Tough time marketing means being an expert not just an advertiser

Posted on November 26, 2008 by teds

Today I’m taking the train from the Bay Area to LA for thanksgiving and thanks to the 12 hour transit time I finally have a chance to work on a few of the sites I’ve promised to update, like the one for my parent’s rental property in Hawaii. As I’m reworking with this site I thought I’d quickly share the idea which inspired this redesign which is something almost every business can be benefiting from especially in these tougher times…

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Growing your community – Features that set you apart part II

Posted on November 2, 2008 by teds

Last week I talked about the importance of developing new and unique features to make your forum community stand out above the crowd in order to win & retain visitors. But the story doesn’t end with adding features, there’s a lot on off the shelf forum software to customize and customize it you must. In the second part of this series I explain a few of the prime areas to change because at the end of the day to win the user over your site needs to get them back.

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One price… one experience

Posted on October 19, 2008 by teds

While watching football this morning I caught the tail end of a Circuit City commercial about a “One Price Promise”. It’s a pretty simple statement so what makes it interesting to me is that it’s still an issue. Any store crazy enough to change their pricing in store and online is simply missing the boat. Sure your overhead online is lower but your customer doesn’t care. Customers shop the channel they want whether it’s because they still don’t buy online [yes they do still exist - scary, I know] or because they want immediacy or just to put their hands on the product.

Furthermore if you’re asking for less online you’re encouraging people to abuse your price structure testing offline and buying online. Smartphones, iPhones, phone a friend, people don’t stop looking online just because they aren’t there anymore. When your prices don’t jive the customer isn’t going to be fooled and trying to deal with returns from overpricing doesn’t help your overhead or brand reputation.

If you want to incentivize online sales make it easy to buy online. Offer simple to returns, useful sales suggestion tools and give out free shipping either without qualifiers or at low levels. These days everyone is online and offline so rather than trying to penalize people into a channel for margin reasons it’s time to wake up and realize that multi-channel means getting customers wherever you can. Over charging them in one spot won’t win them back in another.

We shouldn’t need a commercial telling customers pricing will be fair.

Now back to the game…

Everything is different. Control is no longer yours.

Posted on September 19, 2008 by teds

Tonight while having dinner with my parents the conversation turned, as conversations often do, from something logical and straight forward towards some unknown tangent and finally settled on user reviews (odd, I know). After talking for a few minutes I made a point that seemed worth sharing beyond the dinner table. Phew… here we go.
What’s the big deal with the internet? It’s technology but that’s not what makes unique. The printing press brought information to the masses – that was unique; radio changed the world when it let people hear shows and music in real time and TV let them see it. So what makes the internet so special, so important to have changed the way we think? The internet allowed the customer to talk back. The internet was the revolution, the internet changed us and how we think about the world but not because of technology, because of voice.
30 years ago if you had an issue with a company you talked to the company, maybe they helped you, maybe they didn’t. Today everyone has a voice – the timid and the vocal – for better or worse everyone gets the chance to state their opinion and those opinions are visible to millions and will be archives presumably “forever”. Have a good hotel stay? There’s Trip Advisor. Dislike a restaurant? There’s CitySearch or Yelp. Bad product? There are review sites, manufacturers, forums, blogs and a dozen other places to vent.
This may seem straight forward even obvious but it’s still something so many companies fail to get. In the digital age fancy banners aren’t what count, discounts don’t close deals, and when we talk about “educating” the consumer the truth is consumers educate consumers, not brands.
So what’s the takeaway? It’s not just about getting your brand into “social”, the truth is we’re already there, the trick is figuring out how to deliver, listen and respond well enough that we as marketers, manufacturers, and providers, remain in a positive light.
More to follow soon.

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Why the airlines need to create and listen to communities [and so do you]

Posted on August 12, 2008 by teds

There’s no two ways about it, with the value of the dollar and the cost of fuel (even after its recent 20% fall) the airline industry is not having an easy time staying out of the red but maybe if one of them tried listening to their customers and responding they’d be able to make some actual money and gain an edge over the competition. When it comes to advocates, airlines have spent decades building relationships and have some of the loyal customers almost any business many of whom are clamoring to give input and share their concerns. Yet instead of listening and growing relationships, the airlines turn their backs and continue to invest in acquisition as if there’s an endless number of customers – and unfortunately it’s not just airlines doing this.

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Just because it’s a bad experience doesn’t mean you can’t fix it

Posted on June 14, 2008 by teds

Everyone has a horror story about traveling so it should come as no surprise that I’m writing about one of mine. The issue was bad, the employees were nearly useless yet resolution was nearly shocking in how GOOD it was. So how do we as corporate employees respond to an issue when you’re potentially sitting thousands of miles away and what take aways can we all learn from the good and bad experiences we have in the real world to apply to our own business.

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Are you communicating with your users / customers they way they want?

Posted on June 5, 2008 by teds

This morning an article found its way over to my inbox about the ways in which consumers like to hear from companies. This immediately got me thinking about all the brands, stores and social sites I use and which ones I tend to find myself visiting again and again. With very few exceptions, the sites I return to when I’m not thinking about visiting them are the ones that have either just sent me an email or do so frequently. This is even true of sites that I don’t shop with like social networking sites, forums, news sites, etc… The places sending out alerts and updates that match my needs get me back and the ones that do it well get me back often.

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