marketing
1,028 posts
What Do Your Customers Really Want?
There’s an Italian Cafe in our neighbourhood serving good coffee and speciality cakes. It’s jam-packed every single evening—not because people are hungry for cake, but because they are hungry for the feeling of being connected. They seek out the place that makes them feel that way. Howard Schultz re
The Cost Of Interruption
The web design firm can access thousands of contact details for newly registered domains each day. It’s easy from there to hire a bunch of poorly trained phone operatives (who are overqualified to do soulless work but need the money) to interrupt people. It’s possible to scrape, buy, trawl and inter
The Importance Of Customer Cues
Ira’s cafe is tucked away at the bottom of a narrow city centre laneway. Without regulars who live close by Ira’s place is dependent on converting tourists and weekend shoppers into diners. Every neighbouring cafe stations a host in the small doorway waiting for passers-by to make a decision. Ira ta
The Sustainable Marketing Strategy
The fast food restaurant’s latest advertising campaign announces the return of it’s famous $1 chips. Of course, the lure of the bargain will bring back people who have forgotten that this brand exists. Foot traffic will increase and revenue along with it—for a little while. The local organic store p
The Power Of Relevance
I recently got an email about an online service I’d once signed up for. The email detailed new product features. There was also a call to action. “It’s been 3.2 Years since you updated your profile.” This was the first time I’d heard from the company in over three years. I’d never once engaged with…
When Rational Sales Strategies Don’t Work
A couple of years ago Mrs Jones spent $12,000 to install a hydronic heating system. She hasn’t had the boiler serviced since. She politely refuses when the guy from the service department calls her to arrange an annual service for just $164. He pushes back a little, explaining about voiding the warr
The Essence Of Meaningful Ideas
Victoria Parade is the road that separates north Melbourne’s suburbs from the city. It’s a busy spot. The road is dotted at intervals with pedestrian crossings and used by cars, commuters and pedestrians alike. But the widest pedestrian path across the dual carriageway isn’t a planned pavement. It’s
The Value Of Customer Questions
Every day our customers give us clues about what’s important to them and what they really want. Often we ignore them. Questions like the one asked of a running shoe manufacturer, which was followed up with this response: “Thank you for your email regarding shoes for a mud run. Unfortunately, we don’
The Unspoken Problem With Traditional Marketing Campaigns And Product Launches
It’s not unheard of for an entrepreneur or organisation to send 10-20 emails during an online product launch. We all understand that part of the job of our marketing is as McKinsey puts it; “…is to reach consumers at the moments that most influence their decisions.” This is why you have no choice bu
Who Is The Story For?
Jane runs an upmarket souvenir shop in the heart of the city. It’s in the perfect spot, close to the four and five-star hotels, and full of tasteful gifts—reminders of good times had, and a little something that says ‘we were thinking of you’. In a digital world, her biggest problem is finding inter
The Forgotten Purpose Of Brand Stories
Most of what we describe as marketing and brand storytelling—what we do in order to grow our businesses, is designed to help us to find more customers. What if we flipped that thinking on its head and thought about our stories as the way we help people to find us? There’s a subtle difference. When…
Average Marketing
Average marketing….. Starts with the business’s emergency, not with the customer’s wants and needs. Focuses on short-term tactics, rather than on long-term business goals. Is designed to persuade not to connect, inspire or delight. Invites the customer to buy, instead of to belong. Speaks to everyon
Uncommon And Unmistakable
A colleague in the university sector was attending a marketing event. The presenter’s first slide showed a university’s promotional materials—complete with the typical ‘DREAM LARGE’ and ‘DESIGN THE FUTURE’ type tagline. He then polled the audience, asking if they knew which university it was. A ten
What Are You Here To Do?
When Deborah Thomas, newly minted CEO of Ardent Leisure, was asked if she knew how to operate a roller coaster, she probably gave an inward sigh along with her considered response. “I’m not here to operate the roller coaster; I’m here to make sure that people queue up and want to spend their money t
The Shortcut To More
It’s probably safe to assume that at some point in the past few months you’ve wondered how to get more traffic, customers, subscribers, Facebook likes, retweets, awareness, sales, exposure and on and on. Because the job of traditional marketing is to convince and convert, we are used to beginning ou
Why We Need To Think About Value Before Ideas
The cafe was tiny and packed. “What’s your revenue plan?” guy one asked. “To get more eyeballs to my site and then bring in the advertisers.” replied guy two. “Oh right.” said guy one, as he awkwardly looked away. 8 Questions to help you to focus on creating value 1. Who needs your product? 2.…
The Purpose Of Clever Packaging
If you love chocolate as much as I do you’ve probably heard about the Mast Brothers scandal. The artisan chocolate makers are accused of not being completely transparent about their process when they launched in 2007 and of pulling the wool over customers eyes with “clever packaging”. Transparency a
3 Things Your Product Story Must Do
When we market our products to customers we often use a persuasive tone designed to convince. We describe by leading with features and benefits. We try hard to give customers reasons to choose, forgetting that most purchasing decisions are not rational, but emotional. In short we forget why people b
The Power Of Posture
How is it that we can go into the same cafe two days running, order the same drink, pay the same price and yet leave feeling entirely different about the experience depending on the interaction we have with the person who is serving? Just as it’s possible for one yogi to hold a more graceful…
The Moments In Between
On a recent international flight, a colleague was upgraded from Business Class to First Class. The four cabin crew had only eight passengers to look after, so they could be extra attentive. The in-flight service was stellar. Everything happened quickly and smoothly, the menu was more varied and the
