You and Your Brand

You’re an asset.  Don’t forget that.  Your skills, the way you conduct yourself, your reputation and integrity define your personal “brand.”  And just as we develop brands for businesses, ensuring the message is correct, that the promise is delivered upon, etc., you must constantly be aware of your personal brand in your dealings.

If you’re in the beginning portion of your career, keep the following in mind:

1. Do what you say, say what you do — don’t promise something you can’t deliver.  
2. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your Mother, Priest, Spouse or the New York Times to know about.
3. It’s true, keep politics and religion out of your conversations.  In this political year, I’ve been negligent in expressing my thoughts… but I’m getting better at controlling myself.
4. Social media is easy — stay clean, don’t show the stuff which will embarrass you or your employer.  Look the separation of business and social media is tricky, my recommendation is to be conservative.  Because when you find out you were to liberal in your posts, etc., it’s usually to late to change it.
5. Golden Rule — do what your Mother told you… treat people with respect.  I pay very close attention to how people deal with others.  If you treat the waiter like crap, you show your true self.  It’s simple, but I’m surprised at how badly people treat others.
6. Which leads to Manners — do the simple things, thank you, please, your welcome.  It makes an impression.
7. Polish Your Shoes — two lessons here.  First, be wary of man who doesn’t shine his own shoes.  If you can’t do the dirty work, how can I trust you to get in the trenches when the real work starts? Second, when you walk into a room with a $1000 suit and shoes which look like combat boots, it shows your lack of detail and concern with your entire appearance.
8. Dumbest Guy in the Room — strive to be dumb.  What I mean is listen, listen, listen.  Get the thoughts of others before making a decision.
9. Remember, there is a difference between management and leadership.
10. Ebenezer Scrooge — I love the part in the story, when Ebenezer says he’ll keep Christmas in his heart all year long.  Try to do the same… it’s a 365 day year.  

This isn’t all of the list, but I hope you get the idea.  

Scott

Chat Functionality

Companies love to jump into chat — the next frontier in customer touches and service.  It sounds great, but there are things to consider, such as:

1. Where you put the chat button — the top?  the bottom?  My preference is the lower right hand corner.  It’s usually the standard on most sites, so why break the trend.  And, it stays out of the way of the left rail and top navigation areas.
2. Training — chat is not like picking up the phone.  Communicating clearly, with brevity are key aspects of chat.  And, reps should be able to carry on 2-3 sessions at the same time so juggling multiple conversations is important  Spend a great deal of time and money getting your reps trained… use a 3rd party training company.
3. Customer service skills — chat is at it’s core customer service which helps drive sales.  Your reps need to clearly be trained and compensated based on service level not sales.  Goaling on sales will create aggressive reps who will push your customers away from the purchase funnel.
4. Metrics — always measure the results.  How many sales can you confirm were made by the chat?  Customer service requests?  How many no’s for help?  How many never responded?  You must understand if you’re getting any type of return.  Don’t necessarily be concerned about sales only… cost avoidance in helping online is a benefit as well.
5. Time of day — go back to your analytics and staff based on the level of traffic you’re getting during specific times of the day.  
6. Geography coverage — are you ready to work with customers in different countries?  Should you?  Take a look at where your web traffic is coming from and staff appropriately.  Plus, if you aren’t concerned about international business, limit your chat to those country’s you are interested in.
7. Language — this is a big one.  Do you have staff who are skilled in more than one language?  If your web site is only in English I’d only use English as the language supported.  If you have a translated site, then look at the traffic on those translated pages, where are your sales coming from and decide whether the investment in multi-language support is warranted.
8. Privacy/Legal — ALWAYS have your legal department draft the appropriate language informing customers of their rights and of your policies.  
9. Where you want to chat — put the chat button the high traffic areas, vs. your long tail pages.  Staffing everywhere is inefficient and your staff is probably not going to understand all of your products, so stay where customers gather. 
10. What results do you want out of chat — define what you want upfront.  Sales?  Customer service?  This is critical as other numbers might look great - number of chat sessions are up!  The time per customer is dropping!  All sound great, but keep your original goals in mind to determine success/failure.
11. Sales expectations — keep your expectations low.  You’ll probably do more customer service type of work with chat.  But you will certainly help your customers through the sales funnel by answering questions, directing them to areas on the site and most importantly help a customer in the sales checkout process.
12. The creepy factor — personally, having someone abruptly and without warning open up a chat session with me creeps me out.  It’s a big brother thing.  Chat might actually drive customers away from your site.  Measure this as well.
13. Expect the craziest stuff —What are your hours?  How do I get in contact with Accounting?  Where’s my shipment?  Your product is terrible.  Will you donate to my kids baseball team?Do you know Bob in Marketing?  He’s my nephew.  This and more will come through your chat.
14. Trial — start small.  Put the chat button on just a few pages when you first start.  If successful, gradually expand to other pages.  This will allow you to find out how many “pages per rep” can be managed, making staffing a bit easier.
15. IT — don’t make the mistake of not including your IT staff in this process.  Security protocols could be impacted, your site will need to be modified and you need someone to help manage any technical malfunctions.

There’s a number of additional tips, but I’ll leave it here.

Scott

eCommerce Tips - Part 1

eCommerce Tips… 

1. Check with and get educated on credit card and purchase order processing early in the game.  Depending upon the size of your commerce business, past security issues, technology, etc. will determine how complicated your approval process will be.
2. Get a complete and full list of requirements prior to ever talking to a vendor.  
3. Run pro-forma financials on the eCommemrce business… determine the revenue/cost expectations and where that break even point will be.
4. Have a “mini” commerce system built by the software vendors to really understand how everything works.
5. Go to AND sit down with a current company using the software to actually see how it works… it will help you determine the complexity of the software.
6. Build your product catalog early!  And I’d recommend you put NUMEROUS catalog managers on the task… better yet, farm the work out to a low cost center where you can get a ton of people working on it at a lower cost.  Trust me on this one… it will take a hell of lot longer than you think.
7. Simplicity is always better.  You can add and potentially make the store more complex later, but come out with a simple “buy and sell store.”
8. Go out of the box — everyone says their business is “different.” But I’ve seen that not to be the case.  Remember, the more tweaks you add to the system the more risk you have of a break, higher costs, etc.
9. Don’t overbuy — buy with the opportunity to grow.  You probably don’t need the tricked out CMS, tons of licenses, etc.  Buy small with the opportunity to grow big.
10. And for God’s sake don’t get caught up in the whole “package” sort of deals.  Understand exactly what you need and buy that.
11. Under promise the system functionality and sales - no matter what!
12. It will take 18 months to start to really see sales take off.  This isn’t a “turn on the facet” type of sales.  Many will expect the sales to role in on day 1.  Be sure to communicate and set expectations.
13. Outsource web services — I like Amazon Web Services (AWS)… they’ll keep your servers and the security aligned.
14. Put together the first 2 quarters eCommerce marketing plans… products, pricing, copy, promotions, etc.  Execute them closely, track the results and make changes quickly to improve results.
15. Have a professional writer manage the copy… and get someone experienced in direct response copywriting.  Keep them on a long term contract to ensure the text is consistent across the site.
16. Negotiate the software contract aggressively.  The margins on software are huge, so step up your game.  Get procurement involved to handle the situation.
17. Develop the store outside your IT department.  Nothing against internal IT departments, but they probably don’t have the experience in developing the software and we all know priorities change like the wind.
18. Ensure  IT has full time support resources post initial development to manage the platform.
19. People are the most important part of the eCommerce environment.  You MUST get people who are experienced in eCommerce or .com management.  They need to have program management skills, financial knowledge, IT focus, business management, and marketing skills.  Yes, you’ll pay for the best… but it’s worth it.  You’ll also need lower skilled workers, but ensure they have the experience you require.
20. Resources — someone for search.catalog, management, marketing, IT, dev. security, processes, etc.

Stay tuned for more tips...

Scott

Digital Disconnect

Over the Christmas holiday, my family and I traveled to Charleston, SC to have some low key quality time together.  I noticed something which  I found fascinating - three woman and one teenager were sitting in the airport coloring in a very meticulous coloring book.  

I asked a few of the ladies and the teen the reasons for taking up what I thought to be a child’s activity.  The answer I got was interesting… they said they were “burned out” on technology and this was a way to escape the digital world we live in, if just for a few hours.

This “escape” became clear, when I looked upon those in the airport and 90% of the travelers were staring into a small phone screen.  I use the words “into a small phone screen” on purpose.  They seemed to be so transfixed on the phone for hours, ignoring much of what was going on.  In fact, two individuals missed their flight because they were transfixed on the screen.   They didn’t hear the announcement of the flight, nor did they hear their names being called out for the “last call.”

As a Marketer I now question whether the mobile ads we run are being recognized or are lost in the blank stares of the consumer… I don’t have an answer, but the thought runs across my mind.

I’m now looking to find my “Big Chief” Tablet and that 64 Crayola set I had as a kid.

Scott

Ad Placement - What To Do When The Public Complains

Our country provides everyone the right to express themselves via freedom of speech, etc.  You’re going to find, like minded groups who won’t be happy with your media placement.  These groups typically spam Executives or the Marketing Team, with canned emails expressing their displeasure with the advertising and asking (or demanding) that you change your media schedule based on this “controversial programming.”  Some might include:

• Sexual specific programming
• Gay or lesbian programming
• Questionable family values
• Actors/Actresses within a program which might have controversy surrounding them
• Politically based programming
• News programming — too liberal, too conservative
• Basically about anything someone will complain about
• Ethnic based programming

I used to get thousands of emails when these groups would target their displeasure.  I even had a media company threatened me if I didn’t run advertising with their publication.  So I was getting hammered by consumers and the advertising media at the same time.  

At first I was appalled… well pissed is probably the best word to describe someone telling me what and where I could advertise.  But after calming myself I came to accept that everyone has their opinion, they can express it and I needed to deal with it.  So I came up with some general rules of the road.

1. Respect the opinions of these groups/people.
2. Have a drawer statement ready and pre plan for these types of events.
3. Communicate your decision in a professional manner.  You don’t need to give your reason - if you do, you’ll get into a war of ideals, which you’ll never win.
4. Determine if your advertising actually ran on the wrong show… if you’re doing direct advertising, you might have been plugged into a show which might have been inappropriate.  Sometimes mistakes happen.
5. Does the show represent your brand values?  If so, no worries.
6. How many GRP’s is the program in question pulling?  Determine if it’s worth the stomach acid to run in the program.
7. If you have events, etc. which surround the program target audience this should be considered.  Sunk costs without any promotion aren’t going to generate revenue
8. Don’t fall on the sword for a show… if your management isn’t happy and wants you to move the media, do it… don’t argue…it will only create turmoil later.
9. But, don’t let any group tell you what to do.  Stick to your plan if it’s the right place to advertise, do it.  Don’t be swayed by detractors…this too shall pass.
10. Document, document, document… if it gets nasty you’ll need the facts.
11. Have your tech group stop the emails from reaching your email box and other executives email boxes.
12. Notify legal AND security of the situation in the case you start getting protestors out the front door, or the situation escalates further.  Keep your eyes open for any suspicious activities. 

Don’t be paranoid, but also stay vigilant.  

Scott

Simple Learnings From a Tragic Loss...

This past weekend, we suffered the loss of a colleague at our company.  It got me thinking about how I had interacted with this individual over the past year.  Probably 75% of the interactions were via email, a social media platform – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. 

However, in retrospect, I’ve realized the electronic channel of communication has limitations and it seems I took for granted the importance of picking up the phone, meeting for lunch… the true personal touches which mean so much given today’s fast-paced society.

So as we post on LinkedIn information about business, as we post to Facebook about our kids, as we post to Twitter about our immediate thoughts…let us not forget we are human first and picking up that phone, meeting for lunch is more important now than ever.

Scott 

Weekend Humor Video…. How to Redesign a Stop Sign

Ok, we all need to laugh at ourselves… start the weekend off with a video about how insane we clients can be…Enjoy and laugh.

Hot to Redesign a Stop Sign

Scott

Exorcism -- The Live TV Event

Exorcism …. the word conjures up visions of pea soup being vomited across the room.  Last night the live broadcast #Exorcism aired on Destination America.  So I watched this live train wreck of a show.  I mean who the hell doesn’t like to see a good exorcism every once in a while.   Frankly, I could care less of whether the boogie man exists, if a house is possessed or whether the dead can talk beyond the grave.

Actually, what intrigued me the most was who would advertise or potentially sponsor such a program.  It’s not everyday you can say “proudly sponsored by …” on a show which might have some guys head doing a 360 degree turn while demons escape from his body.

My gut told me the advertisers would be company’s which tend to be direct response oriented… low priced/high volume of spots with possibly some local stuff thrown in — car dealers pushing end of the month sales, etc. 

Drum roll… those which were advertising included:  Geico, Jimmy Dean, Bass Pro Shops, US Army, Reese Peanut Butter Cups, Fiat, Select Life Insurance, Proactiv,  Sylvania Car Light Bulbs, Pampers, Little Caesars, Thermo Spas, Dish Network, Subaru, etc. etc.

My thoughts… great placement for the high volume/low cost spot providers — Insurance, US Army, Caesars, Dish, Proactiv, etc.  The content was crazy appealing (to the right demo), kept people glued to the TV to see what the whole exorcism would entail.

What I questioned were Fiat and Pampers.  The brands don’t seem to fit the programming.. there big brands, targeted niche markets, etc.  The only thing I could think of is with Pampers you could make the leap to “crapping in your pants” from being so scared.

The show was a total bust, but honestly I think the brands who advertised got their money’s worth.

Scott

Telephone Books — The Indispensable Tool in the Recycling Bin

Last week I heard a “thump” against my front door… when I looked, it was a phone book which had been thrown on my porch.  It wasn’t a big phone book — you know those separate white pages book and one for the yellow pages.

I remember the first thing I’d do when the new book came out, was to quickly scroll to my name and make sure I was listed and the address and phone number were correct.  But when I brought the phone book in, I promptly threw it in the recycling bin.

So the phone book has gone the way of so many other “analog” properties.  Having been chased out of business from the 1 and 0’s of digital.  The phone book has been converted to digital… but, you can find out so much more than just a name, address and phone number by typing your name in a search engine.  Plus, you can find out everything from criminal records to legal documents…

How the world has changed… but sometimes I yearn for the days of thumbing through a phone book to see my name in print.

Scott

iTunes Radio – The Great Cross Sell Platform

If you haven’t upgraded to the new iOS7 platform for your iPhone you’re in for a pleasant surprise – iTunes Radio.  As it’s similar to other internet radio platforms such as Pandora, etc. you would think it’s just another music streaming service…but alas, as you dig a bit deeper you’ll find iTunes Radio is the great cross sell platform.

What Apple’s done right with iTunes Radio

-          Access – it’s right there at the bottom of your music library where your playlist, artists, etc. is listed.  Easy to reach, easy to buy.

-          Features – easy navigation from the information graphic to an artist station, for the song, sharing the station (sharing also equals cross selling), ability allow (or not) explicit tracks.

-          Cross Sell – not only is the $1.29 buy button in it’s same graphic and placement you’re use to it… the announcer comes in very naturally/in no way obtrusive and briefly mentions a track you might want to download.

-          Individuality – the ability to “tune” the station from Hits to Variety to Discovery I found great.  If I wanted to hear the familiar – I kept it on the Hits, if I was in a more inquisitive mood I’d tune it to Discovery – more opportunity to Cross Sell. 

-          Clarity – reception via wifi was fine… but 4G seems to stutter a bit.

-          Fresh Music – although the music is probably the same as in my iTunes library, iTunes Radio creates a new playlist of music I normally wouldn’t listen too but fits the category.  And that becomes addictive… to the point, where I’ve downloaded 3 songs which I hadn’t heard for years – again Cross Sell!  And that data about my purchasing history is surely getting mashed up for additional cross sell opportunities in the future.

-          Integration – as all my music is on iTunes – buying integrates right into my catalog as you would expect it to…. keeping me from straying to another music service.

What Needs Improvement

-          Graphics – the same basic music genre has the same graphic images… It makes it tough for you to mental mind graph the music to an image.

-          UI – even after using it for a few days I keep stumbling with the UI trying to navigate my way around.

All marketers can learn another lesson from Apple.  This time, the lesson is subtle but just as powerful – sell horizontally and vertically.

Scott

What a Drummer Can Teach Us About Business?

So that headline grabbed you.... if you look at other areas of the world you can see bits of brilliance which can be transferred to marketing.  Take for instance Fede Rabaquino -- a drummer from Europe.

If you check out his video channel, you'll see he takes current or old songs and adds his own "drumming flavor" to each song.  Not only does is change the way you experience the song, but in my opinion makes the songs sound fresh -- in otherwards, utilize what's already worked and just put a new spin on it.

In an age of business budget constraints, pressure on margins, etc.   Why do we insist on coming up with a "new" campaign or initiative everytime?  Why not be like Fede and look at the work from a different perspective...

Enjoy his latest video.... a new take on AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long"

Scott

How Far We’ve Come….

Today, none of us could imagine not having email, the internet, being able to shop online, do our banking, watch videos and share our thoughts, etc.  But go back to the 1990’s and you can see how far technology, and the use of it, have come.  I love this clip from the

TodayShow in which they are trying to figure out what the @ sign meant.

That was less than 20 years ago!  Just think what the next 20 years will bring.

Scott

LinkedIn – The New Reverse “Spam-a-Lot”

LinkedIn.com has become the latest digital spam system.  I noticed this issue a little more than 18 months ago, when I began to get numerous s solicitations from a host of odd individuals and companies.

We all know the purpose of LinkedIn is to connect people across business lines, regions, etc.  And I concur this is a great business value.  However, I’ve found a few disturbing issues as well.

-          Reverse Invitations -- Is where someone contacts you and asks you to send them a LinkedIn request.   So you ask yourself, “Why wouldn’t they invite me?”  More than likely the answer is LinkedIn has flagged them as spammers so they can no longer send invitations without knowing the email address of the invitee. 

-          Invitation Bait and Switch – where you receive an invitation from someone who claims to be a “student” or such with very low current LinkedIn.com connections.  They also seem to all have graduated from schools in EMEA. 

So I tested both situations over the past 6 months by complying with only 1 request from each of the above. 

What happened next nearly stunned me… within 72 hours’ both my email spam folder and LinkedIn profile were overwhelmed with offers, reverse invitations and the like.

Fast forward to today, the number of spam emails is still high, but the number of LinkedIn reverse invitations has decreased by ~40% my conclusion, these dubious invitations are merely a way to consolidate and sell email addresses to fast moving email spammers.

So beware of those invitations…

Scott

Pixel Renting

Location, location, location -- we've all heard it before, it's the key to the Real Estate Industry.  And yes location is critical for eCommerce and web sites.  Where we put our copy, focus points, purchase buttons, etc.

One of the challenges we face is multiple clients who want to be on the "home page" or want to take over specific high value areas of the site.  And in some companies the ownership of the site is assigned to the business... in which they can do whatever they want with their portion of the site.

However, if you're like many, the webmaster or eCommerce Manager owns the site and works with the businesses to align objectives, etc.  But you have the problem as everyone wants that valuable location.

A thought to begin instilling into clients as the owner is the idea of "Pixel Renting."  If you think of your site just like a piece of real estate, you're renting the locations to your clients.  I like to tell folks, I'll put the most successful businesses or campaigns in the locations which have the best revenue.  So, how do you determine this and level the playing field?  I do it by determing the "Revenue per Pixel" measurement.  Just like retailers figure the revenue per square foot... so should digital marketers.

Revenue per Pixel is calculated by taking the amount of revenue and dividing it by the number of pixels.

When you use this simple calculation you can create value based on location and drive the businesses to create impactful campaigns, etc.  You can run A/B tests between different business groups and use the calculation to be your tie-breaker on who gets what.

Give it a try.

Scott

You Found Me...

For those who hadn't heard... I left HP at the end of November.  A fantastic 15 year run at the largest technology company of the planet.  While there I was fortunate to work with some incredibly intelligent folks.  So given my departure I couldn't "take my HP blog with me"... so I've started up a new one.

Feel free to post comments, ask questions and pass on the blog location to others.

Scott