keithmonaghan.com » Branding

Context Sells: Why Hands-On is the Best Marketing

Keith Monaghan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:22:23 +0000

So, you have a great product and passionate customers. Congratulations. But how do you grow that precious customer base? Recruit new customers and spread the passion for your product?

Well, if you’re glassybabby, maker of beautiful one of a kind hand-made glass votives, you let people rent your product for their wedding reception or party and then return it.

Wait, what?

That’s right. It doesn’t work for every product, but it works for glassybaby. Here’s why:

Show Them, Don’t Tell Them

How many times have you heard companies tell you how great their product is? “Our widget is the best blah, blah, blah!”. You probably stopped listening before they finished the pitch. And rightly so, studies show most consumers tune out advertising.

By letting potential customers actually use your product they will immediately grasp its benefits without having to be told a thing. That’s Context, the setting in which your product can be fully understood. And it’s why glassybaby’s renting of their votives is a smart idea.

They could tell us how beautiful they’re votives are but, let’s face it, only by seeing them in person can one appreciate their glimmering beauty. And if I can try them out risk free, all the better.

I don’t know about you, but after a few glasses of wine surrounded by several hundred happy, celebrating people, I’d buy a few. I’d even tell some people about them.

The bottom line: Don’t tell me how great your product is, show me. Don’t bombard me with a list of features, let me discover them. I’ll remember how great your product is long after I’ve walked away, perhaps long enough to realize how much I want one. It’s basic stuff, but it’s powerful.

Could It Be Even Better?

glassybaby’s rental program is an example of great word-of-mouth marketing. They’ve figured out a way to get their product in front of large groups of people so they can see it in context: at a wedding reception, function or party, beautifying a space. Even better, their customers are doing the work for them by showing off the product in action.

But how could they extend their Context strategy even more? A few ideas:

Give non-profits free votive rental for their fund raising events.
Free glassybaby for the bride when she rents them for her reception.
Discount for romantic restaurants (and a display card on the table next to the glassybaby).

The big questions: How can you put your product in context for customers? How can you let them discover how great your product is on their own? Leave a comment or email blog at keithmonaghan dot com.

Thanks for reading.

See also:

Authenticity Sells: How Chipotle Turns Openness Into Profits

Keith Monaghan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:13:53 +0000

Steve Ells, founder and CEO of Chipotle restaurants, wants you to know something that most fast food companies try desperately to hide: where their food comes from.

See for yourself in the above video, where he talks openly about “food with integrity” on national TV while standing amidst the very pigs that will some day become carnitas burritos at his restaurants. (Can’t see the video? Click here.)

If that weren’t enough, he went so far as to endorse Food, Inc., a documentary about the sorry state of industrialized food production in the United States. (You can even find coupons for $2 off the price of the DVD at your local Chipotle restaurant.)

This guy is serious. But is it good for business?

You bet it is. The company has seen impressive growth and has plans to expand to around 3,000 locations.

So why does informing people about where their food comes from work for Chipotle?

The main reason, I think, is authenticity.

The marketing strategy here is simple but effective: set high customer expectations and then exceed them.

How many times have you been disappointed by a crappy product or tricked by a bait-and-switch promotion? Several, I’m willing to guess.

After decades of being bamboozled by old-school marketing tactics (hello airlines!), we are starving for good products and honest companies.

Chipotle’s tactic for dealing with this is simple: make exceptional Mexican food by sourcing the best ingredients they can find and then tell you about it, which holds them accountable. That translates into authenticity.

Is Ells the real deal? It’s impossible to know from the outside, but there seems to be no conflict between what customers’ experience and what the company is saying. At least if you like their food.

In my opinion, Chipotle gets it: brands must deliver on what they promise because today’s consumers are savvy enough to know when they are being lied to and connected enough to expose those brands on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

That should scare most any company into being authentic.

How do you use Authenticity? What other companies use it? Leave a comment or email blog at keithmonaghan dot com.See also:

5 Steps to Better Marketing

Keith Monaghan — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:53:07 +0000

Listen to this post:
Download audio file (5stepsbettermarketing.mp3)
Download: 5 Steps to Better Marketing (.mp3 | 6:04 | 8.4 MB)

What makes a marketing campaign great? It’s the Big Question we all ask ourselves and, for what it’s worth, I have a partial answer.

Here are five things that are often overlooked by marketers but, done properly, can turn any campaign into a smashing success.

1. Start With a Better Product

Think your product is too boring to be great? Don’t tell that to the folks at the Sherwin-Williams. They revolutionized the retail paint industry by designing a paint can with an easy twist-off lid, comfortable side handle and no-drip spout. Oh, and it’s square to maximize shelf space. How’s that for making a boring product great?

It’s a lot easier to sell people a product that answers their needs–even needs they may not be aware of–than trying to convince them to buy an average or poorly designed one.

Consider this quote from Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. A master marketer if ever there was one:

It’s not about pop culture, and it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do. We just want to make great products. — Steve Jobs, Fortune Magazine

2. Be Clear

How many times have you watched a commercial and wondered what it was trying to sell? Quite a few, I’m willing to bet. How many campaigns have you created that did the same thing? Come on, be honest. We’ve all done it.

It’s easy to become blinded by the opinions of insiders, technology or the latest marketing trend and end up creating something that, while obscurely clever, fails to successfully market your product.

Some experts argue such campaigns are justified as “brand extension” or “customer experience”. Maybe. I say you’re better off creating a campaign that makes it easy for customers to understand what is great about your product why they should buy it.

A good example is this ad for Buckley’s Cough Syrup:

Funny, to the point, and it gets the message across. No list of unpronounceable ingredients, no baffling conceptual art, just a statement of the obvious: “It tastes awful”, followed by a gutsy claim: “And it works”. The TV commercials are brilliant too. Clear is always better than clever.

3. Design Better

The average American is exposed to between 200 and 3,000 ads per day. If it’s going to cut through the clutter, a marketing campaign better convey your message quickly, clearly and powerfully. That means good design.

Badly designed campaigns can damage an otherwise healthy brand by creating doubt in a customer’s mind about you, your product and your company. If you can’t get your marketing together then why should they buy your product?

By way of example: What would happen if Microsoft redesigned Apple’s famously understated packaging for the iPod? Watch the video below to find out. It’s not pretty. Good design matters. A lot.

Can’t see the embedded video? Click here.

4. Improve Customer Service

What does customer service have to do with a great marketing campaign? Well, if the campaign succeeds people will be making purchases, calling and emailing you with questions and, heaven forbid, experiencing problems.

It’s not sexy or trendy but great customer service can produce better results than any PR or marketing initiative, not to mention happy and loyal customers (and you need those more than ever right now).

Give them a great story to spread about how effortless the purchase was, about how well you took care of them and how quickly you solved their problem. The word will spread, I promise. Great word-of-mouth is priceless marketing and good customer service is an easy way to make it happen.

For some interesting examples of both good and bad customer service, check out my podcast “Marketing in Tough Times – Improving Customer Service“.

5. Remember, Your Customers are Human

Sure, treating customers as a faceless mass of numbers has it’s upside: it makes things like accounting, valuation and profit analysis easier.

But this industrial revolution mentality has its limits in today’s hyper-connected world. With the social web, we’ve moved beyond the simplistic concept of an individual mass of customers to customers as a mass of individuals. As a result, learning how humans work, specifically your humans, can reap enormous rewards.

Case in point, the following quote from John Medina’s book, Brain Rules:

“We are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%.”

In short: learn how humans work and develop your message accordingly. Your efforts will be rewarded.

What other steps can businesses take to improving marketing? What would you add to this list? Leave a comment or email blog at keithmonaghan dot com.

Thanks for reading.See also:

Reality Check: How Augmented Reality Will Change Your Business

Keith Monaghan — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:09:18 +0000

“I reject your reality and substitute my own.” — Adam Savage, host, Mythbusters.

Imagine walking down the street and spotting a pair of fancy shoes in a store window. You really like those shoes so you point your cell phone at them. It immediately tells you that a store two blocks down carries the same shoes at a lower price. Cool, you think, so you touch your phone’s screen and up pops a map that guides you, in real time, to the other store where you purchase your awesome shoes, saving a few bucks, and go on your way.

It sounds like science fiction, but it’s not. You can see it at work in the video above in which a phone pointed at the Amsterdam skyline immediately shows which houses are for sale. (Can’t see the video? Click here.)

Awesome, isn’t it? It’s called Augmented Reality and it’s coming very soon to a smart phone near you. In fact, it is available right now for phones running Google’s Android operating system (Layar) and phone maker Nokia is currently beta testing its Point and Find system in the US and UK.

What does this have to do with marketing your business? Everything.

If you’ve paid attention to technology and the web over the years you probably know that you as a business are not in control. You never were. There is no stopping negative reviews online, only dealing with them honestly and head-on. The best strategy is to make a great product and reach out to people who will hopefully spread the word. That’s lack of control if I’ve ever heard it.

The Bad News

Augmented Reality is lack of control on steroids.

Now I can just point my phone at the front of your restaurant and see your reviews and health board rating. No more wasted time digging around on the web to see what others are saying about you. Everything about you now comes to my phone quickly and effortlessly. I can decide on the spot whether or not to eat at your place.

Or I could scan the conference floor with my phone, identify you, and see those embarrassing pictures on Facebook or that nasty twitter fight you had with a customer. I’ll know your dirty little secrets before we ever shake hands. If you’re smart, you’ll look for mine too.

And that shoe buying scenario I described earlier? It’s not possible yet, but it will be very soon. Retailers should be shaking in their boots.

Scary, eh? Sure, but only for the unprepared. And you’re definitely not one of them. Augmented Reality stands to be a very powerful tool in the hands savvy marketers.

The Good News

There is huge potential to engage customers and extend brands with Augmented Reality. Admittedly, the Wow Factor is a major part of the impact these campaigns will make, but I believe that with care they can be developed into highly effective marketing tools. A few ideas:

Digital ads or promotions that “appear” on the front of your building and are only visible through the screen of a phone.
Beautiful high-def pictures of your food on the gadgets of passersby when they scan your restaurant (coupons too).
Give customers who hold your product up to their computer’s web cam special access to exclusive online content like music, e-books and downloads.
Get people together and talking by providing Social Networking info on local customers who also love your products (opt-in, of course).
Finally, check out video of Disney and GE’s impressive early efforts with AR on YouTube: Disney’s Nightastic and GE’s Wind Turbine campaign.

Conclusion

Augmented Reality is here and I believe it’s going to be hugely popular in the near future, it’s just not widely distributed yet. But it will be. Now is the time to get ahead of the trend and start thinking about how you can best use it for your product and situation.

After the hype has died down I suspect we’ll find that the best way to use AR to market our businesses is the same as it’s always been: have a great product, be genuine, add value and, most importantly, remember that there are humans at the other end of the technology.

What do you think? How will Augmented Reality affect business? How can it be used for marketing? Leave a comment or email blog at keithmonaghan dot com.

Thanks for reading.See also:

Starbucks’ $11,000 Coffee Maker

Keith Monaghan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:59:38 +0000

Can’t see the embedded video? Click here.

The Coffee Giant Gambles With Customer Perception

On a recent trip to the Bay Area I found myself at a restaurant with a Clover coffee maker–the $11,000 machine designed by Stanford engineers to produce a perfect cup of steaming-hot coffee.

So, I ordered a cup. How often do you get to drink an $11k cup of joe? More on that in a minute.

To many of us this sounds ridiculous. How much of a difference can an insanely high priced coffee machine make? How good could it possibly be? Even the best cup of coffee is, well, still coffee.

But maybe there is something to it because Starbucks just bought the company that makes the Clover.

I know, you coffee connoisseurs are thinking, “Starbucks? What do they know about good coffee?” I won’t get into that debate, but consider the following from insight from modern consumer psychologists.

“Whereas economists or marketing strategists might look to numbers—wages or interest levels—psychologists know that something more motivates the consumer purchase trends. They have discovered that often in the most depressed economic times, the sales of luxury items go up.”

Or as Matthew Honen, host of the Wired video about the Clover embedded above, says, “Basically what you’re paying for is a team of Stanford engineers to build this thing by hand. You’re also paying to get an individually crafted cup.”

Hmm… OK, now it’s starting to make sense.

But in a down economy where enough people are abandoning their morning lattes for Starbucks to close 600 stores, is experimenting with uber-quality a good move?

Maybe. Perception is a powerful thing. For many of us hyper-quality coffee isn’t that important, but to some coffee drinkers it is, especially during tough times. And that, I think, is the point of Starbucks’ acquisition. Will it work? Your guess is as good as mine.

As for that cup of Clover coffee I had? Well, it tasted like… a cup of good coffee. Nice, but nothing special. But I’m not the customer for this experience. The big question is are Starbucks customers ready for the Clover?

What about you? Do your expectations affect your feelings about products? How? Have you ever tweaked the perception of a product to increase sales?

Leave a comment or email blog at keithmonaghan dot com.

Thanks for reading.See also:

Scarcity Sells

Keith Monaghan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:06:10 +0000

How Failing to Keep Up With Demand Can Be a Good Thing

Knob Creek’s current ad campaign announces something shocking: they may actually run out of bourbon this fall.

The elegantly zen-like piece (above, click for big version) features a precious last drop of bourbon, the tag line “Thanks for nothing”, and some clever copy:

“For the next few months Knob Creek Bourbon is in a unique situation — our product is so popular that we cannot keep up with customer demand. As a result, our supply will be running low over the next few months, and, in some cases, we may experience temporary stock depletion. But, instead of compromising quality to meet demand, we have chosen to let the supply run low. In deference to Booker Noe and his vision for Knob Creek, we will age all our bourbon the full 9 years. The next batch will be ready in November of this year… Again, with all the success we’ve had, we’ve still come up empty. Thanks for helping make it happen.“

This is brilliant old-school marketing and I love it more than a man should love any ad. Here’s why:

It reinforces Knob Creek’s old world, hand-crafted image: You can’t rush excellence.
It proves they are popular. “Hey, we ran out!”.
It spins “Thanks for nothing” into a positive statement.
Most importantly, it combines two powerful marketing strategies in an elegant way: Scarcity and Social Proof.

Scarcity and social what, marketing guy?

I know, it sounds like marketing gobbledygook, but both approaches are real and based on serious research and Knob Creek does a beautiful job of combining them. How so? Read on.

Scarcity

The best way to make a profit is to deal in something scarce. People want what others can’t have. Crowds and lines generate curiosity. Word-of-mouth about great, but hard to attain, products creates demand (see Social Proof below).

Most importantly, Scarcity forces your true fans, those customers who will do most anything to buy your product, who obsess over it, to talk. They talk about the waiting and the searching and the longing an how it’s driving them crazy and they just can’t wait to get their hands on it already!

And people are talking about Knob Creek (Google Blog Search). In fact, the ad has generated so much interest that they are hosting a webcast on September 1st to explain how the shortage came to be and why their 9-year aging process makes Knob Creek bourbon so special, extending interest in the campaign. Nice.

As effective a strategy as Scarcity is, there’s another, even more interesting, aspect to it: Social Proof.

Social Proof

Simply put, Social Proof is the tendency to look to others for ques on how to behave–monkey see, monkey do, if you will. If Knob Creek is sold out we assume it must be great and if everybody likes it they must know something we don’t.

It’s why companies use celebrities to endorse their products, Amazon features customer reviews and TV shows use canned laughter.

Right or wrong, we often assume others must be better informed and they are acting on experience or privileged information. Often it’s just a mob mentality, group think, following the herd.

And it’s why Knob Creek’s is happy to announce they’ve sold out: If it sold out it must be good. It’s that simple.

Could it Be Even Better?

Knob Creek’s “Thanks For Nothing” ad is word-of-mouth marketing at its best. They’ve highlighted their Scarcity problem without any hype and subtly used Social Proof to show that many people think their bourbon is great. And damn if I don’t want to try it because of that.

But how could they extend this great campaign even further? A few ideas:

YouTube videos featuring customers talking about their frustration with The Wait.
A social media campaign that counts down the days until the next batch is available.
A contest in which a lucky winner gets the first new bottle a few days ahead of the official re-release.

What do you think? How could Knob Creek take “Thanks for nothing” even further? Should they? How do you use Scarcity and Social Proof? Leave a comment or email blog at keithmonaghan dot com.

Thanks for reading.See also:

Smart Talk About Marketing

Keith Monaghan — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:38:22 +0000

Good Stuff From Around the Web

Lots of good marketing writing out there despite this being the slow season–end of summer and all. Here are some particularly insightful thoughts found over my morning cup o’ tea. Enjoy.

Jonathan Salem Baskin asks, “Why don’t we focus on making the conduct of our businesses meaningful and useful, and then structure the marketing communications to deliver that information?” Amen to that. Dim Bulb: True Lies
Jeremiah Owyang on the impending “ambient intimacy” of appliances, cars and other machines texting, blogging, and tweeting maintenance alerts. Not sure if I’m ready for my refrigerator to text me. Web Strategy: When Appliances, Pets, and Plants Start to Tweet
Nice piece on the risks of dropping your prices to compete. Bottom line: Think long and hard before giving into the temptation because there may be serious brand-damaging consequences. Are You Dropping Your Prices?
Another post, similar to Dim Bulb’s “True Lies”, on the benefits of embracing honest marketing for your branding strategy. The Edgy Entrepreneur: Marketing and Telling the Truth
There is no shortage of Social Media marketing guides on the Interwebs, but this one nicely sums up much of what you need to know. Web 2.0 + Best Practices = Connecting and creating value
Finally, something good for the soul: 8-year old Emma rocking the house at the 2009 Spring Coffee Shop Jam in Seattle with her song “Snow Day”. Rock on! YouTube: “Snow Day” by Emma

See also:

Recession Marketing Japanese Style: 100 Small Improvements

Keith Monaghan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:48:16 +0000

How an American Idea Adopted by the Japanese Can Help You Market Better Right Now.

Times are tough, budgets are tight and everyone has an opinion about what to do when it comes to recession marketing.

But what can you do if your marketing budget is nonexistent?

I’ve written about no-cost marketing ideas before (see 10 Ideas for Free Marketing in Tough Times and its sequel or download the e-book). But there is another way that requires little or no money and can dramatically improve your odds of success.

It’s so effective that it is practiced by business leaders like Jeff Bezos of Amazon and entire corporations like Toyota.

The Japanese call it Kaizen. It basically means making small, continuous improvements and it works exceptionally well. You may recognize it as a famous quote:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. — Lao Tzu

Kaizen originated in America as the idea of “continuous improvement”. General MacArthur’s occupation forces took it to Japan after WWII to rebuild the devastated country.

Having been defeated by superior equipment and technology, the Japanese embraced the idea and, in the following years, rocketed their productivity to unheard of levels.

What does this have to do with marketing during a recession? Everything.

You may not have the budget or management buy-in for a new campaign, but by making 10, 20 or 100 easy little changes to existing marketing campaigns & initiatives you can dramatically improve their messaging and response rates. Result: better branding and greater ROI for minimal effort at little or no cost.

A few Ideas:

Edit the copy on your web site so it motivates visitors to take action.
Find better images for that brochure you hand out at conventions at iStockphoto.
Call your best customers and thank them for their business.
Fine tune a presentation into a masterpiece of persuasion.
Make it easier to opt-out. Seriously easy.
Learn how to write better blog posts.
Fix that nagging little product feature. You know the one.

Great change is made through small steps and, in tough times, small steps may be all you have. That’s good news because through constant small changes you can have a very large impact. What improvements can you make right now?

Don’t Read This, Read That

Keith Monaghan — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:06:43 +0000

Busy with projects and random business. In the mean time, please enjoy these marketing articles from around the web:

Major companies like PepsiCo, General Mills and McDonalds are turning to nostalgia marketing in hopes that warm, fuzzy feelings about the past will help make people feel better about the present and future. Good luck with that. [NYTimes]
A raging debate over the future of online advertising. I won’t spoil it for you, but if your site is ad-supported things are going to get interesting in the near future. [TechCrunch]
Nice piece of marketing by the producers of the new Star Trek movie: have a major cast member from the original series surprise unsuspecting fans with a showing hours before the international opening. Twitter nearly explodes with excitement. Well played. [Wired]
Lastly, something good for the soul: 10 Swoon-Worthy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. [delish]

See also:

New E-Book: Marketing in Tough Times – 20 No-Cost Ideas

Keith Monaghan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:40:22 +0000

You know what’s great about the Internet? I mean besides hulu.

For me, it’s putting my work on the Interwebs and hearing from people who find it useful.

I was lucky enough to have that happen with two posts of mine. They’ve been modest hits. Thank you to everyone who read them and responded.

I’ve updated both posts and combined them in a new free e-book about spreading the word without spending any cash: Marketing in Tough Times – 20 No-Cost Ideas. (Direct download here or read it on Scribd).

Give it a read. If you like it, feel free to forward it to someone who could use it, print it out and give it away at a convention or your local coffee shop, or post it on your web site or blog. I’d appreciate it. (And you’ll look like the resourceful and savvy marketer that you are.)

Want more? The new e-books page at KeithMonaghan.com is chock full of great e-books about marketing, courtesy of ChangeThis. All thought provoking. All free to download, read, and share. Check it out.

And thanks for reading.See also: