Category Archives: Marketing

Be the Customer

Since we’re talking about empathy (well, I am), here’s a great example that happened yesterday. Answering customer requests is good empathy — anticipating them is great empathy.

top-of-the-mark

I was having drinks with friends at the Top of the Mark, atop the famed luxury Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco. The waiter asked one of our party, “Can I top off your phone?” The phone was on the table, powered on, and we think he must have noticed the battery indicator showed a low battery. He came by with a charger and a cable but with no place to plug in near the table, he offered to take the phone to his station. He came back with a plate and a folded napkin, which he used to take the phone. When we were ready to leave, he returned with the charged phone.

It’s the question smart marketers ask over and over: “What is the customer’s problem?” As in this case, sometimes the customer doesn’t even know. When you can spot and solve a problem before the customer, that’s the big win that takes you from A to A+.

Empathy FTW

In my last post, Customer Service: Emotions Matter, I reported on my experience at Microsoft’s store, where they spent the money on the service infrastructure but overlooked the free human touches.

I had a more positive example today. I had a technical issue with email, which is hosted by Dreamhost. Their support form has two questions I have not seen before. Perfect examples of customer-centric communications, they address customer concerns and do so in a humorous, friendly way.

Instead of asking the customer to define the priority of the request, they ask in this customer-centric way:

dreamhost-priority

And they asked the customer’s expertise. Clever idea — this way they know how to frame the reply:

dreamhost-expertise

Pretty smart, huh!

As marketers, we should always be thinking about everything from the customer’s point of view. Dreamhost gets it, for the win!

Customer Service: Emotions Matter

The latest fad in satisfying customers, taking the place of authenticity, is empathy. Most of the empathy I observe is decidedly inauthentic, which I think is a sad misfire, but the idea is sound: Let the customer know you understand the problem and you’re going to help.

Sorry to pick on Microsoft (no, I’m not) but they have a curious tone deafness about customer service and about process; things Apple has down to a science.

I was at the Microsoft store with a dead, in warranty, Surface RT. The service I experienced was adequate, but missing the human touches. Ironically, they’re spending the funds, implementing competent programs, but falling short.

Their first comment was not empathetic, did not acknowledge there was a problem, did not suggest they would take care of my problem. It was, “When did you buy it?”

The person I saw tried a different charger. The person she sent me to tried a different charger and made me an appointment to see a technician. When I saw the tech, he tried a different charger. None of them communicated with the others.

When the tech came out, he didn’t say hi, didn’t acknowledge the customer’s problem, he just went to work.

Finally having confirmed it was dead, they offered to replace it on the spot! Excellent! But then they found they did not have any replacements so they would send it to the repair facility. Once it arrives there, they will immediately ship me a replacement unit. I asked, “Since you have this unit in your hands now, can you have them ship the replacement now?”

“No, this has to arrive there first. The system won’t allow us to ship one immediately.”

“Apple does,” I said. Grin.

“I know,” he said. Shrug and grin.

I will be getting a replacement in a week or so, which is adequate performance (though Apple does it in a day). But it could have been superior performance and stellar customer satisfaction — at no increase in cost! It would not cost them to smile and say they will help me. Eye contact is free. Shipping when the computer said the unit was in the store’s custody instead of waiting several days costs not a penny more.

But they’re not inclined to think that way. It’s a company-DNA issue. Not unlike their software. They have some of the best user interface labs in the world but they don’t fix the problems; they just layer on a new wizard.

Tone deaf.

Postscript: It’s been a week 10 days and the replacement unit is still not here and we have heard nothing. Sadly for Microsoft, I’ve been conditioned to expect better.

Any Business Can Use Amazon’s Four Pillars of Success

In Amazon’s Performance Secrets, Bryan Eisenberg posts Amazon’s four pillars of success. He says, “What we most admire…is that it is duplicable by just about every other business.”

4-Amazon-pillars-infographic

Bryan Eisenberg’s notes on Amazon’s Four Pillars of Success

Not complicated:

  1. Customer Centricity
  2. Continuous Optimization
  3. Culture of Innovation
  4. Corporate Agility

(P.S. Don’t you love Bryan’s notes? Way better than an infographic.)

Bold Branding for B2B

A couple of years ago, I was part of a rebrand for Maxim Integrated, which we called “a 2.5 billion dollar company no one has ever heard of.” I was also at Hewlett-Packard when they ran their first television ads in the 1980s. It’s not easy. It takes a ton of money, or imagination and innovation. 

Check out AdAge’s article on Arrow Electronics’ campaign, developed by Olgivy.

Arrow Electronics is looking to ditch its self-proclaimed “biggest electronics company you never heard of” label. One year after its first national TV campaign brought down its corporate website, it’s using animated digital ads to help tell the story of what the company does.

In this phase of its rebranding effort, Arrow sales staff have been showing off the YouTube animated shorts on their iPads for the past few weeks — with the latest incarnation set to release this week. The 30-to 60-second pieces are part of Arrow’s “Five Year Olds on Five Years Out” campaign, which highlights the company’s various services as told through the mind of a five-year old.

Don’t believe it? Leonardo DaVinci wouldn’t lie:

Content and the Big Idea

Great essay on Rebecca Lieb’s blog today about focusing content on One Big Idea.

The best way to draw quality, valuable traffic and move it toward a profitable end is content marketing. It’s also expensive, so it needs to be done well. By “well,” I mean it has to be driven by a focused and cohesive strategy. How to do that? The “Big Idea.” Rebecca uses IBM and GE as examples. If companies as diverse as IBM and GE can focus their messages, surely we all can, too.

It’s not easy to do but once you have your Big Idea, it makes everything else much easier. But getting there is the hardest marketing challenge for any business because in order to focus on One Big Idea, a dozen ideas become sidebars. And they are your precious babies! But the truth is that when we try to make a dozen great points, we end up successfully making none. We need to trust that when all our ideas report to one, the harmony amplifies all our precious points.

My own business is a good example. What does “marketing consultant” mean? Not much, given all the marketing specialties. Over the course of the past year, I’ve focused more and more on the offering prospects and clients are most responding to: Straightforward Marketing, taking the mystery and opinion out of deciding what marketing tactics make sense for each client.

Does your business have a single identity and a singular focus?

 

 

Big Data, Little Insight

big-data-slide

I cringe when I see most discussions of “big data.” Color me skeptical.

Recommended reading: Moneyball by Michael Lewis. It’s not really about baseball. It’s about the difference between data and insight.

The problem with Big Data is you can’t see the trees for the forest. In my experience, Big Data focuses on answers; insight focuses on the questions. Big Data complicates; insight simplifies and clarifies.

The best insight comes from little data. Watch individuals (not the whole analytics stream. Talk to your customer-facing staff, ask open-ended questions. Bit by bit, you see the smart questions and develop intelligent hypotheses. Then you can dig into the data to learn the answers.

The Most Fundamental Marketing Mistake

booth-message

I was at a large tradeshow today (Dreamforce). I’ll bet I asked at 30 booths: “What do you do?” I wasn’t trying to be a smart aleck — in each case, I really wanted to know.

Booth after booth had the company name and some clever slogan that said not much, or a complex set of bullet points that only made sense to people who knew the product category well. Some used insider terms like “Document Management” that mean little to new prospects. Even when the booth said what they did, there often were no benefits and no hint at how the products solve customer problems.

After a while, I started asking a followup question, “Do you get that question a lot?” They would laugh and agree, not realizing they were staring a huge problem in the eye. After they told me what the company did, I asked some of them why the signage didn’t say that. (OK, now I was being a smart aleck.) Mostly blank stares. A few said something about “the marketing guys.”

You know your product or service. You live with it every day. But prospects may not even know the basic terms your industry uses. They certainly won’t know why they should be interested in you, unless you tell them. Look at all your materials through a novice’s eye and ask yourself if your most attractive prospect will find it enticing enough to ask a question more useful than, “What do you do?”.

Why do People Use Twitter?

I started using Twitter when it was born because as an Internet marketer, I needed to understand it. It took a long time to understand! And today, very few do. My friend Andreas Ramos wrote a book on Twitter marketing (presently free, http://andreas.com/twitterbook/) and found execs inside Twitter who don’t really understand how it is used.

One reason it’s misunderstood is that there is no single reason. It is like asking for the one reason people use the telephone.

Here’s my list of reasons people use Twitter. What have I missed? Let me know in the comments.

1. Stay in touch with close friends. This is analogous to how teenage girls talked on the phone for hours when we were young, except now it’s many at once. This includes the trivial uses the press focuses on (rather stupidly, in my opinion) like sharing what I ate for breakfast (multigrain hot cereal with brown sugar, by the way).

2. Very rich source of news and information, often more up to date than any other channel. For instance, CNN has multiple channels (@cnn, @cnnpolitics, @johnkingCNN, and @cnnBrk, a breaking news channel). It’s especially good for specialized sources like @theonion, @gizmodo.

3. Follow celebrities, whether it’s @kevinbacon, @ladygaga, Alton Brown, Bill Gates, or to local celebrities such as the executives of your company or your town council. This is a “one to many” channel.

4. Company or product affinity. For instance, you could follow @JackBox or @Zappos. Some companies (@VirginAmerica, for instance) use this really well, sending information of interest and actually listening to responses from their customers. There are numerous stories of how Virgin America has instantly replied to customer complaints, such as a time when someone complained how cold it was in the waiting area and Virgin dispatched someone to fix it, right then and there. Many send offers, such as @amazondeals. But most companies stupidly waste the channel, sending a stream of company-centric, lame product news.

5. Listen to great thinkers or cultural icons. For instance, I follow Penn Gillete, Dan Ariely, some online comics authors, and Malcolm Gladwell (“Security at Newark Airport just patted down my hair. Can’t figure out if that’s racial profiling”) to see what is bubbling in their brains. Some are leaders in my industry, such as search marketing wizards @dannysullivan and @randfish; or analytics god @avinash. Some of them post frequently and you get to taste their stream of consciousness. Some post more deliberately.

6. Live conversation: This is one of the more interesting uses. If you watch the Superbowl or the Oscars with friends, people comment on the proceedings. With Twitter, the same thing happens frequently. Using hash tags like #49ers or #superbowl or #americanidol, you can share comments with others who are watching. On a smaller scale, this is done at conferences. For instance, I recently attended a CMO conference and a few people remarked on the proceedings: http://twitter.com/#argylecmosf

7. Background noise: A lot of folks tune in to their Twitter feeds kind of the way some people have the TV on whenever they are home.

Naming a Product or Company

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.”

— Shakespeare

Naming your product or company can be tricky. You want the name to tell customers something about why they need what you do. The name has to be unique enough to be protectable while not stepping on someone else’s name. The web has complicated the job — with 250-some-odd million domain names reserved, what’s left?

“Naming is one of the hardest things.”
— Lara Merriken, founder of LÄRABAR

The usual approach is to think about the product or service and develop descriptive names. But descriptive words are usually the worst choice because they are inherently difficult to trademark and most likely to have already been used.

“Naming is the worst. It’s the hardest thing.”
— Alex Blumberg, founder of Gimlet Media

Here are some tips.

KleenexBest: suggestive marks

Invented names that evoke a mental image of a product’s chief benefit or unique selling proposition are the coveted prize. For example, Kleenex says nothing about tissues or paper products. It’s aimed at the primary benefit: a sanitary way to handle messy noses. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) calls these “suggestive” marks.

yelp-ios-app-iconAbstract names

Next best are completely abstract names: Exxon, Accenture, Yelp. The PTO calls these “fanciful” names.

The online eyeglasses retailer Warby-Parker considered 2000 names before settling on two characters from Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, Warby Pepper and Zack Parker.

Invented names

A common solution is to twist the meaning of words or combine them to create uniqueness. E.g. RealAudio. “Real” evokes an image of fidelity or up-to-date-ness.

Companies often modify words by adding a suffix, a prefix, or extra letters; or deleting a few: Spotify, Abilify, Optimizely, Flickr, Tumblr, Digg, Roomba.

Generic and descriptive names

Unique, catchy names are not always needed. “Generic and descriptive” names are literal names that simply describe the product with little uniqueness, e.g. “ListManager” or “Fast Pizza.” They have the advantage that they need no explanation but they are very difficult to protect and difficult or impossible to trademark.

A name can become generic if the owner fails to protect its overuse. Escalator used be a trademark but is now generic, as are linoleum, aspirin, trampoline, and thermos. But Xerox®, Frisbee®, and Band-Aid® have held their trademarks. See: How a Brand Name Becomes Generic.

Brand + generic + finesse

Sometimes, a good name is beyond the reach of the amount of time and attention you have. A straightforward solution is to use a generic name paired with an existing brand. Adobe Illustrator is an example. In this case, the two names are always used together.

Once you do this and gain extended marketplace presence, you can develop some standing and can likely defend against encroachment.

When I worked at Videonics, a small ($30M annual revenue) video editing equipment maker, we had a product called TitleMaker. The PTO refused a trademark, saying it was generic and descriptive, since the product made titles. We trademarked “Videonics TitleMaker.” In practical use, we often used the TitleMaker name by itself but the fine print on the piece always said “Videonics TitleMaker is a registered trademark….” That was enough. One company tried to use TitleMaker but stopped when we sent a letter. Had they pressed the issue, we might have had a messy fight on our hands but in our specialized market, we were able to prevail.

Personalized names

Capriottis_Logo_new

Sometimes, we just name the product after ourselves. Shortly before she was to place her MANABAR energy bar in stores, Lara Merriken discovered a similar name was already in use by Manna Breads. A scramble to rename the product was resolved in the first person when she named it LÄRABAR (adding the umlaut because she thought it sounded cool).

But don’t assume that your name can be yours just because it’s yours. You don’t necessarily have a trademarkable right to the name you were born with. McDonald’s became a powerful mark only after investment in the name and even if I were Moe McDonald, I could not sell McDonald’s Cookies. Rubenzahl’s Fine Cookies would be easier (unless I have a baking cousin I don’t know).

Some countries do not allow surnames to be trademarked. Geographic marks (Vermont Ice Cream) can be problematic as well, especially internationally.

Good vs. good enough

Your name is front and center. Everyone wants a mighty name: catchy, clever, instantly understandable, sophisticated, and unique enough to bear be protectable. But names like that take inspiration, time, work, and cash. You can succeed with a name that’s merely “good enough.”

Don’t be afraid of names that lack immediate magic. Big names are generally not found — they are grown. “Amazon” was just a river until they grew their brand. Paola Norambuena of Interbrand said, “A great name can’t fix a bad product. A great product can fix a bad name.”

Designer John McWade says “For all of the time we put into coming up with just the right ‘target-market’ sort of name … I get the feeling that we’re over-thinking things.” He points out examples — how Mercedes was the name of the founder’s daughter, Taurus was the sign of two executive wives, and “Pepsi was named for the digestive enzyme pepsin.” Here are hundreds more.

4QLogoLIt is important to guard against troublesome names. The biggest problem is that inside the echo chamber of your own company, it’s easy to lose objectivity. I know a company whose market research product is based on four questions, so they named it “4Q.” Great idea but not so great when said aloud. I met the founder a few years ago and asked about the name. They had no idea.

The only way to know is test. If you have customers already, a simple survey can do the job. The trick is to compare one proposed name against another for various attributes to find one that floats to the top. (I can do this for you.) Finally, when you have a few good possibilities, you need to move forward. Avoid paralysis. “Perfect is the enemy of the good.”

Even the most troublesome name can be overcome. Witness Schiit Audio, which uses humor to make an outrageous name work for a serious product line.

What do you do if “good enough” is not good enough? If you have (or hope to have) a big brand in busy markets, that’s the time to turn to a “namer” — a naming professional. See the references at the end of this article.

The process

  1. Assemble your naming committee, choosing people who have a knack for names and strong imaginations. These are not necessarily your subject matter experts!
  2. Have your committee learn the theory by going over the topics in this article so they understand the differences between suggestive, generic and descriptive, etc.Review the ideas of “Start with Why” and benefits. In particular, the name should speak to why someone wants this and not what it is.
  3. Have everyone write down ideas, working by themselves. Feel free to use online tools (see end of article for some examples. I especially like Namelix.)
  4. Then brainstorm together. Don’t march through eveyone’s list — instead, start with one idea, and brainstorm and let participants add names to the process organically.
  5. Then, and only then, pick a few names that evoke the desired sentiment.
  6. Test them as necessary for trademark, domain availability. Depending on how important the name is, you may need to enlist the aid of an attorney experienced in trademark work.
  7. If the name is a valuable commodity, test using a sentiment survey. Sample size can be very small.

Qualifying names

white board with names

So you pulled out the white board and came up with some good names. Now what?

Next step is to see if they are available. In general, the web is a good way to find problems. If no search engine finds your proposed name the chances are pretty good it’s not being used — but it’s not a guarantee. A name might be used locally.

Use name checking services like namecheck.com and knowem.com.

Be careful about similar spellings. For instance, if you want to call your company Aextra and there is a company out there using Axtra in a related product area, you could be in trouble. You cannot respell someone’s trademark and use it — I could not sell Mr. Feld’s Cookies, given the existence of Mrs. Field’s cookies (even if my last name were Feld).

Trademarks are examined by industry classification. Just as I could not sell Mr. Feld’s cookies, I could not sell Mr. Feld’s potato chips, because chips and cookies share a class. But I could probably open Mr. Feld’s Quick Oil Change (because it’s a completely different industry class). As a mark gathers investment, its scope widens: I could not sell Exxon Cookies or Exxon Carpets because Exxon’s massive investment in the mark gives it authority in other industry classes.

For a small business, a web search may be enough confidence but if you are planning a larger brand, you need to go further. Start with the free US Patent and Trademark database (Tess), online at http://www.uspto.gov/. Then get a proper international search. Most intellectual property attorneys will do a quick search for a few hundred dollars before doing a detailed legal search.

Registering the name

You do not have to register a trademark to use it but it’s a good way to establish your claim and a wise move if you invest in the mark by building a business or promoting products using the name. Register the trademark by applying to the PTO. They evaluate and do their own search, publish for public objection, then issue the mark.

If you are a small firm, you can do all of this without an attorney. But if you’re investing in a mark and changing your name a few years from now would be a big problem, then it is wise to hire an intellectual property attorney at the outset.

If the business may go international, consider registering outside the U.S.

More

Here’s a wonderful real-life story from Alex Blumberg’s StartUp about how they named his fledgling Gimlet Media. He encounters and explains all the typical challenges and along the way reports, in a very honest way, the missteps, discoveries, and musings. (Be warned, there is a very obscene South Park clip; no worries, he gives ample warning.)

Who would have thought the arcane world of naming would be appropriate for the New York Times? Apparently, the New York Times did. A must-read for anyone with a naming project, it provides great details on the process and techniques.

For a deep dive into naming, see the Operative Words blog from naming guru Anthony Shore. Wow.

To understand what you can and can’t trademark and what constitutes a strong brand, start with the Patent and Trademark Office’s article, and then Nolo press:

For high-caliber help in naming, the companies below are the experts.

  • Operative Words (Anthony Shore, @operativewords)
  • Landor
  • Interbrand
  • Catchword
  • A Hundred Monkeys
  • Namebase
  • Zinzin

Some creative tools (from the Times article):

  • onelook.com shows how words work with other words
  • sketchengine.co.uk combs texts and concordances, flags parts of speech and shows how a specific word appears in billions of words of text
  • rhymezone.com finds words that rhyme

And one more, spotted by Ari Lerner <@auser>. I played with this and it’s pretty amazing.

  • https://namelix.com