Month: November 2015

The 3 Deadly Sins of a Marketer

On By Joe DeRosaIn MarketingLeave a comment

A Marketers primary job is to understand their customer.  What drives their buying behaviors, their decisions, their choices.  It’s the marketer who is responsible for gaining this knowledge and use it to create the companys go-to-market strategy.  Here are 3 things that can crush a marketers effectiveness in creating a successful strategy.

  1. Not challenging the status quo.  For marketers joining a new team be wary of the famous “won’t work”, “tried that before”, or “our product is different”.   Thomas Edison made over 1,000 attempts before the first successful light bulb.  Edison said, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times.  The light bulb was an invention of 1,000 steps.”  Your job as a marketer is to challenge the status quo in order to find the message that best resonates with your buyer.  For those marketers who have been in their current roles for a while change this up to bring a level of freshness back to the office.  Read a book, talk to a collegaue, do something that provides you with an opportunity to propose trying something new.
  2. Lack of curiousity.  Marketers are part sales person, part researcher, part engineer, part visionary, part data analyst.  Given the breadth of your role the most important question you’ll have in your arsenal is “why”.  Ask it often and ask it everywhere.  As tools such as A/B testing become more mainstream asking why can be positioned as a quantitative inquiry and one that is backed by data.  If you’re working in an enviornment where “why” may be a bit too challenging then reposition your intention as a test, a study, a pilot.  No matter what you call it, it stills answers the question “why”.
  3. Failing to learn new things.  Change is fast, faster than ever.  Whether it’s marketing automation, Google’s new Penguin algorithm or dynamic content, your job tomorrow will be different from the job you leave today.  Keeping up with all these changes requires a personal investment of your time and energy.  Reading, webinars, conferences are all ways to keep up to speed on what’s changing and evolving in the world of digital marketing and media.  Twitter is a great source of valuable content if you follow the right people and companies.  Set a specific time every day for your reading.  Building a routine around your personal education is a critical success factor in taking control of your professional development.

Confidence THEN Conviction

On By Joe DeRosaIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Source: Confidence THEN Conviction

Confidence THEN Conviction

On By Joe DeRosaIn Marketing1 Comment

perception

Confidence is one of the most studied, sought after, and revered human traits. We all aspire to have confidence. The confidence to ask for a raise, or a date, or the confidence to ask for the business. Nearly everything we do in life requires confidence. But do you know what ingredient is needed to super-charge your confidence? It’s conviction.

 Years ago I found myself sitting in a meeting with the brilliant founder of Intuit, Scott Cook. In that meeting we were discussing why one of our product lines wasn’t acheiving the level of sales success we had anticipated. All of our research suggested it was due to a lack of brand awareness within that product category’s space.

At the end of our presentation Scott sat back and looked around the table. We were all quiet, anxiously awaiting his approval of the depth and quality of our work and findings. Instead he sat up, placed his arms on the table in a folded position and said, “I have a question. Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of a Yugo.” We looked around the room at one another and quickly hands began to rise. Still looking around the room Scott then said, “Now keep your hand up if you’d buy a Yugo.” One by one hands came down and we now knew we were about to get schooled in the topic of brand awareness.

“Your problem is not with awareness. Your problem is that the market has no conviction in your product”. Scott effectively made the point that strong awareness without conviction equals failure. Our job was to instill conviction in the marketplace. Doing so required us to establish confidence first with our buyer. They needed to first “believe” we were capable of what we said we could do, and only THEN could they demonstrate their conviction to buy from us.

Establishing confidence begins with awareness, followed by increasing the buyers familiarity with your offering. Once familiar, the marketers job is to instill confidence. This can be done through a variety of ways including testimonials, surveys, samples, free trials, or a no-risk guarantee. Regardless of which method you use to instill this confidence it must be real before you can ask for the customers conviction to purchase.

To make this journey successfully you must be willing to truly hear what your customers are saying. You need to assess the marketplace. And perhaps most importantly you need to exude a personal conviction that by doing these things your business will grow with happy, delighted, and profitable customers.

Customer Journey Mapping:  If you ask, be ready to listen and act

On By Joe DeRosaIn MarketingLeave a comment

I’m attending a Marketing conference this week in Chicago.  Much has been said about the importance of undertanding the customer buying journey.  CMOs, SVPs of Marketing, and in some cases CEOs are talking about how much time and money they are spending to better understand their customers.  Yet nothing is happening.  Why?

Most companies fall into two categories:  those willing to change how they go to market, and those that “say” they’re willing to change buy are simply not capable.  The latter is not because of a lack of intellect or knowledge.  Instead, companies not “capable” of change are typically those that are emboldened to the way they currently do things.  It’s easier.  It’s more comfortable.  It’s familiar.  Changing how you do business, and the interaction you have with your customer is scary.  It’s unknown.  As such only the most brave and courageous make the jump.

For those proposing or leading customer journey work consider the following:

  1. How involved has the current management/executive team been with customers?  Are they speaking directly to customers?  Are they in the field meeting with customers?  Do they attend industry events and speak directly to customers and prospects?  If the answer to any of these questions is “no” it’s likely you’ll struggle implementing the changes required to address your findings.
  2. What major changes have taken place over the past 12 months that affect the customer directly?  Did you launch a net promoter measure?  Is there a customer service center, and if so how is their success measured?  What communication has been sent to your customers over the past year?  Is it all sales related, or educational in nature?  Have you been surveying for customer satisfaction?  What have you learned?
  3. What’s the background of the CEO, COO, and President?  If you work in a small organization those roles may all belong to the same person.  That’s okay but the question still pertains.  Does he or she have any customer experience?
  4. Your sample pool should be diverse yet random.  Meaning, if you sell multiple products through the same sales and service channels you should look for customers with varying tenure with your firm, as well as different volumes of business.
  5. Have a project manager.  You may not have that luxury…it may be you.  How are your excel skills?  How do you manage projects, timelines, deliverables?  What’s your releationship with senior management to whom you’ll have to present your findings and recommendations?

I’ve conducted numerous customer journey mapping over the past decade.  The customer is always changing…evolving.   

 The impact of social media has become a catalyst for this change and will likely expedite it in the future.  If you’re interested in learning more about conducting customer journey mapping send me a reply/comment and I will be happy to provide additional insight and guidance.

4 Ways to Super-Charge Your Leadership

On By Joe DeRosaIn Leadership, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Headshot11.15.15

 

If you want to super-charge your leadership skills here are 4 things you should pay close attention to:

  1. Behaviors – What you do, when you do them, how you do them. Do your behaviors change depending on circumstances or do they serve as an unshakeable foundation even in times of crisis? Be cognizant that people are watching. Your colleagues, bosses, clients, partners, are all noticing your behaviors.
  2. Routine – In a recent Harvard Business Review, it was reported that great leaders have routines. They do things in certain ways, at certain times. They are disciplined and methodical in their actions. Leaders who are skilled at identifying their surroundings and circumstances are able to develop the routines that add the greatest value resulting in better results.
  3. Adaptability – Great leaders are capable of modifying their behaviors and their routines based on their circumstances. This requires the leader to be both a teacher and student all at the same time. Recognizing the need to adjust, and as importantly how to adjust, sets great leaders apart from those individuals who manage. Managers watch over a process. Leaders evaluate circumstances, determine a better way, garner resources, provide vision, and secure alignment. To do this, a great leader must be able to adapt.
  4. Seek feedback…genuinely and often – Interesting research from a number of trusted sources indicates that leaders who request regular feedback are more effective. Feedback improves your ability to empathize and connect with others. Unfortunately many people interpret a request for feedback as a weakness or perhaps insecurity. Leaders who ask from a number of sources – not just their boss – gain deeper insight into the organization, its issues, challenges, opportunities, and people. Having the ability to see into your circumstances is critical to your success. Don’t let others perceptions of feedback affect yours or worse prevent you from asking.

Great leaders learn, teach others, learn more, and repeat that process. Take these 4 elements and weave them into your daily leadership actions.