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.

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)

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.

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.

Listening to Consumers pays off for Petco

Marketing Sherpa reports on a test recently run by Petco to see if incorporating consumer ratings and feedback into emails would boost the effectiveness and results of the emails.  Sure enough it did and the results - a 200% increase in click throughs, for example - were dramatic.  What I love about this story is what VP Ecommerce John Lazarchic said:

Why did the test work so well? “Pet owners, like a lot of consumers, tend to trust each other a lot more than anything your company can say about the products,” Lazarchic explains. “So, it’s great to be able to take their posts and put them in email and leverage them. I think using positive consumer feedback makes sense for almost every channel.”

Soliciting, listening to and trusting the wisdom of consumers is always a smart strategy.  Glad to see it paying off so nicely for both Petco and its consumers.

And, check out Marketing Sherpa which is a terrific resource for articles and reports with quantified results and actionable examples.

Free Research: New York Times Offers Tools for Better Listening

In order to give consumers what they want and need you must listen to them.  You cannot just wait for them to tell you what they want because, most likely, you'll only hear from them when something you've given them doesn't work for them or you've not made important information clear.  Generally consumers are not going to call you up and say I need this thing or that service and I'd be delighted if you gave it to me this way and at that price.

Which all means that you must do some market research.  And you can't always just ask people because humans often don't know or can't articulate what they need and want.  So how do you discover what consumers want and need?  One way is to do some free research and pay attention to what consumers are telling you even when they don't know they're saying a thing.

The New York Times has a terrific feature called "Most Popular" where you can see which of their articles have been most blogged about or emailed in the past day, week, or month.  Because of the "Times Select" archive firewall, the most popular items in the last 24 hours were mostly current pieces that hadn't yet moved to the pay-per-view archives.  However, The Times recently made an option available to create permalinks that remain free to view.  (To access this option look for the "share" option in the top right, expand the collapsed menu and choose "permalink" from the options which include Digg, Facebook and Newsvine.)

Much of the attention focused on this new feature has been on the fact that bloggers will now include links to NYT articles more often because the links will not expire.  There is another bright side to this development, however.  Since the links have opened up, much older articles are popping back up on the most emailed list.  As I write this, an article from June which compares successful animal training to maintaining a happy marriage has risen, once again, to the top spot.  Several other older articles are in the top 25, as well.

This is a fabulous opportunity to do a bit of free research into the zeitgeist of NYT readers.  It is important to think about what the demographics of these readers are and to interpret the zeitgeist accordingly, but keep in mind that these readers are not just New Yorkers as I read this paper and check this feature daily from 3,000 miles away through the wonder of RSS feeds.

So what does the resurgent prominence of this article, which also rode the top of the charts at the time it was originally published, offer in the way of consumer research?  Looking at it I might also notice that the third most popular article is about questions couples should ask themselves about marriage before tying the knot.  The fourth most popular article is about the growing use of cooking classes for corporate team-building.  To me, it seems, that there is a hunger amongst Times readers for finding ways in which to build connections and relationships that function, succeed and last.  Interestingly, in sharp contrast, the most blogged about articles are virtually all about politics and a smattering of technology pieces not directly about personal connections and relationships.

What can you do with that information?  Figure out how you can communicate ways in which your product or service and brand facilitates, supports or brings about those connections, those relationships.  Can you offer something new that moves your brand in that direction?  Can you adjust your focus with this perspective in mind?  Or, perhaps, you can just ask better questions when you do sit down to listen to consumers because now you've have an idea of what might be on their mind even when they aren't quite consciously aware of those feelings and concerns.

And, always keep in mind that lots of free research and insight is available when you look around you and pay attention to all consumers.

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