Marketing « 800 CEO Read

November 17, 2011

Brand Thinking with Debbie Millman and Tom Peters

Filed under: Advertising,Blog,Design,Marketing — Jon @ 9:00 am

As mentioned yesterday, today we’re featuring part of a chapter from Debbie Millman’s new book, Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits. What’s the book about? It’s a collection of Millman’s interviews with some serious minds from the ad industry (and beyond) about what branding is, how it affects us, and how to better understand our relationship with it (both as professionals and as consumers). It’s a compelling read about a subject that involves us all (whether we like it or not).

In the chapter featured below, Millman interviews management expert and design conscious thinker Tom Peters. This is just one example of the type of thinking you’ll see throughout the book (and a pretty good one, in my opinion).

Here we go!

(A reminder: Questions are by the author, Debbie Millman, and answers are by Tom Peters, taken from the book, Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits)

Why do people care about branded items? What do you think it does for the human psyche?

One part of it—which is less relevant today than it was in the past—is once they got connected with companies like the Unilevers and the Kimberly-Clarks and the P&Gs, a brand was a guarantee of reliability. This did not exist in my grandfather’s store in rural Virginia. Have you read Thomas Hine’s book on packaging? One of my favorite examples from his book focuses on Quaker Oats. Hine talks about how, in 1870, oats were something you fed to an animal. And suddenly, you had a cardboard box with a Quaker on the outside, and oats became a human delicacy—due entirely to packaging—in the short space of 20 years.

First, branding was about safety and reliability, but let’s also acknowledge that human beings are an emotional species. I was in China for the first time in 1986. As soon as Deng Xiaoping took the lid off of regulation, women went from wearing gray, shapeless Mao jackets to sporting colorful wardrobes nearly overnight. This need to express our individuality and vibrancy is obviously a fundamental, basic human need.

Why do you think it’s a basic human need?

I have no idea. It may be that giraffes are colorblind, so they have patterns on their bum that other critters don’t. I assume at some point, in some sense, it’s a version of peacocking. I assume that there was probably an aspect of Darwinian selection to it. My bet would be it has something to do with this, though I do have a proclivity for being fairly Darwinian in my beliefs. Frankly, I have no idea what the history is.

Let’s assume that we are hardwired to want to be attractive to each other for some deep-seated procreational need. How is this connected to oats transforming into a delicacy when the food is put in a package decorated with the image of a Quaker?

In Darwinian terms, we’re suckers for stories. Stories are the way that humans have always communicated. The Quaker Oats box is not only visually attractive, but it’s a story. Since Aboriginal times in Western Australia—and I’m sure if one goes back thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands of years before that, you’ll find the same dynamic—a good story has always been a good seller. A brand is a story. Period. Frankly, I would rather dump the word “brand” and use the word “story.” I think we’re in the process of wearing out the word “brand.” At some level, when I’m a brand, I’m more commercial. When I’m a story, I’m more human.

So what do you think the Quaker story was at the turn of the 20th century?

I presume that—to your point with plastic bags and diapers—as late as the beginning of the century, sanitation sucked. The pharmaceutical companies should get none of the credit for our life expectancy going from 50 to 75 during the 20th century. The two things that account for 90 percent of this improvement are sanitation and diet. So here comes a cereal that’s reliable and clean and that you could buy for your dearly beloved children without any fear they would get sick when they ate it.

How was the quaker telling that story? What did the quaker represent?

Doesn’t a quaker, in theory, stand for reliability? If it’s good enough for a quaker, then it’s got to be good enough for my little Martha.

One of my favorite stories revolves around the Morton Salt Girl. She is all about metaphor. Morton chemically alters a salt crystal so that it won’t stick to other crystals when it’s wet or humid outside. The Morton Salt Girl is holding an umbrella while the salt is pouring freely. So when it rains, the salt pours. But you don’t have to read a word—it’s all expressed by a visual puzzle that you have to figure out. I think this is why people like it so much. People love puzzles—they feel better about themselves when they correctly figure them out. That’s why people like the “I ♥ New York” logo so much. It’s a puzzle made out of a word, an abbreviation, and a symbol.

I remember reading an article about a social psychology experiment relating to this and being totally unsurprised, as I imagine you would be. Two sets of subjects are given two lists of the same words to memorize. One of the lists is of the words “farm,” “basement,” “bar,” and so forth. The other list is the same, except that random letters are left out, so instead of basement, you’ve got B–A–S, underscore, M–E–N–T. In terms of subsequent recall, the people who had the list with missing letters outperformed the people with the full words by a dramatic margin. Cognitively, you had to work your ass off, so it stuck in your mind.

Yes, the experience of figuring out the words creates a deeper neural pathway in the brain.

It’s extraordinary the way the brain works. . . .

I hate economists.

Why? Why do you hate economists?

Because they’re impersonal bastards. They believe in the rational model, which makes them dumb. When the great recession of 2007–2008 descended upon us, it was not an economics issue. It was a psychology issue.

How was it a psychology issue?

The behavior that got us there was herd behavior. The government has convinced people of the emotional need to own a house. If you look at the economics studies, in many respects the housing market doesn’t go up all that much over a long period of time. There are a million studies that will tell you that renting makes more sense than owning. But psychologically, owning a piece of turf is incredibly important. So I understand why people—who had no money and were given the chance to borrow money—were total suckers for it. And I use “sucker” not in an abusive sense, but in a realistic sense. Then again, you’ve always had herd behavior on Wall Street.

They’re now saying Silicon Valley is the “green” crash. The current punchline is that any human being, including you and I, can put together a business proposal tomorrow morning. And as long as we use a computer and include the word “green” a sufficient number of times in our proposals, the venture capitalists will be showering us with money by dawn the day after.

I’m obviously using hyperbole, but that’s where we’re seeing more of this herd behavior. In terms of the rational-mindedness, I’ve trained in that. I was trained as an engineer, but now I’m a reformed engineer, a “born again” engineer. The reliance on rational models—or models in general—to me, makes economists highly suspect. I don’t believe anything they say. That is very close to not being hyperbole. In the 1970s, when I was getting my PhD, my classmates and I read books by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Tversky and Kahneman invented “behavioral economics.” This is the hottest branch of economics right now, the “Freakonomics” branch.

Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in economics, but he was a social psychologist, period. I am royally pissed off that these f’ing economists have appropriated psychology and now call it the coolest thing in economics. Screw them. These straightlaced, rationally thinking economists have appropriated social psychology, and it pisses me off for reasons that are totally childish on my part.

Why childish?

Because it’s stupid. I’m delighted that the irrational realities are beginning to seep into economics. The rational me is delighted that irrationality is seeping into the rational profession, because maybe they’ll get some things right.

Look, I have a very strong smart-ass streak. I have learned to be “appropriate” and politically correct on many scores over the years. To the extent that I must, I guard my “smart-assery” when I’m giving speeches to middle managers from financial services companies. But the smart ass lurks no more than one glass of chardonnay below the surface.

I’ll remember that when I need to get your honest opinion on something. In the past, you’ve said, “Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department in the business.” Why do you believe that?

The term I’ve used for 20 years—and maybe I stole it from somebody or maybe by the grace of God they’ve stolen it from me—is “design-mindedness.” Design-mindedness is about bringing an aesthetic dimension into a discussion of anything. I am a great fan of Carly Fiorina. A lot of the reason was that she—kicking and screaming—brought a design aesthetic to Hewlett-Packard. I know this because I lived next door to Lew Platt, Carly’s predecessor, in college. Prior to Ms. Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard ranked 200 on a list of 199, in terms of design sensibilities. When she left, they were a significant consumer goods company, and that was Carly, pure and simple. When they gave her successor, Mark Hurd, the credit for having a great design team, it made me want to barf. Carly was not a good chief operating officer, and she probably needed to be let go at some point. I don’t deny that for a minute. And she had an ego that was a little bit out of control, and I don’t deny that for a minute either. But she brought about a cultural change at Hewlett-Packard, which makes the work that Lou Gerstner did at IBM and Jack Welch did at GE look like chump change by comparison.

Do you think that anything can be successful now without being highly positioned?

Yes.

Really?

Well, we obviously would have to spend the next two weeks defining “highly.” As the ethos of quality that began to bubble up in the United States during the 1980s took root, the major fast-moving consumer goods companies started having significant problems going up against store brands. Once store brands became reliable, they began to market and brand themselves. Then Wal-Mart came along, and the average American started saving something like $900 a year, which isn’t small cookies for people making $45,000 annually. The things they’re buying at Wal-Mart might be much less sexy, but as long as they’re quality products, this is perfectly acceptable. The recession obviously has pushed people even farther toward this model.

Look, I own a Subaru. I own a Subaru because they’re perfect for Vermont. But the quality revolution has taken such root that, in terms of quality, I’m probably just as well off with a Kia as I am with a Subaru or a Mercedes.

Do you really think that the quality is that comparable?

Yes.

So it is really just branding and positioning?

Well, branding, positioning, and people who like to have sex with their car. The electronics in BMW and Mercedes cars allow you to do a whole lot of things that you really don’t need to do. But in terms of a vehicle that can travel 30,000 miles without ever having to go into a shop, I would bet that a Kia is very, very close to these other brands.

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November 16, 2011

Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits

Filed under: Advertising,Blog,Marketing — Jon @ 10:24 am

We all like to think that we ignore advertising. We change the channel during commercials, we don’t click on banner ads, we hang up on telemarketers. But it’s no use, we still have a sense of brands. We look at them and try to understand them in ways we don’t even realize. Even by avoiding them, we’re recognizing them. And that makes brands a pretty interesting thing.

But just what is that thing exactly? Author, designer, and insightful thinker Debbie Millman has spent much of her life pursuing that question, and now, she asks some of the other brightest minds in the industry (and beyond) how they would answer this question. These discussions culminate in her new book, Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits.

As you can see from the cover image, there’s some interesting names listed, whose ideas on this topic are indeed fascinating. In fact, tomorrow, I’ll be posting a chapter from the book where Millman interviews Tom Peters (c’mon back!).

But what about Debbie Millman herself?

Wanting to get her take on some of the ideas expressed by others in the book, I sent her some questions. Here’s the discussion that followed:

Acceptance or belonging seems to be a theme throughout the interviews you’ve conducted in the book. What is your take on a brand creating a sense of belonging for people that interact with it?

Debbie Millman: In my introduction to Brand Thinking, I write about how scientists and anthropologists believe humans feel safer and more secure in groups. Psychologists such as Harry Harlow and John Bowlby have determined that we feel happier and better about ourselves when our brains resonate with other, like-minded humans. I believe that our motivation to brand, and to be branded, comes from our hardwired instinct to connect. Brands are so persuasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, moral, ethical and social consequences that they now reflect our behavior and our beliefs. People that share specific beliefs inevitably “find” each other and create tribes. As Wally Olins states, “Branding demonstrates (a) sense of belonging. It has this function for both the people who are part of the same group and also for the people who don’t belong.” Brands have become an extension of human facility, whether it is psychic or psychological. The brands we acquire telegraph our beliefs and affiliations, and in doing so, they create intimate worlds inhabitants can mutually understand. I think that any knowledge of culture is impossible now without an understanding of the implications of “brand.”

There are also multiple comparisons between brands and religion. However, religion deals mostly with the afterlife, and brands satisfy things while we’re alive. Where do you see the correlation, if any?

Debbie Millman: Throughout our history as a species, it seems that humans have needed faith and belief. Symbolism is a critical component of comprehending and telegraphing this belief. Despite this predilection, there is no agreement to one way of believing. We have thousands of religions followed by people who all deeply believe that they have a special, direct and intimate communication with God. But let’s be honest; there is no scientific data for this, they are constructs that we chose to believe in—or not. In Brand Thinking, Brian Collins makes the argument that “we create the (same) constructs around Nike sneakers or Coca-Cola in order to create specific feelings or to satisfy specific human needs,” and “For some consumers, it almost becomes a replacement for religion.” Alex Bogusky even goes so far as stating, “If we are wired by a higher power for religion and for God, then I think we could be wired for branding as well.”

Can brands be good, while what they represent is bad? (ex. Godin’s mention of tobacco companies) If so, what does that say about the position and responsibility they have, if any?

Debbie Millman: It is fascinating to consider why a person will choose Pepsi over Coke or Dr. Pepper over Mountain Dew. Ultimately a brand does more than differentiate itself categorically—brands also differentiate the consumer attitudinally. I am not sure that this is a bad thing—it is evidence of choice and freedom and the ability to express what we believe to be our individuality or preferences. The consumer chooses the brand that makes them feel most socially confident and wears this badge of cultural acceptability. What gets tricky is whether or not it is acceptable for a brand to promise to make people happy or sexy or healthy or smart or athletic by the sheer virtue of acquiring and experiencing the brand. Can a brand really make the world a better place to live? If I wear Nike sneakers or drink Diet Pepsi, will I have less insecurity? Cheat less? Lie less? Smile more? Feel “alive with pleasure”? I don’t think so. I hope that Jonathan Bond was right when he said, “Consumers are like roaches. We spray them with marketing, and for a time, it works. Then, inevitably, they develop an immunity, a resistance.” I believe that brands have many of the same responsibilities of people, as brands are created by the very species they are created for: Be truthful, do no harm and leave the world a better place than when you arrived.

Seduction is another concept that appears throughout the interviewees answers. Do you see brands as being seducers, or people just finding solutions to their needs with products or services provided?

Debbie Millman: It may sound like a cop-out, but the easy answer to your question is, BOTH. In an effort to solicit the imagination of a consumer, a brand must strike the right notes of allure and “choose me” seductiveness to a specific type of consumer. This sex appeal varies by brand or by category or by psychographic, but the basic tenets remain the same. One of the great ironies in our society is how the anti-branding constituents use the very same tenets of branding they so vigorously disdain. They have logos, they have websites, and they have target messaging. Even Adbusters sells sneakers now! On the other hand, people only continue to buy brands that consistently satisfy their needs and expectations. Seduction only works once if the product doesn’t deliver.

What was the biggest lesson you learned about brands in working on this book? How did it change you?

Debbie Millman: Better living through consumption doesn’t stop when you’ve consumed everything you covet. Unfortunately, brands are elusive and they don’t keep you happy for very long. As Dan Pink aptly points out, “The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that human beings metabolize (brands) very quickly. I’m specifically using the word metabolize because we are talking about hunger and thirst. If a big-screen TV is your symbol of stature and significance, it’s a fool’s game. These kinds of external objects do not provide enduring satisfaction.” He goes on to talk about what psychologists call the “hedonistic treadmill.” In other words, if you’re always looking to validate yourself by buying things, then you are never going to be satisfied. He states, “You are on an endless, addictive treadmill. The brand’s only purpose is to get you on that hedonistic treadmill. It may be good for the business in the short run, but in the long run, you’re doomed.” Dan has articulated this behavior better than anyone else, in my opinion. This has profoundly influenced how I feel about buying those new boots I have been coveting at Saks.

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Whether you’re in advertising, marketing, an entrepreneur, or just want to better understand our relationship with brands as people, this is a helpful read. You get a variety of perspectives, with themes that develop yet each retain their own character, making this an insightful and useful book.

And as I mentioned above, tune in here tomorrow for the book excerpt where Millman interviews Tom Peters about brands.

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October 18, 2010

An Excerpt from Voice-of-the-Customer Marketing

Filed under: Marketing,New Releases — 800-CEO-READ @ 4:47 pm

Ernan Roman didn’t just fall off the marketing turnip wagon. Rather than just discussing the latest trends in marketing—in social media and elsewhere—he puts them in a larger context and provides you with performance indicators and benchmarks to measure your marketing efforts over time. And he has the experience to do so… As president of his own direct marketing consultancy, Ernan Roman has worked on marketing strategy with companies such as Microsoft, NBC Universal, Walt Disney, Reliant Energy, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM.

Roman’s latest book, Voice-of-the-Customer Marketing: A Proven 5-Step Process to Create Customers Who Care, Spend, and Stay, was released today by McGraw-Hill, and while it won’t necessarily leave you a warm and fuzzy feeling about the new wave of marketing and a desire to conquer the world, it will leave you with something that may be of more use to your company: real, proven strategies that you can implement to get your marketing to start bringing in money—rather than just spending it. It is a research, data and analysis-driven book, so you’ll want to dig into it rather than just browse, but it’s worth the effort to do so.

Ernan was kind enough to provide an excerpt from the book’s introduction that outlines the five steps of his strategy.

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In recent years, there have been many customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives that have not listened well to the Voice of the Customer. As well intentioned as these initiatives have been, we must acknowledge that today’s customers do not feel like being “managed” (or, for that matter, manipulated).

Going forward, the premise of marketing and indeed the entire enterprise, must begin not with the idea of “managing” relationships—as we might “manage” a crisis or “manage” risk. Rather, we must begin with the vision of creating a community in which customers know their voice is being heard and acted on and in which they therefore look forward to engaging with us because they derive value from doing so.

We must acknowledge that today’s customers do not feel

like being “managed” (or, for that matter, manipulated).

The five steps that allow us to engage customers in this way are illustrated below. Notice that the first step, Voice of Customer, drives the subsequent four steps and that all five steps are interrelated.

STEP 1.
CONDUCT AND APPLY VOC RELATIONSHIP RESEARCH

This involves in-depth interviews with prospects, customers, and key stakeholders to understand how they expect the marketer to satisfy their needs for a high-value relationship that includes increasingly relevant offers, services, and communications.

By doing this, MSC Industrial Direct, a Fortune 1000 industrial supply company, was able to:

Avoid investing time and resources in a campaign to “win back” customers who had not really left at all, but instead had changed their buying patterns.
Develop competitively powerful strategies for strengthening relationships with high-value customers.
Identify significant opportunities to further drive incremental sales within the most critical customer segments.

STEP 2.
CREATE VOC-DRIVEN OPT-IN RELATIONSHIP STRATEGIES

This means engaging prospects and consumers to tell you exactly what they value and want from you… and what they don’t want from you.

By creating an opt-in relationship marketing program, software giant Microsoft experienced the following “unprecedented” results:

Opt-in rates that range between 45 to 95 percent
Response rates that are currently performing in the double digits
Revenue that is expected to continue being significantly greater than the revenue from the control population

STEP 3.
CREATE A VOC-DRIVEN MULTICHANNEL MIX

This means creating an integrated, multichannel marketing program that engages and inspires your customer.

The Walt Disney Companies created such a program for its resort operations. As a result, Disney has achieved the following:

Grown the database by over 100 percent
Increased the number of targeted interactions by over 10 times
Expanded e-mail coverage by over 10 times

STEP 4.
CREATE A VOC-DRIVEN SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

This means creating strategies or real-time engagement with your customers and prospects.

By doing this, Ford Motor Company not only took control of a public relations crisis but also generated the following:

4.5 million YouTube views
3.5 million Twitter impressions
80,000 “hand raisers” who asked to be kept up to date on the U.S. launch of the Ford Fiesta (A staggering 97 percent of the hand raisers did not own a Ford vehicle.)

STEP 5.
INVEST IN AN EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE

This means not pretending that customer service is something for operations to worry about.

By building this philosophy into its corporate culture, QVC experienced the following:

20 percent reduction in complaints and/or queries from customers
93 percent repurchase rate among the most satisfied customers.

These companies prove that the VOC-driven vision is attainable and drives remarkable increases in revenue. I believe we all should be striving to attain this level of excellence—no matter how “customer centric” we consider our organizations to be right now.

Excerpt from Voice of the Customer Marketing
Copyright © 2011 by Ernan Roman
Published by McGraw-Hill Books

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If you’d like to delve into specifics of each step and read about them coming to life successfully in almost every industry, get yourself a copy of the book today.

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August 3, 2010

Brains on Fire

Filed under: Advertising,Big Ideas,Blog,Communication,Interviews,Marketing — Jon @ 8:38 am

Hooray! The Brains on Fire book!

Ever since I first read their ChangeThis manifesto, and heard Spike Jones speak in Milwaukee about the incredible approach people should consider in marketing – creating movements, I was hooked. These Brains on Fire people are different, and now they have shared their experience and insight in a great book jammed with pages that will make you reconsider the ways you think about marketing and advertising – throwing most of them out the window. It’s called: Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements.

Brains on Fire helped ignite a global fanaticism for scissors, they helped an electronics store become a hip music retailer, and so much more, and they did it by tapping people’s passion and bringing them all together – not just the people at the companies, but the people who use their products. How do you do that? It’s what marketers have been trying to figure out since the beginning of time.

Like a Seth Godin book, or Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s Rework, you can literally feel your mind change when you read this. Here’s a glimpse into the ideas within the book – a brief Q&A with Brains on Fire co-author (and company president) Robbin Phillips:

What does Brains on Fire mean?

Yes. There is a company named Brains on Fire, but we didn’t name our book after our company. For us, “brains on fire” is what happens when you ignite the passion within your employees and customers. It’s about people who are so excited and devoted that they want to share their passion with others. We also like to think Brains on Fire is a love story. It’s about creating real relationships with people who love you. It’s about trust and about lifting others up. It’s about celebrating and creating remarkable stories that people want to share. It’s about igniting powerful, sustainable word of mouth movements.

For a long, long time, business has been about convincing people of something’s value. How do you see that changing?

Marketers have been trained to talk about product benefits and how much we care about our customers. Customer satisfaction ratings used to be golden. But in a world where the customer’s voice can be amplified at least as much as a company’s, talking AT your customers is outdated. Let’s face it; talking about yourself will not make others talk about you. No one talks about the precise angle on a pair of scissors, but they do talk about what they DO with those scissors – like crafting and sharing memories with friends and family. It’s not the product conversation anymore. Smart companies are learning to listen, reframe and support the passion conversation.

Who are the leaders, and how do we find them?

One of the lessons we learned in igniting movements and studying movements is this: Movements have inspirational leadership. Think about it. If everyone is expected to lead, no one will. When looking for leadership, we don’t look for the influencers; we look for regular, everyday people who just happen to have a deep passion for the category. Not the divas, the super-bloggers, or the supposed influencers that everyone else is trying to get hold of. We have seen first hand how these everyday people have more and greater credibility; because they are in fact, “just like me.” Influence can be built, passion cannot. Find your company’s passionate leaders and empower them with tools to spread their passion and their love.

New technology is all around us. What should companies do with it?

If there’s one thing you take away from our book let it be this: It’s about people. Period. Chris Sandoval, a kindred spirit, says it best: “When it comes to technology, what’s exciting and shiny today will be freakin’ dead tomorrow.” Ninety percent of word of mouth happens offline. So many companies jump into social media technology first — with Twitter strategies and Facebook fans. Our advice is to engage people first. Observe how they communicate and connect, then the tools and tactics will be as plain as the nose on your face.

Here’s a big question: How can a company become the center of the universe?

Big question. But there’s a simple answer. Take a look around your company. What do you have to offer that you take for granted? Perhaps you have experts who design your products who can share knowledge. Maybe your factories or offices are interesting to the people who love your products or services. Embrace the leaders and your fans, and give them access to the things you know. Share freely. Give freely without expecting anything in return. Treat your customers like your best friends. Forever.

And here’s a little bit of Robbin talking about the book in person:

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April 12, 2010

The Referral Engine

Filed under: Blog,Marketing — Jon @ 9:08 am

John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and the blog of the same name, has a new book coming out shortly on Portfolio. Titled, The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself, the book shows small businesses how to harness the power of customer referrals; how to do work that inspires them, how to ask for them, and how to create a whole community of marketers excited about telling others about your company.

In advance of the book’s release, I asked John a few questions inspired by reading it. His answers give brief glimpses into the book’s ideas. Be sure to check it out when it becomes available. Or, pre-order a copy here today.

Referrals are often thought of as hard to get/ask for, yet people have an inherent need to give them. How can a company tap into that?
The first step is to adopt an expectation mindset. If every person in the organization started thinking about creating an experience that would prompt every customer to refer and then the sales folks started talking about referrals during the conversion process and had a set process to go back and ask for referrals, they would simply happen more often.

How can a company truly know if their lack of referrals is based on a boring business, or a weak strategy to build referrals?
The best way to truly know anything about your business is to ask your customers. Ask them why they chose to do business with you, ask them why they stay, what you do that they value, if they refer you and why. The answers to these questions, particularly if you push for more than “you provide good service,” may reveal that you either have a remarkable business that needs to communicate the little remarkable things that customers appreciate or you need to find a way to differentiate your business in a way that will get people talking.

How big of a role should technology play in referral generation?
Technology is a great leverage tool for referrals. In other words, it can help speed the level of engagement and deepen customer relationships, but it must be used in balance with face to face interaction in order to build the level of trust often required to stimulate referrals. Blending high tech with high touch tactics is a great way to create a competitive advantage while making use of every form of communication and follow-up available.

What are some tips for hiring and training “marketers” who aren’t in marketing positions?
Everyone in the organization that comes into contact in any way with a customer or prospect is in a marketing position. The first step is to acknowledge that fact and start hiring people with customer experience in mind. Most humans an be taught the technical aspects of the job, but it’s much harder to teach people to serve and be curious. Make marketing training a part of your standard routine for every employee – make sure they know how to talk about your organizations ideal customer, core difference and even this month’s new product launch.

How can a company find the balance between aiming for results and simply doing good work – or, what’s the difference?
You know, I’m not sure there’s a huge difference. In my book The Referral Engine, I profile a number of companies that generate referrals spontaneously. The common thread that runs through all of these organizations is that they are simply more referable – they do little things that make people talk. Most of these companies didn’t really focus on any single way to generate referrals. Having said that, I believe the real pay off is in blending being highly referable with a systematic way to remind, stimulate and activate referral networks.

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October 27, 2009

Seth Godin Thinks Some People are Better Than Others

Filed under: Customer Service,General Business,Marketing,Publishing Industry,Retail — dylan @ 8:46 am

The incomparable Seth Godin has a way of instantly finding clarity on issues that others wrestle with endlessly. This morning he pondered trends in the book industry:

Here are two interesting lessons from the book industry:

Kindle readers buy two or three times as many books as book readers. Why? I don’t think it’s necessarily because using a Kindle leads someone to read more books. I think it’s because the kind of person who buys a lot of books is the most likely person to pony up and buy a Kindle. I know that sounds obvious, but once you see it this way, you understand why book publishers should be killing themselves to appeal to this group. After all, the group voted with their dollars to show that they’re better.
Walmart and other mass marketers are now offering top bestsellers for $9 or less each, about $5 less than their cost. Why? Why not offer toasters or socks as a loss leader to get people in the store? I think the answer is pretty clear: people who buy hardcover books buy other stuff too. A hardcover book is a luxury item, it’s new and it’s buzzable. This sort of person is exactly who you want in your store.

Head over to Seth’s post to read his brief, warm and incredibly sober assessment of what this means—for every industry, not only our own.

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October 26, 2009

Baked In

Filed under: Blog,Marketing — Jon @ 10:09 am

coverart

Alex Bogusky and John Winsor have written an interesting book called Baked In: Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves. After checking out the book, I asked co-author John Winsor a few questions about some of their ideas. Here’s what followed:

What’s the best evidence that traditional advertising is no longer necessary for a new company?

Look at Zappos. Instead of focusing on traditional advertising to engage customers with Zappos Tony Hsieh focused on building an incredible internal culture, one build on redefining customer service. By doing anything for their customers, Zappos created wonderful stories that their customers could share. Social media only poured gas on the fire by making it easier for customers to share their passion with the world. Why buy ads when your customers are so happy they tell their own stories?

How can an entrepreneur “bake in” marketing to their business to make this not only possible, but with leverage to develop a long-term strategy?

Most entrepreneurs get it because they don’t have the money to spend on advertising. instead, they have to build products that market themselves. Tesla just opened a store here in Boulder. The town is buzzing. Tesla could have focused on making a cheap electric car that looked like other hybrids. Instead, they focused on an absolute, “the most expensive electric car in the world.” Who doesn’t want to check that out? No need to advertise. People are going to talk.

“Baking in” works great for businesses in a down economy, but as the economy improves, and consumers get used to products developed in this fashion, will the practice sustain?

While the economy has made companies focus on spending their money more wisely, other forces have fueled the need to bake marketing into products. Social media has spawned new levels of transperancy, whether companies like it or not. No matter what you’re doing people, can talk about it. So, if you’re marketing and product are telling different stories people not only will notice but will also call you out on it. Just look at GM. While their ads told one story, their products were telling another. And, for that matter, their executive’s actions were telling a third story.

Your book ties the relationship between product development and marketing pretty tightly. How can large organizations, which may have some disconnect between all the departments involved, create a better “oven” so to speak?

Breakdown the silos. I mean physically knock down the walls. Often times, in big companies, marketing sits in one building and product design sits in another. You have to get people to sit in the place, share the same information, work for the same goals.

Part of the book talks about doing things wrong. When is wrong, right?

When it’s perfectly wrong. The Flip Video Camera was perfectly wrong when it came out. it was cheap, simple to operate and wasn’t focused on picture quality. Instead, it was the perfect tool to make videos for YouTube. Remember, this was when other video camera manufacturers were focused on the high end consumer market. In another example, I’m surprised with myself how little I use my digital camera these days. I was always obsessed with getting a point and shoot digital camera with a large number of pixels. I was focused on the quality of the picture. Lately, I’ve been shooting most of my pictures with my iPhone 3GS. I would never buy a camera with 3 mega-pixels. And, using a phone to take pictures is perfectly wrong. Yet, my philosophy of what constitutes a good picture has changed from the quality of the picture to it’s sharability.

For more information on how to bake in marketing into your business, check out their book. It’s a small but densely packed read with some great stories and case studies to help you understand how to apply the theories to your own work.

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October 12, 2009

Crush It!

Filed under: Blog,Communication,Marketing,Start-ups — Jon @ 1:37 pm

Gary Vaynerchuk, who many people know as the WineLibrary TV guy, has written a book called, Crush It! Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion, that describes how he transformed a $4 million family business into a $60 million empire with the help of social media. Sounds simple on the surface, but of course it takes a lot of work, and Gary doesn’t gloss over what it took him to make it happen: personal branding, hustle, and tireless hours of work are some of the elements he addresses in the book, with the clear and simple promise that the same result is possible for anyone willing to invest the work in their own passion.

For those who have absolutely no foot in the social media pool, he clearly describes the steps to take, from buying a url, to WordPress, to creating a Twitter account, and then what to say and how to communicate your message. For those already involved, but looking for ways to get more out of their digital tools, the book offers some great perspectives on how to reframe your message and get more word of mouth activity around what you do.

No matter what your current level of social media activity is, this book has something for you. The author’s tone of enthusiasm alone will inspire you to do things to change your personal brand or business in radical ways.

Gary even took a moment to talk to readers of the 8cr blog and give his personal insight into the book. Check it out, and definitely check out his book.

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September 4, 2009

Twitterville Book Launch and Podcast

Filed under: Blog,Communication,Current Events,Customer Service,Information Technology,Internet,Marketing,New Releases — Jon @ 8:15 am

Today I had a nice conversation with Shel Israel about his new book, Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods, which also, coincidentally was released today via Portfolio. In both our conversation and the book, Shel talks about how companies are becoming involved in Twitter to do better business.

He tells stories about companies like Dell, who are getting a better grasp on those dissatisfied with service they’ve received – and it’s better than customer service, where a center waits for a call, and then attempts to deal with it as quickly as possible. Twitter, on the other hand, opens up a conversation that takes place in public, clearing not only the problem at hand, but building credibility and trust at large.

Check out the podcast here, and pick up a box of the book here, and get your team informed about and involved in something that can truly change your business.

[podcast]http://media.800ceoread.com/view/9781591842798/audio/Twitterrville_Interview_with_Shel_Israel.mp3[/podcast]

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August 19, 2009

Social Media in Books

Filed under: Blog,Communication,Information Technology,Marketing — Jon @ 1:26 pm

Social Media has been a big topic for awhile, and seems to increase daily, as businesses scramble to figure out how to put this stuff to use. There’s a lot of debate over best practices, and even if it should be used at all, but the overwhelming consensus is: use it.

The problem is, “using it” isn’t enough. Knowing how to use it, what it is, and how and when it can work best for a company or individual is knowledge and information that’s being developed even as I type this blog post. However, a few books have come out recently (or will be out very soon) that shed some interesting light on the subject.

Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s Trust Agents, as well as Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation, are great overviews of what social media is and how to get involved in it. From there, both books lay out some great stories and case studies of the power of this technology, and how real live companies are tapping into it. The message is clear: You can too (and you probably should, if you want to survive).

Two other books take a more focused look at one particular social media platform: Twitter. Shel Israel’s Twitterville is a great book about the history and formation of Twitter, and how it has taken the social world (and the business world) by storm. David Pogue’s The World According to Twitter exemplifies the sentiment by simply compiling a tome of tweets (twitter posts) in one book. Categorized and insightful, it’s clear to see that people are taking part, and spreading some interesting ideas – around the world, in an instant.

One interesting element to all these books is the focus on using social media as a listening device. On the surface, much of it seems about telling – spreading your message – from the mundane to the profound. In fact, particularly for business, using these platforms to discover what your customers are saying about you, and about what solutions they want and need solved, is likely the most important element social media can offer businesses today.

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