Fizz from ConsumerPop

Smart Marketers: Shut Up and Listen

From "Socialized Media" by Tim Manners at Fast Company.  Manners gives excellent examples of what's not working and what might.  I think two key points he makes are valuable to any marketer - 1. listen and 2. add value.  You cannot go wrong by doing those two things.  I encourage you to read the whole article.

As one respondent put it: "If you sell (unless you are a very cool web app), you lose. Don't sell. As a marketer: network. Help people. Advise. Create value and add to the conversation."

Nobody has really figured out how to do that yet. But it's worth considering the possibility that smart marketers won't even attempt to be part of the conversation, much less interrupt it. It could be that the real marketing potential of online social networks is listening, not talking.

The point is, if we're not helping people live better lives, we are not helping ourselves. If all we are doing is interrupting people who don't have time for interruptions, we can't expect their attention. If all we are doing is annoying people who have zero tolerance for annoyance, we can't earn their trust.

If all we are doing is pelting people with endlessly irrelevant messages, we can't claim their loyalty. And if we can't claim their loyalty, we don't have a prayer of a positive return-on-investment.

We can run whatever media-mix model we like, but all we're likely to achieve is a marginal improvement on what is otherwise an unmistakable downward spiral of failure.

The Psycographic Approach

Analysts say software companies like NetBooks and ConnectWise play to the diversity of small businesses by avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach.

Michael Speyer of Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., who focuses on information technology issues affecting small businesses, said that many high-tech companies segment potential customers by the number of employees they have, overlooking the concerns of entrepreneurs versus those of corporate managers.

By contrast, NetBooks considers factors like how active the owner is as a manager, how much daily control he or she requires, the owner’s attitude toward using technology and whether a venture capital company has invested money in the business.

“I like the fact that NetBooks has taken a psychographic approach to finding out who their customers are and what they really want,” Mr. Speyer said. “This is really what counts. I think the way they characterize the market is spot-on. Stages of development are really what counts.”

Sonal Gandhi, an analyst with JupiterResearch in New York, said that small businesses were more open to using an application developed by one of their own. “There is certain functionality they crave,” she said.

This New York Times article describes business accounting software developed by small business entrepreneurs for small business entrepreneurs.  It's a classic example of someone solving their own problem and finding out that lots of other folks can use their solution. 

But even if you aren't your own best customer doesn't mean that you can't develop products that start with psychographics of consumers rather than demographics or what your engineers can create.  It can be more difficult, more time consuming and more expensive to take this approach but I believe the potential rewards and long term prospects for your product or service are much, much greater.

Because it Cannot be Said Enough

This article for RCR Wireless News by Laura Marriott, President of the Mobile Marketing Association, comes three ways to implement mobile advertising.  Sample line about why mobile advertising is fun and relevant?

What types of advertisers are using the text-based advertising approach? Credit-card companies, travel agents, florists, automotive manufacturers—the brands that want to be in front of the consumer all of the time.

Note that it's the brand that wants to be in front of the consumer, not the consumer who wants the brand in front of them all the time. 

Ms. Marriott is mindful of what consumers want when she mentions at the very end of her article

We must work together to build a sustainable channel, but let’s not forget about the consumer. 4INFO’s Thet tells me “our first and primary focus is on the consumer and putting the consumer experience first. Consumers are not opting in to have ads pushed to them.” Let’s collectively keep that in mind.  (emphasis mine)

Here is an idea - why not start with the fact that consumers are not opting in before devising all sorts of technologies to place advertising when...

the backlash I immediately received from consumers was extreme: “I don’t want that on MY device, my highly personal device, my mobile phone.”

(hat tip: likateria)

Review of the Blackberry Pearl

I was reminded this evening that blog posts are forever and you never know when someone will come across an old one through the magic of the Google and the internets and find some information that is useful.  When I was trying to decide what new phone to buy I kept hoping I would find a blog post that would answer my main question about the functionality of the phones I was looking at but I could never find it.  Ultimately I took a leap of faith and as it turns out my Blackberry Pearl does what I need it to do.  But after that I promised myself I would post a review so hopefully someone in my shoes in the future could find an answer.

So the key thing I need a new smart phone to do is allow me to easily get my email while I travel without lugging my laptop.  I can't afford to jaunt off on vacation for two weeks and ignore my email the whole time but nor do I want to deal with the weight and the concern of carrying my laptop while island hopping in Hawaii.

My friend Elisa Camahort was less than thrilled with her Treo and had constant problems (and is happier with her new iPhone).  Another friend, Lynne d. Johnson is very knowledgeable, tech savvy and I consider her a guru, raved about her previous Sidekick and T-Mobile service.  Problem though is she lives in New York City where T-Mobile service is much better than here in the Bay Area (T-Mobile's site has a cool function where you can check the strength of coverage down to street level).  But I need the phone to work where I travel and I travel often to New York so that was one answer to my dilemma.  The email functionality however made me hesitate at pulling the trigger on a Blackberry.  I scoured online forums and checked with both Verizon and T-Mobile stores but nobody could tell me if I could easily set it up to work with email through my own domain and not through an enterprise server.

As it turns out it was extremely simple to set my email up and it works flawlessly.  T-Mobile's service which I chose because their data plan is most cost effective has been good.  Coverage isn't as extensive in my experience as Verizon but it hasn't posed any significant problems so far.

I've gotten used to the double letter keys.  I can't type as fast as on a Blackberry with a full keyboard (I've had them at previous corporate jobs so I knew I liked them but didn't know if they'd work well outside the enterprise) but fast enough and well enough that I used it as a stand in for my computer when mine died and I didn't have one for a couple of weeks.

I think I still like the wheel on the side better than the pearl but the pearl is just fine (well, except for the annoying habit of causing frequent purse dialing and emailing - I've had to learn to turn it off or lock the keyboard which is a pain to unlock).  The main thing I have found annoying so far is that when you add a number to the address book it places it by default to a work number.  All the numbers I've added to my mobile address book are mobile numbers.  Why would you build an address book of work numbers rather than mobile numbers in your mobile phone especially in a phone pitched more as a fashion accessory than as a serious tool for road warriors? 

Which brings me to my marketing complaint... why would you target non corporate users with this phone and then not make it abundantly clear that no enterprise server is required to get email and not set the  address book default to mobile numbers? 

But these complaints are relatively small.  As a way to check my email and surf the net without having to carry my laptop, the Blackberry Pearl works beautifully.  If I were buying today I'd probably get the new Curve which has a full keyboard but otherwise is very similar to the Pearl. 

More Girly Efforts to Sell Televisions

I wrote a bit on BlogHer a while back about the mostly silly and sometimes offensive efforts to sell television sets to women by assuming that women are interested only in televisions as fashion and decorating accessories rather that functional pieces of technology.  The New York Times seems to egregiously harp on this idea.

Their latest notice is of Philips creating short films featuring luxury fashion brands to sell their televisions to women:

In early August, for instance, the Aurea campaign got under way with a seven-page insert in Vogue in Britain. The print ads, shot by a fashion photographer, Vincent Peters, show a model cozying up to a brightly lighted Aurea screen that mirrors her image. Instead of technobabble about HDTV, L.C.D. or plasma screens, the ads include only the Philips and Aurea names and the tag line: “Simplicity is a light that seduces the soul.”

“There is a lot of female coding in this advertising,” said Laura Jones, global client managing director at the advertising agency DDB, a unit of Omnicom Group, which worked on the Aurea campaign along with the media planning agency Carat. “Before, televisions have always been sold based on pixels or that sort of thing.”

Again, I'll use myself as an example.  I have a large, wide screen, high definition plasma set that is front and center in my living room and that I make no effort to conceal in an armoire.  It happens to be a Philips which I purchased after reading rave reviews in places like circuitcity.com and AVS forum.  Subsequently quite a few negative comments regarding product quality and poor customer service experiences have surfaced.  If I were buying a set now I would probably avoid Philips because when you want to watch a show you need a set that functions so ultimately the "technobabble" matters and associations with fancy clothes and jewelry do not.  Even to us girls.

CPG at BlogHer

I was very happy to see that there were several CPG companies at BlogHer.  Given my past in the sector it is gratifying to witness the growing understanding of and use of social media to communicate with consumers.

I noticed Kraft (Singles), Con Agra (Butterball Turkey) and Del Monte in the exhibition hall.  I had a chance to chat with some of the brand team members from Del Monte's new Fruit Chillers frozen fruit sorbet and was further impressed that the brand team was there learning and not PR reps or hired booth hands.

Dove with one of their newest products, Ultimate Clear, was a major sponsor presence and got it mostly right with their activities and promotions.  Other than a couple of missteps with t-shirt sizing (note to PR peeps from big cities who work in fashion and beauty - although I'm sure you are all lovely tiny wispy girl sized things - most of us women are not and most certainly your consumers are not running around in Marc Jacobs and Choos - offer sizes accordingly and stop making this mistake year after year) they did a great job of building buzz around their product and I'm sure they'll get some strong blog buzz as a result.

Learning the Language of Your Consumers

Are you speaking your consumer's language?  Are you looking through their eyes?

A client recently thanked me for clearly articulating how to explain to customers how the client's services would meet the customers needs.  I thought to myself that it was easy for me to do because as a former insider I can speak the customers language fluently. 

I am always shocked by the number of marketers who advertise and who sell products to consumers unlike them who brag about their lack of familiarity with the language of the consumers to whom they advertise. "I don't know any ads because I don't watch television" they boast.  Or they sell grocery products and never set foot in a grocery store unless the sales team sets up a special field trip for them.

It is imperative that as a marketer you make an effort to listen to and understand and learn to speak the language of the people whose needs you are supposedly meeting.

Sometimes there is a huge disconnect between the people who make a product and the people who use it.

If what this New York Times article points out is true for you and/or your company and you can't learn the language then hire a translator. It will be money very well spent.

Just Because It's Legal Doesn't Mean It's Smart Business Strategy

The United States Supreme Court recently handed down a ruling overturning a longstanding antitrust rule.  Manufacturers now might in some cases be allowed to agree to set and enforce minimum retail prices.  In such cases it would then be more difficult for consumers to shop for a better price because unless a retailer had insufficient competition in a market so they could mark up above the MSP and the presence of competition would lead only to all channels selling the product at the same required minimum price.  The court ruling doesn't allow this kind of agreement in all cases but no longer bans it in practice.  Antitrust suits can still be heard but are to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The case that led to this ruling was of a manufacturer who wanted only to sell through specialty boutiques that would provide high levels of customer service and not focus on selling the product through discounting.

The underlying case now goes back to a lower court for a decision as to whether or not the manufacturer's marketing strategy is legal.

Should it be ruled legal it is one that I think manufacturers would be foolish to pursue (although one that can be achieved more or less in practice on many products today).  If you want only retailers who provide exceptional customer service to sell your products to consumers then only sell your product to customers (the retailers) who meet your standards for customer service.  Once you sell it to them at the price you can command then it should be the retailers strategy for the market it serves and the competition it faces to dictate the pricing strategy it employs and margin it makes on the product.  Another option would be to only retail and sell your product to consumers directly.  However, manufacturing and retailing are very different business and few companies would be wise to try to do both to the exclusion of all other sales channels.

Another world in which the legal option isn't always the smart option in the long run.  Banking and credit cards, for example.  David Lazarus in his column at the San Francisco Chronicle points out that when it comes to bank fees, banks often profit from deliberately confusing their customers.  Cell phone service providers and credit card issuers benefit from similar tricky language as well.  Companies in these spaces can get away with such practices because they are either following the letter of the law or taking advantage of the absence of regulation.  Such behavior invites consumer backlash and efforts to increase regulation regarding disclosures.

Although such fees gained from customer confusion might be profitable and attractive to Wall Street in the short run, imagine the goodwill and profitability a company could gain in the long run were it to actually operate by serving consumer needs rather than preying upon them.  USA Today offered an opinion piece last year summing it up this way:

What's seems far more unfair — in fact downright sleazy — is imposing onerous rates and fees on consumers and failing to tell them about it in plain language.

In banking, credit unions provide an alternative.  I've been banking with a credit union for nearly a decade, sticking with them even though I live on the other side of the country now because the provide great customer service and make no effort to fool me into paying exorbitant fees.  I imagine I will be their customer for decades to come and they will continue to profit from my business.

Among the major banks, credit card issuers and all cell phone service providers in the United States there are few if any alternatives.  For protection then consumers will have to rely on the government to help rather than giving their business to companies who develop smart, alternative consumer-friendly strategies.

When developing your marketing strategy think about whether you choices are smart or just what you can get away with. 

Consumer Driven New Product Development

One of the beautiful gifts of blogging is that smart marketers have yet another avenue for free and easily accessible qualitative research.  There is both art and science to research and making this kind of research useful requires some skills in the art department but those are skills well worth cultivating.

Allow me to give you an example.  Blogger Jenifer Hanen coaxes the most extraordinary photographs from her mobile phone.  She might be in the market for a new phone and the iPhone is getting a tremendous amount of hype at the moment but it doesn't quite work for her.  What Ms. Jen wants is simple:

"I don't want an office phone, I want a digital artist's phone."

And if you aren't quite sure what that means mobile phone manufacturers of the world, she provides you with a detailed and comprehensive list and explanation in her blog post.

Whether it is the detailed list of features Ms. Jen seeks specifically or the alternative perspective ("a digital artist's phone") I guarantee that she is not the only consumer who would find value in the features she craves.  I also think that a phone geared to artists would create new markets for the creative class who would find fascinating ways to use the device that perhaps the engineers building it could never imagine.  This is the difference between creating a device to serve existing needs (an office phone, word processing) versus providing tools to create with (a digital artist's phone, blogging platforms).

So marketers of the world, do a little research, let your mind wander through some blogs and see what you can find in the data to inspire you.

To Reach Consumers Just Listen

Two excellent blog posts highlight the value in listening to consumers and the payoff of effective marketing that results.

Heather Hamilton is a HR recruiter at Microsoft.  Recently in preparation for attending a conference she made an offer on her blog.  The first three vendors who left a comment would get a 15 minute meeting with her at the conference to pitch their product or service.  She made this offer out of frustration with the deluge of letters and phone calls she was receiving asking her to visit vendors at the conference.

Vendors know that she is attending the conference because she registered.  Even if vendors can't know every recruiter that is a potential customer, certainly if they are selling technology based products (the focus of this conference) there is little excuse for them not being aware of a high-profile blogging recruiter at Microsoft of all companies.  Nevertheless of all the vendors who contacted Heather and hoped that she would come to them to hear their marketing pitch, just one listened to Heather and marketed to her the way she asked to be marketed to.  And the payoff for that vendor?

Turns out that most vendors want to market on their own terms, which is fine except for the fact that their products are going to have to pretty much walk on water (or something) to get my attention (signal to noise ratio or something like that). For someone like me, all their products blend together to form one big pulsing, tentacled  blob of web 2.0.

Oh, except for Jeremy's product. First off, Jeremy created somewhat of an evangelist out of me simply because he took me up on my offer. Also, considering that he told one of my co-workers that he heard I was "tough" and still went through with it, props to him : )

The Influx Insights blog reports on efforts by Diageo to listen to consumers.   At their recent Annual Investors Conference Diageo reported that they recognize how the marketing environment has shifted and that the result is that they must move:

from interrupting what consumers are interested in, to BEING what consumers are interested in and where they are.

So there you have it, two great examples of how listening to consumers and being what they want and need will result in sales and win-win results for companies and consumers.