Customers/Clients Archives - Page 22 of 35

What are your employees trained to watch for?

November 3, 2008

I’m in LA for a conference. So naturally, I went to Disneyland over the weekend.

I was waiting for the parade to start and I was standing next to a couple in their mid-50’s, Bill and Ellen. (It’s amazing what you learn when you evesdrop a little!) It was Bill’s birthday and he was wearing a button (provided by Disney) that announced the fact.

I had positioned myself along the parade route in one of the spots where the floats stop and do little mini shows. Once the parade started, I witnessed an amazing thing.

If you’ve ever been to a Disney parade, you know that the cast members go out of their way to interact with the street crowd, especially the kids. They wave, point, smile, etc. It’s a rare person in the parade crowd that does not feel acknowledged.

The first float in the parade was carrying the Peter Pan crowd. Peter was "driving" and he noticed Bill’s button – waved and mouthed…"happy birthday." I thought…wow, impressive.

By the time the parade was done, Bill had been wished a happy birthday by at least 10 parade entertainers. Whether they were a dancer in the Lion King, Peter Pan himself, Belle, or one of the dwarves…Bill had to feel as though the parade was in reality a birthday celebration for him.

Do you suppose that happened by accident? Hardly. Those cast members were trained to look for those buttons and make the wearer feel special. That’s one of the details that brings the Disney brand to life.

How about your brand? What are your employees trained to look for? It doesn’t have to be a physical sign, like a button. Maybe it’s a customer who seems frustrated. Or a change in an ordering pattern. Or perhaps they express a concern repeatedly.

The point is….what have you trained them to watch for? And how have you trained them to react to that?

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5 marketing musts during a recession (with tactics included!)

October 15, 2008

I understand the lure of just hunkering down and waiting out the economic lull. And I know you’re probably tired of hearing this….but if you are smart — this is a huge opportunity for you to capture market share and solidify your position in the marketplace.

Please do not sit this one out. And I’m not even going to tell you not to cut prices or cut your budget, because we’ve beat that horse to death!

110% consistency: The buyers are already jumpy. Don’t give them any reason to mistrust or doubt you. Live and breathe your brand integrity. Don’t do or say anything that contradicts your brand.

Tactics:

Review your brand values with each and every employee
Refresh your website to put your brand promise front and center
Ask your employees for ideas on how to bring your brand to life. Pay $50 for every idea used. Make that very public knowledge.

Love on your current customers: They’re the most likely to buy again and they are also most likely the audience you’ve ignored. Now is the time to appreciate them, remind them why they trusted you in the first place and over service them.

Tactics:

Do a customer only mailing, spotlighting some of your best offerings at their best prices
Hold a customer appreciation party and say "thank you" repeatedly
Offer a pre-payment discount (you get cash up front and their commitment to follow through)

Give it away: Demonstrate to the world that you believe in abundance by giving away some of your product or services to a worthy non-profit. But don’t do a drive by. Partner with them for the long haul and work your PR magic.

Tactics:

Give your employees a voice in which charity you partner with
Be smart – choose a charity that has an influential board of directors and make a point of being at those meetings to share your expertise
Trade your products or services for an event sponsorship so you get publicity for your efforts

Listen, respond, repeat: Now is not the time to be ignoring the marketplace. You need to be listening to your customers, your competitor’s customers and anyone else who is out there talking about your industry.

Tactics:

Do a customer survey (while you are at it, do a past customer survey)
Set up Google alerts
Jump into conversations about your industry and offer value

Use content marketing: You’re good at what you do. You want your prospects and customers to be successful. Why not position yourself as the expert by sharing your expertise?

Tactics:

Create an e-newsletter (don’t start it if you aren’t going to consistently create/deliver it)
Build a robust How To series for your website
Launch a business blog (again…don’t start it if you aren’t serious about keeping at it)

What do you think? Most of these tactics will not cost you an arm or even a leg. And I’ll let you in on a little secret — they’re pretty effective, even when we’re not facing snug times.

What can you add to the list? What’s working for you that you can share with the rest of us?

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You stay in the nest until they’re ready to fly

October 6, 2008

Clients aren’t always ready to go where you need to take them.

They might be afraid. They might not have the budget. They might be caught up in some internal politics. What you’re asking them to do might be difficult. Or, they might not get it.

But the bottom line is, they aren’t ready to leave the nest.

We see that sometimes with clients when we talk about branding. They might think it’s just fluff or they haven’t wrapped their arms around the idea that their logo is not their brand. Whatever the reason — they aren’t ready to take advantage of the power that comes from truly knowing and living your brand story.

So as an agency, we have a choice. We can tell them to come back when they’re ready or we can meet them where they are, stuck in their nest.

Wed all have clients like that. Those clients are like baby birds. If we rush them, shoving them out of the nest….splat! That serves no purpose but our ego.

We need to be patient and just hang with them in the nest. We can feed them little tidbits of information, letting them learn slowly and absorb what we’re telling them. Sooner or later, they’ll want to stretch their wings a little.

When you think about it, that’s our job. To help clients gain the information and confidence (in us) they need so they can stretch their wings.

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Fine…content is king. Now what?

September 14, 2008

We’ve heard it for the past few years (longer, if we were really listening). Content is king. Less hype, more value. Talk directly to your customers about what matters to them. The explosion of social media tools (blogs, twitter, Facebook etc.) is proof that we can actually be the media.

That doesn’t mean you have to launch a magazine or put a broadcast antenna on your office building.

It means that consumers are open to listening, if you’re open to creating relevant content and offering it to them. You can do that on-line. You can do that in a traditional printed piece. And you can do it in person.

That’s a critical point — this is not just an internet-driven marketing solution. Which means this book is relevant to just about everyone.

So how do you do it?

Well, there’s the rub. Fortunately, in this case, there’s a solution. Newt Barrett and Joe Pulizzi have written the book Get Content. Get Customers. Think of it as your toolbox to Content Marketing. It is right on the mark, easy to understand and implement.

The book has excellent case studies from all kinds of companies in all kinds of industries. You’ll see what’s possible. But what you’re really going to love is the play by play instructions and insights that will help you get from nodding your head to actually implementing the ideas.

If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you know I really love books that actually tell you how to do it. This book is all about that. You’ll read this book with a pencil in hand so you can write in the margins. My copy is a sorry looking dog-eared and highlighted book. A high compliment to any business book, in my opinion.

If you’re a business owner or leader — you will do something different as a result of this book. It’s just that relevant.

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Going from commodity to being the only option

September 9, 2008

There are certain things that I think of as a complete commodity. I don’t care about the "brand." I don’t really care where I buy it.

Milk. Gas. And pizza.

I’m not talking about pizza that you go out to get (in that case…Ray’s in NYC is the must)…I’m talking the "bring it to our door, we have a house full of teenagers" pizza that I seem to be buying on a very regular basis.

Dominos, Pizza Hut, Godfather’s, Papa John’s — whatever. Basically the same. A complete commodity at the McLellan house.

But not any more. Now, I have a very strong preference. I would go out of my way to order from one over the other. You’re probably wondering what in the world a pizza place could do to go from commodity to only option.

A new crust? Some wild new ingredient combination? Free food?

No, no and no. Dominos knows that their pizza is pretty much like all the others. So to differentiate themselves, they didn’t focus on the pizza. They focused on my experience.

Most pizza places let you order online now. But Dominos has taken it to a whole new level. They have this new pizza tracker. I can literally watch as my pizza is prepped, baked and boxed for delivery.

Here, you can see (feed readers…click to see the visuals) that my order has been placed and Charles is beginning to prep my pizza. Right next to the the YOU GOT IT MADE line…it outlines who is doing what when.

Then, Charles puts the pizza in the oven.

I’m skipping a couple steps here…but after the pizza was boxed, Matt, their delivery expert, left the store with the food at 7:39 pm.

Now, you may be thinking…"wow…Drew needs to get a little more excitement in his life" and that may be true. But…every time the McLellan household (and many hungry teen-aged guests) need pizza — instead of poking around for a coupon or just randomly picking one — I now always call Dominos. That did not happen before the tracker.

Figure the average bill is around $50 when I am feeding a gang. Figure that it’s dinner at chez McLellan, on average, twice or three times a month. $150/month. That’s almost $2,000 a year.

Dominos figured out that their category (pizza delivery) had been so commoditized that they could compete on price (the "I don’t have a brand or anything that makes me different" choice) or they could somehow make themselves stand out from the crowd. They knew consumers wouldn’t buy/believe the "we taste better." So they thought about how they could alter the buying experience. How could they make that different for me?

Smart. Very smart.

So how about you? Are you in a business where what you sell (the pizza of your industry) is pretty much the same? Or…different but not in a way that the consumer could discern it?

Is there some other aspect of your service, delivery, packaging, pricing etc. that you could make notably different? If they won’t/don’t choose you because of your product — why else might they make you an "only option?"

Update: Looks like I am not the only one writing on this topic. Discovered Cale’s piece when I was doing the feedreader thing!

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Are you expecting too much from your marketing?

August 25, 2008

Did you read the paper today? Or watch TV? Spend any time on Facebook or some other website? Did you see an ad for something you wanted? Or read an article about a service provider you’d been considering?

Did you leap up from your chair, rush to the car and go immediately to that store or business to make a purchase?

I doubt it. That’s not the way advertising works. It’s not instantaneous. It is also not a one time shot. If you’re thinking of running an ad (any ad) just once and expecting people to show up — guess again.

If you’re not in it for the long haul, you probably shouldn’t do it at all. Remember the analogy –you don’t plant a seed and dig it up when there’s no plant the next day. Your marketing works the same way.

As a general rule, marketing takes time, repetition and patience. Sure, there are exceptions, but they’re rare.

So how do you speed up the process?

You recognize that it’s a marathon, not a sprint
You educate your potential consumer on how/why they need what you have to offer
You deliver those key messages in multiple ways, ideally through more than one media
You offer incentives to reward a quicker buying decision
You repeat

Sean D’Souza created a very funny but illuminating example of this marketing truth over at CopyBlogger.

What’s your best technique for creating urgency?

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You sell or else

July 30, 2008

When I think of the legends of our business, I immediately think of David Ogilvy.

He was responsible for much of the iconic ad copy and "characters" we all reference as the pinnacle of advertising in the 50’s and 60’s. (I love Gene’s story about an impromptu conversation he had with Ogilvy in the company’s cafeteria.)

His book, Ogilvy on Advertising is still one of the best. If you haven’t read it, you should. If you have, you should read it again.

Thanks to the exhaustive archives of YouTube, here’s a little glimpse into how Ogilvy viewed advertising. He didn’t have much respect for creativity just to be creative. He believed that the job of advertising (and I would guess he’d extend that to all marketing efforts) was to sell something.

Hat tip to Efraín Mendicuti for sharing this on his excellent blog, The daily stuff and the not so. Efraín makes the point that if as you listen to Ogilvy you substitute interactive marketing for direct response, you can see what Ogilvy would think about the digital world we are cutting our teeth on today.

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How to sell a good idea

July 26, 2008

We’ve all seen it happen. You’ve got a great idea. Not creative for creative sake, but a strategy that will really spike sales in your company, attract the perfect employee or get a client’s business to a different level.

But the idea isn’t what people are expecting. In fact, it might make them downright uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s counter intuitive to your entire industry.

Having the idea isn’t enough. You have to sell it. Often times, the better the idea, the harder to sell.

Keep these things in mind when you’re teeing up an idea you really want to save from the trash bin.

They didn’t go on the journey with you. You can’t just show them the finish line. You have to go back to the starting point and walk the path with them. Show them all the different options you explored and why this one kept showing up as the winner.

No idea is perfect. Don’t sugarcoat or over protect your idea. You should know the dangers or weaknesses. Why not present them before anyone else does? Bring up the downsides and your solutions for mitigating them.

Know the difference between a single battle and the war. If your idea doesn’t get the support you wanted in the first presentation, that doesn’t mean it’s over. Sometimes people need to let an idea simmer for awhile before they can support it. Or, if may require another conversation to help them see the logic behind what you’re proposing.

Eric Karjaluoto at Ideas on Ideas recently wrote about how his agency presents ideas to a client or prospect and how they give them a fighting chance.

What other tips can you add to the mix?

P.S. Taking a detour here. Okay, admit it. Don’t you think this is what the back of Seth Godin’s head looks like?

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How do you start a conversation?

July 25, 2008

Quite a while ago, I celebrated my 1,000th comment. It was your good fortune that the 1,000th commenter was David Reich. I invited him, to celebrate the milestone, to write a guest post.

Fast forward to earlier this month and ironically, I was David’s 1000th commenter. So he kindly returned the favor and extended an invitation to me.

There are lots of blogs out there. Many of them contain brilliant content. But very little conversation. They are a digital lecture. They don’t invite discussion or opposition. They just talk.

I suspect the blogs that actually encourage and nurture conversation are the ones that will be around long after the lecturers have faded away. So we’ll get to enjoy David’s wisdom and insights for a long time to come. Why?

David is a gifted conversationalist. He makes us feel welcome and asks questions that make us think. And we caught up in the conversation and jump in. As my post is in celebration of David’s 1,000th comment, it seemed fitting to talk about the art of conversation.

Come on over to David’s blog and let’s talk about how you initiate a conversation with your customers. Because most businesses are getting it all wrong.

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Are you simplifying things for your customers?

July 23, 2008

Everything about our lives is complicated, noisy and overcrowded. Which is why we are so drawn to simplicity in design and process. A large part of the iPhone’s success is because of it’s simple elegance.

Check out this slideshare presentation based on John Maeda’s book The Laws of Simplicity. Watch it with a critical eye aimed at your own business.

Simplicity

I think the big question for all of us today is how are we making our clients’ lives simpler? What are you doing to evoke an iPhonic reaction to working with you?

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