CLEMENS RETTICH » Marketing

Find a New Sponge

Clemens Rettich — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:43:39 +0000

Thinking from the back of the envelope…

Sometimes It’s Not Enough to be Unique

Sometimes the value we offer just doesn’t match a need in our market or community. As the common wisdom once went, “There’s no selling coal in Newcastle.” They’ve already got lots, thank you!

We call that a market without white space. It’s all filled with lots of shapes and colours already, and doesn’t need any more.

It’s also a sponge. When a sponge is full, shy of wringing it out, nothing you can do is going to make room for more. Changing up your offer by changing the temperature of the water, or adding food colour, or even pouring good scotch on it, won’t make it absorb one more drop. It’s not about you, the sponge is just full.

If a market is saturated with a product, service, or message, it is very difficult to get more uptake even if what you have to offer is truly different. If everyone in a neighbourhood has purchased a vehicle in the last 2 or 3 years, they aren’t going to buy another one no matter how unique or attractive your offer is. And yes, clusters of saturation like that really do exist. A combination of demographics, recent promotions, economic conditions, trends and fads, and just plain probability, can combine to create saturated markets.

Find a New Sponge

The answer? Find a new sponge. This could be a new demographic, a new geographic market, or a new market segment of any kind. You could go as far as Steve Jobs did and gamble that the right products will create their own markets.

The key is to remember that your brilliant ideas, products, and services are not enough to bring you success. Listening, learning, and paying attention to where the needs and fit are the greatest, matter at least as much.

I help businesses and organizations get the mix right. People and systems working together to produce remarkable results. Check out my website to learn about the different ways I can support your organization.

There’s more! Looking for success in your small business? Read my Small Business blog at Small Business Fundamentals (www.smbfundamentals.com).

Too shy to leave a comment? That’s cool. +1′s and tweets are appreciated too!

The Social Market: Relationships, Stories, and Desire

Clemens Rettich — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:47:04 +0000

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What are you selling?

If nothing, then you are not in business. If only commodities, then you won’t be in business for long.

“But wait,” you say “I am a service provider. I don’t sell commodities. So I guess I’m safe.”

Sorry. A service alone is still a commodity. In the brave new world of social business, anything is a commodity to the extent to which it is a) a transaction that consists only of the exchange of a good or service for money, and b) reproducible in every important way.

So a service which is repeated over and over again, where the narrative arc ends completely when money changes hands, and which can be replicated by any competent professional the world over, is a commodity. And commodities have no place in the social marketplace.

The antonym of ‘commodity’ in this paradigm, is ‘experience’.

An experience in the context of social business, begins before the customer comes into direct contact with the business, and lasts long after the core transaction has taken place. And each experience is unique.

An experience is the product of a unique interaction between equal players. In the social market, the focus is on the unique relationship between the buyer, the seller, and the environment. That particular relationship cannot be reproduced and is becoming the new USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Social tools, especially those focusing on place (like FourSquare or Facebook Places) create the opportunity to customize interactions for both the buyer and the seller.

An experience is a story. The traditional models of acquisition and retention are losing their definition. Through digital social channels, we become aware of brands long before we click a link or walk through their doors. We are made aware of them through the conversations of those we trust, through targeted ads, and through the directed stream of data that flows around us. Sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, and the shaped offerings and reviews from sites like Amazon provide a near-global conversation about brands, which those brands can participate in, but not control. At mid-transaction, the story continues as business and consumer exchange information, and successful businesses attempt to create a remarkable experience with each visit or purchase. Then after the sale, the digital threads connecting consumer and business remain sticky and elastic. Follow-up, follow-through, return-incentives, and CRM all lose their distinct post-purchase roles and flow backwards and forwards to sustain the relationship and the experience of the brand for as long as possible.

In the social market, desire becomes more nuanced. In 20th century marketing, brands would try to speak to our desires for acceptance, status, fulfillment. But the whole experience had a tawdry one-night-stand feel to it. As soon as you purchased that object of desire: the house, the nicer car, the bigger TV, something akin to post-coital depression set in until the credit-fueled dance of desire started again, focused on a new fetish. In the social market, the seductions still continue, but there is nuance and a deeper commitment. Apple probably understands this better than any other brand. The combination of beautiful objects and a tribal-cliquey sense of being part of a special community is masterfully handled by Apple. Our desires remain, and brands will still seek to fulfill them, but the pace must be slower. The nature of the fulfillment must be richer. As Apple knows, it can’t just be about stuff any more. And I think it is just the beginning. There are deeper and more subtle desires that brands can connect with and act as partners in fulfilling: the sense of belonging, the sense of making a real difference in our communities and globally, a spiritual dimension… In my memory, the Body Shop perhaps best understood and exploited (not necessarily in a bad sense) this. But they were before their time. Lululemon is close. But there will be many more: successful businesses will find ways to act as partners in shared stories that address our needs and desires, and weave together the social, the commercial, the emotional and spiritual into extended, and profitable, shared experiences.

The experience must be truthful. If there is one thing for which tolerance is evaporating rapidly, it is deception in the market. And sustainable relationships and real experiences cannot be built on lies. It will be interesting to watch as the marketing, PR, and branding universe adjusts to the truth that whatever else consumers will demand, it is… the truth. Punishment for deception will be swift and many times fatal, as the social networks (including many of the consumer rating sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp mentioned above) spread bad news at a speed with a reach we have not seen before.

I help organizations improve communication through leadership & management-level workshops & coaching. Check out my website to learn about the different ways I can support your organization.

There’s more! Looking for success in your small business? Read my Small Business blog at Small Business Fundamentals (www.smbfundamentals.com).

Too shy to leave a comment? That’s cool. +1′s and tweets are appreciated too!

2011 IBM Study: What Keeps Your CMO Awake At Night?

Clemens Rettich — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:52:31 +0000

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This morning, (October 11, 2011) IBM (TSX: IBM:US) released a valuable study into the pressures, stresses, and some successes of corporate Chief Marketing Officers trying to come to terms with the rapidly shifting ground-rules in their worlds.

IBM conducted face to face interviews with more than 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and 19 industries. This study, entitled From Stretched to Strengthened is part of an ongoing work called the C-Suite research program, interviewing 15,000 CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CHROs and CSCOs.

Over the next few days I will be exploring different facets of the CMO study; it has significant implications for corporate communication. At the heart of the study is the leitmotif that there is a “critical and permanent shift” in the way businesses communicate to and with their customers.

Customer Intimacy is Crucial

The keystone insight is that organizations must turn from addressing the crowd (market segments, demographics, populations) to addressing the individual.

As consumers, we no longer trust the one [corporate] voice that addresses the many. World War II and the Cold War probably started the questioning that continued through Naomi Klein’s No Logo, and brought us to the social world today. We don’t trust it, and we no longer even hear it. That one voice has been drowned out by the millions of myriad voices addressing each other through social networks. The challenge for the corporate world, which its very name defines as not-individual, is to engage in conversation with each individual in its existing or potential customer base. The central challenge: how do you do that?

The ROI of a Conversation

Not only is the corporate world struggling to come to terms with these simultaneous individual conversations, the CMO’s in this study are also challenged to provide ROI numbers their CEO’s and shareholders are demanding. The irony of this is that while social networks atomize the marketplace, they simultaneously provide more public data than we have ever had. Blog comments, web traffic analytics, customer review sites, and in so many other ways consumers are voluntarily (an often unknowingly as well) providing feedback and other purchase and experience data. Never has the conversation about your business been more public and more open to analysis. When you combine this with POS (point of sale) and order tracking data many businesses now have available to them, the potential to connect the dots is huge. The serious challenge underlying this is to find common systems that can speak to each other, without compromising privacy where it matters.

A personal side-bar:

For the last two months I have been posting on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook about my hunt to find my next smartphone. I have been using Blackberries for years, and am not sure of RIM’s future. In my tweets and posts I have asked lots of questions and mentioned both Blackberry, RIM, and Android by name many times. Now. You would think that any corporate marketing team would be monitoring the public portions of my social stream (and there are many) for mentions of their products or issues of interest to them. Not that I can see. I have never had a response or query after any posts. Well, I did have one, because I am a huge fan of Xobni, I did mention them. They responded in hours.

In response to IBM’s study I upped the ante on my experiment and posted this on Twitter:

“#smartphone decision down to this: #samsung #android or #rim #torch #bb? From #telus.”

There are enough hashtags in there to pretty much smack anyone who’s paying attention in the face. Let’s see what happens. [Update: after 4 days, not a word]

Big Blue Gets It

I have to say that as I read the 61 pages that constitute the main part of the study, I was impressed, not with the data, but with the questions and the synthesis.

The questions around ROI and delivering value to empowered customers are important. What struck me most however, was the attempt to grapple with an issue on the corporate level, that we can’t even get small to medium sized enterprises to accept: developing a one-to-one relationship with your customers through the full buying cycle is probably the number one marketing challenge of the next several years. I would expect smaller businesses, that have a more obvious need for the loyalty of a smaller customer base, to jump all over this. Not so. In walk Big Blue and the corporate subjects of this study, and flat out own the question. Whatever happened to ‘small, nimble, and responsive’?

My message to clients these days is simple: “You don’t see the value of engaging social networks? That’s fine, because your customers and your competitors do. And they are managing the conversation just fine without you.”

Want to improve your communication with employees, partners,and customers? I help organizations improve communication through leadership & management-level workshops & coaching. Check out my website to learn about the different ways I can support your organization.

There’s more! Looking for success in your small business? Read my Small Business blog at Small Business Fundamentals (www.smbfundamentals.com).

It’s Your Story… Using Stories to Market Your Business

Clemens Rettich — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:48:22 +0000

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Meeting with the production team of a client this morning, we explored the implications of being a luxury brand, which this company is.

One of the points I made was that for luxury brands, the stories & the myths matter as much as the products themselves. The creative, labour-intensive process combined with the challenge of producing or sourcing extremely high-quality materials makes for a compelling story.

One of the team members commented that she was comfortable writing about the process on their blog, but felt that she needed to work hard to keep herself out of the story. “I don’t think it should be about me.” she said.

“Absolutely it should be about you!” I responded.

Stories drive great brands. Prima donna designers, components requiring hours of hand-finishing, parts and raw materials sourced from mysterious and exotic places… all fodder for stories that feed luxury brands. And stories about people connect most deeply of all.

All businesses can learn something from that.

In his article The 5 Types Of Small Business Backstories Rohit Bhargava provides an excellent introduction to the role of backstories in the promotion of a small business. As Rohit writes:

“Every small business has a story waiting to be told—and that story can be your most powerful ally in demonstrating how your business is different from all others.”

This is so true. Sometimes in seeking to differentiate a small business, we reach for the usual list of adjectives, abilities, and values. The trouble with that list is that it is the same one your competitors use. One of the things none of your competitors can duplicate is the story of how you got here.

Your backstory is only one source for stories that connect with your customers and truly help to differentiate you. Here are three more:

Your team members. The unique stories that are the lives and experiences of your team members are a great connecting point for your customers. Larger organizations have known this for years, and have used images of their “everyman/woman” employees in their advertising to ‘humanize’ their corporate images.
Your operations. Like my client, you may some intriguing stories about where you get your supplies and inputs from. This is an especially powerful tactic today with more and more people interested in the sources of the things they buy. Check out this link (ThisFish) as an example!
Your community. Is your business located in a heritage building? Does your business contribute to community and not-for-profit events? More sources for stories… and pictures to feed the endless appetite of your social marketing!

Unlike claims about customer service, no two stories are truly alike. And humans are wired for stories; we tell them to connect. Telling your stories is one of the best ways to build those unique relationships with your customers.

Eleven Ways To Sabotage Your Own Networking

Clemens Rettich — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:49:04 +0000

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You spend considerable time and effort networking. You think you are doing it all right. You understand the 20/80 rule, and you focus your time and energies on the 20% of connections that get you 80% of your business. Your ‘elevator pitch’ has perfect pitch. You go to all the right functions to see and be seen.

But something’s not right.

Despite all your efforts, you just can’t quite seem to make those connections stick. You meet the right people and say the right things, but your book of business isn’t growing. Why?

Here are 11 things that you might be doing to terminate any relationship you start. These are the silent relationship-killers that undermine even the most relentless networking efforts. They are deadly because in most cases, they are the kinds of things that will cause people to quietly walk away without ever telling you why.

You send mixed messages. Words convey less than 20% of the content in a conversation. Body language and vocal inflection carry the other 80%. When you cross your arms, drum your fingers, constantly look away, check your phone, lean back, etc. you are telling the person they don’t matter that much, regardless of what your words say. Great listening is a contact sport. If you aren’t tired after a focused conversation you aren’t really engaging.
You dress like we don’t matter. Dress is another form of nonverbal communication. Every industry and community has its norms, so a suit on a fishing boat, or Stanfields (look it up if you’re not Canadian!) in the boardroom, don’t work. That said, dress also speaks to us as individuals. Over-dress and you are broadcasting that you are clueless about the environment you are in. Dress too casually, and the message is that you are either clueless or don’t care. Neither is good. Dress for the clients and customers you want. Dress with intention.
You don’t follow up. When you don’t follow up, you are letting us know that, outside of our monetary value, we don’t really matter. When you don’t return calls or messages, you go one step further and tell us you don’t even want our business.
You use poorly designed forms & you can’t spell. Poor design in your documentation tells us that you don’t get how we think, or how we want our information. Misspell our name, or the name of our company, and you tell us you don’t care, regardless of what you say in the rest of the document. Make that mistake in an initial pitch or communication, and you are almost guaranteeing we’ll never do business.
You don’t show up when you say you will. If you are consistently late, or don’t even show up at all, you are letting us know that there are more important things for you to be doing. We get the message.
You fudge the truth; especially about your services or products. That one is a double whammy. Not only will we be angry with you for the misrepresentation, we feel personally insulted because you assume we aren’t smart enough to figure it out.
You tell us again how great you are. When you over-stress a particular quality about yourself, a sophisticated listener will always assume the opposite. If you constantly repeat what a detail-oriented person you are we assume your desk is probably a mess. You only sound like you are trying to convince yourself, and you are not convincing us.
You let the tumbleweeds blow through your web site. Have old content on your site, or old copyright dates, and we wonder how current and successful you are.
You tell us how busy you are. How many times have you told people how incredibly busy you are when they ask how things are going? How likely do you think we are to refer an important client to you when all we hear is that you are just barely managing to stay on top of your work load? If you’re that busy, you don’t have time to take good care of the people I want to send your way.
You wake up in the morning not loving it. If you aren’t really loving what you’re doing, we are going to pick up on that. Few things are more attractive than passion, and few things repel more than misery. If you don’t love what you’re doing, get out. If you don’t, your customers will pick up your dissatisfaction. If you’re trying to sell us something you don’t really care about, the message we get is that you don’t really care about us either.
You don’t do your homework. If you haven’t taken the time to find out something about us if the chance presented itself, the message is that we’re not worth the effort. Also, your communication will be designed around what you want to say, not around what we want to hear. Find out what matters to us, or you will send the message we don’t matter to you.

Great networking skills are tough to acquire. They require a love of people, a love of what you do, and a great deal of practice. But none of that matters if during and after a first meeting you send signals that contradict your pitch and your print materials.

The greater the distance between your initial pitch and what you actually deliver, the greater the damage. Few things turn customers off more than raised expectations unmet.

So learn to listen, pay attention, tell the truth, follow through, and take the time to get to know us. Loyal customers are won not by what you promise, but by what you deliver.

Want to improve your communication with employees,partners,and customers? I help organizations improve communication through social media strategies and management-level workshops. When it comes to business and social media,Twitter has become the ‘difference maker’ Try my online 6-day Twitter BootCamp.