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  • Marketing: How to step outside the ‘bubble’

    Marketing: How to step outside the ‘bubble’

    Countless times in marketing strategy meetings, I have heard sentences beginning with and/or containing “I” or “my.”

    “I wouldn’t respond to/click on that.”

    “My friends and I thought the idea was great.”

    “That’s how I would do it/buy/respond.”

    Not wanting to invalidate a personal POV, especially from a boss or executive, many stay silent. And then carry out marketing plans according to the leader’s —sometimes personal— experience and wishes. [The ‘marketing’ department is then basically relegated to the role of a Kinko’s store – taking orders and creating collateral].

    You can see the problem here.

    We’re not marketing and selling to our (I’ll borrow Kissmetrics’ term here) “HiPPOs” (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion), we are attempting to message our customers. They are sometimes two very different things.

    [Or Avinash Kaushik coined the term. See also: Digital Marketing Analytics: Avinash Kaushik]

    Jamie Oliver’s story about trying to change eating behavior outside his cultural norm is a perfect example. It took some time to get to know the customer. And, of course, so should you.

    SO the next time you hear an “I” or “My” in a marketing meeting, try to see if you can’t change the subject to the customer, based on objective research.

    Referenced article is Eat Your Peas: A Recipe for Culture Change via Strategy+Business

    Photo: First Time Bubble by Serge Melki

  • Content may be king (but maybe not)

    Content may be king (but maybe not)

    You create great content. Incredible content. You spent hours putting together your website page, social platforms, compelling photos, well written articles. In short, you’re a content genius.

    But where’s the traffic?

    Turns out content isn’t king, or at least it isn’t the whole picture. (There is more by Blog Tyrant on this and I’ll share a link to the article in a second.)

    I think most of you know exactly what I mean.

    There’s a ton of noise out there. Unless you get a kick-start, such as a spend (that perhaps you can’t afford), or a chance mention on a popular website, it’s a whole different art to get folks to visit your creations.

    [See also Outstanding Free Marketing Tools…]

    So we post and post and look at our Google Analytics and still no traffic.

    Look, I don’t resort to click bait, I don’t believe in headlines that promise one thing then lead you into an unexpected page for the sake of traffic.

    However, to get more folks interested in what you are promoting it needs to be direct and catchy without too much detail. If you’re successful in getting their attention (or, stopping the scroll, as I put it) than you just might have a little more success in directing folks to your valuable content.

    We’ll go into more detail on that in another post — your landing page is also another discussion.

    Here is the link to the article I mentioned earlier, The Biggest Myth in Blogging: Why Content is Not King

  • ‘Best practices’ may not be best after all

    ‘Best practices’ may not be best after all

    “According to best practices…”

    How many times have we heard this hoary phrase? It can be especially interesting to hear when used as an one-note explanation for doing things a certain way. So, let’s take a step back.

    The Problem

    When someone states their position/request because it is “best practice,” the first question that—should—come to mind is, “According to whom?”

    A solution

    If you use “best practices” in a sentence, take ownership of this non-concrete term. “According to what I [understand/have read/have been told/just made up/etc.], this is my understanding of best practices.”

    [Also see Marketing Outside the Bubble]

    Don’t attribute it to the ubiquitous “they” or an “industry standard.” Also, be prepared to share the source(s). By owning your opinion, you can avoid a condescending and dismissive tone.

    Conclusion

    Best practices in any situation is subjective and should remain flexible. Better yet, don’t get lazy and throw a term around that has no meaning or relevance, as there really is no such thing.

    For more thought leadership on this in Forbes, read:  Best Practices – Aren’t where Mike Myatt @mikemyatt explains, “too much common management wisdom is not wise at all, but instead flawed knowledge based on a misunderstanding or misapplication of ‘best practices’ that often constitutes poor, incomplete or outright obsolete thinking.”

  • Why people quit their jobs

    Why people quit their jobs

    Why Do People Quit Jobs

    Imagine that you’re looking at your company-issued smartphone and you notice an e-mail from LinkedIn. “These companies are looking for candidates like you!” You aren’t necessarily searching for jobs, but you’re always open to opportunities, so out of curiosity, you click on the link. A few minutes later your boss appears at your desk. “We’ve noticed that you’re spending more time on LinkedIn lately, so I wanted to talk with you about your career and whether you’re happy here,” she says. Uh-oh.

    Why Attrition Matters

    It’s an awkward and Big Brother–ish scenario—and it’s not so far-fetched. Attrition has always been expensive for companies. But in many industries the cost of losing good workers is rising, owing to tight labor markets and the increasingly collaborative nature of jobs. (As work becomes more team-focused, seamlessly plugging in new players is more challenging.) Thus companies are intensifying their efforts to predict which workers are at high risk of leaving so that managers can try to stop them. Tactics range from garden-variety electronic surveillance to sophisticated analyses of employees’ social media lives.

    Some of this analytical work is generating fresh insights about what impels employees to quit. In general, people leave their jobs because they don’t like their boss. Or see opportunities for promotion or growth Or offered a better gig (and often higher pay). These reasons have held steady for years. New research looks not just at why workers quit but also at when. “We’ve learned that what really affects people is their sense of how they’re doing compared with other people in their peer group. Or with where they thought they would be at a certain point in life,” says Brian Kropp, who heads CEB’s HR practice. “We’ve learned to focus on moments that allow people to make these comparisons.”

    Read the rest of the article HERE.

  • Use big data to create value, not just targeting

    How Can We Best Use Big Data

    Another great article on big data from the folks (Specifically Niraj Dawar) at HBR. The gist? Targeting provides a short term advantage, creating value is long term. Read more.

    Big data

    Big data holds out big promises for marketing. Notably, it pledges to answer two of the most vexing questions that have stymied marketers since they started selling: 1) who buys what when and at what price? and 2) can we link what consumers hear, read, and view to what they buy and consume?

    Answering these makes marketing more efficient by improving targeting and by identifying and eliminating the famed half of the marketing budget that is wasted. To address these questions, marketers have trained their big-data telescopes at a single point: predicting each customer’s next transaction. In pursuit of this prize marketers strive to paint an ever more detailed portrait of each consumer, memorizing her media preferences, scrutinizing her shopping habits, and cataloging her interests, aspirations and desires. The result is a detailed, high-resolution close-up of each customer that reveals her next move.

    But in the rush to uncover and target the next transaction, many industries are quickly coming up against a disquieting reality. Winning the next transaction eventually yields only short term tactical advantage. It overlooks one big and inevitable outcome. When every competitor becomes equally good at predicting each customer’s next purchase, marketers will inevitably compete away their profits from that marginal transaction. This unwinnable short-term arms race ultimately leads to an equalization of competitors in the medium to long term. There is no sustainable competitive advantage in chasing the next buy.

    Read the rest HERE

    Niraj Dawar is a professor of marketing at the Ivey Business School, Canada. He is the author of TILT: Shifting your Strategy from Products to Customers (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013).