Marketing Interactions

The Importance of Context

"How much of what you're transmitting is actually getting through?"  That's the first line of Seth Godin's blog post, Once more, but slowly.  His assertion that we think people are "getting" our ideas the first time around, but they really don't, is something to pay attention to.

For my purposes, this relates to your Website content.  I know that consistency is touted as key, but I think many companies confuse that idea and think it means you need to continually say the same thing over and over again in the same way.  I contend that people "get" things differently and that it's up to us, as marketers and brand/product evangelists to present our message in a variety of ways that will heighten your odds of being "got."

Some people respond better to the positive spin about how much better life will be with your product or service.  Others may have a much more powerful response to learning how the negative impacts of their issue can be effectively minimized.  Still others will relate to a residual benefit that comes about when their challenge is solved in a particular way and buy in to get there.

Some possible takes:

• Customer A has reduced the amount of time their sales reps spend entering data into their systems by 8 hours per week.
• Customer B has access to updated sales forecasts 50% faster than he did before using our product.
• Customer C's sales reps have increased their sales by 30% because they're sales reps are on the street 8 hours each week longer and better prepared than they've ever been.

Okay, so I need more coffee, but I'll bet you react more strongly to one of those statements than the others.  My point is that context is important.  People are different.  Repetition is important, but varying the ways you say things is the kind of repetition that can allow you to use a wider net and capture greater mindshare.

Oh, and lastly, I totally agree with Seth on this one.  Skip the long parts.  Becoming succinct will require you to learn to use the words that are important.  The words that define your idea.

How are you addressing context at your marketing site, sales portal, and Partner extranet?

Have you simplified, but varied your content to ensure that the variety of people in your audience all have a chance to "get" your ideas?

Personal Media Revolution and B2B Marketing

The way we access information as individuals and consumers has changed dramatically in the last few years.  I was reading a post by Michael Fassnacht at Marketing Geek about this subject as related to marketing and started to think about what influence our personal media interaction has on the way we do business in a B2B world.

Michael says: "This personal media revolution of non-linear communication patterns is not just driven by technical innovations but equally influenced by the cultural change from traditional communities (e.g. families, towns, and clubs) to media enabled groups fulfilling the need to feel part of a larger community. Personal media enables anyone to choose or create its own community. It’s non-linear communication at its best. Marketers of the world: Get ready to be part of it."

People are becoming more adept at finding the information they want, when they want it.  Knowledge transfer is being facilitated by online interactions and self-formed or easily accessed communities where  many are willing to share and discuss topics of interest at length.  There are listserv groups, discussion forums, blogs, etc., enticing people to join in and share their viewpoints and expertise.

Given all that, how can you create a marketing Website, sales portal or customer/partner extranet that provides value and keeps pace? 

In my opinion,  you have to be more dedicated to ensuring your online presence has something to offer.  All the time.  I'm as guilty as the next person for allowing our company's website to lapse in new information offerings, because I'm focused on our existing customers.  But it's not good enough anymore.  Why?  Because they'll get their information and knowledge transfer somewhere, and if it's not from or about your company, chances are you won't get their business.

Here's the thing to get.  It's not just about capturing their information anymore.  It's about interacting.  About the exchange being worthwhile for both sides.  Product informationm, data sheets and white papers won't be enough.  People no longer want to be talked at by static sites or even marginally dynamic ones. 

Evaluate your level of Website interaction:

• Your Website has more interaction than a newsletter sign-up
• Your Website has a call to action on the homepage
• Your Website invites participation of some kind - discussion forum, survey, event registration (training, webinar, seminar, trade show appointments, etc.), user groups, support ticket logging
• Your Website actively connects users to a sales person, partner or reseller
• Your Website asks for feedback or comments about specific issues (specific being key)
• Your Website has login access for specific users to deliver personalized information
• Your Website allows users to request to stay updated about topics of interest (and then sends an email notification with a link back to that new article, white paper, product, etc.)
• Your Website has some kind of tool or content that allows your users to determine if their situation  will be helped by your product/service

Those are just a few ideas, but I think it would be wise to think about how to make your online interactions mirror the ways people are becoming adept with searching and gathering information via new media options.  Don't make them feel like they are going backwards to work with your company.  That thought can carry forward, leaving that niggle in their mind to keep on the lookout for a company that "gets" it, down the road.

What are you doing to keep up with the personal media revolution as it translates to your business?

Features 'R Us

I discovered the Functioning Form blog today and their post on Feature Marketing struck a cord.

Don Norman says: "We as consumers make things worse by saying "Wow, I really love it, but why can't it do this other thing?" People who like a technology, often request that it do even more. Eager companies rush to respond – they listen to their customers. The result is the bewildering, confusing state of many mature products..."

Luke Wroblewski says: "An effective interface design not only meets user needs, but also achieves business goals. The problem is that there is an endless pool of user needs to meet (‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’) and business goals are always derived from a ‘grow or die’ mentality."

Yep.  I agree.  It's true.  However, I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing (and neither do they).  That said, I think that what does companies in with their web projects is that they don't build a fence around them.  I think it's important to think in phases.  Phase I will have X functionality -- make your list and stick to it.  Within the context of Phase I, design like it's the only one you'll ever have and really think about how your customers will use it.

Here are two questions to ask your project team: 

1. What value does it deliver? (To the business, To the target user)
2. What actions will result from it? (Goes to goals and having users take action from it)

After all, if it doesn't do anything to give something to both your company and your target user then why do it?

Backing up to the idea of designing like it's the only phase you'll ever have, I should clarify.  Always keep in mind the future.  But, it shouldn't be obvious that you have.  Your future web strategy should be transparent to your users.  Let's face it, budgets change, markets change, strategies change.  So approach this phase like the list of functionality you're delivering to your target users is all you're ever going to get.  Make it the best you can.  Take the time to think about the user experience.

If you were your user, would you:

1. use your web site, your new online tools
2. be compelled by your new content
3. intuitively know how to use the site to get what you want
4. be inspired to do whatever action the site calls for
5. find it valuable enough to return to, often

If you can't say yes to all of these things, go back and think about it again.

What are you doing to control feature creep in your web projects?

The Purpose of Business is to Create Customers

In Malcolm Ryder's post, Culture as Brand, he presents some great food for thought about brand and positioning as related to customers.

He writes: "Mulling over branding a few years back, and thinking about companies that can't see themselves the way customers see them, I hit a point regarding the vast difference between "positioning" and "position" -- hardly a new topic. I suddenly had the thought that to close the gap, the real purpose of a business is to create customers, while the purpose of a customer is to create products.

The realization came from an imaginary dialogue:

Company: "I'm doing this *for You*
Prospect: "Yes, but are you doing it *this way* ?"
Company: "Well, what do I get if I do?"
Prospect: "You get *me*..."

He goes on to talk about positioning vs. position and other great ideas.  Go read the post.

But what came up for me is the concept of delivering value.  A few years back, when solutions became the focus, instead of products or services, the sales process focused on talking about the value delivered.  Which is what it should focus on, but it made me think about "whose" value?  The value the company picked, the value the customer wants, or the value the customer needs?  Each of these could be very different concepts.

Which goes to not just listening to your customers, but getting them to talk about the "why" of it, so you can get to deeper meanings.  How else will you know the value you deliver is the value that will actually make the difference they're looking for?  After all, you can sell to what a customer says they want or you can sell to what a customer really needs by getting deeper and learning more.  If you want a long-term customer, I suggest you deliver what they need. (After getting them to understand that, of course.)

The other interesting point Ryder makes is that the positioning or brand companies think they have, may not be the positioning or brand that your customers think you have.  The only way to find out, is to ask them.  Not only ask existing customers, but find out why prospects are interested.  Is it because they aspire to be like one or more of your customers?  Look carefully at what they use your products to accomplish.

This is probably a chicken and egg question.  But I say there's a process that gets worked through to get here.  The company sees a need in the marketplace.  They develop a product/service to meet it.  But that's where many companies stop.  I propose that's only the first step.  If your product/service isn't flexible enough to meet needs and deliver value in the ways your customers need it to as their market grows, your longevity is limited. 

I've often wondered why products become obsolete in a few years?  Is it because companies stop evolving and innovating their products, thinking the problem they saw is solved?  Do they keep their focus so tight that they can't see the forward trajectory of where solving one problem or issue opens a gap to another?

It seems to me that this is a continuous evolution process and that if, like Ryder says,  "...one given potential buyer might be a customer simultaneously in different segments..."  that the best thing to do is continue to build relationships with your customers, find out what's worked so far and what they see coming in their future so you can continue to deliver value.

Companies need to be willing to have the value they deliver morphed by their customers to suit their needs and their evolving personalities.  Hence the need for user groups, ongoing conversations and strategic thinking in all your interactions.  The need to get, stay and be flexible.

What are you doing to make sure you are continuously thinking forward to answer your customers' current and future needs?

What Limitations does your Technology Diminish?

Thanks to Jack Vinson for ponting me to Bill Brantley's post TOC Analysis of Technology where he crystalizes this very simple idea from Goldratt's "Beyond the Goal":  "Technology is beneficial if and only if it diminishes a limitation."

Brantley says, "Sounds basic but it was a major epithany for me because this explains why the benefits from a new technology adoption are not usually realized. It is the old rules that limit the benefits because the organization still operates as if the limitation still exists. When you realize this, no wonder many technology solutions don't work."

Which got me to thinking, that I'm not sure it's the technology solution that doesn't work, but more the expectations or orientation of the users that doesn't work.  I've been having a rant this week about the importance of strategic thinking.  Of how important it is to keep the thinking aligned with your company's goals and to think beyond it to future outcomes and needs.

I think the diminishing limitations theory ought to become a standard for all technology projects.  Many project teams think in terms of what they'll be able to do, but this statement made me think about the other side of that coin - In relation to what? 

Applying this to implementing interactive marketing Web sites, for example, I thought about how technology advances have diminished limitations for both sides - company and user.  Some of them are:

• The ability for business users to launch Web sites and create, manage and update content easily and quickly
• The ability to make valuable information quickly available to specific audiences and focus attention.
• The ability for site users to engage in authentic conversations and knowledge transfer about subjects important to them.
• The ability to pull mindshare instead of just push information people may not want.
• Collaboration with clients and partners and employees globally, in real time that delivers value to all participants.

The list can go on and on, but for each project, there should be specific limitations diminished that improve your company's abilty to meet its goals - faster, with more context, and less effort.

This example from Brantley's post is telling: 

"Before MRP systems, companies would perform the calculations once-a-month because it could take two-to-three weeks to perform the calculations. Thanks to the MRP systems, calculations could be performed in a matter of days but organizations didn't realize the benefits BECAUSE THEY STILL ONLY RAN THE SYSTEM ONCE A MONTH. It was this adherence to a rule that no longer applied because the limitation was diminished that prevented companies from gaining benefits from the MRP systems."

What limitations have you not diminished because your processes haven't evolved along with your technology?

Keep Goals in Site

What do you do when you get a complaint from a Web site or portal user?  Or when you are working with an interactive tool and find that you'd like it to work differently?

My guess is one of two things:  you request a change or you ignore it (and probably grumble a lot).

I've received a number of change requests from our clients that sound rational until I sit down and start thinking about the implications.  In order to determine whether or not changing the "thing" that's irritating or inconvenient is a wise idea.  (Assuming we're not talking about legitimate bugs here)

Here are some things to think about:

• How many people have complained/commented about it?
  • Why?
  • Is the complaint generated by confusion or by a real problem that requires  a change?
• How did you determine what change to make?
  • Did you only think about solving that issue when you requested the change?
  • Did you think about what impact the change will have down the road?
  • Did you consider the impact to the other related features of the "thing"?

What I'm getting at here is to ask yourself; What's the goal of the Web site, portal or online tool where the "thing" is that you're thinking about changing?  If you change the process or the original concept, are you affecting the outcome?  Will the result be different than the one you planned for?

Okay, you're probably wondering what this means with context.  So here's an example.  Let's say a community site gets a complaint that a user(s) don't want to have to come to the community site to interact with members of the community.  That they'd like to have the option of telling community users their preferred mode of contact (personal email, phone, fax, etc.) and bypass the community system.

So, meaning to be helpful, you decide that you need to request the change, adding that flexibility to make the user(s) happy.

This is where strategic thinking comes into play.  First, revisit your goal.  The goal for the community was to build a group of enthusiasts around the company's products and services and to create ongoing value and further innovations by interacting with the users who join the community. 

Will enabling the user to bypass the system and take other users and their ideas away from the community help the company achieve its goal?

Now, this doesn't mean that users aren't free to meet with whomever, whenever they want to.  It just means that you need to stay true to your strategy and vision to reach your goals.  And users agree to certain terms and conditions when they join a community.  A community that the company built and provided.

So, in this case, the company would be invalidating their goal and strategic outcome if they made the change.  And the change seemed like a simple thing. But it wasn't.  It could have a serious ramification to the project if the thought process hadn't been taken all the way back and refocused on the company's goal for the online initiative.  As well as looking forward to desired outcomes.

I'm just saying.  Be true to your goals.  And find a way to do it diplomatically and with grace, so your user feels well served when you tell them no or offer an alternative.  It's something worth thinking about.

Are there times when you've requested changes that made sense on the surface, but didn't serve the strategy once they were in action? 

Interactive Windows for Product Definition

I was reading my bloglist this morning and came across a post by Jack Vinson about Johari Windows.  So I checked out his and Nancy White's (whom he referenced) as I'd never heard of them before.

In case you haven't,

The source website describes the Johari Window thusly:

The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.

So I checked out both of their windows and the whole set-up got me to thinking about the views customers or even employees and our sales team have of our products.  I remember sitting in brainstorming meetings where everyone is asked to throw out adjectives about the product under discussion so we can try to determine the keywords and messaging to focus on for marketing, customer experience, Web content and white papers.  We'd hang big sheets of paper on the wall and give people Sharpees and have them go at it.

Well, you can get a lot of different results when you ask people to start cold and come up with their own terms.  What I found is that a lot of the jargon words for that period get written down and some silly stuff and maybe a few really good ideas.  But, here's the thing, as I looked at the Johari windows for Jack and Nancy, I could picture them being set up to define products and service offerings.

Then asking your customers, employees, and partners to participate in helping you define them by choosing from a big list of terms that might be applied due to their experiences with your company and those products. 

It's just a thought, and you'd probably want to mask identities from the world, but imagine what you could learn.  You might find a whole new niche that you never knew your product could serve, you might find a benefit you didn't know about and you might find a way to improve.  You might find some defining features or values your products deliver that you've been unaware of.

Which takes me to link this to a post at Live Path about the Three Word Rule.  Which might give you ideas on what to do with your words when you get them.  "What's your core focus?  Can your employees articulate it?  Do your customers get it?"

What words would your constituents use to define your product?

On Demand Needs Strategy

CRM Blog posts CRM On-Demand is In Demand and lists all the benefits companies can get from hosted solutions like Salesforce.com and other subscription software.

The benefits they list include things like:

• Reducing large capital investments to manageable monthly subscription fees
• Flexible Pricing Licensing and Scalability
• Decrease in Hardware, Support and IT Support staff
• Elimination of costly upgrades
• Remote Management
• Faster and easier deployment
• Good Solution for Distributed Offices
• General ease of use
• Availability of good mobile solutions
• Security and Back-up services
• Online Training
• Significant third party add-ons and Web Services
• Integration Capabilities

Which are all very nice things to have.  But there are some things critical to successful implementations that are not mentioned here. 

The first thing I'd add is the need for strategic thinking that goes with the implementation.  It's one thing to buy a subscription software solution and use it out of the box, as the generic instructions provided might advise.  It's entirely another to assess the impact to current processes, workflows and plan for impact, improvements and change.  Beyond that, user adoption is not going to happen because you send out new login instructions. 

Thinking about how best to initiate the use of new software is something that requires time and the ability to think outside of your current situation.  Your company will be served if you can address the results of the changes that will happen when you start to utilize the new software.  If you are ready to handle the results as well as the original intent.  It's not quite as simple as it's X dollars per month, per user and off you go.

The second thing I'd add here is to consider, really seriously look at the flexibility available in any hosted model you choose.  There's a reason a lot of software is on-demand.  It's out of the box and that's the way it works.  The same way for everyone.  Unless, of course, you're prepared to take on a customization project or hire consultants to do so.  Which brings me back to number one.  Do the strategic thinking involved to make sure you know what effect the software will really have on your current processes and how you'll grow and evolve them as your company changes, if the software you choose doesn't automatically advance along with your needs.

The third thing to assess is the amount and availability of support the on-demand company is willing to provide and what they will charge you for it.  If you have a question, can you get it answered?  If you are thinking about a possible integration or Web service addition, will they discuss it with you or would that conversation about possibilities become a consulting contract?

I'm not saying any of those things are bad.  In fact, subscription software is a good thing.  It enables companies to try many different tools, it's faster by far than a custom-built solution and will probably delay obsolescence, maybe forever, if the company continues to evolve and upgrade it as the market and innovations become available.

These are just some additional areas I feel you should look at.  And then, go do your on-demand project and make it a smashing success.  How fast can you create beneficial change in online work tools at your company?

The Art of Follow-Through

Laurence Haughton, who wrote It's Not What You Say...It's What You Do, and It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool in Business ( with Jason Jennings) is hosting a Webinar on February 28th called The Art of Follow Through.

Laurence has been a management consultant for over 20 years and has helped companies like Kodak and AOL-Time Warner.  His latest book - It's Not What You Say... - focuses on the results of a study done with 160 big companies over five years and offers great insights to leadership challenges we all face everyday; with our own companies - no matter the size, as well as with our personal leadership challenges.  He talks about what inspired him to write the book on 800-CEO-READ Blog.

I find the entire analysis in his book both surprising and thought provoking. When you learn that over 83% of corporate slowdowns in the last 40 years were triggered by internal controllable issues, how can you not want to find out how to avert this from happening to you?   

Here's an example of some key facts that should motivate you to go register for his Live Webcast:

1. 1/2 of all a company's strategies and initiatives will fail to make it from the drawing board to the front lines.
   
2. Because 2/3 of all managers follow through using tactics prone to fail
3. And only 1 out of 10 companies have the tools to address this critical breakdown

I don't know about you, but I signed up to find out what tools I might be missing.  How many of us can say that we have great success with every single initiative we undertake?  And it's not the quantity, according to Haughton, it's that whatever we undertake, we need to execute flawlessly.

Which reminds me of what my father told me my whole life:  "What little you do, do right, or don't bother to do it at all."  Which is oh, so very true. 

I wonder how many of us just decide to do nothing at all, perhaps because it's the road of least resistance?  Go sign up.  Find out more about It's Not What You Say...It's What You Do here.

And, if you want to hear someone besides me talk about the book, Rosa Say has a nice post about it.

Build Communities that Drive Business

In The Art of Creating a Community, Guy Kawasaki lists a number of things for you to think about when forming a group.  Out of his list, there are a few I'd like to take a closer look at and dig below the surface a bit to flesh out the value they can deliver - both to your company and to your community users.

Assign one person the task of building the community.  I can't emphasize this enough.  Trust me, if you build it they may come, but they won't stay.  Not unless you engage them and work hard at it.  Putting the responsibility of the community into the hands of someone who lives, breathes and sleeps with it will give the community the attention it needs to build relationships.  Now, before any of you run screaming from the room, that one person doesn't have to do everything.  Here are a few ideas:

• They can create opportunities to involve users and then recruit subject matter experts to participate in specific instances:  A discussion forum, a Q&A session, a brainstorming session for innovation or enhancements.
• They can develop themes from the user discussions and solicit articles about topics the community is interested in.  Creating an ongoing knowledge-transfer environment will help the group learn more and feed the discussion and development of innovative ideas.
• If discussions morph, create separate areas for those topics that need their own space so you don't dilute or bury the conversation underway. 
• Invite users to lead discussions or submit articles on some of their thinking about the ideas.  People love to be taken seriously.  Many of them are worth listening to.  Encourage them to continue by validating them.
• Make sure you give them something to do.  Unveil enhancement ideas and enroll them to help you refine them and make them better.  Not all of them, of course, but you're going to have to help with the ideas too.  As Guy says, "...the payoff is huge because once you get people chewing on a product, it’s hard to wrest it away from them."

Foster discourse.  As you can see above, this will happen organically if you assign someone to be responsible for the community.  But here's the thing, it can't just be that one person engaging the community.  In order for the group to stay enrolled, they will want to know that the company as a whole is interested in what they have to say and contribute.  So make sure key people drop buy now and then and interact.  But, even more knowledge can be gleaned if you get the group interacting among itself and join in the exchange, rather than trying to lead or dominate the conversation.

Welcome criticism. Guy says this really well - "The minute that the community says anything negative, however, companies freak out and pull back their community efforts. This is a dumb-ass thing to do. A company cannot control its community. This is a long-term relationship, so the company shouldn’t file for divorce at the first sign of possible infidelity. Indeed, the more a company welcomes—even celebrates criticism—the stronger its bonds to its community."

In addition, I think if you cut off criticism you are keeping your company from learning how to make your great products even more fantastic.  This is where you learn.  Think about it.  What do you learn if all your community ever says is how wonderful your products are?  You may not like what they have to say, but it's wonderful that they're choosing to share these thoughts with you instead of 20 of their closest friends who will pass it on.  You know how that works.  Criticism gives your company an opportunity to make an impact.  How you deal with it will define your ongoing relationship with your customers.  Take advantage of it.

Publicize the existence of the community.  Guy also says this one well, "Your community should be an integral part of your sales and marketing efforts."  There are many ways to do this.  You can have a sign-up for it on your website, include a link to join in your company e-newsletter, have your sales team issue personal invitations to their customers, blog about it, offer an invitation at the end of a customer satisfaction survey, invite them after they take delivery of your product.  Opportunities abound.  You might also want to think about how to publicly attribute innovations  that your company develops to your community.  Spread the credit around.  They'll invite their peers who use your products to join if there's something incredible going on in the community.

That's up to you.  Be willing to engage.