No Secrets In Marketing.

Jeffre nicely skewers a domain name seller for being so transparent in their upselling motivation that they inadvertantly announce it in their url.

This doesn't just apply to the online world of course. Everything you do is noticed somewhere by someone and, if it's noteworthy, it will be repeated. All the more reason to ensure it's noteworthy for positive reasons.

Innocent AGM.

On Saturday, I attended Innocent's first AGM. One of their founders told me that the key to success is making a good product. I, of course, agree that it's that simple (and that difficult). They also have insightful labelling.

It was nine years ago today that they sold their first smoothie. Today they sell more than 100 million. No wonder everybody talks about them.

6 Marketing Lessons From The Chat Room.

(click here to enlarge...... the picture).
Many of the key innovations of the online world have been led by the adult industry, so naturally my first reaction on seeing this image (courtesy of Marcus) was to consider the numerous marketing insights it provides.

1) Scarcity Of Attention - traditionally the scarcity has come from the potential customer, but here we see the provider rationing her attention and thus stimulating a huge pent-up demand.

2) Trading Up - traditionally it's been felt that you have to provide your customer with an enthusiastic greeting and rewarding experience in order to increase their expenditure, but here we see the indifference strategy forcing customers to the paid rooms.

3) Power Naps - human capital is your key resource in this ultra-competitive world, but here we see what happens when you don't ensure your staff are well rested. Providing sleeping facilities at the office is not the answer.

4) Free Is The New Pricing - some would have you believe that the future lies in giving away your offering and reaping the benefit via ancillary services, but here we see the provider reminding us that you really do get what you pay for.

5) Markets Are Conversations - traditionally it has been felt that conversation is two way, but here we see that in a modern one to one business model, the provision of the mechanism is enough. Guest 705 is quite happy to do it alone.

6) Visual Literacy - traditionally marketing messages were direct, unimaginative and assumed nothing of the intelligence of the customer, but here we see a provider fully confident that we will recognise this as the homage to the Comcast guy that it is.

I'm sure there are many others - feel free to add them in the comments.

Who's Your Client?

Hidden in the interview with the founder of mobile advertising network Admob was the revelation that banner ads get better click-through rates than simple text ads, but that some operators worry about them interfering with the UI and thus the user experience.

It's the age-old marketing problem. Balancing the needs of your clients against the needs of their customers. Never doubt that erring on the side of the latter is the way to go.

Keeping It Real.

Speaking of the logo that artists designed for his new album, Nick Cave makes an interesting observation.

“The wires are telling you: somebody built this thing. It's the same reason we tend to use the first or second take of a song rather than the third or fourth. They may not be perfect, but they capture some sort of essence.”

Would your customers recognise your product/service as being made by someone, but not "perfected" to the point of sanitisation?

Twitter Spam.

In my usual early acquirer fashion, I started using Twitter a long time and have delighted in receiving classic tweets such as "Pardon me boy is this the Heathrow Express?", "Gazing at the ocean. Looking for a kettle", and the classic "Riding the Tube like a mofo."

The stress was very much on the ambient intimacy that Lisa Reichelt identified. The reaction was one of delight, wry amusement or an excuse to grab a coffee/beer. But now, hot on the heels of the rise of the verbose super users, we're inevitably getting the guides to corporate tweeting.

Tara produced a comprehensive one yesterday, but I fear that a lack of restraint on the part of companies who read her words will ruin the delight of Twitter and backfire on them. The technology is only the medium and any company using it cannot afford to forget that Twitter is something more than that to its users and no doubt a different thing to each of them.

The strength of Twitter is its "one to many" messaging ability, but from a marketing perspective the "many" have to want the message and even if thye agree to follow (i.e receive messages from) a company, there is an implicit level of incoming traffic that they will not tolerate. The marketing danger here is that the combination of the ease of sending the short message form and the flow/stream aesthetic of Twitter will lead to abuse of that permission. Because of the limited size of the Twitter page, such behaviours will quickly become spam of the worst kind.

The smart strategy is far less complex. I want companies to have a Twitter account where I can reach them and, to their credit, some companies are already doing that. If I have an issue with a company, I want to be able to pull a very quick reaction from them. In an age of web 2.0 information overload, I don't want to be bombarded by them with unrequested offers and items they think might amuse me.

When we market our company's products/services, we have to remember that part of the job is to to be the individual's advocate. It's all too easy to serve the company's needs and forget about the customer. By way of example, I hope that Tara forgives me for pointing out the unfortunate coincidence of events that occurred today.

No sooner had I read something in her guide that worried me

Rickrolls or other fun internet games - this shows you are a bunch of fun and has people trying to do the same for you. Spreading as many internet memes as possible is good.

than I checked my Twitter and read her tweet with which I was in total agreement.


We've all done it. The customer is not different to you and me. They are you and me.

Intangible Social Objects.

Continuing my recent thought that a social object used to faciliatate interest in one's product/service doesn't actually have to be an object, I even wonder if it has to be something with which the customer directly engages at all. Maybe it could be something that happens to the customer. The advantage with this type of social object is that the business can exercise significant influence on it. Some thinking aloud follows.

Behaviour as social object - people talk about the fact that your business walks the walk and that you consitently do what you claim you do.

Etiquette as social object - people like to belong and will talk about a place, be it real or virtual, be it club, society or user group, where everyone implicitly acknowledges a certain way of doing things.

Interaction as social object - people notice when you make it easy for them to do what they want to do. They talk about it and usage spreads.

Service as social object - people talk about little else. Get it wrong or get it right, you know that people will talk about this.

In a web 2.0 world, they could otherwise be known as authenticity, community, usability and customer-centricity. The commonality here? Good old differentiation. Not the faux differentiation of much advertising, but a real distance of difference separating you from the all too often mediocre norm. There's nothing like that to get people talking.