You often hear “the best customer is the repeat customer.” Seems obvious. But I keep finding business folks don’t operate like they actually believe this. Knowing repeat business is best only helps if you practice it.
Short review of why repeat business is best –
1. Acquisition effort = zero. It takes serious time and energy to go get new customers. If all you had was repeat business, you’d be free to make more money.
2. Acquisition cost = zero. You already paid to get a customer once. Now they’re yours. The cost diminishes as it’s spread across multiple transactions.
3. Word of mouth benchmark. If customers are coming back, they are more likely to be recommending you to their friends, which is the best and cheapest promotion available.
4. Friendship. It just feels better and it’s more fun to work with people you know and like. You get to know your regulars, and doggone it, there’s more to this than money.
So why do I keep having such bad customer experiences? Like, for example, the following.
I sit down in a coffee shop that prominently advertises free internet access. Before my laptop is even booted, a woman comes over and introduces herself as the owner. Then she delivers a stern lecture about how I have to buy something if I take up table space in her joint. I look around. The other tables are mostly empty.
Hey, if you have to buy something, the web access isn’t really free, now is it?
As I tune out her diatribe against freeloaders, I recall on a previous visit I overheard a conversation between two of her servers. About how this owner gave one of them down-the-country for tossing an empty bag that still had three coffee beans rattling around inside.
I get coffee and web access across the street now when I’m in that neighborhood. You might think “One customer doesn’t matter, so what?” But it’s not one. She’s probably turning others off the same way. And each one represents a stream of referrals they won’t make, and friends they’ll take across the street to her competitor’s shop. Which is thriving, by the way. No embarrassing lectures over there. No false ads.
Another scene. I take my boat to a different boatyard this year for her annual haul out. As they lift her out of the water, I notice one of the crane’s lifting straps is crossing a transducer that protrudes through the hull. This could easily cause serious and expensive damage. I had just described this item and it’s location to the crane operator along with a request that he be cautious about it.
I make them stop and reposition the lifting strap. The crane operator gives me an ugly look.
The following week, it’s time to put her back in the water. Same crane boy positions the same strap so that it’s liable to slip and hurt the same transducer.
I ask him if he thinks it’s a problem. He unloads on me with a stream of sarcastic verbal abuse. I consider whether I should complain to his management. But then it just seems easier for me to use a competing yard next time I haul out. Why should I engage the dark side when I have choices?
Practicing professionally is in part about making customer focus penetrate deeply into your operations to become an integral part of your brand image. Part of your design for your customer’s experience.
What’s that? You don’t have such a branding design?
Are you serious?
When you care enough to design their experience, your customers get it that you care about them enough to make your offering good for them. They like it when you care, and they care right back. That’s part of human nature. A part that will ring up sales if you’re shrewd enough to take advantage of it.
And keep you among friends as you do your business.
The coffee shop owner who’s now getting my business on the North side of the street would never dream of lecturing me. She does, on occasion, come by my table and, with a big sweet smile, offer to get me a cuppa joe. And she’s coached her servers to be extra careful about keeping business talk low key. To never say anything negative in front of customers.
Next year I’ll go back to my previous boat yard, probably. Even though it’s 2/3 of a day’s voyage to get there. I remember clearly of how the owner cheerfully and efficiently listens to my every need. How he happily corrected a couple things that went wrong when last his guys worked on my boat. What was I thinking this year, anyway?
Close and easy, and maybe even cheap, just don’t compete with knowing your provider cares.
If you need to, get some hormones, learn to meditate, dump your lover, recover from abuse, or whatever it takes.
Be a friend to customers.
Design it in, and they will come. And keep coming.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Friday, February 16, 2007
Yeah. . . I’ll Have One Online Community. . . but Hold the Cheese.
My friend Michael Max, L.Ac, and I continue dialog on success in professional practice. My interest is more than theoretical because I serve business clients. My work operates very much like professional practice.
Michael’s attraction to this theme is all about how he does Chinese Medicine consciously. He’s shared his aspirations with me. It’s clear he seeks business success as he helps patients with their health.
To my way of thinking, a prosperous doctor is good, because he’s helping lots of people with a basic human need. This makes the world a better place.
Michael and I talk about starting an online community for Acupuncturists. He comments, in a recent email --
“Your idea of an online community that explores, supports and advances clinical practice from the business side, is a great idea. Especially if we can avoid the "cheese" factor. There is already plenty of that out there. If I hear one more "acu-preneur" talk about the ‘Qi of my business. . .’ [He quips, in exasperation.]
Yes, yes, there are people that want to think of it that way. But, I would like to see a service that supports people engaging and businesses with solid principles, and everyday language.
I suspect the only thing worse than mystifying our practices, is to mystify ourselves.”
I couldn’t agree more, on several counts.
It’s better to demystify work so it becomes easy for clients. Especially if it seems strange and foreign, like acupuncture does to mainstream America. Or copywriting, which many people misunderstand, if they’ve heard of it at all. Michael works with needles and herbs. I work with words and emotions. We both work with people, who need to understand easily. So we need simple explanations.
Simple is good.
In the last post I boiled down a psychological process to yield positive customer experience. Let’s rub that idea up against the issue of “patient education.” Or in my case, client education. Same thing.
First I’ll bring it home. Client education, for me, is about understanding what they want to know. Then fulfilling that need to the extent of their interest, and stopping right there. Before their eyes glaze over and they start yawning.
As long as I attract, but don’t pursue, I’m on track. When it becomes pursuit, I’ve gone too far.
There’s a challenge here -- to resist using the educational opportunity to advance my own cause and sell to them. Or as a chance to prove how cool I am by flaunting what I know.
Clients are smart. I said that in my Customer Manifesto, where I promised I’d respect their boundaries and be happy they think for themselves. The Manifesto, in the end, is a self-enforcing rule, because if I ‘cheese it up’ and sell rather than educate, their radar catches me every time. Then I’m worse off than if I had just said “I don’t know.”
If I serve myself when I pretend to serve them, even subtly, trust is undermined, and I haven’t created their best customer experience.
Acupuncturists educate patients so they walk the same fence I walk. Doctors who create the best customer experience avoid mystification like a disease. They sense the patient’s agenda and work with it, not insisting the patient validate them by listening to a full-blown lecture on acupuncture theory.
Patients don’t really care much about acupuncture and that’s their choice. They just want relief. Respecting that is good business.
You may think, “Don’t we have to ‘educate’ a lot about Qi? After all, if it’s what you believe in, shouldn’t you be ‘honest’ about it?”
No. You shouldn’t. Not until they're ready to hear it.
And here’s why. You’re in America, mostly treating people who are soaked in a world view that can’t even dream of Qi. Typical Americans have a mechanistic and materialistic understanding of the body. Allopathic medicine sees the body like a biomechanical system. That’s where mainstream people are coming from, because it’s all they’ve ever known.
You can treat them without converting them. And that’s far more practical. Evangelism will not help business in new professional practices that want to go mainstream.
Qi belongs in a different world view, one that sees the body as a complex energy field. Qi is a Chinese word. (Who ever heard of a ‘q’ that’s not followed by a ‘u,’ anyway?)
If you want to be understood in mainstream America, don’t speak Chinese to the locals. Be satisfied with winning patients over one treatment at a time. And answer each question as it comes up, simply. Stop when the answer is complete.
Maybe eventually you’ll get around to some Qi talk, but first demonstrate ability to produce the relief they come for, so they’ll trust you enough to come back. And eventually send their friends.
Successful professional practice is about service, not about cheesy stuff -- like self-validation, or exploiting the client, or evangelism.
Michael’s attraction to this theme is all about how he does Chinese Medicine consciously. He’s shared his aspirations with me. It’s clear he seeks business success as he helps patients with their health.
To my way of thinking, a prosperous doctor is good, because he’s helping lots of people with a basic human need. This makes the world a better place.
Michael and I talk about starting an online community for Acupuncturists. He comments, in a recent email --
“Your idea of an online community that explores, supports and advances clinical practice from the business side, is a great idea. Especially if we can avoid the "cheese" factor. There is already plenty of that out there. If I hear one more "acu-preneur" talk about the ‘Qi of my business. . .’ [He quips, in exasperation.]
Yes, yes, there are people that want to think of it that way. But, I would like to see a service that supports people engaging and businesses with solid principles, and everyday language.
I suspect the only thing worse than mystifying our practices, is to mystify ourselves.”
I couldn’t agree more, on several counts.
It’s better to demystify work so it becomes easy for clients. Especially if it seems strange and foreign, like acupuncture does to mainstream America. Or copywriting, which many people misunderstand, if they’ve heard of it at all. Michael works with needles and herbs. I work with words and emotions. We both work with people, who need to understand easily. So we need simple explanations.
Simple is good.
In the last post I boiled down a psychological process to yield positive customer experience. Let’s rub that idea up against the issue of “patient education.” Or in my case, client education. Same thing.
First I’ll bring it home. Client education, for me, is about understanding what they want to know. Then fulfilling that need to the extent of their interest, and stopping right there. Before their eyes glaze over and they start yawning.
As long as I attract, but don’t pursue, I’m on track. When it becomes pursuit, I’ve gone too far.
There’s a challenge here -- to resist using the educational opportunity to advance my own cause and sell to them. Or as a chance to prove how cool I am by flaunting what I know.
Clients are smart. I said that in my Customer Manifesto, where I promised I’d respect their boundaries and be happy they think for themselves. The Manifesto, in the end, is a self-enforcing rule, because if I ‘cheese it up’ and sell rather than educate, their radar catches me every time. Then I’m worse off than if I had just said “I don’t know.”
If I serve myself when I pretend to serve them, even subtly, trust is undermined, and I haven’t created their best customer experience.
Acupuncturists educate patients so they walk the same fence I walk. Doctors who create the best customer experience avoid mystification like a disease. They sense the patient’s agenda and work with it, not insisting the patient validate them by listening to a full-blown lecture on acupuncture theory.
Patients don’t really care much about acupuncture and that’s their choice. They just want relief. Respecting that is good business.
You may think, “Don’t we have to ‘educate’ a lot about Qi? After all, if it’s what you believe in, shouldn’t you be ‘honest’ about it?”
No. You shouldn’t. Not until they're ready to hear it.
And here’s why. You’re in America, mostly treating people who are soaked in a world view that can’t even dream of Qi. Typical Americans have a mechanistic and materialistic understanding of the body. Allopathic medicine sees the body like a biomechanical system. That’s where mainstream people are coming from, because it’s all they’ve ever known.
You can treat them without converting them. And that’s far more practical. Evangelism will not help business in new professional practices that want to go mainstream.
Qi belongs in a different world view, one that sees the body as a complex energy field. Qi is a Chinese word. (Who ever heard of a ‘q’ that’s not followed by a ‘u,’ anyway?)
If you want to be understood in mainstream America, don’t speak Chinese to the locals. Be satisfied with winning patients over one treatment at a time. And answer each question as it comes up, simply. Stop when the answer is complete.
Maybe eventually you’ll get around to some Qi talk, but first demonstrate ability to produce the relief they come for, so they’ll trust you enough to come back. And eventually send their friends.
Successful professional practice is about service, not about cheesy stuff -- like self-validation, or exploiting the client, or evangelism.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Acquire Clients By Knowing How To Influence Behavior
When you realize
how perfect everything is
you will tilt your head back
and laugh at the sky.
-- Buddha
If we at least provisionally accept what the Buddha said -- that everything is perfect already – then it’s sensible to take things easy and just be aware of ‘what is.’ By these lights, easygoing observation and acceptance will move us forward in life. Even when we’re trying to set up a professional practice so we can use our training to help others while we create the life we want.
I look inside to find the beginning point. I come to what I believe about my own behavior and human behaviors in general, how they arise and unfold. In my experience, human actions arise in progressions through several distinct states. These are not necessarily sequential or discrete. There is usually some untidy overlap and looping. Any logic involved is ‘fuzzy logic.’
To complete an action, many if not most of the following states usually occur –
-- Perception – first, sensations arise in my body from external stimuli
-- Thought – then I process the sensations into awareness
-- Emotion – I feel something about what I think
-- Thought – I may consider different possible responses or skip this step
-- Action – I act on what I feel
-- Thought – I think about my action
-- Loopback – I may go around again through some of the states
Assuming others work like me, it goes like this -- you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch something. The sensation gives rise to thoughts, perhaps associating the sensation to stuff you already know. Some of the associations or thoughts are connected to feelings, so you enter an emotional state. The emotion drives you to do something. Or perhaps to inhibit a behavior. You see yourself responding and think about what you’re doing. You may have another response based on how you feel about what you just did. And so on.
A specific example of this sequence – you need something. You search the web and see a PPC ad. You think the ad is about what you want. You feel a twinge of desire. You click on the ad. You read the ad. Reading the ad induces more desire. You feel some small fulfillment for just clicking and reading.
Then you feel both fear and attraction about the offer. The ad copy builds the attraction and resolves your fears. You decide to buy the item. You think about the purchase you just made and you feel you did the right thing.
The item arrives after a few days and you love it. You’re glad you made the right decision. Now you’re inclined to repeat the purchase with this vendor. You tell folks you know about your item and experience and how happy you are with the purchase.
There it is, the whole progression – perception, thought, emotion, action, more thought, additional action. This ‘happy customer’ experience is what will build your practice into backlog.
Influence, in this case, is about stimulating your audience to move through their ‘action states’ and have a ‘happy customer’ experience. In client acquisition, the behaviors you seek are appointments, repeat business and word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations.
To persuade folks to buy, present a message that’s designed to motivate sales. The more well-crafted the message the greater the chances of a sale. When reflected upon, a good purchase is understood and felt as positive and repeatable. And the client feels like sharing the good news.
What is true for me and you is probably generally true for clients as well. By looking inside for what we like to experience we can see just what to do.
The more noteworthy the value received, the more positive a buyer’s feeling response, and the more likely the buyer is to talk about the experience in their community. When they advertise for us, that’s the WOM to die for.
To build a busy practice, it’s practical to be aware of our prospective client’s ‘stages of action,’ and influence each of them as best we can. Always within ethical bounds, of course, which excludes manipulation and coercion.
We can reasonably conclude that if we want strong interest, a full calendar, repeat appointments, and powerful WOM, it’s best to craft an exceptionally pleasing service experience, and also craft a clear and compelling message about it, and assure the message is circulated in our preferred audience.
Well, OK, but how do you know what makes a service experience exceptionally pleasing, and a message about it clear and compelling? In other words, how do you assure your offerings are ready for market?
It doesn’t happen by accident. It takes involvement and participation. Details need your attention. And you may need to ask for some help.
You can apply a form of classic scientific method –
-- make observations,
-- form ideas about offerings,
-- design your offerings,
-- test what you designed,
-- evaluate the results,
-- go with the concept, or modify the design and go around again.
By employing this process systematically, to cover your complete spectrum of service offerings, you are assuring positive response in your market and healthy growth for your practice.
Now we’re getting an idea of how deeply we need to involve ourselves in mindfulness of our practices to make them work. The whole experience needs to be designed and checked out, and adopted only when you’re fairly assured of getting the actions desired.
By designing your clients’ experience, you indirectly design your own. Because what you get is totally dependent on what they get.
The most impressive business in my town is an auto repair shop run by a man who has this down cold. His whole operation is branded with excellence and customer focus through and through. His shop is clean and organized. His mechanics trained, experienced, and meticulous. His service writers listen and communicate well. Every car is washed before return. So his lot is constantly full of his customers’ cars. He knows it’s not about fixing cars.
It’s about creating an experience of fulfillment for customers.
how perfect everything is
you will tilt your head back
and laugh at the sky.
-- Buddha
If we at least provisionally accept what the Buddha said -- that everything is perfect already – then it’s sensible to take things easy and just be aware of ‘what is.’ By these lights, easygoing observation and acceptance will move us forward in life. Even when we’re trying to set up a professional practice so we can use our training to help others while we create the life we want.
I look inside to find the beginning point. I come to what I believe about my own behavior and human behaviors in general, how they arise and unfold. In my experience, human actions arise in progressions through several distinct states. These are not necessarily sequential or discrete. There is usually some untidy overlap and looping. Any logic involved is ‘fuzzy logic.’
To complete an action, many if not most of the following states usually occur –
-- Perception – first, sensations arise in my body from external stimuli
-- Thought – then I process the sensations into awareness
-- Emotion – I feel something about what I think
-- Thought – I may consider different possible responses or skip this step
-- Action – I act on what I feel
-- Thought – I think about my action
-- Loopback – I may go around again through some of the states
Assuming others work like me, it goes like this -- you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch something. The sensation gives rise to thoughts, perhaps associating the sensation to stuff you already know. Some of the associations or thoughts are connected to feelings, so you enter an emotional state. The emotion drives you to do something. Or perhaps to inhibit a behavior. You see yourself responding and think about what you’re doing. You may have another response based on how you feel about what you just did. And so on.
A specific example of this sequence – you need something. You search the web and see a PPC ad. You think the ad is about what you want. You feel a twinge of desire. You click on the ad. You read the ad. Reading the ad induces more desire. You feel some small fulfillment for just clicking and reading.
Then you feel both fear and attraction about the offer. The ad copy builds the attraction and resolves your fears. You decide to buy the item. You think about the purchase you just made and you feel you did the right thing.
The item arrives after a few days and you love it. You’re glad you made the right decision. Now you’re inclined to repeat the purchase with this vendor. You tell folks you know about your item and experience and how happy you are with the purchase.
There it is, the whole progression – perception, thought, emotion, action, more thought, additional action. This ‘happy customer’ experience is what will build your practice into backlog.
Influence, in this case, is about stimulating your audience to move through their ‘action states’ and have a ‘happy customer’ experience. In client acquisition, the behaviors you seek are appointments, repeat business and word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations.
To persuade folks to buy, present a message that’s designed to motivate sales. The more well-crafted the message the greater the chances of a sale. When reflected upon, a good purchase is understood and felt as positive and repeatable. And the client feels like sharing the good news.
What is true for me and you is probably generally true for clients as well. By looking inside for what we like to experience we can see just what to do.
The more noteworthy the value received, the more positive a buyer’s feeling response, and the more likely the buyer is to talk about the experience in their community. When they advertise for us, that’s the WOM to die for.
To build a busy practice, it’s practical to be aware of our prospective client’s ‘stages of action,’ and influence each of them as best we can. Always within ethical bounds, of course, which excludes manipulation and coercion.
We can reasonably conclude that if we want strong interest, a full calendar, repeat appointments, and powerful WOM, it’s best to craft an exceptionally pleasing service experience, and also craft a clear and compelling message about it, and assure the message is circulated in our preferred audience.
Well, OK, but how do you know what makes a service experience exceptionally pleasing, and a message about it clear and compelling? In other words, how do you assure your offerings are ready for market?
It doesn’t happen by accident. It takes involvement and participation. Details need your attention. And you may need to ask for some help.
You can apply a form of classic scientific method –
-- make observations,
-- form ideas about offerings,
-- design your offerings,
-- test what you designed,
-- evaluate the results,
-- go with the concept, or modify the design and go around again.
By employing this process systematically, to cover your complete spectrum of service offerings, you are assuring positive response in your market and healthy growth for your practice.
Now we’re getting an idea of how deeply we need to involve ourselves in mindfulness of our practices to make them work. The whole experience needs to be designed and checked out, and adopted only when you’re fairly assured of getting the actions desired.
By designing your clients’ experience, you indirectly design your own. Because what you get is totally dependent on what they get.
The most impressive business in my town is an auto repair shop run by a man who has this down cold. His whole operation is branded with excellence and customer focus through and through. His shop is clean and organized. His mechanics trained, experienced, and meticulous. His service writers listen and communicate well. Every car is washed before return. So his lot is constantly full of his customers’ cars. He knows it’s not about fixing cars.
It’s about creating an experience of fulfillment for customers.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
How To Make Your Web Site Fabulous
Everyone wants a fabulous web site. How do you get to fabulous?
And, uh, fabulous for whom?
Well, it depends. . .
Your web site is your message to your world, or to some part of your world. There are as many different ideal sites as there are purposes. Whatever the purpose, getting clear up front is essential.
A web site exists to communicate. A fabulous web site conveys intended messages clearly to your visitor.
So ask --
-- Who is your reader?
-- What are your messages to your reader?
-- How can you best convey those messages?
-- What do you want the reader to do?
Answer these questions well, and act astutely upon the answers, to make your site fabulous. A fabulous site will advance your mission.
High cost is not necessarily part of fabulousness. Fabulousness lies not in the site’s components (graphics and text) so much as in the total design.
Good design with little money is far better than poor design and a high budget.
What is your purpose? Define it clearly and never lose site of it as you design the site.
A fabulous site is purpose-built from the ground up. And the messages the site contains, which are primarily carried in the writing (the ‘copy’), benefit from being fit into the overall plan like a dovetail joint in a piece of fine woodwork. The site’s design must account for all its parts, from the nuts and bolts level, all the way up to your total marketing strategy.
Let’s say the site is commercial. It represents the business interests of a family-owned metal fabrication shop in Southern California that serves three markets – local boatyards, local artists who make metal sculptures, and local architects who design metal components for unique houses. We’ll call this company Metal Masters, or MM for short.
In greater detail, the purpose of the web site is --
-- To expose MM to its markets in ways that create positive brand image
-- To differentiate MM from its competitors
-- To secure new business for MM as an on line sales brochure
The first purpose is served more in the high level site architecture and the graphical treatments, because it’s somewhat intangible. The second purpose is served mostly in the site’s selling copy. Somewhere between these purposes lies a catalog of specific items, along with descriptions. At this level the words and pictures work together to sell product offerings.
This metal fabrication business comprises a blend of product and service. The process of making the concepts into metal unfolds in two activities. Any given delivery involves two process components, design and fabrication. The metal thing is product, the design part is service. At some phases fabrication and design are interactive and simultaneous.
Customers ultimately take delivery of some tangible metal object that matches their concepts. It might be a stair railing, a special mooring cleat, or a one-off floor standing sculpture.
We now have enough detail to sketch out an overall plan for a fabulous web site for Metal Masters.
Anyone can resist a sales pitch but nobody can resist a really great story. The stated purposes are basically to sell the business at the marketing level and to sell the offerings at the production level. A fabulous site will tell a great Metal Masters story in ways that convey the company’s mastery of its business and how it fulfills the needs and wants of its market.
The story could unfold like this –
-- Who we are
-- What we do
-- How we do it
-- Buy something, OK?
This is how a huge number of web sites are built. When people encounter them they tend to ask “So what?” and say “Yeah, right.” And “I don’t have time for this.”
This is not fabulous. It’s plain old ordinary. A site built this way makes the company it represents look ordinary. And it puts you to sleep. Because you get bored with them going on about themselves.
We want a compelling story, not an ordinary one, since fabulousness is our goal. How do we make the story more compelling?
By making the story all about the reader.
Imagine you’re reading a fairy tale to a kid. The plot revolves around a middle aged businessman who’s struggling with alimony, lawsuits, balding, heart disease, credit card debt, and male menopause. How long are you going to hold the kid’s interest? Maybe 3 microseconds.
New fairy tale. This one’s all about a lost prince struggling to find his parents and family and regain his place in society. The lost prince is about the same age as the kid you’re reading to. The hero is described in terms the kid can relate to. The hero’s issues are the kid’s issues. The kid won’t want to go to sleep or let you stop reading until the hero’s struggle is resolved.
Let’s make the MM web site all about the customer, and still tell the Metal Masters story. To accomplish this we structure the site differently from the mundane one above.
The irresistible story unfolds something like this –
-- Metal Masters has what you’re looking for – design, fabrication, and product. . .
-- Here’s how we make that available to you
-- Here’s how we’ve served others just like you – architect, boat yard, artist
-- Here’s how we give you exactly what you want. . .
-- Here’s why you should buy from us and not those other bad boys. . .
-- And oh, by the way, here’s who we are. Just in case you care.
This version’s irresistible because, like the kid listening to the second fairy tale, your customer becomes the hero.
And their story is your story.
Going this way is like reading a fairy tale wherein the hero is your listener. And you’re his best pal. When you tell it like this you address your customers driving concerns instead of going on about yourself. You meet them on their own turf and speak to their real questions --
-- Why should I bother to listen to you?
-- What are you trying to sell me?
-- Why should I care?
-- Why should I trust you?
-- How is what you’re selling going to do me some good?
-- Why should I buy it from you instead of those other bad boys?
When structured like this, Metal Masters’ fabulous web site grabs the viewer’s attention, develops their interest, creates desire to have what MM offers, and creates willingness to do business with MM. And it closes the sale.
For a web site that’s truly fabulous, build one to a specific purpose. One that’s constructed from the ground up to tell your story by centering on your customer’s needs and wants, and making them the hero. Make it a story that matters, about how they find great value from someone they can trust.
Then all you have to do is make the story come true for every customer.
What could be more fabulous than a fairy tale come true with you as the hero?
Homework, should you choose to accept this assignment, is to go find a fabulous site somewhere on the web. You can bet it was written by a pro.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Secrets of Post-Modern Business #1 – Attract, Don’t Pursue
To get and keep customers better, attract -- don’t pursue.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been on a binge. No, not the liquid kind. Been signing up here and there for newsletters from sources I thought would have something to say. After critical reading, I’m dumping some and keeping a select few. I realized this holds a marketing lesson to share with you.
The newsletter thing is touted as a golden inroad to your customer’s inbox. To some degree it gets you there. But frankly, it’s already getting a little old. You know, you’re out there on the web, you visit an interesting site, there’s a free information incentive available like an article or an e-book. But you have to sign up for the email newsletter to get the freebie. You glance at the privacy policy.
You think, “Well, why not, I’m curious enough to give out my email address, since they promise they won’t share it. And I can always opt out later if it sucks. And my spam blocker works pretty well. . .”
You sign up. Their auto responder sends you the freebie plus the current newsletter issue before you can say “in box.” If you like it at first, you may not like the umpteenth issue and all the intervening hard sell emails they hit you with.
When you get tired of their spam or realize the newsletter isn’t worthwhile, you opt out. It stops coming, but now you’re on their list, so the hard sell emails continue. You just mark it as spam and life goes on. Except that now instead of 100 spam messages an hour you’re getting 101.
Now their image is tarnished in your mind. They didn’t exactly tell you the whole truth. In their ardency to sell to everyone, they didn’t consistently deliver solid value that made the subscription worthwhile. Now you don’t really like them any more.
The net result, then, of their campaign, relative to you, is a minus one customer. Exactly the opposite of the intended result. They are working against their own best interests because they aren’t keeping straight what effect they have in the mind of their market.
They didn’t attract you. Except maybe at first, to get the subscription. They pursued you. And you ended up running away.
Attract. Don’t pursue. Consistently.
OK, that was the dark side of newsletter based email marketing. Those are the ones I delete. But there’s a light side too.
You manage to get one email newsletter that consistently enlightens, an exception. Your attitude about it is entirely different. You actually buy stuff once in a while, when you have a need, from this person who consistently delivers solid value – information that attracts by rewarding you, not pursuing you.
You come to anticipate their newsletter like a treat that shows up unexpectedly to brighten your day. When you see the Sender and Subject Line in your inbox you know it’s going to be good.
This marketer is achieving the real intent of an email newsletter. They are being a friend. They are also selling something in every issue, but you just don’t care about that, or you may actually enjoy considering what they offer because they provide such solid value consistently.
No hard sell, so your resistance is never triggered.
They attract. They don’t pursue.
They are like an ocean pilot in a storm with attention riveted on the compass. They never lose focus on the effect of what they do and how they are doing it – in the mind of their market – in your mind. What a great lesson.
I believe the next wave of email newsletter marketing should adopt a running renewal policy and mechanism. The customer’s subscription should last only through the next issue. Or maybe two issues. All subscriptions should automatically expire unless the recipient opens, reads, appreciates, and renews the issues regularly.
I can hear a lot of groaning and denial out there about that last notion. Hard sell people will have fits about this idea. But wait a minute. With required renewals, several good things happen.
You have to wake up to the real effect your email newsletter campaign has in your subscription base. And fix it if it’s broken.
There would be significantly less spam on the web. That would be a good thing.
You could tout auto cancellation as a desirable feature. “Less spam automatically. Unless you keep inviting us, we don’t show up to bug you.”
You would be forced to attract and not pursue. Publishing your newsletter would be a high wire act where you HAVE to provide relevant, valuable content each time. Or disappear.
Your customer base would like and respect you more in this age of permission marketing. Hard sell is dying as we get hip. Soft sell works better now.
If you’re so hard core with hard sell, try this. Even if you cling to hard sell, my general thesis works.
You’d be less manic about response rates, but response would probably improve. Maybe you’ll stop thinking 4% is good response. Or 10%.
Maybe some of my least favorite marketers would stop making fools of themselves with fake deadlines they keep extending. And the expired offers immediately repeated under new fake deadlines that also get extended. Come ON. Say what you do and do what you say.
You can have the one newsletter that distinguishes itself and hangs in there long term to accomplish the real intent.
But only if you attract, and don’t pursue.
Psychology demonstrates intermittent reinforcement is a powerful attractor. It stops working, though, when there’s no longer a reward. Or if it turns to a punishment.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been on a binge. No, not the liquid kind. Been signing up here and there for newsletters from sources I thought would have something to say. After critical reading, I’m dumping some and keeping a select few. I realized this holds a marketing lesson to share with you.
The newsletter thing is touted as a golden inroad to your customer’s inbox. To some degree it gets you there. But frankly, it’s already getting a little old. You know, you’re out there on the web, you visit an interesting site, there’s a free information incentive available like an article or an e-book. But you have to sign up for the email newsletter to get the freebie. You glance at the privacy policy.
You think, “Well, why not, I’m curious enough to give out my email address, since they promise they won’t share it. And I can always opt out later if it sucks. And my spam blocker works pretty well. . .”
You sign up. Their auto responder sends you the freebie plus the current newsletter issue before you can say “in box.” If you like it at first, you may not like the umpteenth issue and all the intervening hard sell emails they hit you with.
When you get tired of their spam or realize the newsletter isn’t worthwhile, you opt out. It stops coming, but now you’re on their list, so the hard sell emails continue. You just mark it as spam and life goes on. Except that now instead of 100 spam messages an hour you’re getting 101.
Now their image is tarnished in your mind. They didn’t exactly tell you the whole truth. In their ardency to sell to everyone, they didn’t consistently deliver solid value that made the subscription worthwhile. Now you don’t really like them any more.
The net result, then, of their campaign, relative to you, is a minus one customer. Exactly the opposite of the intended result. They are working against their own best interests because they aren’t keeping straight what effect they have in the mind of their market.
They didn’t attract you. Except maybe at first, to get the subscription. They pursued you. And you ended up running away.
Attract. Don’t pursue. Consistently.
OK, that was the dark side of newsletter based email marketing. Those are the ones I delete. But there’s a light side too.
You manage to get one email newsletter that consistently enlightens, an exception. Your attitude about it is entirely different. You actually buy stuff once in a while, when you have a need, from this person who consistently delivers solid value – information that attracts by rewarding you, not pursuing you.
You come to anticipate their newsletter like a treat that shows up unexpectedly to brighten your day. When you see the Sender and Subject Line in your inbox you know it’s going to be good.
This marketer is achieving the real intent of an email newsletter. They are being a friend. They are also selling something in every issue, but you just don’t care about that, or you may actually enjoy considering what they offer because they provide such solid value consistently.
No hard sell, so your resistance is never triggered.
They attract. They don’t pursue.
They are like an ocean pilot in a storm with attention riveted on the compass. They never lose focus on the effect of what they do and how they are doing it – in the mind of their market – in your mind. What a great lesson.
I believe the next wave of email newsletter marketing should adopt a running renewal policy and mechanism. The customer’s subscription should last only through the next issue. Or maybe two issues. All subscriptions should automatically expire unless the recipient opens, reads, appreciates, and renews the issues regularly.
I can hear a lot of groaning and denial out there about that last notion. Hard sell people will have fits about this idea. But wait a minute. With required renewals, several good things happen.
You have to wake up to the real effect your email newsletter campaign has in your subscription base. And fix it if it’s broken.
There would be significantly less spam on the web. That would be a good thing.
You could tout auto cancellation as a desirable feature. “Less spam automatically. Unless you keep inviting us, we don’t show up to bug you.”
You would be forced to attract and not pursue. Publishing your newsletter would be a high wire act where you HAVE to provide relevant, valuable content each time. Or disappear.
Your customer base would like and respect you more in this age of permission marketing. Hard sell is dying as we get hip. Soft sell works better now.
If you’re so hard core with hard sell, try this. Even if you cling to hard sell, my general thesis works.
You’d be less manic about response rates, but response would probably improve. Maybe you’ll stop thinking 4% is good response. Or 10%.
Maybe some of my least favorite marketers would stop making fools of themselves with fake deadlines they keep extending. And the expired offers immediately repeated under new fake deadlines that also get extended. Come ON. Say what you do and do what you say.
You can have the one newsletter that distinguishes itself and hangs in there long term to accomplish the real intent.
But only if you attract, and don’t pursue.
Psychology demonstrates intermittent reinforcement is a powerful attractor. It stops working, though, when there’s no longer a reward. Or if it turns to a punishment.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Branding Plain and Simple
What you say about what you do is your number one influence on your market.
That’s why it’s so important to know your client’s mind and speak to it clearly and simply. Branding is a channel you can speak on.
What IS branding, anyway?
I say it’s everything. Let me explain. We talk about tending the mind of your market as if it’s a garden. Branding creates the total message of your ‘gardening effort.’ I include anything that intentionally affects your market’s mind to favor your prospects.
“A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service.” -- “Brand” at Wikipedia.com
This includes company name, logo, tag lines, mission and vision statements, slogans, product or service names, etc. These obvious messages you overtly contrive.
Some company names and product names from my client list, along with their tag lines, impart a sense message coherency across levels of meaning --
Nutrition Knowledge Stream™, from Nutritionist Approved Inc. -- “Knowledge for a healthier world, through nutrition.”
The Silver Storm (housekeeping service) – “Yes, you may go out and play.” And “Dirt can’t survive the Silver Storm.”
Vivo Naturals (nutritional supplements) – “A healthier body. . . a better life.”
Solid Advantage (engineering consultancy) – “Your success is our passion.”
We are bombarded with messages like these in advertising every day. These are as much a ‘gotta have’ for any business of any size, as a street address or phone number. Essential even for alternative medicine practices.
The overt message is huge, but even connotations are critical. Hey, leverage that ambience. In the subtleties you get to do what makes you different.
Marketers believe branding even includes intentional stuff you speak to your customer. In my view it’s any information you emit in any way, especially repeated or constant information, that says influential things.
My friend Michael Max, the Chinese Medicine doctor, makes a decision about what to say on his web site. This is momentous, not mundane, as it might seem to someone insensitive to branding.
“Today I deleted the section on acupuncture terminology from my website. Patients really don't care. Anyway, every other darned acupunk has that on their site. So they can get exposed to it there, or just use Google if they are really interested.”
Then he decides what he REALLY wants to say to his patients, instead of throwing up standardized terminology. I suggest providing plain and simple answers to the typical recurring questions. Like the FAQ we find on web sites.
Michael emails --
“I’m going to run with FAQ. And not the usual kind either. One that speaks ‘merican, and is humorous too. I will start with the “does acupuncture hurt”. It is already on the blog. . .
Started on more FAQ last night. Right now, just letting it rip. Allowing irreverence, humor, curiosity, my voice, questions, and weird bi-cultural view to spill onto the page. Later I can edit it down to something presentable, but with teeth and grit.”
Why is this apparently simple change momentous and not just mundane?
I respond --
“The FAQ is a great replacement for all that acupuncture terminology you pulled off your site. You switched from a self-centered approach to being client-centered by going this way. The terminology list was about making a demand on your prospects. The FAQ is giving them something that helps you both. That’s huge. Transformational shift of perspective.”
Michael’s switch is part of his branding because it says to patients “Instead of boring you by demanding you bring your brain over here and fill it up with all this stuff I want you to learn (so that I can sell to you) I’m giving you what you really want to know.”
This simple perspective shift redefines the fundamental relationship to “I’m the kind of practitioner that wants you to have your answers. Because that helps us both.”
From self-centered to client-centered. Huge.
Brand Michael Max.
You go!
That’s why it’s so important to know your client’s mind and speak to it clearly and simply. Branding is a channel you can speak on.
What IS branding, anyway?
I say it’s everything. Let me explain. We talk about tending the mind of your market as if it’s a garden. Branding creates the total message of your ‘gardening effort.’ I include anything that intentionally affects your market’s mind to favor your prospects.
“A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service.” -- “Brand” at Wikipedia.com
This includes company name, logo, tag lines, mission and vision statements, slogans, product or service names, etc. These obvious messages you overtly contrive.
Some company names and product names from my client list, along with their tag lines, impart a sense message coherency across levels of meaning --
Nutrition Knowledge Stream™, from Nutritionist Approved Inc. -- “Knowledge for a healthier world, through nutrition.”
The Silver Storm (housekeeping service) – “Yes, you may go out and play.” And “Dirt can’t survive the Silver Storm.”
Vivo Naturals (nutritional supplements) – “A healthier body. . . a better life.”
Solid Advantage (engineering consultancy) – “Your success is our passion.”
We are bombarded with messages like these in advertising every day. These are as much a ‘gotta have’ for any business of any size, as a street address or phone number. Essential even for alternative medicine practices.
The overt message is huge, but even connotations are critical. Hey, leverage that ambience. In the subtleties you get to do what makes you different.
Marketers believe branding even includes intentional stuff you speak to your customer. In my view it’s any information you emit in any way, especially repeated or constant information, that says influential things.
My friend Michael Max, the Chinese Medicine doctor, makes a decision about what to say on his web site. This is momentous, not mundane, as it might seem to someone insensitive to branding.
“Today I deleted the section on acupuncture terminology from my website. Patients really don't care. Anyway, every other darned acupunk has that on their site. So they can get exposed to it there, or just use Google if they are really interested.”
Then he decides what he REALLY wants to say to his patients, instead of throwing up standardized terminology. I suggest providing plain and simple answers to the typical recurring questions. Like the FAQ we find on web sites.
Michael emails --
“I’m going to run with FAQ. And not the usual kind either. One that speaks ‘merican, and is humorous too. I will start with the “does acupuncture hurt”. It is already on the blog. . .
Started on more FAQ last night. Right now, just letting it rip. Allowing irreverence, humor, curiosity, my voice, questions, and weird bi-cultural view to spill onto the page. Later I can edit it down to something presentable, but with teeth and grit.”
Why is this apparently simple change momentous and not just mundane?
I respond --
“The FAQ is a great replacement for all that acupuncture terminology you pulled off your site. You switched from a self-centered approach to being client-centered by going this way. The terminology list was about making a demand on your prospects. The FAQ is giving them something that helps you both. That’s huge. Transformational shift of perspective.”
Michael’s switch is part of his branding because it says to patients “Instead of boring you by demanding you bring your brain over here and fill it up with all this stuff I want you to learn (so that I can sell to you) I’m giving you what you really want to know.”
This simple perspective shift redefines the fundamental relationship to “I’m the kind of practitioner that wants you to have your answers. Because that helps us both.”
From self-centered to client-centered. Huge.
Brand Michael Max.
You go!
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