Archive | Business RSS feed for this section

When Disaster Strikes: Does Your Product Marketing Include A Succession Plan?

by on June 2, 2011 in Marketing

One of the activities I love the most about being a product marketer is interviewing customers. While I start with the mission of learning about their use of Journyx’s products, the anthropologist in me always aims to develop a richer picture of the customer’s organizational cultures. In the span of an hour-long interview, I can’t go too deep but I can begin to glean some important clues about the relationships between people and their tools. My working hypothesis is that how a company adopts and uses technology – whether they do it successfully, fail dramatically, or fall somewhere in between – is tied closely to the cultures that exist within the company. (There’s a whole lot more to say about this and I hope to dive into it in more detail in upcoming posts.)

In my latest interviews, one subject that’s popped out at me is how knowledge around technological tools changes and is passed from person-to-person. In other words, how does an organization’s cultural understanding and use of Journyx’s time tracking toolset transfer from experienced employees to new hires? Think of your own organization. There are two ways of looking at this.

1. Within your own company, what tools do you use to get work done? Could be Sharepoint, Salesforce, or some other online tool. It could also be a non-online tool (think about how to get that conference room projector to work). Hopefully, you have individuals who are experts in managing these tools…but what happens if they leave? More to the point, what happens if they leave unexpectedly? Does your company of a succession plan to ensure a successful transfer of knowledge? If not, maybe it’s time to think about that potential scenario where your expert goes away and you’re left fumbling around looking for answers.

2. If you’re a product marketer, this offers a unique opportunity to build customer loyalty. I can’t think of many companies out there actively helping their customers build personalized succession plans. There’s tremendous value to working with customers to build succession plans. Think about how much stronger the relationship will be after helping a frazzled customer successfully continue their processes when disaster strikes?

Is succession planning a part of your company’s product service portfolio?

Does Your Marketing Suffer From Mural Dyslexia?

by on June 1, 2011 in Marketing

Last week, I chatted with a marketing colleague over lunch. I hadn’t seen her in a while so it was great to catch up and hear about her new job. For the most part, she’s quite happy and thankful to have good work (hey, let’s be honest…unemployment sucks). But there was one detail that just stuck with me over the past few days…probably because we all can relate. She works with someone suffering from mural dyslexia.

What’s mural dyslexia? It’s an unfortunate condition affecting 96.3% (give or take a few percentage points) of otherwise smart and capable individuals today. Sadly, it doesn’t discriminate based on whether you’re a manager in Austin, marketer in Atlanta, software developer in Silicon Valley, or jobseeker in New York. It’s a debilitating disorder that may contribute to loss of job, income, and reputation. Mural dyslexia, in plain English, is the inability to read the writing on the wall.

Here’s the situation that she gave to me: a fellow marketer at her company had developed a very strong lead generation program for his product division. Roughly three years of hard work in developing a product brand, a trade show presence, a webinar series, and a collateral storehouse was driving in several new leads per week. Sounds good, right? Who wouldn’t want scores of leads for their sales team? When I commented about all the sales he was undoubtedly responsible for generating, she gave me a look that said, “Silly rabbit, who mentioned anything about new sales?”

Turns out this strong lead generation program wasn’t driving sales because it was attracting the wrong types of people – primarily individuals with little to no intent of buying the product. If you’re like me, you’re probably asking, “Then, why the hell is this lead generation program still running in its present, non-sales-producing form?” Because of mural dyslexia.

I’d like to say the cure for mural dyslexia is a swift kick in the ass. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple (or cathartic). You’re asking someone to change the way they see the world and themselves, which is always an emotionally charged issue. You could also say strong management focus on results would greatly help and you wouldn’t be wrong.

What’s your prescription for dealing with mural dyslexia – your own or someone else’s case?

photo credit: Mr. T in DC (via Flickr)

Liar Liar: The Ugly Truth of Lead Generation

by on April 10, 2011 in Marketing

When is a marketing lead really a lead? Once he or she has given you their name or email or phone number? Well, not so fast there. Vince Giorgi at Touch Point City worked a hunch that most of us marketers have (though I wager some of us try to sweep this under that dark corner beneath our file cabinet). We’ve all gotten leads that – when called – turn out to be crap or emails that hard bounce.

In The Big Lie of Lead Generation, Vince reveals the results of an admittedly unscientific survey but they still lead to some uncomfortable realizations among us marketers responsible for lead generation. All this leads him to state something that we should reprint in huge capital letters in our office space:

“A lead isn’t a lead until someone is engaged enough to be honest with you.”

We marketers have work to do. We’re going to need to redouble our efforts to encourage honest exchanges of information that go both ways. Vince advises:

So if you’re in the middle of a lead-generation program, or about to embark on one, here’s a suggestion: Assume that people are mostly going to lie on your landing pages. And then go about your business with the mindset that you’re going to earn their honesty. Over time. By offering great information, interactions and experiences. In other words, great content.

photo credit: JaeYong (via Flickr)

If You Want Badges, Join The Boy Scouts

by on February 2, 2011 in Social Media

Maybe it’s my morning grumpypuss shining through, but I have to share the comment I made at Olivier Blanchard’s The BrandBuilder Blog today. His post, Fixing Foursquare, is a good one and it set off a nerve with me.

Badges, schmadges…I could honestly give to hoots about badges. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m kind of tired of companies thinking we users are like over-zealous boy scouts who will stop at nothing to earn a badge (and unlike with the boy scouts, these online badges are rather pointless). I can’t share or trade them…or even state with pride to my significant other that I worked hard to earn one. Three quarters of the adult population don’t even know what you’re talking about anyway…they just look at you like you have lobsters crawling out your ears in the first place.

Here’s what I want: I want utility. I want an exchange where that by using Foursquare or Gowalla, I’m getting a substantive value. Fine, keep the gaming format, but they need to quit thinking that a silly badge for standing on a boat is going to make me want to continue using the service. Show me new places to eat. Even better, show me where to eat in cities where I’m unfamiliar with the surroundings. If Foursquare can keep me from having to eat at a McDonalds because it’s the only recognized restaurant, then I’ll love it that much more.

And for the love of all things holy, they’ve got to stop worrying about getting more users and start worrying a whole lot more about getting businesses involved. And not just the megabehemoth businesses, but the smaller local ones, as well. The problem is – and I can say this from experience of trying to introduce Foursquare to business owners – many just don’t see the connection to their own business success. But sell the benefits to them and make it downright irresistible (and insanely easy) to be a partner. Like you, Olivier, I believe that if they can get businesses involved and people who are unfamiliar with Foursquare will likely check it out.

Unless there’s a strong factor of utility, it’s just a game…and a game that gets pretty boring the more you play it.

There it is. Comments? Add your thoughts to Olivier’s post or post them below.

Why We Care About Corporate Logos

by on January 23, 2011 in Branding

I’ve been thinking a lot corporate logos, their meaning, and what it contributes to the customer experience. In a bit of serendipity, today I read this post from Derrick Daye at The Blake Project entitled Branding Debate: Does Logo Design Really Matter?. He writes:

What’s important are the associations people have with a logo–not the logo itself. A logo (trademark and its associated visual language) is the symbolic representation of a whole narrative story built into an organization over time. Brand equity is the result of successfully delivering on the promise your brand represents in the hearts and minds of consumers. Indeed, there are some time-tested design guidelines all enduring trademarks share, but that is not what enables them to endure. What makes a logo endure (and be cared about) is not the design, but the promise it represents.

When The Gap changed their logo (then backslid after an uproar in social media channels), I started to think about this enduring quality of logos and their meaning to consumers. At first, I was actually critical of the company for reverting their decision on the basis of a minor uproar. No one likes change so it’s always going to be a battle when a company decides to change something meaningful like a logo. And there’s always a segment of design creatives that will bitch and moan about anything that doesn’t please their own narrow aesthetic philosophy.

But then, I got curious about what all this might mean to the relationship between a company and their customers. Approaching it this way, a consumer’s attachment to a company’s brand, logo, and promise is a far more interesting exercise in seeking out symbolic meaning. The anthropologist, Victor Turner, argued that symbols are important because of their ability to both condense meaning as well as contain a multiplicity of meanings. While it may sound paradoxical, it actually illustrates the various layers in which a symbol – such as a logo – resides.

Let’s take Southwest Airlines, for example.
When we think of Southwest Airlines (even if we’ve never actually flown with them before), images and ideas come to mind. We know certain things about the business and the promise it represents. The logo becomes a sort of shorthand for how customers and company relate to each other. If Southwest decided to change their logo, it might signal a potential shift in this relationship. And because each customer has their own personal experience with the airline, the customer generates several meaningful impressions when confronted with the logo. We might think of their “Bags Fly Free” commercials or a memorable time we flew with them. We then attribute positive or negative meanings depending on these experiences.

Now, let’s juxtapose that with Enron.

A very different set of meanings are involved, right?

Here’s an exercise. Take a look at these logos and think about what the business is trying to convey to you. Now think about what that brand means to you. What feelings does it invoke? What brand promise does it represent? What’s the overall symbolism?

Logos and brands are just simplified, symbolic constructs that make it easier for customers to recognize and related to your business. Whether or not you decide to change your company’s logo, think about all the different ways you generate meaningful relationships with your customers. And then consider how your customers have created (or want to create) relationships with your business. It’s these relationships – embodied in your logo – that will prove a strength in good times and bad.