Customer Behaviour

Make It Fun to Keep Them Loyal

What makes consumers love your Web site? The answer might be as simple as child's play. Research shows that customers have a more positive attitude toward a site when their online experience is engaging and enjoyable. And enjoyment is an important determinant of why consumers shop.

When they become immersed in your site, customers view being on it as fun rather than work. Since their experience feels like play, they return more—making them more loyal to the site, the company and the brands it sells.

What creates this immersion? Research suggests you gain loyalty when:

• 
  
  The site challenges customers. Customers don't want to be bored. When the skill required to navigate your Web site marginally exceeds customers' search skills, they see the experience as an enjoyable escape rather than a burden.


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  Customers believe they have the skills to find what they want on the site. If customers can't follow the site navigation, they will lose interest in their search and, perhaps, your company and its products.


• 
  
  Customers feel they have control over the search. If the navigation is too complicated for the average user to master, they won't return to the site.

The Po!nt: Design your Web site with the end-user in mind. Make it a fun challenge, not a task. Customers who become immersed in your site will be more loyal to the site, your company and your brands.

Marketing Inspiration

The Deviant Approach to Creativity

Take a look around your office—what do you see? The traditional mix of memorabilia, photos from company golf tournaments and perhaps a few mementos from some recent successful product launches?But you probably don't have a poster of the Sex Pistols above your desk. And Amantha Imber of Inventium says its deviant imagery, or something of similar shock value, might be just what you need for optimum brainstorming.

Imber points to a Jens Forster study that looked at deviance and creativity. "[They] hypothesized that objects or pictures that relate to the concept of deviance in some way, such as a photograph of punk rockers, are likely to promote divergent thinking," says Imber. The research team divided participants into two groups and tasked each with devising uses for a brick while looking at posters of the letter X repeated in a four-by-four matrix.

For the first group, each of the 16 Xs was the same color; for the second group, one X had a different hue from the other 15. The second group, staring at their deviant X, produced more ideas and exhibited a higher degree of creativity.

In the event your CEO or clients object to radical office décor, Imber recommends meditating on events from your rebellious past to stir up inspiration. "Thinking about one's deviant history is a great way to get the brain geared up for some creative thinking," she says.

Your Marketing Inspiration: Concentrating on a deviant image or memory may help activate unconscious thoughts that lead to good ideas, and more of them.

Get to the Po!nt

Creating Your Company's Own Online Reality

"While many business owners are beginning to understand that information is the currency of the Internet," says Rick Sloboda of WebCopyPlus," few act on it." Yes, your business has the potential to create a website that can go toe-to-toe with larger corporate sites, but there's a chance that ill-defined, irrelevant and self-centered content may conspire to undermine this natural advantage.

Instead, use language to create an online reality that impresses your target audience. "The right web content will make you concrete and credible on the ... Internet," he says. Here are some tips on creating the right image:

• Use customer-centric copy. Small businesses tend to be preoccupied with their own story. People who visit your website don't want to hear about you; they want to know what you or your product can do for them.


• Publish case studies. This is something larger companies do—so why shouldn't you? It never hurts to offer a detailed examination of a successful project. In addition, case studies build a sense of trust.


• Put your guarantee in plain sight. Highlighting your promise communicates confidence, and creates a sense of stability.

The Po!nt: "Your web copywriting doesn't describe reality, it creates it," says Sloboda. "In fact, every word you feature on your website has the ability to build—or damage—how prospects perceive you."

E-mail Marketing

Four Tough ESP Questions

Now, wait just a minute. Don't hand that online campaign to just any email service provider (ESP)—at least not before you ask some hard questions.
Here are four tough ones that SendLabs' Josh Nason says you should always ask an ESP:

• What do I get? You might want a full-service shop that handles everything from software to creative services, or you might prefer an a la carte approach that complements your in-house skill sets. Make sure you know upfront what the ESP can and cannot provide.


• How's your customer service? Ask how long it takes an ESP to respond to reported problems: the industry norm, according to Nason, is within an hour. Also investigate how their service levels might vary based on the plan you choose.


• What will this cost me? Most ESPs charge either by the month or by the campaign. "There are positives and negatives to both," says Nason, "so … communicate your list sizes, your deployment habits and your needs" to find the right payment plan.


• What's the word on the street about you? A quality ESP will have a relationship with an email reputation monitor that confirms email arrives safely, provides blacklist monitoring and offers spam checks. "Feel free to ask [an ESP] what their latest reputation score is," he says.

The Po!nt: "If checking out a company's site or speaking with a rep gives you that not-so-confident feeling, there's probably a reason for it," says Nason. So keep looking until you feel comfortable. By asking the right questions, you'll find the right fit.

e-mail Marketing

A Permission Marketing Primer: Picking and Choosing

Permission email marketing has morphed from best practice to legal requirement in several countries. In the next three issues we'll explore what Karen Talavera, president of Sychronicity Marketing, refers to as the "Six Cs of Permission Email Marketing." Here are the first two:

Conscious consent

"Terms like affirmative consent, passive consent and third-party consent abound," writes Talavera. "But when it comes to genuine, 100 percent permission marketing, the only consent that matters is conscious consent." This means subscribers make an active decision to receive future communication. This is different from having the box for future messages pre-checked on a registration form and expecting subscribers to deselect it if they don't want future messages. For conscious consent, the subscriber must physically check the box and agree to your correspondence.

Choice

Let recipients set their preferences for the manner and types of communication they receive. Some might want news about your company but not promotions, or accept messages by email but not postal mail. Some sites let subscribers determine the frequency of contact. "It's fine to restrict choices solely to what you can realistically manage," says Talavera. "Aim your sights on under-promising and over-delivering rather than vice versa, and your customers will reward your efforts."

The Po!nt: Says Talavera, "With marketing channels of choice proliferating and messaging devices diversifying, it's not hard to imagine ... [a] future where permissions are granted not only by marketing channel ... but also by content, device, time and place."

Customer Behaviour

Who Can Resist a Bargain?

Many marketers believe customers are attracted to discounted prices. Yet this assumption may be wrong. While a lowered price might make people more inclined to buy your product, they may also be less satisfied with their purchase.

Researchers at Stanford, INSEAD and MIT found that consumers who were given an energy drink felt the product was less effective if it was purchased at a discount. Consumers who drank the discounted product felt they that had a less intense workout than those who purchased the drink at its regular price.

When advised that the drink helped improve mental acuity, consumers who were told that the drink was purchased at a discount were able to solve fewer word puzzles than those consumers who used the same product purportedly purchased at the regular price.
Also, consumers exposed to strong claims about the energy drink's effectiveness were able to solve more word puzzles than consumers who received weaker advertising about the product. Your marketing messages, therefore, may impact your product's potency. Advertising claims, even if not based in fact, may become reality to customers.

The Po!nt: Customers may, in fact, get what they pay for. Price drops, and advertising overall, may shape consumers' expectations, making them believe a product is not as effective, and hence lower in quality.

Get to the Point

Nickel and Dime on the Not-So-Sly

In a post at his Living Light Bulbs blog, Ryan Karpeles talks about the wrong way to make a buck. And he offers a prime example: Dollar Rent a Car, which recently introduced a $2 "topping off" charge to any vehicle returned with a full tank of gas. "Not only is this obnoxious," Karpeles complains, "but it's also unfair to the customer ... you either pay $2, or you get stuck with the bloated 'local refueling charges' (which are always higher than the market cost of gasoline)."

If the company needs to generate an extra two bucks from each transaction, Karpeles suggests that rolling the surcharge into a rental fee—where it's likely to go unnoticed—would secure the revenue without alienating customers.

It's a principle worth considering if you find yourself in a similar situation. For instance, would you feel ripped off if your $240 hotel room came with complimentary Internet access? Of course not. But you might resent a $15 connection charge when it's added to a $225 daily rate. Likewise, you probably wouldn't give a second thought to a $603 plane ticket that included refreshments; but if you pay $600 for the ticket and they want $3 for a soft drink, you're going to roll your eyes at the price gouging.

The Po!nt: "Before you enact a bunch of new policies to make an extra buck," writes Karpeles, "think about what kind of message you're sending. There's probably a lot better way to accomplish the same thing."

Marketing Inspiration

Social Security Shenanigans

Everyone knows you're supposed to guard your social security number like a state secret. After all, those nine digits are the open sesame for criminals who want to run up huge tabs on credit accounts opened in your name. They get new computers, Caribbean holidays and expensive watches; you get to spend years rebuilding your credit.

So it's more than a little shocking to watch this television ad for a service called LifeLock. It shows a large panel truck cruising the streets of Manhattan with the social security number of its CEO Todd Davis emblazoned in a bright red, easy-to-read font. We kid you not—it's right there for all of New York, and anyone with a television, to see. The seeming insanity continues at the LifeLock Web site, where the first words you'll see are: "My name is Todd Davis. My social security number is 457-55-5462."

It turns out Davis isn't out of his mind. Instead, he's actually making the best possible case for his product. "Why publish my social security number?" he asks. "Because I'm absolutely confident LifeLock is protecting my good name and personal information, just like it will yours." He finishes off by announcing a $1 million guarantee.

You can probably anticipate why we consider this Marketing Inspiration: By making himself as vulnerable to identity theft as anyone can possibly be, Davis exhibits a breathtaking confidence in the service he sells. How we can convey that level of faith in our own companies?

Get to the Po!nt

Setting Your Evangelists on Track

In a post at the Church of the Customer Blog, Jackie Huba asks a question you've probably faced at some time: How do you handle a customer evangelist who is misrepresenting your company? Even though the offender's facts may be correct, his or her stance could be off mark. It can be a tricky situation.
On one hand, you've put a lot of thought into positioning your products or services in a certain way; on the other, attempting to micromanage the word of mouth is likely to backfire. So how do you react? According to Huba, you have four basic options:

• Make a public correction. Leave a comment at the customer evangelist's blog, for instance, that thanks them for the attention and gently clarifies your company's message.


• Make a private correction. Include the same content in an email that leaves the person free to follow up as they see fit.


• Acknowledge the mention without a correction. Express gratitude privately or publicly, and leave it at that


• Do nothing

Huba recommends the third route, and offers a tip for keeping future evangelism on target: Invite the person to join a special program that gives "inner circle" access to your latest news and updates.

The Po!nt: "If the customer's information is technically correct but incomplete, or uses her own words and not yours, get over it," she writes. "A word-smithing scold is old."

Marketing Inspiration

A Super Bowl Strategy That Paid Off

In a post at MarketingProfs' Daily Fix, Steven Schreibman discusses Nationwide Insurance's controversial decision last year to leak its Super Bowl ad a week before the sporting event. Outside observers weren't the only skeptics. "There was even some debate among our own advertising team about whether this was 'spoiling the surprise' and watering down the ad's game-time impact," he says.

But his company's gambit paid off. The spot—starring Kevin Federline as a rap star wannabe who works at a fast food joint—garnered 600,000 hits at the company's Web site, and the majority of these were from first-time visitors. Further, Schreibman notes the unorthodox strategy didn't prevent the ad from winding up on several "best of" lists.

Other companies recognize the value in the Nationwide approach as can be seen by the companies that posted their Super Bowl ads on YouTube long before their scheduled airtime. Pepsi, for instance, offered up the differently EnAbled humor of Bob's House; Bridgestone, gave us a sneak peak of Richard Simmons as the target of a speeding automobile.

"This experience has made me a true believer in the power social media," says Schreibman. "In fact, the early buzz we built by making the ad available to social media outlets became a catalyst for overwhelming interest from traditional media." And that's our idea of Marketing Inspiration.

Get to the Po!nt

Master Your Domain

In December, Hollywood learned that the AMPTP—which represents producers in their protracted negotiations with striking writers—hadn't covered its online bases. While the organization owned amptp.org, it didn't control amptp.com. A pair of TV writers with time on their hands used this oversight as an opportunity to make jokes at AMPTP's expense. Nikki Finke of DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com described the satirical coup as "laugh-out-loud funny no matter what side of the issue you're on."

Ed Lee of Blogging Me, Blogging You provided a side-by-side comparison:
From the "real" amptp.org: "The WGA has now been reduced to pounding the table, and this baseless, desperate NLRB complaint is just the latest indication that the WGA's negotiating strategy has achieved nothing for working writers."

From the "spoof" amptp.com: "We are heartbroken to report that despite our best efforts, including sending them a muffin basket, making them a mix CD, and standing outside their window with a boombox blasting Peter Gabriel songs, our talks with the WGA have broken down. Quite frankly, we're puzzled as to why this happened."

The comedy writers only rented amptp.com for a few weeks, so their site didn't last long. But it forced the AMPTP to spend energy counteracting it rather than promoting their own cause.

The Po!nt: "You'd do well to remember this story next time you propose a Web site," writes Lee. "Don't be cheap. Buy all the relevant domains you can. Even buy some common misspellings of your domain." This can prevent you from being sidelined unnecessarily, whether at the hands of merry pranksters or malevolent competitors.

Get to the Po!nt

Freedom to Brand Fearlessly

In the most recent edition of Editorial Emergency, Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner warn businesses against fear-based branding. Many clients approach the dynamic copywriting duo with requests for their signature wordplay and then second-guess the recommended strategy, worrying that the punchy copy might not appeal to the widest audience. Maybe, these clients wonder, we're better off going with something safe—like our competitors use.

But Glickman and Rubiner don't see the point. "Your competitor's site? Dullsville, daddy-o. They're trying to be all things to all people, so there's no telling who they really are." Among the "muddy biz-babble" the two dismiss:

• Highest quality


• Industry leader


• Commitment to excellence


• Years of experience


• Solutions-oriented

We defy the average visitor to recall a single phrase from such a dreary spiel," say Glickman and Rubiner. In order to achieve indelible branding, they continue, you must (a) clearly separate yourself from the pack, and (b) figure out who your ideal clients are and speak directly to them.
So fear not. If your target audience responds to an irreverent, edgy tone, for instance, be irreverent and edgy. Your branding might not appeal to the entire world, but it will appeal to your customers.

The Po!nt: "[T]hough you may feel you're just playing it safe, fear-based branding is actually toxic to the development of your brand," argues Glickman and Rubiner. "As the old saying goes, standing in the middle of the road only means you'll be hit by traffic in both directions."

Marketing Inspiration

Did He Really Call It a 'Nymphomercial'?

In a post at his blog, Drew's Marketing Minute, Drew McLellan presents the case of Jay Nussbaum, a novelist who figured he might as well use viral video to promote his latest effort, A Monk Jumped Over a Wall.
To tease the reading public, Nussbaum dramatized a scene from his story of an ethical lawyer who battles a devious client. Doesn't sound all that exciting, does it? But Nussbaum overcame that obstacle by giving his (possibly NSFW) video a name guaranteed to generate page views at YouTube: Nymphomercial.

The title isn't totally off-topic because, before we get to the novel's surreal sequence, we're treated to a Portia de Rossi look-a-like in a turquoise bikini who rolls around on the floor and reads excerpts from the book. She then makes an improbable appearance in the scene itself—it isn't clear if she's part of the novel, or simply an extension of the nymphomercial's gimmick—and also to offer a final thought: "I mean, if a book is good, you don't need a hot girl to sell it. But she just might get you to jump the wall." Wink.

"Was it a safe choice?" asks McLellan. "Hardly. How many remarkable products/companies stay in the safe zone? How could you use viral video to shout over the crowd and be heard in a remarkable way?" And we think pondering those questions will give you plenty of Marketing Inspiration.

Marketing Inspiration

I Am McLovin!

Even if you missed the gleefully raunchy hit comedy Superbad, you probably remember clips from a NSFW scene that got heavy rotation in trailers and television ads: A high school student played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse obtains a fake Hawaiian driver's license that gives his full name as "McLovin." When he proudly presents the fabricated identification to his friends, they're nonplussed. Teenagers loved McLovin's undaunted optimism—nobody remembers the character's real name—and reveled in his drunken misadventures with a pair of cops who seem to believe the license is legit.

His popularity is no doubt why Norman Lear's voter registration initiative Declare Yourself invited Mintz-Plasse to get back into character for a PSA. The brief video opens as McLovin lies on his bed, unbuttons his shirt and seductively intones, "Hello, America. Welcome to my bedroom. I'm just about to register to vote. Join me." He then rolls over to a laptop computer and does just that. When finished, he turns back to the camera. "Now stick around and you can watch me touch myself." It might sound creepy out of context, but coming from McLovin it's hilarious.

In a post at the What's Next Blog, B.L. Ochman says the video shows "exactly how to use social media for election impact." Declare Yourself hopes this campaign will help reach its goal of registering 2 million new voters by the general 2008 presidential election.

Any Superbad fan will watch this—and very likely take action—just because they like McLovin. Your Marketing Inspiration: Find out what your customers like that much, and you might have a social media bonanza on your hands, too.

Get to the Po!nt

The Name Game

Stroll over to MarketingProfs' Know-How Exchange and you'll find that small business owners ask one question with remarkable frequency: What should I call my company/product? Sometimes they already have ideas and are looking for feedback, and sometimes they're at a complete loss. Whatever your situation, Scott Trimble has some helpful pointers:

• Look for a name that is memorable but easy to pronounce and spell.


• Avoid a name so specific (e.g., Dave's 256K Flash Drives) that it might hinder later growth


• Choose a name that doesn't carry negative connotations, whether in English or other major foreign languages


• Check for existing trademarks and the availability of domain names.

Trimble recommends asking yourself questions such as:

• What does my product do?


• How does my product benefit the consumer?


• What are the "ingredients" that go into my product or service?


• What makes my product unique?

And consider the various ways you can "stumble" on a great name:

• Find a synonym using Thesaurus.com.


• Think up puns and plays on words.


• Deliberately misspell a word you like.


• Borrow from industry lingo.

The Po!nt: "There are plenty of highly successful businesses and products out there with bad names," writes Trimble. "So, take your naming, like your friends' opinions, with a grain of salt. And, as with everything, the more you stress about obtaining perfection, the less likely you'll come up with that killer name that seamlessly fits your offering."

Customer Behaviour

Warm Up Your Thinking Cap

Organizational psychologist Amantha Imber, Head Inventiologist of Inventium, claims nothing saps creative juices like the hyperlogical mindset that professionals often bring to the table. "Most idea generation or problem solving meetings are scheduled immediately after a strategy or finance meeting," she says. "[Consider] how difficult it is to come from a meeting that requires analytical, rational thinking into a meeting that requires us to think laterally."

To ready yourself for creative activities, Imber suggests a solution she calls Fat Chance. The idea is to warm up your brain for the task at hand, much as you might stretch before going for a jog.

Here's how it works: The team chooses an impossible goal to be solved in an unrealistic time frame. "The tighter the better," she says. Since this is an exercise, have fun with the subject matter and use the brainstorming session to tackle topics such as how to boost Paris Hilton's IQ 100 points by the end of the week, or how to raise $10 billion dollars by dinner tonight. Break into small groups to generate three solutions that don't have to be logical or rational. "Indeed," she says, "those types of solutions won't actually solve the problem." After five minutes, present your solutions and have a good laugh. You're now ready for business.

"It only takes a few minutes of effective warming up to shift your brain into an open-minded and lateral thinking mode," says Imber. We think any exercise that puts you in the right frame of mind for peak creativity is Marketing Inspiration.

Get to the Po!nt

Show Me the Way

Suppose you want to make a quick online purchase, but get annoyed when you can't find the product you want on the Web site. The problem with this scenario, claims Rick Sloboda of Webcopyplus, is the site's architecture. It's important to ensure your customers aren't having a similar experience at your site. According to Sloboda, typical problems with a Web site's architecture include:

• Complicated navigation. This fundamental design error means visitors don't have a clearly marked path to the information they want. Present customers with an online labyrinth and they may give up and leave.


• Confusing classifications. Sloboda points to one client that had a dedicated page for each department. "That's how they wanted to present information," he says. "But was it logical from a potential client's perspective? Not by a long shot." To find information, site visitors had to hop randomly from one page to another.

Problematic content that decreases the efficiency of your site can compound the frustrations of inelegant architecture with:

• Self-centric copy. Address a customer's needs first when you write your copy. "What you want to say is not important," says Sloboda. "It's all about what the customer wants to do."


• Outdated information. It's critical to keep your content current.

The Po!nt: "The right Web site architecture means fewer clicks to get desired information and less effort to complete tasks," says Sloboda. "You're telling visitors you care. Bad Web site architecture sends your visitors a completely different message: Get lost."

E-Mail marketing

Remember Me?

"Most marketers have email addresses for less than half their customers and prospects," says Reggie Brady. If this sounds familiar, you should consider using an email appending service. The larger services maintain databases with as many as 90 million individuals. You provide a name and mailing address, and they give you the email address associated with that contact. In a B2B setting, match rates range from 10 to 15 percent; the B2C scenario has an expected 25 to 30 percent success rate.

Once you have the email address, your next step is to get the contact's consent by sending what's called a permission pass. "You should explain the existing relationship, tell recipients you would like to ... communicate with them via email, and give them a clear opportunity to opt out," says Brady. After that, the regular rules of email marketing apply.

Brady says one magazine publisher reached out to her using this method, and she was generally impressed with its approach. She received seven messages over the course of three weeks. The first offered 26 issues for $20. The second and fourth contained variations on the initial deal while the fifth and seventh messages offered a four free trial issues. She did not appreciate messages three and six, however, which came from third-party advertisers. Although the permission pass had mentioned the possibility of such offers, it wasn't clearly worded.

The Po!nt: Using an email appending service is a great way to reach existing or past customers. As long as you follow proper etiquette, you could see a great response.

Customer Behaviour

Do Touch the Merchandise

Despite its merits, online shopping has a severe disadvantage: Customers can't touch the products they find on the Internet. Is tactile sensation a concern, even if you don't sell products such as hand lotion or clothing, where feeling is a factor of quality?

Surprisingly, yes. Researchers have discovered that many consumers use touch to gather information or make judgments, even when an item's physical form has nothing to do with its value. Some people have a high need for touch—feeling products and packaging creates a pleasurable or fun experience for them. For these people, a pleasant or even a neutral sensation creates a positive reaction that can carry over to their judgment of the product.

While product packaging and point-of-purchase displays can obviously benefit from a shopper's interest in touch, companies can also use tactile stimuli in direct mail and print advertising. "Recent trends in advertising have focused on the experiential and aesthetic aspects of communication," the report states. "Incorporating touch may be the next step in adding a hedonic or experiential aspect to advertising and other marketing communications." Even people who are not tactile can be influenced by touch because they can see its relevance to the message.

The Po!nt: The way your product feels can affect how much consumers like it, even when touch has no relevance in determining whether the product is good or not. Communications that incorporate physical sensation is a subject area ripe for experimentation.

Get to the Po!nt

Lessons From Your Favorite Store

Enamored of Whole Foods Market, Jackie Huba decided to spend a week patronizing the various food and beverage stations at the chain's 80,000-square-foot Austin flagship—for each and every meal. Huba recounts the experience at the Church of the Customer Blog. "My week wasn't Oprah-transformational (I didn't cry)," she says, "but we bonded." And she learned a few marketing lessons, among them:

Cater to the niche. "Organic food may have started as a tiny beacon in the world of corporate farming," writes Huba, "but for nearly 30 years, Whole Foods stayed true to the niche. Maybe nurtured it, too." As an example, she includes a snapshot of a sign explaining why you won't find one packet of Splenda in the store. It reads: "Due to our commitment to sell only products with natural ingredients, we cannot offer artificial sweeteners or sugar-free syrups." Now that's devotion.

Let fans spread the word digitally. Though the media badge Huba collected each morning allowed her to photograph the store's interior, she says, "that didn't stop employees, sometimes herds of them, from accosting me (politely, usually) when I whipped out my D40 Nikon to snap a picture of some sexy cous cous." According to Huba, the store's strict no-photograph policy—designed to prevent competitors from stealing ideas—is not only impossible to enforce in an era of camera-equipped phones, it hobbles customer evangelists who want to spread the word through social media.

The Po!nt: Studying a store you admire, even if it has nothing to do with your business, can be a critical element of defining do's and don'ts for your own business.