Why Best Practices Are Not
February 15, 2010 by Michael Durwin
Filed under Featured, Marketing & Advertising, Social Media
I hear the terms “best practices” and “think-outside-the-box” quite a bit, from colleagues, to vendors, to clients. The problem is, even thought I hear them in the same sentence, they are exact opposites. “Best practices” is a set of standard to be applied to any scenario, in other words: a cookie cutter solution, or an off-the-rack suit. Outside-the-box thinking is a new solution not based on existing standards, a custom suit. While I often find that clients and vendors say “outside-the-box”, they don’t really mean it, they mean something clever that is still very much in-the-box. I get it. I don’t blame them, an economy like the current one isn’t exactly a fertile place for people to take risks.
“Best practices” is a bit more disturbing. The term is being used as a value proposition or a differentiator more and more. The problem is that the world has changed. Social media has changed it. I’m not talking about Twitter and Facebook, or any of the technological aspects of social media, I’m talking about users. How a consumer interacts with a brand or vendor has changed, not just online, but in every facet of their lives. Consumers want communications on their terms. Users won’t just watch your commercial and go to your stored to make their purchase. They’ll Google for reviews, they compare prices, they’ll tweet for feedback, they jump to another brand because they had a better mobile site or switch stores because they got a coupon in the mail that day. People understand the power of the Internet and understand that they can get personalized attention. That understanding has led them to be more critical of customer service not just online or by phone but in brick and mortar stores.
How do you stand by “best practices” when there is so much diversity in the abilities, needs, and desires of your audience? How do you do it when your brand is not like other brands? I read a recent blog on “best practices” that claimed the optimal screen size for a web site’s design should be 1024×768. Well, my mother’s computer would only support 800×600, my go to web browser is 320×356. So, which is the standard? The fact is, none are. Lazy developers, designers, and marketers like to fall back on “best practices” so they don’t have to do the work of getting to know their audience, or to avoid developing multiple options for different audiences. This blog is set up for 1024×768 as well as 320×356. That’s because I know my audience has a fairly new computer (2-3 years old) or a mobile device.
This is just an example of the problem with “best practices” from a technical web design standpoint, now think about social media. Twitter has alot of trouble telling us how many active users they have. Some access Twitter via www.twitter.com, others through any number of third party sites, desktop and mobile apps, and some through SMS. If this creates a nightmare of technical issues, think about the millions that use Twitter, their interests, their lifestyle, their content, their intentions, their networks. Think about the idea of transparency. That’s a big buzz word among social media experts. It is claimed to be one of the tenants of social media best practices. I just had a lengthy discussion (lengthy for Twitter anyway) with another Boston social media strategist about content of social media. He claimed that venting publicly about your insecurities was a sure way to lose business. In that respect, transparency is not a best practice, clearly you should not be transparent about your insecurities. But as another user commented, this is hypocritical. The originator of the comment claimed that it was fine for Twitter but not for a corporate blog (though Senator McCain would probably disagree with transparency on Twitter being okay). Even just in this one opinion there are significant differences in what is considered best practices on Twitter and best practices on a blog. However, if you’ve found that being honest and open is actually goof for business, how does best practices apply? It doesn’t.
The fact is that everyone is becoming a marketer, if not for their business, then for themselves. And everyone is a consumer, even businesses. Each has to define it’s own strategy according to it’s audience, goals, mission statement, desires, etc. What works for some on Twitter doesn’t work for others on Twitter. Your Facebook widget isn’t going to work on QZone. What feels comfortable for some individuals and brands in social media, doesn’t sit well with others. A soft-sell marketing strategy works for some industries but not others.
So, take your “best practices” and put them back “in-the-box” where they belong because some times you DO have to reinvent the wheel.
Michael,
YOU WROTE: “A soft-sell marketing strategy works for some industries but not others.”
You imply in what you say that Soft Sell is a tactic such that it is not universally applicable.
And given that you’ve been working with branding and communication for 13 years I’m not surprised you’d see Soft Sell that way.
However, when Soft Sell is viewed, not as a tactic, but as a way of being in the marketplace, a vision opens for much greater application to all industries.
Fundamental to the Soft Sell, heart-based, conscious marketing approach is a commitment to how people should be treated – with consciousness and conscience, care and consideration. That applies to all industries.
If someone in some industry refuses to accept Soft Sell – either as a practitioner of Soft Sell or a receiver of someone’s Soft Sell approach – that’s the fault of that individual not of that industry.
Business is shifting, evolving toward a more respectful relationship with the client or customer, and Soft Sell, love-based marketing is emerging as the most financially and emotionally profitable point of view that benefits both the seller and the buyer.
In our book – “The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back” – we describe love-based marketing as what the future holds.
Jim Sniechowski
http
Jim
While it may be in a perfect world that the soft sell is all you need, can you see your local auto dealer applying it to get the same results as their typical hard sell? How about Bob’s Furniture? How about every company that does DR commercials, send coupons, direct mail, or has a billboard.
The point of the article is that no single solution works for every company, person or industry. Can you see Lockheed/Martin using soft sell or “heart-marketing” to win a new stealth destroyer contract from the Navy?
You said “when Soft Sell is viewed, not as a tactic, but as a way of being in the marketplace”: isn’t “a way of being in the marketplace” a tactic derived from a strategy?
I don’t disagree that it’d be nice if everything came as a soft sell, but it doesn’t. Do you use store coupons or shop for items on sale? That’s a hard sell.
It’s interesting – I always thought of best practices as the lowest common denominator – “this is the minimum everyone does”. I like to read them and then adjust them to my brand.
Which brings me to your question “How do you do it when your brand is not like other brands?” – isn’t that the whole point of doing marketing? Your brand HAS to be different from others, by definition. Marketing’s job is to tell a compelling story and through that, make the brand stand out. In essence, marketing’s job is to create a purple cow (Seth Godin’s term, not mine) :) You will never create a purple cow by just following best practices.
REALLY good point. If you follow a standard how do you stand out?
I see now that this could have been a much shorter post!
Micheal, you bring up some great points. I often talk about wanting to develop best practices for social media, but I think of it as a constant exploratory process. The platforms are all nascent so there are no tried and true tactics – yet. But for digital marketing tools and practices that are more mature, such as search optimization and email outreach, there are definitely some best practices. Granted, those are always evolving as well, but there are fewer uncertainties than there are with social media marketing.
I think all marketers should strive to develop best practices (which may be category-specific since there are so many digital moving pieces these days) because this is what businesses need. The only thing marketers have to sell is a reasonable certainty that if they do X, then Y will happen.
I think my most important (and exciting) job as a marketer is to get inside people’s heads to figure out the X and Y; i.e., what do prospects care about and what will they will respond to? And this should be the basis of best practices – not the functionality of tools and platforms. But the only way to gain an understanding of what might work among all the new online media options is to live, eat, sleep and breathe the culture. And that is a daunting task few marketers have, as of yet, been willing to take on.
@CarriBugbee
Social Profiles: http://www.CarriBugbee.com
Carri,
I think the very nature of Social Media precludes it from standards. You mention that there aren’t best practices yet, however, Social Media has been around as long as email.
I disagree that tactics such as SEO and Email have best practices. There isn’t even a best practice of WHEN to send an email! I get HTML and non-HTML emails, which is adhering to best practices? As for SEO, put 10 SEO experts in a room and you’ll get 12 answers to each question. If brands were still focused on broadcasting their message at users, this post would be irrelevant, but since marketing is no so hyper-focused, and on-on-one, how can you define standards? Would you market to myself and my brothers the same way? We’re all Durwin’s, we all grew up together, we’re all white, middle-class, and online.
Michael,
Great post. The only “formula” is that there is no formula. We live in a long-tailed world of individuals who are flooded with more messages and choices than ever before. Marketing is all about engaging people and communities around an offering. As a result, it is complex and co-evolving, and only as uniform as our relationships are with one another. The good news is that while “best practices” have splintered, we’re increasingly being provided with an ever-growing arsenal of creative ways to connect with our targets. I think like you, that’s not cause to lament, but to celebrate.
Chris Brogan wrote a blog loosely along the same lines today. You might find it interesting:
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/custom-is-everything-do-you-agree