I hate to admit it, but I just started twittering two weeks ago. As a marketing dude, I know I'm supposed to be up on all the latest techy ways to communicate - but to be honest - I've been spending most of my waking hours trying to keep up with my clients happy and getting their work done.
But, alas, I realized I had to get into it. And so with both feet firmly out ahead, I jumped in. No one told me I was going to be jumping into a raging river and swept away before I had a chance to catch my breath!
I am utterly amazed! Not so much as to what tweeting is (I already had a grasp on that) but the entire industry that surrounds it and how you instantly are compelled to have it all. Within moment of setting up my Twitter account, I realized that I had to link my blog to it, then came Tweet Later, then Tweetdeck, then Tweetsum, Twellow, Tweettube, Twitter Karma. Ahhhhhh! Give it to me! I have to have it all!
By now I was attaching so many links to twitter and elsewhere that the urls were getting unmanageable. So, now I found bit.ly which converts massive urls to teeny weenie ones. After all since Twitter only allow 165 characters, you can't do much with a link that is 180.
I've been Tweeting for less than a week now and I have 67 followers. I have no idea what that means, but isn't that cool! It must be important, right? Right?
there are so many shiny object all around me in the Twittersphere that I have completely lost sight of my own shiny object. OH, yeah. That's not a good thing.
OK, I'm calming down now and promise to make sense of this all. Somewhere in all this is a way to narrow in on your market's shiny object and make it an effective marketing tool. I'm on a mission now... stay tuned.
Yesterday I was in a discussion with someone in LinkedIn about the relative roles of performance vs Shiny Objects Marketing in being successful on the job. My point is that it is not a situation of versus, it is more a situation of performance and Shiny Objects Marketing.
Performance is always the basic factor. No amount of helping others gain their shiny object will overcome poor performance. That's a given. However, millions of people can share stories about how they were doing a great job and just couldn't advance in the company or worse, when layoffs came, they were let go. In my own career of 30+ years I mistakenly believed for a long time that if I just kept my head down and did fantastic work that rewards would naturally flow in my direction. I discovered the real world doesn't work like that. Performance is basic but once I realized how to effectively help others achieve their shiny objects I became a truly valuable asset to the company.
KPI's are very methodical, rational and precise. However, there is a whole other side of business life that is very irrational and emotional. If you talk with most anyone who has been highly successful, you will find that beyond performance they discovered how to make themselves crucial to the company by helping others gain their shiny objects. Some fall into it by chance while others do it methodically. Either way, Shiny Objects Marketing is a key factor.
There is a blizzard of talk on blogs, linked-in, twitter, facebook - you name it - how advertising gencies have to adapt to the new digital age or die. OK! I get it! However, what seems to be lost in the rush to see who embraces the sexy technology first is that the message and the content is still king.
Pretty soon, and by pretty soon I mean in less than 18 months, I believe that every form of social media will be overrun by agencies trying to get their piece of the pie. At that point, it won't be who has the best metrics or one-to-one marketing system that wins. 'Cause we'll all have it all (well, for the most part). The winners are going to be the agencies that can effectively communicate their clients messages on these new medias. Content will rise above all the tech hoopla.
At our agency, we call it helping your clients find their customers' shiny objects. In fact, I wrote a book called "Shiny Objects Marketing" recently published by Wiley. The concept of shiny objects shakes up the notion that you have to convince people to buy your product. Instead, once you find their shiny object, they will be instinctively attracted to you. The social media and other internet marketing endeavors that succeed have discovered (intentionally or inadvertently) a shiny object. You can find out more about the concept at www.ShinyObjectsMarketing.com
I just went
to a trade show last week in
San Diego that is supposed to be one of the biggest for my client’s industry. The shock
was that hardly anyone came. Not only were the attendees scarce, but so were
the exhibitors.
Row after
row of empty booth spaces lined the exhibit floor. It looked like a ghost town.
It seems that many of the exhibitors, anticipating the low attendee turn-out,
due to the bad economy, decided to write off the cost of the booth space and
save the other expenses. A curious thing happened, though. My client was busy
from opening to closing every day. It was one of their best shows.
How can
this be? Doesn’t fewer people mean fewer leads? I guess not.
Here’s the
secret… Sure a lot of people didn’t attend this year. However, those that did
were people who were serious about being there. Essentially, the lookie loos
stayed home. So, there were fewer people walking the floor but they were far
better quality. Virtually, every person that my client talked to was there
because they had a sincere interest.
So, you
have to ask yourself, “What is the shiny object of the exhibitors here?” Is it
to go to a trade show where there are thousands of people strolling through the
isles or is it to talk to a few, highly qualified customers?
And here’s
another observation. If you are trawling a tradeshow with thousands of people,
you might be able to get by with a booth that is not very clear in its message.
But if you need to attract the few qualified people that might walk by, you
better have your shiny object brightly blazing and have your message laser
focused. It was no coincidence the booths that were very unclear with their
message were mostly vacant while others, even very small ones, that had their
message honed down to one specific shiny object, had fairly consistent traffic.
There were simply too many shiny objects today. Every other moment I was thrown another shiny object that required my attention. Resolving client concerns. Financial emergencies. Family crises. Urgent projects. Vendors demanding payments. One after another all day long. I was on shiny object overload. When it came right down to it, there was really only one shiny object today... survival. And to survive, I had to shut off the shiny object tap. No more! Herein I discovered an important principle regarding shiny objects: If you you are focused on too many shiny objects, you become focused on none of them. In fact, the exact opposite occurs. Instead of focusing, you end up fleeing. Either physically or mentally. In my case, it was both. I had to shut down, walk around the office building a few times and come back in re-dedicated to addressing one shiny object at a time. As new ones came in (and they did with great fervor) I simply put them on the shiny object tray until I finished addressing the one at hand. Then I could pick the next shiny object, not in the order it popped in but according to its priority. Much better this way. I went home a sane man. Tomorrow - only one shiny object. Make my wife happy by changing the oil in her car. Just one shiny object... for now.
Whether you like him or not, it is very clear that Barack Obama found a strong shiny object early on in the campaign - Change. Since then, almost every other candidate has tried to appeal to the same shiny object. People are simply fed up with what's going on around the world and at home. Many have no idea what Obama means by change, they just want it. I've seen scores of interviews with Obama supporters and when asked what specific change does Obama plan to implement, they are clueless. But that doesn't matter. Change has become such a powerful shiny object that it has completely capitvated millions of people.
McCain's challenge is to find a shiny object for himself. And he better do it fast. He's tried the war hero, experience, energy self-sufficiency and even tried his hand at change. Unfortunately, he can't specify what he means by change any better than Obama. And since Obama was there first, he looks litterally looks like a Johnnie Come Lately.
In the absence of finding any shiny object, he is left to make attacks on Obama's character and previous affiliations. To be sure, Obama has some very dubious characters in his background. But character attacks are never as strong as shiny objects. Sure you can raise doubt. But it is far better to raise hope.
During the debate this week, I believe McCain missed a huge chance to reach out and claim a blinding shiny object - fixing the economy. People are scared to death right now about the economic future of the country and, as a result, their own lives. If one of these two had the wherewithal to present a viable plan on solving this mess, they could have gone leaps and bounds beyond the simple "change." I believe that this solving this crisis is such a massive shiny object that whichever candidate that can clearly, in plain speak, present a coherent, workable plan, will cinch the election.
For the most part, the war in Iraq seems to be winding down. Mahmoud Ahmadinenjad is tough enough to spell let alone comprehend what to do about him. The immigration issue has been blown over. Most people have no clue where Ossetia and Abkhaza are. But the pocketbook? Now that we completely comprehend. Like most elections before and undoubtedly many more to come, Americans vote with their pocketbooks. They understand it, they feel it, and it is one hell of a shiny object.
Two weeks ago I was at a convention that was held by a client of ours. As
part of the educational courses that were provided, several marketing
types, including myself, were asked to hold a round table discussion on a
variety of marketing subjects. The fellow before me was talking about how
franchisees can make their direct mail more effective. He used a wide variety
of demographic models and segmenting techniques to narrowcast the mailers. It
was all very interesting except he failed to mention the one thing that will
create most significant improvement of all - getting
the shiny object right.
That's right... the message. Frankly, if you've absolutely have nailed the
shiny object, you can mess up alot of the rest of the marketing and
still have a great response. Conversely, get the shiny object wrong and no
amount of demographic profiling is going to save you.
It's always amazing to me how so many people get caught up in trying to
improve their marketing by focusing on the minutia when they don't have the
basics covered. And there is nothing more basic than clearly defining the shiny
object.
The game of building and developing has much to do with figuring
out what homeowners are going to want several years in the future. With the
time it takes to plan, develop and build communities, a developer has to be
somewhat of a prophet to get it right.
Obviously, this is something you
can’t leave to guesswork. Fortunately, there are some very precise methods that
can help in that quest to get into the minds of your customers. One of these is
called “Shiny Objects Marketing.” And now that things are a bit slow, it’s a
great time to spend some effort on projecting homeowners future needs.
The goal of Shiny Objects Marketing
is simply to determine which factors you can build into your development that
will have an instinctual attraction to homeowners. Notice that I say
“instinctual.” The principles employed in this technique are not about
persuasion. They reach into a deeper level to connect with a person’s primal
desires.
Humans, as all creatures are
attracted to shiny objects. We can’t help it. It’s in our DNA. Some creatures,
like the raccoon are so attracted to shiny objects that they allow themselves
to get trapped rather than let go of the bling. Humans are no different. If you
can appeal to innate motivations, you can create products that attract people
like a magnet.
Sometimes these shiny objects are
actual, physical shiny objects such as cars and diamonds. Other times they have
no physical attractiveness at all such as a corroded rare coin. Overall, the
most powerful shiny objects aren’t objects at all. They’re concepts such as
freedom, peace, family unity, happiness.
There is a quote by the late Harvard
professor, Ted Levitt. It goes something like, "People don't want a
1/4" drill. They want a 1/4" hole." It seems to me that in the
developing world, outward beauty is certainly a significant factor in choosing
a home, but it’s what the home and the community around it provide that is the
shiny object. Shiny objects like comfort, serenity, security, community
friendliness, and social activities.
Gen Yers, for example, have been
identified as a huge emerging market for developers. However, they have a very
different view on what a home means. Their view of the home is a place to
sleep, eat and have parties. However, they tend to prefer to socialize outside
their home. Because of the turbulent housing market, most recent grads are looking
to rent rather than buy. However, they are willing to spend a much higher
percentage of their income on housing than previous generations. According to
the National Association of Home Builders, builders must rethink how to appeal
to this group. When building communities for this target market, for instance,
the shiny object should be on social networking, not on amenities in the home.
Over the years, I developed a tool called the shiny object quadrants
that focuses only on those shiny objects that will produce thestrongest
results. The intent of this tool is to provide a technique forpeople to
back away from their own preconceived notions and allowthe shiny
objects to rise to the surface.Although there is not enough space here
in this short article to describe this tool, you can find out more information
on it at www.ShinyObjectsMarketing.com
The primary steps in making a shiny object work for you are:
Grab attention – you need to identify and address the shiny object directly and stop a person dead in their tracks.
Create a driving curiosity – once you have a person’s attention you must draw them in so you can deliver your message
Stimulate the urge to touch or experience your product – you must engage the person with an experience. They must not just know about what you have, they must come in contact with it.
Activate an emotion that leads to a sale – every sale is based on an emotion. It is critical to determine the emotional appeal of your customer’s shiny object and formulate your marketing around it
Create a demand for ownership – the goal is to turn your homeowners into raving fans of your product.
Stick to these basic principles and you will make your
development a truly shiny object for homeowners.
The other day I heard a quote from Ted Levitt, a late Harvard professor. It went something like, "People don't want a 1/4" drill. They want a 1/4" hole."
At first, I thought "Very clever and very true." Too often we as marketers get too caught up in what we're selling and don't pay enough attention to what the customer is looking for. But the more I thought about it, another truth popped into my head. Wait a minute! That's not necessarily right. Suppose the shiny object of the customer is the drill itself. You can get a 1/4" hole with just about any drill you buy, but some drills are a real pleasure to use. Why do some homeowners pay over $200 for a DeWalt professional drill when they only plan to use it three times a year to put up some shelves? Why do people buy 4-wheel drive cars, knowing darn well they'll never use them any place other than the Southern California freeways? Why do people buy digital cameras with 2 million features and all they ever do is point and click? Because sometimes the shiny object is not the end result, it's in the thing that provides the experience.
If you're a brand manager, marketing consultant, advertising agency professional or just somebody trying to figure out the customer's shiny object so you can move more stuff off the shelf, it's a good idea to keep both the drill and the hole in mind.
My Partner and I were invited to a series of excellent presentations hosted by BDS Marketing regarding retail trends. BDS is heavily involved in assisted sales and in-store promotions and have an impressive pulse on what's going on out there.
Anyway, one of the marketing consultant speakers was describing how most retailers have a variety of very aggressive goals. Unfortunately, they tend to address them all the same. In particular, there was a story related how Ken Hicks, noted turnaround guru of J.C. Penney commented how Wal-Mart looked like they were putting a two dollar bet on every horse. In other words, there were no shiny objects - everything blended together. From this Wal-Mart developed a new merchandising strategy that segments their wares into categories of how well the products sell. Essentially, they had to figure out their customers' shiny objects and arrange the shelves accordingly.
It occured to me how may retailers are in this same fix. They homogonize their floorspace so it ends promoting nothing. If they scanned a few pages of my book Shiny Objects Marketing, they would get a quick understanding that it's critical they pick out a few shiny objects and prioritize them. Put a spotlight on the shiny objects and you end up brightening up all the merchandise.
