Sep 19, 2013 | Marketing, Small business, Social Media
During the week, I did a short explanatory presentation on social media to a group of busy, skeptical SME operators whose typical age meant that they came to computers generally and social media in particular “a bit later” in their commercial lives.
In other words, their typical response to social media is something like WTF!.
I sought a metaphor that would explain the different characteristics and role of social media platforms having defined Social Media sufficiently widely to include, as well as the obvious, the emerging collaborative platforms like Airbnb, and established e-businesses like E-Bay. Whilst some of these may not be seen strictly as “Social Media”, they are nevertheless social platforms, so I felt they warranted inclusion.
I like “chips” French Fries to some of you, so they were the core of describing the role of various social media platforms.
Here are some of the examples, were I to describe my chip habits on each platform:
Facebook:” I like chips”
Twitter: “I am eating chips”
4 Square: “This is where I buy my chips”
Instagram: “Here is a picture of my chip”
Youtube: “Here I am, eating chips”
Pinterest: “Here is my favorite chip recipe”
Linkedin: “My skills include advanced chip eating”
Google +:” I am a Google employee who likes chips”
Slideshare: “The development of the chip market”
E-Bay: “What will you pay me for my chip”
Kickstarter: “I’ve invented this super-cool thing called a “chip”, wanna invest?”
You get the idea, and so did my audience.
Sep 18, 2013 | Customers, Lean, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Courtesy Michael Taylor
“5 why’s” is a tool that started life in the Lean Thinking toolbox, but in reality is simply common sense. In effect, make sure you understand the real cause of the problem facing you before you start deploying solutions, otherwise you risk treating the symptoms, not the cause.
It is a tool applicable to any problem or challenge, even the reluctance to engage with social media that I see so often with SME’s.
Following is an edited version of a of a recent conversation I had with a bloke running a successful small business, as he confronted his social media demons.
Bill: I have to get off my arse and start using Social media.
Me: Why?
Bill: Because all my competitors are using it.
Me: Are you losing any business to them, are you generating business you expect, or are you just lonely?
Bill: Don’t know, but I think it is expected
Me: Expected by whom?
Bill: Customers?
Me: Which customers, and what do they expect?
Bill: Not sure?
Me: wouldn’t it be wise to be clear about what you wanted to communicate, and to whom, which might offer some clues about how to best achieve the outcome?
Bill: Probably.
That conversation led into a useful session better defining his value proposition, then considering the tactics to be deployed to reach his best prospects, which included some “toe-tipping” into social media.
Social Media is not a panacea, and it is not a description of one thing any more than a label of “Cars” is a description of all the cars available. You still need to decide what you want to do with it, how much you will spend, and how you will measure satisfaction before you make the shortlist, and eventual choice. It is just pretty clear that in a modern world, just like cars, it is hard to avoid Social Media, it is everywhere.
Sep 11, 2013 | Branding, Change, Marketing, retail, Strategy
As our cities continue to suck people off the land, and grow bigger, swallowing adjacent farm land, we face the challenge of how we feed ourselves into the future.
It may not be a problem now, or in 5 years, but it will be a problem. China’s urban middle class is currently around 400 million out of a 1.5 billion population. 20 years ago, there was little if any middle class, so the move has been dramatic, and is not slowing.
China is an extreme case, but one we need to consider in Sydney as we look to the future of our children. Marrying agriculture with urban living, figuring out how we can feed ourselves without destroying the landscape should be on the planners radar, so for those thinking about the challenges, here is my “two penneth” worth.
- Personalised. We are in a world of “i” one in which consumers expect to be addressed and marketed to on a personal level for clothing, cars, even shoes, so why should it be any different for the food we consume? Indeed, the food we consume is arguably more relevant to us than almost anything else. As I observe the strategies of the major supermarket chains, they are hell bent on removing consumer choice as a cost reduction strategy. This is working currently, but the rise of farmers markets, resurgence of specialist retail, and new net based business models may indicate a stirring at the edges that will at least partially disrupt this “efficiency over choice” business model in time. The opportunity for intelligent values based branding of food products has never been greater.
- Localised. As a kid in the late 50’s and early 60’s (yes, I am that old) there were a number of southern Mediterranean migrants living in the local area. Every single one of them had a back yard garden producing an array of vegetables and fruit for the table. I came to realise it was not a matter of cost, but availability, freshness, and a cultural imperative that drove them to grow in their backyard. Their children, the ones I grew up with, did not follow their parents, sacrificing the back yard garden for the convenience of the supermarket, but the pendulum has swung back, and our children, the grandchildren of the migrants, are returning to the notions of freshness, combined with low food miles, minimum chemical use, and product provenance that their grandparents had. The reasons may be a bit different, and more considered, but the preference for local product, with the inherent freshness and provenance is the same.
- Efficiency. The world has moved from being a place of plenty to increasingly a place of scarcity. Water, energy, labour, and available land are all becoming scarcer, and the increasing price of these resources is reflecting that scarcity. For many, the efficiency of their use of resources is often the difference between profitability and bankruptcy. The side benefit is that efficient use of natural resources also makes ecological sense.
- Intensity. We are seeing increasing intensity on every operational parameter you care to measure. Capital, IT, production, labour, all are far more intensely utilised than just a few years ago. In addition to the operational end, consumers are increasingly scrutinising the product they buy, looking for confirmation of the explicit and implicit claims made, and are unforgiving in the event that they smell a rat. This intense consumer scrutiny and selectivity that is emerging I have called elsewhere the ‘Masterchef effect”
There is considerable overlap between these four factors, and they are mutually supporting, but it seems to me that they reflect the foundation challenges faced by successful urban agriculture.
Sep 5, 2013 | Customers, Demand chains, Marketing
Creating a demand chain out of an environment forged by a competitive and opaque supply chain mentality is no small task.
This change is particularly challenging in agriculture where there is considerable regulatory and interest group oversight and thousands of years of trading DNA pre-digital.
However, why should the agricultural supply chain be immune to the collaborative revolution spawned by the availability of digital data sweeping every other industry. Clearly, agriculture should not, so those who can conceive the future will have the opportunity to own it.
The characteristics of successful collaborative ventures appear to be similar irrespective of the market they operate in. Accommodation to car hire to books, where there is a market that can benefit from information, a logistic chain that is suboptimal, and a supplier base that opens up to change, the characteristics of a successful demand chain are similar.
- They are Transparent. End to end, the availability, costs, and value add is clear to all who can benefit from the knowledge.
- They are collaborative. Each component of the chain recognizes that their individual best interests are best served by serving the best interests of the chain.
- They are consumer centric. Delivering to consumers is at the core of the drivers of the chain. Sometimes this requires re-engineering of an existing chain, in effect innovating the delivery of an existing product or service, but increasingly emerging are value propositions made possible by new technology, driving development of demand chains that would not have been possible just a few years ago, like airbnb, Lyft, and Zappos.
Each of these characteristics adds to the capacity of the chain to reflect demand back through the chain, igniting the activity required to fill the demand.
Sep 3, 2013 | Governance, Innovation, Marketing, Operations, Strategy
I have just been a part of a post investment review with a client, looking at what a significant investment in capital equipment has delivered, compared to the planned outcomes, that underpinned the Capex.
Not a pretty sight, and now they have to learn the lessons to avoid repeating the mistakes.
Over the course of the exercise, the marketing manager consistently blathered about the accountability of the engineering staff in the process, but when cornered on marketing accountability to the product and market specifications against which the investment was made, and the effectiveness of the launch, and post launch activity, he had nothing.
Marketers have cried forever that the money spent on marketing is an investment, not an expense, but often this has a hint of self preservation about it.
However, if we are fair dinkum (Aussie for honest with ourselves) we should also be prepared to undergo a rigorous process to measure the effectiveness of our marketing investment.
Marketing however, has substantial elements of the “qualitative” about it. Creativity, being different, a better approach, all of which are best measured in hindsight.
Having measured, and with the benefit of hindsight seen a better way, surely the gap could be termed a “Marketing Debt”, the amount pissed away because the idea, execution, CVP, or something else was not up to scratch.
If we figure out how to keep a running score, weighted by hindsight and the continuous improvement enabled by the analytics and A/B testing now possible, we might even convince the beanies that marketing really is an investment.
Sep 2, 2013 | Communication, Management, Small business, Social Media
Digital technology has offered all of us an astounding range of opportunities to challenge and interact with our social environment, creating as we go. Gary Hamel has summarised them into a “5 C” list,:
Contribution
Connection
Creation
Choice
Challenge.
You read them, you just know the truth of it, but the next step, the really hard one, is how to harness the potential energy unleashed by these revolutions.
As a consultant to small businesses, I find no lack of energy, determination, and intelligent, informed risk taking, but I do find that the digital revolution has marched past the capabilities of many of the established businesses, and as time passes, the gap just becomes wider.
Recognising the presence of the capability gap, and finding a way to bridge it is rapidly becoming the most significant challenge faced by SME’s. Until that bridging has happened, digital is a millstone rather than a freedom, and freedom feels great!.
Go for it.
