Group-buying local deals site fever

Ever since Groupon started making a big noise in the US, and Livingsocial moved into the one-day sale market, similar sites have cropped up around the globe.

How it works

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OK, so you’re remarkable, now what?

Why local business and tourist venues should enable customers to remark about them

We should by now all be aware of the importance of being remarkable, but one thing that’s often missing is making it REALLY easy for people to share that “remarkability” with their friends with the simple act of giving them a free wifi connection.

Mobile devices are getting smarter, more capable, high-speed mobile data is becoming more widespread, but that doesn’t mean businesses are off the hook when it comes to hooking their customers up to a fast, free internet connection (yes, I’m looking at you Hilton, Marriot and any other short-sighted money grubbing hotel that bilks their customers up to $20 a day for internet access). In fact sometimes the free wifi in itself is remarkable enough for a mention.

Given that very few data plans remain unlimited and in many cases a lot of people at a venue may be from out-of-country so have no data plan or desire to rack up huge roaming charges, it’s the very least you can do to be a good host.

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Logitech and a fundamental failing at Customer Service 2.0

I’m reading Joseph Jaffe’s Flip The Funnel at the moment and it got me thinking about how corporations do customer service. The book cites the usual examples of those who are getting it right (Dell, Starbucks, Comcast). How do the rest shape up though?

I have a Logitech ClearChat Wireless Headset. It’s a great product, all-in-all, it uses RF (infinitely better than Bluetooth) and a USB receiver that plugs in to your computer. This arrangement means it’s free from the pairing headaches that you can get with Bluetooth devices (and the need to have Bluetooth turned on the whole time on your computer, a battery-suck when you’re unplugged).

The one gripe I have with it (as do everyone I know who has one) is that to charge it you have to use a mains power adapter. That means one more adapter to take with you when you travel (and a plug adapter for it if travelling internationally), one more thing to forget or leave behind when you pack.

Nobody seeks out vague promises

As marketers we all love to promise the earth but you need to be able deliver on what you’re offering. If you need to use weasel words and internal jargon to qualify your promises, you’re doing it wrong.

When you see an advert for flatscreen TVs offering a ‘free Blu-Ray player with selected TVs’ – what’s your thought process? Is it ‘ooh, I’m gonna get a free Blu-Ray player’ or is it ‘I bet the one I want doesn’t come with a free Blu-Ray player’. How about a sale sign that offers ‘Up to 50% off’? I guess it depends on whether you’re a glass half-full or half-empty kind of person. Maybe you get a nice surprise or maybe you’re disappointed. The one thing that word ‘selected’ doesn’t do is fill you with confidence because it immediately creates a doubt in your mind.

Customers don’t know what ‘selected’ means in that context, they don’t know what a company’s ‘primary service areas’ are. All they know is that the company wants their offer to sound good whilst leaving some wiggle room. Customers don’t care about a company’s ability to squirm out of providing something. They want what they’re promised.

Under-promise, over-deliver
That’s what we should aim for. That’s what gets customers telling their friends about us. The opposite can make people talk about us for all the wrong reasons.

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Lifetime Value, Caveat Vendor

Seth Godin urges businesses to consider the lifetime value of a customer, not just the value from the first sale (or indeed the latest sale).

Go and read it, it makes sense, but bear in mind his argument is based on a particular kind of product or service, one where lifetime value of a customer can be calculated with some value of reliability, and expending what seems like a disproportionate amount on acquisition or retention is a much safer bet.

If you’re serving a specific geographical area there is a limit to the amount of competition for that customer’s business that you face – a customer is by necessity more likely to be loyal. If your product naturally has some lock-in (like a mobile phone contract) then you can work out how much a customer is worth to you very easily. Barriers to entry (by competitors) or exit (for the customer) create an environment with a relatively low churn rate, a predictable level of repeat business and a limited number of other places for a customer to take their spending.

If however you’re an online merchant, selling a product you don’t have an exclusive on, your competition is almost infinite and made up of players with different agendas. Not everyone is motivated by the need to make a profit, their goal may be market share. If Amazon enter your niche, there’s every chance you’ll get wiped out, just as dedicated greengrocers and butchers shut down all over the UK as supermarkets expanded. Calculating that lifetime value has to be tempered with the likelihood that a lower priced competitor will take their business regardless of how much effort you put in.

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Is paid search the height of responsibility?

In response to The Irresponsible Marketer

Having just read Mitch Joel’s latest post, I was going to post this as a comment, then when I got to writing it and it grew to longer than would be polite, or even that readable, as a comment.

To paraphrase, Mitch is saying that marketers should put as much as they can into search marketing, spending “whatever is left over for your more general branding campaigns”. Now I’m sure that Mitch is trying to seed a discussion rather than truly believing that we should give up on all other kinds of marketing efforts to concentrate on the low-hanging fruit and maximising our Adwords spend and hiring SEO experts..

What about cumulative effects?

I think this is a perfect case for ‘with, not instead of’, to quote Mitch again. Paid search, and to almost the same extent, well done SEO/content marketing efforts are eminently trackable. But what drove that search? Reading this post I immediately thought of David Ogilvy’s belief that a consumer needs to see a message multiple times before they act on it (though as he was head of an ad agency, one might question the number of exposures required). Read the rest of this entry »

Holding On – The right and wrong way in customer retention

Customer retention seems to get little thought in some companies. The fact that retention tactics only kick in when you tell them you want to terminate your contract is a significant part of the problem. Customer acquisition is an expensive business but it seems that some marketers are obsessed with it, accepting churn as a fact of life, with holding on to existing customers given only cursory attention.

Keeping customers is too important to be left to a salesperson calling the customer after they leave, you should be aiming to be so good for your customers that they never even think about leaving. Good marketers do this by making sure that all parts of the customer experience are faultless. ‘It’s not my department’ marketers on the other hand constantly have to come up with ways to retain customers that are disappointed by the service delivery.

A personal example

My dad recently decided to switch gyms. He even took the time to tell the Fitness First retention agent that called him the reasons why he was leaving.

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How to Get More Reviews

We all know that reviews written by real people help to flesh out the details of a business. So why is it that hardly anyone writes reviews?

Several of my friends love to talk about their favourite places to eat, or shop but very few of them write reviews of anywhere they go. We talked about the reasons why this was the case. For some it was time – they just didn’t think it was worth their while to spend the time writing it. For others it was that they weren’t sufficiently moved either positively or negatively to bother. Always keen to solve the insoluble I’ve put together this list of how to get more reviews.

0) Be remarkable
In case you were wondering why I’ve numbered this point zero, this is because being worthy of comment is the ground zero of getting reviews. Ever wonder why Seth Godin just won’t stop banging on about being remarkable? That’s because it’s important! If the average response you illicit is ‘meh’ and would have most people ticking the ‘just average’ box on a comment form, you’ve got serious problems. Take care of this first. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, if you can’t find something to give people to talk about, ask your customers what would blow them away and find a way to do that. If you’re still stuck, and wish you weren’t, maybe change your line of work.

1) Just Ask
Granted some people just won’t write reviews but in a lot of cases all it takes is asking someone if they wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes, next time you get a compliment on your product/service, to share that sentiment with others. (The same goes for referrals by the way). Afraid of coming across as needy or narcissistic by asking straight out? If you really want to avoid that, soft-pedal with the suggestions below.

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Helping out your competition

Sparked by a comment on twitter recently by Justin Levy, co-owner of a restaurant and social media proponent.

I own a restaurant and we’re doing great due to SM. But I see a lot of restaurants closing which sucks to see happen

he was replying to this question by Dave Ferrick:

Last few local restaurants I visited in the past 3 months said they’re closing down despite excellent service. SM Gurus where are you?!

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5 Marketing & Social Media Podcasts worth subscribing to right now

Podcasts are a great way to learn and keep your brain engaged when you’re doing something boring – exercising, housework, commuting, your day job (kidding!).

But your time doing any of these things is finite and there’s an awful lot out there to listen to. Here’s a rundown of the marketing podcasts I listen to regularly, the kind of content they cover, the average frequency and duration and why I like each of them.

Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel

Primarily covers social media/new media marketing, Mitch also writes for a couple of newspapers and is president of Twist Image, a marketing consultancy. Often alternates between a standard Six Pixels podcast and Media Hacks – though that may change, so subscribe to both, just in case. Read the rest of this entry »