Claude Hopkins, Part 3: Offer Service

In this short chapter, Claude Hopkins talks to service as a viable advertising strategy. He argues that they should, in today’s terms, provide value. He references that they should provide information, that they should educate, that they should cite advantages to the user, and that they should do what they can to eliminate risk on the part of the consumer. Does this sound familiar to us? I would think that it should.

He provides several examples in this short chapter about how a salesperson might act in the situation. As you will remember, Hopkins considered advertising to be salesman in print. He had little or no use for advertising that did not advance the sales process, or as we would say today, the customer journey. He was concerned that advertising people sought to advance their own agenda and “spoke to their own interests” rather than to those of their customers.

Today we speak of choosing a target audience and speaking to that audience in a manner they can relate to. This would make sense to Hopkins.

That said, there is a great deal of discussion around how targeting and personalization are defined. The reality is that in most instances, we do not have enough accurate information around any given consumer to completely personalize. But we can base our communications on what we do know about that person. It often starts with demographics, and then proceeds onto to behavioral and psychographic data, depending on how much information the consumer is willing to volunteer. Using our own data and experience with a person is often a better point for starting a dialog than buying targeted profiles, although we may need to do this to get started and to expand our audience.

And this would also have appealed to Hopkins.  He felt that “people can be coaxed but not driven.” A face-to-face sales encounter would have followed a pattern but would also have varied person to person that the salesperson encountered. Again…not all that dissimilar to what we are trying to do today.

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AI and Machine Learning

I have been posting quite a bit on LinkedIn and Twitter about artificial intelligence and machine learning, including bots, personal digital assistants and smart home. I have speculated on what the smart phone of the future might look like, especially with advancements in wearables and implants.

I would love to hear the thoughts of readers of this blog or if you would like to share articles you feel strongly about in these topics. I hope you will share your thoughts with me.

Indecision may or may not be my problem…

That quote from Jimmy Buffett sums up my writing efforts the past couple of weeks. I have been working on several topics to post, but for whatever reason, have not been able to get them to gel. So I thought that thinking through it here, on electronic paper, with you, might help.

Photo courtesy of  workplacepsychology.net

 

They are all difficult topics, and all have been written on already (in some cases extensively). So one of the hang ups for me has been attempting to make the post unique…to not be just another “me too” post. There is an incredible irony here because as you can see on the list of topics I would like to write about below, Paralysis by Analysis is the very first one on the list.

Paralysis by Analysis or Why Action is Necessary Today in Order to Conduct Viable Research – We just don’t know enough about the way the consumer thinks, and more specifically behaves in the digital space, especially when it comes to mobile. Not only is mobile is changing rapidly, it is changing the consumer mindset as well. This has become a market where past history does not mean a great deal, so (thoughtful and intentional) action is required.

Alienation – Everyone is writing about alienation in one form or another…alienation due to social media attachment, alienation due to technology, alienation due to lack of empathy. I feel a strong need to write on this topic, but mine will be more about alienation in time and space, or maybe just geography.

Content Marketing– No, I do not want to write about the wonders of content marketing or the 7 things that make it work or the 5 things you must avoid. I’m more of the mind to write here about why people who claim to be writing content for their audience are often deluding themselves.  In many ways, I feel that the content emperor has no clothes. The appropriate situational content has great value. However, it is also arrogant to presume we can write content our audience wants when we make little effort to find out what content they want, or if they even want content beyond a simple answer. I suspect that post will annoy a few people…

Why Growth Hacking is Not Marketing (or is it?) – There are definitely two sides to this discussion, both with very strong points of view. To my thinking process, it depends on whether you are talking mind set or tool set. Growth hacking is also certainly contextual, and not a great deal different than the old concept of guerilla marketing or from online marketing on steroids.

So there you have a few of the topics that have been swirling around in my brain, but have not yet fleshed out enough to put into coherent words on paper. Or at least coherent thoughts that are strikingly different than the content that is already out there….

Build engagement, not dominance with your customers…

A man who is happy with his mobile experience

 

“As the consumer’s device of choice, mobile is almost always on hand. It’s the brand’s first point of contact with the consumer, but that doesn’t mean forcing them to walk around with the entire website in your pocket. Rather, the mobile experience needs to address the context of a mobile user.” ~ Carin van Vuuren, Usablenet

Fit the technology to the user, rather than the other way around. An important thought to live by in this era where many organizations still view technology, rather than engagement, as the path to competitive advantage.

Thought and Planning also Required…

“You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.” ~ Daniel Keys Moran, an American computer programmer and science fiction writer.

Forget what you know…find a way to listen to the customer…

“If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there’d be a shortage of fishing poles.” ~ Doug Larson

Retrieved from Science daily: http://images.sciencedaily.com/2010/05/100513162748_1_540x360.jpg

I am constantly reading about the shortage of digital pros or hybrid technologists in the market. And I agree that there is certainly evidence to support that the rate of change in our information needs and abilities has outstripped the ability to completely fulfill the demand.

That said, this is still amazing state to me given how many people participate professionally in the digital space, and the sheer numbers present even within specialized area such as technical SEO, content creation, paid search, various technical platform specialties, analytics, and so on…

My thought is there is actually a gap; and it is a role that is not being filled in many organizations …specifically the ability to manipulate the data or technology AND also understand the result from the perspective of a human being.

You have the technical side: Practitioners in this area know every technical aspect of their work like the back of their hand. This is true whether they be data gurus or system wunderkinds. Today, a certain level of technical knowledge may well be a prerequisite to being in marketing in today’s world, but it is certainly not the complete answer.

With all of the amazing advances that technology and inexpensive computing power has brought, there are still areas where we need to improve. Technological myopia can lead to poor usage of the technology or resulting data and analysis. Understanding how systems work and what the numbers represent is not the same as knowing if those numbers (metrics) represent value, if we are measuring the right aspects of our audience’s behavior or that they are appropriate for our business model.

When we look to the wrong measures and drift to what is conventional, our path can lead to a lack of vision as to what all of this data could be used to achieve. In the end, the result we achieve is often not actionable, and certainly not optimal, because it fails within our business context. This result does not lead to positive change.

This is not to say the technology is not important, because it is…critically so.

The technology today is driving huge changes in the way we communicate and how our organizations are built and interact with the world. However, too much focus on this area can lead to whiffs in other still important aspects of marketing, building a brand and running a business.

Then there is the qualitative side of the marketing community that has limited recognition of the pervasive nature of the technology, the accelerated pace of change we now live with, and its impact on our organizations and customers. While this group will embrace the new communication methodologies, they often will try and use these tools directionally to execute outdated models of customer relationship interaction. On this side of the coin, we have not yet learned that pushing corporate/brand/product messaging to disinterested audiences is not viable. This also will not lead to the intended or optimal result.

Like most other things in life, balance in implementation is key. While technology often renders “what we know” useless or invalid (sometimes within the same year), there are also certain fundamentals of life that remain consistent. People and organizations still have needs, many of which remain very basic. How they communicate to the world around these needs is what has changed, and continues to change, radically.

The difficulty lies in combining empathy for both the quantitative and qualitative sides of the puzzle. This is a combination that neither of these sides usually have individually, necessitating yet another skill set. The emergence of marketing operations and a well-conceived project manager model comes into play here.

All organizations need that balanced view that has best interests of customer and the organization/brand in mind. Especially important is that balance between what constitutes a good use of technology, and yet is still being customer friendly (in all senses of that discussion…usability, creepiness factor, etc…but this topic is a discussion for another time.)

The customer must be recognized above all, as ultimately they have the final vote. Whether we are seeking to interact one-on-one on an individual level or create a heightened connection though finely tuned personas, the approach must be customer-centric, not on our own perspectives of how things work.

I’m testing another blog

Hi All,

I’m adding another blog to my repertoire in order to test out BlogSpot and compare analytics. The link is http://mtietbohl.blogspot.com and the title is Marketing…The Ever Changing Paradigm. I will likely explore tried and true marketing concepts and philosophy there, as well as emerging trends. Hope to see you there.

Freedom to be wrong…what a concept

“Search marketing, and most Internet marketing in fact, can be very threatening because there are no rules. There’s no safe haven. To do it right, you need to be willing to be wrong. But search marketing done right is all about being wrong. Experimentation is the only way. No one really knows whether that page will rank #1 in Google; no one really knows which paid search copy will get the highest click rate. Even experts can’t tell you which content will attract the most links. You just have to try it and see.” Mike Moran, IBM

Claude Hopkins

If Claude Hopkins had had the internet 100 years ago, he could have told you this….

(Thanks to Dan Perry for posting the quote at http://www.danperry.com/blog/online-marketing-quotes/ )

Take Your Time to Eat the Donuts…

I recently have been reading in various sources (for example, NFR Stores) that Dunkin Donuts has been upgrading sites with a new design that encourages people to linger.

This is an interesting progression in the Dunkin Donuts lifeline. Being originally from the northern Mid-Atlantic region, and having spent significant time in NE and the upper Midwest, I saw coffee shops (DD in particular) as a hangout place. At the time, they had actual counter service (like a diner) and you could also choose a booth or table. Lingering was actively encouraged, as incremental sales occurred from additional time and the products had significant margins. (I hopefully scoured the net for a picture of DDs in the 80’s but had no luck…)

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But the feeling also prevailed that was OK to know the staff (and they you), and also the regulars. Some people seemed to pretty much hang out there all day…they were there in the morning and they were there at night. It was the nonalcoholic meeting place of choice, in a time where focus on drinking and driving was just coming into its own.
In recent times, DD has seemed more focused on getting people in and out of the store, pushing the use of drive through windows and generally depersonalizing the locations. In these days of relationship building, the time to re-engage has arrived.

While the new technologies (TVs, wireless, comfy chairs) will help the cause, I think the main objective to once again achieve a feeling of comfort and welcome, of community, and to convey that it is once again OK to just hang…

I for one hope they do achieve this, as it was always more homey to hang in a DD than it ever has been in the more eclectic and or pseudo retro coffee shops today….

From the man who wrote the book on marketing…

“Over the past 60 years, marketing has moved from being product-centric (Marketing 1.0) to being consumer-centric (Marketing 2.0). Today we see marketing as transforming once again in response to the new dynamics in the environment. We see companies expanding their focus from products to consumers to humankind issues. Marketing 3.0 is the stage when companies shift from consumer-centricity to human-centricity and where profitability is balanced with corporate responsibility.”
― Phillip Kotler