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Susan Gunelius: Is Demographic Segmentation Dead?

November 25, 2007

Social media and viral marketing strategies have become critical components to any marketing plan. While many companies have yet to learn how to fully leverage the strength of the social web to boost sales and profits, it's essential that companies don't give up to soon and continue testing the waters of Web 2.0 to find the right marketing mix.

Part of leveraging the social web to market a brand or product involves changing your marketing mindset related to segmenting your customer base. Finding your 'best' customers is a fundamental step in building a business.

Typically, the next step involves defining ways to find more people like your 'best' customers in order to target that market with advertising, promotions, etc. Usually, this step is done by the traditional segmentation of your customers focusing on similar demographic characteristics then finding similar people based on those demographics.

However, this is not the most effective way to segment and target customers in the world of Web 2.0. The social web is defined by behaviors rather than demographics. People can use the internet for researching, communicating, shopping and more without revealing a single piece of demographic information.

Relying on demographic segmentation when building a Web 2.0 marketing strategy will lead a marketing strategy down a path to failure. Instead, internet users must be segmented and targeted based on their online behaviors. What sites do they visit, what pages do they view on those sites and what links do they click? Those are just a few of the relevant questions marketers need to ask to understand their current and potential online customers.

By continually evaluating online customer behaviors and adjusting the marketing plan to address those behaviors, marketers can find similar people and introduce the best offers, in the best places and at the best time.

Shifting your thinking from demographic segmenting and targeting to behavioral segmenting and targeting can be a big change, and managing that change can feel like a big risk. However, marketers who learn to leave demographics behind and embrace behaviors will thrive in creating and executing social web marketing strategies.

Drew's Note: Susan Gunelius is the author of two marketing blogs, Brandcurve and MarketingBlurb as well as a new business blog called Women On Business. She has over a decade of experience in corporate marketing, advertising and branding. Susan is the first of the good guys who is in fact, a good woman.

Connie Reece: Think Small for Big Results

November 25, 2007

One word of advice for Drew and family as they enjoy the annual pilgrimage to the wonderful world of Disney: steer clear of It's a Small World. Talk about things that are “sticky” … you don't even have to get on the ride. All you have to do is walk in front of the Small World pavilion and that annoying theme song will be stuck in your head for days!

At Disney the tiny animatronic dolls representing countries around the world have been a phenomenal success. What about your business? Are there small things you could do to produce big results?

Recently Hugh McLeod wrote about using micromedia for micromarketing the new labels for South African wine Stormhoek. Previously the company has sponsored large celebrity-driven geek events; now they're about to host a number of small, intimate gatherings—and they're using the microblogging service Twitter as the promotional vehicle. (Note: the offer is limited to UK Twitter users, so don't bombard Hugh with requests from other countries or through his blog. It's not that small a world yet.)

Why the switch? Here's what Hugh said:

When we sponsor large parties, nobody notices, talks about, or remembers the name of the wine that was served that evening. With smaller parties, the opposite is true. People seem truly appreciative that a commercial wine business would go to all that trouble, just to reach out to so relatively few people. But why not? From trying to connect with people on a much more intimate and human level, we have far more stable and stronger building blocks to create a community around our brand.

Stormhoek's mass market is everyone who drinks wine, and the label is sold in major retailers. However, their primary marketing venue has been the blogosphere. Now they're further refining a niche market strategy: find small groups of wine drinkers among early technology adopters (i.e. Twitter users), send sample bottles of wine for those who want to host a dinner party, and generate word of mouth buzz.

Instead of occasions for celebrity-sightings, the small dinner events are likely to stimulate conversation about the quality of the wine and its unique marketing strategy. Stormhoek is hoping to build brand evangelists and to develop a loyal community among a relative handful of people who have a proven habit of answering the question: What are you doing? (Twitter's raison d'être.)

What lesson can you learn from Hugh McLeod and Stormhoek? Can you pare down your marketing budget while beefing up results through smaller, more targeted campaigns?

Drew's Note: Connie Reece blogs at Every Dot Connects and is the the founder of Reece & Company. When it comes to mixing social media principles with PR and marketing tactics, Connie is one of the experts. I had the privilege of meeting her at SOBCon '07 and she's the real deal.

Roberta Rosenberg: Re-framing the Fruitcake: Taking a Fresh Look at Your Product/Service Marketing

November 24, 2007

I teach an online course for budding copywriters. One of the examples I use as illustration of "the big marketing idea" is that of a Texas bakery who had a perception problem. Their product was delicious. Their delivery was speedy. Their customer service was impeccable. Customers loved the product and purchased these baked goods via store and catalog faithfully, especially at Christmas.

At this point you're probably thinking, "Okay, Roberta. If everything was so great – product, delivery, customer service, loyal customers — what kind of major problem could this bakery have had?"

Your tip-off is the title to this post. The Collin Street Bakery of Corsicana, Texas made fruitcakes and they still do. They've been making and selling fruitcakes for over 100 years. Now I'm not exactly sure when the holiday fruitcake became a favorite Christmas time joke gift (like The Singing Bass plaque from a few years ago), but it has. You know it and I know it.

In fact, when I did a Google search for "fruitcake jokes", Google returned 342,000 references. That's a lot of references, especially when compared to "latke (potato pancake) jokes" which came back with only 81,100 citations.

So what do you do, how do you sell profitably to new customers, when your main product is a holiday joke?

YOU CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE!

That's what Garry Hennenberg, master copywriter, did. With a flick of his pen and a click of his keyboard, fruitcake became (drum roll, please) "Native Texas Pecan Cake!" (cue rim shot!)

Now that's genius. The bakery's holiday direct mail promotion waxed strong and poetic about this delicious taste treat, so perfect for holiday gift giving. I'm sure it used much of the same advertising copy that it used before. But by calling fruitcake something else, the entire sales promotion/the marketing argument was completely re-framed for the prospect market. Rather than get sidetracked by "fruitcake as gag gift", prospective customers could be encouraged to give "Native Texas Pecan Cakes" as a gift from the heart.

And if you're wondering, yes, this promotion sold a LOT of fruitcakes. Like I said, pure genius.

How many slow moving products or services are you sitting on that couldn't benefit from a little re-framing of your own?

Jonathan Winters, a comic madman and another genius to my mind, was known for being able to take any object handed to him – a broom stick, for example – and within seconds, he'd transform the stick into a cane for an old man, a rifle for a soldier, a cigar for a giant, and so forth to the delight of his audience.

Here's another example. Arm & Hammer, the baking soda manufacturer, has been around for over 155 years. In the last 50 years they've marketed the heck out of that humble little yellow box of baking soda Grandma used to bake us cookies and with the power of re-framing, turned it into a marketing juggernaut. We've got it in our refrigerators/freezers/litter boxes as a deodorizer … we use it as a safe, effective, eco-friendly cleaner … heck, we even brush our teeth with it to make our smile a little more sparkly.

And it's all still just baking soda.

Jonathan Winters re-framed a slim stick of wood and made his audience see Babe Ruth at the plate, ready to let one fly toward the bleachers.
Arm & Hammer "re-framed" baking soda and made it a personal/household staple and they're still finding new ways for consumers to use it.
Collin Street Bakery re-framed their fruitcake from holiday gag gift into a native Texas delicacy that folks just had to have and give.

Imagine the possibilities when put the power of re-framing to work for your own product/service marketing. I can't imagine a better time than right now. (Now will someone please pass me another piece of ~~fruitcake~~ …, er Texas Pecan Cake. I'm starved! :=)

Drew's Note: Roberta Rosenberg is one of the first bloggers that I really got to know and she is wacky, witty and about as smart as you get. She's had her own copywriting business for years and blogs at the Copywriting Maven. Roberta, as you might surmise, is the first of the good guys who is in fact, a good gal. (woman, lady…you know what I mean!)

Matt Dickman: A solid, digital foundation is the key to new media success

November 23, 2007

Pardon the idiom, but if you don't have your marketing ducks in a row it's hard to make a move into emerging media.

Too many companies try to jump to Web2.0 and skip many important steps in the process. This makes for a hard sell internally and an even more awkward transition.

This post focuses on what you're already doing online and how to make a smooth transition to 2.0.

For the sake of this post, I'll assume you have a website. You've probably invested a pretty good amount of time and energy into it as well. But for most marketers, once a site is up and running, it is often left unattended.

Technology and design patterns change constantly, if a site has gone more than 18 months with no changes it's probably stale.

The best way to create a strategy to take advantage of the concepts behind Web2.0 is to build a solid foundation in the following areas. For each area, I will show how to get up to speed and set up the foundation for a 2.0 move.

User Interface: As I mentioned, design tastes and patterns change constantly. If I asked you to describe the visual essence of Web2.0 I bet you would say things like, "shiny", "plastic" or "chrome". The real shift in the next version of websites is a move more toward application-like interfaces. Technology like AJAX and XML is making it easier for designers to make the web work easier for users. Instead of making people step through multiple pages of a form, it can load questions dynamically on one page. Users can move content around a page to see what they want where they want it (think iGoogle).

The value proposition here for the users is that they click less, get more and connect with you faster. Take a good look at your homepage.

What can you change today to help people connect with you?
Is the contact information obvious?
If you provide them a lot of data, can they manipulate it and take it with them in the way that adds the most value?

Have you sat down with a customer and used the site to see how they do their job? Getting the experience right, making sure that every click adds value and letting people take it with them are great starting points to push into Web2.0.

Engagement: This goes along with user interface. Engagement is the new metric buzzword. Page views and clicks are becoming less valuable as more ads are blocked and less pages are created. Engagement is spoken of in terms of time on site, repeat visits and content creation.

Engagement, however, is unique from site to site. What is considered engaging on a blog is not what is engaging on a manufacturing or a non-profit site. Don't be afraid to create your own set of metrics. Look at what is valuable to you and what is engaging to the user and build something new. If you're using message boards on your site maybe a new metric is "comments per thread".

Customer Service: This is the most overlooked opportunity on 99% of sites out there.

If you have an email on the site that goes to customer service, what is your policy on response?

What is the message that is sent to the user?
Does the policy include a personal response or a form letter?
Is it easy for users to reply back or does it go to a trash bin somewhere in cyber space.

Every single contact point is a sales opportunity and too many go unanswered. If you have a customer service email or contact form, make sure it's routed to a service rep. Set expectations and communicate them to the users (response in 24 hours). Create a template that has re-contact information as well as a brief marketing message. Unanswered emails are deadly in a 2.0 world.

They turn into angry blog posts, message board threads and a rallying point for people to gang up on you. Once the emails are returned you can move on to more advanced community-based support.

Business Support: Let's face it, most sites out there are not e-commerce driven, but they all have a business purpose. Brand awareness, information dissemination, regulatory compliance, etc. What is the goal of your site? Do you have multiple goals? Are you accomplishing them? Here is a drill that I use to visualize the contrast between where companies place their value on their site and where users actually spend their time.

	Draw a map of your current site. You can use Visio, Word, pen and paper or anything else you have at your disposal. Just treat each page as a block and show them in their hierarchy.
	Now, create a copy of the map and color code each page so that is aligns with your business goals. For this example we'll say red is a top tier page that generates revenue, orange is a second tier support page, yellow is a third tier information page and blue is non-essential.
	Now, create a copy of THAT map (with the color coding) and roughly scale each section with your page view metrics so that pages with more views are larger and less views are smaller. Try to keep them in proportion. This is where people go on your site compared with your business goals. In our example, we need to create tactics that shift more views to the red blocks and less to the blue. (Note: you could also scale based on time spent on each page)

Hopefully these points shed some light and allow you to plan for growth into new media. Only with a strong foundation can you build to reach the next level.

What other points would you add to this list? What's on your must-have list to "graduate" from 1.0 to 2.0?

Drew's Note: Matt Dickman is an interactive marketing strategist with DigiKnow in Cleveland. He blogs at Techno//Marketer and is always the guy who offers a helping hand on projects big and small. Like Greg, Gavin, Cam, and Mark…he's a rock solid good guy.

Mark Goren: Turn the page to more effective persona profiles

November 22, 2007

Back in early September, Drew wrote a post titled, "Write for real people." In it, he took the time to describe one of his tricks for writing – a way for him to picture the people he's writing for. At the time, he called this "the poor man's persona."

But let's say you wanted to go a little deeper, get a little more detailed about the Brand Persona you'd like to write and the people you want to connect to. Recently, I've drawn inspiration from three different books, each giving me something unique to hang on to.

1. The New Rules of Marketing + P.R. – by David Meerman Scott
If the New Rules Scott delivers aren't enough, he puts them into context relative to the people you're addressing. In the book, he writes in detail about how to develop a persona profile and how to apply each using his New Rules.

Key takeaway: the words you choose to describe your target will influence the words you choose to reach it. Have several targets? Develop several persona profiles and match them to the tools/methods that serve the target best. Doing so will help you connect your message on a more personal level.

2. Made to Stick – by Chip Heath + Dan Heath
The Heath brothers analyze what helps make a person remember a story and give concrete real-life examples to back up their claims. In Chapter 3, they talk about the importance of finding a universal language when speaking to your audience.

Key takeaway: Because you're the expert – after all, it's your product or service – you must find a way to address what your prospect doesn't know in a way that will help them understand and remember your message. When developing your persona profiles, consider where your audience is coming from, this will help you find common ground in your messaging.

3. Robin Hood Marketing – by Katya Andresen
In this book, Andresen looks at everything from a consumer perspective to determine what makes a person want to act. Because the book is all about "stealing corporate savvy to sell just causes", it gives readers a different perspective into a consumer's mindset to help you determine how to get people to volunteer time or money to charity. As Scott Case states on the back cover: "Andresen's message is clear: It's not about YOU. It's about your supporter. Tap your supporter's wants, hopes, dreams, and desires and you'll move mountains."

Key takeaway: When developing your persona profiles, think about how you can address your customers' personal goals, the ones that speak to the kind of person they are.

Remember, your persona profiles don't have to follow a specific template. They can always change. Look for cues in what you're reading to evolve the format you follow. The result will be richer, deeper messaging that connects.

Tell me, what tricks and tips do you use to develop your persona profiles?

Drew's Note: About a year ago, Mark Goren left agency life and hung out a shingle to help clients discover and find their voice in new media. Mark's love for books is what first brought us on each other's radar screens and thank goodness (on my end) for that! I hope you are sensing a theme…but like Greg, Gavin and Cam, Mark is definitely one of the good guys.

Age of Conversation: Time to play in the big leagues

November 22, 2007

4 months. Over $11,000 raised for Variety the Children's Charity. Pretty impressive — thanks to the talents and efforts of the 103 Age of Conversation authors.

But truth be told, 90% of the book sales came within the first 60 days and have trickled in since.

So, we've decided to try something different.

In the lead up to Christmas we have another opportunity to raise another $10,000 or maybe more, but to do this we need to break out of market that we have made.

We need to take advantage of the booksellers list and the opportunities afforded by online retailers. What we're going to do is to list the Age of Conversation with Amazon and all other book sellers around the world.

The proceeds to Variety will remain constant — they will get as much per book as they always have.

But a few things need to change to make this happen, based on the rules set by the online book sellers.

As of November 30th…

The hard cover version of the book will be discontinued. (You can still buy it in bulk)
The paperback version of the book will no longer be available directly through Lulu.com (again, can still be bought in bulk)
The e-book will remain on Lulu.com for the same price

All of that makes way for:

The paperback version will appear on Amazon and other book sellers throughout the world. (at an increased price to cover the book sellers' commissions.)

A bum rush event on 12/14.

A new surge of blogger activity, virtual book tours and other great word of mouth marketing efforts.

Please jump on board…help spread the word and participate however you can. And if you want to buy copies of AoC for yourself, clients, family members or library — grab all three versions before November 30th!

Update: The soft cover book is currently $16.95 (US dollars) and will go up to $30 (so we can cover the book seller's cut).

Cam Beck: The Magic of Childhood

November 22, 2007

At first glance, the mission of Disney seems too simplistic to be useful. They create happiness. Perhaps it is simplistic, but simplicity is often the tool geniuses use to break down seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Although growing up is always fraught with both common and unique difficulties, for most, the word "childhood" conjures memories of carefree, sweet innocence and unconditional love. This is true even though not everyone had a great childhood.

While we were children, many times our ignorance about the ways of the world caused us to consider our minuscule problems to be all-consuming.

However, that w as before we were burdened with the curse of experience, which taught us how many responsibilities come with the freedom we craved. Foggy hindsight allows us to look at our childhoods more favorably than they were.

Who would know this better than Walt Disney himself? To say Walt's dad, Elias, grew up hard would be an understatement. And though I've not read anything to suggest that he, like his father before him, broke a fiddle on Walt's head for trying to sneak off to play at a dance, it is clear that his frequently unemployed father had little tolerance for whimsical activities typically associated with the young – and with Disney World.

How can this be?

What gives us the ability to look back at — if not our childhoods — at least the myth of our childhoods so affectionately is the capacity kids seem to have for persistent imagination. To children, make-believe isn't a state of mind; it is a way of life. The magic of childhood Walt Disney sought to harness might rightly be called the magic of symbolic and selective nostalgia.

Genius Principle #1
The first real genius in the mission is the illusion it reveals: Disney can no more create happiness than they can count the number of angels dancing on the head of a needle. They instead must rely on people's willingness to be led to happiness.

To get there, Disney relies on two self-evident truths.

Truth #1
No one can make happy those who have not granted permission first.

Truth #2
People want to be happy.

They want to occasionally shed the heavy shell, let down the guard life has taught them to keep, and feel as – not just children – but as they believe children should feel. They give themselves permission to make-believe, and they give Disney permission to deliver the experience that convinces them that magic is real. What's more, they'll pay through the nose for it.

Disney doesn't take advantage of this desire, though. Whereas other "theme" parks nickel and dime patrons through concessions and extras, Disney's are quite reasonable by comparison.

Genius Principle #2
The second genius in Disney's mission is that the delivery of value – call it "the happiness quotient" — beyond what is paid for keeps on giving to the visitors for years after the experience.

It's a value that patrons of the parks and resorts give back to Disney a hundredfold by telling the stories of their visit to friends, family, and even complete strangers in the right circumstances.

Even if they are never afforded an opportunity to return, they can still spread the message by remembering and reminiscing the joyfulness of their visit.

Walt Disney's greatest success was his ability to take a flawed idealism about childhood and deliver a vision for an extraordinary experience that would make people believe in the magic and basic goodness they believed in as kids.

It's a simple message, but one that has carried one of the world's great brands through all sorts of national and global turmoil.

Going Head-to-Head with Disney
Should your mission be so different? Your goal as someone who provides a product or service should be to either make people happy, provide people comfort, or both. The rest is details over the where, when, and how.

Perhaps you don't have the resources available to Disney. Very few do.

That doesn't mean you can't deliver on the simple promise to make people happy.

You might be surprised at what you can accomplish with a smile and the insatiable desire to get others to do it, too.

Drew's Note: Cam Beck works at Click Here and blogs at ChaosScenario. He's about as straight a shooter as you'll ever meet and his posts are rarely just about marketing. They typically take you to a much deeper place. Like Greg and Gavin before him…he's one of the good guys!

Gavin Heaton: Take the chill out of cold calling

November 21, 2007

I have never been good at cold calls. Not good at making them, and not good at taking them.

But I do like good technique. I like a good performance. And also, I clearly understand that the person calling me has a job to do, a quota to fulfill or an inventory to shift. And as I work in marketing, I feel it is my duty when someone cold calls me, to listen.

But surprisingly, very few cold callers are prepared for someone who listens well.

And over the years I have noticed the same mistakes being repeated call after call. So, if you or someone you know, is responsible for cold calling, here are some things you might want to consider.

Know me — if you called me, you should know who I am, what my role is, the name of my company and something about it.
Know your offer — be ready to answer the simple questions and the off-beat. Know why your product/service is better than the one I am currently using, and be able to tell me why.
Don't ask me about my weekend — I don't know you, and we aren't friends. You have something to sell me and I am giving you the opportunity to tell me about it. Don't waste my time or yours.
Cut the jargon — you might understand the acronyms and the industry speak, but I don't. Make it simple for me to understand.
Put a smile in your voice — speak in an upbeat manner. Not too friendly. Not too chatty. And not too fast. Record yourself and play it back. If you sound like a chipmunk, slow down.
Follow-up and follow-through — if you promise to do something, do it. Then let me know you have. Make it personal for me so that it is harder for me to forget you.
Make me look good — you know, we all have bosses (even if we are self-employed). You thought your job was to sell me something? Wrong. Your job is to help me look good. Do that, and the sales will come.
Hang up gracefully — first impressions count and so do your last words. Leave me with something to remember you by.
Never lose your temper — even if I am rude. Really.

And finally, if you really do believe what you have will change my life, don't give up.

Drew's Note: Most of you will recognize Gavin Heaton as my cohort in the Age of Conversation. But long before that, he'd done some pretty impressive things. He's been in publishing, the agency business and on the client side. So, it is safe to say that he really does understand marketing from a 360 degree perspective. And like Greg, he's one of the good guys. He just has that cool Aussie accent to go along with it!

Greg Verdino: Love Your Haters!

November 20, 2007

I've discovered a surefire way to get a room full of marketers to go quiet. Just bring up the notion of reaching out and bonding with the consumers that hate their brand the most. Just a few weeks ago, I suggested this very thing to a client. You could hear a pin drop in that room.

Now, I've written about the notion of "loving your haters" at my own blog and to me it seems like a no brainer. You seek out the people who are your most vocal detractors and you listen — and I mean really listen — to all the reasons they don't like you and how they think you might improve. You engage them directly, show them why you do things the way you do them, and make them full fledged partners in helping you turn around. You actually implement some of the things that they'd like to see.

At a minimum, you get some great ideas for how you can make your business better. Beyond that, you might even earn yourself some new customers, committed fans who feel like they were part of the solution.

After all, isn't that why people complain in the first place? Not simply to let you know you've let them down but also to prod you along the path toward better business. Right?
I admit that I live inside the social media "echo chamber" where any conversation — even disagreement (maybe disagreement most of all) — is good conversation. And I'll also admit that, out there in the real world, not every detractor has your best interests in mind; some people really do want to see you go down. But if someone has taken the time to let you know that you've let them down — by calling your customer support line, by writing a letter, by complaining to their sales rep or (increasingly) by writing a negative blog post, uploading a video to YouTube or starting a negative thread in an online forum — isn't that exactly the kind of person you should engage?

McDonalds did this very thing earlier this year, when they put together a small panel of health- conscious moms and asked them to provide their unvarnished feedback about the restaurant and its menu choices. Was this a risky move? You bet — after getting a bit of an inside look at McDonalds any one of these moms could have walked away with a worse impression of the brand, and gone on to tell their entire network of (real world and online) friends about it. But one look at the women's public and (to my knowledge) unedited journals show that the gamble paid off. That's some pretty powerful marketing, if you ask me.

And here's the thing — you don't need to be a Fortune 100 company to do this kind of thing. I'd bet that any business — no matter how small — can find five or six unhappy customers or (even better) former customers who left after a bad experience. Find them. Make contact. Bring them in. Let them know what you're doing and why. But most importantly, get them to talk about what they would do differently and how they think their recommended changes would benefit your current customers — and win you new ones.
What's the alternative? Let the feedback get worse and worse until you have a real problem on your hands? Sure, I suppose that could work…

So think about it — what are some of the ways your company can partner with its biggest critics to have real, positive impact on your business? And if anyone out there is already headed down this path, I'd love to hear your stories – I'm sure Drew would too.

Drew's Note: Greg Verdino is Chief Strategy Officer for Crayon and writes his own blog as well. Greg's blog is a great place to keep track of trends in media and marketing, especially in the arena of new media and marketing disruption. He's an in demand speaker and all around great guy.

Putting out the welcome mat

November 20, 2007

Today begins my family's annual pilgrimage to the mouse house! That's right, we're Disney bound.

Last year, you'll remember that I wrote a series of posts about the magic of Disney marketing. (You can download the PDF) This year, I decided to take a break and really enjoy the down time. But I didn't want to leave you high and dry. So, I invited some of my smartest marketing blogger friends to pinch hit.

Every day, there will be at least one new post from a marketing blogger that you are going to love. They're going to cover everything from social media to cold calling.

Enjoy their wit and wisdom. And behave yourselves — we have guests in the house! (was that my dad's voice I just heard?)

My biggest fear is that you're going to love them so much you're going to start a collection basket to keep me in FL!

You're going to love them….and to my guest bloggers — a sincere thank you for stepping up, especially over a holiday week.

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