Think Basis It's Good For Business

Almost anyone who has consulted with a large number of different companies will quickly tell you there are people who “get it” and people who don’t. The unfortunate reality is that a large number of very intelligent people are still anchored exclusively to some of the more traditional marketing strategies, and either fail to understand–or see value in–even the most basic online marketing. Oftentimes the end result is a company that continues to throw money at increasingly less successful marketing efforts, while ignoring online opportunities that could be delivering a much greater ROI. The following are a few of the basic approaches I’ve witnessed firsthand from different companies when it comes to their online marketing efforts.

“Our product can only be sold by people”

For some products this might be true to an extent; however, even if the deal is never going to be closed online there’s an excellent chance your client will be visiting your website at some point during the sales process.

One particular company I worked with was convinced that their solutions could only be sold by sales reps, and neglected to make anything over $350 available to their clients for purchase online. Instead, they opted for an ambiguously worded “subscriptions starting from as low as $100 per month” and a phone number for people to call if they were interested. Right away, this alienates anyone looking to purchase during an odd hour, when the call center simply can’t be staffed. Secondly, anytime you make a statement like “from as low as…” you’re starting to anchor your prospective buyer to a dollar amount. And, when the interested party finds out that his price is actually going to be roughly three or four times the amount you anchored him to, the value in your solution is going to rapidly decrease.

Because the company was absolutely convinced their product needed to be sold over the phone rather than online, all of their marketing was centered around getting people to call in. Not surprisingly, this resulted in a large number of calls from people that were not qualified buyers, and an equal amount of email correspondence from people looking to clarify a simple pricing structure so they could determine whether it was going to be worth their time to call in the first place.

The reality of the situation was that for this particular company, their product wasn’t something that could only be sold by people. In fact, it was a fairly straightforward product. The issue was they were stuck in a model that forced customers to interact with a sales rep rather than allowing them to do their own research.

Anytime you’re working with a website that forces someone to make a phone call before completing the transaction, you need to ask yourself if the step is really necessary. What is the compelling reason to keep the person from purchasing on their own? And, more importantly, am I losing out on business because of it?

“We need to be online…”

On the opposite end from the “stubbornly old-fashioned” is the brick and mortar company that has been successfully doing business for the past X number of years and is simply trying their best to keep up with the times. These are the clients that I sometimes feel bad for, as they’re often good people that know how to run their business, know that times are changing and they need to be proactive about their online marketing if they want to stay competitive, but just don’t have any idea how to go about implementing a strategy or gauging a campaign’s success.

These are the poor business owners that end up subscribing to services that “guarantee a top 10 ranking in 100s of search engines.” Although you could easily say it’s a buyer beware scenario, they are typically small businesses in which the owner is paying out of their own pocket for whatever services they receive, and a snake oil solution with a minimal monthly cost is typically very appealing.

One company I spoke with had been working with a service for six months that was geared toward boosting their incoming leads for DUIs in a very specific geographic area. During that time, the monthly service fees continued to add up, and not a single lead was actually attributed to any of the work done by the company they had hired. All of their leads continued to be almost entirely through word of mouth and from their more traditional advertising.

For companies like this the key is to take the time to educate yourself before you commit to a long term contract. Make sure you’re clear on what the deliverables are and whether or not you’re being sold something that can actually lead to increased business. Also, if it seems like too good a deal, you might want to do a little more research before you dive right in.

“SEO = Profits”

Somewhere in between the two previous categories is the company that is educated enough to know a little bit about how the search engines work, and has even seen a reasonable amount of success already. Often these can be some of the most difficult clients to work with because they sometimes get stuck on whatever buzzword they just read an article on and fail to step back and look at the big picture. If they just read an article on social media, then that’s what they need. Never mind that it’s a local jewelry shop that does about 95 percent of their business in store. Social media is what’s hot, so they need to refocus their efforts on that.

One particular company’s CEO was practically obsessed with adding money to their SEO budget. The company had been able to generate some huge amounts of traffic and he was convinced that continuing to spend more money on SEO was going to continue to boost their online revenue. However, from listening to his explanations of what this type of strategy entailed, it became clear he didn’t completely understand what he was spending his money on and how it would actually impact the success of his company. He already had a solid hold on the keywords he needed in order to be successful, and his money would have been much better spent on tweaking the site to increase conversions.

If you fall into this group, it is important that you continue to critically examine each solution that’s brought to you, and not get wrapped up in the latest and greatest thing. If your company sells adult diapers then maybe a company blog isn’t the thing for you, even if you just heard that all the cool companies are doing it. Similarly, just because you’ve had a solid amount of success with one thing, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t constantly be looking for other things to improve and for the strategy that will give you the most bang for your buck.

“We always want to learn”

The last category is considerably harder to peg, but you know them when you see ‘em. They’re the companies that have a solid handle on what they’re doing and are constantly working on ways to improve. They’re typically the industry leaders or the up and comers that are quickly gaining a competitive edge. These are the people you talk with that end up teaching you as much as you teach them, and they tend to be relatively few and far between.

However, there are plenty of them out there, and there’s nothing holding back anyone from joining their ranks if they put in their time, educate themselves, and always have an open mind.

There are a number of things businesses do that aren’t in the best interest of the consumer. A lot of them are unavoidable offshoots of wanting to maximize profit, but some of them can be shortsighted, lazy, or even dangerous. While I’d never say some of these practices can’t be extremely successful, I would certainly argue there’s a good chance you’re sacrificing long term equity for immediate gain.

1) Trying to Prey on Fear

Plenty of companies thrive on using a consumer’s fear of missing out on the product they’re after by using a manufactured scarcity to push people over the buying threshold. Suddenly the car that’s been sitting on the lot for six months has “several other potential buyers” as soon as you express some interest. Similarly, Gamestop insists you pre-order your games despite the fact that they’ll have dozens of additional copies laying around the store, and has even gone as far as refusing to sell these extras to customers in an effort to instill the value of pre-ordering.

While this strategy might be successful in the short term, it commoditizes the sale and reduces or eliminates customer loyalty. By manufacturing scarcity you encourage your customers to snatch up the product they want as soon as they find it, and it’s likely your competitors will be the beneficiaries.

I was recently in the market for a new bike, and as such, completely expected a certain amount of “used car type sales tactics” that would eventually culminate in someone asking me, “What can I do to get you on this bike today?” Shockingly, I was met with the total opposite, and the sales force practically bent over backwards to prevent me from making a hasty decision. They made some recommendations, helped me narrow it down to two, and then said they’d hold both of them for me so I could come back when it was sunny out and take them both on a “proper ride.” No pressure, no mention of possibly selling the bike I wanted while I was mulling over my decision. The end result is I now have a stronger allegiance to that particular retailer than I probably should…and a sweet new bike.

2) The Perpetual “Ending Soon” Sale

Every city seems to have a furniture store that has been going out of business for the past three years. The commercial shouts about how you better “hurry in this weekend, because everything must go!” The logic is sound enough. Everyone loves a good deal, so if you make people think you’re having an incredible sale for a “limited time only” they will come running. The only problem is, after two-plus-years of the same ploy the sale means absolutely nothing. Not only that, it has now devalued everything in the store to the point where if it’s not on sale, there is no reason anyone would want to buy it.

Allposters.com is a prime example of the perpetual sale. Here’s the last six months worth of sales offers I’ve received:

While the constant barrage of emails have (arguably) kept them “top of mind,” the offers are pretty meaningless and eventually just turn into noise.

Contrast this with Active.com’s considerably more intermittent–and product specific–offers that still maintain some “top of mind” value but don’t give me the expectation that anything I purchase through them should always be at a discounted price.

Granted, the immediate response to any individual offer will probably be less for the second example. However, the long term results will be more items sold at full retail and higher conversions during times when there is no sale being offered.

3) Arbitrary Product Release Dates

Small tech companies seem to be the biggest offender of this particular consumer letdown. Although premiering your latest product at a conference or having a usable demo ready for a board meeting is good in theory, it’s still useful to remember there’s a lot of truth in the whole “one chance at a first impression” philosophy. Ask cuil. Although balancing the strains of needing to drive profits with the need to deliver a quality product is always going to be a challenge, it’s hard to recover from an underwhelming product launch or an application that was hurried into production and doesn’t deliver on the vision you promised.

At a previous company I witnessed firsthand an incredibly disappointing product launch resulting from decisions to start selling something that simply wasn’t ready for consumers. Without going into too much detail, I will say the decision to rush to market had a lot to do with VC funding and a desire to show dramatic revenue growth over the previous year. However, after watching the product devolve from its original scope into a neutered version that could “be ready by January,” it became abundantly clear that none of this was for the benefit of customers.

The end result of this major product launch was an underwhelming amount of sales, a continued retooling of the product that resulting in halting all sales efforts for a one month period, and a number of dissatisfied customers that had been sold a product failing to live up to its initial value proposition.

Obviously it’s ridiculous to think you can keep moving something back indefinitely while you fine tune it to perfection (unless you’re Blizzard). However, if you’re honest about the reasons for your “drop-dead” release date, it might just be better to cope with some internal disappointment upfront to avoid a public disappointment when you launch.

4) Strict Adherence to “Corporate Policy”

While having policies and best practices in place is always a sound idea, failing to allow for some old-fashioned common sense and good judgment can be a huge mistake. Sure, it can be easier to hide behind a generic policy, but when it’s taken too far you’re left with instances like Jo-Ann Fabrics’ refusal to let a customer use the bathroom, or Bed Bath and Beyond not letting a customer use a phone to dial 9-1-1.

This seems like a head smackingly obvious statement, but by filling your organization with quality employees who are empowered to sidestep “company policy” when all common sense and human decency is telling them to do so, you’re sending a much stronger signal to your customers.

Like I said earlier, there are plenty of successful businesses that do some (or all) of these things, and I’m not saying these can’t be profitable (the first three at least). However, as a long-term strategy, and in an increasingly competitive environment, taking a step back every once in a while and making sure your customers’ best interests are aligned with your own isn’t a bad way to do business.

Not all of my ideas are good. In fact, every now and again they’ve been known to fall into the “let’s just go burn some money” category of foolishness. That’s the slot reserved for glorified pet projects with a minimal chance of providing even a marginal return on investment. Fortunately, I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by people that are willing (if not suspiciously eager) to tell me when my ideas are absolute “shit on a shingle.”

Obviously nobody really wants to hear their fantastic new idea might not be marketable, useful, or even possible. But, having a core group of friends and colleagues to keep things in perspective can be absolutely invaluable during those instances when your judgment is clouded by excitement or personal bias. As tempting as it is to surround yourself with people who praise everything you do, it rarely brings about a positive result.

The following is a handy chart illustrating my point:

As the number of people who politely agree with you goes up, so too does your confidence, resulting in an increased likelihood of executing your own bad idea. The end result is a false confidence surrounding a plan that should have been either tweaked, improved on, or nixed entirely if you’d been open to criticism.

With that in mind, here are a few simple reasons why you should try to encourage an open dialogue and embrace whatever feedback you get even when you strongly disagree.

1) It forces you to defend your own opinion

Regardless of whether you agree with someone’s criticisms, actively listening to their concerns and engaging in a dialogue forces you to articulate some of the finer points you might have initially glossed over when you were formulating your idea. If you find yourself unable to clearly explain how you formed your opinion in the first place, it’s usually a good indicator that you need to take a step back and do some more deliberating before rushing forward with any major decisions.

2) It can provide an unemotional perspective

It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of a particular project and fail to notice that not everyone shares your enthusiasm. Although you might be totally amped about turning the internet on its ass with your new search engine that only delivers one result, you can use the blank stares and “stupid questions” you get every time you tell someone else about your idea as a barometer for how successful it’s likely to be.

3) You often identify additional problem areas that could otherwise go overlooked

Sometimes when you’re riding the wave of an awesome idea it’s easy to overlook the core business questions you still need to identify when considering a new project. Basic questions like “Who are our competitors?”, “Is this marketable?” and “What is the ROI?” Having other people around to remind you that these are important things to consider can save you from jumping to action before you’ve done the necessary research to build a foundation for success.

4) It keeps you grounded

Lastly, even if you’re “the boss” and the decision rests in your hands, it provides a great reality check that you’re still working toward making the most informed decisions possible. If you’ve done your job and surrounded yourself with people whose opinions you value and trust, then during instances when you’re met with almost universal opposition it should certainly give you reason to pause.

This isn’t to say you need to tailor your every decision to what’s most popular among the group. It’s just that no matter how wrapped up you get in your own opinions and ideas, you can always benefit from listening to what others have to say. As much fun as it is to berate people who disagree with you and tell them they “just don’t get it,” it’s usually not overly productive.

If you’re not convinced, feel free to tell me that you think I’m full of shit. I will listen politely, defend my position, and then silently hate you forever.

Too much is said about the ulterior motives of some of the submissions on social media sites. From time to time, great content has been called out by people in the community as being “spam” simply because it has a commercial agenda. To me it seems like judging a piece of content based on what its creator hopes to gain is pretty much on par with boycotting a movie because you don’t want the director to make any money. The bottom line is that if you find the content interesting, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to go around complaining about what’s going to happen as a result. Quality is quality and you might as well just enjoy it.

This isn’t to say that there’s not a huge amount of stuff being promoted that is both weak and heavily commercial, it’s just to point out that commercial doesn’t always equal bad. I for one, will never get tired of watching Terry Tate level an unsuspecting colleague.

So, in that vein, here are a few pieces of content I’ve come across (or been “force-fed”) over the past several months that I’d never have found if it hadn’t been for some savvy company leveraging social media to deliver me a subtle advertisement which I happily consumed.

Thule Trail

Despite seeing this a little over a year ago, it still resonates as a great example of what you can do with a relatively straightforward product and a lot of creativity. Thule is probably best known for their ski and bike racks, and–through what must have been some brilliant brainstorming–decided to remake everyone’s favorite elementary school classic The Oregon Trail as modern road trip across the country. The result is an ingenious game that has minimal ties to their product line, but does a considerable amount toward branding their product. Also, it’s a lot of fun.

How Long Could You Survive Chained to a Bunk Bed with a Velociraptor?

Easily the most bizarre of the four, this amusing quiz showed that with a little ingenuity you can take a topic as boring as bunk beds and just add a carnivorous dinosaur to the equation. It’s another great example of a company providing light-hearted content that helps distinguish their brand, but also offers a bit of fun for a huge amount of people that have absolutely no need to ever buy their product.

Salary Madness – 2008 March Madness Predictions By the Dollars

When the NCAA tournament brackets were announced back in March of this year, PayScale, a salary information resource, had the idea of using some of their data to forecast the tourney based on the median salaries of the school’s graduates. Since there’s a natural curiosity surrounding how much money people make, this was a great way for them to capitalize on something that was topical while also showcasing the core strength of their service. It hardly matters that the site itself offers subscriptions, because this was a quick piece of content that could be enjoyed without even taking the time to find out what it is they do.

The Eight Phases of Dating

With some incredibly successful linkbait and an increasing notoriety among social media communities, the dating site Mingle2 has gotten a decent amount of flack from some users that apparently object to having anything they’re looking at tied in with a service they don’t want to subscribe to. Here’s one user’s comment on the Eight Phases of Dating comic:

Admittedly, this one was harsher than most, but it does show the unwarranted disdain some people have for all things commercial. Contrast that with the similarly themed XKCD comic, that will likely receive little flack because it has no specific call to action on the page.

It seems as if many users don’t typically equate sites that rely on ad revenue as having just as much of a commercial interest as those promoting a product or service, and Digg has even gone as far as banning some retail driven websites altogether.

It’s probably not the most mind blowing take away, but it’s hard to look at the above pieces of content and say they don’t have some entertainment value as a stand-alone from the product or service they’re promoting. There’s no reason why each piece of content shouldn’t be judged on its own merit. Anyone should be more than welcome to promote their content across whatever social media sites they choose, they just need to be damn sure they make it interesting enough to stand on its own, because if it’s linked to a commercial site then it’s going to be an uphill battle.