Archive for June, 2009
I have been ‘Tweeting’ for nearly a year. It has been an interesting experiment and I have blogged more than a couple of times about what I am experiencing on Twitter. I still ask myself if and how Twitter.com can be used by our agency and our clients as a business application (there are a few examples where I think it works).
The seemingly greatest impact is the social aspect of disseminating information in real time. Events like the shootings in Mumbai, India in 2008 and the current upheaval in Iran were and are well-chronicled in the form of real time tweets. In India it gave the world its first knowledge of the terrible carnage as it occurred and in Iran it has become a way for the world to see what is really going on inside that troubled country.
When I started on Twitter the community appeared to be primarily composed of marketers, news agents and those interested and willing to share information in the form of links and pithy sayings. Then it evolved to become an environment with many people ready to show you how to make money on Twitter – to dominate and blow everyone else out of the water. Such joy! More recently I am seeing Twitter being used to promote pornographic photos (I have some new followers like Amber who wants to share things). Twitter is pretty good about shutting down inappropriate content but the tide is rising so fast that I think the wave may inundate the Twitter universe.
Like the early days of the internet there are Twitter squatters and all kinds of misrepresentation. Just yesterday Biz Stone (Twitter’s founder) acknowledged that Twitter is attempting to come up with a 24 hour response time to protestations about misuse of Twitter names. The Real Shaq has emulators who are all fake Shaq’s. Twitter is also working on a verification system which they say should be released shortly – and none too soon.
All this and there still is no model for Twitter to monetize what it is doing. Combine that with a universe of would-be ‘Twitter marketers’ that for the most part offer nothing much at all and I can easily envision Twitter entering an impending death spiral.
Twitter can be useful and even cool. But unless things change quickly the dark side may well soon overshadow and consume its universe and force it into a black hole.
I have spent the better part of my professional career reaching out to prospective customers so I like to think I have a pretty good feel for what works and what does not. Back in the day (this is a relatively recent expression that has become seemingly ubiquitous but I always wonder why?) when I was a young sales guy there were secretaries, assistants and other gatekeepers. Also when I started working there were no individual computers on people’s desks. The old-fashioned letter and the telephone were the primary ways to reach a new prospect.
I heard some of the great excuses about why a prospect could not speak to me. One of the best was when I asked to speak to Mr. Smith the assistant/secretary responded ‘He’s in his office but he’s out of the office.’ Apparently Mr. Smith was a really tricky guy. I knew I needed to refine my approach and did.
Today I am the guy on the other end of the phone when someone calls looking to sell me something or get me to do something. So I respect and respond to a professional and even creative approach. Sadly those approaches are too few and far between.
I don’t have an assistant or (gasp!) a secretary. I never have. I rarely screen my calls. So while I am difficult to reach because of my travel and schedule I do pick up the phone quite regularly having no idea who is on the other end. I have an idea that many people that call me, once they go into voice mail they bail out.
A short summary on the types of cold calls I receive:
1) The young stockbroker – either they call and ask me to hold for someone else (I hang up), or my first name is uttered and the broker goes right into his pitch (I hang up).
2) Someone claiming to know a buyer who is buying businesses similar to mine. I simply ask them what my company does. They never seem to know (I hang up).
3) Other ‘professionals’ try to sell me some product or service. If I am not asked if this a good time or not I give them 10 seconds, then I hang up.
I am hardly averse to be contacted by phone, email or postal or other mail. But keep in mind I may have absolutely no need or desire for your product or service. Ask me if I have a moment to speak or not – more often I will say no but that is a ticket to calling me back at some future date.
Don’t expect me to call you back after you have left me a voice mail in which you did not identify your company or what you calling about. In that instance I NEVER WILL CALL YOU BACK. EVER.
Do – send me a letter suggesting that you will contact me to discuss something you know is relevant to our business.
It’s not that hard folks – just respect the other person’s time.
You have great people working together in your company toward common goals. If you didn’t you would be making changes or at least thinking about making changes. The people that you work with are most often your primary resources for getting things done.
But are you using ALL of your resources? As a relatively small (less than 20 people) direct and digital marketing agency we are, at times, growing our business by availing ourselves of great resources through partners and associates. In the end coming to work every day is about getting the most effective campaigns/highest ROI on behalf of our customers.
Yet one of the more difficult aspects of working in a smaller agency is bandwidth when it comes to how to handle the many marketing channels that are available. We are really good and deeply experienced in on-page, direct mail, digital and a wide range of e-commerce platforms. However we are not nearly as experienced in channels like broadcast and cable television, radio, telemarketing and OOH (out-of-home). There are times in reviewing what is best for the CUSTOMER; that best thing falls outside of our main areas of expertise. And like many agencies we have invested much time and effort in developing both the relationship as well as the understanding of our clients’ business. That’s where our outside resources help us help our customers.
By managing the overall communication stream across whatever channels are employed we keep the message consistent (something that is often lacking when there are multiple agencies working on behalf of a client but not with each other). And as such there are occasions (increasingly) that we will introduce our partner resources to our clients so we can then work WITH those partners in order to do the best possible work on behalf of our customer. We still own the agency/client relationship. And we remain the driving strategic force.
Does that make me concerned it could make our agency look weaker or that we could lose the customer to a larger agency with a broader range of in-house services? No not at all. Our resources offer insight and expertise that complements our own. By bringing qualified partners to the table we show our customers that we understand our own limitations, but we respect that there are many things to consider and we only want the best results for our customers. I think it makes us a much stronger agency and our customers have told us they feel the same way.
So – are you using all of your resources? You really should not be afraid!
Of course the artist who formerly was named Prince tried this and yet is currently named Prince. So it doesn’t always work. But the spectacular and amazing golf career that Mr. Woods has produced to date is the stuff of which legends are made. Tiger is so much better than his peers that fellow U.S. top ten golfer Jim Furyk was heard to say to reporters recently – ‘I wish you’d all quit pissing him off,” he said jokingly of Woods, … and make him come back and keep proving stuff. Tiger Woods is always Tiger Woods.’ But what if he wasn’t called Tiger Woods any more?
Last week he hit two great shots on the last two holes, which enabled him to come back and win the tournament. I mentioned to my wife that there’s another one for the legend that is Eldrick which is actually Tiger’s true first name. She had never heard his real first name before and noted that Eldrick sounded like a Viking or Norse name. It struck me the same. So I got to thinking – maybe Tiger Woods should become ‘Eldrick the Fearsome’. Talk about a name that aptly describes his professional persona. And his fellow professionals would not admit it but they do fear him for good reason. He kicks their butts time and again. And talk about the merchandising opportunities. There’s a Saturday morning cartoon smash hit in ‘that there’ name. Not to mention a full slate of action figures. I contend that Tiger Woods is not an exciting action figure. But ‘Eldrick the Fearsome’ comes with shields, helmets and saves impoverished villagers from the tyrannical King and his court every time. He is respected and beloved by all.
Tiger Woods is a memorable name and an argument can be made that it is known nearly to the degree that Muhammad Ali once was renowned. But I think using the name ‘Eldrick the Fearsome’ has even more potential for lasting value and would only add to his legend. Professional athletes sometimes choose unusual names in order to differentiate themselves from their peers. It seems to happen more often when their talent is unremarkable. There was a football player who changed his name to ‘He Hate Me’ when in the short lived XFL several years ago. His real name was Rod Smart. Maybe he was smart or maybe not I will let others judge that one. But I (and others) remember it.
Jimmy ‘the Greek’ Snyder had a great nickname. ‘Erik the Red’ has offered thousands of years of lasting value. A thousand years from now which name do you think has greater lasting value, Tiger Woods, or ‘Eldrick the Fearsome’? It’s no contest in my view.
What do you think?
Economists and pundits (at times they think they are one and the same) tell us the recession began sometime in 2008. What I recall our clients and prospects doing around the same time was focusing on customer retention. The thought that it is more valuable to keep a customer than to spend marketing dollars to acquire a new one was overriding. Marketing budgets were slashed and primarily the area to suffer most was investment in new customer acquisition.
That is hardly an earth shattering observation. Marketing agencies like ours became even more driven to better understand data analytics and to help our clients mine their data gold mine. What I have noticed in the past month is that the talk is about new customer acquisition. I think that is a harbinger that conditions are better than they were in 2008 and the hold back in marketing budgets may be relaxing. At a certain point any mine runs empty. Yes there will be the ability to extract worthwhile material from the mine but its capacity to offer a great many more nuggets will have been exhausted.
That’s the reason many companies are finally looking again to dig a new mine. A robust pipeline of new leads offers continual opportunities to grow your customer base. Once a prospect has raised her hand to indicate interest a product the real work can begin to move that prospect to becoming a customer.
My philosophy is that companies should be prospecting to find new mines all the time. That did not happen during the steep downturn in 2008. Marketers were understandably scared and in the ‘cut first and ask questions later’ mode. Maintaining a regular flow through your new lead pipeline will prove to be extremely beneficial to those companies that have continued to invest in new lead generation. It’s not too late if you have turned off your marketing pipeline, but don’t wait any longer because then it just might be.