Using Personas to Better Understand and Target Customers

I have used formal personas as a way to provoke conversation about responding to the needs of many kinds of users in one online presence; i.e., in website experience design. I admit to never having done this formally in marketing segmentation work, although the tools that I’ve created and will continue to share (see below) essentially do the same thing. Nevertheless, I am intrigued with the idea of trying this!

Personas are, to quote Wikipedia (which actually has an interesting article on this topic), “fictional characters created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic, attitude and/or behavior set that might use a site, brand or product in a similar way.” User personas, according to Wikipedia, are aggregates of users, although I am not familiar with this distinction.

But here’s how personas work, in somewhat of an oversimplification of the process:  Say you are a consumer financial institution (bank). You have done some demographic profiling (that is, you know something about the ages of your customers; where they live; how many signatures on the account; what kinds of accounts (checking, savings, loans, mortgages); and you believe that these are your basic customer sets:

1. Young adults, including students with loans

2. Relatively young families, saving for important life events (home purchase, college education) while trying to put some assets toward retirement. One or more adult in the household employed full time

3. 50-70somethings, some empty nesters, with mortgages mostly paid down and looking toward retirement (and leaving assets for their children). One or more adult in the household employed full or part time

4. Retirees, living on savings and fixed incomes, possibly employed part time

The persona of (2) might look like this:

Donna, 32, and Ron, 33, have been married for three years and are expecting their first child. They had hoped to have a home of their own before this point, but real estate prices in the neighborhoods they want are still too high so they are holding out. In the meantime, they rent the second floor of a duplex near Donna’s parents. Both work and will be relying upon their parents to help with child care. Part of their plan is for Donna to reduce her working hours after the baby is born, but she must work at least 30 hours in order for the family to retain her excellent group health insurance coverage. Donna and Ron have joint checking and savings accounts, and each has a modest personal account as well. Ron has a student loan, almost paid off using his personal account. Donna drives a new mini-van, a gift from her parents. Ron drives his car from college and has his eye on a high end sports car. Both have credit card balances under $250; however, they will have to finance Ron’s new car and they finance their vacations as well (they plan to take a cruise prior to the baby’s birth). Both have 401(k) plans through work and contribute about half the maximum allowable.

And the persona of (4) might look like this:

Karen just celebrated her 70^th birthday. She retired from her job in a big insurance company three years ago with a pension and currently collects Social Security. Although Karen deeply misses her husband, John, who passed away last summer, she is essentially financially secure; her retirement is fully funded—and things will be even better when she sells their four-bedroom home, which is in a sought-after neighborhood and is currently on the market. The mortgage on the house is paid off; Karen pays off her one credit card every month and has no other debt. She has one son, Martin, who lives in another state but who checks in on Karen often and makes an effort to bring his wife, Judith, and son Jake to visit at least 2-3 times each year. Karen volunteers at the local food bank two mornings each week, belongs to a health club where she swims and takes dance class, and enjoys gardening. She has put a down payment on a two-bedroom apartment in an adult living community and looks forward to building a new life for herself without the maintenance headaches of a house which, she says, was always John’s job.

It is relatively easy to see that, no matter what type of service you hoped to sell to your customers, you would approach Karen, Donna and Ron entirely differently. Donna and Ron are just starting out, are trying to be responsible but have some financial challenges ahead and could be at risk for some debt issues if they aren’t careful. (Consider also that “Donna and Ron” could be two entities: Donna/Ron the couple, and Donna and Ron as individuals.) Karen is very conservative and seems to have her finances well at hand, but doesn’t appear to be planning ahead for her grandchild which could be advantageous to her tax-wise and an opportunity for the family. (Please note: I don’t really know what I’m talking about here, this is just an example!)

This is where our prior work on developing a solutions focus comes in. Use what you know about your customers, now more fully developed with details, to help you figure out what products and services to try to promote.

Then, how you go about talking to these different customers; that is, through what channels (advertising, direct marketing, social media, etc.) is then highly variable and possibly somewhat complex. But you can see that talking to each in the same voice would not be nearly as effective.

Summary: At the end of the day, personas are simply a technique for identifying, and then getting to what matters to, the people you want to have as customers. This is also called market segmentation.

I created this little chart for a discussion leading to some value prop work. If you aren’t inspired to write narratives like the ones above you might find it useful.

Identify your targets (YOUNG ADULTS, YOUNG FAMILIES, 50-70s, RETIREES) along the top and work down from there.

A personal note: this may be my last post of the year; I am working on one more but the ideas are complex and it’s challenging to get it down to a couple of pages. THANK YOU for being part of my blog in 2012. I look forward to sharing more with you in 2013!

Developing a Solutions Focus to Add Customer Value

I’m a fan of “solutions” and “solution selling.” True, these terms have been widely used and diluted from their original meanings. In fact, I don’t mean what was meant by the pioneers of the concept, which was grounded in the technology industry. Their approach is very structured and focuses on alleviating buyers’ pains. There is subsequent literature challenging the idea that people always buy because they have pain; I frankly don’t think it matters.

The point is that when we adopt a solutions focus, we are required to listen and respond to cues from the buyer. This can be a structured process, with a hierarchy of questions to ask, but it needn’t be. However, to do it well you need to know the following:

1. What outcome does this product or service produce?

2. What benefit will the buyer receive?

3. How might it support the buyer’s needs, wishes, aspirations, pain points?

4. Why is this so?

Here’s a tool I created to help a client’s team develop a solutions focus.

Moving vertically, if we couldn’t satisfactorily fill in each box with a credible answer, we asked ourselves if we a) were convinced of the value of the product/service; or b) needed to regroup and refine either the product/service or its value prop—or both.

A note: the OUTCOME and BENEFITS should not be the same. The OUTCOME is what you get. The BENEFITS are the advantages you derive from the OUTCOME.

If you want to use this tool I suggest you do separate versions for every type of buyer you wish to service (i.e., target market). For example, if you think that a technology manager will be your first contact but that the ultimate decision-maker will be the chief technology officer, you need different worksheets to articulate their different needs.

To be more granular, a technology manager may need a simple software tool that you want to sell; however, the chief technology officer will need to take into consideration whether the company’s infrastructure will support the product, what the licensing structure is, what implications that has for other parts of the organization, and so forth. For the manager, the outcome is a job better done; for the CTO it might be the potential for greater productivity, at lesser cost, across five business units.

The better prepared you are to articulate these outcomes, and their benefits, the more effective you will be as a marketer or salesperson.

To be continued: Getting the Value Proposition Right.

Creating Urgency in Marketing

Given the deluge of Black Friday and Cyber Monday offerings we’ve all been subjected to over the past week (and their bewildering extensions), it’s time to talk about creating urgency.

Everyone wants customers to make quick decisions. That’s why this is such a controversial topic! I attended a conference recently during which an audience participant asked the question that’s always the elephant in the room: “When you say that supplies are limited, are you telling the truth? And, is it okay to not tell the truth?”

My simple answer: NEVER don’t tell the truth.

However, there are ways to create urgency without (dare I say) misconstruing. These are the ones I can think of.

1. Get your timing down. There’s a reason that health clubs have big promotions in January. People have made resolutions; they ate too much over the holidays; they’re housebound and bored. Health club owners know this and prey on us poor hapless souls who need them. (On the other hand, since it’s all very predictable, many of us wait until the offers are good enough. But you can tackle this, too, with creative offers that get a jump on the competition. Or by forecasting your cash flow around the phenomenon.)

2. Appeal to aspirations. Do you know how your customers want to be perceived? Using language and images that reflect that image are useful in creating urgency (and differentiation). The diamond and cosmetics industries are masterful at doing this. One caveat: be careful not to go so far out on a limb as to be intimidating.

3. Appeal to guilt. This is a bit of an adjunct to timing and aspirations: people procrastinate, and they feel bad about it. You can save them from their guilt at not improving themselves, not completing projects … whatever … and be a hero.

4. Create a sense of exclusion. Special offers, especially time-limited special offers (see below), appeal to individuals’ sense of entitlement and desire for prestige.

5. Be ready for foreseeable, but unpredictable, opportunity. This one I particularly love: people in service industries (consultants especially) are known to develop intellectual capital around topics likely to make headlines—and stockpile them. They are, then, ready to strike when the iron is hot (i.e., they can publish or submit for publication immediately)—and they appear to be the experts, far outdistancing their competitors. You can create a market in this way, especially if the topic requires quick action from those affected.

6. Time-limit your offer. Obvious. But be careful not to misconstrue.

7. Price aggressively. Also obvious. But it has to be mentioned!

Reflections on a Visit to The Boston Globe

This morning I toured The Boston Globe's facilities in Dorchester (a section of Boston, for those unfamiliar with our geography). This is a "Globe Insider" benefit, extended to individuals with Globe subscriptions (more here: http://www.bostonglobe.com/insiders).

We began by viewing the plant, where the paper is printed, and then we sat in on an editors' meeting, where the content for tomorrow's paper was reviewed and discussed. Finally, we had a Q&A session with an editor, who talked with us about the Globe's coverage of our recent election and answered other questions we had about the paper.

This would have been fascinating for me at any point in time, but it felt especially important and relevant to my life as the newly minted writer/publisher of this modest little blog. During the meeting, and after, I thought about what a privilege and responsibility it is to be interpreting and writing about ideas for others to read and consider. I am far from able to do what Globe reporters and editors do every day, but I realize now that I aspire to what they aspire to: interesting content, fairness, accuracy, and the ability to engage.

The other thing I thought about is the remarkable land we live in, where our press is free to write as they please, and we can visit and challenge and learn from their experience and ideas. This is not to be taken for granted, and in fact I had thought about using Thanksgiving as the theme for this post, with that being the message.

But for one more thing: I would also like you to know how much I appreciate your reading this blog. I look at the stats on a daily basis and think about what you might like to read next, based on what you are viewing. I do and will always continue to value your feedback.

Have a wonderful holiday!

Social Media and the Sphere of Influence

I had a great conversation the other day with an organization looking at its channel strategy (meaning: ways to take a product or service to market through various types of arrangements, including relationships with partners). One of the participants in the meeting hit the nail on the head, describing perfectly one of my favorite axioms about marketing. He said, “We’re looking here at getting other people to sell for us!”

Marketing and selling products and services involves many different kinds of strategies. One important one, and its importance is growing by leaps and bounds, is influence. Word of mouth and referrals are commonly known and understood types of influence. Work with “influencers,” like industry analysts, members of the media (e.g., editors and reporters), consultants and other subject matter experts who might write about you, or talk about your work with others, or make referrals to you, often turns out to be a tremendous source of demand generation. It’s a simple equation: people value expertise, and they value the recommendations of people who have expertise.

In relatively recent history, social media has elevated the concept of influence—and changed the ground rules of expertise.

I wrote in The Social Media Challenge: Managing Expectations that social media should be regarded as a tool. Social media is, at its heart and done well, a tool with the potential to increase and intensify activities that directly or indirectly influence consumers.

This is done simply when you “Like” something on Facebook and that information is shared with your “Friends,” who may then become intrigued to try it, or inspired to endorse it because they “like” it too. The circle widens.

It is done in more complex ways when you “Follow” people writing commentary in blogs, essays, etc. and on other social media platforms; e.g., Twitter, Pinterest (and please, let us not forget that we still have and read many well-regarded periodicals, newspapers and journals). People “Follow” what interests them and what they respect. Others learn from the “Followers” about new things to follow. Thus, bonds get created. And influence happens.

A very prescient example is the great FiveThirtyEight blog, authored by Nate Silver for The New York Times. Silver’s analysis of the 2012 election polls compelled millions to consult The Times for election coverage. Silver happens to have a new book, for which was interviewed extensively in the media … at the same time that the election was heating up (and after; he was interviewed on The Daily Show the night following the election). Is this cynical? No, it is smart. There is no question that Silver’s new book will do well as a result of his forecasting the election results with stunning accuracy. And there is no question that if he continues to analyze the polls he will continue to be a sought-after subject matter expert, and he will be endorsed in ways that elevate both him and The Times.

I’m writing about him, aren’t I?!

I noted in my prior posting that social media is labor-intensive and that the cost-benefit needs to be clearly analyzed. I also suggested that I would write again about the “sphere of influence” that social media can create. Again, simple: the second part of the equation is the work of getting others to work on your behalf. That’s how social media has elevated the concept of influence.

Now, to expertise.

When absolutely anyone can assert virtually anything, accurate or inaccurate, and have it widely disseminated, as is the case today, the rules change. It used to be that anything could be put out but not necessarily easily found. Now search engines and sophisticated optimization techniques make everything accessible, and this makes it all the more difficult for consumers to parse what is authentic and what is not.

Thus, it is incumbent upon us as marketers and business owners to find and cultivate the authentic. How? You want to know everyone and anyone who can credibly endorse what you have to offer, and you have to make certain that you get and stay on their radar screens. Reward this group as you can, keeping mindful not to be seen as inappropriate. Focus especially on those who have, as we have discussed above, the potential to influence others. From that smaller group, try to find a few individuals with genuine enthusiasm for your product and service, and willingness to take your calls and open your emails.

Then, call and email them. But only when you have something important to share.

And one other thing: ask for their help. If your relationship is authentic, they are likely to give it willingly.

These activities are, again, labor intensive, and the results quixotic. You never know when, or how, exactly your groundwork will pay off. This frustrates many marketers and so they neglect their influence strategy.

Don’t do this. Work on influence and expertise is time well spent.

Learning from Yesterday's News

Cat litter is a commodity. At least, that’s what it seemed when my advertising agency team was asked to introduce a new product in a market already “littered” with options.

But our client, an entrepreneur with great passion and tremendous flair, had a secret weapon. All the litters then on the market were made from clay or alfalfa. His was made from recycled newspaper.

The products on the market were relatively dust-free, absorbent and acceptable. That’s pretty much what the focus respondents told us. But I’m getting ahead of myself here (and this may all sound familiar if you have already read “Just When You Think You’re Perfect”) ...

The creative team, and all of our friends and relatives and everyone on the planet who was intrigued by the idea of working on a cat litter account, came up with a dozen or so concepts. The products that were on the market positioned what amounts to cat toilet paper very delicately, with pretty product names and photos of cute cats on their packaging. We did some of those. We also had “Mess Kit,” which had a military theme, and a couple of other concepts with unprintable names (think: “S*&@!y Kitty”) that we showed the client as a joke.

And then, of course, we had the kicker.

Our creative director, the fantastically talented Ray Clark, suggested that the value proposition of the cat litter needed to be front and center. He suggested that the best way to attract customers to a new product was to explain why and how it was different. He and the art director, the fantastically talented Bill Stone, came up with a package that looked like a newspaper. It had cat photos, but it also told the story of the product and its ingredients; that newspaper was potentially more absorbent, etc.

They called their concept “Yesterday’s News.” (I don't have an image but am trying to locate one.)

Our client liked the concept, but was adamant that the secret ingredient remain secret (although, as everyone agreed, a scientist in a lab could have figured it out in an hour. It seems to me now that the packaging ingredients would also have told the tale, but this is a long time ago and I don’t know what the disclosure requirements were then). Nevertheless, he agreed to allow us to test “Yesterday’s News” along with the other, more traditional brand and packaging concepts.

So in came the cat owners to the focus groups, an extremely committed and enthusiastic (and entertaining) group who took their job quite seriously. As noted, they found their existing cat litter options perfectly acceptable. And they liked the other options we showed them as well. It was all very pleasant, but not very definitive.

But then, of course, there was “Yesterday’s News.” It was clearly and obviously different from the outset. The cat owners said that the design would stand out on the shelf, and that they would at least look at the bag. They liked that the packaging told a story. If they had never used newspaper with their cat, most had an intuitive sense that it might work. They were willing to try it.

Our client immediately recognized, and accepted, that his secret was actually his hook.

Yes, “Yesterday’s News” is still on the market. It is now a Purina offering in the “alternative cat litter” segment. The branding is very green, and the bag is one of the first recyclable cat litter bags on the market. The ingredients are stated up front. “Yesterday’s News” is now part of a movement!

The principle endures. Finding the unique value in a product or service isn’t always straightforward, and not every company or organization is willing to do something unique. In addition, not everyone has the luxury of doing extensive research to help validate their concepts.

But here are a few things that anyone can keep in mind:

1. Always respect consumers. Give them the data that they need to understand your value. The more simply your messages are conveyed, the better.

2. Again, not everyone can do a big market research project (or at least not every time) to get external feedback and validation. But anyone can pick up the phone and make a couple of calls. Develop relationships and ask for advice. If you are concerned about appearing vulnerable, get help in learning how to present your ideas and concepts.

3. As you cultivate trusted advisors, they will be increasingly motivated to help you. But this is not a one-way street. Make yourself available, too. Know what you have to offer, and offer it freely.

4. Take risks. It worked for “Yesterday’s News.”

Better Still, or The Future of Marketing: Notes from FutureM

This week I am attending FutureM, the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX)-sponsored conference that brings together marketers and technologists to consider and discuss the “future” of marketing. The conference is essentially an exploration of the ways in which marketing and technology are integrating and fusing (my term). Over all, it’s a great opportunity to learn from some very interesting people.

When I received the registration materials I was disconcerted by the session titles, most of which asserted that the “Future of Marketing is X (generally something digital or social).” I am not entirely certain that I could say with conviction that this is the case, but it turned out that many of the speakers were just playing off the conference title. So, phew: I’m not as backward as I had thought.

The truth is that earlier this week I wrote a version of this post as a rant against the confident assertions incorporated into those titles. Among other things I wrote, respectfully but critically, about a very distinguished and credentialed presenter who created an entire session around the idea that you have to “bake” social media into your product in order to survive. He showed some elegant applications, including a game whose virtue he extolled at length (and I will admit: it was pretty cool.)

However, the demise of the very same game designer was reported on the front page of the Business section of The Boston Globe the following day.

Whoa. This is not my definition of survival.

But then later in the week I was inspired to start over. I attended two sessions having to do with new research and trends in the behavioral aspects of marketing. In both sessions the presenters talked about the theories of Daniel Kahneman, 2002 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The presenters commended his recent (October 2011) book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” in which Kahneman describes a framework for decision-making that apparently challenges the idea that “rational” thought and judgment are dominant. (I don’t want to embarrass myself by talking about this in detail without having read the book, which I intend to pick up this weekend. If I find that I can understand it I’ll write about it in the future!)

And then, toward the end of his presentation, one of the speakers made this declaration:

“The future of marketing can be found today in the behavioral science literature.”

He went on to explain various disciplines of behavioral science—Neuroscience, Cultural Anthropology, Psychology, Behavioral Economics, and Sociology—and how they map to purchasing decisions.

It wasn’t difficult to understand this, even the parts that were unfamiliar (like the particulars of how neurons work), because it was deeply resonant with what I know and believe to be true about marketing. Really good marketing contributes to the design and production of goods and services that people will value. (I’m not entirely naïve and idealistic, of course. There’s plenty of superfluous junk out there too, and shameless marketing that hawks it. But I am nevertheless convinced that good marketing tries to contribute to the common good.) Good marketing then finds ways to reach the consumers most likely to have interest, so that they can consider and partake of those goods and services. And, good marketing tries to accomplish all of this at the lowest possible cost.

To do so, marketers use techniques that, as it turns out, are from … the behavioral sciences. They try to understand wants and needs, and how people make decisions. And they choose tools that support their objectives. These tools are generally media vehicles. They are important, but they are only tools.

So there we have it. It turns out that the future of marketing isn’t “digital,” or “social,” any more than it is “print advertising.” Nope. No need to panic!

Because the future of marketing is still people, with all their quirks and inconsistencies. And, thanks to the wonders of modern science and research, fascinating insights that will increasingly make us better at what we do.

Staying on Strategy, Evolving on Execution

My colleagues at The Bridgespan Group have launched the next generation of bridgespan.org. It’s a very robust site, clean and easy to navigate.

And there is one big change: the Content and Job Board Formerly Known as Bridgestar have been fully integrated into this site and are now branded Bridgespan.

A few weeks ago I wrote about making branding changes and some of the pros and cons. Bridgestar was branded as the talent-matching work of Bridgespan very early on, and was originally conceived as an online talent market (i.e., primarily an electronic job board). Of course, everything evolves as one learns from market feedback and experiments with new ideas. Bridgestar’s monthly newsletter circulation grew, as did the number of posted executive and senior management jobs. The Bridgestar team created online portals of content about key nonprofit sector roles to complement the executive recruiting work being done. Learning groups and online collaborations were created. Over time, the boundaries between the Bridgespan and Bridgestar work began to blur, and executive recruiting became a Bridgespan offering (with very careful attention paid to potential conflicts of interest, of course). A new leadership-related service was more recently developed and launched as part of Bridgespan.

And so it now makes sense that Bridgespan would merge all of its important assets together into a seamless solution; as they call it, “a comprehensive resource for all of your nonprofit resource needs.”

This is a great example of how a strategy can remain constant while the execution evolves. The Bridgespan Group believes that talent is a key driver of nonprofit results, and created ways to connect for- and nonprofit executives with results-driven organizations. These activities led to new insights and new responses.

The outputs don’t look the same as they did eight years ago; the Bridgestar brand is no longer active, and the URL bridgestar.org is redirected to the new bridgespan.org. But the goals are the same, and the outcomes will undoubtedly be at least constant. Or, hopefully, stronger still.

The Social Media Challenge: Managing Expectations

If you are old enough to remember the late 1990s, you surely remember the overwhelming pressure felt by businesses and others to get to the World Wide Web. A colleague in an Internet consulting firm told me the story of a FORTUNE®100 marketing executive who literally burst into the reception room of the firm and demanded to be “accepted” as a client!  Those were the days!

The first wave of websites primarily delivered static information. As web application development progressed, those sites were dismissed as “brochure ware.” Everyone demanded commerce, then collaboration. Online content aggregation (bringing together content from multiple sources, as do sites like amazon.com, ebay.com and weddingchannel.com) became an industry.

[I’m going to footnote here that this exciting new option brought with it tremendous complexity. Integrating channels, meaning having the ability to track, sell and deliver goods from multiple media (online, stores, resellers, etc.) required expertise and investment. Security became, and is, an ongoing concern. These are not today’s subject, so I’m going to leave it at that; they're important, however. Maybe another time.]

Of course, not every solution fit every problem. Companies got in over their heads. They took sites that were designed for one purpose and jury-rigged what they had to serve another (for example, brochure ware sites got commerce engines tacked on with very mixed results.) Performance and user experience issues stymied and angered customers.

I am admittedly a broken record on this topic, and will always be one. The bottom line is, you have to know what problem you’re trying to solve.

And so it is with social media. We all “had” to have the World Wide Web, and now we “have” to have social media. In fact, we really do. Because just like websites, if we are realistic in what we expect of social media, it can be (or become) a very powerful tool.

For business, and especially services—and certainly for job-hunting and recruiting—most agree that LinkedIn is the killer social media app. The targeting tools of LinkedIn are nothing short of genius. Their utility is highly dependent on the participation of users (the targets), and LinkedIn has ably convinced users of its value proposition. Hence, in June 2012 LinkedIn reported 175 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories.

Most of us can understand and appreciate its value pretty readily, if not easily. But what about Facebook and Twitter for business? Or even blogs, which are technically a social media application? What about all this talk about being “closer” to the customer? What are the upsides and downsides of creating these new kinds of relationships? Are they really relationships? And are they really new?

Always one to try to debunk myths, I have admittedly struggled with these questions. Today I read a description of how blogs are being used in-house at companies to help people connect and share information. Geez, it sounded pretty familiar to me. In fact, the description sounded a lot like the language that’s been used to describe collaboration platforms since the 1990s (for example, Lotus Notes)! Could it be that these social media solutions simply represent the next generation of collaboration platforms?

If that is the case, then allow me to share what I learned from my experience as a passionate advocate for and user of Lotus Notes: participation is the Holy Grail. The more people participate in the proposed collaboration, the more robust and useful the collaboration.

But robust collaboration takes a lot of time and effort, and both equal money. Therefore, one has to be clear about what one expects from the investment, in order to decide how much to invest.

Here are some reasonable goals for neophyte social media experiments.

Awareness. Pure and simple, being in the game. Giving consumers the opportunity to find you and explore what your organization is and has to say. This is roughly the equivalent of brochure ware, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Don’t forget: the first wave of websites didn’t benefit from the extremely sophisticated search engines (and search engine optimization tools) that are readily available and widely used now.

Page views, friends and followers are some of the outputs to measure against this goal.

Education. Taking opportunities to share your expertise in ways that are valuable to consumers. A more advanced version of awareness, taking a much greater degree of work and attention to be done well. Appreciation of your ideas accrues back to you.

Again, page views, friends and followers are good outputs to measure. Unique visitors and content- sharing up the ante.

Identification. As consumers find ways to connect to your content, you have multiple opportunities, through the interactions and especially through analytics, to meet and learn about them. Add to the above the quality of content shared back to you in order to discover how well you’re doing. And noticing what resonates (e.g., “likes”) yields gems of insight, if you’re paying attention. That said, interaction is demanding. It requires constant monitoring and thoughtful responses to questions and comments. For some businesses it’s essential; for others, Awareness or Education are adequate.

BOTTOM LINE: What’s important to you?

Part II, soon: Social Media and the Sphere of Influence
Part III, following that: What is Good Social Media Content?

Enough Strategy, Already!

The stunning words “we are done with strategy” were said to me by a nonprofit executive in a recent conversation. From everything I knew about her organization I believed that they were far from done with strategy. So I got to thinking about what would make her say such a thing. And, of course, the uberquestion: can you ever be done with strategy?

Given that I am a strategist, you might assume that my answer would be a resounding “no.” In fact, the words “we are done with strategy” could mean a lot of different things. She could have meant that the organization had completed a plan and was implementing it. Or that they had completed a plan and were entering an implementation phase. Or that the organization had been burned by a strategy exercise (or implementation gone sour), and had washed their hands of strategy. Or that they hated consultants and wanted to put an end to our conversation. Or something else, who knows?

In an interview for The Bridgespan Group’s 2004 Annual Report (full disclosure: conducted and written by me), a nonprofit leader reflects on the development of his organization’s vision and strategy. It’s a very powerful interview, and I have quoted it dozens of times. The leader says:

“Truthfully, the process was harder and more time-consuming than I’d expected … if they’d told me what it would take, there’s no way I would have agreed to be involved.

“But we came out with a blueprint for change and growth: a strong business plan. We follow it religiously. The details allow us to take our goals and turn them into concrete actions …

“Most executive directors are caught between the desire to plan for the future, and the things we have to do right now, to survive. Almost always, we shortchange tomorrow for today. Time spent up front on planning is time not given to what look like urgent needs, but it’s priceless … Business planning is the way you get answers to the questions that are critical if you want to grow.”

In order for strategy to be this powerful, to inform every decision that is made from the time of its development (and from the process of developing it), the strategy has to be deeply internalized. The second organization clearly has committed to its strategy as a way to understand and navigate its future. And to be fair, “done with strategy” may be careless talk that describes what the executive in the interview also describes.

But in this language is an important lesson.

Strategy is meant to describe a way of doing and being. It is not an experience to be had and completed. A strategic plan is not an event, but a roadmap. If it’s a good strategy, there is a clear and agreed-upon sense of direction. And it’s actionable. And it is acted upon.

When acted upon (and understand: we are talking about the kind of implementation that the second executive speaks of), the strategy will surely be tested. As in nature, challenges can be used to improve the chances of survival. Along the way, the organization has to be prepared to endure the tests, learn from them, and move on.  That is, not give up.

To the extent that this is done, the strategy’s roots will take hold. And the stronger and deeper the roots that develop, the more the strategy can help the organization.

So: can you ever be done with strategy?

Can you have too many roots?

Two Simple Guidelines for Re-branding

So much has been written about the pros and cons of name changes, I hardly think there is much to add about how and when to do it. So, today’s topic is when not to make a name change.

Assuming that these are the primary reasons for doing so,

1. You have a legacy name that doesn’t describe what the organization actually does (but look at International Business Machines … it still doesn’t always make sense, as we will discover below);

2. There is a significant financial event, like a merger or acquisition (think: Price Waterhouse + Coopers and Lybrand = PriceWaterhousecoopers, more recently shortened to PWC) where the parties agree that there is advantage in keeping a profile for both names, or in starting from scratch, see 3 below (again, if the parties agree; it’s not always the right choice);

3. The creation of a single, umbrella name for a group of allied companies would greatly improve efficiency and those improvements will drop to the bottom line (think: Granite State Electric + Massachusetts Electric + Nantucket Electric + Narragansett Electric + Niagara Mohawk = National Grid);

4. Brand confusion, when your name is too similar to that of another organization;

5. A catastrophic event that leads to the complete decimation of a brand [but let me be on record to say that it still isn’t necessarily a good idea. Tylenol and ob Tampons (Johnson + Johnson) both recovered beautifully from crises];

then these are the primary reasons not to do so:

You are a market force in your category, and you want to remain so. Are you the “Kleenex®” of your industry? If there is equity in your name—it’s easily recognizable and/or easily understood by your market—then think twice about changing it. Many organizations believe that they need a name change to signal a change in their strategy, particularly if they are looking to offer a broader product or service set. When I have talked to clients and others about this, their reasons and aspirations have struck me as being largely internal, and probably would not make the least bit of difference to their customers and prospects. Sometimes organizations “solve” this problem by reverting to initials (Kentucky Fried Chicken = KFC), but even then they frequently discover that they have squandered their time, money and reputation (awareness), three invaluable assets.

(I am happy to give you real-life examples, but I won’t do it publicly out of respect for well-intentioned people who, I think, have been poorly advised.)

Important note: the flip side of this is my own former employer, the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston, more  commonly known as the JCC. We created a new logo, Boston JCC, and changed the website URL from jccgb.org to bostonjcc.org, in order to stand out more in the first case, and to be more intuitive in the second. But we did not change the legal name of the organization.

You have no intention of following through on the changes you intend to signal. Making a name change to follow through on changes you’ve already put into motion may be a reasonable move. However, a name change for its own sake will fix nothing. Worse, you will have spent time and money while risking your reputation if and when customers discover the lack of substance behind the change.

Be honest with yourself!

An article I like on this topic, by my friend Michele Levy: “Nail Down Your Strategy Before a Name Change.”

Frequently Asked Questions About Writing FAQs

General

Q1. What is an FAQ?
A1. An FAQ, or document that elucidates Frequently Asked Questions, is a tool that can be used by anyone who is trying to explain, or add context and details to, an event or process.

Q2. What are the benefits of FAQs?
A2. FAQs have good internal and external benefits. The process of building the FAQ can

·        Bring to light outstanding questions

·        Tease out issues that need to be resolved

·        Get everyone on the same page, with the same information and the same way of articulating answers to questions they might be asked

Publication of the FAQ can

·        Save time and money (as when an FAQ is used in the capacity of customer self-service)

·        Help influencers gain understanding of your organization’s products, services and/or goals

Q3. When is an FAQ needed?
A3. An FAQ is most useful at the time of an announcement, and/or as a reference document if and when specific questions can be anticipated in the general course of business (for example, technical people use them all the time, and frequently publish them).

Q4. What are some specific examples of this?
A4. FAQs are very good for

·        Providing technical support

·        Enabling customer self-service

·        Preparing for media conversations (press conferences, interviews, etc.)

·        Supporting internal announcements that affect groups of people

Content

Q5. What is the FAQ format?
A5. This is a good FAQ format. It is a set of questions and answers, divided into categories and numbered for reference sake.

Q6. What should my FAQ contain?
A6. The FAQ should include any or all questions that you feel need to have answers in order for you, or your organization, to be prepared for an event or process and/or to support others interested in the event or process.

Process

Q7. How should I go about writing the FAQ?
A7. Think about your subject from the point of view of others who will be on the receiving end. What have you told them? What else would they want to know? Don’t discount the importance of reaffirming the former, and thinking through the latter in a lot of detail. You can always edit what you write.

Q8. What if all of the content does not relate to the entire audience?
A8. Try putting all of the content into one master FAQ, and then parse it out for different audiences and make separate FAQs for each. Note that there will likely be overlap between the FAQs.

Q9. What if I am not comfortable making all of this information public?
A9. You do not need to publish all, or any, of the questions and answers. The FAQ is a good platform for stress-testing your preparedness, and for getting everyone on the same page with consistent answers. Once you have a good list of questions and answers, you can decide what, if anything, to make public.

Q10.What should the review cycle be for an FAQ?
A10. Make a list of stakeholders—individuals, teams and/or other groups who have a vested interest in the content of the FAQ. Ask each to review the FAQ. To make the process efficient, ask any groups to consolidate their feedback. For sensitive information, include legal review. In these cases, especially if the FAQ is to be published, it’s a good idea to have attorneys involved in the beginning of the process and then again at the end of the process, during the final review.

Q11. What if the stakeholders perceive the questions to be critical of them?
A11. This happens. It’s useful to explain up front that the point of circulating the FAQ is to gather information. Any question can be re-worded once there is an agreed-upon answer. In fact, the answer may inspire a different question.

Q12. When should you update an FAQ?
A12. You should update an FAQ any time you get a good new question, or the answer to a question changes, or you think of a better answer to an existing question.

Q13. How many times have you updated this FAQ?
A13. Four Five.

Happy 15th Anniversary, City Square Associates!

On Friday I had the pleasure of joining my friends and business associates City Square Associates to celebrate the 15th anniversary of their company. Over the course of two projects at two different organizations, the team has made major contributions and, along the way, has modeled the best of what market research is meant to do.

It's very important to scope research accurately so that you get what you need. In the first instance there was a hypothesis, and we hoped that the study would confirm the hypothesis and provide additional direction and insights. In the second instance we simply wanted to learn more about a customer base and their needs and interests. The first study was quantitative and national; the second qualitative and local.

In my remarks on Friday, I noted that the City Square team treated both projects, important to us but small in scope relative to what they usually do, with the same integrity and respect as they would have one of their really big studies. This, in addition to the fact that they are incredibly smart and deeply committed to doing things that matter, makes them great to work with. (Endorsement complete!)

And that counts for a lot. But what about outcomes?

One study concluded in the publication of a paper that described survey results, suggested next steps, and brought renewed attention to a critical nonprofit sector need.

The second revealed opportunities to engage individuals with meaningful content in the context of both study and entertainment, culminating in the creation of a unique lecture series that has been critically acclaimed for its subject matter, quality of participants, interaction with the audience, and the civility and respect with which opposing viewpoints are aired and discussed.

I will be writing a lot about market research, not only because it represents opportunity but because sometimes the results are surprising. In both cases described above, the results were edifying. We used them to instruct program design—and fund raising activity. In both cases, in addition to learning a great deal, we were able to take the content and create something tangible and useful. Of course, in both cases that was a stated goal.

Lesson learned: it's not enough to know what you want to know, although that's where it all begins (or ends). The potential lies in being prepared to interact with the knowledge, and to looking within it for new possibilities. 

Just When You Think You're Perfect ...

I promised to use this space to talk about lessons I've learned as a marketer. Sometimes I have a source, in which case I will cite it. For this one I don't, but it's a great story and I'm sure there is some basis of fact in it.

The Pyrex(R) measuring cup is a kitchen staple. There are, of course, competitors. But it's probably safe to say that this is one product that is owned by almost everyone who bakes or cooks, whether or not they own other measuring cups as well.

The story goes that the Pyrex people had found a way to improve the measuring cup, but before rolling out the new design they wanted to test it with consumers. In the focus groups, cooks and bakers confidently declared that they could not conceive of any way in which the measuring cup could be improved. They loved it just as it was.

This is what they pledged undying loyalty to ...

 

... until they saw this, the version made stackable through a change in the handle.



The new version solved a classic kitchen problem: space. But it's not a problem that the focus group respondents were focused on (sorry) because the topic was the measuring cup, not the kitchen. In that context, they couldn't recognize the opportunity until they saw the solution.

Since then, Pyrex has gone on to make many other improvements to the iconic measuring cup. For example, it now has read-from-inside graphics. (You can read about the latest here, if you're interested:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/world-kitchen-continues-to-inspire-home-cooks-by-adding-innovative-products-and-a-new-brand-to-the-mix-117516373.html)

Two insights:

1. Great marketing focuses on benefits. It reveals understanding of underlying issues and needs of consumers, even if the consumers don't at first recognize the problem(s) at hand. (Context is also vitally important. It seems to me that this is a topic for a different blog post so I will take that up soon.)

2. If you think you're perfect, or that your product or service cannot be improved upon ... you're wrong. There's ALWAYS an improvement, large or small, out there, waiting to be claimed.

Why a Blogsite and Not a Website?

Many of my most absorbing projects over the past 15 years have been website design and development initiatives. Before social media, websites represented wholesale change in how organizations were called upon to represent themselves, probably the biggest change since the introduction of television advertising. They still do.

But the real, fundamental difference, of course, is something that has been said since the beginning of website fever: websites are ubiquitous, 24/7, available for all to see.

So every choice matters. A lot.

Websites say a great deal about how the organization thinks about itself and about how it regards its consumers. If you give a website more than a cursory look, you will notice which comes first (is it information about the organization itself, or something of value to you the visitor?). You will most likely have some reaction to the navigation provided (easy to find what you need, absorbing in a way that you didn't expect ... or not?). And, of course, you will be delivered a brand experience.

All of this is very exciting for a marketer, and I thought it would be great fun for a marketer looking to market herself. So I was surprised that when I began to sketch out a website for this next era of my business, I found myself stymied. I looked at a lot of sites and frankly didn't feel that I could do better.

More than anything, I want to be inspiring and useful. (Don't we all?)  When you visit here, my goal is for you to find something interesting to think about, and feel that there will be something we can do together that will change, or at least fundamentally help, the trajectory of your organization. That is, I hope to be more about you than about me. I'm not just being self-effacing here. That in a nutshell is my theory of how organizations compel constituents, add value, and grow.

I'm still a big fan of websites, and I hope to do many more of them. So why, for me, a blogsite and not a website?

Because this choice does three things. One, having a blogsite forces me to verbalize more of what I have learned and what I observe, because the blog-front-and-center format requires constant updates. If my value proposition is that I have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share, and it is, then this format should help me demonstrate that.

Two, the blogsite gives me a platform for writing, which I love. It also allows me to deliver more information in less formal chunks. I've always wanted to write and publish articles and papers, and I'm planning to do that too. But this is more immediate and that is very appealing.

And three, having made the decision, I can convey to you in a real-life example that the expected solution is not always the best solution. And that the process of thinking that through can be powerful and beneficial.