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3 Statistics That Will Change How You Think About Marketing

Just 3 stats – from 3 different corners of the marketing world. Our goal: help you learn more about the customer experience – or something we call “Empathy Marketing.” Enjoy.

Stat #1: “2 Million Plus Uniques on Foursquare.com in March.”

This means: Foursquare is “four real” – but has a ways to go. Evidence: these greater than 2 million unique visitors in the month of March represent exponential growth since October of last year, when Foursquare launched.

For the Empathy Marketer: How is location-based marketing changing the way you think? That depends – are you a B2B brand, or a restaurant looking to micro-target? Put your brand in the shoes of a customer or prospect. Will folks care if someone unlocks a badge when they visit your location. THEN figure out if it makes sense.

Stat #2: 75 Million Mexicans are Unbanked.

If you think the online world is the one to play in 24/7, the above estimate comes from a March article in Institutional Investor.

For the Empathy Marketer: Online bells and whistles are great IF you rely on online traffic. Foot traffic is probably much more important to Mexican businesses. Think Western Union focuses its efforts on online marketing – or on making sure that they reach Mexicans living in the US who need to wire money back home?

Oh, and Western Union might not ask much about Social Media Marketing. Social Media Marketing cannot sell your product to someone without a computer.

Stat #3: 65+3>96

The NCAA announced it was expanding its Men’s Basketball Tournament by just three teams, going from 65 to 68 teams.

This is better than the alternative – a rumored expansion to a 96 team format that would have been a disaster.

But I’m not alone in editorializing – and the NCAA scores points for (a) floating the trial balloon about this expansion, (b) listening to the hue and cry from fans about how lame it would be to expand to 96 and (c) backing down.

For the Empathy Marketer: Test and learn. Test and learn.

So, just three little stats; and from three random places. Empathy Marketers: don’t forget to put yourselves in the shoes of prospects, customers, fans. Listen to what they’re saying – to your face and behind your back.

18 Rules For Everything

There are no real rules to life, right? For instance, in this day and age, any schmo can launch anything and call it a business. Whether it gets on your nerves or not — well, it’s the new rule. Or non-rule.

So, to celebrate our new freedom as a society, here are 18 rules for everything. Courtesy of your friends at Area 224. You’re welcome.

  1. Co-opetition. If you enter the world of business without this attitude, you miss out on ways to make some real noise. Witness RealSMM.
  2. Failure is okay. Admit it and move on. I failed with my first startup, a business called U Sphere. I learned a ton.
  3. Belt matches shoes. Fail this test, gents, and you look like a goober.
  4. Be nice. You can be direct and still be nice.
  5. There is immeasurable value in looking someone in the eye. (I thank Jim Alexander for teaching this to me again this past weekend.)
  6. The world is not out to get you.
  7. Being genuine is a lost art.
  8. Pedestrians: obey walk lights.
  9. Drivers: watch out for pedestrians.
  10. As we’ve said before — Ninjas do not introduce themselves.
  11. There is a bell curve of knowledge. Any subject, there’s a small subset of people who know too much, and a subset of people who know nothing. Everyone else is in the middle.
  12. Pocket squares are always a nice touch.
  13. Assume nothing.
  14. The seat in the middle of the table at a meeting holds the most power.
  15. Life’s too short not to use chopsticks.
  16. Use your phone. Email is great for explaining things. But you can often cut through the clutter with the phone.
  17. Passion cannot be faked.
  18. Bottled water is way too expensive.

So, any rules YOU live by???

WWSMMD – What Would Social Media Marketing Do?

Background: I’m at the bank, and watched a situation unfold. I tweeted about it.

Dave Tweets from the Front LinesHere’s a blow-by-blow of what I witnessed:

  1. Customer comes in, under control but clearly upset, as he had used an ATM to withdraw $400 — but the machine did not dispense his cash, just a receipt.
  2. The person at the Information Desk tells him that, since he was not using a card from Chase, he needed to get his own bank to handle the situation.
  3. They got his bank on the phone, and he was told he needed to file an online complaint.
  4. He was even madder now; since Chase was not offering to rectify the situation.
  5. He mentioned that someone behind the counter said “that machine is always broken.”
  6. The Chase rep said they couldn’t put an “Out of Order” sign on the ATM.
  7. The customer again asked for Chase to give him his $400.
  8. The person behind the counter said “No” because it’s not their policy.
  9. He asked to speak to the manager.
  10. The person behind the counter, the same one who was helping all along, said “I am the manager.”
  11. The customer left.

This is what I witnessed; I tweeted about this situation in the hopes that someone would weigh in.

So I ask you, fair readers, “What Would Social Media Marketing Do?”

It’s probably better to ask “What COULD SMM Do?”

(I’m obviously biased in my opinion, but not for a reason you’d think. I was at the bank waiting to get a Notary. I ended up sitting down with a Notary who then introduced a sales guy who wanted to go over my account information. He offered to help me with business stuff; he seemed flummoxed that I was actually working with a very helpful Chase rep in Phoenix, Arizona, on my business account.)

So, Chase (and any other company looking to dip their toes into a pool filled with their own customers, the happy ones and the rabid ones), here are some thoughts:

  1. Monitor this stuff. Take one of these sales dudes and make it his job to see what is being said about the company, in real time, online. I’m not just saying Twitter (though that’s a start), but Facebook and YouTube and other places.
  2. Get your booty on Foursquare. I don’t use Foursquare but that is beside the point. Location-based marketing is here, and if someone is audacious enough to announce to the world that they are AT YOUR BANK RIGHT NOW…well, saying hello would be a good thing.
  3. Want to be my local bank? BE MY LOCAL BANK ON (INSERT SITE HERE). Tweeting from the Evanston, Illinois Chase Branch? Why not. In fact, I’d feel a heck of a lot more comfortable if someone from the bank branch got on and said “Hi from the bank branch, stop by and say hello.” YouTube is great for this stuff. I don’t care if 5 people view the video.

These are just a few ideas — I’d love to hear yours. Banks have a ways to go in this social media stuff, but I’d love to see baby steps.

What do you think?

The Area 224 Plan for Newspaper Relevance

Above the masthead on the Chicago Sun-Times read this little banner: “Still 75 cents.”

Amidst a global recession, the casual observer might think: “Wow, the price of something is staying the same.”

But observers of this space know that intuitive thinking like this, while safe, doesn’t get you where you need to be.

Chicago’s days as a two-paper town have been numbered for, like, forever. There’s the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Both can’t survive long-term (right?) so the Sun-Times apparently thinks it needs to compete on price.

How bout this: Compete with Relevance.

Is it that easy? NO. But here’s what’s wrong with the price tactic:

  1. It does not communicate value. “Still” 75 cents? That’s spare change. That also tells me you’re less-expensive than your competitor, which means…
  2. You’ll get the price shopper – and not the value shopper. Buying a newspaper isn’t buying a car. Might be closer to buying a cup of coffee. Ooh, nice analogy…

That’s where the relevance factor comes in.

The Sun-Times just might be the most relevant paper in Chicago. But they lost me at the masthead.

They’ve hired away columnists from the competing Tribune – and they have brand-name journalists on staff. This is the paper that gave you Roger Ebert long ago.

Can Newspapers Learn from Starbucks?

There’s relevance for ya. Pick one and roll…

Starbucks is relevant not just because of its ubiquity but because of how they communicate value. Every cup has something attached to it that you’re willing to pay extra for — there’s a lagniappe factor here that’s part ambiance, part smell, part music, part coffee. I pay for it – not all the time, but I don’t hit the Dunkin’ Donuts unless I want something quick and less-expensive.

The Sun-Times might be the Starbucks of newspapers, but they have to tell me that. Thus, here’s the 3-step plan for Newspaper Relevance.

1. Personal Brands. Lots of em. Start by taking your individual rock star columnists — I’ll use Rick Morrissey as an example, as he’s one of those recently hired away from the Chicago Tribune — and positioning them as, well, the rock star columnists they are. Give them their own mini-sites or micro-sites. Treat them like personal brands. It’ll make your product stronger — it’s still a muffin if you buy it at Starbucks, but you’re more likely to buy it at Starbucks because it’s showcased right next to the cashier.

2. Perceived value equals value. I received my home-delivery of the Chicago Tribune this morning and looked below the masthead, in small print. “$1.00 City and Suburbs.” The Trib has always been more expensive – it has also always been perceived as the white-collar paper.

The Wall Street Journal – if you talk about perceived value, then whoa, Nellie, that’s something I’d pay top dollar for.

Any newspaper’s relevance alone won’t be determined by price, but the perception of “you get what you pay for” is pretty spot-on.

3. Make your web sites suck less. It’s not a secret — newspapers are not good at doing the website thing. I won’t single out any of the bad ones — I’ve visited scores of newspaper websites, and, save for three (The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today), they all follow the same formula: let’s take a paper product and put it online, but also use it as a means of selling more ads.

USA Today should be singled out for being the most “Web 2.0” looking of them all; but all three take their product (NEWS) and package it online extremely well.

The Chicago Tribune, it should be pointed out, is doing something interesting with the “relevance” thing when it comes to their “Chicago Breaking Sports” page. As long as the news itself is relevant (read: “actual news” and not rumors), they score serious points for getting in my head.

Can this 3-step program fix your newspaper’s “relevance” issue?

Maybe. Each paper has its own personal brands – think of the reporter who has been at every local high school playoff since 1963. There’s a brand.

Each paper also has a price/value perception issue – and while I’m not advocating across-the-board price raises, or cuts, I am saying that communicating that you’re the lowest-priced competitor means little when free news is everywhere. Give me something worth paying for by showing me you’ve got something worth paying for.

Oh, and every newspaper has to have some web guru, 20-something on staff who can ramp up your quality without sacrificing things like revenue.

Agree? Disagree? Barking up the wrong trees?

3 Weeks, Times Two…

Lesson We Learned: Explaining Art + Science of Social Media…

Area 224 returns for not one but TWO repeat engagements of 3 Weeks to Social Media Success.

Up there on our site you’ll see it say “3 Weeks is Back!” That’s because we did this program in December and, well, we had quite a few people ask us if we’d do it again. So here we are.

PLUS – this is more laser-focused, less sessions, and some one-on-one time and group time and…we’re really excited.

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BUT…what about Real Estate? Don’t you guys have something for that, too?

YES…our Real SMM product has 3 Weeks to Real Estate Social Media Success. Real Estate people – agents, brokers, investors, title company, mortgage people…etc., they can all learn from the experts (we’ve been doing webinars like these ALL through 2009).

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So, if you ARE in Real Estate, check out the Real SMM site and sign up there. If you aren’t, see more info on our 3 Weeks program right here.

Cheers!

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