Filed under: Advertising
I was watching this season’s first episode of Wipeout the other night. (Incidentally, if you’re not watching this show, you should check it out)
Since I was watching on a DVR, I was about to fast forward a commercial when they did something I had never seen before. They were going to commercial and said, “Stay tuned during the commercials for some never before seen Wipeout footage.” Then, halfway through the ads there were a few clips that hadn’t been on the show.
Is this the next attempt of TV advertisers to hang on to some sort of relevance?
Will we see more shows putting outtakes, unseen footage, or even essential plot elements in the middle of ads in an effort to keep people watching? Do you think it’ll work?
By the way, I just fast forwarded to the clip, watched it and fast forwarded the rest of the ads.
Filed under: Marketing
Recently I heard of an industry competitor planning some “aggressive marketing campaigns” that would be launching today. They did, in fact launch, but not in the “aggressive” fashion that I expected.
What the person telling me meant was not an aggressive marketing strategy, but an expanded strategy.
Reach or spam?
To me, when someone tells me that there is an aggressive campaign coming, it means that they are going to the edge. Maybe they’re targeting a competitor and really going after them. Aggressive means they are taking some chances and pushing the envelope.
What they meant was they are getting aggressive and putting out a lot of marketing. Ads, banners, web ads, you name it. They’re getting aggressive by making sure you can’t turn around without seeing them…whether you want to or not.
How is that different than spam?
If you’re going to “get aggressive,” then get aggressive. Call out a competitor. Showcase your advantages. Try something new or different. Take a chance.
Don’t just churn out more crap marketing and call it aggressive. If you believe that’s the way to succeed, then I’ve got an email explaining how you can claim an inheritance in India.
Filed under: Marketing
It’s no secret that it’s cheaper and easier to keep current customers than to find new ones.
An extension of that for many businesses is that their most successful form of marketing is through their current customers. Call it recommendations, word of mouth, even viral…the concept’s the same. People will trust their friend’s (your customer’s) opinion far more than any piece of marketing you send them.
This leads numerous companies to figure out how they can “get” their customers to talk about them. Many times this looks like trinkets/cards or other collateral that they can pass on to their friends.
It seems to me that a better tactic would be to give them something worth telling their friends about.
Make their experience with your company so great that they can’t help but tell their friends.
It’s probably cheaper than a bunch of keychains.
I read this post today by Todd Henry at Accidental Creative. (As an aside, if you’re not listening to his podcast or reading his blog…you should be!)
He references the following picture that he saw while driving around his town the other day.
His contention is that, when you are asking for a great level of trust (such as turning your kids over to someone) you need to present an image worthy of that trust.
I couldn’t agree more. I think that the first step toward earning this trust, no matter the context, is quality design.
Too often, people/companies create something like that sign for their website, their marketing collateral, their tradeshow booth, or numerous other things. They make something functional, rather than appealing.
Is that sign functional? Absolutely. It tells you the number to call if you need childcare with weekend pickup. It functions to give passerby the message the owner wants to distribute. But, by simply being functional, the sign fails to build a level of trust necessary to achieve the outcome the owner may hope for.
It’s the same with all other parts of your business. You can build a website that “gets the job done.” Or, you can put the time in to make something that presents the image that you can be trusted. Plus, that same level of design can go beyond simply trust and become desire. It can take someone from feeling comfortable at the thought of working with you to wanting to work with you.
Sure, there’s more to it than than as the relationship builds, and you’ll have to keep earning that trust, but that’s the first step. Like they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Do you really want that impression to be “functional” or “good enough?”
Filed under: Marketing
Earlier today I saw a blog post for a charity that was promoting a new DVD they are offering….well, sort of. What they were doing was saying they would send you the DVD as a thank you for any donation you make to them.
Now I know that cause marketing is nothing new and this is not a new way to raise money for a charity, but something about it has stuck with me.
The thing is, while the DVD interested me, I don’t know if I would have bought it. Now, I donated $15 to the charity following this offer and as soon as I hit the “pay” button I started wondering if I would have paid $15 if I had seen the DVD in the store.
Probably not.
But, when packaged as a “thank you” for a donation to a cause I believed in, I did so without giving it a second thought.
Like I said, this isn’t anything new, but I just feel like there’s something there. A way to sell something without someone feeling like they bought it.
Filed under: Technology
So, by now, everyone has heard the buzz about the Kindle 2. In fact, now there’s even rumors of Kindle 3. (Gotta love the life cycle of technology!)
Take this for what you will, since I’ve never even played with a Kindle, let alone owned one.
I think the concept of having it read to you is great. Sure, it doesn’t replace audio books, but it’s still a pretty interesting feature – especially when you take it from the standpoint of a person with vision impairment.
What I would really like goes to the heart of how I read a non-fiction (usually business) book. When I read, I do so with a highlighter firmly in hand. I mark up passages, thoughts, concepts that resonate with me. Then, even though I’m WAY behind, I like to pull those highlighted sections out and summarize the book somewhere for easy reference. This allows me to smash concepts from different books together and hopefully come up with ideas.
So, what I’d really like from the Kindle goes to that practice. I know you can “highlight” sections of a book…and this has supposedly gotten easier on Kindle 2. I would love it if, once you finish a book, you can connect the Kindle to the computer and have it create a document for you that sets a chapter title as a heading and then list all the highlighted sections for that chapter below the heading. Almost like an automated outlining tool.
I don’t know if it already does something like that, but I know I’d buy one right now if it did!
Edit (3/2/09): Apparently I didn’t look around enough before I wrote this. According to a few posts (like this one) it seems that you can already do most of this with the Kindle. Ok, now I’m interested!
This post really struck me for some reason.
Seth has an incredible knack for making people think. That’s why he’s so good at what he does. When I read that post, it made me think that “making your customers’ dreams come true” is a great way to succeed, but it takes a special person/group/company to do it.
I think that too many people/groups/companies stop short of doing this…to their detriment. It’s so easy to say that, “My industry isn’t one that people dream about,” or, “We don’t do have a product that people equate with that level of excitement.” They use that as a reason to be satisfied with ok, or even good.
The problem is that there’s another person/group/company right behind them that IS hungry enough to grab that goal of making their customers’ dreams come true and they’re going to pass you up soon if you ignore them.
It’s easy to figure that your customers are happy enough with what you do, so you don’t need to change. The problem is, if they’re “happy enough,” they’re not happy enough to not leave if a better offer comes along.
It takes a person/group/company that is dedicated to making their customers’ dreams come true to keep them from looking to satisfy those dreams elsewhere.
While the statement is really an elegant way to keep you focused on your customer’s question of, “What’s in it for me?” it’s something that’s easy to forget and hard to get back once you remember it.
In reading through “The Big Moo” by Seth Godin, something hit me with regard to Starbucks and their wifi connection.
When they switched to AT&T as their provider, they made a big announcement and promotion about how now iPhone users could use their wifi for free for two hours per day.
Great idea. In my opinion, the fact that they charge for wifi at all is a bit ridiculous, but reasonable people can disagree with that one.
I have, on many occasions, tried to use the “free” wifi at Starbucks and never once succeeded.
Why? It takes too long.
When you’re talking about a service for a mobile phone, how do you think most people will tend to use it? Probably to quick check the news or their email while they’re waiting in line for their $4 cup of coffee. Sure, there are people that will sit and use up their whole two hours, but I’m guessing that most people are just using a few minutes while they’re in the store in the morning.
But, at Starbucks, you have to go through an entire login process before you can even use the wifi. By that time, I usually just say, “forget it, I’ll do it later.”
Is this nitpicking? Maybe, but in my mind, if a company is built on experience, then the experience should be consistent. Putting a barrier in people’s way for something as simple as wifi seems to me to fall outside the type of experience that Starbucks should be working toward.
Filed under: Business
It’s not the fact that film is on its last leg.
It’s not the fact that digital is taking over the world.
It’s not even the fact that their products are worse than anyone else.
It’s their service.
I called yesterday to get some help with a printer. I went through all the steps to troubleshoot myself before calling. I even got an email from them saying that it wasn’t something I could fix myself. The email gave a number to me to call with a code for a replacement or repair.
I called, went through the process with the rep, but stopped short of actually getting a solution because I wasn’t in front of my printer so I couldn’t give him the service number that was printed on the printer.
He said to call back tomorrow (now today) with the number and my shipping address and they would get it taken care of.
So, I called today, believing that this would be a quick process…give them the number, my address, done.
My mistake.
After going through basically the same process with the new rep as the one yesterday, he said they would send me a new printer with a new print head. Then came the address. After no less than six repetitions he had my address.
Then he asked for a credit card. Mind you, this was at the 27 minute mark. And, it was for a product of THEIRS that was broken. So, I asked why they needed a credit card. He said that it was in case I didn’t return the old printer.
I said I would prefer not to give them a credit card, so he went to check with his supervisor what to do. No lie, 20 MINUTES LATER he came back on the line. No checking in during the long hold, nothing. Just waiting for another 20 minutes…to tell me that I had to send the old one back first.
So, fed up, I said I’d give him my credit card just to get this over with. I said I’d like to use a Discover. The reply – “Is that a Mastercard or Visa?” No, it’s a Discover, do you take it? “Let me check with my manager.”
Another 6 minutes on hold.
No, they don’t take Discover. Fine, here’s my MasterCard number….six times to get THAT right after repeating it over and over.
Then, “I’m going to go confirm this with my manager.” Another five minutes.
Total call time – 59:17…to get a replacement for their crappy product that broke.
Epson is looking pretty good right now!
Filed under: Business
I know that Amazon is doing well with the Kindle and they are promoting it so well that this Christmas it’s next to impossible to find one. So, doing something to expand Kindle adoption may not be in the forefront of their mind, but I had an idea that I think would be pretty cool and push me over the edge.
This morning I was thinking on my way to work (that happens when you’ve got to drive through a foot of snow to get to a road that’s been plowed)…”Why haven’t I bought a Kindle yet?”
Sure, there’s the price thing, but I love reading so much that I could find a way to justify it.
I think one of the biggest reasons I haven’t bought one yet is that I have a HUGE backlog of books I want to read on my bookshelf already. I would hate to have to re-purchase all those books in order to take full advantage of the Kindle. But, if I don’t, what’s the point in having one?
Then it dawned on me.
What if Amazon had a deal for new Kindle owners? What if they said, “Buy a Kindle and if you send us books you already own, we’ll replace them with the Kindle version”? Then, Amazon can sell those paper copies as “used” books on their website.
Sure, there’d be some big issues with the publishers and the logistics. (I like to think of myself as more of a big picture guy! HA!) I know that putting a program like this in place would be tough, but how cool would that be?
I, for one, would definitely use a program like this to buy and fill a Kindle and use THAT for my reading going forward.
