Holiday thoughts on marketing

Just back from holiday during which I had time to reflect on fundamental stuff while horizontal and sunkissed. In fact I had some great “being marketed to” experiences, which just confirmed the basics in market. (Context: tourist volumes are down by (some say) 30% in Tenerife.)

1. Have a great product. Let people try the great product, for free. If it’s truly great they’ll buy it. Example: every restaurant along the beach front is touting for business, showing their menus and encouraging reluctant holidaymakers to venture inside. One restaurant, not even on the beach front, is full. That’s the one that’s handing out free samples of fried cod. It tasted great. There was a queue just to get the free samples. Why did no other restaurant try this, and hand out samples of paella? Near-zero incremental cost, ROI in one order.
2. You can differentiate in a commodity market. In Tenerife, all the resorts look basically the same. All the beaches look the same. All the restaurants serve the same food. All the shops sell the same stuff. Differentiation comes through service, through care for customer needs, through creativity. (Note to self: not everyone will appreciate attempts at differentiation. Elvis impersonators appeal to a niche market.)
3. If you have to lie to your prospects to get their attention, there’s something fundamentally wrong in your approach. I’m not sure exactly what the young people offering prize draw scratch cards were selling (timeshare?) but after the fifth time of being accosted even my kids recognised the script. No, you cannot hand the winning ticket in to the tourist office. There are not only three winning tickets each day (or I am improbably lucky, since I won five times). No, I haven’t possible won a cash prize, but I’ll bet you a tenner I’ve won the “free” holiday.

And they say holidays are relaxing…

Why does advertising slump in a recession?

The FT notes that advertising budgets are being cut, typically by double digit percentages.*

If advertising works - that is, it sells more of what you're selling - you'd do more of it in a recession, wouldn't you? When every penny counts, surely you'd pump every available budget into selling more, including advertising. If advertising works...

Which just makes me even more convinced that advertising really doesn't work.

I also hear on the grapevine that operational marketing budgets are being cut at many tech vendors, as recession looms. Again, why would they do this if marketing works?

In a recession, every sale is harder to make, since customers are more reluctant to part with cash. Effective marketing must surely be an imperative.

Is this too simplistic a view? Please tell me.




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What constitutes quality in an influencer?

One of Influencer50’s criteria by which we score and rank influencers is Quality of Impact. But what is 'quality' in terms of influence?

Firstly, quality is not an all-or-nothing concept. It might be obvious if an individual has a lot of it, or none at all, but what about the large grey area in the middle?

We use Robert Cialdini’s book (bible?) on influence to provide the framework for our Quality measure. In his discussion on authority, Cialdini poses two questions:

1. Is this person truly an expert (measured by the person’s credentials and the relevance of those credentials to the matter in hand)?
2. How truthful can we expect the expert to be?

We simplify these to 'Expertise' and 'Independence.'

In the book we discuss the relative importance of these two dimensions, and offered the following diagram:



The diagram implies that 100% expertise and 0% independence means that influence is severely constrained. Similarly, 0% expertise and 100% independence also represents low influence. But is this true in the real world?

There are many cases where people have 100% independence and 0% expertise. My own influence on the wine trade is a good example of this (never trust my wine suggestions), and it translates (intuitively) to low influence. But is the converse true? I think I’d rather buy wine from an expert who works for a wine producer, even if they recommend their own wine. In fact, I’d surprised if they didn’t. As long as they’ve declared their interest I know that the advice I’m getting is trustworthy, if qualified.

Back in the real world, can vendors be influence on the market? Absolutely. No-one expects them to be independent, but they can demonstrate their ample expertise, and be influential.

So the relationship between expertise and independence looks more like this:



In other words, you’ve got to have some minimum level of relevant expertise to be influential at all. Independence increases influence, but it is not a pre-requisite for it.