Just back from a lovely holiday in the South of France. Thanks to cheap Flybe flights (under £100 if you book early) from our local airport to Perpignan, we’re becoming very familiar with the bit of Mediterranean France near to the Spanish border. Our villa was in the Corbieres hills looking across a rugged, tranquil valley at one of the many ruined castles in the area. The highlight of our holiday though was a trip to Carcassonne, a huge intact walled medieval city high on a hill. It was like going back 800 years.
While in the region, we went to a couple of chateaux to try the wine. If you eat at L’Hospitalet, they let you drink as much of and as many of their wines as you like for free. If you like one, you can buy a case in the shop next door. An excellent marketing ploy.
The best meal we ate was at the restaurant attached to the Lastours chateau. It was called La Bergerie and as long as their superb chef Philippe Singer remains there, you won’t be disappointed. When we got back home, I wanted to tell everyone about it so I tried to find its website. It doesn’t have one! But worse, Google turned up a local English-speaking residents’ website where a few months ago members were busy slagging off the food there, I guess before Philippe arrived. As I suggested in a previous blog, this is the future of word-of-mouth and it shows you have to make sure you know what people are saying about you online and engage positively with them.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Driving Customer Relationship Management
I went to a presentation at the Institute of Direct Marketing the other week. It was about Customer Relationship Management in the car industry. Since we’re talking about the second most expensive purchase in many people’s lives and one they only undertake every three years or so, I wasn’t sure what the relevance might be to other businesses but…
In a campaign for Vauxhall Opel, prospective customers received a dozen communications- emails and postal mailings and the odd phone call- in the build up to their purchase. It was shown that, provided the messages were relevant and varied, people were very happy to receive regular contacts. Not only that, they were willing to part with quite a lot of useful personal information. The net result was 3 times the sales conversions compared with a control group who received no communications. Lesson: Regular tailored communications work.
The Toyota campaign made the same point. They spent a lot of time tailoring their communications to their customers’ level of involvement- whether they are prospects, new, established, lapsed.
Talking of customising your marketing to your customers, where do Toyota’s best ideas come from? Customers. They found that whereas 5 out of 6 ideas that came from ‘brainstorming’ within the office failed, 13 out of 14 ideas generated from observing customers succeeded.
Word Of Mouth Plus The Internet
In a further piece of research, Toyota identified Word of Mouth from friends and family as the most important influence on a customer’s choice of purchase and the internet as the biggest source of information. These facts are not surprising in themselves perhaps but put the two together and you throw marketing as we have known it on the scrap heap. In future, customers will be talking to one another on the internet and ‘friends and family’ become a vast network. The implication is that businesses will have little control over the message potential customers are receiving about their product.
To take theatre as an example, at the moment producers and venues rely enormously on mailings, print and press advertising to attract an audience to a new show. They are well aware that, once the show has opened, word-of-mouth generated by people who have seen it and then talk to their family, friends and colleagues has an effect. Even so, most people don’t know someone who’s seen the show and continue to be influenced by media coverage and marketing.
Supposing as soon as the first preview has taken place, lots of the audience are spreading their views about it far and wide across the internet? Even today, some people are checking what the word on the web is before purchasing their tickets. Imagine what will happen when there’s a lot more opinions available and the majority of theatre-goers are using them as a major source of information.
It’s clear we will need to use many new ways and techniques with which to market to customers and these will involve listening to, responding to and opening up dialogues with them.
In a campaign for Vauxhall Opel, prospective customers received a dozen communications- emails and postal mailings and the odd phone call- in the build up to their purchase. It was shown that, provided the messages were relevant and varied, people were very happy to receive regular contacts. Not only that, they were willing to part with quite a lot of useful personal information. The net result was 3 times the sales conversions compared with a control group who received no communications. Lesson: Regular tailored communications work.
The Toyota campaign made the same point. They spent a lot of time tailoring their communications to their customers’ level of involvement- whether they are prospects, new, established, lapsed.
Talking of customising your marketing to your customers, where do Toyota’s best ideas come from? Customers. They found that whereas 5 out of 6 ideas that came from ‘brainstorming’ within the office failed, 13 out of 14 ideas generated from observing customers succeeded.
Word Of Mouth Plus The Internet
In a further piece of research, Toyota identified Word of Mouth from friends and family as the most important influence on a customer’s choice of purchase and the internet as the biggest source of information. These facts are not surprising in themselves perhaps but put the two together and you throw marketing as we have known it on the scrap heap. In future, customers will be talking to one another on the internet and ‘friends and family’ become a vast network. The implication is that businesses will have little control over the message potential customers are receiving about their product.
To take theatre as an example, at the moment producers and venues rely enormously on mailings, print and press advertising to attract an audience to a new show. They are well aware that, once the show has opened, word-of-mouth generated by people who have seen it and then talk to their family, friends and colleagues has an effect. Even so, most people don’t know someone who’s seen the show and continue to be influenced by media coverage and marketing.
Supposing as soon as the first preview has taken place, lots of the audience are spreading their views about it far and wide across the internet? Even today, some people are checking what the word on the web is before purchasing their tickets. Imagine what will happen when there’s a lot more opinions available and the majority of theatre-goers are using them as a major source of information.
It’s clear we will need to use many new ways and techniques with which to market to customers and these will involve listening to, responding to and opening up dialogues with them.
Danger! Designers At Work
Designers are not marketing people. They don’t expect to know about marketing. In my experience, they don’t even pretend to. So why do so many business people- even marketing people- forget this simple fact? Why do they give designers free rein to use their brochure or a website as the canvas they would have been painting if they’d been prepared to starve for their art?
Take some examples.
Have you noticed how many pieces of theatre print due for bulk distribution- season brochures, fliers- do not have the name of the product at the top? Of course you haven’t. You didn’t notice them because, when they are put in racks, you could only see the top! Similarly why do they not have the name on the back? In the design studio, the world is perfect and designs are placed on walls. In the real world, print gets displayed in racks the wrong way round.
How often have you seen print in a 10 point sans serif typeface with hardly any space between the lines coloured pink out of orange or whatever? Beautiful to behold and very trendy but why didn’t the designer know that tests have shown most people find it difficult to read text unless it’s at least 12 point against a contrasting background? Answer: because to the designer the text is just one more building block in the quest for the perfect pattern on the page.
Look at websites.
The ones that pull every trick out of the bag may look stunning but why didn’t someone tell the designer that visitors to websites have no patience. Most people aren’t going to wait while those flash images download. They’ll be on to another site. While we’re on the subject, how often do you find all the interesting stuff down the right-hand side? Research shows that most people’s eyes travel down the left-hand side and flit across a couple of words of a headline or sentence as they go. They don’t even look at the right side!
Don’t blame the designer.
It’s not their job to be marketing people. It’s up to the client to know about marketing. If the client doesn’t have the knowledge, then don’t rely on the designer, employ a marketing person that does.
I think the problem is that we have too much respect for creativity. Creativity makes a difference and it is worth hiring a good designer, but if you want to sell your product you must get the basic marketing right first. Designers may want to be Michelangelo but businesses must want to sell.
Take some examples.
Have you noticed how many pieces of theatre print due for bulk distribution- season brochures, fliers- do not have the name of the product at the top? Of course you haven’t. You didn’t notice them because, when they are put in racks, you could only see the top! Similarly why do they not have the name on the back? In the design studio, the world is perfect and designs are placed on walls. In the real world, print gets displayed in racks the wrong way round.
How often have you seen print in a 10 point sans serif typeface with hardly any space between the lines coloured pink out of orange or whatever? Beautiful to behold and very trendy but why didn’t the designer know that tests have shown most people find it difficult to read text unless it’s at least 12 point against a contrasting background? Answer: because to the designer the text is just one more building block in the quest for the perfect pattern on the page.
Look at websites.
The ones that pull every trick out of the bag may look stunning but why didn’t someone tell the designer that visitors to websites have no patience. Most people aren’t going to wait while those flash images download. They’ll be on to another site. While we’re on the subject, how often do you find all the interesting stuff down the right-hand side? Research shows that most people’s eyes travel down the left-hand side and flit across a couple of words of a headline or sentence as they go. They don’t even look at the right side!
Don’t blame the designer.
It’s not their job to be marketing people. It’s up to the client to know about marketing. If the client doesn’t have the knowledge, then don’t rely on the designer, employ a marketing person that does.
I think the problem is that we have too much respect for creativity. Creativity makes a difference and it is worth hiring a good designer, but if you want to sell your product you must get the basic marketing right first. Designers may want to be Michelangelo but businesses must want to sell.
Touts- Bad Boys or Bad PR?
Following a kick up the backside from Culture Minister Tessa Jowell, the ticketing industry may finally stop whingeing about touts (also known as scalpers) and actually do something about them.
Touts are bad for the industry’s image. Unlike official sellers, they do not mention the original ‘face’ value of the ticket, they have been known to lie about the position of seats and in some cases sell tickets they don’t even have. People who buy tickets from touts have no right to a refund on the event of cancellation.
Are We Being Served?
It seems major agencies will introduce some kind of returns system in September and concert promoters will create a joint website for exchanges. Astonishingly, for a customer service industry, too many producers, promoters and even venues have shown no concern up to now for the individual or group booker who is unable to attend a show. So how can they complain if those tickets end up in the hands of touts?
To their credit, some producers, agencies and especially venues do want a better relationship with their customers. The trouble is, they are fighting against a whole industry mindset that thinks each show has its own discrete market. A customer relationship beyond the current show may not matter for presenters of the big name artist tour or the blockbuster musical but agencies and venues rely on repeat business.
What The Industry Can Do
The industry can do more to eliminate touting. Controlling the tickets allocated to promoters, artists and sponsors would help. Insisting, in the style of airlines, that only the person named on the ticket gets entry would be another.
The fact that touts can sell at inflated prices shows that those prices are too low. Promoters and producers could sell their best seats at much higher prices, counterbalanced by lower prices for the inferior seats.
The government could also help. They could adopt the nanny-style approach of saying no ticket can be re-sold at all. Or they could accept the reality that ticket prices like any other commodity are subject to supply and demand and try to control the situation by making it a legal requirement that all secondary agents (which touts are) register and conform to a code of conduct.
Touts are bad for the industry’s image. Unlike official sellers, they do not mention the original ‘face’ value of the ticket, they have been known to lie about the position of seats and in some cases sell tickets they don’t even have. People who buy tickets from touts have no right to a refund on the event of cancellation.
Are We Being Served?
It seems major agencies will introduce some kind of returns system in September and concert promoters will create a joint website for exchanges. Astonishingly, for a customer service industry, too many producers, promoters and even venues have shown no concern up to now for the individual or group booker who is unable to attend a show. So how can they complain if those tickets end up in the hands of touts?
To their credit, some producers, agencies and especially venues do want a better relationship with their customers. The trouble is, they are fighting against a whole industry mindset that thinks each show has its own discrete market. A customer relationship beyond the current show may not matter for presenters of the big name artist tour or the blockbuster musical but agencies and venues rely on repeat business.
What The Industry Can Do
The industry can do more to eliminate touting. Controlling the tickets allocated to promoters, artists and sponsors would help. Insisting, in the style of airlines, that only the person named on the ticket gets entry would be another.
The fact that touts can sell at inflated prices shows that those prices are too low. Promoters and producers could sell their best seats at much higher prices, counterbalanced by lower prices for the inferior seats.
The government could also help. They could adopt the nanny-style approach of saying no ticket can be re-sold at all. Or they could accept the reality that ticket prices like any other commodity are subject to supply and demand and try to control the situation by making it a legal requirement that all secondary agents (which touts are) register and conform to a code of conduct.
Monday, July 03, 2006
How To Win At Penalty Shoot Outs
How come Germany won their quarter final penalty shoot-out and England didn’t? One reason is research. I read in The Guardian that their goalkeeper Jens Lehmann had access to a database of 13,000 penalty kicks. Information extracted told him who takes Argentina’s penalties and how they take them. The result was, he saved two out of four spot-kicks and, even when he didn’t save the shot, he always went the right way.
Database research is just as vital to successful marketing. You have to know your market, what they want, how they behave and how to reach them.
That’s the goalkeeping sorted. Now all we need is a way to improve the England team’s shooting.
Database research is just as vital to successful marketing. You have to know your market, what they want, how they behave and how to reach them.
That’s the goalkeeping sorted. Now all we need is a way to improve the England team’s shooting.
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