Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Social Media is Broken...

One of my friends forwarded me an article on how Social Media is broken and should be "started all over again".   He thought I might disagree but actually I do not.  I agree with most of it.  Social Media needs to be a place companies interact with real customers.

DDE Media does a lot of social media for clients.  And the 2 most important roles are the toughest to see.  Responding/monitoring what is being said and adding new appropriate followers.  Without a following, the best content does not get read.

I think social media needs to be at least 80% for the value of the reader.  Add value to the reader then you can be advertorial.   Even then, you often do not need to be overt about it.  Simply saying something interesting, funny or meaningful keeps you in the mind of the reader (possible customer).

It ties to an article I wrote a few years ago on the fallacy of ROI in marketing.   The gist of it is, we do not buy because of a single marketing activity, we buy because of a combination of them over time.

Much of social media is just reminding people "we are still here".

Social media, like devices, has contributed to short attention span.  National Post says our attention span rivals that of a goldfish.

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A good article on simple shareholder documentation by one of my friends.

Reminds me a bit about good writing.  Brevity and clarity count.

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My daughter sent me photos of her PhD binders she submitted for tenure.  Included with the photos was a gem.



Tuesday, August 11, 2015

New Brand Leadership

I am enjoying my CEO position at Danby.  I like being in operator mode.  

The business is large enough that 1% here or there adds up quickly.  And the brand is well known - especially in Canada.  Danby has some serious market share in bar fridges,  window air conditioners, freezers and microwaves.
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Not a lot of new concepts, however it certainly pushed me to look and think of things differently - particularly from a brand leadership vs. brand management perspective.

In summary:
·       The authors introduce the difficulties encountered when marketing in a globalized world.
o   The challenges in being global, local and personal (I would add emotional) all at the same time
o   Consumers appreciate the strength and perceived reliability of global brands, however at the same time yearn for authentic, locally occurring, personal experiences.

·  ·       An overall decline in trust
o   Old marketing tactics have lead consumers to be skeptical, therefore marketers need to become more savvy to earn their trust

·       Changed Perception of Value
o   Value no longer equates to ‘low price’. Value is in the eye of the customer and is learned from interaction.
o   Leads to a new customer-perceived brand value equation: Trustworthy Brand Value

·       Three-Box Model – requires global and regional teams to collaborate
o   Box 1: Create the brand vision
o   Box 2: Define the global brand plan to win
o   Box 3: Bring the brand to life

Good stimulating book.

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I continue to enjoy doing some SEO work with DDE media.  

One client specializes in getting clients government funding for business by writing grant applications.   This is a highly competitive search phrase so difficult to get page 1 for.  

I find it fascinating how Google decides who gets first page.  I think it is the intellectual challenge of it that is the fun.
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I had 2 of my grandchildren over for dinner a few days ago.  

Of course I was showing them my garden.  We still have a few red currents and I told my grandson he could eat them off the bush to which he said "Are they poisonous?"

This of course put me in a dilemma.   Do I say:

1 - "yes - I invited you here tonight to poison you".
2 - "I don't know.  I thought if I got you to eat them, I would find out"

He ate them...






Sunday, August 02, 2015

Impressions in Marketing

I have been working recently with the marketing department at Danby on impressions.  I hope they have a good impression.

An impression in marketing is someone seeing the product or brand.

The number of impressions needed for a consumer to "know" a brand is between 7 and 15.  

The theory in impressions and marketing is "Impressions build brand through recognition".

The impression formula is complex.  It is a combination of Number of impressions (N), Strength of impression (S), Appropriateness of impression (A), Timing of impression (T), Feeling of impression (F), and Repeat of impression (R)

N - Number is easy.  Just the raw number of impressions

S - Strength - tougher and more subjective.  Partly it can be objectively measured by time spent but it will vary from person to person.  Use a scale of 0 to 1.

A - Appropriateness.  Most marketers use demographics and surveys to figure out if someone is an appropriate target.  This ties into the concept of Overspray in Marketing.  Use a scale of 0 to 1.

T - Timing of impression.  When people are close to buying a product, the value of the impression goes up.  Advertising air conditioners in the winter is an example of poor timing.  Again use 0 to 1.

F - Feeling of impression.  If people have a good feeling when they see your brand, the impression is a good and valid one.  If a company makes a poor product and every time the poor product is looked at the associating is a bad one, it negates the impression or since the person can actually negatively influencer.  Use a scale of 1 to minus 10.

R - Repeat of impression.  You cannot ever get over a full impression point for one person.  So someone who wakes up and sees a Danby dishwasher daily or who drives past a Danby plant daily may have full recognition and adding more impressions does not add to recognition.  (In any case where recognition is 100%, the marketer goal is to work on the F (feeling).)

I always wanted to have a score named after me, so I will call this the Estill impression score.  So the formula becomes:

And only 5% of the people are likely to buy an appliance in the next 90 days so T would be .05.  = N*S*A*T*F*R

So an example:

1,000 people see a mention of Danby on Twitter.  (and we know often less than 1% of the Tweets get read so this would be a Tweet to 100,000 people)
N = 1,000

Twitter tweets tend not to be real strong so S=.1.  Perhaps only half the people on Twitter would ever be a Danby type product buyer so A=.5.  And only 5% of the people are likely to buy an appliance in the next 90 days so T would be .05.  And most people are fairly neutral on Twitter feelings so F=.5.  Many people who are seeing Tweets see them often from a brand they know so R might be .1.

This tweet would be:

1,000*.1*.5*.05*.5*.1 = .125 Estill impression score

Another example:

1,000 people have a Danby Compact Fridge in their office.  Assume they have 30 staff see it regularly (those would be low R) and 50 visitors through their office.  So 80,000 impressions.

Product impressions tend to be weak since they can be background so S=.05.  80% would be buyers so A=.8.  And only 5% of the people are likely to buy an appliance in the next 90 days so T would be .05.  Unless the person in the office raves about their Danby, F might be .5.  R might be .2 depending on how many of the people have "maxed their Danby impressions".

80,000*.05*.8*.05*.5*.2= 16 Estill impression score

Note how this really gives the advantage to the market leader and companies which have many products in the market.

In summary - impressions count.  But make them good ones to appropriate people with appropriate timing.  Grow your impressions and grow your sales.