Church of the Customer Blog
May 05, 2008, 09:39 AM
Jargon and marketing maturity
There's an inverse relationship between a company's ability to communicate well and its public use of jargon.
Facebook is a good example. Smart people run the company, but their communication with the world is usually pretty awful.
From my vantage point at a packed coffee shop in Austin this weekend, Facebook's familiar interface illuminated laptop screens on multiple tables. The scene was a typical cross-section of the site's users.
But very few, if any, of the people behind those laptops would describe Facebook to their friends as a "social utility," as Facebook describes itself on its home page.
Jargon is easy. Simple is hard.
Update: Jennifer weighs in on how jargon creates a cloak of online obscurity.
Update 2: Kara Swisher reports that Facebook has hired Google's head of PR to be Facebook's VP of communications and public policy. Public policy? Huh.
Anyway, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg emailed his employees about the new hire, saying: "He (Elliot Schrage) will be responsible for developing the key messages we want people to understand about our products, our business and the growing global importance of social networking and what we do."
Yes, the key messages we want people to understand.
Sounds positively Web 1.0.
April 23, 2008, 09:39 AM
Mickey Drexler knows me
Does this dress make my hips look big?
It was a question for which I needed an honest answer this weekend as I shopped at J. Crew. My salesperson complied.
"Yes, it does," she said. She smartly suggested another, more flattering dress instead. Thank you. I appreciated the honest advice.
Long-time readers of the Church probably know I love J. Crew, which continues to impress me with its turnaround from an average retailer into a dynamic store. CEO Mickey Drexler is clearly driven by a fanatical mission to understand what his customers want. He spends part of almost every day visiting stores. He talks with employees asking what is selling and what isn't. He chats up customers for feedback and comments.
Yesterday, a salesperson offered me a chilled bottled water as I entered the dressing room, something usually reserved for higher-end boutiques. My salesperson was highly attentive and she (and her colleagues) gave me great advice on what looked good and what didn't.
One thing Drexler must have learned from his chats with customers is an offer I received shortly after my store visit: a J. Crew personal shopper. I can schedule an appointment before and after the store is closed. Wow. Exactly what I want!
By listening to customers (not just once, but continually), J. Crew has learned that some of us who aren't afraid to part with our cash want someone to help style us and do it on our schedule. No wonder J. Crew is enjoying a 14% increase in revenue (from 2006-2007) while other retailers are floundering or simply closing stores in the face of a recession.
April 14, 2008, 01:40 PM
Erebelle update
If you've been reading us for a while, you may know about our work with Erebelle, an Austin-based women's clothing brand that we've invested in. Here's an update.
Website.
An updated website that positions the brand ("active wear for women") and showcases all of its pieces is nearly finished. To date, Erebelle has been sold only in boutiques and fitness centers around the country; a later update will add ecommerce to the site using GoodBarry, a SAS-based ecommerce suite with many appealing, if not overwhelming, features.
- The good: Creating a new website is relatively easy, especially when companies like XHTMLized turn complex designs into wonderfully composed CSS. Plus, an updated site with contemporary colors creates palpable internal excitement when its set to replace a neutral, drab-looking site.
- The challenge: Ecommerce is still not easy in the age of Web 2.0.
Packaging.
We asked Church readers for ideas to create buzz-worthy packaging. Readers shared some terrific thoughts, including Gaetan Giannini's advertising class at Cedar Crest University. The overwhelming response: environmentally friendly packaging is a bold and authentic statement. Makes sense since Erebelle is based in environmentally friendly Austin, Texas. We're researching eco-packaging options.
- The good: People outside the company love to participate with their ideas.
- The challenge: People in various departments (marketing, design, operations, etc.) are often not on the same page about new ideas.
Summer Collection Launch Party.
If you are in Austin Thursday, April 17, 2008, you are invited to a coming-out party for Erebelle, which will launch the Summer '08 line. The party will be at the Girl Next Door boutique, 250 W. 2nd Street. Party starts at 6 pm and goes 'til 8:30 pm. RSVP to events[at]erebelle.com or on Facebook here.
- The good: Inviting customers and prospects to meet other customers and people inside the company is customer evangelism 101.
- The challenge: When your brand is sold only through channels and no community-building work has been done, getting the names of just a handful of customers can be a daunting challenge.
Facebook.
Speaking of Facebook, part of our marketing remodeling work has focused on creating an Erebelle presence on the big social-networking site. We turned those duties over to our marketing protege, Christina Castro, a student at St. Edward's University who is social-media savvy. Christina has painstakingly built our Erebelle Facebook page, which features the latest photos
of the Summer '08 line. The FB fan site also features photos of current customers wearing the
clothes.
- The good: Facebook's tools are intuitive and easy to use.
- The challenge: How do you you create a page that doesn't look like the 100 billion other pages on Facebook?
April 08, 2008, 06:46 AM
10 questions with David Vinjamuri
Is it possible to build a very successful company and know zilch about marketing, branding or maybe even business?
Yes, according to David Vinjamuri. He's an adjunct instructor of marketing at NYU, a brand consultant and author of the new book, "Accidental Branding." It tells the stories of eight entrepreneurs who built brands such as J. Peterman, Columbia Sportswear and Clif Bar (one of my faves) without any experience in marketing or branding.
David answered our 10 questions on how a marketing n00b can still become a successful entrepreneur.
1: In a nutshell, what are you trying to convince readers of?
That the brands of successful entrepreneurs are fundamentally stronger than most corporate brands.
2: If a company launches and grows by "accident," what’s more at play — the successful riding of a trend or a smart entrepreneur who has passion for an idea or cause?
Riding a trend certainly can make a company more successful than it might have otherwise been, but I don’t believe that any company lasts 10 years or more simply because of fortunate timing. Several of the entrepreneurs I write about were lucky with timing, but those same entrepreneurs have started successful second endeavors.
3: Let’s say two people were starting a company at the same time. One was an MBA who tended to accumulate reams of data and conduct detailed analysis. The other was someone who never graduated from college, doesn’t understand marketing but is quitting her paying job to launch a company. Who would you bet on?
I would really want to know which person was solving a problem they experienced themselves – which person had passion for the business and was doing it not for the potential rewards but the desire to make something better. The ‘reams of data’ actually makes me less confident about the MBA because we often use data to augment a lack of personal understanding.
4: What do the accidental branders you profiled understand about customer evangelism and word of mouth that a typical business does not?
Accidental branders do not have the resources that corporate brands do, so they’re forced to rely on their customers for word of mouth. Along the way they see that treating customers as the messengers actually works better. And they realize that employees, vendors, suppliers, friends and family are also important conduits for the brand message.
5: What lesson would you engrave in stone for entrepreneurs?
Learn how to tell your story really well. I call it ‘building a myth’ because like a myth the story has to be easy to remember and share, dramatic, and it has to have a lesson contained within it. That shareable founding story is what consumers use to convert people to your brand.
6: You talk a lot about sweating details. At what point does that become destructive micro-management?
Sweating details is about choreographing the brand interaction – whether that is opening your brand packaging, approaching the customer service counter, calling your business on the phone or even having a vendor meeting. If any of these interactions fail to represent the brand, then you’ve just lost your brand positioning. Micromanagement is more an attitude towards people – assuming that they need to be directed on a minute-by-minute basis. It is not necessary. What you really want to do is to find people who have that same fanatical attention to detail, who can absorb the brand DNA. Then there is no need to micromanage.
7: How does an entrepreneur recognize he’s in over his head?
That is a really good question. I think the key thing is to know what you enjoy doing and recognize when the job has shifted away from that. Many of the entrepreneurs I write about sold the businesses when they were still pretty small in terms of employees because they recognized that they didn’t want to spend all of their time managing an organization. Personally I was never happier than when I was a brand manager. By the time I was a director and then a vp and I realized that most of my job was presenting to senior management I didn’t love it so much anymore.
8: Service providers have a tougher job than product makers to grow a company. True or false?
False. I actually think it is easier as a service business because you immediately realize that the actions of every employee affect your brand. Customers take cues off of incredibly small things when they make judgments about you. You see that first hand as a service business. When you’re selling a product you are often not there when the consumer expresses displeasure and you don’t always get that designing a bad package can kill a good product.
9: Which industry tends to have the tougher job in sales and marketing: B2B companies or B2C companies?
I believe it is a very similar job but that it is harder in B2B because marketing and especially brand positioning get short shrift. B2B is so often influenced in the short term by personal relationships that it is sometimes hard to remember that you are building a brand and that your customers are reading the way you do everything from answer the phone to negotiate a contract as a reflection of your brand. That’s why I think you see so many brands in the B2B space – from Bloomberg to Bain – that were started by an individual with a very strong point of view.
10. Philosophically, there are no accidents. Agree or disagree?
There are many happy accidents in business, but an accident alone won’t build a multimillion dollar brand. The book is called “Accidental Branding” because in each case there was some fortuitous accident (like Roxanne Quimby thumbing a ride from beekeeper Burt Shavitz or Gary Erickson choking on his 6th Power Bar) that caused the entrepreneur to realize that he or she was uniquely position to solve a problem. What followed was a huge amount of sweat and hard work. That’s why solving your own problem –- something you uniquely understand –- is so important.
Interested in a free copy of David's book? Go to the Society for Word of Mouth (registration is free) and add a comment expressing your interest to this forum post. Deadline for the book giveaway is Thursday, April 10 at 5 pm CDT. We'll give 10 autographed copies away (to be drawn randomly).
April 07, 2008, 02:38 PM
How free goes viral
Michele Miller posted this on SWOM. It's so good I wanted to repost it here:
One of the hottest videos on YouTube today is the Free Hug Campaign - one man giving away free hugs and the effect it has on the people around him.
It's a perfect parallel to building a viral campaign for your business.
Watch the video and observe:
- People's resistance to anything free... even if it's a hug
- The breakthrough that happens when one random individual decides to try one
- A tsunami of response once people watch the experience of others
- The fight to defend their right to hug when barriers are erected by "authorities"
If you believe strongly enough in your product or service, give it away for free. In the beginning, no one will believe you. Stick with it long enough, experience breakthrough, and you'll have more business than you know what to do with.
And you'll have a band of merry men (and women) who will be your brand evangelists.
April 03, 2008, 10:42 AM
Keeping up with the social media fire hose
A few days ago I marveled how Salesforce.com rapidly responded to my tweet on Twitter about one of the company's products.
I asked Kingsley Joseph of Salesforce how he saw my tweet so quickly. He sent me a link to his Yahoo Pipes setup that tracks Salesforce's online word of mouth.
Yahoo Pipes allows you to build a single feed that is made up of other
feeds and data). Kingsley's pipe tracks online mentions of Salesforce and other
company products across social media sites like Flickr, Technorati,
Bloglines, Digg, Techmeme, YouTube, Friendfeed and Quotably Tweetscan (for
Twitter.)
Kingsley is kind; he coded a generic pipe for CotC readers to track mentions about your company. Here's the pipe.
According to Kingsley, here's how to use the pipe:
In the search field, fill out the terms you want to track. For example, Salesforce Ideas could use: "salesforce+ideas", ideaexchange, ideastorm, dellideastorm, mystarbucksidea. Usually the second field (URL fragment to ignore) should be .yourdomain.com . This is to prevent posts made in the your own blog/community from showing up. The dot before the domain is important.
The first time you run the search, Yahoo might return an empty list. To force it to go fetch feeds, click "More Options" and then click "Get as RSS". You can then hit back and re-run the pipe successfully.
Titles are de-duplicated and sorting is reverse chronological. Multiple search terms can be used and the matched term will be prefixed to the title of the post. This doesn't do mass media, because there are good tools for that (Google Alerts come to mind). Send any feature requests Kingley's way, but don't hold your breath. He's a busy guy : )
March 31, 2008, 10:31 AM
SWOM update & book giveaway
Three weeks ago, we launched the Society for Word of Mouth, a social network and educational resource for making word of mouth fundamental to the DNA of any organization.
Here's what's been happening so far:
- We’re at 409 members so far. Thanks to prolific SWOM evangelists Leslie Banks, Tami Belt, C.C. Chapman and Zane Safrit for using the network's Invite feature to tell their friends and colleagues about SWOM.
- SWOMies have posted 38 discussion forum topics, including word-of-mouth brainstorms on for SWOMies' restaurants, carpet-cleaning businesses and new web services.
- SWOMies have formed 34 various groups, including location-based groups in Austin, Toronto, Palm Beach, Washington D.C., Pacific Northwest, Hollywood, Chicago, Hungary, Finland, and Germany.
Also, Dan Pink, author of “A Whole New Mind” and “Free Agent Nation”, has a cool new book out called “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You Will Ever Need.” It's the first American business book ever written in manga, the Japanese comic format. Dan is giving away 5 autographed copies of the book to SWOMies, and here’s how you can win one.
By Wednesday, April 2, midnight CST, join SWOM and ensure you have filled out every field of your SWOM profile, including an actual picture of yourself. (Note to current SWOMies: we may have added a few fields since you joined.) We'll pick 5 random winners and announce them next week on the SWOM network.
Visit Society for Word of Mouth
March 27, 2008, 12:29 PM
Mouthonomics
A new study from Satmetrix provides some new numbers on how customer evangelists can help grow your business. And how customer vigilantes can hurt it.
The study examined customers in the computer hardware industry and found, using the Net Promoter methodology, that "promoters" would spend about $1,818 of their own money and refer an additional $816 of revenue from friends and associates.
That means a customer evangelist helped inspire sales that was nearly equal to 50% of what she'd purchased.
Some quick math shows the potential of customer evangelists more dramatically: Let's say a business has 1,000 evangelists whose average purchase during a period of time is $1,818. That means the group will have spent $1.8 million of their own money and referred $816,000 of business for a total of $2.6 million. Very quickly the cost of goods sold begins to decline while gross margins go up.
Satmetrix found that detractors (or customer vigilantes, as we like to call 'em here) spend a little less, but their bad buzz caused lost sales amounting to $1352 per detractor, nearly negating any of their actual value as a customer.
The bottom line with evidence like this: diligent listening is key. It's imperative to know whether customers are referring you or bad-mouthing you.
The talkative ones are the leading indicators of your future.
March 26, 2008, 11:17 PM
How companies connect using Twitter
Ben Martin sent me a question today via Twitter: What do you think about corporate branded Twitter accounts?
I'm a Twitter n00b, but already I've seen companies using Twitter to help me connect with them. Here are a few examples:
- Promotions. Southwest Airlines uses Twitter to let customers know about deals. Today I got a tweet from them explaining that if I book a ticket using PayPal, I'd get $50 back in PayPal credit. Southwest also tweets press happenings and pointers to blog posts, as they did recently about their plane inspection issues.
- Listening and responding to customers. A few days ago, I tweeted about how Starbucks and Dell are using Salesforce.com's Ideas product for their Ideastorm and MyStarbucksIdea.com, respectively. But I had inadvertently linked to the wrong page on Salesforce.com's website. In less than 30 minutes, someone at Salesforce saw my mistake and tweeted the correct URL to me. I posted the correction back to Twitter along with a compliment about Salesforce listening in on the Tweetersphere.
- Employees as ambassadors. Dell leads the world with employee representation on Twitter. Check out the conversations that these Dell employees are having on Twitter: LionelatDell, RichardatDell, JohnatDell, APaxtonatDell, KellyatDell. Unlike many Twitterites, I met most of the Dell people in person before following them on Twitter. Because I had a chance to cement a relationship in person, I'm a big fan of the Dell people I follow on Twitter.
March 24, 2008, 09:35 AM
Overcoming the skeptics
Clifford Stoll probably didn't imagine that his 1995 essay in Newsweek dismissing the Internet as a "trendy and oversold community" would ever become an item for discussion again, much less 13 year later.
It did yesterday (thanks to Digg), mostly because of extreme irony: his various points of skepticism, that computer-aided education would ever become important, that we'd buy books and newspapers over the Net, or that ecommerce would ever take root, have largely come true.
They were big ideas then. They didn't have a clear pathway to fruition, which is where skepticism breeds. Skepticism about technology is easy. Skepticism about ideas is not.
The big ideas of today, like making all of your intellectual property available for free, or launching a social network for customers or developing an extreme niche like space tourism, are easily dismissed because they're not safe bets, and they upset the existing balances of power -- two additional sources of skepticism.
Just as they did 13 years ago, the big ideas of today don't have simple and clear pathways to fruition that anyone can understand, but someone probably does. You'd better believe that virtual communities dismissed by Stoll in 1995 are breeding grounds for idea generation in 2008.
The big ideas Stoll dismissed required years of evolution to become viable. They went through a period of natural selection and homeostasis, where the idea remained intact but the external forces around it changed.
These days, a big idea person has to be a biologist just as much as a marketer and a technologist.
March 19, 2008, 06:50 PM
Starbucks embraces the 5th P
Everyone's favorite marketing patient, Starbucks, has launched a suggestion box-cum-social network for customers.
MyStarbucksIdea collects the ideas of customers (my guess: just as many employees as customers), puts the ideas up for discussion and a vote. Starbucks says it'll keep members of the socnet updated as the popular ideas work their way through the company.
If Starbucks really follows through with its promise, this suggestion box-on-steroids idea is meritocracy via social network. The congregation is smarter than the preacher, so this could develop into a valuable, and tangible, asset for Starbucks.
March 18, 2008, 11:07 AM
Monitoring your WOM on Twitter
Twitter continues to grow in importance as a source of word of mouth. Forrester says 6% of U.S. adults who use the Internet, use Twitter to converse.
Twitter itself doesn't release number of users but anecdotal evidence points to fast-growing usage.
Even if you don't, or won't, use a Twitter account, you can, and should, track what might be said about you or your company, products, mascots, etc.
Tweetscan is a great tool to do this. Type a keyword into the field and it'll tell you if anyone is talking about you. You can set up automatic alerts via RSS or email if anyone Twitters about your keywords.
Here's a Tweetscan on what people are saying about SWOM:
What I learned at SXSW, 2
What happens at SXSWi doesn't stay at SXSWi. It gets posted on Flickr.
March 11, 2008, 10:01 PM
What I learned at SXSW
Whew! It's been a whirlwind five days at my first SXSW Interactive.
I'm exhausted, but my head is buzzing with ideas. Here's my list of top panels, cool people and new technology I wanted to share:
Panels
- Opening Remarks with Henry Jenkins. Jenkins is the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He smartly dissected the misperception that today's kids are the dumbest generation. Because of technology, kids today know how to collaborate online with peers better than adults, but the education system hasn't caught up with their skills. More from his talk here and here.
- The Worst Ten Social Media Campaigns of 2007. All 10 are here. The #1 worst campaign as voted by the audience was nominated by Jeff Jarvis: HP and PayPerPost. PayPerPost is a service that pays bloggers to write positive posts about companies. For the HP campaign, a PayPerPost blogger filmed her kids smashing up a camera with an hammer because it wasn't an HP. Shilling one's kids may be buzzworthy, but it's not loyalty-worthy.
- 10 Easy Ways to Piss of a Blogger. Rohit moderated this open forum session and asked the crowd to compile the list. All 10 are here. My favorite: adding a blogger to a PR database without their permission and not letting them unsubscribe. Doh! More here.
- True Stories from Social Media Sites. Besides the Zuckerberg interview, this session was clearly the most entertaining. Guy Kawasaki hilariously moderated this panel of entrepreneurs who run social media sites. Guy gets extra points for assembling a panel of 6 women (and 1 guy.) Main take-away: the site is not about you. Cater to the community that participates and find more ways for them to engage with each other.
People
The best part of the conference: meeting people you know online but haven't met in person. Here's a few we ran into at SXSW:
- Mack Collier. He rawked as the moderator of the Corporate Blogging Panel, and And he'd never moderated a panel ever! Made it look easy.
- CC Chapman. His new gig is The Advance Guard. CC is one of those people that you just hug at first meeting.
- Jason Falls. Dude is a straight-up social media expert and works at the fifth oldest advertising agency in the U.S.
We met up with many more people; here's a few to follow on Twitter: @davedelaney, @lionel_menchaca, @jakemckee, @khaynes, @kamichat, @scottmonty, @afterthelaunch, @rohitbhargava, @richardatdell, @astrout
Technology
- Twitter. Last year, Twitter was the breakout star of SXSW. It was again this year. I'm a Twitter n00b, so SXSW this year was my chance to discover its utility; I started following a number of fellow attendees. Suddenly I knew the location of the cool panels and parties. Twitter immediately proved its value as a beacon of real-time word of mouth. Can I continue the Twitter lifestyle in everyday life? Possibly, if addiction is a good thing. BTW, my Twitter address is jackiehuba.
- Flip video cameras. These compact video cameras were everywhere. A Flip is simple to use and fits in your pocket. Its USB arm plugs directly into a laptop where the videos can be published to YouTube immediately. Virginia used her new Flip to document how she and three other bloggers on their way to SXSW were bumped unceremoniously from a United flight because the airline oversold. Sadly, Virginia never made it to SXSW : (
Would I recommend SXSW and go again next year? Absolutely.
UPDATE: You can hear podcasts that Ben and I did with Jim and Aaron from Mzinga at SXSW.
UPDATE: You can see interviews we did with the Daily Idea Show here. It was great to meet Nikki and Todd who are the masterminds behind this fun online show.
March 07, 2008, 06:38 AM
The Society for Word of Mouth
True word of mouth is more than creating a viral video or launching a buzz campaign.
True word of mouth emanates from a grassroots-driven community that inspires passion and customer evangelism. It's a sustainable, long-term form of word of mouth that can build brands. There's countless ways to think about making that happen, which is part of the challenge.
That's why Jackie and I are introducing the Society for Word of Mouth.
The purpose of SWOM is two-fold: to be a free social network for the individual true believers of word of mouth (or the merely curious who seek enlightenment), and to be a premium educational resource for cooking word of mouth into the DNA of an organization.
We believe SWOM might be ideal for change agents inside organizations who are working hard to incorporate word of mouth into products or operations, as well as educators, account managers, consultants and creative directors who are looking for research or peer support in helping students or clients understand that word of mouth can be more than a series of tactics.
SWOM is a bottom-up effort to make word of mouth more than just a form of marketing, but to build it into a belief system. To create a world of -- forgive us -- word-of-mouth Swomies.
The social network is available now; in the weeks and months ahead, we'll introduce webinars, educational materials and training opportunities. Plus, we'll host in-person events that we think will be pretty fun.
We hope that you will help us build a community of Swomies who support and help each other with their businesses. Take a look, sign up and tell us what you think.
A quick reminder, too: Jackie and I will be hanging out at SXSW for the next few days at some panels and parties. If you're there, say hi.
March 03, 2008, 03:57 PM
Out of Vocus
My friend Virginia will be on the forthcoming SXSW panel "10 Easy Ways To Piss Off A Blogger" and asked for an example to use during the discussion. Instead, I'll blog about one.
I've had many anger-inducing run-ins with a company called Vocus, a software firm that sells access to its database of journalists and media outlets so companies can pitch them.
Vocus first came into focus last year with the release of a white paper called "Five Golden Rules for Blogger Relations." Rule number one in the Vocus paper: "Don't spam bloggers." In a classic PR blunder, Vocus spammed bloggers to tell them about the paper that instructed them not to spam bloggers.
Undaunted, Vocus powered on in its spam-like ways by adding the contact information of bloggers to its system. A few months ago, without warning, I've been spammed regularly by Vocus clients like the Virginia Tourism Board and Eight O'Clock Coffee, telling me about some wonderful new campaign. I will use this space to say to the Virginia Tourism Board and Eight O'Clock Coffee: Please, get a clue.
Once you're in the Vocus system, it gets Kafka-esque. Bloggers can unsubscribe from Vocus PR spam, but from the spamming client only. Other Vocus clients can, and will, spam you because you are still in their main database. This takes "captive audience" to a new level and seems like a possible violation of CAN-Spam laws.
Four times in four months I used the contact info on the Vocus website (info@vocus.com) to ask for full removal. No reply to any email. Finally, I called Vocus' main number and asked to speak with someone. Julie returned my call 30 minutes later and promised to remove my name from their system. It seemed like a good time to ask Julie about Vocus' practices:
- How do bloggers get added to the database? Vocus monitors top blogs in certain categories then adds their contact information to the database. Without permission, I asked? Yes, she said. Most bloggers are OK with that, she said. How does she know if they don't ask first?
- Why couldn't I opt out entirely? We're working on that, she said, and promised to investigate why no one responded to my four emails.
Julie also said a client could have copied my email address from the system and might continue to send me emails. Lovely.
Hey Vocus clients, such as Scottrade, People's Energy, and Southwest Airlines: You should know that Vocus has simply tacked an old-world model of media relations onto the new-world model of blogging. Vocus doesn't get it. I'm hoping that you do and you'll tell Vocus to clean up their act.
UPDATE(3/11/08): Just got an email from the Director of PR for the Virginia Tourism Board who apologized and said she was also contacting Vocus to make sure my info is removed from their system. Nice to see they are listening to comments about them in the blogosphere : )
February 28, 2008, 06:30 PM
How a towel became a symbol
An icon of my childhood died yesterday. Myron Cope, the long-time radio announcer for the Pittsburgh Steelers, died at age 79. Myron is the only football commentator to be inducted in to the National Radio Hall of Fame, and he was also the inventor of the Terrible Towel, something every diehard Steelers fan owns today.
The birth of the Terrible Towel is an instructive story about the importance of icons and rituals for anyone in the business of rallying a community.
Hoping to generate excitement for a 1975 playoff game, Myron urged fans to bring yellow dish towels to the game. Some players scoffed, but fans listened. An idea rooted in working-class simplicity suddenly became an easy-to-wave
flag. Fans brought thousands of towels to the game, and waved the Steelers on to victory. Overwhelmed by the reaction, the Steelers quickly launched the "Myron Cope
Official Terrible Towel" a few games later at SuperBowl X (yes, the
Steelers won).
I was 10 years old at the time, and I made my own Terrible Towel by ironing on letters to one of mom's nice dish towels. After that, I watched every game as a young girl with a Steelers beret fixed atop my head and my hands nervously wringing my towel like a stress ball. I would wave my towel at home in front of the TV in unison with the 59,000 people who were waving theirs at the old Three Rivers Stadium. I wish I had that towel today. It would complement my collection of six, including the Super Bowl Terrible Towel from 2005.
The Terrible Towel inspired a legion of copycats; teams of every stripe today have their own version. To their credit, the Steelers haven't covered their flag with sponsor logos. To me, that would cheapen a meaningful totem of my fandom.
What I really wanted to say in this post was, thank you Myron. Thank you for inspiring tens of thousands -- if not more -- of Steelers fans. Your passion and excitement for the game and the team helped define everything I love about football and being a fan.
Bonus links:
- Myron's unique sayings
- Myron the radio guy on video
February 26, 2008, 10:48 PM
Need a business makeover?
We're involved with a project for national television show that's looking to profile a business in trouble and needs urgent advice. A business makeover, if you will.
Here are the requirements:
- A small business, with around $1 million in revenue
- Woman-owned, preferably
- Has multiple moving parts, i.e., at least several employees, plenty of visible customers, a well-known location in an American city, etc. For example, a salon, pet store, restaurant, catering service, etc.
- Has done OK, but recent financial indicators show the business is in trouble
- Is willing to be transparent to us and the audience about finances, revenues, challenges and problems, plus is open to making substantive changes to improve the business
- Would like free help from noted experts, plus the added benefit of national television exposure (no worries, it's nothing like Jerry Springer)
If this sounds like you, or a business you know well, email me (ben**at**benmcconnell.com) with details. The business can be located anywhere in the U.S.
Deadline for submission is fast -- 5 pm CDT, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2008.
Once the show is ready for airing, we'll share plenty of details.
February 22, 2008, 11:10 AM
Going to SXSW?
I'm super-excited to attend SXSW this year. It'll be my first time.
If you're attending SXSW and interested in meeting, here's where to find us:
Sunday, March 9
- Get Weirdly Wired
- 9 pm - 1 am
- Austin City Limits Studio, 2504 B Whitis (Corner Guadalupe & Dean Keeton)
- More info and RSVP here
Monday, March 10
- An Evening of Conversation Starters
- 6:30 - 9:30 pm
- Iron Cactus, 606 Trinity Street
- This event requires an RSVP -- do that here
- Richard Binhammer from Dell, one of the sponsors, says space is limited so hurry up and RSVP
Every day during SXSW, I'll post our locations on Twitter. You can follow us here.
Finally, here are three recommendations on can't-miss SXSW sessions:
- 10 Easy Ways To Piss Off A Blogger, with Rohit Bhargava and Virginia Miracle
- Future of Corporate Blogging, with Mack Collier
- The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007
Social marketing vs. social media marketing
There's growing confusion between the decades-old discipline called social marketing and the new concept of social media marketing.
Social marketing is the planning and implementation of programs designed to bring about social change using concepts from commercial marketing. Social marketing "products" are big ideas meant to change attitudes or behaviors, such as getting kids to stop smoking, protecting the environment or encouraging condom use. It's agenda-based marketing often driven by non-profits. It is a recognized marketing discipline that was popularized in the early 1970's by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman.
Social media marketing is a new flavor of marketing that uses social media such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo groups, etc. to create communities of like-minded interests and, perhaps, interact and converse with customers and potential customers. Social media marketing doesn't work too well with an agenda, unless it springs from a collaborative, grassroots effort from inside the community. It was popularized by bloggers .
I've noticed numerous references on blogs and podcasts that mislabel social media marketing as simply social marketing, probably for reasons of shorthand.
Let's not shortchange the real social marketers who've been working hard for years to change the world by confusing the two disciplines with an incorrect shorthand.
UPDATE: Nedra Weinreich in the comments points us to her side-by-side comparison chart of the two disciplines.
February 18, 2008, 04:52 PM
Buzz-worthy packaging
A few weeks ago, Ben mentioned a new project of ours: an ownership stake in Erebelle, an Austin-based women's activewear company.
We'll launch a new ecommerce website in March, so it's time to think about the packaging of products for shipping. Besides the clothing itself, what will she get in the mail that'll be worth talking about?
A few obvious ideas include:
- A padded envelope
- A plastic bag (to hold the clothes and keep moisture out)
- Colored tissue paper to wrap the bagged clothing in
- A logo'd sticker to secure the tissue paper
We're looking for ideas; what packaging (inside and out) from a smaller company, clothing or otherwise, has struck as you clever, notable or even buzz-worthy?
February 15, 2008, 01:59 PM
"These things happen"
A bit off-topic here, but here goes:
When the police chief of a college where 5 people have just been gunned down by a former student says, "Unfortunately, these things happen," is American society and culture in jeopardy or danger?
If so, is the answer a political solution or something different -- a grassroots effort to repair a culture that seems to be growing immune to mass murder?
Word of mouth beats Oprah
In a recent study of African-American book buyers, most said a friend or family member's recommendation was the reason they purchased a book.
Here's a look at the numbers, provided by Global Marketing Insight.
| Recommended by a friend or family member | 55% |
| Bestsellers list | 34% |
| Reviews from African-American critics | 20% |
| Essence bestellers list | 18% |
| Recommended by a book club | 17% |
| Recommended by Oprah | 12% |
| Reviews from non–African-American critics | 12% |
| Recommended by Oprah’s book club | 11% |
| Reviews from a non–African-American newspaper | 9% |
| Reviews from an African-American newspaper | 8% |
| Other | 25% |
Guess this means that Oprah's influence is strong, but not as strong as many people would have guessed.
February 14, 2008, 06:44 PM
Rekindling customer desire
What makes a relationship last?
Researchers who study human couplings will tell you that it's often about adding novelty to the relationship to reignite old sparks.
Arthur Aron, a professor of sociology at Stony Brook University in New York recruited 53 middle-aged couples, asked them baseline questions about the happiness with their relationship, then divided them into three groups. One group was told to spend 90 minutes a week doing familiar social activities. The second group was told to spend 90 minutes a week doing "exciting" things that appealed to husband and wife. The third group, a control group, wasn't assigned any activities.
After 10 weeks, Dr. Aron surveyed the couples again. Those who took part in "exciting" activities reported much greater levels of relationship bliss than those who did the usual stuff (or nothing at all).
If you think about customer loyalty in terms of dating or egads, a marriage, it's easy to do the same thing, every day, with customers. Follow the rule book. Keep things familiar and safe. But then a competitor/suitor with a new, seductive product or idea can trigger brain reward systems like dopamine and lure away someone whom you assumed was committed to you.
The balancing act between maintaining rituals that celebrate the bond and thinking creatively with "exciting" new activities that relight the spark isn't so easy, of course. But on this Valentine's Day, it doesn't hurt to remember.
Whole Foods follow-up
A few weeks ago, I posted about my affair with Mr. F, the Whole Foods flagship store in Austin, Texas.
Last week, April from the Whole Foods' head office called, thanking me for my blogvangelism. Then, her team mailed a nice note, saying the post had circulated throughout the company (hey, y'all) accompanied by a big box of Whole Foods goodies. (Wow. Hey hey, ya'll. Thanks!)
Nice to see that Whole Foods tracks online conversations and responds to evangelists. Contrast that with the issues Mack has been raising about other companies not connecting with their evangelists online.
February 08, 2008, 12:36 PM
"Citizen Marketers" for educators
As the son of a retired college professor, I'm a softie for teachers.
So, high school and college educators: If you're interested in a review copy of "Citizen Marketers" to consider for inclusion in a course syllabus, email me at ben ****at*** benmcconnell.com and we'll make arrangements.
We've been pleased at the adoption of the book by educators, so perhaps it makes sense to widen that pathway. (For newcomers, "Citizen Marketers" is a trend book that examines the early history of social media and its implications for business marketing.)
February 07, 2008, 12:50 PM
Being a gracious loser means...
Congratulating your competitor(s).
Smiling through the pain, even if it's through tears.
Highlighting your strengths by talking about those of your competitor(s).
Permitting people to empathize with you in your moment of vulnerability by admitting obvious mistakes or miscalculations.
Preparing oneself to be the future underdog.
Embracing your underdog status.
Never criticizing others, or scapegoating, or demonizing future competitors. It's hard to root for character suicide.
Flickr fans take on Microsoft
Fans of Flickr, Yahoo's photo-sharing service, want Microsoft to leave Flickr alone if the software giant successfully acquires Yahoo.
To accentuate their point, loyal Flickrites created a group, MICROSOFT: KEEP YOUR EVlL GRUBBY HANDS OFF OF OUR FLICKR, which features images portraying their sentiment, like the crying Britney guy above. After a few days, the group had accumulated 2,539 members and 263 images.
The group fears what Microsoft might do to their beloved site, so members launched a petition drive and are making plans to migrate to competitors' sites if their fears are realized.
At this point, there's not much Microsoft can do except listen closely, but it could have a swat team of empathetic community managers standing by if and when the acquisition goes through. Reaching out to existing Yahoo communities would be key to a smooth integration of company assets.
If Microsoft plays it right, this could be an ideal opportunity for Microsoft to win over an evangelistic, and vocal, group of fans that Yahoo has successfully nurtured via Flickr, Groups, and Answers.
February 06, 2008, 07:05 AM
How to correct an evangelist
Maybe you're lucky enough to have customer evangelists who are passionate and spread the word about you.
But perhaps the way they describe you to others in person, or on their blog, isn't how you would say it personally, or how your company says it. It isn't factually wrong, but it's not exactly how you would say it.
Would you:
a) Correct your customer evangelist publicly, such as leaving a comment on their blog?
b) Thank them in an email for the mention, and then correct them?
c) Thank them on their blog, or in an email, and say nothing about their somewhat flawed description?
d) Do or say nothing?
The correct answer, as I see it, is C.
- No matter what, thank the customer for her referral and/or passion.
- If the customer has old or incorrect information, you could ask if they're interested in an update on what's new. Better yet, invite her to join a special program for evangelists; access to an inner circle can be golden.
- If the customer's information is technically correct but incomplete, or uses her own words and not yours, get over it. A word-smithing scold is old.
February 05, 2008, 06:45 AM
Why Howard Schultz should blog
Surely if the TSA -- yes, the Transportation Security Administration -- can blog to help stem its sinking reputation, then Howard Schultz can, too.
John Moore makes a case for why it's a perfect time for Starbucks' CEO to keep employees and customers updated on his turn-around plans via a blog.
After all, Schultz will garner more support by talking about his work to everyone rather than just to Wall Street analysts.
[Hat tip on the TSA blog: Betsy Weber]
