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October 2018 Newsletter Flipbook PDF
Advertising Horrors
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A Publication Focused on Growth for Companies Like Yours | August 2018
Marketing
•
Design
•
Printing
•
Online
Marketing
•
Promotions
A Publication Focused on Growth for Companies Like Yours | August 2018
Marketing
•
Design
•
Printing
•
Online
Marketing
•
Promotions
Horrors in Advertising: What NOT to do!
Ouch!
Just gross.
Would you respond?
Begin early?!
Letter from the Editor.............................................................................. 4 Marketing Autopsy..................................................................................... 5 3 Lessons from Amazon, USAA & JetBlue.................................... 8 B2B Sales Environment Series............................................................. 13 Three Sales Horor Stories....................................................................... 14
EDITOR:
Eric Webb
Publisher:
Art Director:
Bruce Harris
Writers:
Stan Phelps
AlphaGraphics of Cary
Bob Lambert
Eric Webb
Contact: [email protected]
919.233.7710
© 2017 - Eric Webb. All Rights Reserved.
This AlphaGraphics® business is an independently owned and operated franchise of AlphaGraphics, Inc.
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Letter from the Editor The Horror of Growth and Sales is Common Most of us have some type of horror story when it comes to sales and growth. In a business that is growing fast you will face many scary moments, problems and issues that are the consequences of your company growth. Sales offers a litany of horror stories of sales gone bad. In our Halloween issue of Momentum we explore the scary moments others have experienced, lessons from LinkedIn’ growth and the issues they face as they seek more and more growth. Instead of our usual Idea Generators we give you some of advertising's worst moments. Not too worry, there are some happy stories in this issue from regular contributors Bob Lambert and Stan Phelps. Enjoy Eric Webb, AlphaGraphics Cary | N. Raleigh
Eric Webb, President of AlphaGraphics, Editor of Momentum Please send comments or suggestions to [email protected]. We are always looking for unique stories about growth, and facts to publish, as well as ways to improve.
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Marketing Autopsy: LinkedIn Growth Creates Frightening Engagement Trends by Eric Webb
LinkedIn’s goal is to have 3 Billion members and they recently crossed the 500-million-member mark. Just as our cover states, growth creates its own frightening problems. One of the problems I’ve experienced as a long-time LinkedIn user is the mass marketing of connectedness.
nections. Once upon a time you had to get an introduction by a first party connection to even message a second connection. Unfortunately, marketers have created what I call “zombie programs” that allow for mass emailing within LinkedIn, bypassing that personal connection.
LinkedIn Members (Global) Millions
364
Q1’15 Source: Linkedin, BI Intelligence Estimates
433
Q1’16
510
Q1’17E
BI Intelligence
Initially I connected with folks thinking they may have spoken with my direct connection
I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen an increase in requests to connect from 2nd con6
Horrors in Advertising: Creepy... Sells?
Marriage Counceling anyone?
Jason's early years
Shaving commercial? Can't... look... away...
7
Say Aaaaa!
and were recommended to connect. But I noticed a trend in these connections. The mention of my first connection disappeared and if you connect you quickly get pitched.
LINKEDIN DRIVES MORE TRAFFIC TO B2B BLOGS & SITES 90% of the social traffic was driven by the big three networks, with half of it coming from LinkedIn others
There’s no doubt that LinkedIn is going to continue to grow, so you must learn how to leverage the platform and engage with the community based on what xecutives do on the platform and what they are interested in. Clearly, executives value the educational content on LinkedIn. Offering content to engage a prospect, joining groups to create iscussions and getting to know your con-
The screen captures on the page showcase what I’m talking about. There’s no attempt to get to know you, what you are interested in, nurturing of a relationship…just a quick pitch. Then there are the Zombie programs that leverage a marketing automation system to continue to reach out to you and pitch at a next level.
When marketing executives were asked where the top places to find relevant, high-quality content was, the results weren’t even close. A massive 91% said LinkedIn, while only 29% said Twitter and 27% said Facebook. LinkedIn is the place decision-makers go to find valuable content. As a B2B marketer creating content, LinkedIn is the place to be. Forbes foundation Inc Co., September 18, 2018 nections is the best way to prevent LinkedIn from becoming a house of horrors.
I understand why LinkedIn’s community is so tempting because it’s a very qualified audience that resides there and it’s huge. Unfortunately, when you leverage mass marketing as these individuals and companies are, you are polluting the environment.
Leverage native ads to draw executives and decision makers to your website. Just as the graphic illustrates, LinkedIn has the power to draw decision makers to you, but you must take the time to develop content that creates action, not just mass market everyone.
LinkedIn’s own Sales Navigator offers extra advantages to connecting with people you are not directly connected with, but it has limitations that prevent mass marketing. LinkedIn wants their platform to be an engaging and professional community. As a Forbes Magazine article pointed out, executives go to LinkedIn to gain education, and avoid Face Book because they don’t want to wade through offers, and pitches.
Growth in your business will have consequences that will be frightening. But if you pay attention to those consequences and work hard to make sure your strategy and mission remain on target, your tactics should keep you from stepping into the quicksand that can take your organization down. LinkedIn will have to rething their platform amd make sure their growth doesn't change the value of their platform. 8
3 Lessons From Amazon, USAA And JetBlue On Achieving Growth Through Cost-Effective Service Excellence by Stan Phelps
The tenets of being cost-conscious and focused on service excellence seem to be in direct contradiction. After all, investing in providing a strong customer experience comes at a cost to the bottom-line. Likewise, a hyper-focus on efficiency and cost-cutting can hamper the overall experience. Is it possible to have your cake and eat it too with service and efficiency? According to Jochen Wirtz of NUS and Valarie Zeithaml of UNC, the answer is a resounding YES . They showcase the three ways to achieve high levels of service and efficiency in a recent article in JAMS, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. They call this model CESE, an acronym for cost-effective service excellence. Wirtz and Zeithaml share how 10 different organizations have achieved CESE. These firms have achieved the Holy Grail of aligning high productivity and high customer satisfaction. The article outlines how CESE can be achieved through three core strategies of Dual Culture, Operations Management and Focused Service Factory approaches.
ACHIEVING CESE
COST EFFECTIVE SERVICE EXCELLENCE Company
Dual Culture
Operations Management
Focused Service
CESE Model - Credit: Jochen Wirtz and Valarie Zeithaml PHOTO CREDIT: STAN PHELPS
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Let's examine each:
don’t matter to customers. Frugality breeds resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for headcount, budget size or fixed expenses.”
1. Dual Culture The first main strategy is called dual culture. This approach focuses an entire organization culturally on the simultaneous pursuit of service excellence and productivity. It is driven by what Wirtz and Zeithaml describe as leadership, structural and contextual ambidexterity. Ambidexterity speaks to the ability to do two things at once. Leadership ambidexterity sets the tone, ingraining a focus on costs with an equal emphasis on service excellence. In essence, the culture mandates being stingy cost-wise internally while being generous service-wise externally. Contextual and structural ambidexterity speaks to the ability for employees to be fully utilized/empowered and departments to be aligned for efficiency.
Other examples of Dual Culture include: Singapore Airlines, Ristorante D'O and Vanguard. Dual Culture Takeaway: The dual culture approach needs strong leadership who can sell in a motivating purpose. The purpose needs to be a rationale that employees can buy into. The mantra of doing more with less, including salaries and benefits, is a tall order. It must be sold effectively to employees. 2. Operations Management The second strategy is called operations management. It is a combination of three approaches, each of which aim to reduce process variability. They are:
Example: Amazon - Jeff Bezos is the driving force at Amazon. As Founder and CEO, he is famous for putting the needs of its customers first. An early practice at the company requires an empty seat at the table during meetings. That empty seat represents the customer.
1. Buffering Front and Back Office - shifting activities from the expensive custom front to the mechanized and standardized back office. 2. Modularizing service - interaction is designed on the front end to be modular, thereby reducing customer choice and interaction flexibility.
In the book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, Brad Stone shares that Bezos for known for becoming enraged when individual customers complained, while embracing frugality on anything that did not relate to customers. In Bezos words, “We try not to spend money on things that
3. Self Service Technologies - allowing customer to serve themselves increases the level of efficiency by reducing customer-induced process variability. 10
Horrors in Advertising: Once you see it...
Worst Logo It makes perfect. Bathroom break?
That logo...
Shoud I suit myself, or... 11
Example: USAA - USAA uses remote delivery channels and self-service technologies. USAA was the first bank introduce remote deposit capture. The program called Deposit@Home allowed members to photograph a check and instantly deposit it, eliminating the need for physical check processing at USAA.
flights to increase aircraft utilization. Its operating model resulted in low costs per seat mile, while simultaneously delivering higher quality service than full service airlines and other low-cost carriers. Other examples of Focused Service Factory include: Narayana Hospital and Shouldice Hospital.
Other examples of Operations Management include: National Library Board of Singapore, Google, Amazon and Vanguard.
Focused Service Factory Takeaway: The focused service factory combines smart processes and new technologies. It only works when you can provide tailored solutions for well-defined problems, with narrowly defined customer segments and high volume markets.
Operations Management Takeaway: The Operations Management approach is harder to implement in a services business. Success typically requires some degree of change in the customer interface.
Final Thoughts - Cost Efficiency and Service Excellence is not a matter of OR. Following these three approaches of dual culture, operations management and focused service, it is possible to achieve both outcomes. In the case of Amazon and Vanguard, both companies have been successful pursuing Dual Culture and the Operations Management approaches. Perhaps the best way to think of CESE is using the restaurant acronym of FOHBOH. FOHBOH stands for front of house and back of house. The front of house (FOH) waitstaff, which is customer facing, needs to deliver service excellence. Meanwhile the back of house (BOH) kitchen needs to run efficiently to support the front and maintain profitability. How are you running your business to achieve cost efficiency AND service excellence?
3. Focused Service Factory The third approach is called focused service factory. It achieves CESE through focus and specialization. The company focuses on delivering a single type of service to a specific customer segment. The resulting low operational variability allows these companies achieve both service excellence and high productivity. Example: JetBlue - JetBlue followed a focused service factory strategy. Founded in 1999, the company offered low-cost, high-quality, point to-point airline service. According to Wirtz and Zeithaml, its focused operations were further supported with a young fleet of limited aircraft types which resulted in low maintenance costs. The airline also operated longer haul overnight
About Stan Phelps Stan is an author, keynote speaker, and workshop facilitator focusing on customer experience, employee engagement, technology, differentiation, and purpose at StanPhelpsSpeaks.com. He is based at The Frontier in Research Triangle Park. You can reach him at stan@purplegoldfish. com or call 919.360.4702.
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Horrors in Advertising:
Cooler heads should have prevailed.
What is up with Nicolas Cage's arm?
(Shame on you, Photoshop!)
Fatamins!
Bad Anatomy
Now called "Pajama Jeans"
The B2B Sales Environment Series: Who Buys and Why? & The Evolution of Customer Expectations by Bob Lambert
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that, to get the things you want, you need to help other people get the things they want. This advice is especially applicable to selling. Focus on the buyer first, and the sales will follow.
they want salespeople who can address those needs. The salesperson’s product knowledge is of very little use to them unless it is put into the context of the customer’s business.
Sales teams and individuals learn how to accomplish this buyer focus by completely revamping the traditional approach to sales. Much of this approach is based on the recognition that knowledge comes before action, so understanding the habits of buyers is a must. Here, we will follow a similar mindset and take a brief look at who buys, why they buy, and what this means to you as a seller.
Sales effectiveness, which is based on the competence of the salespeople, and the resources and support provided by their companies, has risen to the top the of customer’s influence list. All the other factors; price, features, quality, service; have become givens or “expected”. They are not competitive advantage, only the basic requirement for being considered in the first place. In almost every market today, all the major competitors are offering roughly equivalent solutions, which in effect become standard expectations of the customer.
Business-to-business transactions are no different than consumer decisions—they’re personal. Why? Because businesses do not buy and businesses do not sell—people do.
Another reason why sales effectiveness has emerged as the most influential factor in customers’ buying decisions is that the competition among vendors tends to increase the number of choices presented. Sometimes, the more choices a customer has, the more difficult it is to choose the right one, the longer it will take to decide, and the less likely they are to buy. It will depend on how the choices are offered and how well the salesperson helps guide the customer through the buying decision process.
This is the first rule of thumb a sales team should follow when selling a product to another company: focus on the perceptions, beliefs, and motivations of the people making the decision. They are in control of the business’ buying decision. It is the seller’s job to connect with the buyer on a personal level. Customers obviously have a different set of needs than do the sales organizations, and 14
Three Sales Horror Stories
Preparation that Scares We had prepped material, did our research and each of us had read through the numbers to “wow” the prospect with everything we learned, along with recommendations. We all get in the car to head over. It’s a 30-minute drive. Five minutes into the drive the lead partner says, “Ok, how do we want to organize our presentation? Who’s first? And with what information?” We knew everything but stepped on each other, neglected key points, and our ending was a flop. The key to this horror is your not ready for the sales call till you are truly prepared from beginning to end, especially if you are in a group presentation. Timing is Everything A prospect downloads a case study. Dutifully the “lead” is handled by the salesperson. She calls and mentions to me that she saw that I had an interest in XYZ issues based on the case study I downloaded. I immediately apologized to the sales person and told them that I’m still educating myself on the subject and not yet ready to discuss a product. I then explained that she should speak with the person responsible for having her call a prospect just for downloading a case study. Executives are 60% down the sales funnel before they ever feel the need to speak with someone, so interrupting their discovery process by interjecting a sales call is the wrong step. It’s too soon. It would have been better to send more information on the topic and maybe offer a call with an expert. Zombie Prospect The prospect keeps engaging you; having discussions. They even seem to be ready to buy at one moment then pull back again to ask for something else. The opportunity seems valid. They are talking seemingly real numbers, but they just keep coming without ever going live. That's because they are not offering a real opportunity but the opportunity is not alive. They are either seeking to leverage your conversation and offers against the real supplier or are just exploring how far you will go to get the deal. In either case, just start pulling back. A zombie prospect will keep chasing you until you are left for dead. 15
The Creepy Old Days:
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