SAMBA Blog

Change the Context

Want to make something remarkable? Take an existing business or product and change the context or venue. Put it somewhere unexpected.

For example, the San Francisco Opera simulcasted a production of Aida at AT&T Park for a wonderful night of "opera at the park." Where else can you enjoy opera with some hotdogs, garlic fries, and ice cold beer?

Or take Bright Horizons' business of building and running child care facilities at corporate campuses. What working parent wouldn't crave day care to be a few minute's walk away from the cubicle? The company has a lot of improvements to make but its got an out-of-context winning concept.

Warping the context breaks expectations and boredom. Customers notice something different, something very out of place but could yet make sense. This is probably one of the easiest ways to introduce disruptive business models into moribund industries. 

Happy brainstorming!

 

7 Qualities of Good Marketing Strategy

Being a company that people talk about is of course the very best marketing. But this often refers to the "art" of business.  We still need the science piece.  

After all, business is the process of taking calculated risk.  And marketing strategy both mitigates risk and leverages it to produce amazing results.  

In plain terms marketing strategy is a systematic way to get people to know and like your company or your product.  Systematic is the key word here.  The following 7 qualities are associated with strong systematic marketing strategy and tactics.  


1.  Repeatable

That's great that a marketing tactic works once, but will it work again? 

One time promotions can be an effective short term tactic, but in marketing...if you have to start from scratch every single time you want to reach more people, well that can be expensive.  

Not only that, but some marketing can get less and less effective as you repeat it over and over again.  I'd put chronic promotional discounts on that list.

Find a way to do things that work well (and hopefully pay for themselves), when they're repeated over and over again.  

2.  Measurable

Part of being able to repeat something, is knowing if it worked well the first time around.  Feedback from different marketing tactics helps you make decisions on stopping or going.   

So what are you going to track?  Subscribers?  Visitors?  Survey results?  

Having your employees attend networking events and industry conferences, might feel like a great marketing exercise, but how do you know?  What are you measuring?

Pick marketing strategies and tactics that allow you to measure your progress along the way.


3.  Flexible

In a dynamic marketplace, flexibility isn't just nice to have, it's a essential.  If something isn't working, you need to be able change it...quickly.

Signing up for a lengthy contract with a certain type of advertiser may save some money up front, but what if the competitive landscape in your industry changes overnight and you need to allocate resources to a different type of media?

Now more than ever...leave room for change.  


4.  Testable

If you're going to fail...fail fast, fail early, and fail small.
 
Direct marketing is a great example of this.  If you send out 1000 mail pieces and nobody responds...well, shut it down...aren't you glad you know that, before you paid for 1 million pieces?


5.  Scalable

This is when marketing gets fun.  As your marketing does well and yields results, can you make it bigger so it gets more results?  

Pay Per Click search advertising is a tremendously scalable marketing tool for some businesses and not others.

If you're a local laundromat in Kentucky, you might be able to adjust your website and campaign just right so that 30% of your Google Ads are converting to customers.  That's fantastic!

But how do you scale that?  There may only be a small number of people in your area doing searches for laundromats, and that number probably isn't going to explode in the short term.    Just because it's scalable doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't do it...maybe it just means it shouldn't be part of your primary marketing strategy.

6.  Variable

Marketing strategies with tactics that are too repeatable, measurable, and testable can be BORING. People like consistency, but they also want something that they don't expect.  People like surprise.  

So make your marketing strategy multi faceted, and also introduce elements into your marketing strategy that they don't predict.  Build it into your plan.

 

7.  Momentum-able

We're talking about acceleration here. 

For example, if your marketing strategy involves building partnerships with high schools, does it get easier as you go along?

Is it easier to get the 20th school on board than the 2nd?  Is it much easier to get the 200th school than the 20th?

Picking companies that reference each other when trying to figure out what they should do is something to consider, if you want things to get easier in this partnership example.  

But generally speaking, some things start out easy and get harder down the road...try to stick with strategies that do the opposite.

This list isn't exhaustive at all.  Can you think of any others that could be added to this list?

Eager Patience

It's extremely important to have a big vision, big goals, to want to change the world in a drastic way.

Because if you start without ambitious goals that seem almost too scary to achieve, you will fall prey to the success trap.

You will inevitably win a small battle thinking that you've won the war.

Listening to salespeople

Salespeople obviously understand the value of sales.  They have a product or service that they know can make your company better, and it's their job to make you feel the same way.

But from the other end, it's easy to see a sales call as an interruption, especially if it's not your explicit job to listen.  Many avoid sales calls, others dismiss them, and some resent them.

Perfectly understandable, because we all have a lot to do, and listening to salespeople isn't necessarily top on the priority list...but isn't it everyone's job to keep an eye on what's new?  Isn't it the entire company's responsiblitity to keep an open mind on ways to improve, to innovate, to save money?

It may not be part of your formal job description, but listening to some (not all) salespeople IS part of your job.

When Losing is Okay

Don't worry about it if you lose a deal because:

• Your competitor had an inside connection to the opportunity. You'll just have to build relationships of your own.
• Your competition lowers their prices so low that they're losing.
• You're changing your business model so drastically that, soon, you'll no longer be competing against the same players.
• You realize how much shipping, improving, and fear-conquering you need to do.
• You're just experimenting and trying something completely new.
• The act of losing reveals the true character of those around you.
• You can learn from your mistakes and win the next time.

People First

Which people though?

Staying open on Thanksgiving is great for the customer...but maybe not for the employee.

Of course you can treat your employees and your customers well...it doesn't have to be one or the other.

But at the end of the day who comes first?

I think this is one of the most important decisions any business has to make.

On Service and Respect

We all love good service.

But consider this...

Good service from front line employees and agents is sort of assumed. That's what they're being paid for. It's the price of entry if you're a business hoping to survive.

What is remarkable is when the chef comes out and personally asks for our opinion. Or when the CEO answers a complaint. This happens at companies looking to thrive.

Now of course the CEO can't answer every letter of complaint. Neither can the chef waltz around the floor with diners all night because he needs to be in the kitchen working his art.

Despite the impractical nature of this type of service, the universal truth here is that people love being served by upper level management, by the artist behind the magic, by the "inaccessible."

On the flip side...

What is your posture when dealing with a client? Are you scrambling around rendering good service as a normal part of your business? Getting caught in the cycle of putting out fires and answering every little question a client throws your way?

Or is your posture slightly yet radically different? Are you a peer? Are you "inaccessible" yet generously making yourself available?

It's just a slightly different approach but which posture do you think impresses a client? It's the difference between just being a servant vs being a leader-servant.

Consulting: Tell me something I don't already know!

In consulting, often sales isn't just a tool to earn the right to consult...

It's a valuable part of the consulting itself.  In order to get a client to cough up money, a consultant must get them to:

1.  Acknowledge they indeed have a problem.

2.  Help define the problem in solvable terms.

3.  Convince them that this is a priority that demands attention.

It's funny...when it's all said and done, consultants often get blamed for telling companies what they already know.  That may be true, but if you think of consulting as starting from the first sales call, you may realize the biggest value add happened before the consulting actually began.  

Did you work this weekend?

If you did it for the sake of the work, for the emotional labor, because you love what you do, then good for you. Few people are lucky to combine work and play.

If you did it because someone else requested that you work, you were afraid to disappoint a boss or client, or work is an escape from the world and your loved ones, then maybe it's time to reevaluate your life situation.

Every day

The difference between performing a habit 6 days a week and 7 is enormous.

Sometimes in an attempt to not set ourselves up for failure, we commit to doing something less than every day.  We think that this flexibility will give us a necessary buffer in case we miss a day.

Sure, but in the beginning, flexibility is the enemy of consistency.

Every day holds us truly accountable.  Every day removes any doubt as to whether today is a day off or not.   Every day is the brain's recipe for automatic.  Every day is extraordinary.

If you want to create a habit.  Do it every day.

 

Genius and the Lizard Brain

It's amazing how prevalent the Lizard Brain is. It's everywhere. It even affects the most amazing, talented, and intelligent people we'll ever met.

The more that you perceive yourself as a genius, the more susceptible you are to the Lizard Brain's assaults. That's because, as a genius, you have a lot more to lose.

Best to assume that you are just a reasonably optimistic person who needs to perspire and ship during opportune moments.

More Efficient Customer Service?

As a customer focused initiative, many companies are trying hard to create more "efficient" customer service.

Service that's resolved on the first call...that gets the customer's problem fixed as quickly as possible.

This seems like a good idea but be careful. Because as you move towards efficiency its easy to move away from "human".

Customers want efficiency, but what they desperately need is validation, emotional connection, and often simply a chance to vent. At least the customers that will rave about you do.

As efficiency experts review calls, these intangibles often mistakenly show up as "waste". They're not. In fact, they're the often the only part of the conversation that really matters.

We Apes Ape

If there is one thing humans do well, we excel at imitation. We apes ape.

Why do you think every high school kid dresses the same way?

Or why every MBA sounds alike using the same buzzwords?

We even copy business models.

Groupon has inspired scores and scores of copycats. And if Google is any indication, Groupon being the first mover might not win. But neither will all those me-too group buying companies except for one or two.

There are good evolutionary reasons why we imitate so well. But let's be realistic here. You're not going to create the next Groupon. You can't create the next Google. Nor will you build the next Facebook. There is no "next (insert name of existing big successful company here)."

The key to thriving and not just surviving is to come up with something entirely new. Something the rest of us haven't imagined. So we can imitate you.

A guaranteed homerun

There is no such thing.  Be weary of agencies who promise one.  


In fact throughout the history of great agencies, the one's that served their clients the best couldn't (and didn't) promise a homerun.


No, what they promised their clients was a chance at the plate.  

Permission Marketing and Tribes

Early on, permission marketing meant that individual customers could opt-in to a channel of communication, thereby giving you "permission" to market to them. This usually meant email. Why the email channel is surprisingly more powerful than ever before, there are new forms of permission arising.

These new forms are just arriving and we're going to see a dizzying array of permutations as we go along.

Tribal marketing - groups are beginning to give permission to marketers to market to them.

Think of Facebook groups. Permission in these groups are fortified by social proof. Every time a member of the group interacts with the message or the organization, that interaction can be made public for all to see. This strengthens the group and its bond with the organization or product it is attached to.

Or think of Twitter followers. The social ties are much weaker but followers have one thing in common; they are interested in the person or organization they are all following. Followers retweet messages and amplify the original message as a group. The act of following is an act of opting-in to receive messages.

Group buying as pioneered by Groupon is actually the least "groupy" of these new permission models. At the core, the individual still needs to opt-in to receive emails. There is very little "grouping" and connection between the many buyers of any particular deal. If someone can figure out a way to identify or organize natural groups to encourage more collaboration in purchasing behavior, they can create a much more loyal and sustainable customer base.

This is an exciting new world and permission marketers will see a resurgence in their craft. But they'll need to be able to entice not just individuals but entire groups.

Are you playing the game wrong?

Most students who want to get into an elite law school spend 80% of their time, energy, and resources trying to get good grades.  Seems logical.

Except that it turns out, 70% of getting into law school is determined by one standardized test: the LSAT.

As unnatural as it might feel to actually execute, a pure strategist might spend the 80% on preparing for the LSAT, and dedicate the 20% to the actual majority of the college experience (homework, studying for exams, class participation). 

At the workplace, most people spend 80% of their energy on their job--the tasks that they were hired to do every day.  If they do those tasks really well, they should get promoted, right?

But what about the quarterly presentation in front of all your colleagues?  Many try to simply survive them.  But Is it possible that these presentations, are the most important personal marketing opportunities one might get in the workplace?  And if one was to spend an enormous amount of time preparing for it as if it were a presentation at TED...might that be a good strategic move?  Are there other facets of work that don't get much attention, but might contribute enormously to the overall game?

I don't know the right answers, but I do have the right question:  What game is being played?  What are the rules...are you sure those are really the rules?  If you thought really hard about the strategy you're using to play the game...is it the right one...the one that has the greatest chance of winning?

 

Become an early adopter

Especially if you aren't one already. Why? It will make a big difference in your life.

Early adopters are a special breed. They take risks other people wait to take. The newest gadget that just came out? Only the early adopters are waiting in line. Everyone else wants to read the reviews first. Or see that a majority of the friends have converted. Or wait for the price to come down to a bargain commodity level.

Marketers build a whole marketing plans centered around getting to the early adopters. Early adopters signal to everyone else that the new new thing is safe or worth trying.

But why is it more important now than ever before to live life like an early adopter? Because change, brought on by technology, social pressures, economic turmoil, etc. is moving faster than ever before. The pace of change is dizzying. And there is no time-out you can call.

It used to be that if you weren't an early adopter you could reasonably catch up to everything you were missing pretty easily. This is not the case now. If you're not an early adopter now, you may miss too much to your detriment. To the extent you might not catch up.

The adoption divide is probably one of the root causes of the digital and wealth divides.

Why TV Commercials Work

Commercials work because of the quality television that surrounds them.

If you can engage me with great programming for 30 minutes, then sure, I'll spend a couple minutes here and there watching your ads.  Pretty fair trade. 

And this logic translates to lots of different forms of media.

Yet as I look at the e-mails that so many companies send their subscribers, It's not clear to me that they get this simple distinction.

Some products or industries just aren't social

Gasp.

But then who thought mundane products like deodorant could be social? Ask Old Spice.

Products themselves are not social by nature. They just are what they are. Coca-Cola is a sugary syrupy drink. Ford Mustangs are cars. Morton Salt is sodium chloride or NaCl for the geeky. Cars, salt, soda and most products aren't social. Products aren't social!

Their benefits may be social.

Their users may be social.

Their harmful effects are definitely social.

Parodies of products might be social.

Look within the product itself or look outside of the packaging to find the social elements that attach to your product.

 

Self Sabotage

When our car breaks down suspiciously close to the finish line, the question has to be asked:

Did the car really break down?  Or did we step on the brakes?