Category Archives: Marketing

What Really Happens With Idea Adoption

Business Strategy, Marketing,

Seth Godin has a good post today on idea adoption. He calls it you’re not a slot, you choose a slot. It’s an important point: 

wikipedia technology adoption life cycle

Individuals choose a slot based on what sort of leadership or risk or followership behavior makes them happy right now. Early adopters and nerds like to go first. But some people are early when it comes to shoes, or to mystery novels, or records, while others adopt early when it comes to political ideas or restaurants.

Most of the time, most of us choose to be in the slot of mass. The masses wait to see the positive reviews, or they monitor the bestseller lists. The masses know they have plenty of time, that they’ll get around to it when they get a chance, and mostly, they are driven by what their peers (the early adopters, the ones who keep track of this stuff) tell them. “Why waste time and money on the wrong thing,” they argue, with some persuasion. So they wait for proof. Social proof or statistical proof.

I think it’s also a matter of which market, which product. For example, I’m sure I’m very early adopter on high-tech products, even if a bit less so now than I was 20 or 30 years ago; but I’m late on novels, television, and movies. What about you?

More important, Seth’s nice sense of timing. I sense how right he is with this, but I hadn’t seen it as clearly:

The glitch in the system is that many marketers obsess only about the launch. They put their time and money and effort into the first week on sale, and then run to work on the next thing, when in fact, the mass market, those that choose to wait for more than, “it’s new!” haven’t decided to take the leap yet.

That’s so true. And so easy to forget. Great post. 

Seductive Sales Copy: So Easy to Say, So Hard to Do

Marketing, Writing, ,

I just read How To Write Seductive Sales Copy Like Apple on Kissmetrics. Good stuff. See, I’m doing it. 

But, oh, yeah, it’s really hard. And it seems so easy when you look at it. Post author Henneke Duistermaat gives great examples, taken straight from Apple copy. Inspiring, but hard to do. 

For example: One big idea. Short, broken sentences. Stories. Analogies. 

Not for nothing: my post today on Up and Running is an ode to copywriting. 

Every Business — Yours Included — Really Needs a Market-Defining Story. Really.

Business Planning, Marketing,

Good market descriptions are rare. I write that as entrepreneur, consultant, and angel investor. I read more than business 100 plans, and watch 3-4 dozen business pitches, every year. Most of the market definitions I see are useless. So I really appreciate a good one. So I’m offering some tips on how to define a market right.

For example, I have a real case: HavePresence.com, a social media service one of my daughters operates. It’s market-defining story is this …

Terry loves her business, puts heart and soul into it, and is making it work. Sales are growing, customers are happy, the employees get it. Social media makes Terry nervous, though, because it feels like it’s important for growing the business, but, in Terry’s words, “who has time to run a business and mind social media too?” And that’s where Eugene Social comes comes in: we make time so Terry makes money. We don’t tell people what to do, or how to do it, because that’s really not hard. What we do is the part that is hard: we do the updates, the tweets, the retweets, the content curation, strategically and respectfully, so Terry can focus on the core of the business while the brand is building, traffic is generating, and somebody is taking the time to watch the amplified word of mouth going on in the social media.

The story defines the market several ways:

  1. It explains the need, or want, or, if you like jargon, the so-called “why to buy.” In this case it’s defined in part by what it isn’t: It’s not about selling knowledge, experience, and wisdom by the hour. It’s not built around a guru. Instead, it’s about doing, not knowing. It’s about getting things done in a business setting, and having time to do the right things, but not enough to do everything. It’s about time management, division of labor, and small business owners getting things done. There are millions of social media gurus, some of whom really know the territory. This story isn’t about knowing; it’s about doing. It’s about time.
  2. It defines the target customer. In this case it’s a defined subsegment of small business owners, specifically those who know that social media is good for business, but don’t have time to do it themselves. This too is defined in part by what it isn’t: The target market doesn’t include business owners who either do it themselves or have solutions in place. Furthermore, it doesn’t include business owners who don’t think it’s important.
  3. It leads to credible numbers. In this case, there are about 27 million businesses in the United States, about six million of them big enough to have employees, 21 million so small they don’t have employees, and only a million or so too big to be in this target market. From that big pie we would (if I were going into detail here) cut segments according to how many in social media, how many doing very well with it, how many just dabbling, and so forth. I’ll stop here, assuming you get the idea.
  4. It generates marketing messages, media, tactics, and programs.
  5. It communicates a market to somebody else, like to an investor, banker, partner, or employee.

Do you see what I mean by communicates? The real market isn’t some number, it’s that collection of people. Sure, the number is nice, once you know the people, but first you have to feel like these people actually exist, and the reason to buy exists, and that the people and the reason match up.

The statement “this is a $43 billion market” without a market-defining story means nothing to me. The story drills down to the nitty gritty or the number just annoys me. And I don’t think it’s just me. I’m often with groups of fellow investors, or groups of business plan competition judges, and I don’t think I’ve even met one who cares about the market number without a market-defiining story.

So, business owners, here’s your assignment: immerse yourself in your market-defining story.

And furthermore, if you’re going to be pitching to investors, make it good.

Can You Guess Small Business Owners’ Main Concern?

Marketing,

What keeps small business owners up at night? It seems so obvious. It’s the first guess anybody dealing with them would make. But here’s a survey that — to the extent any survey does — proves it. 

Thanks to Marketing Profs I found Constant Contact’s (the email marketing company) Small Business Pulse survey for 2012. And with the illustration below we see that what keeps small business owners up at night, their first and biggest concern, is getting more customers.

 

You can click on that link for a larger view of the original, or click here to download the full report. 

Aside: I added “to the extent that any survey does” above because we should never forget that surveys are only as valid as the way survey respondents were chosen and how well they actually represent the group they stand for. Stay skeptical. For example, another portion of this survey shows that the group favors email marketing over all other marketing tools … but then the survey was taken by an email marketing company, of the opinions of its own customers. So wouldn’t that selection tend to value email marketing higher than the average small business owners? 

In this case, however, the results sure do coincide with common knowledge and common wisdom. Are you surprised that small business owners are most concerned about attracting new customers? And their second concern is keeping the customers they already have? 

Second question: For the entrepreneurs in the crowd, thinking of starting a business … what does this tell you about the business offerings that will or won’t work for small business owners? 

Go Ahead, Search Me … and Give Me Better Info

Business Ethics, Marketing, , ,

What bothers me isn’t that Orbitz steers Mac users to pricier hotels, as WSJ.com reports; it’s that some people act like that’s somehow illegitimate, unfair, or deceptive.

I say, on the contrary, give people what they like.  Not everybody wants the cheapest hotel available. Many people prefer paying a bit more for something better. And what’s wrong with that?

The report:

Orbitz Worldwide has found that people who use Apple Inc.’s AAPL +0.22% Mac computers spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see.

So, just for the sake of argument, I like interesting restaurants with local and organic food, and I don’t mind paying the bit more that those restaurants cost. Am I mad at Yelp if it shows me those on the top of a search, instead of the fast foods and pizza? The Journal adds:

Orbitz found Mac users on average spend $20 to $30 more a night on hotels than their PC counterparts, a significant margin given the site’s average nightly hotel booking is around $100, chief scientist Wai Gen Yee said. Mac users are 40% more likely to book a four- or five-star hotel than PC users, Mr. Yee said, and when Mac and PC users book the same hotel, Mac users tend to stay in more expensive rooms.

Guessing what people want, based on what we know about them, is not a bad thing to do.  And it’s not like Mac users have to pay more for the same room, on the same night, booked at the same time; it’s a matter of guessing what they want to see. How is this bad?

We all routinely pay different prices for the same thing. We all know that airplane seats — to cite one obvious example — are priced in all different ways. It bugs me that I pay more for the trip I book at the last minute than the one I book in advance, but I don’t blame the airlines for that. And we can get last-minute hotel rooms cheaper, sometimes, than by booking in advance. This is pricing by context and value. I don’t like it when it’s me paying more, but then I always have the option of planning better. Or not going. Right?

I’ve been a Mac user since the beginning, and was a long-time consultant to Apple, although I like Windows too and use both. But I’ve always seen the Mac had some extra connotation. That’s interesting to me, and intriguing for marketing purposes. Like car brands, dining preferences, and fashion. We are what we buy.

How do you feel about this? Are you offended?

Big Mistake: Meaning Mismatch in Marketing

Business Mistakes, Marketing, , ,

Yesterday I discovered, to my surprise, that a good friend who does licensed massage therapy said she doesn’t think of herself as an entrepreneur.  In her mind, entrepreneurs want to get outside investment, hire employees, and grow their businesses fast. People like her think of themselves as self employed, sole proprietor maybe, small business owners probably. And those professionals, the doctors, lawyers, accountants and such, they don’t think of themselves as entrepreneurs either. I think of them all as entrepreneurs.  But what if they don’t?

Business mistake: What if you want to reach that larger group, and you address them as entrepreneurs in your marketing, but they don’t think of themselves that way? So most of the people you want to reach don’t ever realize you’re talking to them?

What about you? Official stats say there are about 27 million businesses in the United States and about 21 million of them have no employees. What’s an entrepreneur to you? There are only a handful, a few thousand, that meet that stiffer definition. What matters is whether the target potential customer self identifies into the group. If a business is aiming at one group and using a word that stands for the other, that’s a big mistake.

This isn’t just semantics. It’s not about language or definitions. It’s about the fundamentals of marketing.

In human communication, the listener assigns the meanings to the words. Not the speaker. You don’t get to tell the audience what your word means. They tell themselves.

That’s why so many marketing images show an arrow hitting a target. This kind of meaning mismatch is one really powerful way to miss.

(Image: bigstockphoto.com)

 

Marketing Plans vs. Business Plans: What’s The Difference, and Why Do You Care?

Business Planning, Marketing, ,

What’s the difference between a marketing plan and a business plan? Doesn’t a business plan include a marketing plan? Why would anybody do one without the other?

Good questions, and since I get them a lot, I decided to answer them here:

  1. A business plan covers the entire business, including overall strategy, financial plans, target markets, sales, products and services, operations, and how they all relate to each other. A marketing plan, in contrast, focuses on the marketing: marketing strategy, target markets, marketing mix, messaging, programs, etc. Cash flow is vital for a business plan, but not usually included in a marketing plan
  2. Yes, a business plan almost always includes the marketing portion. Emphasis varies, and I’ve seen some plans that focus much more on product or service than on marketing. But those are unusual.
  3. Lots of people do marketing plans rather than business plans because their job or their attention or their focus is on the marketing, not the whole business.

I wrote 5 steps to creating a marketing plan in one of my columns for entrepreneur.com. I’m including a summary here:

Step One: Your identity as a business.

Create separate lists that identify your business’ strengths, weaknesses and goals. Put everything down and create big lists. Don’t edit or reject anything.

Then, find priorities among the bullet points. If you’ve done this right, you’ll have more than you can use, and some more important than others. Kick some of the less important bullets off the list and move the ones that are important to the top.

This sometimes requires input from your managers as well. For example, your management team thinks being conservative on spending is a weakness but you don’t. That might be something to drop off the list.

Step Two: Focus on markets.

The next list you’ll need to make outlines your business’ opportunities and threats. Think of both as external to your business — factors that you can’t control but can try to predict. Opportunities can include new markets, new products and trends that favor your business. Threats include competition and advances in technology that put you at a disadvantage.

Also make a list of invented people or organizations who serve as ideal buyers or your ideal target market. You can consider each one a persona, such as a grandmother discovering email or a college student getting his or her first credit card. These people are iconic and ideal, and stand for the best possible buyer.

Put yourself in the place of each of these ideal buyers and then think about what media he or she uses and what message would communicate your offering most effectively. Keep your identity in the back of your mind as you flesh out your target markets.

Step Three: Focus on strategy.

Now it’s time to pull your lists together. Look for the intersection of your unique identity and your target market. In terms of your business offerings, what could you drop off the list because it’s not strategic? Then think about dropping those who aren’t in your target market.

For example, a restaurant business focused on healthy, organic and fine dining would probably cater to people more in tune with green trends and with higher-than-average disposable income. So, it might rule out people who prefer eating fast-food like hamburgers and pizza, and who look for bargains.

The result of step three is strategy: Narrow your focus to what’s most in alignment with your identity and most attractive to your target market. In other words, focus on the area that is shared by all three lines in the diagram here.

Step Four: Set measurable steps.

Get down to the details that are concrete and measurable. Your marketing strategy should become a plan that includes monthly review, tracking and measurement, sales forecasts, expense budgets and non-monetary metrics for tracking progress. These can include leads, presentations, phone calls, links, blog posts, page views, conversion rates, proposals and trips, among others.

Match important tasks to people on your team and hold them accountable for their successes and failures.

Step Five: Review often and revise.

Just as with your business plan, your marketing plan should continue to evolve along with your business. Your assumptions will change, so adapt to the changing business landscape. Some parts of the plan also will work better than others, so review and revise to accommodate what you learn as you go.

Could This Be You? One Great YouTube Launches a Startup

Creativity, Marketing, Starting a Business, True Stories, ,

CNET’s Rafe Needleman posted about DollarShaveClub.com yesterday and I picked it up this morning. It seems that the key to a successful launch was one extremely-well-done one-minute video on YouTube, which I’ve embedded here:

I find this inspirational. It’s fascinating how this one big hit can be so effective. How much would a couple of million views cost in the open market? I haven’t investigated the back story, but whatever that is, this is still one great piece of marketing.

Notice that, although it may be the work of a startup, there is nothing amateurish about this video. Its production values are very high. It’s funny, it’s engaging, but it’s also very strongly focused on a value proposition. I’d love to know background on how it was produced, and how much it cost. (And I’ll add that in if I get it).

This is great work, and a good reminder of how many new ways there are to package an old product, start a new company, and disrupt a market.

Do You Believe Your Analytics?

Business Mistakes, Business Research, Marketing

What I hate about analytics ia that sometimes numbers are wrong or misleading, but when they are numbers, we’re not supposed to argue. questions

I like analysis when it adds information and context to human decisions. What we have now as analytics available for marketing and web development is amazing, especially compared to the “olden days” in the 1980s and early 1990s when we used to just spend the money and guess. It’s a great luxury.

But not when it substitutes for human decisions. When we do A-B testing, or surveys, it’s too easy to get the research wrong because questions are posed wrong or because of other technical reasons. But so often the analytics are like gospel, not to be questioned.

Do it right. Use the analytics to help guide you. Don’t let them stifle your own creativity.

(image: shutterstock photo)