A bigger slice of the pie through customer centric marketing

It seems that technology can be good for business and customers—at least in the pizza business. As highlighted in the Wichita Business Journal, Industry publication Pizza Marketing Quarterly estimates that the average online pizza order is $6 to $9 higher than the average telephone order.

Wow! So if I run a pizza place, I can use technology to get the customer to perform the majority of the transaction by themselves, saving me labor dollars, and make more profit! Deal.

But don’t think that this is just benefiting the business. Customers are getting something, too. Customers get an improved ordering experience and, most importantly, more control. You are never put on hold and there is no rush to finalize your order. And you are able to take more time to view the menu options and make special requests.

What’s the lesson? As customer-centric marketers, we must always look at our process and decide, is this what the customer wants? Often when you make decisions based on the customer, it turns out to be a win-win.

A better way to find and market to your customers

Marketing Sherpa recently made available a nice case study on segmentation. It looks at H2O+, a skin care products retailer, that has been segmenting their audiences by personas.

Segmentation can be overlooked when developing marketing strategies, especially the further removed we are from the academic study of marketing. We tend to make quick assumptions about who we are trying to reach and use tired caricatures--soccer moms, business professionals, twenty-somethings. However, in a world that demands justification for each marketing dollar spent, it is wise to carefully and deeply define your market through segmentation.

To do it right, look beyond simple demographics. In a cluttered marketplace, targeting women 25-54 with household incomes of $75K+ will rarely lead to relevant messages. Instead, consider lifestyle segmentation, which is at the heart of building key customer personas.

Real success comes in crafting marketing messages that match perceived lifestyles.

Take the mature, 55+ market. Instead of targeting wealthy seniors, target near retirees who feel 7 years younger than they are and are still striving to achieve life goals. Or market to the persona of the empty nester standing on the threshold of endless opportunity armed with a working professional’s salary.

By thinking in terms of persona, or lifestyle, you are forced to make more personal decisions to craft your message. The result: messages that are relevant to an audience that is ripe for your product.

Photo from nicolasnova at Flickr.

Who is the target audience of the evening news?

At the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference Les Moonves, president-CEO of CBS Corp., voiced quite the concern when he remarked, "I am concerned that average watcher of the evening news is 61."

If I were Les, I would be concerned, too. Why are younger people not watching the evening news? An assumption can be made that the younger generations are not as engaged in society as older generations. Think Leno’s “man on the street” segments where people can’t come up with the name of the Vice President.

But I don’t think this is the whole story. I think we have always had disengaged people. The reason that younger generations are not tuning in to news broadcasts is because they are getting their information from other sources that package it to match their lifestyles. Online websites that offer RSS feeds, and are instantly updated with the current news stories serve these generations that have come to value immediacy.

And, the evening news isn’t exactly set up to attract younger viewers. If your local news is anything like mine, 50% is weather, not exactly the right content to get Gen X and Y to close the lids on their laptops. If newscasts are interested in appealing to younger viewers they need to do some research, offer content relevant to that demographic and try to integrate content to the Web where this generation spends their time.

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its Red Bull

Adweek points out this ad from Red Bull that came under attack from Italian priests and was pulled. Apparently they weren’t too keen on the idea of a fourth Wiseman bringing Red Bull as a gift to Baby Jesus. I always thought that Red Bull contained Myrrh, but I guess I was wrong, as it is mainly used in Chinese medicine. Go figure.

So the question is: does the controversy surrounding this ad and its removal from the airwaves help or hurt Red Bull. Well if you think of their audience as being young people who crave energy and are a bit rebellious (though I am pretty sure most of their sales come from stressed out, overworked creatives), then this little episode is pretty much on brand.

I’m sure the suits at Red Bull would never admit it, but this fits right in with their image.

Audience Driven Through Consumer Modes

An interesting article in the October 29, 2007 issue of Advertising Age is a great example of an audience-driven marketing strategy. Rick Milenthal, CEO of Engauge, lays out the six most relevant “consumer modes.” These are: Entertainment, Information, Discovery, Connecting, Sharing and Expressing.

Milenthal posits that consumers engage with different media with purposes, goals and needs. These can be sorted into consumer modes. Great advertising recognizes these elements and satisfies them.

This is just another way of saying that marketing needs to provide the consumer with the information they are looking for in the way that they are looking for it. Marketing should not take the form of pushing the company line down the throats of consumers. Consumers are savvy and will tune out on those message that are not relevant.

So what mode are your customers in when making purchasing decisions for your product? Are they in the entertainment mode? If so, your advertising needs to be entertaining.

Sounds simple, right?

What is a Web site?

A recent project at work had a group of us thinking about Web sites, or more accurately, what role do Web sites play in marketing, advertising and public relations? We determined that this role is different depending on the company and the situation. However we did come up with one consistent element: sites should be audience driven.

Far too often, with communications throughout the marketing spectrum, we approach projects with a "What do we want to say?" instead of "What do they (the customer) want to know?" attitude. When your Web site is set up to provide the information your prospects are looking for, then you have an audience driven tool that acts a resource. This requires knowing what your customers are looking for. That is where the real challenge lies, and where I think companies should devote resources. That's right, put money into research.

It doesn't have to be a statistically valid phone survey (but that would help). It can be a simple focus group, which, when properly moderated, can uncover some powerful customer preferences that translate to marketing messages.

Or you can look at your existing Web traffic. What areas are people visiting on your site. Where do they spend the most time?

This is just the beginning of uncovering your prospect's desires, but it shows that such an exploration can provide structure for your communications to become something that people actually read.

Making fun of the competition

Over at LinkedIn a marketing professional raised this question:

Would you consider it acceptable to send a mailer that pokes gentle fun at a competitor?

My answer was as follows:

I think as marketers we should rarely create "never" situations, because saying you should "never" do something limits the creative thought process. There was a time when it was said that a commercial should never run longer than 30 seconds. Now we have mini films like Hammer and Coop playing on the Internet. Thus, I think there are situations where you can consider poking fun at a competitor. But there are questions to ask.

Does the comparison inferred from "poking fun" at a competitor reflect your brand's position in the marketplace? If you are going to insinuate a flaw in your competition, your point of differentiation must be that you are the exact opposite. Mac poking fun at PCs for crashing would be more believable and palatable if Macs never crashed. However, Macs do crash, so consumers may react negatively to the comparison.

When is it a good idea to do this? When the deficiency that you are poking fun at is something that your product fixes or avoids and when you are a "smaller" company than the company you are making fun of. If a small company takes on a large company it creates an underdog situation which is a great way to generate buzz. Mark Hughes talks about this in his book "Buzzmarketing."

But never let humor or the urge to ridicule a competitor lead you away from your core brand promise or positioning.

That was my answer. What do you think?