Astonish Your Customer(s)

Beyond the core product

What one marketing activity, beyond the core product, should also astonish the customer? 

Peter Drucker said that "marketing is the entire business, as seen from the customers eyes". So, in that sense, every function in the business serves as a marketing activity and especially the roles that have direct interaction with the people that buy the "product".

Does anyone doubt that the "help desk" people at Dell plays a super important role in influencing how customers feel about the product they just bought and the company? Do they think of that person as a marketer or just a cost center?

Does your business look at the salesperson, aisle clerk, flight attendant, 1-800 customer service representative, cashier, billing rep, receptionist as a "marketer"? Are these folks being being given the careful training and guidance to astonish the customer?   

(TY: Peter Drucker)

Measure it

Is your product considered the absolute best at anything that is worth measuring - that your audience also cares about?

Hardees went counter-market recently in the face of all the trans-fat and healthiness craze. They promoted their Monster Thickburger - 1,400 calorie belly buster. The CEO called it "not a burger for tree-huggers".  "This is a burger for young hungry guys who want a really big, delicious, juicy, decadent burger," he said. "I hope our competitors keep promoting those healthy products, and we will keep promoting our big, juicy delicious burgers."

Measure something worth noticing, that an audience cares about and go all the way to the edge. 

(TY: Hardees, Seth Godin) 

Improve the advertising

How would you change the product if you could not advertise? 

Marketers often feel hamstrung or deprived if they cannot utilize traditional marketing and advertising vehicles to build the brand - or do not have big enough budgets to do the same. So, when confronted with this deprived state, they immediately start to think how they can employ new media, free media, social networks and the like to get the word out. 

The best advertisement will always be the product itself.

It is very tough to get people excited about an average product. People seldom spread the word about an average product. Most launches are me-too or line extensions and that is why they garner little notice, little sales (beyond the pipeline fill), underperform and die quickly.

Improve the "advertising". Go back to the drawing board to make the product both remarkable and relevant. Remarkable: So noticably different and demonstrably better that people will literally make a remark about it to others. Relevant: Solves a problem & makes lives better ... gives happiness ... it's about the customer's everyday life, not just the product. 

(TY: Tim Manners, Seth Godin)

Launch Failure

Why do most launches fail?

Brand are not playing follow the leader, they are really playing follow the follower. If my competitor did it, I need to do it too. 

In short, brands are choosing to be average - creating average products for average people - traveling down the middle of the road in the (mostly vain) hope that the product will appeal to the largest possible audience. Following this strategy leads to the 90+% wash-out rate for new product launches.  

Brands must say "No" to being average.

(TY: Seth Godin)

Never Confuse Effort with Results

My father, Mark T. Concannon Sr. (1913-1997) used this line often and, as near as I can tell, he coined the quote (although there are many variants). I love the pithiness of his quote.

He told me: "Effort is not the same as results. Many people give great effort and try their best and often don't really get anywhere. Trying is not good enough. The only thing that counts is generating a meaningful result and you can never, ever, confuse the two". 

  

Largest you can dominate

Identify one under-served niche audience that you can astonish. 

The secret to being best in the world is to make the "world" smaller. 

Pick the "largest" audience that you can dominate. 

This is an ideal approach for old, fallen, tired, niche, small and untested products. Better to be the 1st choice of a small audience than the 3rd or 4th choice of a large, crowded audience. If it is a win in the niche, then build it out. 

(TY: Seth Godin and unknown)

Truth - it doesn't hurt

Suppose you told the whole truth about the product (existing or new product)? 

Would it change the nature of the product and/or create a new audience? Would it differentiate your product? People want to associate with "things" that they can trust and believe in. Authenticity. 

(TY: Jim Stengel, Seth Godin) 

Launch a Story

People buy stories, not stuff. 

So, what story or audacious promise would your customers love to hear? 

Tell a story that sticks, that spreads and that will change the way people act. 

Don't worry about being cool, and worry a lot more about having a story that resonates with customer's worldview. 

(Worldview: An existing belief, bias, predisposition. It's not necessarily rational. For whatever reason people are hyper-alert to certain things but unmoved by other things, even if the other thing is inherently just as valid, because deep-down, people already have a strongly held belief.)

(TY: Seth Godin)

Relevance - the real meaning

Relevance is the essence of marketing and innovation. Tough to argue with that thought. 

Yet it seems like the concept of Relevance is open to interpretation. I certainly did not have a concrete definition in my mind until I read Tim Manners recent book titled, "Relevance - Making Stuff That Matters". Tim says ...

Relevance: Solving problems and making people's life better ...  giving happiness ... it's about customer's everyday life, not just your product.

Making life better, giving happiness.

(TY: Tim Manners)  

 

Thinking Made Easy

Think about your industry, category, product.

What do customers hate & complain about?

In what ways do customers feel like they always lose?

Cranium, DPR, ING Direct, GSD&M, HBO, Jet Blue, Southwest Air, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Fox News, Virgin, Charles Shaw wines, Nine Sigma & Kiva had a wide ranging critique of what was wrong with their industry and an unapologetic sense of mission about providing a clear alternative.

(TY: William C. Taylor & Polly LaBarre, authors, Mavericks At Work)