October 28, 2010

Today’s Marketing Doesn’t Cut it!

Words tell the story. Here’s how marketing is being described today:
> BORING—little product and service innovation. Incremental features produced. Discounted bundling. Pricing deals. Zzzzzzzzzzzz
> LAZY —focus on pushing product capabilities not value creation. Mass market oriented. Few breakthrough distinguishing innovations. Ho Hum. Same old. Same old.
> UNDIFFERENTIATION —more intense competition but fewer degrees of separation among the players.
> PRODUCT EUPHORIA —product flogging continues to be mainstream. Not much energy is being spent on creating VALUE for people.
> PROLIFERATION OF SAMENESS —the more competition in the market, the less differentiation is occurring. The herd has no prime bull.
> BENCHMARKING TO COPY —best in class comparisons lead to catch-up; not distinctiveness and separation.
> GET BETTER NOT DIFFERENT —competitive improvements are achieved but little WOW POWER to separate.
> PRODUCT AUGMENTATION —the primary innovation approach is to incrementally enhance the product line based on what others have done and what the technology can do. Where the hell is the customer?
> ROUND-THE-CORNERS —product compromise to cater to the ‘average’ person. Bland. Serving the lowest common denominator. The marketers take ‘the edge’ off to try and satisfy everyone.
> MASS MARKET OBSESSION —flog stuff at as many average people as you can. Superficial unimaginative segmentation. All things to all people mentality. No remarkability for anyone.
> TECHNO MYOPIA —technical capabilities push marketing. Technical capabilities impress marketers. Where the hell is the customer?
> BLUR—numerous competitors. Sameness abounds. Few individual organizations get noticed. Customer choice is difficult. Can’t spot uniqueness.

This is a glass-is-half-full opportunity for those who want to break away from the pack.

The breakthrough prescription is to THINK:
> BE DiFFERENT as the lens to view marketing possibilities.
> The ONLY Position to express your distinctiveness.
> Creating VALUE for WHO you choose to SERVE. A product is simply a means to the VALUE end.
> Creating Happiness Through Experience. BE Memorable to your customers by helping them engage in delightful experiences, the conduit to Happiness. Happy people tend to be more loyal than the product based transients.
> Small customer groups of interested, turned-on, connected people who will sneeze you to their friends and colleagues.
> Beyond the individual product or service to a holistic value proposition reflecting the broad lifestyle needs of your customer.
> Discovering the deep hidden desires of people. Their secrets will provide the marketing opportunities to shine.
> Customer learning as a core competency. Marker Research is passe. Your organization needs to function like a sponge in every nook and cranny to absorb every bit of customer intelligence possible. Separation from the herd DEMANDS that you know more about your customer than anyone else. You can’t create DISTINCTIVE VALUE if you don’t.

Start the journey of change. Marketing is critical to an organization’s success. Step up.

Cheers,
Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter
Take the BE DiFFERENT Quiz: Are you DiFFERENT or are you dead?

Recent Articles
How to Execute Happiness-Through-Experience Marketing
Happiness-Through-Experience Marketing: A BIG Idea
The Purpose of Business is NOT to Create a Customer
Wanted: Chief Serving Officer

Posted 10.28.10 at 10:59 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 25, 2010

Happiness-Through-Experience Marketing: How to EXECUTE

In my last Blog Article I introduced the notion of marketing making a right-angled turn from flogging products at people to creating Happiness-Through-Experience Moments for their Fan Tribes. Hell of a shift required for most organizations who are stuck in the product-features-and-benefit-world. But the shift is necessary if you want to distinguish yourself from every other undifferentiated competitor out there who has no other choice but to try and compete on price… no where to go but down!

Happiness-Through-Experience Marketing. It’s about creating EUPHORIA. It’s about stimulating EMOTION. It’s about evoking FEELINGS.

Yes, damn it FEELNGS ARE STRATEGIC!

So how do you go about it?
> You REALLY need to know your Tribe of faithful, dedicated and maniacal fans. Their SECRETS. Their innermost DESIRES. If you don’t know them at a deep level how can you create an Experience that will blow them away?
> What is their Experience End Game? EXACTLY what climax will leave them breathless? What will a successful Experience look like when it is over? Is the Tribe member exhausted? Do they ‘FEEL like a cigarette’? If not you have missed the mark.
> The above points describe the DESIGN Phase. Secrets + End Game = Happiness-Through-Experience Design.
> Assemble the Experience Value Elements to meet your design criteria. The targeted Experience can only be created through the appropriate triggers working in harmony with each other and seamlessly. I call them Value Elements, and they typically are individual products and services. Products and services in this context is ok - in fact they are essential - as they are the vital components that are used to deliver a higher order benefit - the Experience. The emphasis is NOT on what each product or service can do individually but rather what they do collectively to deliver the desired response.
> Start out with your Core product. Use it as the nucleus of the Experience design. Think ADDITIVE and paste additional elements on to your core product based on the value proposition you are delivering. Remember: choose elements that IN SUM will work together to deliver the Experience you are trying to create. A confused arrangement of product elements that don’t work in harmony to deliver a uniform Experience will miss the mark.
> Build Experience partnerships with other organizations who have the products you need to fulfill your Experience design. If you need a travel product, build a relationship with an airline.
> Brand the Experience as something new. NEVER call it a BUNDLE. Bundling is lazy marketing and really is another way of trying to compete on price by discounting.
> Measure your Experience results. It’s not just about how many were sold; rather did you hit your FEELINGS TARGET? Follow up with your Tribe and get their perceptions and also whether or not they intended to sneeze it to their friends.,

Any business can get into the Happiness-Through-Experience Marketing game. Hotels can add local activities to their room and food core products. Retailers can add beverage products. Smartphone suppliers can add numerous applications. Moving companies can add furniture deals and welcome packages. Restaurants can add special occasion celebratory packages. Ski resorts can add summer golf.

You are limited ONLY by your knowledge of Tribe Secrets and your imagination. Oh ya, AND a desire to separate yourself from the confusing undifferentaited herd….

Cheers,
Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter
Take the BE DiFFERENT Quiz: Are you DiFFERENT or are you dead?

Posted 10.25.10 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 21, 2010

Happiness-Through-Experience Marketing: a BIG Idea

I have been thinking alot about Happiness lately and the implications it has for Marketing to BE DiFFERENT and more successful. Most businesses today flog their products and services at customers. They copy best in class companies which inevitable results in no differentiation from the herd. I have been advocating, on the other hand, that success and survival demands that we CREATE VALUE for our Tribe, and that we need to think about EXPERIENCES as the way to do it. Refer to the Related Blog Articles below to check out what I have said previously on the subject.

A new study conducted at Cornell University and reported in the January 2010 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that experiences bring greater happiness and satisfaction than buying and owning possessions.

Deepak Chopra agrees. At a recent talk in Vancouver he argued that Experiences deliver Happiness in three ways:
1. Planning an Experience creates anticipation and excitement.
2. Participating in the Experience creates in-the-moment euphoria.
3. Remembering the Experience creates lasting memories.

Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos in his first book Delivering Happiness, discusses “how using Happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion and purpose in both business and life”. Click here for my review of Tony’s book.

And Happiness has even taken on a political dimension. In fact ...“one nation, tiny Bhutan, has actually made “Gross National Happiness” the central aim of its domestic policy. How might happiness research affect government policy in the United States—and beyond? In The Politics of Happiness, former Harvard president Derek Bok examines how governments could use happiness research in a variety of policy areas to increase well-being and improve the quality of life for all their citizens.”

If countries are trying to understand how Happiness can improve the quality of life for its citizens, shouldn’t businesses be trying to do the same thing for its Tribe? Makes sense to me. If you are Happy with your supplier you are very likely to remain a loyal customer with them at least until they do something to make you unhappy. Moreover you are very likely to be, what Seth Godin calls in his book The Purple Cow, a sneezer and advocate the organization to all of their friends - the viral affect. The bottom line is that Happiness has the potential to be an awesome business builder.

Then why do most businesses ignore Happiness through Experiences as the driver of their marketing efforts? Why do they instead insist at pushing products at us?

Answer:
> They don’t understand the power of the Happiness-through-Experience strategy over a product-push one.
> They’ve always been product focused and it has worked.
> Its easier to continue doing what you’re doing. To change is tough. It requires too much work.
> There is too much effort required to engage niche fan clusters and find out what Experiences, specifically, would make them Happy.

The truth of the matter is that if a business wants to distinguish itself from the competitive herd they had better get on the Happiness-through-Experiences train regardless of the reason they’re not presently there. A future blog will outline a process for EXECUTING this Practice. Stay tuned….

Cheers,
Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter
Take the BE DiFFERENT Quiz: Are you DiFFERENT or are you dead?

Related Blog Articles
Marketing: Think Value-Additive
Marketers: You are in the VALUE Creation Business.
Bundles are NOT Value-Based Offers

Posted 10.21.10 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 18, 2010

The Purpose of a Business is NOT to Create a Customer

I am DEFINITELY going where angels fear to tread. Who In their right mind would even think about commenting on a Drucker Quote other than verbally bowing to its pristine elegance? I am totally a Drucker fan and have been for many years. Read all of his books. Tried to emulate his Leadership principles that resonated with my values. Have always looked to him as my virtual mentor.

And yet…. I feel that we need to have a conversation around the notion that creating a customer is the fundamental goal of a business. In today’s world with crazy competition, empowered customers and fleeting customer loyalty we need to extend our thinking. We need to get more focused. ‘Go get a customer’ without some clarity and qualification will not guarantee success.

Not all customers are created equal....there’s no such thing as a bad customer, but some are better than others, This type of thinking should play a critical role in defining business purpose.

A business needs to create the RIGHT customer. It needs to gather as many RIGHT customers (Tribes as Seth Godin talks about) as it can.

The RIGHT customer is one that:
> has the growth potential to meet the organization’s financial goals. This REALLY important. There is no use targeting a customer that doesn’t have the revenue potential you need to grow successfully.
> who is a fanatic about what you do or what you produce. She really is interested and cares about your products or services.
> is a part of an extended group of fans who communicate regularly with one another and with others to spread your reach.

Organizations need to get more proficient at choosing WHO they want to SERVE. Its not about the quantity of Casual Consuming Followers you get; it about attracting the QUALITY ones who are relentless-re-purchasers who virally spread your word while they benefit from the VALUE you deliver.

Here’s another perspective… Take the emphasis OFF the customer and put it ON what consumption value is derived by someone.
The purpose of a business is to create unique experiences for the customers they choose to serve. If one-and-ONLY relevant and compelling experiences are created, CUSTOMERS WILL COME.

What do you think? Is it time to revise the (rather credible, awe-inspiring-for decades, fathered by THE management guru) current defined purpose of a business?

I SAY YES! Customers have changed, the competition has changed, economies have changed, technologies have changed…everything has changed. To suggest that ‘the purpose of a business’ has NOT changed is both unrealistic and potentially harmful for those who take words (from credible sources) literally.

Time to move on and provide new guidance to leaders searching for the path to success and survival.

Cheers, Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Recent Blog Articles
The Strategic Game Plan
Wanted: A Customer Serving Officer
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Posted 10.18.10 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (1)