Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

« Older Entries

It’s All About The Content

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Before the Internet and assorted digital marketing tools that followed, B2B marketers largely relied on print vehicles to convey their messages. These included magazines, newspapers, brochures, other promotional literature, public relations and various forms of event and direct marketing. They also used video to demonstrate product benefits and applications.

On the B2C side you could add television and radio. Both B2B and B2C, of course, also used plenty of personal sales and sales promotion. Naturally, smart marketers still integrate many of these media into today’s promotional mix, along with social, Web, mobile and other “new” media.

One thing that hasn’t changed, regardless of the media you use, is the importance of meaningful content. And although the term lately seems to be used primarily for digital media, the fact is that what you say and show – in any context – must convey value to your target audience or they will not consider doing business with you.

This means we must understand what it is our potential customers want to know and provide it to them in as many venues as possible, depending on how they wish to access it. That is the big difference between today and BI (Before the Internet). Marketers can no longer control the flow of information with any certainty, because the customers decide when and where they will seek answers.

When choosing the kind of content to provide your audience, the trick is to put yourself in their shoes. What are they really looking for? Facts? Figures? Comparisons? User reviews? Price and delivery? All of the above? Most likely, yes. However, they’re only gathering this information for one reason: To find a means to satisfy a perceived need. So unless you understand what that need is, you’ll be hard pressed to provide the kind of information they truly want.

What most customers are looking for, of course, are facts and feelings that justify their buying decision. This means that, just like in the pre-Internet days, the most powerful content is not a blatant sales pitch, but rather a demonstration of the value the customer will receive from your products and services, including:
• Case histories in print and on video that let customers see how one of their own benefits from doing business with you.
• White papers that present unbiased information customers can use to make an informed buying decision. Such information also positions your enterprise as an expert in its field and demonstrates that you have the customer’s best interests at heart.
• Testimonials that honestly support your customer satisfaction claims.
• Helpful facts, figures, performance or payback calculators that customers can use as they sift through the sea of data.

Where you place this information depends on the nature of your business and target markets. Clearly the majority of customers access this information via Web sites, social media, blogs and other digital venues. And the more information, videos, photos, downloads etc. you populate, the more likely the audience you seek – and the search engines – will find you.

A word of caution: Don’t discount the ability of traditional promotional vehicles such as PR, advertising and direct marketing, to make your audience aware of the helpful information you offer and where they can find it. Finally, eliminate printed product brochures and other literature at your own peril. There are likely a substantial number of potential customers who prefer their information served up on what we call “paper.”

Norman J. Vallone helps businesses achieve their goals by advising, training and empowering them to strategically market their products and services. You can contact him via email: njv@njvallone.com or by calling 937-272-2051.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Want Good Advertising? More Questions To Ask Yourself

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

In last month’s column I shared some thoughts about building a solid marketing platform for creating effective advertising. I suggested you begin by answering a few fundamental questions:

1. “What do I want to accomplish with this ad?”
2. “Who is the audience for this message?”
3. “What does my audience want or need that my product or service will satisfy better than any competitor?”
4. “What do I want the audience to do after they see or hear this ad?”

These answers help you develop a strong framework for your creative process. Please note that “creative” is not used here as a synonym for “graphic design.” Although design is a critical component, an effective ad is more than photography, illustration, typography or color choices. And while TV, radio, Internet video and other media provide the opportunity to reach your audience with sound, movement and special effects, good advertising involves seamlessly blending ideas and imagery to convey a compelling message.

So the first step in the creative process is to determine precisely what your clear, concise and compelling message is. Once the message is firmly established, you have a creative platform on which to build. Now you can combine the words, visual and aural elements that best present your message to the chosen audience.

Personally, I believe that the creative process is a bit of a mystery. You can read books and articles that espouse various creative formulae and, no doubt, these work for some practitioners. However my experience is that creative people must find their own methods and, in fact, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Moreover, the real issue is not how you get there, but rather how effective the finished ad achieves your advertising objectives.

To that end, here are a few key questions I ask when evaluating the advertising we create for our clients:

1. Will the intended audience clearly understand the benefits this product provides to them? Your customers don’t buy from you because they think your ads are clever. They are also unimpressed with your product’s newest bells and whistles, unless they can clearly see value for themselves. So be certain that you translate features into benefits, and don’t obscure your message with distracting visual or other effects. Again, all of the elements in your advertising should work together harmoniously to convey the value message.

2. Does the ad use language that the customer understands? There may be technical or scientific reasons why your product is superior, but unless you present these facts in easy-to-understand words and images, your audience may simply ignore them. This doesn’t mean “talking down” to your audience. It means using everyday language, just as you would if you were explaining your product’s benefits to your friends and neighbors. And although there may be justification for more technical terms in B2B situations, remember that these business people are human beings, too.

3. Can you keep the promises you make in the ad? The worst thing an advertiser can do is to get a customer excited about the rewards of a product or service and then fail to deliver. It should be common sense, but overstating a product’s performance is one of the quickest ways to alienate customers. And if the product is as good as you claim, please make sure you have enough inventory to meet the demand. Remember: in today’s world of instant digital communications and multiple social media platforms, bad news travels incredibly fast.

4. Are you insulting your audience? Granted, you want to capture the attention of your audience, and sometimes that calls for doing something outrageous. However, making your intended customer the butt of a joke, or having them appear inept may well backfire. There are, indeed, circumstances in which the customer can see the humor in his or her own shortcomings, as gently portrayed in an ad. However, making your customer look ridiculous, or portraying them harshly can easily send the audience elsewhere.

Of course we all draw on our own experiences when deciding whether or not an ad is worthy of carrying our company’s name and reputation. If you’d like to share some of your thoughts on creating effective advertising, send them to me so I can pass them along in a future column.

Norman J. Vallone helps businesses achieve their goals by advising, training and empowering them to strategically market their products and services. You can contact him via email: njv@njvallone.com or by calling 937-272-2051.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Want Good Advertising? Ask Yourself These Questions.

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Seen any good advertising lately? Neither have I. Well, to be fair, there are some good ads out there. The problem is, there are far too many really bad ones. “But wait,” you say, “There’s that really funny one about some car and the one with the cool computer graphics…” Yes, but do you remember the advertiser’s name? Do you know what the marketing message was? And most important: Did it make you consider buying what they were selling? No? Then the ad was a failure.

The fact is, creating good, effective advertising is more complicated than it looks. It takes skilled craftspeople to do so consistently well and, unfortunately, not every advertiser understands this. Sad to say there are also some so-called “professionals” who, frankly, should not be practicing the art of advertising. Then there are the talented designers or graphic artists who are forced to work in a vacuum and who could really use marketing guidance and the help of a creative writer to balance their efforts. And pity the one-person “communications” or “marketing” department in a small enterprise who is given the responsibility for creating advertising, but whose skills lay elsewhere.

So how can you help the people working on your marketing communications create good advertising that gets results? Well there’s no shortage of rules, opinions and formulae expressed by past and present advertising luminaries. You can certainly learn from these master craftspeople and may pick up some techniques that will serve you well.

However, without a sound marketing foundation upon which to build your advertising, you may still fail spectacularly. So before you think about copy, art or production values, please ask yourself four very important questions:

1) “What do I want to accomplish with this ad?” Yes, of course, you want your audience to buy your product, service, or argument, or donate to your cause. However, depending on what it is you’re selling, your objective will likely be to move the audience along the path to the sale in one or more of these ways: by informing (“Introducing a new, safer way to get a good night’s sleep.”), persuading (“Here’s why you’ll get at least 5 more miles to the gallon than with any other gasoline.”) or reminding (“You’ll love it just as much today as you did when you were a kid.”). With your objectives firmly defined, you’re less likely to get off track as you develop the ad.

2) “Who is the audience for this message?” Again, without a clearly understood target in site, your ad can easily miss the mark. Age, gender, income level and many other factors will influence choice of words, colors, typography, music, images and other creative elements. The answer to this question will also give you the information you need to choose the best media channels for your advertising.

3) “What does my audience want or need that my product or service will satisfy better than any competitor?” Obviously this is the key to your marketing message. For example, are you selling safety and peace-of-mind through your alarm systems and monitoring service? If so, what sets you apart from the other security companies? Is your system proven more reliable? Can you guarantee faster response times? Do you have useful technology that no one else offers? The more your message differentiates you from the competition while addressing the needs of your audience, the more powerful your advertising will be.

4) “What do I want the audience to do after they see or hear this ad?” Come to your store? Go to your Web site? Call for a free estimate? This is, of course, the “call for action” that every ad should have. Since it is quite often found at the very end of the ad, you may think it’s premature to worry about it at this point. On the contrary. When you know what the end game is, you can better structure the ad to make the call for action a logical next step.

Once you have the answers to these fundamental questions, you’re ready to begin the creative process. And that’s the subject for another column.

Norman J. Vallone helps businesses achieve their goals by advising, training and empowering them to strategically market their products and services. You can contact him via email: njv@njvallone.com or by calling 937-272-2051.

Tags: ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

A Marketing Education

Friday, July 29th, 2011

Recently I was a guest on WHIO radio’s Marketing Advisor program (Saturday afternoons from 4:00 – 5:00). A listener called with a question toward the end of the broadcast that we didn’t have time to answer properly on the air, so I’d like to address it now. The question concerned the importance of having a degree in marketing.

Like most seemingly obvious questions, this one requires further information before giving a precise answer. Does the caller want to limit her career to marketing? Is she more interested in eventually rising to be the CEO of a substantial enterprise? Would she like to run her own company some day? Without the answers to these and other questions, the best I can do is offer some general thoughts which, by the way, CEOs and business owners might find useful when interviewing a candidate for a marketing position.

Formal education is, indeed, important. However, I think we put far too much emphasis on having a specific major. I’ve worked with many CEOs and other business leaders whose education ranged from business administration, finance, law, marketing or economics, to engineering, education, physics, English literature and fine arts. Overall, I can’t say those with business-specific degrees were any better leaders, made better decisions or were any more successful than the others. Frankly I think being a successful business leader is more about your personal values, skills and personality. Education is, of course, important as a foundation. However, it’s how you apply that knowledge that separates the exceptional from the mediocre.

Most enterprises need people with specific capabilities to address financial, legal, technical or other important areas. Marketing, however, is concerned with a wider assortment of the most important aspects of the business including:

• Defining the true purpose of the business
• Understanding the relationship between the company’s products and services and those who buy and use them
• How the firm’s customers go about making their purchase decisions, where they look for information and how well the products and services align with a customer’s wants, needs and demands
• Developing the right pricing and value proposition
• Ensuring that the company’s distribution structure makes it easy for customers to do find and buy their products
• Establishing customer support systems that build a strong relationship with and retain good customers
• Projecting an authentic image of the company that establishes credibility with the customer

Given this range of responsibilities, it seems to me that a serious marketing person must have a broad-based education. Do you need to understand the fundamental principals of marketing and management? Yes of course! But you also need to understand people – how they think, what motivates various behaviors, how they react to different stimuli. So in addition to marketing and other business courses, I think you need a hearty helping of humanities, especially sociology and psychology. I also recommend a heavy dose of art and literature to stir your own creative juices and to give you a better understanding of the creative efforts of those who craft your promotional messages. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt to write, speak and present well, either.

Obviously, all that you learn throughout your college experience is merely the root from which your education grows. Much of what you learn in your business classes will be obsolete or at least greatly altered in a very short time after you graduate. Moreover, the world in which we live continues to change at an increasingly faster pace. This means the ways in which your customers interact with your business are constantly evolving. Want proof? Then ask yourself: Is marketing today different than it was in the era of the TV show “Mad Men”? Has the American way of life changed since 9-11? Of course. Which means anyone in the filed of marketing – or any other aspect of business – must never stop learning.

So get a good, well-rounded education and commit yourself to continuously learning and developing as a professional and as a person throughout your life. And when you hire others, look beyond the words on their degree to see their true value.

Norman J. Vallone helps businesses achieve their goals by advising, training and empowering them to strategically market their products and services. You can contact him via email: njv@njvallone.com or by calling 937-272-2051.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Social Media For B2B

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

A concern I often hear from clients and others these days goes something like this: “As a business-to-business company we’re struggling with how to use social media effectively. We’re on the popular sites, but I don’t know that they’re doing us much good. I wish we knew which ones to use and which are a waste of time.”

Like any good counselor my first response is to ask a question, “What, precisely, do you hope to achieve through social media?” The top four answers I hear are (1) “More sales, of course,” (2) “Get our name out there,” (3) “I don’t know exactly, but everybody says we have to do it,” (4) a blank stare.

None of which, of course, is the right answer.

Social media is simply one more tool we can use to achieve our marketing objectives. However it’s a newer tool and one that is changing daily, which makes things a bit confusing. Nonetheless it’s still critical to have clear goals for your social media program and to think strategically (long term) rather than tactically (short term).

Much like effective networking, social media is about giving to get. It’s about sharing, not selling. Social media exists because people want to share information with others. Most traditional marketing channels have long focused on pushing a message out to an audience and many still do. That’s not the role of social media. If you look upon it as simply another advertising or PR channel, you won’t get the most out of it. In fact, you’re likely to turn off your intended audience.

What you can do through these platforms is engage your audience in a conversation about your company, its products or services, and provide information that is of value to the audience (by their definition, not yours). If they enjoy the conversation and believe it has value you will establish and strengthen the bond between you. And because we tend to buy from people we know, like and trust…well you know the rest.

So what are reasonable objectives for your B2B social media program? Here are just a few to consider:

• Monitor online conversations about your company, products and services. Being aware of what people are saying about you presents the opportunity to engage in the conversation. Don’t have time to stay on top of all the various sites? Use Google Alerts to regularly receive a report to your email “in” box of online mentions of your company, products and services. Let’s say a customer is unhappy and complaining to the online community. By stepping in and attempting to satisfy the customer you can build credibility – not just with one customer, but also with all those following the conversation.

• Keep an eye on the competition. In the same way you can track mentions of your key competitors to gather intelligence for developing marketing strategies, learn what they are doing well and not so well, and even uncover opportunities on which you can capitalize. For example, one of my clients picked up complaints of slow delivery of certain products by a major competitor. By making potential customers aware that they had the same products available for immediate delivery, my client enjoyed an immediate bump in business and won several new accounts.

• Enhance Search Engine Optimization. By establishing an ongoing presence in one or more of the leading social media sites (and through blogging), you increase awareness among search engines. Although the rules of SEO engagement are always changing, in general the more Internet presence you create, the higher your SEO profile.

A final bit of advice: Once you determine your goals for social media, don’t try to jump into every platform. Figure out which one or two are best fits and concentrate your initial efforts there. Remember what Mom told you: “Better to do a few things well than a lot of things poorly.”

Norman J. Vallone helps businesses achieve their goals by advising, training and empowering them to strategically market their products and services. You can contact him via email: njv@njvallone.com or by calling 937-272-2051.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

How Clearly Do You Communicate?

Friday, May 13th, 2011

Marketing professionals know that promotional messages should be clear, concise and compelling. Why? To (1) grab your audience’s attention (2) quickly register your main point, and (3) motivate the potential customer to take action.

Pretty simple, isn’t it? Yet how often do we ignore these fundamentals – not just in advertising, but in all business writing? The point is, whether you’re crafting marketing messages or other business communications, the reader should understand exactly what you mean – whether he or she is the intended audience or not.

Remember: As an executive or business owner, anything you write may be read by one or more of the many publics with which you communicate. These include customers, employees, associates, vendors and the various communities you touch. If you’re a publically held company you can add shareholders, financial analysts and the business press to the mix.

All of these audiences are important to your continued success and, thanks to the omniscient world of digital communications, anything you say to one individual or group may well end up being heard and seen by many (think: Twitter, YouTube, texting, e-mail, etc.). Add to this our society’s ever-diminishing attention span and you can see how clear, concise, compelling communication becomes even more important.

Here, then, are a few writing tips to help you get your points across more effectively.

Use plain language. Ever since a well-meaning English teacher encouraged us to expand our vocabularies, we’ve delighted in using “big” words or phrases where often a simpler one will do. Instead of saying your product applies to “a homogeneous market,” for example, simply say that the people who buy your product share many common traits.

Avoid wordy sentences. Unlike Charles Dickens you aren’t being paid by the word, so try to say things as economically as possible without losing the meaning. Instead of “In order to make this happen…” try “To do this…”

Don’t sacrifice clarity for brevity. Although you want to be as concise a possible, it’s equally important to provide enough information for the reader to understand precisely what you mean. This is especially true in brief exchanges on social sites or via email.

Read before you send. The quotation, “If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.“ is attributed to various sources including Mark Twain and Blaise Pascal. Regardless of the origin, it is painfully true. Clear, concise writing requires time to re-read and edit your words. This step also allows you to correct embarrassing typos, spelling and grammatical errors.

Cut to the chase. How many times have you read an opening sentence like this? “I’m writing you today to tell you about some important changes to…” Better to say: “Here are some important changes to…”

Avoid jargon. There may be times when it’s acceptable to use industry shorthand among peer groups, but not for the broader audience. One software developer writing to another might say that a new application is “backward migratable,” but most of us simply want to know that the latest release lets us open documents created with the previous version.

Be active, not passive. Wherever possible use the active voice in your communications. “Bill Wilson made an important presentation at Tuesday’s staff meeting,” is a clearer, stronger statement than “At Tuesday’s staff meeting, an important presentation was made by Bill Wilson.”

Communicating clearly and effectively does take a bit more time but it will, I assure you, pay for itself. How? By increasing productivity from your employees as they carry out tasks correctly with a clear understanding of your expectations. Through greater sales because your customers clearly see the benefits your company offers. And by reducing interruptions to your workday by people asking you to clarify your messages.

Norman J. Vallone helps businesses achieve their goals by advising, training and empowering them to strategically market their products and services. You can contact him via email: njv@njvallone.com or by calling 937-272-2051.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Why Branding Is Still Important

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

I received an email this morning that included six prominent social media logos along with the logo of the sender. It took me a moment to determine who actually sent it, which I found a bit annoying. But it also got me thinking that as the number of marketing channels we use to interact with our customers proliferates, how important it is that we don’t lose our brand identity along the way. I’m not just talking about our logo or clever tagline, although these are significant parts of the equation, I’m referring to the totality of our various publics’ connections to our company.

Your brand, after all, is everything that creates a perception with your audience of who and what you are, and it resides only in their minds. It’s the sum of what they know and feel about your products, services and values. It evolves with every touch your customer experiences, from the voice on your company’s phone, the look of your Web site, your promotional messages, the professionalism of your salespeople and, of course, the performance of your products.

You’ve heard it repeatedly: People make purchasing decisions based on their perceptions of the company and its products. And typically they prefer doing business with people and companies they know, like and trust. So if they recognize your brand (know), have a positive perception of what you’re all about (like) and have no reason to doubt what you say (trust), you’re in the running.

The more positively your customers perceive your brand image, the greater your brand equity. And brand equity is real. Just ask megabrands like McDonald’s whose former CEO once commented “If every asset we own, every building, every piece of equipment were destroyed in a terrible natural disaster, we would be able to borrow all of the money to replace it very quickly because of the value of our brand. The brand is more valuable than the totality of all of these assets.”

Unfortunately, many companies don’t have a well thought out brand strategy. Instead, they allow their brand image to develop haphazardly. This is extremely dangerous. Equally alarming is the inconsistency of brand messaging that often runs through the various channels we use to interact with our customers. How consistent are your brand messages? Consider just some of the possibilities:

• Personal sales
• Direct marketing
• Customer service
• Technical support
• All forms of advertising
• Public relations
• Sales promotion
• Internet sites
• Social media
• Product placement

It’s vital to your brand equity that the customer has a clear, consistent image of your enterprise. That’s where brand strategy comes in. When we work with clients to develop these strategies, we begin by asking the client a series of questions including: “What is the purpose of your company?” Once we get past the boilerplate mission statement answer that usually sounds something like: “To be the leading supplier of widgets to the XYZ industry, return value to our shareholders, respect our employees, be clean, reverent and brave…” we drill down to help the client define themselves in terms of value to their customers. Then we move on to differentiation, company values and more.

Only when we’ve worked through these and other critical foundation issues are we ready to discuss brand names, logos, taglines and promotional messages. As well as how many social media logos to include in their emails.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

The Marketing Power Of The Millennials

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Much is written about the impact of the Millennial Generation (Generation Y) on the workforce. Admittedly, observers and writers tend to generalize about these Echo Boomers’ sense of entitlement, the consequences of being raised by “helicopter parents” and other issues. Nonetheless, the attitudes and expectations of these new kids in the cubicles must be acknowledged, even if at odds with prevailing corporate culture.

According to those who study such things, including Pew Research and Lifecourse Associates, these are some of the signature traits of this generation:

• Their opinions have always been as valuable as those of their parents and other authority figures, so they expect you to listen and give weight to what they say, despite their lack of experience.
• In their world, there are no “failures” or “losers.” Everybody is a winner; some just win more than others. After all, everyone gets a trophy just for playing the game.
• Mom and Dad are always there for them to fall back on.
• Computers, the Internet, cell phones and social media are a fundamental part of life, not simply technology tools. And they are always on.
• Opinions and decisions are made through collaboration with “friends” – often online or via mobile devices, not through study, reflection, analysis, processing and formulation.
• If they don’t get what they want from the workplace they’ll move on. Possibly after Mom & Dad give you a call to straighten you out.

For many CEOs, particularly those of the Baby Boomer generation, much of this is perplexing. The most common CEO profile, after all, (and, yes, this is another generalization) is that of a highly competitive, goal-oriented individualist. These leaders typically gather input from others – even if only to make them feel included – analyze it and then make their own decisions. Making decisions by truly collaborating with others is not their natural inclination.

Which brings us to the marketing potential of social media and the Millennials – both as employees and as customers. Many senior executives struggle with social media because it is diametrically opposed to the ways companies have traditionally promoted their products and services. However, it’s a perfect fit for Millennials.

Social media is not about telling and selling. It’s about building community and trust over time. Millennials have grown up with a strong sense of collaboration and thrive in a collegial and social environment in which their opinions matter. If they truly believe in your organization, products and services they can help build trust in your brand.

In practice this means making sure you integrate social media throughout your marketing strategies and not treat it as a stand-alone activity. It also means utilizing those employees most proficient and comfortable with new media, many of whom will be part of the Millennial Generation.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Do Your Customers Feel The Love?

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

Why do people buy whatever it is you sell? Well, we know that our customers go through a time-honored series of steps when they make a buying decision, and the first of these is recognizing a felt need. The word felt is significant because we all (or at least those of us not living in a continuous state of denial) realize that much of what we “need” is really something we simply “want.” The great thing about a free society, of course, is that we alone get to determine the difference between our “wants” and “needs.”

Having justified the need to ourselves, we move into the next phase of the buying process in which we more specifically define the object of our desire. “OK,” we tell ourselves, “I need to get from point “A” to point “B” and it’s too far to walk, so I need some other means of transportation.” We consider the alternatives: public busses, taxicabs, bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles. Then we likely do some research to help us narrow our choices. This may include asking the opinions of trusted friends, family and colleagues; searching online or, for even (gasp) visiting the library.

Once we’ve decided on a car as a solution we’ll do some more research to determine the best option. Should we get a minivan? An SUV? Maybe a convertible sports car? And from which dealer shall we purchase? There will be many logical reasons for our final decision. We’ll sift the facts and figures and come to a final buying decision.

Now, many will argue that this is a very reasonable and fact-based approach to making this determination. I won’t argue that point. However, when it comes to the final choice it will almost always be based on emotion. Sure, we weigh all of the facts and we try to make the most reasonable choice. But in the end it comes down to how it feels.

If we choose the sports car, we do so because we FEEL we deserve to have a little fun. If we choose a bare-bones compact we do so because it makes us FEEL socially responsible, frugal and practical. Choosing a minivan usually makes us FEEL like we’re a responsible parent, and so on.

It’s no different in the business-to-business arena. Many years ago when data processing was strictly the province of huge, centralized, mainframe computers (yes, back at the dawn of time there were no PCs) you could buy your computer system from companies like RCA, Wang and SCM. The 800 lb. gorilla in the industry, of course, was IBM. They had more installations, people and experience than anyone else. So if you were responsible for making the multi-million dollar purchase decision for your company, you’d dutifully go through the requisite research and analysis. Then you’d likely ask yourself the most important question: “What happens to me if I make the wrong decision?” Realizing that one’s career was on the line, most purchasers opted to select the company with the strongest track record and reputation. Hence the emergence of an oft-heard phrase: “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.”

You can argue that the above represents a very logical decision, but the motivation was clearly an emotional one called “fear.” Fact is we all make our buying decisions for emotional reasons and then we use intellectual arguments to justify the purchase. Couple this with the well-accepted concept that people tend to buy from those they know, like and trust, and you, Mr. or Ms. CEO or business owner, should ask yourself a simple but incredibly important question: “How do my customers FEEL about my company, our products and our services?”

Tags: , ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

Are You Naughty Or Nice?

Thursday, December 16th, 2010

Just in time for the 2010 holiday shopping season Consumer Reports (consumerreports.com), the venerable watchdog for the American shopper, published a list of “nice” retailers and another list of “naughty” ones. The criteria that determined on which list a company fell had to do with return and exchange policies. As most of us know, these policies vary greatly from one merchant to another. Some retailers, such as Kohl’s have very liberal policies that make it easier for their customers to do business with them. In fact, it’s a marketing strategy they’ve been leveraging of late in their advertising. Other retailers? Not so much.

At the top of the “naughty” list is Macy’s (macys.com), the Cincinnati-based, national department store chain. According to Consumer Reports, not only does Macy’s have strict policies on in-store returns, but they also apply flat-rate return shipping charges for online purchases. Contrast this with top-of-the-“nice”-list Zappos (zappos.com) that has a “no questions asked” policy and no charge for return shipping.

No doubt many retailers would argue that they need some degree of protection against theft and fraud, which is why they institute return and exchange policies. However, these merchants must also consider what these policies – and any savings that result from them – may be costing them in consumer good will.

But there’s a bigger picture to all of this. Whether your enterprise is business-to-consumer or business-to-business, how easy or difficult are you making it for customers to do business with you? How many barriers have you built into your organization? Would you do business with someone like you? Maybe you’d better find out.

For example, it makes no difference whether you have a bricks-and-mortar facility, are online, or both. People come to you to solve some sort of problem, or to fulfill some other need. Do you make it easy for them to find what they need? Or do you make them jump through a series of hoops? In a physical plant, this calls for well-thought-out, easy to see signage. It also helps if employees know the facility intimately, and look out for customers who need a little extra help finding things.

On a Web site, it means designing navigation that is intuitive and obvious, not hidden amongst an endless array of pull down menus, pop-ups, animations and other clutter. By the way, does your landing page tell visitors precisely what you offer? Or must they figure it out for themselves?

And how about making a purchase? If you’re a retail store, do you force your customers to wait in endless lines only to find that the checkout grinds to a halt because the scanner won’t recognize a UPC symbol? If you’re an online realtor, are there redundancies in your checkout process that drive your customers up the wall? If they have discounts coming or shipping and taxes to be added, do they have to wait until they’ve already submitted the order to learn what their total cost is? Worse yet, do you subject them to a time limit to complete their transaction, so they may have to start all over again if it takes too long to find the security code on their credit card?

I won’t even go into the many sins committed against customers by automated telephone systems, outsourced “customer support” or badly trained customer service personnel.

Knowing that it’s harder than ever to find and retain good customers, I urge you to please take a good look at your operation and do all you can to make sure your customer would place you firmly on the “nice” list.

Tags: ,
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

« Older Entries