Why Best Practices Are Not

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.

Brand Permanence

Brand Permanence is an important strategy that many companies tend to forget, especially when changes in the advertising industry, consumer behavior and world economy are on all of their minds. Companies may change their identity, not just what their logo looks like (Pepsi), but what their company is all about (Dunkin’ Donuts’ paninis). Many companies are adopting new business models and communications tactics in the wake of the socialization of the web (web2.0). Many are significantly pulling back on their marketing efforts during the economic crisis. Not all of this is good.

What is Brand Permanence? It is a simple matter of staying true to who you are as a brand and staying relevant and present in consumers’ lives.

Obviously, pulling back on marketing may seem smart from a purely numbers perspective, but once your brand leaves the collective conscience, your competitors fill the space. The precedent for this couldn’t be anymore clear. Not to say that brands shouldn’t be looking at ways to reduce costs, just that they shouldn’t axe their marketing, stick their head inthe sand, and hope that things will go back to the way they are.

Customer loyalty is hard enough to come by without muddling your brand. Both Pepsi and Tropicana (owned by Pepsico) have recently changed their logos, the later of which was recently rturned to the original once it was found that it confused customers in stores. When a consumer thinks of your brand, they think about your logo, your product history, your customer service. If they aren’t consistant, neither will your customer loyalty be. Coke’s logo was created in 1885, Pepsi’s was created in 1898. Since the late 1800’s the Pepsi logo has changed 11 times. Coke’s logo has never changed. Guess which is considered the #1 carbonated beverage?

It would seem strange that a product with a logo designed by a bookkeeper in 1885 would still appeal to the youth of today, but that was the original intent of the Coke logo and it’s simpe red and white scheme. Apple computers has had, essentially, the same logo since 1976, the bitten apple. While the color scheme and stylized treatment has changed slightly, the essential, simple, bitten apple has remained the logo for the company for over 30 years. But it isn’t just Apple’s logo which has remained consistent. Apple’s commitment to building better digital products to enhance users lives. From the first bulky desktop to the latest version of the iPhone, this committment to enhancing customers’ lives through electronic devices has remained intact as has their committment to customer service.

These last two points are the most important: staying true to your core product or service values and customer service. BMW and Mercedes Benz have long been considered consumer favorites and maintain Top 10 slots as European brands. BMWs 1917 logo design remains, as does Mercedes Benz’ 1909 logo design. But their consitency as quality engineered luxury vehicles is what helps them dominate mindhsare.

New England born Dunkin’ Donuts has been a favorite of coffee drinkers since I’ve been alive. They have remain loyal to their original logo, but recently havee been trying to compete with Starbucks and Panera. From all accounts (I don’t drink coffee), adding paninis to their menu and fireplaces to their stores, has only made their coffee worse, and their donuts stale. So, despite arguements to the contrary, Dunkin’ Donuts has muddled their brand permanence by changing their core values.

In 30 years Microsoft has made one change to their logo, but at times has been confused by it’s core values and faltered in customer service. That has helped Apple, take a bit out of Microsoft’s mindshare. Google, who, in just over 10 years has only removed an exclamation from their logo, but has consistently improved their product and brought more services under the auspice of providing users with easy to use access to outside data. We’ll see how they and Microsoft stat true to their core values, honor their brand, maintain customer service, and stay visible over the coming decades.

While most of the brands mentioned will weather these debacles, if only because they’ve been around so long, they offer lessons to new businesses. Your branding, at least the part you control (the perception of your brand belongs to the user), isn’t something to slap together. Really focus on your values as a company, create a mark that will represent your goals and identity, be consistent with how you interact with your audience, and always maintain good customer service.

Give Your Customers What They Want

While work continues on Gathr.me, I spend alot of time thinking about what users, my customers, will want out of the product. I often blatantly ask, sometimes I just listen. My goal is to develop a product that my users will love. There has been alot of talk among the partners about the need for a desktop version of Gathr.me. Sure, beyond the web and mobile versions, a desktop version seems less important, but it will be important to the users who want a desktop version. That is why we are building Gathr.me in such a way as to accommodate any current platform and device, as well as trying to imagine future ways in which people will want to interface with us.

To make my life easier (or to keep me working everywhere), I’ve been looking at netbooks. Since I’m unemployed, pricing is a huge consideration or I’d just buy a MacBook Pro. Instead, these $2-400 netbooks will fill the gap and allow me to work without being chained to my desk. Of course, I’ve already researched which I can hack and load the Mac OS onto the easiest. Sounds extreme huh? To buy a perfectly good computer, whipe out the Windows OS and replace it with the Mac one? Not if you’ve used the Mac OS, or all your other devices are Mac. But this isn’t the point. The point is, that because Mac doesn’t make a netbook, and I can’t afford their laptops, I’m going to put in the extra work to create a Macenstein of my own. From my research I’ve found this to be a VERY large community. Which begs the question, why isn’t Mac making a netbook? Mac has said they don’t want to play in this space, because it is immature and the current product offerings suck. Odd, I don’t remember their being alot of great mp3 players before the iPod. Sure there were some, but they all kinda sucked. So why isn’t Apple giving their customers what they want? Maybe they just don’t know them well enough?

Speaking of which: I’ve thought for a long time that brands need to get to know their customers better. Social Media provides a great opportunity for this. My car manufacturer, sends me a notice every time I need to check something on my car. But retailers I use, like Target, iTunes, Home Depot, Borders, have ramped up their emails to sell me stuff. Don’t they know I’m unemployed? Facebook, MySpace and other social networks I belong to beat me over the head with singles ads, despite the fact that I’ve been with the same woman for 10 years. Do they know something I don’t, or do they just not know anything?

Even smaller groups targeting me don’t know me well. Today I got my ubiquitous email from Chris Brogan. He is one of a handful of blogs I am subscribed to. Oddly, this email was a subscription drive. If I’m already subscribed, after all, h has my email, why would he need to push me to subscribe? I’m assuming this is some kind of technical glitch, after all, he’s a pretty savvy web2.0 kinda guy.

All of these cases represent the same issue: not giving customers what they want, or giving them what they don’t want or need. This is usually caused by demographics, shallow research, or basing your business model on the “average customer”, not all of your customers. It’s obvious that brands, large or small, need to look at their customers, get to know them better, and deliver products, solutions and communications that they’re asking for.

Focus Groups Are a Waste of Time

I’m sure I’ll get some old-school marketers to vehemantly deny the truth of this fact, but focus groups are a waste of time. To be more specific, if you’re looking for honest feedback, or real world testing, don’t waste your time and sandwiches on focus groups. If you’re looking to cover your ass with your client, water down your campaign, turn your product into a toy, make deli runs, play with a video camera, by all means: assemble your group.

There are reasons why focus groups are a waste of time:

Real World It’s Not – unless your product is meant to be used in a conference room by overly critical office workers who probably have no interest in it, a focus group is far from a real world consumer/product interaction.

Group Dynamics – anyone who has taken a sociology or psychology class knows that when you put someone in a strange environment with strangers, they will not be themselves. Some will clam up, play stupid, some will try to dominate the group, even say the opposite of what they think. You will see hyper-critical feedback, even negative solely based on the fact that they’ve been asked to judge.

Inappropriate Audience – if Steve Jobs had sat down a group of people to steer development of the iPod, we’d still be using a discman. Chances are that most focus groups do not represent your target audience. Even if they do, they may dislike your product simply because they’ve never seen it or their cool friends don’t gave one. Focus groups don’t take into account influencers.

Education – if you are good at what you do; experienced, talented, skilled, educated: why do you need a roomful of people that have nothing to do for lunch telling you how to redesign your product or reshoot your commercial?

Crowdsourcing – the Internet will give you much more honest feedback, in quantity. Launch your campaign or product, see what people are saying about it and how they are using it, then build that into version 2.

Examples of focus group decisions:
New Tropicana packaging
New Pepsi logo

Examples of not using focus groups:
Twitter
iPod

Thoughts?

This Isn’t Your Father’s Marketing

Until very recently business followed a specific plan of engagement with consumers. Beginning with print, then radio, television then the Internet, communications were a one way street. Over the last 15 or so years, all of the existing channels were used to drive traffic to a brand’s website.

As web2.0 behavior and technology evolved brand engagement has changed. It is no longer centered around the brand but around the consumer. At this point the consumer is still receiving your brand messages through the traditional PR, TV, print, radio, web channels, but mostly they are interacting with the web and mobile. They are interacting with radio, TV and PR, rather than just receiving messaging. They are also interacting with social networks, text messengers, blogs, media (video, images, audio) all through desktop applications, web browsers and handheld devices.

Smart brands are engaging consumers at each of these points. As everyone knows, there are more channels of engagement as well as more brands, making it a fight for attention.

This makes it as important as every, to not only be EVERYWHERE your customers are, but to not cop out and do what the other guy is doing. I’ve met with dozens of brands and heard the same reply: who else has done it, prove the outcome, that’s too risky for us, it’s just a fad. Sure, you can wait for the other network to do a Facebook app, ou can wait to see if another manufacturer fails or succeeds on Twitter, but where will that get you? The brands that take the risks, that try the new things, that don’t just follow the crowd, are the ones that grab mindshare by the handful and leave you trailing in their wake.

So, be the brand that stands out, or be the one that gets left behind.

The Breakfast Club Proves that Demographics are Flawed

I‘ve sat through dozens of meetings with clients in which the talked about how they were looking to engage a specific demographic. “We’re going after 30-something women”, “Our product is targeting 14-18 year old boys”, “Our audience in 40-something moms with a household income of $75,000″.

Seriously?

I remember high school quite vividly, unfortunately, but that’s another story. If an apparel company was really trying to reach 14-28 year old boys, they better have a damned diverse collection (they didn’t). Which 14-18 year old boys? The jocks, the rockers, the stoners, the shop kids, the ivy leaguers, the geeks, the bullies, the rich boys, the poor boys, the virgins, the Grateful Dead fans? Unless they were going to get ridiculously granular (they weren’t), about 5% of their target audience was going to care about them. That means 95% of their marketing budget was wasted. This goes for all demographics. A loose collection of commonalities such as gender, age, education, finances, etc., don’t determine an audience.

The Breakfast Club

The 80 movie, The Breakfast Club, followed the Saturday afternoon antics of 5 high school students, 3 boys and 2 girls. None of them could be more dissimilar:

Rich girl with body image issues, stoner with abusive father, jock with guilt over bullying, suicidal geek, goth loner

Is this the demographic of boys and girls 14-18? Other than being human and in high school, what did they have no common?

Psychographic

BMW Marketing VP Jack Pitney recently said that they focus on psychographic, or common interest to target their audience, which could be an 8-year old boy or 58-year old woman. As long as they both are fans of BMW, they are the target. So, rather than wasting money on those who would never buy their product, they focus on those who would. They even focus marketing on those who have, the develop a stronger brand bond. This serves to incentivize their customers to evangelize the brand.

A Case Study

A case study of mine bears this out. In 2007 an outdoor product retailer wanted to promote an award winning product. I created a very earthy, rough microsite and accompanying social media engagement with matching visuals and messaging. The microsite was built in Flash, had many interactive features, videos, polls, etc. While site visit length was high, the conversion rate was high, even our Google visibility was high. Our visits were not. After all, it was a niche product. The client was not happy with the volume of traffic for the site, which had been live for only a few weeks, and decided to hire an SEO firm to “optimize” it (no this is not a hit to SEO and SEM, after all, we already did our own SEO and SEM to capture the top spots for our product and company name).

The SEO company recommended we redesign the site with a much cleaner and more text heavy look with lots of keywords like “buy now” and “only$69″. The SEO included hundreds of content pages geared toward outdoor activities, only a half dozen of which actually related to the product. The upshot was that web traffic increased dramatically. However, the downside was that time on site diminished rapidly and conversions shrank. Why? The site no longer targeted our niche of customers who were actually interested in the product. It targeted everyon interested in the great outdoors. Quality leads were exchanged for increased quantity of unqualified leads. The demographic? People who do things outdoors. Our original psychographics? People who wanted to buy “X”.

As consumers take more and more control of brands, as belts tighten, most brands will continue to mass market to demographics, rather than laser target influencers according to psychographics. Those that spend more to target fewer will see better results.

It Costs More To Make Less: Sorry!

Money is tight for everyone right now, from companies to families to the government. I’m no economic expert so I won’t go into the stupidity that got us here, but I would like to bring a few facts to your attention that have a direct connection to advertising.

It’s obvious that an economic slump will mean consumers will be spending less. But consumers were spending less before the recession hit. Today’s family of 4 have less to spend than their parents did a generation ago. The following chart was created based on figures from Pew Internet Research and various government web site statistics. It’s easy to see how household income, even with the addition of a second income earner, have not kept pace with the necessary costs of living, cutting into the discretionary income left over.

The upshot of this is that consumers have far less to spend on goods and services. That means they are much more particular about those that they do choose to spend their money on. What does this mean for brands attempting conversion: you will need to be much more visible and much more engaged with consumers, in other words, be prepared to spend more money and more time.

New Mobile Statistics: Search & Local

The Kelsey Group released new research statistics centering on mobile, specifically local and online. Kelsey’s Mobile Local Media Forecast (2008-2013) shows a 130.5% growth rate for local mobile search and an 81.2% growth for overall mobile ad revenues.

Search and display revenues are projected to jump from $160 million in 2008 to $3.1 billion by 2013.

Local search advertising is expected to jump from $20 million to $1.28 billion over the same time frame.

The upshot of this information is that while mobile use is certainly growing, be it gaming, multimedia use, or banking, the largest growth is local. What does this mean for local business? They can’t keep phoning it in! Small and medium local businesses are far behind large businesses in their attention to online marketing. While 82% of consumers use search engines for local business information, those local businesses focus less than 10% of their marketing budget toward web strategies. It will be important for them to start thinking broader, if not bigger. There are a plethora of location based tools being launched on a weekly basis for mobile, specifically the iPhone that are starving for content. While businesses should be looking at mobile strategies, those development companies need to be approaching small and medium size businesses with localized offerings, not just going after the Walmarts of the world.

Mobile is in upheaval. Great growth is anticipated, yet even basic mobile sites aren’t available for most retailers. This is something that inspired a bit of a rant from me recently considering I couldn’t find one retailer with a mobile site but I have one!

Mike Boland’s “Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity” claims that searches for local information at 27.8% in 2008 is expected to grow to 35.1% by 2013. The revenue from these searches was already at 50.3% in 2008 and expected to continue to grow to 56.1% by 2013.

According to Boland,we can expect to see a growth from 54.5 million mobile webusers to 63.6-73 million just this year, with a growth of handsets from 266.4 million to 274.7 million. With only a quarter of mobile users accessing the web, you have to ask yourself, why such a low percentage? There are a few possibilities: confusing or expensive data rate plans, lack of knowledge, or lack of mobile presence. While lack of knowledge about mobile Internet access is rampant, only telecoms and businesses themselve are to blame for lack of presence and high prices.

While the nuymber of handsets will most likely plateau by 2013 as most experts expect a saturation point, phones will continue to improve as multi-tasking devices and more users will be accessing more features. Just this next year mobile ad revenues are expected to double to $330 million, $720 million in 2010, $1.54 billion in 2011, and $2.26 billion in 2012. U.S. mobile search ad revenues alone are expected to grow from $20 million in 2008 to $242 million in 2010, $564 million in 2011, and $905 million in 2012.

It’s a good time to be in the mobile industry. Are you?

SoMe, SEO/SEM, Mobile: Measurement Required

Whether your company or client is engaging in social media, mobile or SEO, or waiting to see if the fad becomes a business model (which at this point means you’ve missed the boat), measurement is key. I’ve commented many times before that no matter what tactics you use, strategies haven’t changed since the birth of marketing. Some new figures released by the 2009 B2B Vertical Search Report back that up.

• 47% of respondents are more likely than last year to be using widgets (desktop or in-browser) that provide customized internet marketing and business information, compared to 35% of internet marketing professionals a year ago
• More than half of survey respondents report that their businesses are using SaaS for email (77%), web hosting (74%), sales and marketing (62%), CMS (59%), file and assets storage (57%), search (57%) and ad serving (51%)

Many businesses are increasing some of their ad spend:

• 78% of advertisers are planning to raise their spending on CPA (cost-per-action/acquisition) formats this year
• 67% plan to increase spending on cost-per-lead (CPL) ads
• Just under half will increase spending on cost-per-click (CPC)
• 29% say that their spending on CPM (cost-per-mille /online display advertising) will increase this year

Most are using the information, specifically concerning search, to their benefit:

• 53% of publishers surveyed incorporate “basic” search site features on their site, compared with 41% who have integrated “more sophisticated” search tools
• 6% have no site search features on their website at all
• 37% of publishers use in-house technology for site search
• 22% use search embedded within the content management system
• 17% use licensed technology
• 15% use freeware such as open source technology
• 33% of publishers surveyed offer the ability to search third-party content from their website
• 18% of publishers are planning to implement this in the future
• 91% of publishers surveyed make use of search log analytics
• 28% refer to search logs frequently
• 36% say they derive strategic value from search log analytics
• 26% of internet marketing professionals use their mobile/cell phone for searching at least once a day, and 18% use their mobile device for a work-related search at least daily
• 75% of respondents say that the quality of the mobile search experience is average or poor, compared to only 25% who say that it is excellent or good

The upshot of this is that measurement is key. There is already a great deal about the measureability of social media. SEO and SEM have been around much longer, this explains the plethora of measurement tools available. It also explains their waining effectiveness and cost. As those of us who do social media marketing for a living work out the best practices, more tools for measurement will become available. Expect to see an explosion of tools such as TRAACKR to be popping up through the course of 2009.

Are You Giving Consumers What They Want?

The days of cornering a market with a product are over: there are too many products and too many ways to get them. The days of creating in a vacuum are over as well: consumers want to be involved in how you develop your products. The days of selling your product where and how you want are DEFINATELY over.

While social media has been everyone’s buzz AND bash target of late, how can you argue with stats like these:

85% believe a company should not only be present in, but also interact with its consumers via social media.

I‘d like to layoff social media for this post and focus on 1 thing that has been boggling my mind of late when it comes to retail:

Why don’t you have a mobile site?

40% of mobile users have Internet access (likely to triple in the next 3 years). That’s 546 MILLION people! If you’re in charge of marketing for a retailer and a mobile website is not part of your IMMEDIATE strategy, you should be fired. You just cost your company 546 million potential customers. A mobile site is not complicated, as a matter of fact it is a much less complicated site than a regular website. SInce you’re limited in the amount of information you can show, and bandwidth is limited, it’s easier to narrow your offerings down to basics like contact, store finder, etc. Good God man, my site even has a mobile version!

In recent weeks I’ve  been doing last minute baby and house shopping. I’ll often find myself wondering if something is in stock at another branch of Lowe’s, where the closest Office Max is, are there specials on diapers, etc. How often do you think I’ve been able to access a mobile site? Right, never. I’ll admit that I’m an early adopter, cash permitting, but I’ve had an iPhone for over a year now. But that also makes me a more frequent user AND proponent to my sphere of influence. Do you really want to ignore me?

• Half of iPhone users responded to a mobile ad in some way
• iPhone users call an 800 number, the most common call-to-action, twice as often as non-iPhon users
• 20% of iPhone users visit a mobile website compared to 14% of non-iPhone users
• 25% of iPhone users purchased a product or visited the store of a mobile marketer

So, for those retailers out there without a mobile site, next time you don’t make your quarterly numbers, look to the marketing guy. After all, what better way to differentiate yourself from your competitor than to be more accessible to your customers?

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