marketing Archives - Dennis E. Gilbert

24
Sep 21
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Sweet Spot Is An Attempt To Please Everyone

Tags : customer satisfaction marketing strategy sweet spot

Do you find yourself striving for the sweet spot? That magical position somewhere near the middle of any continuum that often seems elusive?

The middle of summer is often interesting in the climate-controlled office. Some people feel hot, others feel cold, and the temperature control panel is fiddled with until the compressor on the roof freezes up. Then everyone is hot.

The dinner buffet has similar challenges. What are the food choices, what is hot, what is cold, and what will be consumed the fastest? Trying to find the sweet spot for any one particular item may feel like a big challenge.

One common theme with both of these scenarios is that more choices make it harder to find the sweet spot.

Have you ever looked at a Chinese restaurant menu? Usually lots and lots of choices.

At the drive through restaurant, more choices mean more options, and more options might make it harder to satisfy any one customer.

If you can buy a red car or a blue car only, you’ll make a choice. If there are 13 different color combinations, you’ll find it much more difficult to decide.

Is the sweet spot a good thing and how broad should options be?

Sweet Spot

It’s often counterintuitive to customer satisfaction. Pleasing every customer is perceived to mean that you must have a lot of options.

Is that why McDonalds once test marketed selling personal sized pizza? Did it stick? The pizza may have, but the concept seems to have been let go.

One thing that has stuck in most fast-food restaurants are the limited-time menu items. Something fresh, something new, or something different gets some traction.

At the same time, the limited-time, increases the likelihood of dissatisfaction. Unlike Mikey with Life cereal, some people won’t like it. Less chance of hitting the sweet spot.

Finding the sweet spot is about choice. Fewer choices keeps the continuum closer together, not so broad.

As the producer, not the consumer, the goal might be customer satisfaction.

Perhaps, the sweet spot in satisfaction gets broader when the options are fewer.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

22
Sep 21
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Are Social Metrics Valuable or Just Hype?

Tags : marketing metrics and measurement social media social metrics strategy

Do you trust social metrics? Are you using social media professionally for business, is it more of a hobby, or are you just a casual observer?

When you posted the picture of your pet, did you get a lot of likes?

What about when you posted your angry customer service story, posted a political position, or a picture of your feet in the sand at the beach?

News media is famous for drama filled headlines. Readership or clickership (not a real word), often seems like the highest priority. Who is getting the most traction and how can the story be shaped to fit a popular narrative?

What are advertisers seeking and how are market segments being defined?

These questions and many more surround the analysis or value of social metrics.

Are they valuable?

Social Metrics

Social metrics claim to measure interest. They claim to gauge the likelihood of future interactions and often seem valuable to those seeking more clicks.

Does more clicks or views really matter?

There are at least to sides to the story. The first side would suggest that, yes, they absolutely matter. More viewership or readership is exactly what the social media user desires.

When the numbers are larger, advertisers and other potential stakeholders develop more interest too. There is little measurement about how scattered or how likely the same users will click or follow a similar thread.

The other side to the story is that the content creators are really skilled at one thing. They are skilled at getting more clicks.

That doesn’t mean that the clicks are meaningful or add any kind of value, often they are simply an illustration of a click.

In most circles, the value of social metrics remains questionable.

Unless your only concern is making them increase.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

25
Feb 21
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Serving Everyone May Take Away Value

Tags : growth marketing service value

Does your business pride itself on serving everyone? Does the quest for more numbers flatten your value, or grow it?

Most businesses or organizations have a specific market. A segment, a group, a commonality that allows them to provide value to a piece of the pie, but not the whole pie.

Yet, it is often commonplace that people work really hard to accommodate the needs of everyone.

This has a price. The price is often that in the attempt to serve everyone they aren’t really great at serving anyone.

One user on the network, is just another user. Another product on display in Amazon’s website, just another potential source of revenue.

This may be true at the hospital, just another patient. It’s often true at the Pizza shop, the grocery store, and with your electric service provider.

Many of these service offerings don’t really make a big investment in you. They make and investment in the numbers. Yes, you may be one of them, but that’s it, just a number.

Serving Everyone

Some of the best service providers are building it with you which is not exactly the same as building it for you. Building it for you often scales to building for the number. It is the effect of the enterprise and the economies of scale.

Emerging software companies often start by building it with you. They are interested in your needs, the features you love, and the bugs that you discover.

The successful program starts to shift as the economy of the enterprise grows. They start building it for you. It is the attraction of the product, the marketing hype, and for the end-user, it’s a quest to remain part of the group.

Once they fought for you, now they fight to use you as a number in their game.

It is a similar concept for getting something for free. Sign up for the free webinar, the chance to win, or the no-cost obligation. If you aren’t paying you are not the customer, you are part of the marketing team. The goal is more numbers.

High value comes from those who are building it with you. The stakes are different and so are the outcomes.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

24
Jun 20
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Marketing Noise and Your Branding Voice

Tags : audience internet marketing noise tribe

Is the plan to make some marketing noise? How will you reach your target audience?

For most, the first thought has something to do with the internet. Social feeds, videos, podcast, and email blasts. In one form or another, all brought to you by some form of internet streaming.

Then there is the brutal truth of it all.

The brutal truth is, most of what happens on all of these channels is nothing more than noise. Noise that the masses don’t care to see, hear, or read.

For your market though, for your tribe, your network, and your true followers, it’s not just noise.

There is a good chance that your audience is not as large as you might believe. Your audience is probably better described as the smallest viable audience instead of the concept that hundreds of thousands of people will see, hear, or read your message.

Marketing Noise

Your branding voice is for your smallest viable audience.

It is the people or businesses that really want to experience your noise. They care, they’re inspired, and they would miss you if you went away.

It doesn’t matter if your product or service is about baseball, weddings, or footwear. Your audience, but not the world, cares.

Be mindful of what you show them. Their attention spans are still limited and they have to look for you through a sea of noise.

Be timely. It is a delicate balance where more, is sometimes less.

Most of all ensure value. That starts by understanding what your market really wants or perceives as a need. Think carefully, because it may not always be as it appears to be at first glance.

If you’re going to make some noise. Make the right noise to the right people.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

15
Jun 20
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Brand Experience Impacts and the Unexpected

Tags : brand marketing sales service touch points

At the car wash, the grocery market, and the restaurant you have an experience. What are customers feeling from your brand experience impacts? Are you sure about every touch point?

The valet at the 5-star hotel, the guy sweeping up cigarette butts in the parking lot, and the janitor plunging the clog in the bathroom.

An incredible waitress, a kind flight attendant, and the nurse at the doctor’s office.

A fast-food voice on the intercom, the hardware store clerk, and shipping verification from an eBay purchase.

All of these things, no matter how big or how small they may seem, are part of a brand experience.

Unexpected Experience

Many people believe that your brand sits entirely on the hands of the graphic artist, the photographer, or a clever press release.

Indeed, all of these things matter. They matter a great deal. Yet, often, your brand is about unexpected touch points.

Businesses want to train their sales team, the customer service team, and managers. These are not the only people or places where your brand is exposed.

Where is your brand exposed?

Everywhere.

Brand Experience Impacts

What is the weakest link in your business? It may be a touch point where your brand is exposed.

What employee teams are not customer facing? Who is in the backroom, the warehouse, or on the R&D team? They’re still building your brand.

Who answers the phone, responds to social media, or sends email messages? To the customer, in each of those moments, that is what they know as your business. Not the CEO, not the beauty of your website, and certainly not the marketing speak in your mission statement.

The impacts of your brand are loud and clear.

They’re often developing from human interaction.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

21
May 20
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Expert Opinions Are Still Opinions

Tags : credibility expert opinions facts marketing

Some people should be advising no people. As the saying goes, everyone has an opinion. Expert opinions matter, yet are they opinions or something rooted in facts?

One theory about expert status is that it is granted to anyone who has spent 10,000 hours practicing their craft. Lots of hours can lead to lots of experience. That experience may be considered good or bad.

All experiences can be learning moments. Good experiences may guide the way for what worked. Bad experiences may guide the way for what didn’t or identify things to avoid.

Compelling Information

Opinions on anything can be compelling. It often depends on the delivery, confidence, and if the story is compelling. Is the story believable?

Opinions are readily available on social media channels. They are often delivered with the flair that they contain expert advice.

Saying that the stock market will drop is somewhat of a guarantee. The question may be when or how much?

Suggesting that taking vitamin supplements will improve your health is hard to measure. Like politics, there is a good chance that at least fifty percent will agree.

Having the answers to everything may not be a sign of intelligence but more of a sign of having a strong opinion.

Expert Opinions

In marketing, loud sells.

In this statement, loud is a metaphor for density or impact. A thirty second ad on television in a local market has some reach. A three-hour news slot that is airing internationally has much more reach.

It’s louder.

It doesn’t necessarily condition a difference between fact and opinion. Experts may be self-proclaimed in either case. They may even have their 10,000 hours under their belt.

What it does mean is that with more reach, you’ll find more people who agree. More people who agree or even those who disagree may decide to share the information.

Every day there is additional value to understanding the difference between fact and opinion. It’s true regardless of how loud the sound is, or whether it is coming from and expert or amateur.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

11
Feb 20
-

Better Service Is Typically Not Cheaper

Tags : leadership marketing price quality value

Are you prepared to deliver better service? In your workplace, at your job, for the customer, or because you care?

It sometimes appears that everyone is dumbing things down.

Does it make sense? If it does, for whom?

Doing It Cheaper

Why send a direct mail piece when you can send an email? Why walk into the grocery store when you can order ahead and pick it up at the curb? No need for a face-to-face meeting, let’s stay in our offices or cubicles and meet through technology.

Is less expensive better?

On the flip side, someone is always looking for the expensive car, the high priced bottle of wine, or a pair of shoes with a red sole.

When is better, better, and cheaper, cheaper?

The answer is pretty easy, “Always.”

For your commute to work you may not need the most expensive car. A nice tasting wine may not necessarily come with the highest price tag. And, there is a good chance you can make a great impression around the office without wearing Louboutin.

While all three may be great and make you feel like a million bucks (literally) they are not a requirement.

Better Service

There is a difference when you get to the bottom though. The cheapest of the cheapest feels, well, cheap.

We wonder why there is so much frustration with the tech support hotline. We wonder why the burger just doesn’t taste like a burger. For the business, they wonder why no quality candidates will apply for their job opportunities.

The answer is simple.

Some things are good enough and some things are better.

The lowest price is probably the wrong option.

The cheapest will always be the cheapest.

Every time.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

08
Jan 20
-

Marketing Perspective and the Change You Seek

Tags : communication decision marketing perspective teamwork

Change is always happening. It is happening in front of you, of me, and your neighbors and friends. Is change somehow based on a marketing perspective?

You’ve heard before that we all sell. Guess what? We all market too. We advertise what’s happening, what the direction is, and which path to follow.

Not everyone agrees, and sometimes that is the beauty of it all.

Throw something on the wall and what sticks may be what matters the most or at least is the hardest to remove.

Change and Pivot

The change, pivot, or transformation that you are in right now is conditioned by marketing. Yes, of course, it may be some form of push marketing, but it may also be compelling. Pulling others along.

Marketers, all of us, are responsible for what happens next. The narrative we tell, the examples we give, and the expectations of future outcomes that we set. We’re all involved.

Marketing is a powerful tool and with great power comes great responsibility.

You have a responsibility to do the right thing.

Is the change you’re involved with right now, the right thing? Is the jury still out?

Marketing Perspective

Sometimes the best change takes more time. It isn’t a light switch with a full on or full off. Things aren’t always black and white. In some cases, step A and B need to materialize before the end result of C reveals itself.

You don’t want to get a bad rap for being a bad marketer. The perspective that you create, the one wrapped around your presence and wisdom is the one choice you will always have.

Be sure you are doing the work that matters. The work that creates the kind of change that makes you and others proud.

Sometimes all we need is a little more marketing perspective.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

07
Nov 19
-

Capture Attention or Face a Bigger Challenge

Tags : attention career marketing success technology

For the majority of the people in the workforce today, the World has changed. Some suggest we are in an information overload society and we filter much more than we consume. What are you doing to capture attention?

When I was a kid, after school I would jump off the school bus and run as fast as I could to my house. It was an exciting time. I couldn’t wait to get started.

Get started on what? What captured my attention?

Whatever it was that a few friends or one of my siblings may have established for what you do after school. At times I played alone. It may have been with a ball, a matchbox toy, or throwing around a few sticks in the nearby woods.

Pace of Technology

Consider this, just a little over a decade ago there were no smartphones. Text messaging really started to take off around 2005-2007. YouTube was founded in 2005, and didn’t start to become largely known until a few years later.

What does this technology history lesson indicate?

If you are in the workforce today and you are more than 25 to 30 years old, things have changed dramatically. It has all happened, right in front of you.

If you lean towards the younger side of the workforce scale you may not really remember much difference. If you are in the middle to older side of the scale, change is very noticeable.

The challenge today for every career conscious workplace professional and every business endeavor is not so much about change as it is about attention.

How do you capture the attention of your marketplace?

Capture Attention

We’re all selling, whether it is our expertise and why we are the right choice for the job or promotion, or whether it is our products and services, or a third category is perhaps, both.

When I was a kid, on a lucky day I had just a couple of friends to play with.

Technology hasn’t made us more reclusive; it has opened up the World.

The challenge then, is being interesting and valuable enough to get the attention of your market.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

14
Oct 19
-

Workplace Mind Changers Are Often Necessary

Tags : change marketing mind changers pivot workplace

Do you need to try something new? Are you seeking to pivot into a new or slightly tweaked vision? Workplace mind changers may be required.

What people do every day can be connected to the concept of habits.

Workplace habits can be hard to break. People come to work and do the same routine.

Leaders often take for granted the ease of which people flow with the norm. Whatever the culture suggests as the norm, seemingly happens with little motivation being required. It’s the norm.

Changing Minds is Marketing

When you want to change something, you sometimes have to change minds.

We see it in marketing. A new iPhone is being released, is the new phone needed or is it the marketing that prompts a quest for something more?

Seasons change, and as such, it may be time for new clothing or household items and decorations. What drives what is purchased? Often it is based on advertising and marketing campaigns.

Employees sometimes want a new chair, a new computer, a company supplied laptop or something fixed or replaced. They can simply ask, or develop a small marketing message to spark change.

Your marketing finesse is incredibly valuable.

Workplace Mind Changers

Often, you are not just giving ideas, your selling them. Your sales efforts are passively designed to change minds.

You create the compelling message. You establish reasons why, and connect them to business efficiency, productivity, or long-run gains.

Establishing buy-in for a budget proposal, additional workforce, or technology change starts with selling. If the need isn’t apparent nothing will change.

Becoming apparent starts with some data, and better yet, a story.

Workplace mind changers are also great marketers.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Tag Archives: marketing

Sep 21

-

Sweet Spot

Sep 21

-

Social Metrics

Feb 21

-

Serving Everyone

Jun 20

-

Marketing Noise

Jun 20

-

Unexpected Experience

Brand Experience Impacts

May 20

-

Compelling Information

Expert Opinions

Feb 20

-

Doing It Cheaper

Better Service

Jan 20

-

Change and Pivot

Marketing Perspective

Nov 19

-

Pace of Technology

Capture Attention

Oct 19

-

Changing Minds is Marketing

Workplace Mind Changers

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