Authenticity
Craig Miller points us to: Hansen’s Clothing.
I believe in Duane. I’m not sure exactly why I do, but I do. Maybe because it feels like he wasn’t following a manual when he built this store. Maybe it’s because his dad was named Elmore.
Least sold
Brooke Browne points us to: VIN�ON.
After you click through on your language of choice, you’ll notice that they don’t just list their bestsellers. They list their leastsellers.
I love this.
Some people want to buy what everyone else is buying.
But some people don’t go to restaurants that are, "so busy, no one goes there any more."
What a neat way to point out the overlooked.
Welcome to the lightning round
It was always the best part of the game show. No buzzers, no banter, just as many questions as you can answer in a minute. Quick. Quick. Quick.
Well, now that we’ve got a billion-channel universe (with more than 300 hits on the ‘top ten’ hit list: popurls.com | popular urls to the latest web buzz) it’s always the lightning round. There are hundreds of the most important posts of the day, and the list changes constantly.
Which means that subtlety may seem dead.
You get judged by your headline or your layout, or the first line of your press release or the first beats of your riff. If the smartmob can’t figure out your story in two seconds, they ignore it or they make up their own.
If you want to please everyone, it helps to be clear, obvious and direct. And safe and predictable as well.
Of course, if you try to make it clear to everyone, the chances of having your story spread in the long run go down. Because direct is often not so interesting, especially to sneezers. And doesn’t always involve the joy of discovery.
So perhaps, the best strategy is to be a bit less obvious, a bit indirect, telling a story you can live with because it’s true, but a story that might take more than a minute to understand.
I actually think there’s room in this big world for both approaches. They rarely meet (Google’s did, I think–the simple search story was right there for everyone to see, while the more subtle elements unfolded over time) so if you try to do both at the same time, you’ve got your work cut out for you.
A lot of internal marketing conflict comes from camps that don’t have the words to describe which path they’re choosing. Being clear with your peers in what you hope to accomplish will help you roll it out. Of course, being subtle…
This one I don’t get
Seen on a truck in Elmsford, NY.
Does the sign mean:
- If you get hit by a rock that my tire throws, don’t sue me (cause if it does, does the sign really work? Doesn’t his knowledge of the danger increase the chances of getting sued?) or
- If someone on the side of the road throws an object (what sort of object?) it’s not his fault?
- Don’t drive too close (if it meant that, why not just say, ‘don’t drive too close’?)
Is this a big problem for this particular truck or for all trucks?
The whole thing feels almost existential. Truckers, feel free to let me know.
[So, here’s what people think: Trucks are more likely than some vehicles to throw back items they run over (one reader was almost killed by a shovel). This driver works for a company that would rather fight than settle. So, the sign is a double warning–don’t drive close (to all trucks, not just this one) AND if you ignore the sign, don’t bother calling us. Oh. Actually, this isn’t true. See below.]
Mike Hapner knows the answer! The word that should be in italics is road.
8 slots left
Last chance to sign up for the June 15 seminar in NYC. Thanks.
Fifteen minutes?
Just went to buy some advance Amex tickets at Ticketmaster. This is the screen that comes up. I’m not IT guy, but what’s powering their computer… gerbils?
It’s hard to imagine how many customers, cash in hand, walk away when confronted with this screen. Wouldn’t it make sense to figure out a way to get back to me later?
People will be incredibly patient if you set expectations and keep your promises.
Thank you
I got a form thank you note from a clothing store in the mail yesterday. It’s pretty clear every customer gets one.
I think that’s a little like writing a thank you note on the back of a check when you get it for your bar mitzvah.
For most people, a thank you is a thank you when it’s real, personal and honest. Hard to do when you sell stuff all day long to total strangers, though. I’m not sure that a non-thank you is really worth the effort. Sure, be kind. Be grateful. But don’t send a facsimile of a personal note when that’s not what it is.
The 84th problem
It really is about walking in someone else’s shoes: 83 Problems.
The thing about coupons
Coupons are a surprisingly subtle invention. Now that anyone can offer them (because now anyone can have a store), it’s worth a second to think about what they’re for.
First benefit to the marketer is that coupons allow you to offer different prices to different people.
There’s a reason that most coupons are not trivially easy to find or redeem. By trading effort for a discount, the marketer says, "if you care about price, I’ll sell it to you cheaper, but you have to prove it." Hence the original idea behind Priceline. It was intentionally awkward to use so that the airlines could be confident that only the fare-obsessed would use it.
"Outlet" malls are just coupons in disguise. There’s a reason that Armani doesn’t have an outlet store on Fifth Ave. in NY. The drive is your way of proving you’re serious about price.
The second benefit is that they provide the shopper with a totem. Paper coupons are best, but even digital codes work. With something tangible in hand, the shopper feels as though they have the power to go make an exchange. It’s not just about trading money for the object or service. It’s about trading in this thing I have in my hand (or pasted onto my clipboard). If I don’t buy the thing, I’ve just lost the value of my totem. Now the purchase isn’t just about spending money… it’s about realizing the value of a thing I possess–or losing it forever.
Which leads to the third benefit: a coupon can mean now. Give me a coupon and I am forced to make a decision. Will I buy the service or product before the coupon expires or gets lost, or should I forfeit this thing of value?
Three benefits from one tool–and two caveats.
The first: don’t do a coupon unless you can execute properly. It needs to be big enough matter. It needs to avoid alienating the middleman (retailer) if that’s not you. And it can’t destroy the product and what it stands for. No coupons for high-end plastic surgeons, please. Why? Because those that don’t want to use the coupon might see it, and its very existence means the surgeon is no longer who you thought they were. No coupons for Tiffany’s either.
The second: if you make the use of the coupon a hassle, you’ve blown it. Barbeques Galore lured me in with a 10% off coupon. Yes, I’m a cheapskate, but it was the totem that got me to go do something I’d been meaning to do anyway. It took me two minutes to find the item I was replacing. I handed them the coupon, picked out some overpriced accessories and stood as they wrote up the whole thing.
The clerk handed me the receipt, and I asked, "Where’s the discount? It seems to be missing." The manager walked over and said that the coupon wasn’t valid because the grill was on sale.
Well, sure, that’s their privilege, but:
They didn’t tell me, I had to ask
The coupon said no such thing
They didn’t even apply the coupon to the non-on-sale other stuff.
No budging on their part, I finished my transaction and went home.
So, the smart marketer used the coupon properly. The short-term minded sales ops team decided that they could boost profits by alienating the very people the marketer lured in. One more reason that the marketer needs to be responsible for the whole chain.
The best thing about coupons in the post-newspaper insert era is that they are trivially easy to test and practically free to distribute.
PS Bryan Murley points out the other key benefit of coupons… they make it easy to track the media. That’s why newspapers embraced them early on. Proof! Now, of course, they make it easy for you to see what’s working and what’s not. Thanks, Bryan.
And things to do off your blog…
Rajesh has a neat list.