Trialogue or Die

The last hundred years of advertising was characterized by a monologue where brands spoke to consumers through mass media.  But the proliferation of media has fragmented audiences making it harder and more expensive for advertisers to reach large audiences as they once could as this video makes clear.

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At the same time, new technologies from the Internet to the cell phone have enabled consumers to connect with each other as never before and, as a result, created a new way to think about marketing.

Companies must see consumers as more than advertising's target, but also the conduit through which brand messages flow.  By developing marketing plans that involve and engage audiences along three dimensions advertising can have greater reach and impact.

1. Brand to Audience: Reach the right people with more relevant messages
2. Audience to Brand: Listen to your customers
3. Audience to Audience: Help customers share your brand message with their social network

I call this a media Trialogue and I believe all marketing plans should be designed to accomplish all three.  Spread the fire. GS

Are False Boundaries Keeping You From the Best Solutions?

How often do we miss the best solution to a problem because we blindly accepted a premise that creates false restrictions? 

The example that brought this to mind was a question from the Vice Presidential debate.  The moderator asked each candidate, "What would you do to reach across the isle?"  The candidate's answers focused on their ability to create compromise solutions that Democrats and Republicans would both find acceptable.  Unfortunately, this approach causes politicians to seek compromise solutions rather than the best solutions and we must live with the lack-luster results.  On the surface those compromises seem like progress and they give politicians something to boast about in their press conferences, but how often do they really fix the problem?

How about this instead?  Rather than compromising our solutions, what if we eliminated the problem that required the compromise?

Eliminate the isle!

The isle is a man made boundary that reinforces the separation of parties.  It encourages an allegiance to a party instead of to the country.  Politicians are Republicans or Democrats first and Americans second, if at all.  The division set's up competition and contributes to petty bickering.

Can you imagine business doing this?  Can you hear the CEO saying, "All right team.  We face an enormous challenge and so I've decided to divide the company into two factions.  The R faction will sit on this side of the office and the D faction will sit on the other side.  The faction whose idea wins will keep its job but we won't implement any idea unless we can get a majority vote from both factions.  Now, go get 'em."  Insanity!

If I were president I would eliminate the isle and rearrange the seating to end partisan divisions.   Democrats and Republicans would sit next to each other and this proximity would help them naturally collaborate.

I would also create dorms where congressmen and women would live when Congress was in session.  I would design the building with individual dorm rooms in a circle around the outside of a central common area.  Again, Republicans and Democrats would live side-by-side. Or, in the immortal words of Bill Murray, "Cats and dogs living together."

What false boundaries are you blindly accepting in your business that are leading you to compromise solutions rather than the best solutions?  By questioning your assumptions can you find a better solution?

Spread the fire. GS

 

The Simple Change that Improves Marketing Results by 5X

It's not who you are, it's who you know that makes you a more likely to buy something. 

A study called Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters via Consumer Networks conducted by the Wharton School and AT&T found that consumers are far more apt to buy a company's product if they are "network neighbors" with existing customers.  AT&T's marketing department identified 21 different market segments among its customer base (targets) and sent them direct mail promotions for a new technology product.  Meanwhile, Wharton professor Shawndra Hill and her colleagues studied the target group's phone records to find people the target group had spoken to recently.  They called these people "network neighbors," made them the 22nd target segment, and sent them the same direct mail piece.

Surprising Results

They found that consumers who had communicated with prior customers are more likely to become customers themselves.  In fact, the study reports,

"Network neighbors--those consumers linked to a prior customer--adopt the service at a rate three to five times greater than baseline groups selected by the best practices of the firm's marketing team.  In addition, analyzing the network allows the firm to acquire new customers who otherwise would have fallen through the cracks because they would not have been identified based on traditional attributes."

The study attributed this increase to homophily and word-of-mouth.

Homophily: Similarity breeds connection.  Homophily is the principle that a contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people.  Birds of a feather really do flock together.  This means that your best customer's friends are a lot like your best customers.  No wonder they're good prospects.

Word-of-mouth: Personal influence is the most powerful force in marketing but consumer acvocacy, whether explicit (telling someone about a new product) or implicit (your friends see you using a new product) can only happen with contact.

Fanning the Flames
The third step in PyroMarketing is fanning the flames which means equipping your customers to spread your message to their social network.  According to the Wharton School, this one tactic may be three to five times more effective than your best marketing efforts to your traditional consumer target.

Any friend of your customers should be a friend of yours. Spread the fire. GS

PyroMarketing at the Nashville American Marketing Association

Just a quick note to PyroManiacs living in or near middle Tennessee.  I'll be presenting PyroMarketing at the October 1 meeting of the Nashville chapter of the American Marketing Association.  It's a luncheon event from 11:30 to 1 at LP Field where the Titans play football.

No, I won't be on the field.  It's in the Stadium Club West which faces the downtown.

You can register online  or learn more at the NAMA website.

I hope to see you there.  Spread the fire. GS

Shape Your Brand Message By Shaping the Customer's Experience

In May of 2005 BusinessWeek published an article titled "Blogs Will Change Your Business."  They updated that article last February to accommodate recent phenomena like social media.  The article is formatted like a blog with individual time-stamped posts.  It's worth reading.

In the post labeled "Tuesday 6:35 a.m. there's a passage I found particularly interesting,

"But one thing is clear: Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message.  Now they're losing control of it.  Want to get it back?  You never will, not entirely.  But for a look at what you're facing, come along for a tour..."

I happen to think companies can regain control of their message but it's not by silencing or shouting down connected consumers.

For the last century brands monopolized media.  They bought advertising, talked about themselves, and they were the only ones talking.  When no one else is speaking it's easy to control the message.

Today, however, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can join the conversation (a very annoying development for many brands).  If you're reading these words online then you are one of the millions with a global platform from which to express your undying love or loathing for a brand. 

Companies used to shape their message by shaping their advertising.  Today, however, companies must shape their message by shaping the customer's experience.  It's the only way to ensure that what the connected consumer writes on his or her blog or social network page reinforces the brand image you hope to create for your business.  Mike Hyatt offers some solid tips from his blog in a post titled Defending Your Brand Online.

Spread the fire.  GS

PS: Watch for a new book in the next year from Bob Garfield, advertising critic at Ad Age.  It's called Listenomics and will expound on this idea with the kind of humor and insight that only Bob Garfield possesses.

Advertising is a tax

I came across a quote from Robert Stephens, the founder of Geek Squad, the other day and had to pass it along. He said,

"Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking."

Amen!  If you sand the risky edges off your product until it is perfectly safe, if you provide a service that won't offend anyone, if you innovate by committee, then you'd better have a great big advertising budget because your stuff will be unremarkable and no one but you is going to talk about it.  What's more, your advertising will have nothing compelling to say.

On the other hand, make something remarkable and word-of-mouth will either supplement your advertising or render it unecessary. 

Consider this.  Google reported revenues of $5.37 billion in the first quarter of '08 largely from selling paid search advertising.  Essentially, it was collecting the tax from companies with unremarkable products or services.  Ironically, I can't recall ever seeing an ad for Google. 

Spread the fire.  GS

More on Ten Ideas for Private Clubs

Yesterday I presented PyroMarketing to the PCMA convention at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville.  The audience was filled with people responsible for marketing and new membership for the nation's private clubs.  Some were country clubs, others were yacht clubs. Even city and university clubs were represented.

After presenting PyroMarketing, I gave them ten ideas they could implement immediately.  I linked to those ideas in yesterday's post but was reminded by PyroManiac Mike, that some of those ideas needed more explaining. 

You can download the Download ten_ideas_for_private_clubs.pdf PowerPoint slides here.  I explain each idea a bit more below and I've added a bonus idea.  I hope they help and also that they spur you to come up with a few of your own.  If you do, share them with others by leaving a comment.  Spread the fire. GS

1.Collect everyone's email address.  Whether they are a member or a visitor, make every effort to collect their email address and along with their permission to send them messages related to the club.  Consider permission marketing strategies like a discounted round in exchange for an email, special club offers people only get through email, or a free dessert in the restaurant for those who provide their address.

2. Capture everything in photos and on video.  Buy Flip Digital cameras for the club and provide them to staff and guests.  Give a Flip camera to select foursomes and encourage them to videotape highlights from their round.  Have them return the camera when they're through.  Collect their email addresses and tell them you will upload the video to the web and send them a link by email when it's ready.  Not only will it help them relive their round at your club, it makes it easier for them to share that experience with others.

3. Create your own YouTube channel.  It's free and easy.  This is where you can post video from those Flip Cameras.

4. Create an account at slide.com and post slide shows of still photos taken at the club.  Display the slide show from the club's website.  Email it to members and encourage them to send it to friends and post it to their social network pages like Facebook and MySpace.  Remember, The Flip Digital camera lets you turn any video frame into a still photo so you can make your slide show from your video content.

5. Publish a book using www.blurb.com.  Establish an account, download their free software, and then use it to assemble books for the club, individual events like tennis tournaments, tea parties, or holiday gatherings.  Upload photos from those Flip cameras.  Invite members to submit their own photos.  Make the finished books available from the Blurb store and encourage members to buy their own copy.  Donate the profits to a local charity as a way to make extra sales and generate additional exposure and goodwill for the club.  Survey your members and ask them what club events deserve their own book and produce them for the most popular occasions.

6. Create Micro Clubs.  Your club may offer golf, tennis, and swimming, but your members may have interests that extend beyond formal club offerings.  Survey your members to learn about their hobbies and interests and then offer to sponsor a Meetup group for gathering of 6 or more people who schedule monthly meetings at the club.  Not only will this ensure better club utilization, but it will also encourage new  recruits.  If six club members start a book group at your club, they'll soon invite their non-member friends to join the book club.  Give them the first two visits free and use those occasions to introduce yourself to them.  Follow up with membership offers.  The more groups your club creates on Meetup.com, the more presence your club will have on the web which, in turn, will help your organic search optimization.  If you didn't quite follow that last sentence, don't worry about it.  Just trust me.  It's good.

7. Host a blog.  Use it to post club news, photos, videos and more. Shoot, host several blogs.  Create a blog for the club.  Create one for the club's golf pro.  Create one for the club's chef.  Create one for the greens keeper.  They're free and easy to use and provide a way for the club to speak to its audience, for the audience to respond to the club, and for the audience to connect to each other.  That's a media trialogue and it's a good thing. 

8.Recreate your club online.  Use www.ning.com to build an online social network for your club.  You can make it private, just like your club, so that it becomes an additional benefit of membership.  This social network becomes an online extension of your physical club and a way for members to stay connected even when they can't make it to your building.  Private club members are often business executives who travel a great deal.  This online tool will help them stay connected to the club and its members even when they're half way around the world making it less likely they resign their membership because "they're too busy to attend."

9. Text for treats.  Leverage your customers technology to spread word-of-mouth.  Invite golfers to participate in a promotion.  If they text a different friend from each hole during a round of golf and mention the club by name in each text, then you will reward them.  You might give them a discounted round, or provide a discount to any of their friends who received one of the text messages, or even a free drink when they complete their round.  Just plant the idea and give them enough incentive to do it.  A foursome could generate 72 personal recommendations over the course of 18 holes.

10. Combine member events with recruitment promotions.  People are more likely to talk about themselves than a business.  Help them easily transition from talking about what they did to recommending your club.

Whenever you hold a special event for members at the club make sure you run new member promotions at the same time, then you make it easier for your members to switch from talking about the fun they had at the club and into why their friend should join.  It'll sound something like this, "I placed third in my club's tennis tournament last weekend.  Oh, and that reminds me.  This is the perfect time for you to join because they're running a special..."

Bonus Idea:

Publish a Who's Who Directory - Would it be easier to sign new members if every doctor, lawyer, politician, and business person from your community personally visited your club?  You bet it would.  Here's how you can make that happen while also building a database of their contact information. 

Publish a Who's Who Directory for your community.  Send an email to all of your members inviting them to be in the directory.  Also invite them to forward the message to any of their friends and associates who they feel belong in the directory too.  Announce the project through local media as well.  Interested parties must RSVP with all of their contact information like name, title, address, website, email, and personal bio (limit it to XXX words) by a deadline you provide. 

Hire a photographer and set them up at the club.  Next, schedule a 15 minute photo session for everyone that RSVP'd.  When non-members arrive for their shoot, have the membership director greet them take them on a quick tour of the facilities before taking their photo.

In the directory, note by each person's listing whether they are a member of the club.  This will reward the members and provide additional incentive for non-members to join.

Publish the directory using Blurb.  Sell the directory at the club and online from the club's website.  Give a free copy to members.

PCMA 2008: Ten PyroMarketing Ideas for Private Clubs

Tomorrow I'll speak to the Association of Private Clubs at Nashville's Gaylord Opryland Hotel.  Many private clubs are prevented from advertising because of their tax status.   As a result, word-of-mouth is an important tool for attracting new members and retaining the ones they have.

I'll give them ten simple suggestions for encouraging word-of-mouth.  These are things they can do the moment they get back to their clubs.  And, while I'll have a handout at my talk, I'm also providing an electronic version of those ten tips here on my blog. 

Does Your Marketing Aim at Heaven or Earth?

 

C.S. Lewis said, "Aim at Heaven and you get Earth thrown in. Aim at Earth and you'll get neither."  I was reminded of those words when I saw this sign.

It reveals an inside-out perspective.  This church seems more interested in selling its particular brand of Christianity than  helping people discover Christianity's benefits: a personal relationship with God and eternal life. The goal, it seems, is to make more Catholics rather than making more Christians. It aims at Earth.

If they had cared about people more than their brand then the sign might have said something like, "10 ways a relationship with God can improve your life."  If the church delivered on that offer then people would enjoy a life-changing benefit, credit the church that delivered it, and become members.   Aim at Heaven and get Earth thrown in.

Is your business focused on its own goals or on people's needs?  Is it aiming at Heaven or Earth? Spread the fire.  GS

Behavioral Targeting Identifies the Driest Tinder

I found this interesting tidbit in AdAge's Digital Marketing & Media Fact Pack.  It's a table displaying data from a Forrester Research study that nicely illustrates a couple of points about the driest tinder.

1. Identify the driest tinder by their behavior.   Demographics are not enough.  Notice that it wasn't a person's age, income, or sex that identified them as heavy users of streaming video services, it was their behavior. 

2. The driest tinder are few but precious.  While 15% of people had broadband and 8% downloaded video, only 2% spent the top quartile of their time online with video.  No matter the product or service, the driest tinder will be a small subset of the market but their passion and interest cause them to act first and that positions them as the leaders others can follow.  Spread the fire.  GS