If there is a feature or a characteristic of your product that consistently keeps your audience from buying, you have one of two options: change the feature, or change the audience.
Hiding the feature, on the other hand, is but a shortsighted and counterproductive trick. You actually want people to know about it as soon as possible, so that you do not end up wasting time with those who consider that a roadblock.
This is something marketing departments often get wrong.
Three opportunities for a new wave of social media.
Subscription based – As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Social media is no exception. For years, we have thought it was free (or very cheap, if you are an advertiser), but the costs we have all been paying are actually higher than most can appreciate. Asking the audience to pay a subscription fee would force social media to actually narrow their scope and become niche products that need to innovate to thrive.
Verified identity – The past few years have proven that anonymity online is not going to work. Opening a social media account should not be as easy as getting a new e-mail address, and the part of audience that should not be allowed to use them (kids) need to be forbidden access right from the get go. People are not as toxic when their name and reputation is on the line, and that would go a great length to make social media a more pleasant arena.
No second guessing – Algorithms behind timelines and promoted content are hugely unsatisfactory for the audience. What if instead their task would be to ask? Interruption is always annoying, and banner blindness has been discussed and studied for at least twenty years now. Putting people back in charge of what they are offered (also in terms of ads) can only increase engagement and make for a better user experience.
Companies are about to send a signal to Facebook. But a signal, as strong as it can be, is stuck in a single moment in time. What about when July is over? Losing 1% of ad revenue for one month is not going to change the way Facebook carries out its business.
So, what is next?
Customer focus is not a marketing thing.
Every day, in every situation, we deal with customers. Sometimes it is people paying us money for a service or a product, more often it is a person we feel might be better off with a different perspective or performing a different action. Of course, calling all of them customers is reductive (and inaccurate), but the point is, you do not need to be a marketer or a sales rep to understand and appreciate the importance of customer focus.
If you want change, you need to read their minds, feel their pains, participate in their efforts, respect their ambitions, and craft your message in such a way as to converge with their world view at the right time.
All that is left is being stuck. And nobody is driven by that.
Some products manage to make the internet buzz at launch, and that has certainly been the case with Hey.com, the new (subscription based) e-mail service by Basecamp.
I am probably not the right audience for it, and still there are three things they have done wonderfully. Three things marketers (and entrepreneurs) can learn from.
They have started with a manifesto. Hey is not a mere product, it is a way of life. A philosophy, as they put it. And that is just what you need when you are trying to refresh something everybody else is giving up for dead. They have plenty of bold statements in their manifesto (“they let email down”, “you don’t use Hey to check your Gmail account, you use Hey to check your Hey account”, “it’s time to push back”), and by being bold they are carving their own audience.
They present features in a way that is pleasant to watch, read and navigate. The animated pictures leave little to interpretation and get straight to the point. The language they use is easy to understand and relate to (“fix bad subjects withouth busting threads”). They address possible common questions instead of wasting space describing their technology. And you can use arrows to surf through the different features.
And finally, they have made the decision to let you try their product with no barriers (no credit card needed and no automatic charge after trial period). When you trust what you offer, you do not need to resort to tricks to inflate success.
Of course, the most important thing is that all of this (and much more) is consistent with a narrative Hey is building around its product. Other email services are old, clunky, shady, untrustworthy; we are new, simple, honest, empowering. Pick us.
Why not.
You've got this 