Social Media For Business: Taking Your Program Beyond Marketing Campaigns.

I posted a different version of this post a few months ago, but it’s time to bring it back up in case you, your client or your boss missed it.

First things first: Pushing your marketing campaign through social media channels isn’t “social.” It’s marketing. Nothing has changed.

Your marketing department or agency might be telling you that you have a social media program, but you don’t. You might be paying for “social,” but that isn’t what you are getting for your money. What is really happening is this: You are buying the same digital marketing campaigns you were buying five years ago, except now, they also include Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

You can call it “social” all you want, but it isn’t. Let me illustrate what I mean:

A marketing campaign not using social media

This (above) is a typical example of what happens in the course of a successful marketing, PR or advertising campaign. Best case scenario: You spend money on the campaign, the campaign generates attention while it is funded, people buy some of your stuff, and when the money runs out, things go back to where they were before the campaign started.

Now let me show you what happens when you incorporate social media into the same campaign mechanism. Ready? This is going to blow your mind. Here we go:

A marketing campaign using social media

Pretty wild, huh?

If you didn’t notice the subtle sleight of hand, let me illustrate the concept slightly differently. Ready?

Your campaign without social media:

And now the same campaign with social media:

See what happened here? Totally different thing, right? (Thanks to Daniel Agee for the clever visual subterfuge. Inserting a human head onto my body was pretty impressive photoshop mastery.)

So… right. In the end, it is exactly the same thing, just wrapped in a different skin.

If you are using social media channels for “marketing” and mostly for campaigns, no wonder you aren’t getting any concrete results: You are doing the same old stuff that already was working marginally well five years ago, only it has been repackaged to sound hip with the times and include a few more channels. That’s it. The only problem is this: You aren’t doing “social.” You are still basically just creating content, pushing it out to potential customers, and hoping they will bite.

And that is why you are getting nowhere in social media, no matter how many people click “follow” or “like” on your stuff.

Fact: Calling “marketing” by another name or adding “social media” to it won’t change what it is: Marketing. Just because your ad agency’s digital department has rebranded itself a “social media” department doesn’t mean anything has changed or improved. Same products and services, different skin. That’s it. Don’t limit yourself to that. If you want to make social media work for your organization, think beyond marketing. Think beyond campaigns. See the whole field.

By the way, if you are gauging success by measuring retweets, followers, shares and “likes,” I guess you also gauge success by measuring website hits, right? Same deal. Same ridiculous, empty, diversionary metrics that mean absolutely nothing. People clicking on buttons on the internet is about as valuable to your business as counting how many cars drive by your office every day.

Want to see the difference between a company that takes its social media program seriously versus one that only uses social media for marketing campaigns?

Here is what a business that uses social media for marketing looks like:

Each one of those arrows represents a campaign. If you think of campaigns as microcycles of spend, attention and impact, the above diagram shows six subsequent campaigns and their long term impact on business growth. The orange line above the campaign microcycles illustrates temporary jumps in sales or business growth, which tend to wane between campaigns but remain relatively flat over time. This line shows anywhere between 0% to 10% annual growth.

Now let’s look at companies using social media more holistically:

Note that in the above example, social media is used for more than just campaigns. The business is using social media not only to acquire new customers or trigger a spike in business, but to retain customers as well, to develop them into active community participants, loyal repeat customers, thereby increasing their buy rate, transaction yield, and their reach into lateral networks through organic word of mouth. In this model, campaigns are merely marketing microcycles of attention in a larger growth strategy focusing on building customer relationships.

Another way to look at the process is this:

If you aren’t familiar with plateaus, the stair-like portion of the diagram illustrates what role the campaigns play in a model where social media is integrated into a business in every department: customer service, technical support, community management, product management, PR, HR, R&D, etc.

In this model, campaigns drive attention and participation, just as before. Social media activity, through community management, online customer service, customer engagement and other truly social modes of social communications help maintain (even stabilize) customer participation not only in dialog but in transactions as well. Social communications become the answer to the “now what?” question asked in the first two diagrams of this post: Use each campaign to get you to the next level of attention and activity, and instead of letting it all die back down once the campaign is over, maintain it through engagement. Once things settle at that level, get to the next plateau using another campaign.

There’s a lot more to explain, but that would make for a very long blog post. I hope this was helpful.

Cheers,

Olivier

 

 

 

 

Pre-order Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (Que Biz-Tech/Pearson) on Amazon.com or Barnes&Noble.com, or recommend it to someone today.

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Care or die: Because customer loyalty isn’t really rocket science.

If you don’t care about your customers (or as Gary Vaynerchuck would say, “if you don’t give a f*ck about your customers,”) you are wasting your time with social media.

Your customers aren’t wallet with legs. They are people, and here is the thing about people: People prefer to do business with people, companies and brands they like; people, companies and brands that make them feel good; people, companies and brands they trust; people, companies and brands they feel a connection with.

I don’t care how good your content is and how many people visit your site. Keep telling me how many fans and followers you have, and how many unique visitors your website gets. That all sounds great, and yeah, it looks pretty swell on paper. But the reality of your situation is this: If you don’t care about your customers, they will sense it, and they will return your apathy.

Do you know how to inspire loyalty in your customers? I’ll tell you: It isn’t by training them to expect 20% off or by sending them coupons in the mail. It isn’t by sending them rebate checks or making every tenth drink free. You inspire loyalty in your customers by demonstrating your loyalty towards your customers. That’s right: You have to give before you can receive. You, as a company, have to set the tone, and the only way to do that is to give a shit.

I walked into a Staples yesterday to buy a cartridge of ink toner. The plan: $22. I also walked out with an i-Omega portable hard drive and a few 4GB thumb drives for Red Chair. The outcome: $100+. You know how that happened? Simple: From the moment I walked into that store, its employees greeted me with smiles and treated me like they would a friend. They didn’t try to sell me anything, they didn’t push me towards any upgrades, and none of it felt contrived. They just seemed to care. Not only did the store increase its yield in this instance (and not by a mere 10-20%), it also ensured that next time I need something for the office, I will shop there instead of online or across the street at one of their competitors’ locations.

Staples loyalty verdict: Very high.

Compare that with my latest experiences at Bloom (a grocery store), where none of the people who work there even bother to make eye contact with me.

Bloom loyalty verdict: You must be joking.

Social media is not just another set of marketing channels for companies to push content and messaging. Sure, you can use it as a marketing channel (in moderation) but the power of the space is to scale those 1-1 interactions customers have around brands and the experiences they foster. Companies whose leaders and employees care tend to shine in Social Media. Companies whose employees and managers don’t care, even when they produce decent content, go nowhere in the space.

As a quick illustration of of what I mean, let us turn to Twitter: The marketing world’s 140-character “what the hell are we supposed to do with this channel” puzzle du jour.

I am going to show you two examples now. One of a beverage company that cares about its customers, and one of a beverage company that cares mostly about itself… and even talks to itself, though mostly to pat itself on the back for being like, awesome. You decide which is which.

Incidentally, it might be worth noting that one of these two companies has kind of struggled to acquire its 46,000 followers on Twitter over the last 2 years or so. The other has well over a million. Guess which is which. (Hint as to why: One focuses on customers and the other focuses on itself.)

Also, in case it wasn’t obvious, nothing says “I don’t really give a shit about you but heck, maybe you’ll buy something anyway” like an auto DM on Twitter. Don’t know what I am talking about? Here are some examples:

My favorite thing about those automated “hi, I really care” little nuggets of gold is the fact that so many of them get cut short: Look at the @Retail_City and @jobpsalms auto-DMs above. Okay, Job. I’ll “try to keep it REAL” if you d…

Way to make a good first impression in a SOCIAL medium. As executives, employees, brand ambassadors and representatives of your respective companies, do you walk around with a recording of yourself at parties and industry events? When someone shakes your hand, do you step aside so an assistant can hand them your card and deliver a 140-character sales pitch? When a client or customer walks up to you and says “hey, I’m glad I ran into you. I have a problem with the thing I bought from you,” do you respond by handing them a brochure and walking away? Of course not. So why is it that so many companies think that this is acceptable behavior in the social media space?

Give a shit. It really isn’t that complicated. If you just do that, if you start there, everything will fall into place. If you don’t give a shit, and you show it by monologuing with “content” and selling all day, guess what: You’ve already lost to the guy in your industry who takes the time to actually shake hands, and makes time for real dialog. It was always this way, but the integration of social media into the business world has amplified the effect: If as a company, you demonstrate daily that don’t give a shit about your customers, they will return the favor by not giving a shit about you. The implications are simple: The more customers care about you, the more likely it is that you will have a good quarter. The less they care about you, the more likely it is that you will have a lousy quarter. Some things, you can’t automate or outsource. Your relationship with customers is one of them. That applies to the web as well as the “in store” experience.

So here’s a thought: Instead of spending so much time working on your “content strategy,” your “digital strategy” and your “social media strategy,” why don’t you focus on your “we give a shit” strategy? Try that for a month and see what happens. Trust me, the “content,” “digital” and “social media” will take care of themselves. You will barely be able to keep up – and that will be a good thing.

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Blockbuster: The End.

Sad news today: Blockbuster Video has filed for bankruptcy. This doesn’t necessarily mean the end for the former market leader, but considering its downward spiral over the last few years, the state of the economy, and a broadening gap between its business model and the way people actually consume movies nowadays, let’s just say that it doesn’t bode well for its future.

Here are some bits of pieces from an article I wrote back in 2006, when the writing was already on the wall:

Once upon a time, Blockbuster was as big as Starbucks in the US. Strong brand, great customer service, unrivaled market ownership. Blockbuster was virtually untouchable.

Admit it: You had a card too. You rented stuff there. We all did.

But then, something happened. The world changed… and Blockbuster found itself completely unable to deal with those changes. VOD (video on demand) and Netflix, more than anything else, shanked Blockbuster silly while it was looking the other way. The model started to change. People no longer needed to leave their homes to rent movies.

Sure, it tried to hold on to its fleeing customers by abolishing late fees… kinduv… but it was too little, too late. Driving to a Blockbuster was still a pain. Rental fees had doubled since we had all first become members there, and we weren’t happy about it. Somehow, we all got the sense that Blockbuster could have – should have – done a whole lot more.

The issue was mainly one of convenience. Why should I drive to a store twice (rent and return) and spend thirty minutes picking out a movie, when I could just order one right from my living room? Cable and high speed internet access made movie rentals a commodity. Blockbuster failed to anticipate the change and respond to it. It got left behind.

Sure, adding video game rentals to the mix was a good idea, but poorly executed. Blockbuster stores became a weird hybrid. The brand lost some of its relevance. The smell of desperation was in the air, and we all caught a whiff.

But here’s what sealed Blockbuster’s fate: It never reached out to us, the old core of once loyal customers. It never made us feel at home there. It never worked on making the Blockbuster experience a great one… or even a half-way decent one, at that. Actually, for the most part, it wasn’t all that pleasant at all.

No, instead, what Blockbuster did was try to sell us an additional membership. A club within a club. The opportunity to “earn” a free rental each month.  (Give us more money… and we’ll give you “free” rentals.) Uninspired with a dash of insulting. The whole thing made me seriously consider the possibility that Blockbuster was actually run and operated by Uncle Scrooge.

Now, I want you to look at the photo of my neighborhood Blockbuster (top of post). What do you see?

1) One car in the parking lot.

2) What happened to the movie posters in the windows, and the promos on the door, and all of the things that made the store inviting? They’re gone!!! Why?

3) Not only that, but the windows are covered by ugly rack butts and the backsides of posters. Beautiful and enticing, isn’t it?

4) You can’t actually see it in this photo, but the “gaming” section of the store has its windows completely obscured from the inside by some kind of wallpaper. From the outside, it looks like someone duct-taped giant rolls of dollar-store giftwrap paper over every inch of glass on that side of the store. Just beautiful.

Here’s a tip: It’s pretty basic, but I guess the marketing folks at Blockbuster must have been sick when we covered this in class – The outside appearance of your retail outlet is as important as the inside. Maybe more so. If your store looks like a crack house, nobody is going to want to come inside.

Blockbuster used to do a great job of promoting to the outside world what was inside the store. Now, it just looks like a cross between a project in antisocial behavior and a foreclosure. Foreshadowing never looked so grim for a retail outlet.

Something else you can’t see in this photo: The obnoxious staff.

My last trip to Blockbuster basically involved the following experiences:

Three clerks playing pencil-tag (yes, it’s fun to throw pencils at each other when you’re bored). Even more so when customers are waiting in line and opening a second register might not be a bad idea. Extra-credit for hitting a customer in the head, and then just laughing at the fact that you did.

17 minutes in the checkout line. (Hey, at least there were customers there.) Note: This was in 2006.

The couple ahead of me finally got tired of waiting and left without renting anything. Never mind. So did the family in line behind me.

The sales pitch for Blockbuster’s special rebate club deal at the checkout:

The clerk: “Let me tell you about a super sweet offer blablabla…”
Me: “Um… no thank you.”
The clerk: “But you haven’t even heard what it is.”
Me: “I have. Several times. It’s a cool program, but not today.”
The clerk: “Pffft. Whatever. Your loss. Pay full price for your rentals then.”

Nice.

Sticker shock. Although… maybe if I had spent the extra nine bucks for the rewards program, the $5 rental fee and the entire hour I wasted driving there, picking a movie and waiting in line might have been easier to swallow. I don’t know. Maybe.

Having to drive the movie back to the store a few days later was just the cherry on top. You have no idea.

And now, Blockbuster has finally decided to become a clone of Netflix. Better late than never? I don’t know.

It isn’t every day that you get to witness the death of a superbrand. It’s kind of sad in a way, because Blockbuster could have avoided all of this… and to be fair, it might bounce back. I guess anything’s possible… But… You know… I wouldn’t hold my breath or anything.

Here is what is interesting about the way the company’s bankruptcy decision is being presented. According to the Huffington Post:

In a submission to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York on Thursday, the company said it reached an agreement with bondholders on a recapitalization plan.

Blockbuster plans to reduce debt from nearly $1 billion to about $100 million or less by swapping debt for equity in a reorganized Blockbuster with bondholders that hold about 80.1 percent of the company’s senior notes.

It has received commitments for $125 million in “debtor-in-possession” financing from senior noteholders to repay customers, suppliers and employees during the reorganization.

“After a careful and thorough analysis, we determined that the process announced today provides the optimal path for recapitalizing our balance sheet and positioning Blockbuster for the future as we continue to transform our business model to meet the evolving preferences of our customers,” said CEO Jim Keyes.

It’s a good move. No question. But will it be enough?

Don’t get me wrong: A recapitalization plan is required here. Blockbuster was bleeding money and some kind of tourniquet had to be applied. But here’s the thing: Applying a tourniquet only solves one of Blockbuster’s many problems. Turning a business around is a little more involved than focusing on its balance sheet. Reducing debt and operating costs won’t get people to do business with you. It won’t win you market share or make you relevant again. It won’t build loyalty or preference. In other words, the tourniquet may keep you alive a little while longer, but it does not address what caused the bleeding to begin with. So what is Blockbuster’s answer to that piece of the puzzle?

For a fascinating look into what Blockbuster’s Jim Keyes has in mind for the future (or had in mind, rather), check out this June 2010 two-part piece by Fast Company. Just a few months ago, in other words. Some of the most interesting bits from the second part of the interview:

So you never see an instance where Blockbuster will fail?
Not if we’re able to respond to the changing needs of the customer. The customer used to get their content in physical stores, and then it changed to by-mail and kiosks. We’re building out all those platforms, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Like I said, it’s remodeling a house: it’s not easy, it’s not cheap, and it’s not fast.

This “remodeling” should have been in full swing five years ago and the platforms should already be built. Blockbuster’s management culture failed to produce leadership and innovation sometime after 1998, and this is the outcome. I hate to say this, but easy, cheap and fast have nothing to do with making the right decisions.

Here is what really matters: Companies that reinvent their markets win. Companies that hope for technology to stand still don’t. This is where corporate cultures can be either an organization’s biggest asset or its biggest liability.

What Mr. Keyes may not realize is that saying “now it’s changed” betrays the wrong attitude. Saying “we are going to change the way people do…” instead, would have indicated the right attitude. What we witness here is a leadership culture that is struggling to adapt to change it didn’t want or anticipate, rather than a leadership structure (like Apple’s, for example) that drives change in order to not only cement its continuing market dominance, but drive double-digit growth well into the next decade. Blockbuster failed in this regard, and given Mr. Keyes’ choice of words, continues to fail still.

What is the easiest way for you to rent a movie, personally?
Here is how my family uses it. I have a Blockbuster by-mail subscription. If I want a unique movie, I put it in my queue, and two days, it’s here. If a friend came over with his kids, I stop at a convenience store, and I go to Blockbuster Express, rent a movie, and bring it home. And then it’s Sunday night, and I don’t feel like leaving my couch. I pull up my Samsung Blu-ray player, and Blockbuster On Demand is a button on the remote control: 10,000 movies at my fingertips. Yes, it’s $3.99, but it’s still a heck of a lot cheaper than a movie ticket, and it’s no different than what you pay on Apple or Amazon. […] It is a lot easier than trying to route movies through my Xbox or Nintendo!

Of course, $3.99 is cheaper than a movie ticket. It’s a DVD. I can rent mine for $1 through a Red Box kiosk (or a Blockbuster Xpress kiosk) just down the street. Why would I want to spend 4x more than I have to?

As to the ease of renting through a device, it isn’t that complicated. I might be going out on a limb here, but Mr. Keyes seemed to be projecting his own lack of fluency with “new” technologies (like consoles) onto those of us who know how to use them. It is a dangerous rationalization to make, for a CEO, to assume that his experience is the same as his customers. Here is that argument again:

That is the second time you’ve brought up Nintendo. Does Blockbuster have no interest in connecting through the Wii or other consoles? What about other platforms? An iPad app?
Look, when I say it’s confusing, I’m talking about how confusing it can be for parents, our consumers. That is our core–for example, that family-oriented mom who is not as willing to figure out how to go to a console or a computer and load a movie into the queue. The mainstream consumer wants simplicity. But we could be on consoles tomorrow morning for subscriptions if we wanted to. The problem we see is that game consoles would just as soon sell their own movies. Keep in mind that the Blockbuster customer wants new releases, which is very inconsistent for the subscription-digital streaming offer.

“The blockbuster customer” is not that one-dimensional. Wrong assumption again. (Netflix isn’t in trouble. Blockbuster is.) Blockbuster doesn’t seem to be listening to its customers a whole lot. This could be part of the problem: A company that thinks it understands its customers better than they understand themselves. Not smart.

“We could be on consoles tomorrow morning for subscriptions if we wanted to” is incompatible with “the problem we see is that game consoles would just as soon sell their own movies.” Same breath, conflicting notions. Which is it? And if Blockbuster could expand its distribution, if Blockbuster could, in fact, give consumers more options to rent videos conveniently from their homes and through whatever devices they choose, why not let them? This makes no sense.

What Mr. Keyes also fails to understand is that Blockbuster’s “core” – the technologically-challenged “I can’t figure out how to use a wii” mythological demographic he seems to want to cling to – is, in fact, perfectly capable of figuring out how to use new types of devices to order movies. The flaw in Mr. Keyes’ reasoning is this: He equates the transaction to the credit card holder. In other words, his data-centric gaze focuses squarely on “the mother” (or any single customer) rather than seeing the customer as a household. Let me explain:

In terms of adoption, I see this phenomenon with many of my friends of advancing age who have kids and teenagers: Initially, they may not be 100% comfortable with this new way of ordering movies. But their kids can figure it out in mere minutes. Jim’s example of “that family-oriented mom” is a flawed rationalization, not a reflection of reality. In the real world, technologically backwards parents may be the ones authorizing the transaction, but they don’t have to be the ones pushing the buttons. Kids can (and do) manage the process before teaching it to their parents. Kids love to do stuff on their own. In every household I frequent where adults aren’t natural tech geeks, the kids put in the movies. The kids are the Facebook, cell phone, iTunes and DVR experts. They teach their parents how to use these new tools, and the parents learn just fine.

Bottom-line: There is no obstacle here. Mr Keye’s world view is the only obstacle I see.

To get this straight, Blockbuster will not go bankrupt?
It is not our intention. Our objective is to manage a very challenging liquidity environment. We’re doing a lot of things at the same time, and we have to spend a lot of money to build our future. What we couldn’t have anticipated was a complete financial meltdown in 2009.

You’re saying Blockbuster’s financial troubles were entirely from the financial crisis. Wasn’t it due in part because of Netflix’s success?
No, I don’t know where that comes from.

No comment.

In Blockbuster’s recent earnings call, the numbers for by-mail subscribers were not released. Could you give me some sense of how many customers subscribe with Blockbuster by-mail?
We don’t release it because it is not relevant. Our customers are still half subscriber and half in-store.

Not relevant?

Denial is a powerful force.

Is this the end of the road for Blockbuster? Not quite yet. If the video giant has proven anything, it is that it is resilient, to the point of being stubborn. I can’t help but admire that, in a way. Unfortunately, the company still seems as painfully out of touch with the world and its market today as it was in 2006.

The result: A crippling lack of vision, little initiative, no emphasis on velocity, excuses rather than solutions (it’s the economy, our core customer is technology-backwards, it takes a lot of time, we could be there if we wanted to), and what sounds like a profound sense of denial from the C-suite.

The outcome: Eroding market share. An upside down balance sheet. Bankruptcy. I don’t think a turnaround is likely, at this point. There is a domino effect at play here that may be too far along to be stopped.

Tip: You don’t wait until the boat is underwater to start thinking about refitting its hull.

Sad to see a once mighty brand wither away and die like this. Especially since it didn’t have to be that way. Blockbuster, I really hope you can turn this around… but if you can’t, you will only have yourself to blame.

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Social Media program planning 101: Purpose matters

The Bird Man of Notre Dame - ©2010 Olivier Blanchard

Just a quick note to start off the week: Purpose matters.

Just a year ago, many of us were bemoaning the absence of major brands on the twitternets, myself included. PR departments were too slow to get into the space. Brand managers were still, for the most part, alien to the world of Social Media. Most organizations were at best cautious to enter the space when not overtly reluctant to do so, even dismissive.

Today, as companies and their agencies are finally beginning to dip their toes and even try a few strokes on their own in the deep end of the pool, we seem faced with a different problem: An epidemic absence of purpose.

The thing (social media) has, in many instances, replaced the why.

Instead of hearing executives ask “can we use Social Media to increase our reach, to better manage our brand’s reputation, to improve customer service, to recruit better candidates or to grow our business,” what I still hear most often is “What should our Social Media strategy focus on?” Or, as it where “okay, we have a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Now what?”

Wrong approach.

Here is how it works:

Business problem –> Business Strategy to solve the problem –> Incorporate Social Media into said business strategy

Example:

Business Problem: Angry customer voices are impacting our reputation. This threatens our ability to acquire new customers and retain existing ones. We could see a drop in sales over the next 6 to 18 months if we don’t fix this.

Business Strategy: Address angry customers’ concerns. Set the record straight on fallacies, while acknowledging legitimate grievances and promising to make necessary changes.

SM Integration: Monitor conversations in digital channels. Respond to positive and negative comments and mentions. Track changes in sentiment over time (manually). Establish discussion zones on appropriate social networks and via adequate social web platforms – This will help funnel topics and showcase the way we respond to the crisis. Use the space to ask for suggestions and ideas – This will help turn negative comments into constructive recommendations and a portion of angry customers into strategic assets. etc.

See?

Here is how it does not work:

Social Media is the new big thing –> Get into Social Media –> Develop Social Media Strategy –> Wait… what?

Every program or campaign an organization funds supports some kind of business objective:

Acquiring net new customers.

Retaining existing customers.

Attenuating a PR crisis.

Managing a company’s reputation.

Amplifying the reach of a particular message.

Selling more stuff.

Gathering business intelligence.

You name it. There are dozens upon dozens of possibilities. I am not even talking about R.O.I. here, but outcomes in general: Business outcomes. The types of outcomes which serve a purpose.

Wondering what an organization’s Social Media strategy should be is very much the same as wondering about what its telephone strategy would be: It is the wrong question.

Furthermore, as we will discuss later this week, if hiring a Social Media Manager serves the purpose of driving a Social Media strategy, then the purpose of the Social Media strategy is to drive… what? A Social Media Strategy? (No.) Strategies are driven by objectives and objectives are driven by purpose.

Before jumping into the Social Media pool (and you should), consider the why of it. As an organization, why do you want to be active in Social Networks? What will your activity there aim to drive for your business?  What is your purpose for being there?

To engage more? To participate in conversations? Okay. But why? Those are activities. They are not purpose.

Before launching a program or assigning resources to a new Social Media program, figure out where you want to go with it. Think about purpose and results, not just emulating your competitors.

Cheers,

Olivier

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Stand Out.

Word to the wise: If you don’t stand out in some way, you’re done.

You might be able to exist, you might manage to survive, but that’s all you’ll ever have to look forward to. You can be a one-man show and still be corporate. Don’t do it. Don’t waste your time being just like everyone else. Don’t waste your soul on being average.

Give yourself more credit. Everyone has strengths. Everyone has talents and abilities. Not using them every day even in some small way is such a shame it ought to be a crime. (And it’s bad business to boot.)

Whether you’re a photography studio, a web design firm, a sports magazine, a sportswear company, a triathlon shop or an antique furniture store, you either stand out, or someone who does will come along to wow your audience and steal your business right from under your nose.

Trust me on this: you can’t afford to be average. Even if you’ve based your entire business model on the lowest price-points, on bare-bones bottom-line imports, you have to take your uniqueness as far as humanly possible… and then some.

Yes, even accounting and financial services firms can stand out. Restaurants. Retail outlets. Breweries. Day care centers. Schools. Law offices. Graphic design firms. Janitorial services agencies. Manufacturing plants. It doesn’t matter. Your industry and specialty are irrelevant. Anyone can stand out.

Here’s a tip for you: The best way to stand out in a crowd is simply to stand for something. Producing the most useful online content for your users. Making it easy for your customers to get information on products before they shop. Providing your clients with the best after-sale service in the industry. Brewing the best cup of coffee in the world. Turning boring shopping experiences into something fun and enjoyable. Returning calls faster than anyone else. Being the easiest company your customers have ever had the pleasure to do business with.

Business models are just templates, folks. They’re the framework. Marketing, advertising, branding, PR, all of these things are great, but remember that you can customize your business all on your own too. From packaging to billing to the way you answer the phones. From the grade of toilet paper you stock in your bathrooms to the way you hire new talent. From the corners you will never, ever cut to the crazy ideas you decide to put stock into. From the stand you take on community issues to the tone of the dialogue you foster with your customers. It is all in your hands.

Stand for something. Stand out. Be extraordinary, if only for a year, if only in the eyes of a handful of customers. If only during the course of a single phone call.

Be memorable.

Be worthy of note.

Don’t ever, ever, ever settle for safe or average or just good enough. Not in the big things. Not in the small things.

Know who you are and who you want to be as a person, as a company, as a brand, and just do it.

No one – let me repeat this – no one is standing in your way.

Now go out there and conquer something.

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Where Do Brands Go To Die? Part 2: The Diagnosis

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at what it takes for business managers and CMOs to come to accept that their brand is in trouble. We also discussed why it is often difficult for them to admit that they need help, and how to get over that fear-driven reflex.

Today, we are going to look at the next step in fixing a broken or distressed brand: Diagnosing the problem – which usually involves hiring a specialized firm, agency or individual with the skills, insight and experience to help you navigate through this crucial step. (If you screw this one up, everything that comes later is based on either false or incomplete assumptions – or both, so this isn’t a part of the process you want to entrust just anyone with.)

I apologize in advance if what we discuss today seems… really basic. If your brand is doing great, you probably already know this stuff. It’s common sense. It’s unlikely that you’ll learn anything new here today. But for those of you with tanking brands, going back to basics is where you need to start, so here we go:

Priority Number One: Securing the right partnership.

We’ve established that performing surgery on yourself while you’re crashing probably isn’t the best idea. You probably want to look into hiring outside help to guide you through the steps and make sure your brand rescue doesn’t end up in a complete ass-backwards disaster. (Remember that you didn’t get in trouble by being particularly good at making all the right decisions: Be humble, be smart, put your ego(s) aside, and hire a professional.)

How do you find the right person or firm? Well, once you’ve established that they aren’t in the yellow pages, you ask around. If that doesn’t work, hit the marketing and brand development blogs. Find out who the practitioners are. It’s a small community. There may only be 100 such individuals or organizations in North America, so you won’t be overwhelmed with choices. Once you’ve narrowed down your search to this level, read their blogs and e-books. Look into what they have done for other companies, who they’ve worked with, and what kinds of recommendations they are getting. If they strike a note with you, then it’s time to make contact. If not, keep looking.

Ideally, they will be in your part of the country, but if they aren’t, that’s okay too. Business travel is a part of life nowadays, and collaborative tools make it easier than ever to work remotely as well. As the world keeps getting flatter, distance becomes less relevant each day. What is most important is finding the right fit.

Speaking of fit, here are a few questions you will want to ask yourself during the interview process:

1. Does this person or firm know what they are talking about? Do they know what they’re doing? Or is all that chatter just posturing?
2. Will this person be able to work with my staff, my bosses, and our outside agencies (PR, ad, etc.), or be a giant pain?
3. Does this person or firm fit into my budget?
4. Does this person or firm have a specific method for measuring our improvement and performance right from the start?
5. Does this person appreciate the importance of delivering short term results, not just mid-to-long term results?
6. Is this person there to sell me services, or actually deliver results?

I can’t stress this enough: You want every question to be answered by a resounding YES. If your brand is in distress, 3 out of 5 won’t cut it. Not even 5 out of 6 You can’t afford to settle for “good enough” with this type of project. Not if you want to get your brand/company back on track now and… well, actually save it.

This is your litmus test for separating a good firm, agency or practitioner from the right one for your current situation.

And if you’re lucky, the one you pick won’t already be booked solid for the next six months. (Cross your fingers.)

Beginning the diagnostic process: Finding out what is actually eating away at your brand.

Okay. Now that you’ve partnered with the right talent (hopefully) and everyone has gotten acquainted, it’s time to get busy. The process typically begins with an immediate 360-degree analysis of your business and of your industry: Who buys your stuff and why? Who buys your competitors’ stuff and why? Who loves you and why? Who hates you and why? How do you engage with your customers? How are you not engaging with your customers? Which marketing tactics work for you and which ones don’t (and why)? If you used to be the market leader once, what changed? What do your employees think about your company and your products? How does this impact core aspects of your business like innovation, talent retention and sales? The list goes on, but you get the idea. Common sense stuff right? You would think. Except if your brand is in the tank, none of this may be all that obvious to the people making decisions, is it.

The trick here is two-fold: 1) You have to know what questions to ask, which isn’t always obvious when you are knee-deep in running a business every day, and 2) You have to understand exactly how to measure performance (including but not limited to R.O.I.) and put the data in the right context for each one of these elements. This type of brand mapping is one of the key components of the diagnostic step. We’ll get more into some of these in Part 3 of the series. (Like a puzzle, the analysis is composed of MANY parts, but don’t worry: It isn’t that hard to put it all together fast if you know how.)

For now, let’s tackle the first layer of the onion. The question here is simple: If you could boil down your brand’s problem to a thirty-second assessment, what would it be? To make it easy on you, I have listed the four most common answers below. There are more, but let’s keep it simple.

Here, then, are the four most common scenarios that lead to the distress and eventual death of a brand:

1. Fading brand Relevance: Many companies either go through severe downturns in relevance. Maybe you were the “it” company in your market ten years ago, but fresh newcomers have shoved you aside. Maybe you’ve grown too big and complacent. Maybe you have lost touch with your customers’ needs and fans’ expectations. In these cases, a weakened brand can drag a business down and kill it.
2. Failure to achieve brand relevance: Many companies simply never manage to transition from being a business with a logo to being an actual brand. They just haven’t found their voice yet. Their purpose. Their place. They are little more than an “also in” company. They manage to scrape by, but with budgets shrinking and new players gaining market share, time is running out.
3. Brand implosion: You talked a good game, created inspiring and engaging marketing and PR, got people all excited about you… but you didn’t keep your promises. Customers are outraged. Your name is mud. Your customers are leaving you for your competitors. Game over?
4. Brand-rich, cash-poor: Everyone loves your products and what you stand for. Your customers (fans) have made you part of their lifestyle and you get fantastic reviews across the board. Still, the balance sheet is in the red and you can’t keep your business afloat. Maybe you’re upside down on business loans, or your next round of funding dried up. Maybe your P&L is a disaster, or your parent company has lost interest in you. Whatever the case may be, your business is dying in spite of having created a true lovebrand. How do you save yourself?

In some cases, a sick brand may be looking at more than one of the above problems (most likely a coupling of either #1, #2, or #3 with #4).

More often than not, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out which of the above issues an ailing brand is dealing with. That being said, beware the hasty assumption: One symptom or scenario can hide another and distract you from your problem’s root cause. (One of the most immediate benefits of a properly administered 360 analysis is that it will either confirm or re-frame that initial assumption for you.)

Example: Company XYZ’s leadership is convinced that they are in situation #1 (fading brand relevance), and at first glance, they appear to be right. But as the 360 analysis starts to take shape, it becomes clear that the reason why the brand’s relevance has been fading for the last six years is because their customers are angry about a number of things, like inconsistent product quality, lousy customer service and frustrating warranty/exchange policies. Brand XYZ is actually in a #3 scenario (brand implosion), not a #1 scenario. The message got muddled because company XYZ hasn’t done a very good job at listening to its customers’ opinions (which is a topic we will revisit in the next couple of installments). The lesson here is obvious: One very nagging symptom can easily distract everyone and hide the true cause of a brand’s woes. Fail to render the correct diagnosis the first time, and your entire treatment will be worthless. This kind of mistake so late in the game can cost a brand a lot more than just time and money.

Note from the above example that if your brand practitioner only lives in the Marketing world, his/her usefulness will be… limited. A 360 analysis involves every department in the company, not just marketing (or traditionally “brand” related) functions.

Just like a good doctor makes sure to treat the disease rather than the symptoms, an experienced brand practitioner knows how to properly diagnose and treat the root cause of a distressed brand’s troubles as opposed to its more superficial problems.

Cause and Effect: Starting the process of connecting the dots.

As an added layer of complexity, brand practitioners don’t just have to concern themselves with the what and how questions, but also the why: “Why is this brand failing? Why are this company’s customers jumping ship? Why is its customer service so lousy? Why are its products not as popular as they once were? Why has the main topic of conversation shifted from design and user delight to price? This is the next layer of the 360 analysis: For every action, there is a reaction. If we can identify the reactions (sales slumping, customers switching to a competitor’s product, increases in returns or warranty claims), we can work our way back to the actions that brought them about. It takes a little bit of detective work, but the beauty of the 360 analysis mechanism is that it makes the process pretty swift.

As a bonus, the action-reaction relationships can be pretty easily mapped for the client. As we’ll see in Part 5 (making sure the brand doesn’t suffer a relapse), this mapping/clarifying process actually being delivered and taught to the client is absolutely fundamental to the success of any brand rescue endeavor: Once business managers fully understand the relationship between their customers’ behaviors and decisions made internally by their management team, they will be able to make inspired choices and effective course adjustments on their own once the brand practitioner is gone. A big part of helping a brand recover from a serious crisis involves teaching its stewards how to take better care of it in the future so it never happens again.

A Common Pitfall before we adjourn.

Far too many firms, agencies and consultants settle for a two step process in helping a client address a problem: Step 1 – Identify the problem. Step 2 – Address the problem with a specific solution: A new ad campaign. A new series of press releases. A new promotional campaign. Prettier packaging. A celebrity endorsement. This works well enough if you’re looking for a quick fix. A band-aid, if you will. But as soon as the campaign is over, as soon as the promotion ends, as soon as the big sale is over or the expensive celebrity spokesperson moves on to their next gig, what have you really gained? You may have enjoyed a spike in interest, a spike in sales, even, but you end up right where you started: Condemned to keep the campaign engine running constantly, which in your case may be little more than slapping lipstick on a pig. If your brand finds itself in a state of distress, chances are that you have already been playing this game for a while. We’ve already been over this in Part 1. More of the same isn’t what you want.

In order to see real traction, you have to go a step further in the process: Not just identifying a problem, but understanding what created it to begin with. Understanding the root cause. Understanding the why. Tracking the actual cause of that 7% drop in sales. That 12% drop in market share. That 30% drop in customer retention. You have to look deeper. You have to be able to map cause and effect, and answer not only what and how, but why. Then and only then, can you move on to the next step: Coming up with real solutions – the kind that will help your brand gain real momentum – rather than buying sales and influence for an all too finite amount of time.

Next week, in Part 3 of this series, we will go over how to use the 360 analysis employed during the diagnostic phase of the process to a) develop a treatment to get your brand back on track, and b) prioritize the elements of this treatment to start enjoying results immediately.

Cheers!

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BrandBuilder post number 1,000 – Let’s talk about leadership

I agonized for a few days over what kind of brilliant advice I should share with you on this 1,000th post since the launch of the BrandBuilder blog before finally realizing that no. 1,000 is no different from 999, 1,001 or 356. So no more pondering, no more worrying about writing an epic post (the time for that will come again in due time), and no more waiting around for inspiration to strike. Today, instead of talking about social media, brand management, who does what well and who does what poorly, let’s just talk a little bit about leadership. Corporate leadership, that is.

And instead of doing all the talking, I will let people with a whole lot more experience than me give you some tips about how to become a better leader. Great stuff that transcends the typical leadership quotation mill.

Anne Mulcahy – Former CEO of Xerox

In a crisis, you have the opportunity to move quickly and change a lot – and you have to take advantage of that.

Change doesn’t happen if you don’t work at it. You’ve got to get out there, give people the straight scoop, and get buy-in. It’s not just good-looking presentations; it’s letting people ask the tough questions. It’s almost got to be done one person at a time.

There’s not a lot of room anymore for senior people to be managers. They have to be leaders. I want people to create organizations that get aligned, get passionate, get really inspired about delivering.

Stories exist at every level of the company. Whether it was saving a buck here, or doing something different for customers, everyone has a story. That creates powerful momentum – people sense that they’re able to do good things. It’s much more powerful than the precision or elegance of the strategy.

I communicate good news the same way I do the bad news. I thank people and make sure they feel a sense of recognition for their contribution. But the trick is always to to use the opportunity to talk about what’s next, to pose the next challenges. Where do we want to go? How do we want to build on it?

Margaret Heffernan – Author, The Naked Truth

Nothing kills morale like a staff’s feeling helpless. This often plays itself out when there are rumors of a new strategic shift or a major personnel move, or worse, when the papers are littered with bad news about your company. A big part of boosting morale is about constructing a haven of logic that offers individuals shelter from any storm. At its most basic, leaders have to communicate their awareness of business conditions and place their plans in that context. Each time [a CEO outlines] a future that comes true, he demonstrates his own competence and reinforces trust.

The happiest people aren’t the ones with the most money but those with a sense of purpose – a sense that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves. At least some of this has to derive from work. The purpose of a business, then, must be explicit and go beyond boosting the share price or fulfilling some bland mission statement. People want to believe that they are part of something meaningful. The sense of purpose doesn’t have to be grandiose or revolutionary, merely credible and anchored in values.

Purpose is achieved through goals, and the acid test for any leader is defining the appropriate ones. Too small, and celebrations soon ring hollow. Small goals breed cynicism. But too-big goals produce helplessness. Although it can be temporarily thrilling to rally around a big corporate slogan like “kill the competition,” the reality is that employees can’t do it alone and they can’t do it quickly.

Alignment between corporate goals and personal development has never been more critical. The more unpredictable the outside world, the more urgent the personal quest for self-determination. What employees look for in leadership is a sense that their personal journey and the company journey are part of the same story. When these goals aren’t aligned, employees tend to whine with others, eager to share their sense of anger and injustice, polluting morale. The only way to combat this and get back on track is proper feedback. Give employees the tools to influence their own fate.

Get a life. Keeping morale high is like being on a diet: It requires constant effort and is never over. New ideas, stimuli and motivation come from all around you. It’s the larger life, after all, that gives purpose to the climb.

Alan Deutschman – Senior Writer, Fast Company – writing about how IBM builds new businesses

Look for opportunities that can become profitable [billion-dollar] businesses in five to seven years. You’ll probably find them by talking to customers rather than to brilliant researchers in the labs, who are are looking further ahead.

J. Bruce Harreld – IBM

You want to celebrate failure because you learn something. You need some level of security to say ‘I screwed it up,’ and be comfortable that you won’t be fired.

Marcus Buckingham – Author, Break All The Rules

Turn anxiety into confidence. For a leader, the challenge is that in every society ever studied, the future is unstable, unknown, and therefore potentially dangerous. By far the most effective way to turn fear into confidence is to be clear – to define the future in such vivid terms that we can see where we are headed. Clarity is the antidote to anxiety, and therefore clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear.

Effective leaders don’t have to be passionate, charming or brilliant. What they must be is clear – clarity is the essence of great leadership. Show us clearly who we should seek to serve, show us where our core strength lies, show us which score we should focus on and which actions we must take, and we will reward you by working our hearts out to make our better future come true.

See? Told you these folks know what they’re talking about.

Thanks to Fast Company‘s March 2005 issue for providing much of today’s content. (I have quite the collection.)

Cheers.

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