Marketing works.
If you spend time and money (with skill) you can tell a story that spreads, that influences people, that changes actions. Marketing can cause people to buy something that they wouldn't have bought without marketing, vote for someone they might not have considered and support an organization that would have been invisible otherwise.
If marketing doesn't work, then a lot of us are wasting a great deal of effort (and cash). But it does.
So, does that make marketing evil? In a story about this blog, Time magazine wrote, tongue in cheek, "Entry you'll never see [on his blog]: Is marketing evil? Based on a long career in the business, I'd have to answer 'yes.' "
Actually, I need to amend what this pundit said. I'll add this entry: Are marketers evil? Based on a long career in the business, I'd have to answer "some of them."
I think it's evil to persuade kids to start smoking, to cynically manipulate the electoral or political process, to lie to people in ways that cause disastrous side effects. I think it's evil to sell a patent medicine when an effective one is available. I think it's evil to come up with new ways to make obesity acceptable so you can make a few more bucks.
Marketing is beautiful when it persuades people to get a polio vaccine or wash their hands before doing surgery. Marketing is powerful when it sells a product to someone who discovers more joy or more productivity because he bought it. Marketing is magic when it elects someone who changes the community for the better. Ever since Josiah Wedgwood invented marketing a few centuries ago, it has been used to increase productivity and wealth.
I've got a lot of nerve telling you that what you do might be immoral. It's immoral to rob someone's house and burn it to the ground, but is it immoral to market them into foreclosure? Well, if marketing works, if it's worth the time and money, then I don't think it matters a bit if you're doing your job. It's still wrong.
Just like every powerful tool, the impact comes from the craftsman, not the tool. Marketing has more reach, with more speed, than it has ever had before. With less money, you can have more impact than anyone could have imagined just ten years ago. The question, one I hope you'll ask yourself, is what are you going to do with that impact?
For me, marketing works for society when the marketer and consumer are both aware of what's happening and are both satisfied with the ultimate outcome. I don't think it's evil to make someone happy by selling them cosmetics, because beauty isn't the goal, it's the process that brings joy. On the other hand, swindling someone out of their house in order to make a sales commission…
Just because you can market something doesn't mean you should. You've got the power, so you're responsible, regardless of what your boss tells you to do.
The good news is that I'm not in charge of what's evil and what's not. You, your customers and their neighbors are. The even better news is that ethical, public marketing will eventually defeat the kind that depends on the shadows. Just ask Bernie Madoff.
February 23, 2009
As long as there have been people who want to get rich, there have been get rich quick schemes. The guys who sell mailing lists have a name for people who buy these schemes: "opportunity seekers."
Raising ostriches, or timing the market or investing in tulips–there's a long history here. The schemes tend to have a few things in common. They tend to have the same tone of voice (part breathless, part bad design, part 'we're just like you') and most of all, they are too good to be true.
Being too good to be true is the key part, because if it's too good to be true, maybe, just maybe, it is true. Maybe all those stuck in the mud types aren't doing it because they're skeptics, maybe I get a chance to invest in this video program/perpetual motion machine/envelope stuffing scheme precisely because it has scared away the conservative folks who never get anywhere.
Online, of course, like most things online, this has blossomed. You'll see the long long web pages filled with ALL CAPS and bright colors and testimonials and "wait there's more!" They look alike for a reason–it's a signal to the opportunity seeker that this is one of those.
Do they convert watchers into buyers? Sure they do. Do a few people make money? Of course.
There's a tribe here, and it's always looking for a new leader. Someone who will sell them an exclusive $1249 course, or ongoing advice and consulting or some other insight that has escaped the market leaders. The more skeptics they generate, the better they do, because the skepticism itself is part of the story that needs to be told.
What's being sold here? It's not riches, because if the riches were automatic, the seller would just hire people, right? Why make 1,000 people into millionaires if you can just hire 1,000 people and be a billionaire? No, it's the belief in riches, the thrill of finding just the right deal, the challenge of getting a relative to loan you money one more time. It's the frisson of excitement from sending in the money, the rush of impatience that follows as you wait for the package, and then the scary moment when you open the package and come face to face with your dreams.
Of course, your dreams are rarely what you hoped (how could they be?) but soon, you'll be back for more. It seems that being an opportunity seeker is about seeking, not finding.
February 22, 2009
That's the way Derek Sivers (founder of CDBaby) described his mission statement in building the company. "What could I build that would be a like a dream come true for independent musicians?"
What an extraordinarily universal way to construct a product, a service or a business. Notice that dreams are rarely "within reason" or "under the circumstances." No, dreams are dreams. If your business is a dream come true for customers, you win. Game over.
Too often, I hear about businesses that just might be a dream come true for their owners, but hardly for the people they seek to recruit or the customers they hope to snare. What do your prospects dream of? What would get them to wait in line?
February 21, 2009
Do you deserve the luck you've been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you've got? Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand?
Not at all. “Deserve” is such a loaded word. Most of us
don’t deserve the great opportunities we have, or the lucky breaks that got us here.
The
question shouldn’t be, “do you deserve it.” I think it should be, “what
are you going to do with it now that you've got it?"
February 20, 2009
In down economies,
the only thing that’s going to change things is changing things. This
is hard for a lot of marketers who are used to defending the status
quo, but it’s truly the best option.
If you're not happy with what you've got, what radical changes are you willing to make to change what you're getting?
In my experience, not much. But that doesn't mean you can't start now.
February 19, 2009
Sasha at Acumen is hiring. (It's in NY, it's fundraising, it's social marketing and it's for an important cause working with stellar people.)
Someone should start a job board that only lists jobs as good as this one.
February 18, 2009
There are interactions marketers have with prospects where the prospect wants something and the marketer or organization just isn't interested in delivering it. These interactions almost always end badly.
I visited a Blockbuster store in London, hoping to rent an appropriately Royal-family focused DVD. After a bit of search, I found it. Would they sell it to me? No, it's rental only. Oh, can I rent it? (I asked with my full US accent). Sure, fill out this form.
Five minutes later, they said, "Oh, you're from the US. You can't rent here." What about if I pay as much money as it would cost if the DVD got lost? Nope. What if my hotel vouches for me? No.
Here's the thing: From the rational consumer's point of view, this is silly. They should take my money and we'll both be happy. From Blockbuster management's point of view, though, allowing clerks to start making up exceptions and prices is just too much trouble. And it probably is.
You can't (and shouldn't) please every single person who may or may not become a customer. But you should (and you must) figure out what to tell the folks you're going to turn away. Endless negotiations are like teaching a cat to swim… the cat never learns and you get frustrated.
"I'm sorry, I appreciate your interest, but you can't be our customer. We can't please everyone and we're focused on customers with different needs just now. Can I suggest you try the place down the street? I'll draw you a map."
The power of this outcome is that you have the freedom to figure out exactly what someone has to do in order to be a customer. You can qualify people by asking the right questions. You can take no for an answer.
If it turns out that you're getting too many 'no' responses, too many people walking out empty handed, it's probably time to reconsider what you need from someone in order for them to do business with you.
The most common frustration I see, and I see it daily, comes from marketers who can't figure out why more people won't buy their product. This particularly afflicts b2b marketers, who ostensibly have rational customers.
Let's say, for example, that you have a service that can deliver leads for five percent of what it costs to get them via a trade show. Why would any rational business, particularly one that says it wants qualified leads, spend that money on trade shows and not on you?
I mean, I mean, you can PROVE that your system works. You can guarantee it. You can provide testimonials and real-time evidence. And yet, the person you're calling on won't give you money and will spend it on the traditional system, which is a total waste.
You know that your car is more aerodynamic. You know that your insulation is more effective. You know that your insurance has a higher ROI.
You've thought about it a lot because it's your job to think about it. It's your job to make those charts and tables and graphs and brochures. So you know it.
The problem is that your prospect doesn't care about any of those things. He cares about his boss or the story you're telling or the risk or the hassle of making a change. He cares about who you know and what other people will think when he tells them what he's done after he buys from you.
The opportunity, then, is not to insist that your customers get more rational, but instead to embrace just how irrational they are. Give them what they need. Help them satisfy their needs at the same time they get the measurable, rational results your product can give them in the long run.
February 17, 2009
If it acts like a duck (all the time), it's a duck. Doesn't matter if the duck thinks it's a dog, it's still a duck as far as the rest of us are concerned.
Authenticity, for me, is doing what you promise, not "being who you are".
That's because 'being' is too amorphous and we are notoriously bad at
judging that. Internal vision is always blurry. Doing, on the other hand, is an act that can be seen by
all.
As the Internet and a connected culture places a higher premium on authenticity (because if you're inconsistent, you're going to get caught) it's easy to confuse authentic behavior with an existential crisis. Are you really good enough, kind enough, generous enough and brave enough to be authentically a hero or leader?
Mother Theresa was filled with self doubt. But she was an authentic saint, because she always acted like one.
You could spend your time wondering if what you say you are is really you. Or you could just act like that all the time. That's good enough, thanks. Save the angst for later.
February 16, 2009
- Every question you ask is expensive. (Expensive in terms of loyalty and goodwill). Don't ask a question unless you truly care about the answer. This means that a vague question with vague answers (extremely satisfied…acceptable…extremely dissatisfied and no scale to compare them to) is a total waste of time. What action will you take based on that? It's smarter to ask, "how much would you say lunch was worth?"
- Every question you ask changes the way your users think. If you ask, "which did you hate more…" then you've planted a seed.
- Make it easy for the user to bail. If you have 20 questions (that's a lot!) make it easy to quit after five and have those answers still count. If you waste my time and then don't count my answers, see #2.
- Make the questions entertaining and not so serious, at least some of them. Boring surveys deserve the boring results they generate.
- Don't be afraid to shake up the format. Instead of saying, "Here are ten things, rank them all on a scale of one to five…" why not let people compare things? "We had two speakers, Bob and Ray. Who was better?"
Bottom line: before you let the survey guys run a survey of your loyal customer base, make them pay you with resources you can use to reinvigorate those users you just bothered.
February 15, 2009
