Search Results: why this, why you, why now
3 Questions Every Innovator Needs To Ask
Microsoft is discounting it’s ‘Surface’ tablet just to get traction in the market. Even with all their innovation and marketing firepower Microsoft can’t make people care enough to switch, or belong.
Innovation isn’t just about making something that works well, (I’ve never used a Surface, but I’m guessing it does). And marketing isn’t about tempting the ‘market of everyone’ to change their minds. We need to start drilling down to the reasons people will want what we make.
3 Questions Innovators Must Ask
1. Who am I making this for?
2. What will make them care enough to choose this and not that?
3. Why will they pay me for it?
Ideas, products and services can be dreamt up in a moment, innovation and ideation isn’t the hard part. Having the guts to ask the right questions, and to answer them honestly before you bring an idea you’ve fallen in love with to market, that’s the hard part.
Image by Joe Shlabotnik.
Is It Time To Stop Advertising?
Last week I passed a moving kid at the side of the road, where cars sped by at 80km per hour. He was wearing a red sandwich board that screamed, “BUY ONE GET ONE FREE,” and had clearly been given instructions to dance about to attract more attention. I was 200 metres past him when I realised he was advertising the unremarkable pizza place on the other side of the road. The dancing sandwich board guy made me question the value of advertising once again.
Advertising by definition was never designed to deliver either value or joy.
advertise (verb)
1. to announce or praise (a product, service, etc.) in some public medium of communication in order to induce people to buy or use it: to advertise a new brand of toothpaste.
2. to give information to the public about; announce publicly in a newspaper, on radio or television, etc.: to advertise a reward.
3. to call attention to.
Perhaps that’s why we’ve grown to resent it and how it interrupts us so much, not because we are more intolerant than past generations but because we have a choice to pay attention or not. How does it make you feel when a popup appears on a website’s landing page as soon as you arrive? Or when you answer the cold caller as you are stir-frying vegetables at 6pm?
Probably not how you want your customers to feel.
Fourteen years after Seth Godin wrote Permission Marketing it’s still okay to interrupt people without any context, for one reason only.
Because we can.
That was never a good enough reason to make people care. Today if we want to survive in a world with unlimited choices we’ve got no option but to work harder to make the right people care more.
I once had a client who came to me having spent $6,000 on an advert in a glossy magazine. She knew the magazine’s circulation numbers, but she didn’t know who she’d reached. The phone didn’t ring once afterwards. I think she chose to advertise because it felt safe. Because if you’re in business that’s what you do to get customers and survive. Maybe that’s why the worst kind of advertising still exists, because businesses are scared that the phone won’t ring today?
I’m sure the dancing billboard sold a few more pizzas that evening, but we didn’t miss not seeing him on the side of the road the next day. And we only care about his pizzas (or those of the three other takeaways within a 5km radius) when they are 2-for-1.
Image by bcline.
What Kills Big Companies?
filed in Storytelling, Strategy
For over a century Kodak knew that what was important to its customers was “Kodak moments” not their innovation and patents, (well their marketers did anyway). And yet they failed to translate that knowing into staying relevant to their customers.
“Sales + Customers = Nothing Broken is the formula for corporate cyanide.
Most big companies that die kill themselves drinking it.”
—Kevin Ashton
Most little companies too.
They falter not because they don’t do what they do well, but because they don’t understand why that matters to their customers. And by knowing that one thing they discover what might matter more, or how they could do things better.
So here’s the question only you can answer.
Our customers come to us because……
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
And on and on.
It’s your job to keep giving them a reason to come back.
Image by Geir Halvorsen.
What’s Wrong With Business Communication And How To Fix It
filed in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Strategy
Business has got a problem. It’s pervasive, eats away at human connection and strips meaning from our interactions. While trying to be professional and sound more knowledgeable we’re sanitising and jargonising our conversations. This is killing our ability to communicate.
So how do we transition from meaningless communication to creating meaningful impact?
If you ever find yourself typing a word you wouldn’t use when you’re talking to your mum.
Delete it.
When you hear words that would make your kids stare at you incredulously falling from your lips.
Stop using them.
If you start saying “apologies” instead of just being “sorry”.
Think hard about the person at the other end of that conversation.
When your words make you sound like you don’t really mean what they are saying.
Then don’t say them.
Your customers want to communicate with the real you. Your colleagues want to truly understand who you are.
Why not let them?
Image credit.
The Business Buzzword Of 2013 ‘Platform’
filed in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Strategy
Everywhere I look online these days I see people being urged to build a ‘platform’. The modern day platform is a digital connection to potential customers, contacts, followers or fans.
A platform then is a tool and a tactic.
There are plenty of consultants willing to help you with the ‘how to’ of building one and whole books devoted to the tactics (the knowing part).
Knowing is a far cry from doing though.
If you are to succeed at building a platform you need to be consistent at ‘the doing’ part. And to be consistent at ‘the doing’ you need to have a reason to build the platform that intersects your needs with those of your audience. Building a ‘platform’ is a far cry from building a tribe. ‘Tribes’ begin with the reason for building (doing) the thing in the first place.
Successful businesses like Airbnb and Zen Habits were born from having a reason to create the platform that served the needs of the audience. The success didn’t simply come from the platform itself.
Go ahead and build your platform so that the people who need you can find you, just remember to work out the reason you’re building it first.
Image by Peter Durand.
Work For Money, Design For Love
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
My friend David Airey has drawn on his personal experience of building a successful freelance design business. He’s also gathered the business insights of leading designers and creatives and shared it all in his new book. Work For Money, Design For Love.
Why I love this book… well the title has a special place in my heart, since I named it, the title also reflects what I believe business (not just the design business) should be about.
It’s fascinating to draw on the knowledge and experience of designers and freelancers who have learned how to build successful businesses on their own terms.
These business building lessons are for everyone, not just for designers. David’s book answers questions like.
How do I find new clients?
How much should I charge for my work?
It includes ideas about launching your online presence, common business mistakes and on and on.
We’re so lucky to have access to the insights of others who are one step ahead of us on the journey.
Go take advantage of it!
Image by David Airey.
Tomorrow
filed in Entrepreneurship
Tomorrow there will be another social network to choose from.
Tomorrow your competitors will be selling a similar app.
Tomorrow there will be ten more books to buy at the bookstore.
Tomorrow you’ll get to inbox zero.
Tomorrow interest rates might come down.
Tomorrow you’ll know for sure.
Tomorrow there will be another podcast to listen to or one more tweet to send.
Tomorrow you’ll have more time.
Tomorrow that tweak will be made.
Tomorrow there will be one less meeting.
Tomorrow the website copy will be just right.
Tomorrow you’ll be really ready.
Tomorrow the holidays will be over.
Tomorrow will be a better time to start.
Tomorrow the rules will change.
Tomorrow ————————————.
Why are you waiting for tomorrow?
Image by Dave Sutherland.
No Strings
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Alexx saw the sign outside the local gym and decided that there was no excuse. It was just a hundred metres from her front door and was advertising a six week membership for just $99. An opportunity not to be missed.
As she signed up Alexx tried to overlook the quiet desperation of the owner. The headphone jack that didn’t work. Not to mention the dated posters advertising extinct products in the toilet stalls.
When she asked about rush hour periods that she should avoid the gym owner told her that there were none, because things had been a bit quiet lately. He explained the options for extending her membership, the plans and the monthly rates once her initial six weeks were up, then went on to tell her that as long as she didn’t broadcast it he would keep renewing her membership at the $99 rate… “no strings”.
Alexx being a real food low tox living guru asked if he would consider stocking coconut water as an alternative to the high sugar energy drinks that glowed out at her from the fridge.
He said he’d think about it.
Fast forward six weeks and as she passed the fridge Alexx remarked, “Still no coconut water?”
“Hmmm, yeaaaah. Not really at the top of the list I have to be honest. There’s obviously quite a bit to do in the day, as I’m sure you know.”
She did. But despite the convenience and the bargain Alexx didn’t renew her membership.
If you’re going to go to the trouble of losing money to get your customer through the door. Why not go the extra mile to keep her?
‘Strings’ are exactly the reason you’re in business. Connection with your customers is the reason you exist. Your job is to find ways to create as many strings as possible, by going out of your way to make them feel like you care and that they belong.
More strings are your emergency.
Image by Bethan.
6 Questions Every Startup Should Ask
filed in Entrepreneurship, Strategy
1. What problem are we solving?
2. What need are we fulfilling?
3. Who are we solving the problem for?
4. How are we least like the competition?
5. How do we tell that story?
6. Why this, why us and why now?
What questions have you asked yourself?
Image by dasmart.
Give Them A Reason
Half of the products in your pantry now have a ‘like us on Facebook’ icon on the label. Why should you like a brand of mass produced honey on Facebook? Why does the brand manager think you should care?
Marketing is about doing great work that gets noticed. It’s about giving people a reason to care. It takes time, thought and a deep understanding of who you want to serve and how you want to make a difference. Yet we look for shortcuts. We use tactics to make people notice before creating real value. We forget to help customers to understand and experience, before selfishly telling them what to do.
Working hard to make people say your work is great,
is not the same as doing great work.
We spend so much of our energy here. Crafting the tweetable headlines. Writing press releases to help us get noticed. Trying to get on the radar of influencers. Creating print advertising campaigns. Deep discounting and on and on, when what actually works is doing the thing that people want to talk about.
When you do something that makes a difference you won’t have to work so hard to persuade people to notice or to talk about it.
Don’t just ask your customers to care about you. Give them a reason.
Image by Badjonni.