Qualitative Research.

We are all customers.

We all know what we appreciate as customers.

We all know what we detest.

So why don't we treat our customers as we would wish to be treated?

How To Make Spreadable Marketing.

1) Take an understood and loved tradition, something that is already social and spreadable. Like the easter egg hunt.



2) Substitute your product and prime your passionate users ahead of time.



3) Make it simple (but not easy) and include as many people as possible.



4) Let people react to your generosity of spirit.





5) Maintain personal touch until the end.

Destressing Customers.

I had to register a death last week. An uncommon event for me, but a run of the mill occurrence for the public servants providing the service. So you'd think that the anxiety level of their "customers" would be second nature to them and that any potential glitches would be approached with that in mind.

On the other hand, they might choose to retreat to a default position of ensuring that they covered themselves and their job description regardless of the customer service deficiencies that encapsulates.

It's an extreme example I know, but it has parallels in every business. Ideally, you're making sales and meeting customer needs every day whereas your customers are making those purchases far less frequently. Repetition may cause you to forget that fact. That's only natural.

But it's your job to remember each and every time how stressed your customer potentially is and how long-lasting an impression you can make by easing that stress. Or not.

Are You Talking To Me?

My local library service is changing its online offering - and is doing so by having no online presence for three weeks while they switch it over. Worse still, their warnings about this were couched in terms of the catalogue being unavailable. That might mean something to the IT guys who wrote it but to this user, it certainly didn't suggest that all functionality would vanish and one would have to trek to the library to renew one's loans.

If you're talking to your users, then

1)Speak their language, not yours. Pre-warning is no use if it's vague. In fact, it's worse than useless - it increases the likelihood of irritation.

2)Remember that any project serves the user and not vice versa. Make sure the user experience is paramount.

3)Don't sugar-coat things - detailing the downside will not put people off as much as a nasty surprise further down the line.

In other words, make it easy for them to listen.

Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store.

On my recent trip, I finally got around to making the obligatory visit to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store.

When you read about this place, you tend to read about the zany merchandise and the humour of the place. But while that's all there, what I saw was a great example of marketing to different audiences.

The store itself is designed to be remarkable. It's their display advertising aimed at people such as me who will be intrigued enough to visit and then spread the word about the store and its real purpose.

Interestingly, a number of local people with whom I spoke thought it was just a retail store and were amazed to be told that it was really a front for an after-school education programme. They'd have been even more amazed to know the minuscule amounts that the store earns every day.

But the kids who stream in to use the service are reacting to different marketing. They may well have been intrigued by the display advertising initially, but they pay it no attention now. For them, this false shelving is the marketing. It's the door to the classroom.


They're much more interested in their secret place, their ownership of that place that's inherent in their sharing in that secrecy and their knowledge of what it's giving them.

Display advertising works for some people. To really hook your users you need something more powerful. I made one visit - they keep coming back.

Glass Half Empty.

Marketing is generally focussed on encouraging people to acquire something they don't have.

But what if people are motivated more by the fear of losing something they have rather than the disappointment of not getting something new?

If people are motivated by avoiding negatives such as fear, regret or death, how do you reframe your approach?

What Questions Are you Answering?

I spent some hours yesterday critiquing the usability of a forthcoming expensive website and did so largely on the basis that the designers had not asked what journey they expected their users to be taking. So, it was particularly apposite to see Ben pointing out the excellence of Google's print dialogue box as reproduced above. A dialogue box that is designed with the user's journey/questions in mind.

Businesses provide answers for and to customers' questions. Marketing which starts with the design of your product/service should be similarly predicated on those questions. Putting yourself in the customers' shoes is what you have to do, but that does not mean asking yourself or pointless focus groups whether they would like a certain new feature.

Putting yourself in the customers' shoes is all about imagining the journey they want to take in using your product/service. It's about predicting the questions they are going to want answered and it's about making sure you answer all of them better than anyone else.