Don’t Neglect Your POS Messaging!

Posted on by
Reply

My wife and I recently had dinner with some friends at our favorite watering hole, a local restaurant that specializes in chicken wings and BBQ. Their brand is fun and irreverent, and they generally seem to try and project an image as a friendly neighborhood pub. The venue’s greatest asset, in my opinion, is their core wait and bar staff, who have been there from the day they opened. They know the majority of their customers by name and interact with them in a casual and familiar way. They create a really nice vibe for the place.

When we got our bill, my wife (also a marketer and copy writer) noticed the message on the bottom of the cash register receipt — the last communication of our visit. The personal message of thanks read, “THANK YOU FOR BEING A CUSTOMER!”

Left us feeling warm and fuzzy….not really.

Can it get any more personal than this?

To have a little fun, we responded in kind in the margin of the receipt, “Thank you for being a restaurant!”

Opportunities abound to delight, disappoint, or send inconsistent messages to your customers as you manage each interaction with them. Attend to the details, and take advantage of every opportunity, no matter how small, to build your connection with customers and endear them to you.

In this case, the message could have read “Thanks for being our BEST customer!” or “If you enjoyed your meal, please tell your friends; if you didn’t, please tell US!” or “We look forward to seeing you next time! Drive safely.”

Don’t just stick with the default messaging that comes with your software or drop in a message on opening day and forget it. Mix it up. Surprise your customers with your interest in delighting them, and genuinely thank them for their patronage. It takes five minutes a week or a month to have a little fun and build on your relationship. Do it!

Don’t overlook the smallest opportunities to connect authentically and positively with your customers.

Do make an effort to stand out at every opportunity, no matter how small, and even if it’s after they pay their bill.

Yes!

Don’t Squander a Great Visual Concept

Posted on by
1

I recently discovered this ad for ropes designed for arborists—the guys and gals who climb, prune, and fell trees for a living.

The original ad with branding obscured

My first reaction was, “Wow, cool ad! Clever, original, and eye-catching take on a product in relationship with the end user. I wish I’d thought of that.”

But then I read the copy.

The core message is that the rope company (the brand is obscured) is “collaborative.”

Yay.

Consider this audience, though. Rugged, hard-working people who spend their days hanging from a half-inch-thick rope 100 feet up a tree with a chainsaw tethered to their belt.

I’m pretty sure that, when they think about their equipment, they aren’t thinking, “I sure hope the company that made this rope I’m hanging from is collaborative.”

This ad, in my opinion, is a classic example of an art director falling in love with a visual concept and slapping some copy on it to fill in the annoying space around the art.

Why not take a great graphic and turn it on its end—literally—to make it relevant (see our revised concept below). And then craft copy that speaks to the reader’s real concern, which I’m betting is avoiding a 100-foot fall out of a tree.

Don’t waste a really strong visual by wrapping it in weak copy.

Do work a concept until you can’t imagine a better way to tell the story. And never forget who your audience is and what moves them.

Yes!

Don’t Overdo SEO at the Expense of Conversion

Posted on by
Reply

Webmasters are charged with two primary objectives: 1) attracting qualified site visitors, and 2) converting them to become engaged buyers, members, donors, volunteers, or supporters. In their competitive enthusiasm for scoring high search rankings, however, many web developers focus on the first objective at the expense of the second. They optimize sites so heavily for search engines that they have little appeal to the interests or needs of the ultimate visitors, human beings, and therefore become ineffective for sales conversion.

Recently, a client asked us to look at their search rank, which was fair but not as strong as it could be; they were particularly frustrated by a local competitor, a much smaller player in the market, who consistently scored higher in search results. At only a glance, the cause was obvious. The competitor’s website displayed a classic case of “cramming,” body copy jam-packed with as many key words and key phrases as possible to boost the site’s relevance in the “eyes” of search engine spiders.

Here’s only one paragraph from that website’s home page (with place names changed to mask the site’s identity); the entire site reads this way:

“Are you looking for the best piano moving company in Tampa, Florida? We have Florida movers in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and now have movers in Lakeland, Florida. Our movers provide timely and professional moves in the Plant City and Winter Haven area. We simply provide Florida’s best Moving Services.”

Although this trick is effective for attracting visitors to the site, the approach is shortsighted. It fails to engage visitors and therefore stands little chance of converting visitors to take action—the very reason most web sites exist.

Furthermore, Google — by far and for years, the top-ranked search engine — announced at SXSW that it’s preparing to roll out an algorithm update that will “punish” cramming sites. So, cramming will soon risk not only sales conversion but also search rank.

A Better Approach

Attracting site visitors through organic search is vital — but it’s not everything. The challenge to an effective website is balancing its power to not only attract but also convert. When a site is effectively optimized for search, it ranks well in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) and then delivers what a well-targeted visitor seeks once they arrive at the site — informative, useful, engaging, entertaining content. Such content will convert a significant percentage of visitors into active buyers, members, donors, and supporters.

Don’t get overly focused on search rank at the expense of sales conversion and at the risk of being blacklisted.

Do craft strategically key word-rich copy that flows naturally, provides the visitor with the value they are seeking, and delivers the desired result—sales conversion.

Yes!

Don’t Use QR Codes Just to Fit In

Posted on by
Reply

QR Codes are hot! Or are they? They’re certainly popping up all over—I see more and more of them in odd places like on delivery vehicles and even tractor-trailers—but are they generating business and engaging audiences? For the most part, I think they’re not.

qr-code-huh-According to Forrester Research, only 5% of Americans use QR Codes. I’m guessing that most are not getting much out of them, considering most simply point to a company website’s home page or Facebook Page. And the more people encounter useless QR Codes the less likely it is they’ll click on one in the future.

What Not To Do
A client recently asked us to update a shelf talker to add a QR Code of a URL that pointed to their 10-minute company history video on YouTube. Imagine a shopper scanning a QR Code on a shelf wobbler mounted on a spring on a shelf in a grocery store. She finally gets the scanner to register the moving target only to find that she’s “rewarded” for her effort with a 10-minute video that has little or nothing to do with the product on the shelf. Do you think she feels valued as a customer? Will it inspire her to buy the product, or will it leave a bad taste in her mouth for having been robbed of ten minutes of her day while getting buffeted by her fellow shoppers?

Putting QR Codes to Good Use
For QR Codes to work effectively, they need to point to something useful like an instantly redeemable discount coupon in a restaurant or store or a directory of some sort that’s relevant to where the QR Code is applied. A QR Code in a product owner’s manual might point to a “How To” video that provides detailed set-up instructions that enhance the buyer’s first experience with the product and reduces returns. We recently included a QR Code on a ski area map that pointed to a Google Map of the ski area’s trail network. This gives the skier the option of carrying around an old-school folded paper map or using the interactive digital map on their phone. The Google Map adds value because GPS tracking shows the skier exactly where he is on the trail network. And the digital map reduces waste. It’s also good form to include text that tells your audience what the QR code points to.

Don’t just slap QR Codes on every print ad, menu, flyer or delivery truck simply because they’re the hot new thing.

Do find creative ways to use QR Codes that add real value for your audience where and when they can put it to good use.

Yes!

Don’t Just Do It—Every Organization Does Not Need a Tagline

Posted on by
Reply

New clients and prospects often come to us proclaiming, “We need a new logo and tagline,” apparently with the assumption or belief that every business and non-profit must have a tagline. Not so, especially if the tagline doesn’t pull its own weight.

A strong tagline can certainly help to favorably position a company in its industry (Avis: “We Try Harder,” M&Ms: “Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hands,” Miller Lite: “Tastes Great, Less Filling”). Or it can compel customers to buy (Nike: “Just Do It,” California Milk Processor Board: “Got Milk?” Coca-Cola: “Drink Coke”).

A weak tagline, however, serves only to confuse a brand’s core message. Several years ago, a community college nearby launched (to much fanfare) a new tagline: “Envision a Future.”

What the…er…future?

This tagline promises life that is not without a tomorrow…that’s it. Couldn’t they have qualified it a bit? Maybe “Envision a Better Future,” “Envision a More Fulfilling Future”?

Nope, just envision a future…any future. Oh, and the next four years of that future will cost you forty grand.

In its dying days, Digital Equipment Corporation spent gobs of money developing a Super Bowl commercial in the hopes of saving the brand. The spot featured 26 seconds of footage of natural disasters followed by the ominous four-second fade-in of the tagline “Hell Has Our Phone Number.”

Huh?

As if the lameness of the ad campaign wasn’t pathetic enough, the VP of DEC Corporate Communications would not print the tagline in the company newspaper saying that it was vulgar and not fit for internal corporate consumption.

In one of my all-time favorite books on advertising, “Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This!” author Luke Sullivan says about taglines, “If you can’t come up with something as good as ‘Just Do It,’ just don’t.” I couldn’t agree more.

Don’t feel compelled to have a tagline simply for the sake of having a tagline.

Do create and use a strong tagline, if it helps to position your brand favorably in its market or compels customers to buy, join, or support.

Yes!

Don’t Confuse Statistics with Reality

Posted on by
Reply

Vitally important components of an overall marketing strategy include quantitative and qualitative research, but research is only as good as the analysis and interpretation of its data and feedback.

Statistics create an aggregate profile that represents a certain body of people in abstract terms. But individuals are very different from statistical composites. In a sample set of two, with one person wearing red and one person wearing blue, the average is two people wearing purple. Of course in reality neither of the people is wearing purple.

In a group comprised of six infants in cribs and one CEO with a net worth of seven billion dollars, the per capita net worth is one billion dollars, yet it’s unlikely that any of those infants is apt to buy a Lamborghini in the next twelve months.

Years ago, when I was a product designer for a well-known outdoor recreation products company, I sat in on a series of focus groups that were facilitated by the company’s product research and testing department. The focus group attendees had tested a range of snowshoe designs with different features and color schemes. One common comment from the testers was that they liked the red version because it was easy to find in the gear closet and was bright and cheery in the brown-and-whiteness of the winter landscape.

The report from the product-testing group emphatically stated that the snowshoe should be red. In contrast, color trend reports for the following season were headlined “Red Is Dead.” Since I had heard the comments firsthand, I knew that it was brightness people reacted positively to and not specifically redness. So we went with a bright orange/gold that was forecasted to be popular the next winter season rather than red. The company sold twice as many snowshoes that season as it had the year before.

Don’t take research results at face value.

Do create well-crafted research instruments, execute them effectively, and temper your analysis with a healthy dose of reality and reason.

Yes!

Don’t Waste Money on Media if You Don’t Invest in Your Message

Posted on by
Reply

Author and marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog post today, inspired me to write about one of my biggest marketing pet peeves: money wasted on media to deliver a weak message.

Full-page ads in People magazine or 30-second spots during the CBS Nightly News don’t come cheap. My marketing heart breaks when I see expensive ad space displaying a message that’s confusing, irrelevant, poorly written, ugly, disorganized, inwardly focused or, God forbid, all of the above.

My mind is blown, knowing that for only a tenth of what the media costs, well-chosen marketing professionals could have made that media buy more profitable by crafting an engaging, compelling, relevant, and effective message with a clear call to action.

Many media outlets—especially in a soft economy—offer free production to sweeten a media buy. Buyers who are either naive or grasping at straws take the bait and more often than not end up with a an ad that may be decent-enough looking, that may or may not be on brand, and that almost always fails to deliver results.

The unfortunate take-away for CEOs is that marketing doesn’t work. And so begins their downward spiral of less marketing, less exposure, fewer sales, and less money for marketing.

Don’t waste money on media if you are not prepared to invest a little more to create effective content for it.

Do hire professionals to develop a strong, compelling, on-brand message that asks your audience to take action that will positively impact your bottom line.

Yes!

Don’t Expect Too Much from Your Logo

Posted on by
Reply

Your logo is one important component of your brand identity. It’s a memorable visual link to everything your brand represents. But your logo is not what you are selling — because it’s not what your customer cares about most.

Your customer cares most about what’s in your offering for them — how your product or service will address their needs and solve their problems. They do not care who you are until they want what you’re selling.

Do-It-Yourself and amateur marketers make the common mistake of featuring their logo more prominently than their selling message. It’s understandable — they may have invested blood, sweat, tears, and loads of cash to create their beloved logo. And they believe that screaming their name will attract their customers’ attention to their selling message — but it’s quite the other way around.

An effective selling message will lead a customer to want to know the source — and that’s when they look for a company name or logo. A logo’s job is not to sell. A logo’s job is simply to inform the customer who is providing the product or service that they have just become interested in.

As rough as it may be on the ego, you should know this to be true: Until a consumer is compelled to have what you’re offering to make their life better, they don’t care the least bit about who is offering it.

For most marketing communications, lead with an attention-getter, then generate interest, then create desire, and then request action. Then — and only then — present your logo and contact information to tell them who you are and where to find you.

Don’t suffer under the illusion that your audience wants and needs to see your logo as much as you do.

Do assume that your audience cares first about what’s in your product or service for them.

Yes!

Don’t Let Buzzwords Kill the Buzz

Posted on by
Reply

Is leveraging the added value of highly viral nomenclature an entrenched component of your corporate DNA? If so, you can eliminate some low-hanging fruit in the next iteration of your customer engagement delivery-channel messaging calibration process.

Need I go on?

Sadly, I probably do, considering that overblown language is allowed — even rewarded — in most big corporations (and small ones trying to act big).

Buzzwords may work to advance careers (Tip: Listen for buzzwords that senior management uses and plug them liberally into your communication as though you not only understand what they mean but as though you, yourself, invented them). Buzzwords are not, however, effective if your objective is to communicate.

The old adage “write to express, not to impress” are words to live by.

Buzzwords may sound impressive, but they mask the real buzz in your message. Avoid them.

Don’t use buzzwords as a crutch to sound more intelligent or current.

Do communicate clearly with plain language that your audience can understand instantly.

Yes!

Don’t CYA Your Way to Bad CRM

Posted on by
Reply

I’m a big fan of nearly all things Mac. I’ve had consistently positive experiences with their products, software, and their approach to customer relationships. Given that track record, I was stunned recently by an experience with them.

My power supply developed a short-circuit, which caused it to emit smoke and sparks at the base of the cord where it enters the “brick” in the middle of the cord. It looked like a design flaw. Googling “Defective Mac Power Supply” turned up photos of fried cords just like mine. One post mentioned that the Apple store replaced his on the spot, so I headed to my local Apple store 20 miles away, dead power supply in tow.

I expected every member of the staff to be familiar with the issue and empowered to replace my fire-hazard of a power supply, no questions asked. But that’s not how it went.

The first person I encountered knew nothing about the problem. He said he couldn’t do anything for me, and I’d have to schedule an appointment with a “Genius” (stupid label in my opinion). I’d also need to have my computer with me so they could see if it was under warranty. What?! Apple’s product could burn my house down, and I had to meet with a “Genius” about it?

I tried another sales person, or sub-Genius, or whatever they’re called, and got the same response….”Gee… I’ve never heard of that, but if you want to schedule an appointment with a Gen…” Yeah, yeah, I get it: you can’t help me.

As I left the store, I remembered that I had purchased the Apple Care protection plan for my computer, so I called Apple support. Bingo! I immediately got bumped up to a specialist who knew exactly what I was talking about and offered a replacement, which he promised would be FedExed overnight (which it was).

Now, that’s customer service. I told the specialist about my experience at the store, and he told me they should have been aware of the problem and should have given me a new power supply just like he had.

To help someone else avoid the experience I had, I returned to the store and asked to speak to the manager. I explained my experience to her, and she listened attentively, furrowing her brow in disbelief. She apologized and explained that they should in fact have replaced my power supply, but the staff are trained to forward any product quality issue to a “Genius” so they can gather information about the defective product claim, properly document the user’s behavior, and collect information that might relate to any potential product liability claim.

So, in a nutshell, to protect Apple from liability, the store would send me home with the fire-hazard they sold me.

Huh?!

Managing risk is serious business, but it should never get in the way of providing stellar customer service. It’s possible to do both. And, while driving customers away will definitely reduce a company’s risk exposure (fewer sales = less risk), it’s a poor strategy in the long run.

Don’t sacrifice customer service in an effort to cover your backside.

Do develop policies and systems that allow you to manage risk while converting a product failure into a positive customer experience.

Yes!