Archive for category Marketing
More about Groupon
So I won’t repost the entire entry I wrote earlier today over at the OpenCal blog, but I do think it is worth a read – anyway, I wrote about how to make a Groupon campaign more successful based on some tips I have heard from businesses that have used it and from researching the web. Like a lot of things, the basic message of the post is to go in to these things with your eyes open. You might have heard how Groupon will revolutionize the way you gain customers, you may have heard it can almost destroy your business – what really matters are the details, and getting the small things right, because if you do that, Groupon is one of many, many marketing tools that you can wield successfully in order to gain and keep new loyal customers.
Want to know all the secrets? Go read the post over there.
Groupon: what makes it so irresistible?
Groupon does a couple of remarkable things.
First off, Groupon adds e-commerce to small businesses that can’t do so. You don’t need to install anything (though online booking can help you deal with the onslaught of new business), you don’t need to purchase an https cetificate, you don’t need to sign up for a merchant paypal account. So, that’s actually a pretty huge deal for a lot of businesses.
But this is what it really does: it sells advertising. It signs up however many pairs of eyeballs, probably at least 10,000 in a new city, and then it gives one (!) business all those eyeballs for one day. As a business owner, this is great. I mean, not only do you get to sell stuff online (if you didn’t already), but it’s also as if you’ve had a giant spotlight turned onto your business. All kinds of people that have never heard of you are suddenly lining up to buy your product at a deep discount.
But of course, the question a lot of people are asking is, what are return visitors like? Are you selling your product at 25% of the normal price (you generally need to discount your service at half it’s normal cost, and then Groupon takes half of what is left) for one-off sales or are you creating any loyalty? I would think you’re getting an audition which could turn into repeat visits, but in reality, I think Groupon is the only one getting any real loyalty out of this deal.
Life in a startup: five lessons learned three weeks in
1. Getting customers to try a product that hasn’t launched yet is harder than you think is exactly as hard as it sounds.
ZOMG stock photos are hilarious.
2. Create value now in order to reap rewards later.
This one is obvious, and should have been even more obvious to someone who considers himself a pretty good gardener, and yet because it feels like a race (as you approach the launch date) you always expect results to come in all the time. But like the seeds you set below the surface, sometimes it seems like nothing is happening at all. If you ignore the seeds you may never see the shoots. Likewise, if you stop creating value (because you haven’t seen any results), you will probably never see any positive results.
Similar to what I’ve learned using social media, there is no easy way to build a following. It is (in some ways) hard work and success is hard won. You only get to where you’re going by having faith that what you’re doing is the right thing to build an audience.
3. Make goals every day.
I use the morning meeting for...hmmm, yes, planning sounds nicely innocuous...ha ha ha
How do you stay productive? Do you have a system?
4. Create traditions.
I will never not use awesome stock photos again
What are your traditions?
5. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small.
These keep you going.
Shout outs:
A big shout out to Darryl Ohrt of Brand Flakes for Breakfast fame and Bill Green of Make the Logo Bigger – I believe you both put me in touch with the awesome stock photos I have been digging via Awkward Stock Photos.
The importance of T-shaped individuals
Most of the content for this post comes from a presentation I gave at a job interview which I did not get; so take that for what it’s worth. For the most part the presentation was well received, however I probably could have used a bit more polish. The idea itself came (not surprisingly) from the good people at IDEO. Or at least, from their words and deeds.
The T-shaped individual.
Here be knowledge, here be expertise
Not long ago (at least to my recollection) all we heard about was how the people who were the most specialized would get the best jobs. This terrified me. I abhor specialization. I like to know a lot about a few things, and a little about everything. That’s just the way my ADD-addled brain works. So you can imagine my happiness as I read about how IDEO (the company I clearly idealize) looks for T-shapedness when hiring. They do so because they argue that this leads to better team formation; individuals with varied backgrounds are able to communicate more easily and with more empathy (because they understand each other’s backgrounds somewhat more – of course, empathy itself is something that is looked upon favorably at IDEO when hiring). Instead of occupying silos of expertise, teams are cross-functional – you get recombination and variation (basically like sex with ideas) and in general, better ideas and results.
Great right?
Of course it’s great. But the metaphor is incomplete. I went on to read about the importance of I shaped individuals by Bill Buxton, who, while not actually from IDEO himself, is apparently good friends with Bill Moggridge, the co-founder of IDEO. The difference here is that the bottom of the I is a grounding in practical experience. So, you have breadth of knowledge, deep expertise in one domain, and to cap that off, a lot of experience relevant to that domain.
Giving T-shaped people their feet.
Thank you, BusinessWeek
What does it mean?*
Seriously the greatest image to ever grace this blog.
*Because I can’t help but try and be funny in the middle of being serious, some of you will catch the reference to the Complete Double Rainbow Guy. If you don’t, go to youtube, and google that immediately.
Related links/further reading:
http://creativegeneralist.blogspot.com/2005/07/thinking-linking-doing.html
http://creativegeneralist.blogspot.com/2006/06/ten-faces-of-innovation.html
http://www.coderenaissance.com/2008/06/t-shaped-people.html
New job!
My search for a new position is, happily, over. I’m very excited to be working at a startup called OpenCal as the Director of Marketing and Sales. I’ll be working on a daily basis with the founders (who have a great eye for design) in an apartment-turned-office. OpenCal is an online booking solution for service-based businesses. From what I’ve seen of it so far, it’s super slick and will be a great addition to many businesses such as massage therapy clinics and beauty salons. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be writing more about it in the future.
It’s all very exciting. We’re about (fingers crossed) 6 weeks away from launch at which point I will hopefully have helped to set us up for success. For now it’s all about getting beta customers trying out the product and gathering their feedback to make it even better. More than that it’s about getting people talking about it on and offline. I’ve never been in a position to help take a product from zero users to wherever we get, but it’s an exciting time for me. Hopefully Steve Blank’s The Four Steps to the Epiphany
Update: in the meantime, if you’re interested in the product, please take a sneak peak and sign up for more information!
10 really short book reviews plus reflection on those reviews
Posted by Darren in Design, Economics, Marketing, teaching ideas on April 27, 2010
I’m going to make this a regular feature of the blog (at least that’s the plan) – so I’m going to be kind of making up the rules of the reviews as I go along. I’m going to try to keep them to 100 words or less but I haven’t figured out how I’ll rate them yet. If you’ve read any of them, or have any specific questions, let me know.
Full disclosure: I keep an ‘I’m reading’ list on my profile on LinkedIn and will be using the reviews there as the basis for my reviews here. If I could just import them here, I would, but there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to embed them right now. Also, by doing it this way it forces me to think about what has changed since I wrote that review, and the update will hopefully make the review more accurate.
The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
by Thomas Kelley, Jonathan Littman
I’m only through the first two parts of ten, but I can say already that if you’re interested in making a design-focused organization, or even just improving your marketing through empathy and understanding your customer, you’re going to want to have this book on hand. Update: I’ve kind of stalled on this one, though it isn’t because I don’t like it – I just got caught up in a few other books at the same time. While this book is not exactly how-to, it has a lot of great ideas and case studies to make things happen and provide inspiration.
13 Things that Don’t Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
by Michael Brooks
This book is blowing my mind. There are so many interesting scientific anomalies that currently exist – from death as an aberration to the problem (or not) with dark matter – this book is definitely for the scientifically curious. Update: (I wrote the previous part a few weeks ago) I actually just finished this book last night. The last few chapters were not as good as the first few, but it’s hard to say if that was due to the mysteries being less interesting or me getting a bit tired of them. Maybe 11 things that don’t make sense would have been better.
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
by Edward R. Tufte
So far this is simply an amazing book about the role of design in great communication. When you read the part about the Challenger Disaster you will learn about statistics, understanding data, and communicating risks properly. Edward Tufte is a true gem. Update: we both hate PowerPoint. That is all.
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days
by Jessica Livingston
This book is great for anyone interested in entrepreneurship in general or specifically tech start-ups. It is really making me want to get something rolling on my own, which is both distracting and very exciting. I highly recommend this book. Update: I still highly recommend this book. I haven’t picked it up in the six months since I read it, but I do still plan on using one of the interviews as a basis for a one hour lesson in my entrepreneurship class at BrainBoost.
Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56
by Rafe Esquith
I’m about to be teaching a course again and this book is giving me a nice grounding in the non-technical aspects of teaching that I want to accomplish, or re-accomplish, as it were. Very entertaining and enlightening. Update: I am teaching that class now, as above, and this book was inspiring, but perhaps it’s more for someone who hasn’t done a lot of teaching. Then it will really get you excited to teach.
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
I’m reading this book because I’m a bit of a junkie when it comes to books about the brain, how it works, and how we can improve outcomes for people in general. If we can improve the lives of others by changing design, why shouldn’t we? Let the default be a great option. Update: Started reading this again recently. It’s still pretty awesome, and definitely a great place to start if you’re fairly new to the subject.
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras
A great book if you ever need to create a BHAG for a company you know little about and then give a presentation to its CEO less than 48 hours later. The Sauder MBA Capstone program – good times! Update: I haven’t looked at this one for quite a while now. It’s not for everyone, but it is particularly useful if you own/run/work for a small business and you want to set a course for the future.
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits
by C.K. Prahalad
A great book that features tonnes of actual pragmatic advice and lessons learned from companies opening up the bottom of the pyramid. Perfect for anyone interested in making the world a better place through business. Update: This book makes you want to move away and go help the less fortunate all over the world. That feeling passes – however, that is probably a good thing, as there is always a lot of good you can do in your own backyard – like volunteer in Vancouver.
Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide
by John Jantsch
Another book I’m only part way through, but this one has had some real gems in it. For example, mapping your customers out to see any interesting relationships between them. What if half your customers all came from the same neighbourhood? What does that tell you? Maybe you have an evangelist there, or maybe seeding a new neighbourhood with customers would be a good idea as perhaps it’s just friends talking to friends? You never know what you will learn from this exercise – and this is just one among many. Update: See, this is why I force myself to do this – why haven’t I picked this one up in a few weeks? I need to finish this one right away.
The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
by Dan Roam
Clearly I’m reading way too many books at the moment, but this is also a keeper. It helps show my current theme/interest, which is learning to communicate more effectively and efficiently through a number of different mediums. A lot of what I have found in here is fairly intuitive, however, like many things in life, forcing yourself to sit down with the intuitive can sometimes be quite enlightening. Update: I’m guilty here – I’m totally skimming the exercises and that is making the whole experience a lot less useful. I will update this one again in the next set of reviews assuming I go back and do these drawing exercises. Mea culpa.
One of my favorite Tufte posters – click for full-size:
The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint
There is learning in repetition: what cover letter writing has taught me about myself
Posted by Darren in Design, Marketing, teaching ideas on April 19, 2010
I’ve been busy looking for a new job these last few weeks, and that has meant writing a lot of cover letters. In general, writing is something I enjoy immensely. Writing cover letters is not the type of writing I tend to enjoy. But why is that? Let’s examine the cover letter as an artifact.
What does a cover letter do?
The job of the cover letter (in tandem with a resume) is to provide enough useful information to a decision maker as to whether they ever want to meet you, let alone work with you. I’ve done this work before, sorting through piles of resumes and cover letters, and I’ve talked to a lot of people who have done it, and so I know that for the most part, these decision makers are overworked and will spend generally less than a minute going over what took you sometimes an hour to write. That’s pretty disheartening, I know. But what options are there? If it’s unrealistic to examine each letter in detail, to really read every word and think very deeply about what the person is communicating, then the options are to use the cover letter as a screening proxy or to throw it away. Of course, a proxy is a useful tool in this case, so scanning quickly for requirements and typos/misused words can reveal at least some information about the candidate in question. Moreover, once you learn to scan professionally, you can sense whether the letter was written fresh (and thus means the person either generally cares about this job or is just beginning their job search) or is a rehashed mishmash of past cover letters (and thus the person is demonstrating a lower level of commitment or desire).
Cover letter = symbolism gone mad
camus would have hated cover letter writing
And this is really the whole crux of what is so disheartening about cover letter writing – that what you are creating is, in many ways, not a real letter, but instead a symbol, or a signal if you will. It says something about you on a meta-level without it even having to be read. And because it has to pass this smell test first – that is, it has to appear to be something that someone gave a damn about – the symbolism of the cover letter actually has primacy over what you are literally communicating. That is the thing that I find nauseating. That the whole task of baring your passion for a position, matching the position requirements to skills you own, tweaking your resume to match the job, and then communicating in way that is fresh without being creepy – that that whole song and dance can be undone by something as simple as incorrect typesetting, or a missing period. Or addressing the letter to ‘Hiring Manager’ because despite googling for 30 minutes you could not find out the appropriate person’s name, or whether a certain ‘Pat’ or ‘Robin’ or ‘Manu’ was a man or woman.
Everything would be fine if you heard all the time about how Sally down in HR found a real gem and interviewed this guy whose been with the company five years now, all this despite the fact that his cover letter had a sentence that ended nonsensically. But she took a chance and interviewed him and kaboom! Look where we are now. Guy practically saved the company. Thank God we don’t use cover letters as a simple proxy for screening candidates.
And for me, even after all that, what makes cover letter writing unbearable is that it is so rote. Do these things in this order, say this, don’t say that, jump through this hoop over here and now wiggle your ears. It’s so damned repetitive. I prefer trying new things, learning about and mastering them, then applying them and moving on. Sadly, until I get the job I want, I will not be moving on from this task. So clearly I still have some learning to do.
Which brings me to the point of this post: I believe the cover letter is dead.
Eric Romer's campaign to get hired website
Or maybe it’s not dead, but it has got to be dying, because it turns out there are a lot of creative people out there who felt something similar to me, and instead of analyzing and complaining about the situation (or maybe they did as well, who knows), they tried something else. And in general, it worked.
There’s this guy, Eric Romer, who went out and bought a domain name (hiremeheadblade.com) and started a social media campaign to get hired by HeadBlade, the very company looking for a great Marketing Manager.
Or this girl, featured over on Steve Pratt’s blog (of CBC Radio 3 fame) – Sabrina didn’t get hired at the time but as Steve points out he would never forget the resume and would recommend her in a heartbeat.
Sabrina's amazing facebook-style resume
And then of course you can simply search for ‘creative resumes’ and get lists like this one. A lot of brilliance on that list, and of course, Sabrina’s brilliant facebook resume is there at number two.
Obviously, we will always need to set ourselves apart so long as the cost of interviewing and hiring is high. So, you know, maybe it’s not that the cover letter is dead, it’s just that it’s changing, and I’m excited to see that creativity is becoming more affordable in the sense that it is both rewarded more frequently and the cost to using the technological tools is rapidly approaching zero.
What I learned about myself
When you hate cover letter writing as much as I do, don’t apply for jobs that are going to be repetitive or force you to operate within a narrow band. That should have been obvious I guess, but thinking back to some of the first cover letters I sent out quite a while ago, clearly it was not.
When you have as little experience in areas you care about as I do (if you can follow that), don’t go for a standard cover letter/resume combo. You’re already behind the eight ball in the hunt for those positions, so you better step it up a notch if you want to make it through the initial screening.
Apply to places that require curiosity and creativity and for roles that require a love of ambiguity.
When in doubt, refer back to this list.
What we learned: How a few companies are successfully using the Groundswell Framework, and what exactly it is that they are doing.
Posted by Darren in Marketing, social media on October 6, 2008
Listening – companies must listen to what customers are saying to gain better understanding
- Starbucks: My Starbucks Idea (www.mystarbucksidea.com) – a place where registered users can provide ideas, feedback, and talk to each other about the drinks, the food, whatever; Starbucks also monitors twitter feeds and responds directly to customer complaints or questions.
- Sprint: monitors twitter feeds about the company.
- New York Times: The TimesPeople application (http://timespeople.nytimes.com/home/about/) allows users to share and recommend articles more easily than e-mail (which it also supports, though requires some fields have input).
- (Eventually listening) Comcast: Comcast began listening to and acting upon customer complaints at the customer blog Comcast Must Die (http://comcastmustdie.com/). Eventually won that user over by changing service levels and becoming a more customer friendly organization.
Talking – Through social interactive tools (blogs, forums, communities), begin spreading messages to customers
- Starbucks: gives feedback on ideas at its idea site (above), and responds to concerns via twitter.
Example: Anon. twitters: “wtf – i thought starbucks had free internets now… gotta love random open network connections.” 09:02 AM September 26, 2008. Starbucks replies: @anon a registered Starbucks card will get you 2 hours of free at&t wifi … at: http://www.starbucks.com/ca… 10:28 AM September 26, 2008.
- Sprint – responds to twitter concerns directly – see blog post from www.brandflakesforbreakfast.com attached at end of document.
- New York Times: Over 60 blogs with content updated at least daily – many with world class authors such as Steven Dubner. Also uses twitter to send out headlines to followers (subscribers.)
Energizing – Determine who the most energetic users are and leverage their enthusiasm for the brand; essentially making them brand evangelists
- Starbucks: uses a leaderboard at the idea site to recognize significant contributors of ideas; contributors and members can vote for the best ideas which are then sometimes product tested
- Lego: the LUGNET group, which meets online as well as in person, consists of 25 ambassadors for the product and these positions are highly sought after – the title is, in essence, a reward that further incentivizes positive word-of-mouth.
- Apple: uses a reputation function to identify high quality posters among the many thousands who frequent their support and help forums
Supporting – Help customers support each other; an example is Dell’s user generated support forums – people have a natural affinity to help
- BestBuy: BB took this in an inward-facing direction – they set up Blue Shirt Network – a site where employees can connect, share their concerns, and get support from one another
- Apple: has user forums where users help each other
Embracing – After companies have succeeded in the first four steps, engage customers in product development through active feedback principles
- Starbucks: At My Starbucks Idea customer ideas sometimes become reality, as with their new smoother, richer hot chocolate that was obviously in high demand; also reversed their removal of the breakfast sandwiches due to customer feedback – customers have, in turn, responded positively and feel more like part of a community.
- Dell: the Dell IdeaStorm site has promoted user ideas and embraced changes – a site admin provides updates and personally welcomes new users that become solid contributors – many user generated ideas become reality, thus providing more impetus for fans to contribute again and again.
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What we learned: insights from our digital branding project
Posted by Darren in Marketing, social media on October 6, 2008
Easy Lesson 1: Know why you are doing it and how it will enhance the user experience.
Companies and brands use a wide variety of social media and networking tools such as twitter, facebook, and blogs; not all companies should do this. A Seth Godin witticism elaborates: sundae toppings are great, so long as they go on top of ice cream. If you’re taking a product or service like detergent, adding all kinds of ‘treats’ like twitter and corporate blogs is like putting gummy bears on a meatball – at best they add nothing, at worst they clash. To most people, detergent is detergent and talking about stains online does not build brand nor enhance the experience of using Tide (Tide Facebook Fan page has 429 members – the affect on P&G’s last year sales of $76.4 billion is indeterminate.)
Easy Lesson 2: You need to have support and resources.
If you are going to turn detergent into a community, make sure you have support and resources. A quick and dirty perusal of the Tide forum boards shows a relative ghost town. For Example: a Tide Team Member responds 40 days later to a complaint about the lack of scent in a product and offers a coupon – not sure if this is exactly the way you build support for any community, large or small.
Easy Lesson 3: Make participation so simple that anyone can do it.
Web 2.0 is one of the few places where the pareto 80/20 rule does not hold – in its place is the 1/9/90 rule, where one percent of users contribute 99% of all user-generated-content (UGC), nine percent contribute the other 1%, and 90% lurk in the background surfing and reading and thinking about what the information means to them. If it takes more than one minute or requires too much personal data, you can forget about reasonable participation rates.
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