Two sides of Marketing

Marketing with the help of advertisements are more often than not slapped onto your face through television, billboards, radio, web...blah blah. It's not that you want to see a baby diaper ad while watching an important news or a bank boasting about its services which is anyway crappy most often while you are intensely watching your favorite sitcom. The question is do you want to see them or not?

But nowadays marketing supports betterment - like the messages has changed from "You need to take me" to "You can take me". They are realizing the true importance of Permission Marketing i.e. delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them.

But still marketing has dual responsibility: One is to win the customer & the other is to win over competitors. Dichotomy as it may seem. But which one is better? Too many questions but not much answers as of now...

Negative × Negative ≠ Positive in Business

If you don't have a driving license, will you get caught?...though the answer is obvious "NO" as you are not driving, but the word "NO" has a deep rooted connotation attached to it, if thought from a business point of view. For example, take these instances:

• Does your customer write you back about your product/service?


• Do you get back to your customers even though they are happy with your product/service?


• Do you keep your "Do's & Don'ts" outline for customer service stay only inside business meetings?


• Does your product/service add any value to your customers?


• Do you use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace etc to help your customer feel like an exclusive privileged community who can engage, collaborate, participate with the product/brand/service?

If the answer to above 5 questions is straightforward "NO", then dude you seriously are or will be in trouble soon because in business, multiplying negatives is not equal to positive.

Related Posts:

• Using Facebook as Marketing Platform
• Do we need "Community Managers"?
• Analogy between Human Body & Business
• Indian companies' response to Blogosphere
• What Cricket Umpires teach Marketers
• Social Media may save our lives

193 Creative Marketing Ideas

Some crafty stuff by Sam Decker in pulling the list of 193 Creative Marketing Ideas ranging from Advertising, customer service, direct marketing, online Marketing etc...you just name it! Kudos to Sam for pulling this creative marketing stuff.

I'm sure you will find something interesting in Sam's lengthy list.

Courtesy: Brand Autopsy

Eureka Bar: 8 Lessons for & from a Bookstore

I just love reading books. It's not that I'm a big enthusiast but whenever I get some time, I'm into it. So this habit of mine usually takes me to a place where I personally feel very relaxed i.e. A Bookstore. Though trust me I used to hate going to the library when I was in school and used to think it's a simple waste of space by keeping books rather than making a playground out of it. Hehe :-)

Anyway this month's flavour is "Why do I love these People" by Po Bronson (thanks to Gaurav via Facebook Apps). I will give a review of it later in my Facebook profile if not in my blog. But first things first. This post is about Bookstores. I learnt new things during my visit which actually made me sit and write this post. So some of the learnings as well as the strategies that bookstores may/can use are:

• I came to know that modern day Bookstores use mostly two types of cataloging- One is the type of books kept on categories like on Management, Sociology, Philosophy etc and the other is shelving books of all A's or B's separately like you will find all the books of Seth Godin under "S" named shelf and likewise. But my personal favorite is the former one. Thinking how many people buy like me...I mean by topics rather than having a book already in their mind??


• The inner ambience is more important than the external visual appeal.


• People get inside the bookstore to spend some quality time. So have plenty of comfy chairs strategically placed in between the shelves.


• Don't keep nudging the customers too often to make him buy a book rather make him more comfortable and if possible give the options of variety of book (this should be used only if it's a first time customer).


• Give him a booklet with a small "thank you for visiting us" smiley as well as of the category of books that the store has and if customer service is your prime aim then booklet with the store layout is not a bad idea.


• Personally I don't like bookstore having two or more floors as it becomes tedious to stroll through easily but if it is then go back to #5.


• Pass the rebate as discount coupon on the next item they buy. Just stamp it at the back of the coupon to keep a track.


• A must have section dedicated only for “Harry Porter typo kids” where a storyteller can recite small part of a story and then suddenly stop and make it all the more interesting for the kids to pester their parents to buy that buy. Trust me it works (seen it, it works…Parents beware!!!). Anyways please excuse me if I’m acting like a hard-bound marketer here.

So let me know if you have experienced something like this in a bookstore or some new type of strategy bookstores are using...

Why Indian Retail Business may have a lean summer?

I just can't keep my eyes off from cricket this summer. It's been the center of attraction and many debates between people. I even went on to post on the recent Indian Premier League (supposedly the biggest ever in terms of money of course). So in this recent frenzy it seems everyone is making money starting from people involved in the process as well as bookies who are playing bigtime for sure. And also not forgetting people like me who are just plain jane cricket lovers just watching it on television and enjoying (one of the main reasons is that nowhere can we find the best playing against each other...no pun intended!).

But this post is not about IPL's recent success story but it's impact though sublime but seriously something to think about. Few days back I went to one of the neighbourhood departmental retail store. Though most of the times in the evening you have to stand in the queue to make your bill but that was my lucky day it seemed. Not too much rush. I hung there in the store for sometime to watch the incoming footfalls but I was actually taken aback. On asking it seemed the recent IPL i.e. cricket mania has grabbed us. Wtf!! Who the hell thought of it..or does any Indian retail company thought of this before? I am not too sure.

Some of the reasons which is actually reinforcing my belief that Indian retail business will have a lean summer are:

• My experience from my fellow mates as well as talks with the store guys in Retail circuit says that business is rolling more in the evening especially for the convenient stores as people come back from office/better buying condition in the evening due to the hot Indian summer daytime and blah blah. So buying is conducive in the evening, and do I have to say that we were watching cricket during those times. So buying time has reduced, isn't it?

• One more thing is that IPL will continue for the next 45 days, so if my proposition is correct then surely Indian retail business will be hit and remember 45 days mean half a quarter. So lets see if I'm right then it will surely reflect in their balance sheets.

So what do you think? I would really appreciate if you can put your comments; even more to criticize or just add on to that list.

How can a brand stay young forever?

I have been observing Google for quite sometime now and so have you I guess. One of the interesting facts about Google has been it's changing logos. Today is World Earth Day and as usual Google changed it's logo or signage so as to say. It's a great PR activity I must say to promote the awareness amongst us. But is there any other strategy behind this? I feel there is!

One of the most important facets about a brand is to keep it young, if not forever. And I feel one of the easiest ways is to keep it fresh is by attaching the brand with something relevant to it's user base or it's customers. It's kinda difficult for most brands since the value may be lost down the line if it keeps on attaching itself with everything. But not so for Google. Google itself stands for fresh since search (which is it's core competency) is all about latest and best information that it can provide. So changing the signage overtime keeps it quite young and fresh among us. Anyway kudos to Google's Marketing team for this efforts which keeps it young forever (if I may say so!).

Related Posts:

• The Love for color "Red" in brand logos
• Happy B'Day Google: Is it 9 or 10 years old?
  

Cricket = Money+Glamour??

India Premier League is underway from 18th April, 2008 and I believe Indian cricket fans have a real treat to watch all those exciting cricketers playing under eight teams created accordingly. I won't go into the details of hows, wheres and whats of the IPL (follow the link to know more) as I believe people know more about it than rising inflation in India right now.

Anyways, one insight I definitely like to pull in this post. The headline of this post says it all.

Cricket = Money+Glamour??

No wonder cricket is the money churner of India and if you can calculate the money spent and will be earned after the completion of Indian Premier League (IPL), then it's not rocket science to understand that the future of cricket is well defined. OK. Now some history if you may say so.

Test cricket came first along with the likes of great players like Sir Don Bradman etc. Then one day cricket which initially had some resistance but was well accepted among masses. And now Twenty-20 or T20 as it is called. Some of the reasons why people like T20 matches are:

• Less time consuming.
• More Glamour, glitz and razmatazz.
• Cricketainment as its height.

Now don't catch me on the wrong foot here. I am not at all against those 3 points I mentioned above. But I believe that cricket is more than that. What about skills and technique of playing cricket? Can we find players like Sachin Tendulkar, Brain Lara or Shane Warne amongst all these. If Cricket remains the slave of money & glamour then seriously, a cricket buff like me will have a bad hiccup.

Consistency

"I wanted to be a doctor" when I was a child. At least this preoccupied me in my childhood. But I turned out to be an engineer and later a management graduate. Isn't this interesting? Most often than not we turn out to be something which we never thought we would be.

The parallel to marketing is quite interesting in this context! The word here is "CONSISTENCY". It doesn't matter how you start (either by delivering goods/services) but it's more important that you keep on delivering the best consistently.

That's what we should do.

Do we need "Community Managers"?

How do you listen to your customers? The traditional customer service model worked more through auto-generated email messages which generally gets dumped in trash-can, a suggestion box like you must have seen in most fast food joints or even a customer service toll free number in case you want to say “your service sucks!”. So when businesses know that customer service is one of the quintessential ingredients for customer satisfaction then why still going like in the old ways?

Still there is some good and bad news for those marketing executives or business owners. Social media may change the way you intercept your customers who wants to say something about your brand/product/service. Isn’t that what we have been talking for a while i.e. active participation or engagement to its truest sense? And oh how much we spend in that…I don’t think much! And the bad news is in the resistance factor from different businesses. Somebody will say is it possible or the old system works fine.

Don’t get me wrong here. I am just trying to say, the old model may work just fine but don’t you think your customers have moved a long way in the complex and media fragmented world where customer touch-points have increased. So why haven’t you?

After all this, the need for Community Managers is very evidential. They act as customer service reps, evangelists or sometimes the public faces for their company. In this regard, this article will provide a clear perspective about how Twitter(@sampad) is being used by companies to service their customers in a better way. Blogger Mario Sundar posted a list of the community managers he found on Twitter (which I edited to remove the people whose Twitter username he couldn't find):

1. Will Pate: Community Evangelist - ConceptShare (@willpate)

2. Mario Sundar: Community Evangelist - Linkedin (@mariosundar)

3. Eric Skiff: Community Evangelist - Clipmarks (@ericskiff)

4. Marilyn Pratt: Community Evangelist - SAP Labs (@marilynpratt)

5. Brett Meyers: Community Evangelist - Zloop (@brettmeyers)

6. Ryan Knight: Community Manager - Yahoo (@yank)

7. Jennifer Puckett : Community Manager - Disney (?)

8. Jim Lynch: Community Manager - Ziff Davis (@jwlynch)

9. Jake McKee: Community Guy - Formerly Lego (@jakemckee)

10. William Azaroff: Community Engagement - VanCity (@wazaroff)

11. Carole McManus: Community Specialist, formerly Yahoo 360 (@puttopal)

12. Asa Dotzler: Catastrophist, Mozilla (@asadotzler)

13. Anand Iyer: Developer Evangelist - Microsoft (@anandiyer)

14. Damon Billian: Director of Customer Evangelism - Mint (@dbillian)

15. Domini Perri: Community Manager, Utterz - (@domjp)

16. Daniel Ha: Disqus (@danielha)

This will not only help understand your customers in a better way but also let your customers feel that “you are there to care”. Now you decide that does modern day businesses need “Community Managers”?

Truth, Fact and Personality of a Brand

I have been thinking for a while about product packaging and their designs a lot. How is it affecting consumers’ perception and influencing their purchasing behavior and stuff like that? Now let us do some amount of mental exercise for a moment? Don’t get me wrong here. This post is something which you don’t need any concept at all. It’s more about feeling it. Think about all the products that you used today and how their shape, size and color affect you about creating a perception of the brand you are using.

The question pertains to three things: Truth, Fact and Personality. Truth is what we think happens and what happens is Fact, not truth. Facts are reality while truth is perception and perception is guided by the way our brain thinks; by our thoughts, opinions, feelings etc.

Now this can be taken to any scenario; yes even in business (more so in marketing). What guides a customer to buy a product is higher than truth or fact. It’s the personality that a product or a brand communicates which comes from truth and not just fact (that’s why concept like premium products is much better than cheaper ones still have a market). It’s all about two things generally: one is the story that a brand tells us and the other is the less and less time we give to brands since overtime we have more & more choices in terms of product variants and less of time to think and buy. So we are not after fact; it’s about the truth guided by the brand’s personality.

Now, please don’t get me wrong here. I am not saying that the marketplace is only about perception or image. Today brand’s personality has become all the more important. What I am saying is be obsessed with your audience’s truth, and design your business to appeal to that truth. Perception may not be reality, but it drives your customers’ feelings and actions. And if you don't take the time to learn about that, then their perception is going to be your problem.

Recession is detrimental to Branding, or is it?

Brands & recession are quite interesting if seen together. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not at all in favor of recession (be it economic or my blog post droughts), but something interesting happens to most brands during recession and more so on how they are handled during those times.

One of the most common branding phenomenon we often observe during recessionary period is that marketing/branding costs are reduced which exposes the brands to higher risks of becoming less visible amongst others.

I believe this is not the right strategy. Infact it should be the other way round viz. instead of cutting the valuable market research budget, companies should think about how to know more about consumers on how they are responding and redefining the value of brands.

Also it is easier for a brand to gain traction in the marketplace by increasing advertising during recession while competitors are cutting back. This will have a two-fold effect- Improving market share and better ROI (return on investment) at lower cost than during sound economic conditions.

Caveat: To employ this strategy, the company’s management should follow a contrarian strategy of investing in marketing programs while controlling other expenses.

Future of Social networking in India

Social networking is here to stay. I remember some of my friends and colleagues arguing over the demise of social networking in India (that too some even went to the extreme of giving me a deadline too).

But as far as I’m concerned I don’t agree to them. Though I believe that the form of acceptance of social networking for India in the future will be in a different format altogether. Ask me why? Yeah, did anyone mentioned about mobile telephony in India which has been growing at a hurricane pace though the talks of Global recession are round the corner.

To tell you the truth, it doesn’t matter since its helping the masses and the classes to get hooked on to their friends and foes at a click of a button. Now one more argument about social media catching main stream in India would be the ever growing population who has been accessing each other starting from remote villages to uber class denizens.

But of course there are some hindrances before going back to the future. One of those is the technology limitations like the browser based networks don’t leverage the power of the mobile device, and client based applications are blocked by service providers and handset limitations. So once someone utilizes this potential (oh by the way very few people are working in this domain, not even Facebook’s or MySpace’s) to create an application that has enough traction to catch the attention and remove the tech limitations of browser apps compatibility with mobile devices and stuff like service providers blockades', then Hari from a remote village can connect with an unknown friend via future Facebook through his mobile device in future.

Anyways, keep a tab at Google’s Android platform and Apple iPhone SDK which may provide an excellent opportunity in this field.

Back from Vacation with three words

After a month long vacation and staying away from blogging, the first thing I would like to say is three words to all the readers of this blog: Apologies and Thank you. Apologies since I could not post all this while and thank you for your patience especially to all those who check my blog time to time.

Though I didn’t post anything during this break but it gave me some time to gather all my thoughts together which I hope to reflect in my future posts.

Once again, thank you all.