Search Results: why this, why you, why now
Social Media: Just Because You Can, Does It Mean You Should?
To anyone who has ever paid for advertising social media seems like a marketers dream.
As entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to attract more customers, it’s tempting to buy into the hype that social media is the answer to our lead generation problems. Now that we can access an audience in digital captivity, why not simply employ some marketing tactics and see what happens? No more waiting for potential customers to open the door or pick up the phone. Most of the doors are left unlocked in digital land and the lines of communication are open 24/7.
A tweet is as good as a flyer, only cheaper. A Facebook post can reach thousands in a fraction of the time it takes to make a single call. It costs far less to play, so why wouldn’t you?
I recently spoke to a prospective client who has built a thriving service business one satisfied customer at a time. Now that she is looking to scale, social media seems like the easiest and obvious place to start. She consulted with a company who advised her that they could grow her Twitter following, then channel those people to her website, providing her with instant leads and future clients.
Thinking that this might be the way to grow a sustainable business proves that we’ve taken a wrong turn—believing that social is the new way to do old marketing.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. You must be prepared to invest time to connect meaningfully with your customers (both existing and potential) whatever the channel; to help before asking, listen before selling and understand before pitching.
Just because they can hear you doesn’t mean they’re listening.
Image by Merlijn Hoek.
Questioning The Questions—The Truth About Your Data
You’ve probably been on one of those calls to a service provider where having pressed, one, then two, then one again and being on hold for fifteen minutes you finally get to speak to a human being. Sadly, the undervalued team member at the call centre is charged with doing his best to troubleshoot his way off this call and on to the next in the minimum amount of time, while trying to avoid escalating your enquiry to a call out.
Eventually with the appointment time booked (without written confirmation as there is no template in his system that allows him to send an email or text) the operator asks if you can, ‘hang on the line to answer a two question survey to rate his service today, which was hopefully ten out of ten.’
And the questions are as follows:
A. Did we solve your problem today?
Yes or no.
B. On a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to recommend us to family and friends?
10 being the, ‘without a doubt because you are so awesome score.’
This kind of quantitative data gathering is flawed on so many levels. The framing of the questions is designed to get the answer you’re hoping for, and not necessarily the right answer or the most useful answer—the one that’s going to help your business to improve and make customers rave about your service.
12 Questions To Help You Gather More Useful Data
1. What are we really measuring here?
2. Are we willing to be more wrong than right?
3. Does what we are measuring actually help us to serve the customer better?
4. Who is this data trying to please?
5. Why does this matter to the customer?
6. What does the customer want us to obsess about?
7. How does what we measure change the posture of our team for better or worse?
8. Are we asking the right questions in the right way?
9. How to we know that we’re asking the most useful questions?
10. Are we trying to get at the truth so we can fix something or are we trying to confound it.
11. If we could only measure one thing what would that be?
12. Why aren’t we already measuring that?
The most useful questions we can ask are often the ones that prove us wrong rather than right.
Image by IMF.
Why Did You Win?
Even when our innovation and marketing succeeds, we don’t always take the time to understand what’s working so that we can replicate it. We gratefully welcome and respond to prospective new customers every day, often without knowing how and why they showed up.
Five questions to get you started
1. How did your last customer find you?
2. What was she was looking for when she found you?
3. Why did she choose you?
4. What problem is she hoping you can help her to solve?
5. What part of the promise you made does she most want to believe?
The next sale comes from understanding how you made the first one.
Image by Geoffrey Forment.
Why Most Marketing Fails
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
It’s hard to communicate your value if you don’t know what the customer’s definition of value is. Most marketing fails because the marketer doesn’t understand the story his customer wants to believe, before he tells the story.
So the real estate agent starts describing the proximity to great schools, without knowing if the couple has any children and the balloon seller brings one of each balloon—just in case.
Before you explain where you’re coming from find out where your customer wants to go.
Image by Auntie P.
Re-imagining Your Business Growth Mindset
How is your business going to grow?
When we think about marketing we are usually thinking about tactics we can use to attract new customers. Our stories are often designed to make people who don’t notice or care to buy or switch. The other way to scale is to retain a customer—to gain both his loyalty and repeat business. This kind of customer becomes an advocate, often referring new customers.
What would the world look like if you spent all of your time, effort and money on delighting the customers you have? Now instead of trying to make your products and services meaningful to more people, you can make things that are meaningful to the people who matter. This way you spend your time doing work that’s worthy of your customer’s time, attention, money, loyalty and love.
7 Questions To Power Your Customer Retention Strategy
1. Who do we matter to?
2. What matters to him?
3. Why does he buy from us?
4. What makes him come back?
5. How does he want to feel?
6. What story could he tell someone to recommend us?
7. How can we improve on that story?
What we don’t know about the people we already know could be more valuable than we think.
Image by Al Hikes AZ.
Why You Need To Abandon The ‘Everyone’ Mindset
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
I recently got an email that began….
‘Hi everyone,’
I didn’t make it past the second word and your customers won’t either.
We are too busy, distracted, tired, wary, focused, selfish, savvy or [fill in your blank here], to care about something that’s for everyone. The only messages that get through are the ones that are intentionally created for you.
1970s TV adverts were for everyone. This was a time when a few big brand players garnered mass audiences, saturated the market and dominated. And while some brands are still playing that game, many more have carved out profitable niches by doing exactly the opposite and talking to ‘someone’ instead.
This thinking is not new of course, but it’s not been leveraged half as much as it should be.
One of the most renowned copywriters in advertising history Bob Levenson, who began his career at New York agency DDB in 1959 shared a little about his process:
“I always started by writing Dear Charlie, like writing to a friend. And then I would say what I had to say, and at the end I would cross out Dear Charlie, and I was all right.”
—Bob Levenson
Today Beardbrand generates $120,000 a month in sales by talking to someone.
Black Milk Clothing has built a community of evangelists and global brand by talking to someone.
The indie innovators of Flow Hive have raised $5 million and counting by telling a story to someone.
They didn’t start with the advantage of a huge marketing budget that enabled them to reach everyone. Where they each began was with a story that resonated deeply with the people who mattered. It worked because they were speaking just to them. And the flip side is you have to take time to know that someone before you can craft a meaningful message.
Image by David Phan.
What’s Your Customer’s Why?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
It’s true that people buy from companies they like. We feel an affinity with some brands and not others and our purchasing decisions reinforce our values. The Internet has given rise to a new kind of savvy, connected customer. She seeks out purpose driven brands whose ideals resonate with hers.
While it’s important to spend time working out why your business exists beyond profit making and how you create difference for your customers, it’s equally important to do the work of understanding your customer’s motivations, frustrations, values, hopes, dreams and desires.
How can you hope to sell something to someone if you don’t know who she is and how your purpose intersects with hers?
Image by Patrik Nygren.
Why Strategy Must Come Before Tactics
What’s the best time to send a tweet?
How do you develop a content strategy?
What’s the easiest way to drive traffic to your website?
How do you build a great landing page?
If you can ‘Google’ the question and get an answer does that give you an unfair advantage over your competitors?
Do you know of a single successful brand that thrived by focusing on the tactics, before understanding where implementing those tactics would take them?
It’s important to know where you are going and why, before you try to get there.
Don’t be afraid to ask the questions only you can answer.
Image by Ohad.
How Does Your Marketing Really Make People Feel?
filed in Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy
Imagine it’s a busy Thursday morning and you’re replying to the emails that came in overnight from people you were eager to hear from, when out of nowhere an unsolicited sales email interrupts your flow. Of course it’s just one email, it only takes a second to delete it, so where’s the harm in a business owner casting her net as wide as possible? After all someone might bite.
The problem we’re faced with as business owners and marketers is that just one email from lots of people trying to cut through the clutter creates more clutter. And people, (the ones you are hoping will become your customers) who are on the receiving end are jaded by it all. Here’s the email that landed in my inbox. How would it make you feel?
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Good Morning.
[You don’t know me, so who gave you permission to interrupt my day?]
In August we launched our 27th Annual edition of XYZ Magazine.
[Why should I care?]
XYZ magazine is a high quality “coffee Table” styled magazine, which is kept for many years.
[How does this help me?].
The 2014/15 issue is on Sale for a year at newsagencies, we also sell it at the XYZ Exhibition and the following year we give the magazine out to Brides attending the Exhibition, (while stocks last).
[What are you trying to sell me?]
So, In essence you are receiving three years of exposure for the price of one.
[How do you know ‘exposure’ to your readers is my problem?]
We are running a SPECIAL OFFER until the 18th of December 2014!
[This is not my emergency.]
No payments are due until 2015 and we can offer payment packages.
[You still haven’t told me what you’re selling and why it matters to me.]
The XYZ Exhibition will be held on the 1st of March 2015 at the XYZ Hotel.
[Not sure why I need to know.]
If you would like further information on XYZ please either email me or call me on………
[Delete.]
Have a lovely day.
[Do you mean that?]
—————————————————————————————————————————————
Traditional advertising and PR’s obituary is constantly written and re-written, but we’re so scared of being invisible that we continue to use marketing tactics that do nothing to help grow our businesses. What’s worse than being invisible is alienating people.
The best marketing leads with the customer’s story. Every one of us has the opportunity to do that and to practice empathy, even if we don’t have the budget for a beautiful two minute film.
[Update: Apparently the link doesn’t work in the US. This is an unofficial version without the original soundtrack.]
Image by Cedric Lange.
Why Visibility Is Overrated
“TRY OUR TAPAS” screamed the sandwich board on the pavement outside the empty restaurant as the customers spilled out onto the pavement waiting for tables at the cafe next door. True story.
One of my clients recently did a marketing audit and found that a third of his business came from repeat clients, another third from referrals, and the last third from all of his other marketing efforts combined (things like flyers, speaking engagements, magazines, advertising, sponsorship, radio and on and on). No surprises for guessing what he is doubling down on now.
We all need to look for opportunities to put that ‘y’ in front of ‘our’.
The people you are hoping will become your customers are tired of being asked to see you.
What they desperately want is for you to see them first.
Image by shirokazan.