David V. Lorenzo's Blog is now: www.careerintensity.com/blog

Paying a Fee Increases Commitment

People perceive things as valuable if they pay for them.  This is a fact we have discussed on this blog previously. 

Amazon is reporting that people will purchase more from a web site if they pay a fee to shop on it.  You read that correctly.  They pay to shop there and that increases the likelihood that they will return.

There is an implied perception of value in things that are expensive.  Paying a fee to buy goods or services is more evidence that this tactic can influence perception.

How the Pros will Influence Perception

Big business will be spending big bucks on-line in 2006.  Here’s some interesting information from mediapost.com:

“The BtoB online survey "2006 Marketing Priorities and Plans" of 366 senior marketing executives, conducted during the last week of November and the first week of December, found that 60.7% will be working with bigger budgets in 2006, reported Kate Maddox of BtoBOnline. 31.6% said their budgets would be flat. And only 7.7% said their budgets would decrease. The optimism is eleven points over last year.

In 2006, 72.0% of marketers plan to increase online budgets. Within Internet spending, the specific media that will receive the greatest share of marketers' online budgets in 2006 will be

·        Web sites (30.3%)

·        e-mail (22.0%)

·        search (20.3%)

·        sponsorships (10.3%)”

As more people head to the Internet to do research, more companies will look to influence people who are using the internet.

Makes sense, right?

In a Small Business You Are the Brand

A brand is the perception of your business your customers hold in their mind.  You should think of advertising, marketing and public relations as ways to establish that perception in a favorable way.  Those vehicles merely uncover the brand that already exists. 

J D Moore at Marketing Comet reminds us of Frank Perdue (the chicken guy) and Dave Thomas (Wendy’s).  They were both actively involved in the marketing of their respective products because their businesses were built around their reputations right from the start.  When they were small businesses their reputation was their competitive advantage.

A brand is a trust.  The minute you fail to deliver what you promised to deliver to your customers, you have violated that trust.  You personal involvement helps provide customers with the confidence that there is a person behind the business.  Even better – it provides your customers with the feeling that you care.

From SoHo Savvy

Small Business Owners are Talking

Small Business Trends points us to an article from Warrillow & Co. that claims that there are 700,000 entrepreneurial blogs on the Internet today.  That’s staggering!

The research also says that this group of small business owners is twice as likely to discuss issues (such as problems with suppliers) with one another as the group that doesn’t blog. 

This is more proof that word of mouth is a powerful medium that cannot be ignored – even in a b-to-b setting.

Increase your Buzz IQ

Buzzoodle Ron has more insight for us on Buzz Marketing.  Today his blog gives us six reasons why we should all learn more about “buzz”.  Ron’s reasons are:

1) Understanding what makes a product or company buzz worthy changes your perspective on opportunities.

2) Taking advantage of buzz opportunities will help you advance your career while helping your organization grow.

3) Creating buzz about yourself and your skills makes you more marketable.

4) Somehow, things just seem easier to achieve when you understand word of mouth and buzz.

5) You understand how to influence others and are more keenly aware of how your surroundings influence you.

6) You are aware of the fact that one person's opinion can be very valuable but people do spread buzz for ulterior motives sometimes.

I agree wholeheartedly.  There is nothing more valuable to a small business than positive word of mouth.  You can take that to the bank.

Your Conference Stinks

Seth Godin is challenging us to look at conferences as an opportunity to help people change their behavior. Change is about emotion, not facts.  Here’s a money quote from Seth’s post:

“If all we need is facts, then books alone would be sufficient.

When the Surgeon General announced that smoking was fatal, how many smokers quit right away?

Human beings are irrational. Change agents (like you) can fight that and obsess about presenting more and more facts, or we can embrace it and make change happen.”

People don’t respond to facts.  They respond to emotion.  Make people feel differently and you’ll be on your way to helping them act differently.

Numbers Tell but Stories Sell

Throughout the ages, virtually every society has valued its storytellers. Ancient civilizations would rely on the village elders to tell stories to the young children in order to pass along the community’s history. Stories were also used to train the youngsters for hunting and to face the challenges in the wild.

Today, we continue to place a premium on people who have the ability to tell a story. Television and motion picture actors, producers, and directors are highly sought after and regarded. Comedians and authors of novels are revered as extraordinarily gifted. Each is valued because each can influence the way you feel. When you go to the movies you want to be thrilled, confused, or scared – without it having an impact on your life. When you see a comedy show, you want to laugh at someone else or at his misfortune. Like all of us, you love to experience emotions in a vicarious state. A good story makes you feel a certain way without the negative side effects.

In the consulting business, we often say that numbers tell, but stories sell. A client is more likely to believe a compelling story than he will believe cold, hard facts that are placed before him. Stories about others are successful because they allow the listener to put himself in the place of the subject of the story. He feels the actual emotion that the subject of the story feels. In his mind, he experiences the events of the story firsthand.

You need your customers to tell moving and emotional stories about you. You make your interaction with them into positive emotional experiences. They then need to feel compelled and overwhelmed enough to share those stories with other people. Spend some time thinking about the best interaction that someone has had with you. What is the one compelling story about you that elicits a positive reaction in others? Now imagine someone telling another person that story. What feelings do you think a total stranger would have if your best customer told that story?

A Name is Not a Brand

During the dot com era people were paying thousands of dollars for a good domain name.  Occasionally a business would have its domain name “held for ransom” by someone who registered it before the actual business realized what happened. 

Rhonda Abrams at USA Today Small Business posted a column the other day about the value of a name to a business.  A good name can make a difference in creating an impression on the customer but the name is not the brand.

A brand is the image a business has in the mind of its customer.  This image starts with how your business represents itself to the public.  To that end, a name is important.  Beyond that initial impression, the brand is a sum of the customers’ experiences with it.  Every point of customer contact is critical.

A good name cannot make up for a poor product or inconsistent customer experiences.

Great Word of Mouth Starts with a Great Experience

Brand Autopsy, Seth Godin and bunch of other blogs reminded us that you need to have a product worth talking about in order to generate some Word of Mouth.

So what makes a product great?

We’ve heard many different takes on this topic.  I’m sure we’ll hear many more. 

I prefer to focus on the experience of product and service delivery.  That’s where I like to find a competitive advantage.  I want the experience of working with me, dining with me or talking to me to be memorable – in a good way.

Seth would say that it has to be remarkable.  I agree.  The experience must be not only be satisfactory…..

……it has to be worth telling friends and strangers about – over and over again. 

Three Feet to the Next Great Conversation

Dane points us to Creative Marketing Solutions post on the Three Foot Rule.  Here is the description of the rule from Dane’s post:

When I’m out in public, anyone within three feet is someone I can start a conversation with. Using this rule as a reminder, I’ve become bolder and more outgoing and have met many interesting people.

I love this idea.  It reminds me of when we were all kids.  When we were little we would talk to anyone that was around (I know I have two nieces who are 4 and 7 and they literally talk to anybody who will listen).  As youngsters we have no fear or rejection.  If someone doesn’t want to talk to us, we move on to the next person. 

As we grow up we become more self-conscious.  We begin to fear rejection.

Do me a favor.  Give the three foot rule a try today.  Pick a situation and just go for it.  Talk to a stranger today.  If you get rejected, move on to another person.  Set a goal to have one of these random conversations per day each day next week.

Who knows, you could meet somebody who might just make your day.