Shouting at everyone…

As a population, we are bombarded with messages every day – the actual number is hotly disputed, some say 3000, some 10 000, but whichever way you look at it, there’s an awful lot of information that we haven’t asked to receive being shoved in front of us each and every day. As a coping mechanism, we have learnt to tune most of the ‘clutter’ out, especially if we’ve seen it before. We have developed ‘advertising immunity’ – the ability to filter through information without even seeing most of it.

So when the majority of advertisements aren’t even getting through, what options do marketers have to get through the clutter? Some go for saturation – placing more and more advertisements, increasing the noise (and not just figuratively either, they really do increase the volume of their ads) and ultimately reducing the effectiveness of each ad. Some make ads that are increasingly outrageous and attention grabbing, thinking that this will be the silver bullet they need for market penetration, but although people might remember the content of the ads they’ve seen, they often can’t recall the name of the advertiser – while such ads they create excitement about a type of product or service and increase awareness of the need for it, they fail to point customers in the right direction, and people buy wherever they can find the product. So, the agency wins a Golden Pencil, the advertiser spends millions on making people laugh (but not buy), and most of the customers run straight into the arms of the competition. Ouch.

This type of marketing – or advertising to be more precise – is known as ‘interruption marketing’. The aim of the game is for the advertiser to make you stop and look at their ads … on TV, on a bus, in a magazine, one the web, even with skywriting. The options are virtually limitless, and so are the numbers of ads competing for attention. As the noise escalates, so does the cost of getting people’s attention. And it’s a game that very few can afford to play long enough to succeed.  The ones who do succeed interrupt people constantly with new offerings almost every week, spending more on better directors, getting bigger sets, choosing stranger places to put their ads, becoming more controversial, trying to be funnier than the other guy, and sometimes, just trying to out-weird the other guy. (As I write this there is a well-known chocolate company showing an ad (in prime time no less) with a gorilla playing the drums to Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight – which he’s listening to on those little white earphones (that most people would recognise, I’m sure). What does it mean? Who knows? It’s interesting, it’s weird, it’s certainly different. But does it make me want to rush out and buy a bar of purple-wrapped chocolate? No more than normal.) Some companies will keep switching from one form of media to another, from paying kids to lurk in forums and rave about products to going back to good old-fashioned direct mail.

But does any of it actually work?

Seth Godin likens this type of advertising to trying to get married by wearing the best suit money can buy, having a team of the best copywriters work on pick-up lines, having a comprehensive analysis done to find the location of the most demographically suitable prospects and then going there and asking people one at a time to marry you. Sure, you get to talk to a lot of people, but how many of them are going to say yes?

So what’s the alternative?

Whispering in the ears of a select group…

Permission marketing is about not interrupting people on an ongoing basis. It’s not about trying to compete with the existing clutter, but rather going around it. To continue the marriage metaphor, permission marketing is the equivalent of dating – you venture a smaller request that’s easier to say yes to than ‘Do you want to get married?’ So you ask someone out for a cup of coffee. Assuming all goes well on that first date, you up the ante and ask them out for dinner, then a movie, a weekend away … the relationship has a chance to build organically. It’s about turning strangers into acquaintances, acquaintances into friends, friends into customers and customers into loyal fans that will stay with you for life.

Permission marketing does involve interrupting people – but just once, right at the start. You ask them out for coffee by offering something of value in exchange for their permission to continue building the relationship. It’s about asking a customer to raise their hand and opt into the dialogue, then filling their hand with something of value that makes them want to come back for more. And then you ask them on another date … and another … and another. The great part about permission marketing is that you both know why you’re here. The ‘pitch’ is out there in the open, with each message building on the one before it and being keenly anticipated by the people you are marketing to. It’s a long-term dialogue that yields long-term results, and because of its almost limitless potential to be personalised it becomes symbiotic – people stop feeling as though they need to be on the defensive while they are being ‘sold to’ and start feeling as though they are worth more to you than just the ‘quick sale’.

In the world of the internet, which is like a sped-up version of reality (it’s a veritable marketing hothouse … direct mail with no waiting on postage and virtually no cost) you see this all the time.

You visit a site about knitting (okay, stay with me here … and imagine you like knitting) and before you know it you’re being offered a free ebook on creative knitting techniques in exchange for your name, email address, and permission to contact you again. Before you know it tips are bouncing into your inbox (knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one) and then a few offers for ‘special’ deals, then the request that you join the subscription for their magazine or wool club … all with your permission, of course. And because you opted in to this dialogue, you are more likely to read and respond to these offers than if they just showed up out of the blue.

Sales trainer Chet Holmes talks about educational marketing, highlighting that in any given market, only 7% of people are active buyers, 35% know they have a problem to solve but haven’t searched for a solution, another 35% don’t know they have a problem, and the rest are loyal to their current brand and won’t change. Permission marketing expands your audience from the 7% to the other groups, so your marketing casts a wider net.

What’s great about this process is that the people who give you permission to contact them have identified themselves as being interested in your offering, if they’re not familiar with your specific products, they’re at least in your field of view. Second, by actively participating in the process and providing you with their details they have lowered your future cost of speaking with them, making them far more profitable prospects than can typically be obtained through interruption marketing.

And it doesn’t just work online – anywhere that you offer up your details in exchange for something, anything, is an example of permission marketing, A club, an association, an offer of free information, opting in to having updated real estate lists emailed to you weekly, anything with automatic replenishment services (Amway is a great example of this) or where the next installment in a series is sent automatically (like those DVD series you buy off TV)  – these are all examples of permission marketing in action.

So how can you use this process to your advantage? How do you break the shackles of traditional interruption marketing and embrace the notion of marketing to people who actually anticipate and want to hear your message? The first step is simple. When you successfully interrupt someone and have their attention, stop throwing away the opportunity to turn that brief interaction onto a lasting relationship. Consider this – someone calls your business with some questions, which you cheerfully answer, offering as much information as you can. They thank you and assure you that while they’re ‘just thinking’ right now, they’ll get back to you soon. Do you know how much that phone call just cost you? Even forgetting that 90% of people who say they’ll call back never do, you spent money somewhere, somehow, to get them to ring in the first place! There is enormous opportunity cost in not creating the groundwork upon which to build a relationship with them.

If Holmes’s theory is accurate, over 70% of the people who make initial contact with you won’t be doing it at the stage in their buying cycle when they’re ready to actually purchase. If you depend in interruption marketing to engage your customer in a transaction at the ‘purchasing’ phase of their buying cycle, it’s going to be a pretty hit and miss affair – and usually more miss than hit. Permission marketing extends the length of your relationship with people; increased communication with them improves your chances of hitting the purchasing phase of their buying cycle and the strengthens their trust in your offering, making them more likely to purchase from you. The concept of permission marketing also ties in with Robert Cialdini’s premise of reciprocity in Influence – the Psychology of Persuasion – the more they accept from you, the more likely they are to ‘return the favour’ and buy from you. (You can read more about Cialdini’s ideas on reciprocity here.)

Attention is currency

In commerce, much like in dating, relationships are the landscape and attention is the currency. The permission marketing approach makes you a welcome sight, rather than an irritating distraction – and each contact is an anticipated next step in the relationship. What marketers then need to do is use their currency to create an asset out of the relationship.  Amazon is without doubt one of the best at doing just that. Amazon has brilliant software, which its system uses to build a profile about you, creating a relationship based on its quiet suppositions of what you like, what you are interested in and what you are likely to respond to. Even if they lose money (which they have done a lot of) their asset is still worth billions of dollars because they have your attention.

Attention is vital for success. In Japan (it seems like about 97% of weird stories originate from Japan…) there are vending machines that will give you stuff for ‘free’ if you give them your attention. You give the machine your attention, watch an ad and out pops a ‘free’ drink. That’s the price they’ve placed on your time, buy into the process (that is, give them permission to market to you by paying for the drink with your time) and you’ve agreed with them. It’s the just another step in the trend of the ‘Noughties’ that’s been dubbed ‘Freeconomics’ – giving people stuff for free in order to market to them and (hopefully) make money from them. You can take a look at a great article about this is at The Age and you can check out more about these vending machines at The Inventor Spot.

The concept of Freeconomics has spread across a vast range of industries – many musicians are offering free downloads, you can exchange your details for free podcasts, e-books, software trials – the list is endless and it’s everywhere. Last week I got some sort of spyware on a computer in my office. My normal toolbox wouldn’t fix it – of course. My friend Google served up a program that would fix it and came in two flavours – free (good diagnostic, but no ‘fix’ mode) and a full-featured paid version. What was interesting was that instead of just handing over $29.95 I could register for anyone of half a dozen alternatives – all opt-in, permission based offers. It was refreshing to see! In the end though I wanted the solution faster than a series of opt in offers could give it to me and I used the plastic.  But the concept was fantastic!

Benefits

Permission based marketing can be more resource hungry than traditional techniques, but its cost effectiveness is also likely to be much higher. Resources are more targeted and communications more adapted to the audience. Put simply, an efficient permission-based marketing campaign will:

•    Improve response rates
•    Develop closer relationships with contacts
•    Increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaign
•    Increase consumer loyalty

Although there is little supporting empirical data from the business-to-business (B2B) arena, research from consumer markets does back up the benefits.

Get permission to start now!

Of course, as with anything, the most important thing you can do is start! So here are some quick tips on how to start your permission marketing process today:

•    Work out what you have that your prospects want, and that they’d exchange their details for. If you don’t have anything what could you put together with the resources you have? Use curiosity. Use novelty. Use a bribe. It’s all bait (the good kind).

•    Ask for permission! Capture their details – but make sure they know you’re doing it and why.

•    When prospects raise their hands, fill them with value – and it doesn’t always have to be expensive ‘stuff’. Perceived value can be just as important, so think about e-books, articles, white papers, podcasts and other low cost, high impact goodies.

•    Keep filling their hands with value – keeping the relationship going is vital.

•    Don’t pitch too hard. People know a pitch is coming – they are smart and have been sold to before, so keep it low key. Remember the idea is to grow the relationship.

•    Create something worth talking about. Think about Seth Godin’s Purple Cow – what’s yours?

•    Use situational permission. I know the example is old, but ‘Would you like fries with that?’ is a great example of situational permission. It’s asking the right question at the right time. (For the record, this question hasn’t been used at a McDonalds for years … since meals were bundled. But it’s still rolled out as a ‘killer question’, which always makes me laugh.)

•    Keep communicating, but not too much. Are you emailing too much? If you are wondering about it, you probably are.  The idea is to build a relationship where people look forward to being contacted, not make them feel like they are being stalked.

•    Give value with each interaction. Remember, you are putting your energy into the ’select few’ – even if that ‘few’ is a big crowd. Frequency of contact and value given each time will convert these strangers to friends. The analogy is used for seeds and a watering can. You have a hundred seeds, and enough water to water each one just once. Or, you can water ten of them ten times. What’s the best bet for getting that seed to grow?

•    Knock your customers out with value. Seth points out that Muhammad Ali didn’t become the heavyweight champion of the world by punching 20 guys once each. He won by hitting one guy twenty times. So, it’s all about knocking your customers out (not literally though!).

•    Never share your permission, because permission rented out is permission lost! Have a privacy policy and don’t break it – relationships are built on integrity and if you break the trust the relationship will crumble.

•    Hold a seminar on a subject that your prospects will like. Interrupt them to make the invitation, but allow the event to create a dialogue. No hard sell … just value. I have seen this work with small events where there is a specialist speaker in a room of just a dozen people. I have also seen it work in a room with 700 people and a dozen different speakers all presenting then selling, presenting then selling. People attending the event knew it was a pitch, but saw the trade off as reasonable given the value that was given away as well. Remember that what works in one scenario won’t necessarily work in another and the way you position it creates the expectation.

The way of the future

In a society where we are increasingly able to block out the ‘white noise’ that surrounds us, having the ability to gain people’s attention will be vital to success. It’s all about asking yourself where you want your marketing spend to end up – do you want to create a killer commercial and air it to millions of people, most of whom either won’t see it because of the new advances in technology that allow us to skip through ads on commercial TV now, won’t remember, or won’t associate with your company? Or do you want to clearly define your focus group and aim your permission marketing campaign toward the select few who are most likely to become actual paying customers? No, you aren’t going to win any awards without a big, splashy ad campaign, but you are more likely to identify and develop relationships with clients who have enormous profit potential – an isn’t that what marketing is meant to do?

If you’ve ever switched on the television mid-episode during Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares series you may have been taken aback by how terrible the @$#^%!-ing language was! It’s quite unusual for television – especially a commercial network and it really is remarkably terrible. In fact, a week after the first episode aired I read in the Sydney Morning Herald that it had been one of the most complained about programs on television – ever. It has even prompted a parliamentary inquiry into profanity on television.

So you wouldn’t watch Kitchen Nightmares for the culture and refinement and you certainly wouldn’t watch it for advice on staff management techniques … having never worked in the industry, I can only wonder if real kitchens are actually that horrible to work in. I find it difficult to believe that they could possibly be – who would want to work in a place where people use swearing at each other as a motivational tool? So why would you watch? Well, what I like about the show – and the reason I continue to watch it – is that it is essentially a makeover show. Simply put, Ramsay rides into town to fix an ailing restaurant. Sometimes these are in exquisitely beautiful locations, small towns in the English countryside that hark back to Elizabethan times – with owners and staff whose attitudes match the antiquity of their surroundings. Sometimes the buildings are ramshackle disasters, but the staff are keen to please, yet sadly clueless. Or in denial. Or both. There are surprisingly few alterations to the general scenario – there are only so many ways in which you can break a restaurant.

But while things may look completely and irretrievably disastrous, a handful of tools, some clever techniques and a whole heap of willingness to make it happen will get almost any business out of trouble. And Ramsay knows it.

It’s really very simple. If you saw Pulp Fiction, you’ll remember Mr Wolf (played by Harvey Keitel). Mr Wolf was ‘the fixer’ – he provided clarity while those around him just muddled along. His instructions to clean up a bloodied car were simple, succinct and effective – ‘You two, take those cleaning products and clean the inside of the car’. Brain surgery, it’s not. But it is relative genius. Ramsay’s style is ever reminiscent of Keitel’s character, whose standpoint is, ‘I’m not here to say please. I am here to tell you what to do and if self-preservation is an instinct you possess you’d better @%$#@&-ing do it and quick! I am here to help’.

Ramsay works in a similar way. He sends someone off to get towels and someone else to get cleaners … and in some cases, someone to get a stomach pump after he realises that he has eaten food that was prepared in the kitchen he’s in. He swears and shouts and it’s all done to get people to focus and change. He challenges them in the most confronting way, makes them realise that they need to change (even if only to stop the shouting).

Gordon Ramsay’s toolbox isn’t that big, yet he manages to do what he does (fix businesses) nine times out of ten.

But why? What are these powerful tools that Ramsay uses to fix the delinquents of the restaurant world? Here’s what I think …

Focus and simplicity – in one episode there was a place in New York that offered authentic Indian ‘cuisine’ and was also a steakhouse. Talk about an identity crisis. Trying to be all things to all people, they ended up confusing everyone and being nothing. There was another Indian restaurant that had a ‘build your own’ menu because they were worried that customers would be unhappy with set choices. Diners could mix whatever ingredients they wanted with whatever flavour they wanted and then decide how much heat it should have. So people could (in theory) order a mild chicken vindaloo. Ever seen that on an ‘authentic’ Indian menu? Me neither. This menu mayhem meant that the kitchen needed to be on permanent alert to prepare just about anything and the inefficiency and wastage was incredible. Gordon intervened, cleaned the place up and with the help of a world-class Indian chef introduced a simple menu with about a dozen truly authentic signature dishes. And guess what? The customers loved it.

Operations – Gordon went back to basics, instituting the basics of hygiene and sensible traffic flow through kitchen and dining room. The results were far greater food quality and increased customer service satisfaction. Everyone knew where they were meant to be and what they were meant to be doing.

Promotion – with a big (and ugly) neon sign out front, the owners assumed that people would just find them. A major problem with many businesses is a lack of self-promotion. Word of mouth is great, but you have to promote yourself first, so people get to know you and can talk about you. Gordon had the staff out in the streets in traditional dress handing out free samples and great offers, inviting people to a grand re-opening. People came in droves. Oh, and knowing a stack of celebrities probably doesn’t’ hurt either.

Teamwork – too many chiefs and not enough Indians (excuse the pun!). With so many people in charge, there were very few people doing the actual work and everyone had someone else in charge to blame for anything that went wrong. Convenient for covering your butt with the boss, but not so great for keeping a business going.

Definition of leadership – you need to have clear direction from the top and know who’s in charge. In Gordo’s case, who shouts the loudest wins.

Passion – passion is the driving force that gets people out of bed every day. If you’re not passionate about what you do, you’ll never be happy no matter how good you are at it or how well it pays. Without passion, you are merely existing, not living.

So his formula is simple, but not always easy. Knowing what to do and actually doing it are two vastly different things. Some of the restaurants Ramsay fixes revert back to their old ways, some find the pressure too much and close their doors for good (and often for the good of the community palate as well). But invariably, those who make the decision to stick with the plan are successful.

Interestingly, as you watch the show it’s easy to sit there and think, ‘I could have told them that’. And probably you could. Because it’s the outsider’s perspective that matters. It’s why coaches can have some quick wins with new clients. And if you look at what gets in the way of success, it’s always the same things – holding onto the past, not considering the clients’ perspective, ignoring profitability, clinging to complexity, fostering confusion and having poor operations.

If your business could do with a boost, why not give yourself a Ramsay makeover? Take a look at your menu (your business offering), your kitchen (operations), your tables and windows (marketing) and see if people are licking their plates clean in satisfaction or walking out in disgust and going to McDonalds.

Did Gordon Ramsay set out to create a business makeover show? Hell yes! Restaurants are serious business and a lot of hard work. It’s no wonder they fail just like other businesses, and more often than not for the same reasons. Whether you sell food, spanners, books or bikes, the principles of business are the same. The reason Gordon is so good at what he does is because he is absolutely, utterly and totally passionate about it. Are you as passionate about your business?

So if you haven’t wandered into a Kitchen Nightmares episode yet, give it a shot. Watch it (making sure the kids are in bed and asleep so that they don’t pick up any critiquing tips from the master of the ‘f’ bomb) and see how his principles could apply in your business. Even if you already watch it, take another look.

Then take a tip from the man himself and do something. It’s easy to get overwhelmed at the enormity of the prospect of fixing your entire business … and it’s easier to just do nothing while you quietly slip into oblivion. But what would happen if you looked at just 20 per cent of your business? Take a look at what isn’t doing so well and start by changing that. Your business doesn’t have to be failing for this to be and important exercise that will boost your revenue. I’ve never, ever, ever come across a business owner who would complain about their business doing better.

And you don’t have to be as ‘in your face’ as Gordon – you can do it without swearing, shouting, ranting, raving or bullying. But you do need to be brutally honest. The weird thing is that despite the heated moments, abrupt attitude and often offensive techniques that Ramsay employs, everyone thanks him profusely at the end of the show. Because although he is rude and bullying, his heart really is in the right place and his passion shines through. He really wants to help people become successful – and in the interests of self-preservation, you’d better get on board!

Here is a great site that I came across with a really creative guarantee.
This is funny… I love wording of this guarantee : “If it’s obviously been worn about, or washed, or has a chilli stain on it, we’re keeping your money”

http://200nipples.com/fabulously-interesting-policies.php

Even the FAQ section is fun to read.

The company name is great too – batches of 100 shirts – hence the “200nipples” name… yeah, took me a while… a lightbulb went off one day when I was telling someone about the site . Mid sentence… “and I don’t know why it is called 200 nipples… ah, now I get it”

The other day I spoke to a client who told me that all marketing activities had been put on hold because of decreased sales, and an enforced ‘tightening of belts’. Their market was buying less of their product (packaging) because consumers were buying less of the stuff their packaging packaged.

Seems reasonable, on the surface.

But then I thought about it a bit more … what is the assumption here? The logic is simple enough:

1. We are selling less
2. We are making less profit
3. Therefore marketing departments are ‘given’ less to spend on marketing (which, ironically, is what will be the most effective way to increase sales)

Inherent in this is the belief that a marketing budget is a resultant cost (a figure derived from profit that could then be used as something to spend) rather than a necessary business expense that must be met regardless of performance.

So why doesn’t marketing automatically deserve money?

Marketing should be an investment in promoting your key benefits and message to you market – it is a driver for increasing sales. So, excluding the idea that you run marketing exercises merely to boost the charity fund of the advertising agents, radio stations, printers, and promotional products companies of the world …  a properly run, strategic marketing campaign should give back more than you put into it.

Of course, you can’t always measure every campaign … but assuming that you have some kind of feel for ‘payoff’, you should have a fair notion of whether what you’re doing right now is working for you or not.

And if you don’t know what’s working or not, then how do you know how important what you’re doing right now is to your current position? Simply put, if you ditch your marketing in a time of decreased business activity, is it going to lead to no business activity? If your marketing is entirely responsible for the business you’re doing right now, what will happen if you get rid of it?

If your current marketing activity offers a payoff, then a shrinking market is more reason to keep actively marketing. You may need to tweak your mix, create more measurable marketing activities or even create marketing activities that offer extreme short-term benefits, but if something is working in essence, then why on Earth would you stop it altogether?

So instead of automatically cutting your marketing activities during times of decreased business, take the time to think outside the box and consider different marketing options instead. Remember that marketing does not have to be expensive to work!

Keeping your marketing alive might just be the best business decision you make all year, and anything that keeps you going while the competition slowly disappears is worth the effort, isn’t it?