Dec 1, 2011 | Branding, Communication, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
Marketing on line is no longer the “next new thing” it was just a few short years ago, it is mainstream, a major consumer of marketing resources, and source of huge marketing value when done well. As with all new things, you get better with practice, and we are just at the beginning, learning how to use the tools now becoming available to build an experience for our customers they relate to, and can value, building the relationships they have with our businesses in the process.
In past blogs, I have noted the success of Tesco, particularly in Korea with their virtual shops, and the astonishing range of innovation that can be generated using QR codes.
In this link to what is in my view the best curator of web marketing topics, the Businessgrow blog, there is an accumulation of the best on line campaigns done to date. It avoids the usual suspects, and concentrates on those that are pushing the boundaries, and is therefore a valuable glimpse into the opportunities emerging. The web may be a free medium, but it is one where content is king.
Being different takes creativity, guts, foresight, and resources help, but are not a substitute for the other three. In the end being effective on the web is way more than just being there, because almost everyone is there now, you have to stand out, be relevant, engaging, and useful.
Nov 28, 2011 | Change, Collaboration, Communication, Marketing, Social Media
The internet is choked with lists, 10 ways to do this, 5 best ways to handle that, bloggers put them in because a list is a proven driver of blog traffic. People seem to want the core of an idea to be trimmed down to a set of bullet points, perhaps it is just more digestible that way.
I have certainly done it a bit, with 12 facebook tips for SME’s, How to make twitter useful, 6 rules for strategic alignment, and many others, some my lists, others a link to the lists of others, each for one reason or another seemed to be useful and worth sharing. In the case of the lists I created, mostly they emerged from work I was doing for a client at the time, and the process of assembling a list assisted me to order my thoughts, and so hopefully, helped a few others in a similar way.
Today, the “Uber-list” from Forbes magazine, which has a whole feature on the worlds most innovative companies, the worlds 2000 leading companies, the most powerful people, the richest, and so on.
It makes for interesting reading, almost wherever you make your dollar, there is some reference to the industry, who is who in the zoo, and what they did right.
Thanks Forbes, something for everyone.
Nov 27, 2011 | Communication, Leadership, Personal Rant, Social Media
The digital world has taken over, but the emergence of social media tools that host a lot of pretty low grade stuff sometimes overshadows the huge impact the tools of the web can have, sometimes life-changing and even saving, impacts. Just look at the role played by social media during the floods in QLD, the disaster in Christchurch, and the changes happening in the Middle East.
Consider the site Ushahidi for instance, born in crisis, and evolving in a manner that has, and will continue to make a huge difference to many peoples lives in times of crisis. Such a tool would have been impossible without Tim Berners-Lee, his colleagues and subsequent innovators.
The value of just one site like Ushahidi, and the useful utility of social tools makes up for all the junk that appears to be the other side of the coin, making up the volume.
Nov 22, 2011 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Since I was a kid in this industry, the standard terminology has been to “buy media” meaning stick an ad somewhere, and hope somebody you want to reach sees it, and takes action as a result. However, the reality is that we have just rented an audience from a newspaper, TV or radio station, not bought them.
The net has changed this, as with almost everything else. Now we can buy an audience, over time by developing content that engages and draws people back again and again, encourages sharing of and comment on the comment, effectively building digital “stock in trade” that is stored for access when appropriate.
In other words, at last, we are able to create stock that we can use in the selling process, or in the case of on line retailing, a sale results directly from the stock on the net.
Nov 7, 2011 | Collaboration, Communication, Leadership
The core skill of a successful innovator is their ability to recover from disappointment and failure, to learn from it, and go again, to embrace and recover fom error, not avoid it. As Steve Jobs Pixar’s founder said, “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who can” in the now more famous 1997 Apple advertisement “think different”
In this presentation by Randy Nelson, Dean of the Pixar University, the in-house learning facility of that innovation machine, Pixar, the things Pixar looks for in a potential employee are outlined. My summary and thoughts are below, but it is well worth the time watching Randy.
- Resilience and adaptability are the key components of the ability to recover, and change direction in the face of negative results and failure.
- Look for people who have mastery of something to demonstrate the innate drive to be the best. A resume is usually just a wish, a promise, so probe for mastery of something, anything as an indicator that they have what it takes to be the best.
- Find people who are interested, more than they are interesting. Interested is an indicator of curiosity, a core competence in success.
- Collaboration is more than co-operation on steroids. A production line can be co-operative, the actions at one stage impact on the actions at a subsequent one, so you need co-operation for it to work well but it is a sequential thing, whereas collaboration is all about amplification, the sum is greater than the individual parts. Individuals bring ranges of separate experience, knowledge, depth of understanding, depth of knowledge, breadth of knowledge that allows them to communicate on multiple levels, then collaboration can happen.
Nov 4, 2011 | Branding, Communication, Marketing, Strategy
A consumers relationship with a brand is a bit like a friendship, if it is strong, you will be prepared to put up with a bit of nonsense and still be friends, if it is weak, you may not be. If the poor behaviour continues, it will normally be the end of the “brand friendship”, after all, a friendship is supposed to be a two way process.
It’s a simple equation, deliver the benefits of friendship, the “brand promise” to people who care, and you will not depreciate your brand, fail to deliver, and depreciation occurs, and as every marketer knows, building it up is always harder than tearing it down
Accountants understand the notion of friendship in a balance sheet, called “goodwill”, they see it all the time, problem is they do not understand how it gets there.
A quick scan of the commentary yesterday after the Cup day reduction of retail interest rates resulted in all the major banks, except NAB, passing on the whole reduction indicates, a customer PR bellyflop of significant proportions, a whack on the nose to all “brand friends” .
It really does not matter how justified the “banking” of .05% of the decrease by NAB may be, they have just spent millions telling us how they are different from the others, setting themselves up as the bank for service, one you can go to with your financial problems, your banking friend, and it has been an effective message. All gone, “Poof”.
A rational bankers decision based on the margin squeeze created by the rising costs of wholesale money, and the reducing rates in Australia, but taken in an emotional market. Dumb.
Want to see brand depreciation, just look at NAB for a case study.
