Direct mail is a lost art. As consumers, we’ve come to recognize time-wasting ad material even when it comes in a sealed envelope, and we automatically file it where it can do the least harm.
But then there’s this DM package that arrived in my mailbox a few weeks ago from Bell Canada. It begged to be opened. When you looked at the transparent back of the envelope, you could see this 5x7" "Open for Business" sign, just like you might find at a quality stationery store.
You tear the envelope open and it’s exactly what you thought – a very cool “Open for Business” sign on heavy, glossy stock. High quality and tough enough to put on your office door or in the front window of your store.
The back of the card offers this pitch: “Visit www.bell.ca/open to log in with your enclosed Preferred Business I.D. now!”
That’s not exactly a strong benefit statement. But the “Open” card is so cool that you're ready to give Bell the benefit of the doubt. So you actually look at the color brochure that came with the sign. Although the headline is vague (“We’re Open for Your Business 24/7!”), the thematic link to the sign is so strong that I went ahead and opened the four-page brochure.
Alas, this is where it all breaks down. You get a two-page spread about – well, something. It has product demos that have something to do with a BlackBerry, it offers opinion polls from Canadian business people, a Solution Generator (“for a customized wireless recommendation”), and BizNews articles that offer “the expert opinion and newsworthy information you want to know.”
So, I guess it’s some sort of website. Does it have a name? A brand? Apparently not.
The marketing bumph calls it, variously, www.bell.ca/open (which strikes me as an address, not a name); “one valuable resource for everything you need” regarding wireless solutions; “one convenient and easily accessible place”; “access to instant information for all aspects of your business”; and, “the site.”
The d-m guys got the concept right. They created a must-open package that arrests the attention of business owners. But boy did the product copywriters let them down.
Still, everyone who got the package also received their very own “Preferred Business I.D.” password that provides “open access” to the site. There’s nothing entrepreneurs like better than feeling like a VIP, so maybe some of them went to the site just to see what preferred benefits were on offer.
But if they did, they were proceeding on curiosity, not in search of a product or benefit. Which means that while Bell might get them to go where it wanted, these visitors are ready to bail at the first sign of a hard sell – or any evidence that they're not as special as they’ve been led to believe.
Will Bell be up to the challenge? Is Donald Trump’s hair colour real? Check out our next post for the gruesome details.
Tuesday, 27 June 2006
Tuesday, 20 June 2006
Marketers' biggest mistake
What's the worst mistake big-business people make when marketing to small business?
Warrillow & Co., a Toronto-based company that researches the small business market on behalf of bigger clients, asked that question of Gary Slack, chairman & "Chief Experience Officer" of Chicago-based Slack Barshinger, an integrated marketing agency focussed on business-to-business. Slack Barshinger was BtoB magazine’s 2006 Midsize Agency of the Year, and the Business Marketing Association’s 2006 Agency of the Year.
Warrillow: "What’s the biggest mistake you see enterprise companies make when they target small businesses?"
Slack: "I think the biggest mistake we see enterprise firms make is assuming they understand the needs, challenges and mindset of their small-business customers and prospects. We still too commonly encounter marketers who try to arrive at the answers to critical questions by arguing them out around conference tables rather than doing the research required to really understand the marketplace.
"On top of that, we also see enterprise companies sometimes make the mistake of assuming that small companies are the same as their own company – for example, large, bureaucratic, territorial and slow to act. They don’t sufficiently appreciate how quickly decisions can be made at a smaller company, assuming you have reached the right person or persons with the right message.
"Last but not least, we’ve also found that enterprise firms sometimes make blanket assumptions about the SMB buying process related to their product or service... assumptions that may prove incorrect. In the chaotic world of SMB life, job descriptions cover a fraction of what an individual actually does, and research is needed to truly understand all the potential players who might be involved in a purchasing decision, what information those individuals will seek, their various pain points, and what steps they will follow in their firm’s buying cycle."
In my opinion, the trouble with researching small business habits is that they're so different. A focus group of 10 people couldn't begin to cover the broad spectrum of possible small business attitudes and behaviours. Yet quantitative research is so limited in terms of covering multiple options and open-ended behaviours and attitudes.
So what's a marketer to do? Cover off multiple options: one-on-one research and experience, small-group interviews, and quantitative surveys. The hard part, though, it to synthesize the information and convey the resulting intelligence and insights to everyone in your marketing, product development and executive teams who needs to understand these markets.
Fortunately, technology has come up with unique new solutions for that. Internal blogs and wikis are great ways of recording, sharing and understanding an ongoing wave of information. And you can control access to any participants you wish.
I know, I know. Something new to research. But don't worry. Blogs and wikis are easy to learn, simple to use and easy to set up, yet cost next to nothing.
And they're a great way to ensure that your hard-earned research gets understood and gets used.
For more of Warrillow's interview with Slack, click here.
Warrillow & Co., a Toronto-based company that researches the small business market on behalf of bigger clients, asked that question of Gary Slack, chairman & "Chief Experience Officer" of Chicago-based Slack Barshinger, an integrated marketing agency focussed on business-to-business. Slack Barshinger was BtoB magazine’s 2006 Midsize Agency of the Year, and the Business Marketing Association’s 2006 Agency of the Year.
Warrillow: "What’s the biggest mistake you see enterprise companies make when they target small businesses?"
Slack: "I think the biggest mistake we see enterprise firms make is assuming they understand the needs, challenges and mindset of their small-business customers and prospects. We still too commonly encounter marketers who try to arrive at the answers to critical questions by arguing them out around conference tables rather than doing the research required to really understand the marketplace.
"On top of that, we also see enterprise companies sometimes make the mistake of assuming that small companies are the same as their own company – for example, large, bureaucratic, territorial and slow to act. They don’t sufficiently appreciate how quickly decisions can be made at a smaller company, assuming you have reached the right person or persons with the right message.
"Last but not least, we’ve also found that enterprise firms sometimes make blanket assumptions about the SMB buying process related to their product or service... assumptions that may prove incorrect. In the chaotic world of SMB life, job descriptions cover a fraction of what an individual actually does, and research is needed to truly understand all the potential players who might be involved in a purchasing decision, what information those individuals will seek, their various pain points, and what steps they will follow in their firm’s buying cycle."
In my opinion, the trouble with researching small business habits is that they're so different. A focus group of 10 people couldn't begin to cover the broad spectrum of possible small business attitudes and behaviours. Yet quantitative research is so limited in terms of covering multiple options and open-ended behaviours and attitudes.
So what's a marketer to do? Cover off multiple options: one-on-one research and experience, small-group interviews, and quantitative surveys. The hard part, though, it to synthesize the information and convey the resulting intelligence and insights to everyone in your marketing, product development and executive teams who needs to understand these markets.
Fortunately, technology has come up with unique new solutions for that. Internal blogs and wikis are great ways of recording, sharing and understanding an ongoing wave of information. And you can control access to any participants you wish.
I know, I know. Something new to research. But don't worry. Blogs and wikis are easy to learn, simple to use and easy to set up, yet cost next to nothing.
And they're a great way to ensure that your hard-earned research gets understood and gets used.
For more of Warrillow's interview with Slack, click here.
Wednesday, 7 June 2006
Keep it short, Stupid!
There's a saying in marketing that long copy is better-read than short copy - if its value message is sufficently compelling.
Does this rule apply to small busines owners? Probably not.
Consider the entrepreneur I met with today. We were talking about getting phone and e-mail messages through to business prospects, and his view was this: "I never write or read long e-mails."
I was shocked. He really ignores e-mails of more than a couple of pragraphs? Yep, he said, although he admitted that missives from family and friends might get through his screen - but not business contacts.
And isn't he worried about missing something important? Hasn't this practice come back to bite him? His response to both questions: "No."
But then, he said, most of his e-mail comes from other entrepreneurs and people who are used to working with them. So they follow pretty much the same philosophy as he does.
In small business, brevity is the soul of profit. How quickly does your messgae get across?
Does this rule apply to small busines owners? Probably not.
Consider the entrepreneur I met with today. We were talking about getting phone and e-mail messages through to business prospects, and his view was this: "I never write or read long e-mails."
I was shocked. He really ignores e-mails of more than a couple of pragraphs? Yep, he said, although he admitted that missives from family and friends might get through his screen - but not business contacts.
And isn't he worried about missing something important? Hasn't this practice come back to bite him? His response to both questions: "No."
But then, he said, most of his e-mail comes from other entrepreneurs and people who are used to working with them. So they follow pretty much the same philosophy as he does.
In small business, brevity is the soul of profit. How quickly does your messgae get across?
Tuesday, 30 May 2006
Can small business use your site?
Internet “usabilty” expert Jakob Nielsen is puzzled.
In an e-mail newsletter article today, he writes about business to business websites – and why they're so hard to use.
“User testing shows that business-to-business websites have substantially lower usability than mainstream consumer sites,” says Nielsen. “If they want to convert more prospects into leads, B2B sites should follow more guidelines and make it easier for prospects to research their offerings.”
Nielsen says many B2B sites are “stuck in the 1990s” in their attitude to the user experience. They emphasize internally focused design and fail to answer customers' main questions.
“These sites haven't realized that the Web has reversed the company-customer relationship,” says Nielsen. “Most online interactions are demand-driven: you either give people what they want or watch as they abandon your site for the competition's.”
In Nielsen’s user tests, B2B sites earned a mere 58% success rate (measured as the percentage of that time users accomplished their tasks on a site). Mainstream websites had a success rate of 66%.
Here’s the puzzle. “Considering that there's immensely more money at stake for B2B than for business-to-consumer," says Nielsen, "it's astounding that B2B sites offer a much worse user experience.”
For pete's sake, put the customer first.
For Nielsen's full details, click here.
Interested in usability issues? Canada now has its own usability blogger: Dmitry Buterin of Bonasource. He's actually pretty good (so you'd better hope he doesn't find your site). Click here for his blog, Blinking VCR.
In an e-mail newsletter article today, he writes about business to business websites – and why they're so hard to use.
“User testing shows that business-to-business websites have substantially lower usability than mainstream consumer sites,” says Nielsen. “If they want to convert more prospects into leads, B2B sites should follow more guidelines and make it easier for prospects to research their offerings.”
Nielsen says many B2B sites are “stuck in the 1990s” in their attitude to the user experience. They emphasize internally focused design and fail to answer customers' main questions.
“These sites haven't realized that the Web has reversed the company-customer relationship,” says Nielsen. “Most online interactions are demand-driven: you either give people what they want or watch as they abandon your site for the competition's.”
In Nielsen’s user tests, B2B sites earned a mere 58% success rate (measured as the percentage of that time users accomplished their tasks on a site). Mainstream websites had a success rate of 66%.
Here’s the puzzle. “Considering that there's immensely more money at stake for B2B than for business-to-consumer," says Nielsen, "it's astounding that B2B sites offer a much worse user experience.”
For pete's sake, put the customer first.
For Nielsen's full details, click here.
Interested in usability issues? Canada now has its own usability blogger: Dmitry Buterin of Bonasource. He's actually pretty good (so you'd better hope he doesn't find your site). Click here for his blog, Blinking VCR.
Friday, 26 May 2006
Move your prospects forward, faster
I have a professional services client in Toronto that is very interested in the entrepreneurial market, so I have been working with them to help them understand better how to identify and work with growth entrepreneurs.
Yesterday we held a session with one of Canada’s top growth leaders as he candidly outlined some of the problems he has faced in his business.
One of his comments should be of immense interest to anyone selling services and systems to small business.
Every entrepreneur in a growing business faces a conflict between trying to develop the staff that has been with the company for a long time, and bringing in more experienced professionals who really know how to do the job. Essentially, the conflict is the business’s need for greater professionalism vs the entrepreneur’s sense of loyalty to the people who have helped the company grow – but may no longer be the best people to help it grow further.
This entrepreneur admitted he was very slow to resolve that conflict. In the end, there was no doubt – without more professional management, his company was doomed. He took the plunge and brought in new people with the skills he needed. Some of his long-serving colleagues accepted reassignment; others accepted severance.
Most services companies targeting small business are selling professionalism. But not all entrepreneurs are ready to buy. Like yesterday’s guest speaker, many put it off for years. This suggests that there is a huge opportunity to sell more professional services to more entrepreneurial companies earlier – if you can help the leaders deal with their natural reluctance to upset the delicate balance of people and skills they have set up in their businesses.
How can you get loyalty-minded entrepreneurs to move forward faster?
Acknowledging their dilemma is one step. Explaining how other entrepreneurial clients have successfully solved this problem would be another. Paint a picture of what success looks like – and why so many more people – staff, customers, other stakeholders – will be better off in the long run.
Review your experience and ransack your client list to identify success stories of how you have helped other entrepreneurial firms grow stronger and faster by establishing more effective processes. Ask satisfied past clients if you can refer prospects to them for a personal discussion on how to manage such tricky transitions.
Entrepreneurs distrust experts who promise them the moon. Like everyone else, they tend to drag their feet when change is painful. But they are willing to listen – and act – if you have compelling evidence and testimonials proving that short-term pain will produce sustained long-term gain.
The client company will be stronger for it. And so will yours.
Yesterday we held a session with one of Canada’s top growth leaders as he candidly outlined some of the problems he has faced in his business.
One of his comments should be of immense interest to anyone selling services and systems to small business.
Every entrepreneur in a growing business faces a conflict between trying to develop the staff that has been with the company for a long time, and bringing in more experienced professionals who really know how to do the job. Essentially, the conflict is the business’s need for greater professionalism vs the entrepreneur’s sense of loyalty to the people who have helped the company grow – but may no longer be the best people to help it grow further.
This entrepreneur admitted he was very slow to resolve that conflict. In the end, there was no doubt – without more professional management, his company was doomed. He took the plunge and brought in new people with the skills he needed. Some of his long-serving colleagues accepted reassignment; others accepted severance.
Most services companies targeting small business are selling professionalism. But not all entrepreneurs are ready to buy. Like yesterday’s guest speaker, many put it off for years. This suggests that there is a huge opportunity to sell more professional services to more entrepreneurial companies earlier – if you can help the leaders deal with their natural reluctance to upset the delicate balance of people and skills they have set up in their businesses.
How can you get loyalty-minded entrepreneurs to move forward faster?
Acknowledging their dilemma is one step. Explaining how other entrepreneurial clients have successfully solved this problem would be another. Paint a picture of what success looks like – and why so many more people – staff, customers, other stakeholders – will be better off in the long run.
Review your experience and ransack your client list to identify success stories of how you have helped other entrepreneurial firms grow stronger and faster by establishing more effective processes. Ask satisfied past clients if you can refer prospects to them for a personal discussion on how to manage such tricky transitions.
Entrepreneurs distrust experts who promise them the moon. Like everyone else, they tend to drag their feet when change is painful. But they are willing to listen – and act – if you have compelling evidence and testimonials proving that short-term pain will produce sustained long-term gain.
The client company will be stronger for it. And so will yours.
Thursday, 18 May 2006
Entrepreneur Reality Check
While looking for something else (as always), I ran across a great post on how an entrepreneur’s strengths become weaknesses – written by entrepreneur Thomas J. Leonard for all the long-suffering spouses of entrepreneurs.
It’s a great way to study both the common characteristics of entrepreneurs, as well as their needs (and thus your opportunities to help them).
The post, “The Top 10 Great Qualities of the Entrepreneur that Cause the Most Problems,” dates back to 1996, but it is none the worse for that. The species hasn’t evolved much since then.
Here’s my summary.
1. Can't focus, lots of ideas, runs in circles.
The entrepreneur's currency is ideas, often a flood of ideas. Encourage MORE ideas, don't try to pin them down.
2. Not good with details.
Suggest they give up even trying. Sure, this may create a mess, but challenge the entrepreneur to solve the mess as if the mess was a new business! (Entrepreneurs are like kids; it's good to divert them.)
3. Feel odd, different, alone, strange.
Entrepreneurs are simply wired differently and they SHOULD feel this way, because it's TRUE and there is nothing wrong with it. If you can help the entrepreneur relish their unique, contrary, leading edge ways, you'll help them feel better about themselves, which will increase the flow of ideas and success.
4. Good at starting businesses, bad at running them.
Help the entrepreneur to set a "sell date" right now, so they know they're getting out and when! This relieves some of the pressure and also forces the entrepreneur to create a salable company vs. one that is just a monument to their ego.
5. Chaos reigns in the company.
Creation is messy! A solution is to help the entrepreneur create fully automated and foolproof systems, usually managed by outside contractors or vendors who are not IN the business day to day.
6. They fail. And fail again.
Just as a kid has to fall when learning to ride a bike, so do entrepreneurs fail as they learn how to be successful.
7. They exaggerate and are too optimistic.
Entrepreneurs are so far out in front of the rest of us that they NEED to exaggerate how well things are going, in order to keep the faith -- hey it's lonely out in front (or in left field).
8. Always at the edge financially.
Get the entrepreneur to direct this energy into creating a healthy savings account instead of leveraging so much.
9. Family of the entrepreneur suffers.
You didn't just marry a man or woman, you married an ENTREPRENEUR! Develop your own strong interests and let your husband/wife do their own thing. You'll always be #2 (well, maybe #1 and a half). You can have a great marriage if you get this.
10. Sales dip.
Take this as an invitation for the entrepreneur to get back to selling, where they usually shine.
I agree with most of these, though No. 9 seems excessively harsh. What do you think?
For the original post, see http://topten.org/public/AA/AA3.html
It’s a great way to study both the common characteristics of entrepreneurs, as well as their needs (and thus your opportunities to help them).
The post, “The Top 10 Great Qualities of the Entrepreneur that Cause the Most Problems,” dates back to 1996, but it is none the worse for that. The species hasn’t evolved much since then.
Here’s my summary.
1. Can't focus, lots of ideas, runs in circles.
The entrepreneur's currency is ideas, often a flood of ideas. Encourage MORE ideas, don't try to pin them down.
2. Not good with details.
Suggest they give up even trying. Sure, this may create a mess, but challenge the entrepreneur to solve the mess as if the mess was a new business! (Entrepreneurs are like kids; it's good to divert them.)
3. Feel odd, different, alone, strange.
Entrepreneurs are simply wired differently and they SHOULD feel this way, because it's TRUE and there is nothing wrong with it. If you can help the entrepreneur relish their unique, contrary, leading edge ways, you'll help them feel better about themselves, which will increase the flow of ideas and success.
4. Good at starting businesses, bad at running them.
Help the entrepreneur to set a "sell date" right now, so they know they're getting out and when! This relieves some of the pressure and also forces the entrepreneur to create a salable company vs. one that is just a monument to their ego.
5. Chaos reigns in the company.
Creation is messy! A solution is to help the entrepreneur create fully automated and foolproof systems, usually managed by outside contractors or vendors who are not IN the business day to day.
6. They fail. And fail again.
Just as a kid has to fall when learning to ride a bike, so do entrepreneurs fail as they learn how to be successful.
7. They exaggerate and are too optimistic.
Entrepreneurs are so far out in front of the rest of us that they NEED to exaggerate how well things are going, in order to keep the faith -- hey it's lonely out in front (or in left field).
8. Always at the edge financially.
Get the entrepreneur to direct this energy into creating a healthy savings account instead of leveraging so much.
9. Family of the entrepreneur suffers.
You didn't just marry a man or woman, you married an ENTREPRENEUR! Develop your own strong interests and let your husband/wife do their own thing. You'll always be #2 (well, maybe #1 and a half). You can have a great marriage if you get this.
10. Sales dip.
Take this as an invitation for the entrepreneur to get back to selling, where they usually shine.
I agree with most of these, though No. 9 seems excessively harsh. What do you think?
For the original post, see http://topten.org/public/AA/AA3.html
Monday, 15 May 2006
The entrepreneur's favourite knowledge tool
Enterprise Toronto, the municipal agency dedicated to new business development, recently polled its visitors (most of them are presumably business owners or aspiring so) about their principal sources of small business knowledge.
I was pretty surprised at the one-sided nature of the result. I guess I shouldn't have been, but in blogs one is supposed to be truthful.
The major source of small business knowledge cited by 41.5% of the 106 respondents was…
(a few blank lines to build the tension and give you time to guess)
(a few more blank lines to further build the tension and give you time to change your guess)
The major source of small business knowledge cited by 41.5% of respondents was… the Internet!
I have known for a long time that entrepreneurs are wary of books and magazines and formal instruction, and that they prefer the school-of-hard-knocks wisdom they can derive from discussions with experienced business people. But I was surprised to see the Internet run away with it all.
The actual results:
What is your major source for small business knowledge?
The Internet – 44 (41.5%)
On the Job Experience – 24 (22.6%)
Books - 13 (12.26%)
Seminars – 13 (12.26%)
Other Entrepreneurs – 6 (5.7%)
School – 5 (4.7%)
Audio/Video Programs – 1 (0.94%)
Obviously these aren’t the only sources entrepreneurs use – but merely the distribution of their preferred methods. With just over 100 respondents, this is clearly not a scientific sample. But I think the results are important.
(Although I wish they hadn't included "On the Job Experience" as an option. That's a different kind of knowledge, and it's one which everyone has and gains more of daily, so I think it diminished the results for some of the other sources of info.)
So why did the Net win so big? With the flexibility of Google and other search tools, the Net’s round-the-clock availability, and the sheer depth of (mostly free!) business, management, market and financial information online, the Internet is a tool almost made to order for entrepreneurs. The question is: what are they looking up, and why? **
Follow-Up: How are your customers using the Internet? And how can you use digital technologies to reach them when they are using their favourite mode of business research?
(**Of course, there is also the matter of sample bias. You would expect the results of an online survey to reflect the fact that all respondents, by definition, already use the Net for business purposes. I think the same bias accounts for the relatively high ranking of the fourth result, Seminars, since ET puts on lots of workshops and seminars, for beginners and experienced entrepreneurs alike.)
I was pretty surprised at the one-sided nature of the result. I guess I shouldn't have been, but in blogs one is supposed to be truthful.
The major source of small business knowledge cited by 41.5% of the 106 respondents was…
(a few blank lines to build the tension and give you time to guess)
(a few more blank lines to further build the tension and give you time to change your guess)
The major source of small business knowledge cited by 41.5% of respondents was… the Internet!
I have known for a long time that entrepreneurs are wary of books and magazines and formal instruction, and that they prefer the school-of-hard-knocks wisdom they can derive from discussions with experienced business people. But I was surprised to see the Internet run away with it all.
The actual results:
What is your major source for small business knowledge?
The Internet – 44 (41.5%)
On the Job Experience – 24 (22.6%)
Books - 13 (12.26%)
Seminars – 13 (12.26%)
Other Entrepreneurs – 6 (5.7%)
School – 5 (4.7%)
Audio/Video Programs – 1 (0.94%)
Obviously these aren’t the only sources entrepreneurs use – but merely the distribution of their preferred methods. With just over 100 respondents, this is clearly not a scientific sample. But I think the results are important.
(Although I wish they hadn't included "On the Job Experience" as an option. That's a different kind of knowledge, and it's one which everyone has and gains more of daily, so I think it diminished the results for some of the other sources of info.)
So why did the Net win so big? With the flexibility of Google and other search tools, the Net’s round-the-clock availability, and the sheer depth of (mostly free!) business, management, market and financial information online, the Internet is a tool almost made to order for entrepreneurs. The question is: what are they looking up, and why? **
Follow-Up: How are your customers using the Internet? And how can you use digital technologies to reach them when they are using their favourite mode of business research?
(**Of course, there is also the matter of sample bias. You would expect the results of an online survey to reflect the fact that all respondents, by definition, already use the Net for business purposes. I think the same bias accounts for the relatively high ranking of the fourth result, Seminars, since ET puts on lots of workshops and seminars, for beginners and experienced entrepreneurs alike.)
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