Damn, I Wish I\'d Thought of That! – Andy Sernovitz Blog – Unusually Useful Ideas for Smart Marketers. A great, practical blog that will help you use word of mouth marketing, social media, viral marketing, blogs, buzz, evangelism, and more.
Did you ever wonder why so many consumers hate businesses? Often it’s because businesses take advantage of the relationships we have with them.
When I bought a camera from Casio, I was pretty excited about the relationship. I bought several models over the years, convinced many friends to buy one, and blogged about them more than once. I was a fan. I gave them my email because I trusted them.
But to them, I’m just a name in a database — a name to be marketed to. Even if it makes no sense at all — such as these emails that I’ve been getting for keyboards and watches (5 spams in 10 days). Who there thinks that camera buyers want to be spammed about unrelated products?
The point of this post isn’t to pick on Casio, but to ask you to rethink how you protect your customers’ trust. Do you respect them? Do you harass them? Do you have someone on your team to think about this sort of thing? Do you have someone who cares more about protecting your customers more than selling more stuff?
[Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.]
Great marketers aren’t just looking for the new and shiny — they’re also looking at how to get the most out of what they already have. Here are a few examples to inspire you:
1. For recruiting
2. For innovation
3. For competition
4. Check it out: Events from your birth year
1. For recruiting
Finding new, talented people to join your team can be expensive and time consuming. But you already have a pool of potential candidates who know you and believe in what you do: your customers. And not just that, but because they’re coming in to your store and buying your stuff, you’ve also got a lot of opportunities to reach them. IKEA is doing this by inserting clever job ads in their packaging. These ads resemble their distinct instruction manuals and include “career instructions” to “assemble your future.” It’s a great way for IKEA to find potential recruits among their loyal customers, and because they’re including the ads in their own packaging, there are no postage or insertion costs.
The lesson: When trying to recruit smart people, start by thinking about the groups who already know you, know what you do, and want to see you succeed.
Before investing in outside consulting for ideas and innovation, put your own team in a situation where they can do it. It can be hard to do it when they’re caught up in the day-to-day operations of keeping the business running, which is why programs like Yelp’s “Hackathons” are so great. For these annual events, Yelp gives their engineers a break from their everyday jobs to collaborate and build something new. The results range from hacks to make their office printer quieter to fundamental changes in how Yelp displays reviews.
The lesson: You already have some fantastic talent on your team. Are you giving them enough opportunities to show it off?
If you find yourself in a situation where you have more square footage than you can fill, use the opportunity to bring in a complementary business that can attract new customers. That’s what Sears is doing with extra space in their sprawling stores. Through the program, Sears has already leased hundreds of thousands of square feet to everything from grocery stores to health clubs to clothing retailers. It’s a smart use of existing resources. Not only does it help with cut costs, but it also helps pull in new customers in space that would otherwise sit empty.
The lesson: Instead of just accepting underperforming or unused retail space, turn it into a marketing asset by bringing in a great business partner.
Here’s a fun way to spend a few minutes. Just type in your birth year (or any year) and this site will walk you through the major political and pop culture events from the time.
I was at the mall and some guy in a kiosk was selling special iPhone screen protectors that are supposedly better-feeling, better-working, and don’t fall off. With a lifetime guarantee. For $20. My regular screen protectors keep falling off or getting bubbles, so I decided to try it.
It’s amazing! You should get one. I show it to everyone, every time I pull out my phone.
But here’s the big word-of-mouth lesson: I have no idea what it’s called. I don’t know the name of the store. There is no brand name, no package, nothing to tell me how to tell people about it (except “walk around this mall and there is a kiosk somewhere.”)
What’s missing is what we call a “word of mouth tool” — the thing that helps you tell a friend. It can be a sticker, a flyer, a link … anything that makes a referral easy.
How would your customers tell their friends about you?
A good men’s shirt has long tails (it keeps the shirt tucked in).
A manufacturer can save millions by slicing a few inches off the bottom of every shirt.
Bad companies look at this as a spreadsheet question: How much money can we save by reducing fabric quantity?
But the most important data never shows up on a spreadsheet: Customers who bought the shirt, thought it seemed short/cheap, and never came back. Your “fabric cost” spreadsheet doesn’t have a column for “customer retention costs.” Which means you may be saving money on a cheap product, but losing more money in lost repeat sales.
A good company has better math: What is the most economical way to keep our customers happy?
I was a customer of a very good web hosting service for many years — until I cancelled my account last month. Cancellation was easy — I did it online and it was hassle-free and efficient. I left with a positive feeling.
But they have no idea why I left.
Why didn’t they call? Why didn’t they ask?
Was it an unsolvable problem, or could they have won me back with a quick fix? Was I upset about something that they could apologize for? Or was there a mismatch between my needs and their product line — information that would help them in the future?
Don’t let a customer leave without finding out why. (But don’t be an ass about trying to prevent cancellation like some companies.) Take it as a learning moment that could change your business forever, or at least save some customers.
So few companies do this, which is surprising if you do the math. The cost of calling customers who are cancelling is a lot cheaper than sales calls. Plus, you’ll recover more revenue and priceless knowledge.
Check out the little quotation mark in this Harvard Business Review story. Whenever there is a quote at the start of a line, they put the mark in the margin. It’s a little naughty — and it gives the page a lot of personality. What makes your work recognizably different? What makes people pause and [...]
You can talk all day long. Or you can just show people how great your product is. Look at this demo of a kayak lifting system by Paul from Rack Outfitters. Now I want one, and I don’t even have a kayak. Your homework: Grab a camera right now and film a co-worker demonstrating your [...]
[Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.] Your products, your marketing, and your brand get much more interesting when you let your customers take ownership in them. A [...]
Did you ever wonder why so many consumers hate businesses? Often it’s because businesses take advantage of the relationships we have with them.
