on” If you’re looking for an update, I’d give him a call and please do mention my name.

 

hero_shot_sydney_strategy_audit-9 hero_shot_sydney_strategy_audit-10 hero_shot_sydney_strategy_audit-8 hero_shot_sydney_strategy_audit-4

 

 

 

 

While it seems a bit narcissistic to have 4 of the many good photos posted, these all say something different about me, or at least I think so.

What do you think?

Commercial environments evolve, sometimes very fast, and staying still is death, which is why the successful brands are allowed to evolve in response to the job they are being asked to do. Similarly with personal brands, we have the opportunity to evolve what we do and say in line with the progress of our lives, but it should be a managed process, not one left to adhoc activity and chance. Developing your personal brand can be time consuming, and is necessarily an incremental activity, but putting aside 30 minutes a week as your investment in yourself seems pretty sensible.

 

How could Samsung stuff it up so badly?

How could Samsung stuff it up so badly?

Oct 21, 2016 | Branding, Governance

Once again, we are the observers in what will become another in the great ‘How to manage a marketing cluster****’ course.

I am talking about the public reaction of Samsung to the exploding Galaxy Note 7 phone.

Recent history is littered with lessons on both sides of the equation, how best to handle the meltdown as it happens,  and how to really stuff it up. You would think that an operation with the size and apparent sophistication of Samsung would have learnt, but it seems not.

The Galaxy 7 was launched in August, in a race to beat Apple to the market with their new ‘Apple iPhone 7’. There were almost immediately reports of the batteries blowing up, initially treated with some scepticism, as the fail safe levels built into the design and regulatory testing regimes should have identified any problems. Ooops… Samsung test their own batteries, whereas others all have third party tests done.

At the point of recall, Samsung had produced 2.5 million units, sold about 2 million, and there have been 35 reported explosions. Not quite a 1 in a million chance, but not far off it, so I guess they just thought it a minor glitch.

On October 10, Samsung announced ‘We are temporarily adjusting the Galaxy Note 7 production schedule in order to take further steps to ensure quality and safety matters.’  For the couple of weeks prior, Samsung had been recalling the phones, but calling it an ‘Exchange program’. When a couple of the exchanged phones also went ‘Boom’ they ended production, with the ‘temporary’ announcement above.

From October 11 until October 17,  when the US Federal Aviation Authority put on a blanket ban on carrying the device, describing it as ‘forbidden hazardous material’ airlines had started banning carrying the Note 7 on board off their own bat, recognising the public concern and real safety question.

There is a pretty large gap between ‘forbidden hazardous material’ and an ‘exchange program’.

Samsung’s statements are in competition for the ‘Biggest Blooper-statement in history’ Oscar with then BP Managing Director Tony Hayward who said ‘There is no-one who wants this thing over more than I do. You know I want my life back’  in the days after  Deepwater Horizon blew up in April 2010.

By contrast, when Arnott’s had a recall of Monte Carlo biscuits in 1997 prompted by an extortion bid, MD Chris Roberts was up front, recalling all Arnott’s products from the retail trade, explaining the reason and how Arnott’s was dealing with it. While it cost a lot of money, the Arnott’s brand was probably enhanced in the long term. Similarly, in 1982 Tylenol, the market leading US analgesic brand was found to have caused the death of a young woman after she consumed a poisoned pill. Johnson & Johnson immediately recalled all Tylenol from the shelves, and committed to completely redesigning the packaging to ensure tamper evidence. J&J garnered considerable public support, and Tylenol rapidly regained their market leading position after the relaunch.

These are just a few of the best known but very many examples Samsung should have considered. Had they done so, the short term cost would not have been as high, and the damage to the brand not as severe. Coming on top of the recent exploding washing machine episodes you would have thought they had sufficient practise to get it right.

The cost to Samsung will be huge, in both short term cash losses and longer term damage to the brand. Apple must be loving this!

As an aside, you would think that Samsung would have taken down their digital marketing material on the device, particularly with the tag-line ‘Rethink what a phone can do” but at the time of post publication, had not.

3 things advertising cannot do, despite the claims.

3 things advertising cannot do, despite the claims.

Oct 19, 2016 | Branding, Marketing

Many small and medium sized businesses I interact with seem to have the view that advertising and marketing are synonyms, and if they had a bit more money in their marketing budgets, it would best be spent on advertising.

Rarely is that the case.

Advertising is just a part of a marketing menu, often crucial and a voracious consumer of dollars, but nevertheless often a small part.

Advertising is a great tool, a device to achieve all sorts of commercial ends, but like any tool, there are limits.

The babble that usually  accompanies the sales pitch for advertising is often long on superlatives and short on specifics.

Here is what advertising cannot do:

Advertising weight is no substitute for creativity.

Messages only really get absorbed when they appeal to our hearts, and most advertising appeals to our brains. Like all rules, there are exceptions, such as the advertising of a once only limited time price deal. No heart in that, all head, and it may be seen, and it may also be destructive of the brand, as it is commoditising it.

Advertising cannot make people care about something that has no relevance to them.

Look at all the advertising done for starving kids in Africa, soliciting 10 bucks a month to save a life. If we really cared, rather than felt guilty, the coffers would be running over. It is not that we do not abhor the fact that kids die of malnutrition, it is just that it is removed from us, has no personal impact, and we are cynical about how much of our 10 bucks is actually getting to the people who need it.  Advertising  is best when it defines the WIFM to those seeing it. The best copywriters are usually the direct response writers, they know immediately when their adverting works, and they are always appealing to the prospects top of mind self interest.

Advertising rarely increases the size of a market in the short term.

The purpose of advertising is to attract your competitors existing users, lapsed users, or light users to your products or service. From time to time advertising latches onto a latent need and does create a market, such as the great Apple advertising for the first macs or even better, DeBeers programs to create the tradition of a diamond engagement ring, but those take bucket loads of money, beyond the capacity of any medium advertiser, as well as great timing and a level of creativity rarely seen. Most advertising is aimed at nicking your competitors customers, in one way or another. When I had to turn around Ski yogurt, the target was Yoplait. There was no mistaking what we set out to do by offering a product that was distinctly different, had a different value proposition, but it was still yoghurt. Over time the combined activity increased the size of the market considerably, but our advertising target was Yoplait users and we got them by taking a stance on yogurt that had discernible pieces of fruit in it, rather than being a homogeneous product, and the taste was distinctly different, so there was a choice to be made once we persuaded consumers to trial.

The question of which channel to use for your advertising is a whole set of different questions.

Digital or analogue, is usually the first step, and the logical answer is ‘both’ as there is no one right answer. Each channel and each platform within the channel plays a different role, and has different costs and outcome expectations. It can get very complicated, and the only sensible way to sort out the mess, and conflicting claims is to be very clear about the objectives you have, then assess each advertising option against the objectives, and the value they deliver.

Digital impotence and the Black Knight

Digital impotence and the Black Knight

Oct 16, 2016 | Communication

I am in the middle of a device free week.

Not by choice, my PC took a powder, and is in the ‘hospital’ for surgery. Now, at the close of day 5 I feel like the Black Knight, still kicking, but no arms.

The term digital impotence springs to mind.

It is interesting to reflect at such a time on the dependence we have developed to these things. This post is being done on one of my kids computers, a bit like the Black Knight landing a feeble kick on his opponent. Might make him feel better but is effectively useless.

Ages ago in an effort to retain some control of my time, I decided that I would not connect my phone to my email. Clients who might need me at short notice all have my mobile, so I do not need the constant email alerts going off, they are nothing but an unwelcome distraction, and kill battery life.  However, being disconnected since Wednesday morning is starting to have psychological effects.

Sweating, worrying that I just might have missed a return communication from someone not yet a client, but who is keen to be, a link to something that I would have liked the time to consider, the list drags on, and on, as does the time.

Nir Eyal writes about the habits we form, with some focus on digital products, his book ‘Hooked” is a disturbing, enlightening and fascinating read, but I thought I was largely immune.

No so.

Please give me back my PC before I lose my legs as well.