Tag: change

Overcommunication is about frequency

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There is an important distinction to make when we say we want to overcommunicate.

Overcommunication is essential in certain circumstances: change, growth, downsize, new team, new team members, just to mention a few. I actually think that overcommunication is good in general, as we too often have the tendency to assume and take for granted that others know and understand things the same way as we do.

Nonetheless, overcommunication deals with frequency, not with content. It is not necessary to tell more, it is to tell more often.

Sometimes, when reading a presentation, or an e-mail, or a report, it feels like one can almost see the different layers that have been added in the attempt of increasing clarity or including an additional point. At times, it looks like the more bullet points you have, the better.

It does not work.

The more you add to your message, the less it will be understood. Keep it simple, real simple. Make sure anybody who has a superficial knowledge of the matter could get it after reading it once. Read it out loud and listen to how it flows. If you have even a single doubt, start cutting. And if you have no doubts, cut anyway.

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English—it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. […] An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.

Mark Twain

Word of mouth

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If you want somebody to remember your name, what you do, your product, the thing you stand for, there are two ways to go about it.

The first one is about going straight for your target, talking to them in every possible occasion, catching their attention, getting into their schedule as often as possible, making sure you are within their radar. You’ll probably have to shout louder than others competing for the same target, finding an edge, something memorable, a way to make sure you stick.

The second one is about generating waves that spread to your peers, their peers, effectively do things that are valuable to them, telling a story that resonates, with a message that is clear and can be refined by others that will bring it to the hears of your target. You’ll have to commit for the long term, put in the effort, day after day, overcome loads of short term obstacles, and no single heroic act will be there to remind of you, as your practice will.

What’s your strategy?

Your call is (not) important

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My health provider has launched a mobile app a while back. It is pretty handy, as it gives you access to your health history, the booking system, the possibility to consult with a doctor remotely, and other useful stuff.

Today the app failed on me for some reasons, and the error page prompted me to contact customer service to complete what I was doing.

I had to first visit the website from the mobile browser, as the customer service number was nowhere to be found in the mobile app. I called and, after being informed that the call would be recorded for improving the service, I was put in line. Our operators are busy at the moment, if you want you can book an appointment with our app. I realised in the meantime the call was not free. We are still busy, we will answer the phone calls in the order we have received them. Five minutes later, an operator answered and I got the issue sorted in about a minute and a half.

Who pays the price for your faults?

Often, it is the customer. The one you want to serve, the one that already had to endure a disservice and embrace to get on the phone instead of going about their business, the one that can tell others and spread the word.

If your system is designed to ditch responsibility (and costs) when something goes wrong, how do you expect your people to own their failures? How will you get better at doing what you do?

This is Marketing

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What I wrote yesterday about the commoditization of marketing is deeply inspired by the work of Seth Godin.

This year, I have read his most recent book, This is Marketing, and despite having followed his blog for years now, and being familiar with most of his ideas, I felt it was the missing piece in my approach to marketing. A way to translate things that are already profoundly rooted in my practice into easy and plain words that everybody can understand.

You can’t be seen until you learn to see is the subtitle of the book, and that is a common thread througout the pages. The focus on empathy and on the necessity to deeply understand who you are serving is one of Seth’s mantras. There’s a metaphor he uses this time around, that is not only great at describing this approach, but also in differentiating it from the other side of marketing, the commoditized side.

It doesn’t make any sense to make a key and then run around looking for a lock to open. The only productive solution is to find a lock and then fashion a key.

Seth Godin

Marketing is about building a relationship, this should be nothing new to anyone who has read Kotler and his principles. And despite this being one of the oldest precepts of the field, we keep forgetting it, because other ways are more alluring and promise shorcuts to achieve results.

For Seth, it all starts by understanding what is the change you seek to make. Because every marketer is in the business of “making change happen” (and everyone who wants to make a change is a marketer). Then, understanding that changing everyone, seeking the mass, is not only unrealistic, it also sets us for mediocrity and disappointment. The only real possibility is identifying our “smallest viable audience“, the smallest market we (or our company) can survive on. And do our best work and responsibly bringing it to them.

This is Marketing is about a way to do marketing that considers affiliation more important than dominion.

Modern society, urban society, the society of the internet, the arts, and innovation are all built primarily on affiliation, not dominion. This type of status is not “I’m better.” It’s “I’m connected. I’m family.” And in an economy based on connection, not manufacturing, being a trusted member of the family is priceless.

Seth Godin

Affiliation, though, does not happen when you talk about how perfect your features are, or when you bombard people with flashy and catchy ads. It is a slow and long process, one that requires patience and consistency, and one that cannot be measured. And that’s where most marketers fail nowadays: they use the prime tool for affiliation (content marketing) and pretend to dress it for dominion (us, us, US!).

Eventually, if the marketer is successful, they will have served people that will spread the word (“the best reason someone talks about you is because they’re actually talking about themselves”, about their taste, about what is important to them) and that will speak up if they are missing (permission marketing).

This is Marketing is a beautiful read about mindset and change, one that is not for marketers only. Actually, it is for marketers only, but we all are marketers nowadays.

For a long time, during the days when marketing and advertising were the same thing, marketing was reserved for vice presidents with a budget. And now it’s for you.

Seth Godin

 

The commoditization of marketing

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Trust in digital advertising has never been so low. As a global industry, advertising is now considered to be the less trustworthy, coming after the likes of banking, energy, and telecoms.

This is nothing new.

Gary Vaynerchuk is right when he says that marketers ruin everything. His point is simple. It happened with TV, radio, mail, magazines, newspapers, internet, e-mail, and it is now happening with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat. When a marketer finds that the attention of the audience is somewhere, millions will follow, and soon (with TV, radio and magazines it took decades, but now it’s faster) people will veer somewhere else. The chase resets, and this process is never ending.

I would actually go as far as saying that it’s not only marketers. As human beings, we have the tendency to repeat what worked yesterday, to emulate success wherever we see it, to go down beaten paths.

Gary Vee says that this is inevitable, that there is no way out of this downward spiral. He might be right, yet I believe he would agree that there is a huge value in leading rather than following, in going after the niche rather than the mass, in finding your own unique way of doing things rather than copy-pasting what others have done infinite times.

Because after all, what really makes people shut down and move on to the next thing is the race to the bottom, designing for the lowest common architecture, dumbing things down to reach the maximum result with the minimal effort.

Art has never driven people away. And marketing, if done well, is art. It might not be for everybody, and that is perfectly fine.