we are all weird part 2

Back in the early 90's I worked as a club dj, record producer and also as chief buyer in a specialist record store.

We sold mainly club music - house, techno, hip-hop, drum and bass, plus jazz and soul and the cooler end of indie rock.

Over time I got to know the taste of many of my customers, most of them were either working dj's or bedroom dj's with a finely honed discernment.

These customers quickly got to know the best times to come into the shop to catch the worms. Saturday mornings first thing there would often be a line forming before I could get to opening the shop. They knew that the boxes of American imports arrived early and they wanted the pick of the top tunes before the hoi polloi got at them.

Of course, bits and pieces of interesting stuff came into stock all through the week. The super keen would be in sniffing around most days at lunchtimes or cooking up ficticious 'work' meetings out of the office and hanging round the shop.

I started making up bags for a few of the best customers as things appeared, then they could come in on a Friday night when we weren't so busy and listen to stuff and buy in a more relaxed way.

Pretty soon I was making up bags for upwards of 25 customers every week.

Because they trusted my choices (I was a dj of repute and credible trainspotter) 9 times out of 10 they took whatever I recommended.

From time to time I'd slip them a freebie or two, white-label promos or limited editions. As I was the buyer, record companies and distributors gave me a lot of promo stuff. To be fair I'd snaffle a few for myself (of course, I had my own dj cred to protect, but one couldn't play everything and I had chiseled out my own particular style and groove - Chicago-style house, DJ Pierre Wild Pitch that kinda thing - so not everything was appropriate).

I hazard a guess that around 20%-30% of the sales of 12" club tunes came from this 'on-approval' process.

Plus I had a number of mail order customers from remote areas of Scotland who I posted out a box of tunes to every week, and they simply sent me back by return anything they didn't want.

Again, 90% of the time nothing came back.

Over time, they trusted my choices because I never stitched anyone up, I gave them fair share of the rare and sought-after imports and pre-releases and gave them a bit extra for free from time to time.

This is a long winded explanation of how I discovered the notion of 'permission marketing'.

I earned the privilege of making purchases on behalf of my customers - or on approval - by being useful, credible and trustworthy, by being interested enough in them to know pretty much exactly what they would want.

In this way I was able to push the volume of sales by finding more product for my customers rather than having to chase customers for the product. (Though, of course, this happened by default as word got round that there was a record shop that didn't sell any shit, and where the staff took the time to offer a proper personal service for the discerning spotter).

So that's my little vinyl segue into this next bit.

I reviewed Seth Godin's latest book We Are All Weird the other week, and Seth sent me in the post the 12" coloured vinyl limited edition edition audio version. I guess it kinda completes the circle. Back in the record shop I never knew what Permission Marketing was, it just seemed like good practice. Years later, reading Seth's stuff, it all fell into place.

Here's the package...

The commemorative stamp...

And the coloured vinyl..

Thank you Seth, this takes pride of place alongside my complete set of Felix Da Housecat's Radikal Fear label from the mid 90's.

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i scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream

In an interesting development - and more fuel to the 'email-is-broken' lobby - ice cream giants Ben and Jerry's announced to their UK database this week that all email marketing would cease and all customer communications would henceforth take place on the various social platforms, principally Facebook and Twitter.

A decision taken in response to feedback from their customers which indicated they didn't get much value from updates through the email channel.

Aside from the obvious move to communicating via channels that their customers pull in versus those that push, it's clearly a lot more economical for B&J, with dramatic reduction of costs (no email platform to pay for) and far more on-point (only those who want to hear from them will hear from them).

Add to this B&J have also made a foray into the tweeting-truck phenomenon, as popularised by Kogi BBQ in Los Angeles and Fojol Brothers of Washington, the B&J truck having just completed it's tour of duty giving away 50,000 ice creams in New York and set to move on to Boston shortly.



The B&J NYC Scooptruck tweeted it's locations aided by foursquare and also captured photos of happy ice cream beneficiaries which fed into their Flickr stream, tagged with the recipients twitter handle, of course, for extra spreadability measure (because it's all about me, natch).

For added flavour there's the B&J ipone app - Moo Vision - which opens up 3D Augmented Reality animations from the lid design using image recognition rather than a QR code.
A free prize outside rather than inside, if you like.



We watch with interest as again it's testament to the notion that increasingly digital marketing is about fanbase not database.

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why digital matters

Why Digital Matters

.

This is my current 'roadshow' presentation which we take out trying to plant a few seeds amongst those who are starting to dip their toes into digital marketing/advertising. Hopefully debunking a few myths and showing that the best practice in digital marketing is essentially the same as offline.
Start with permission and purpose, then it all falls into place.

It's a featured pres of the day on slideshare, thanks to all who 'favourited' it.

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'advertising not dead' shocker

It's a popular misconception that the bbc does not feature advertising. Of course it does, it's just that it only advertises it's own products.

This advertising is effective because contextual and relevant - and it's also permission based.
Albeit the level of permission is low. At best it's at the second rung of the permission ladder - 'brand trust' - but mostly it's at that first level of 'situational' permission.

For the same reason the ads in Vogue magazine or GQ (or even something like Fisherman's Monthly or whatever) are permission based.
The ads are integral to the content - and in the case of fashion mags they are part of the reason these mags are bought in the first place.

If i'm watching Waterloo Road, a good bbc drama, I'm more than happy to see the trailer for the new series of Ashes to Ashes, for instance.
In fact I am actually interested, which is good news for them.

Bad news, though, for the advertisers on commercial networks because they are no nearer solving the permission challenge than they were on day one.

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permission marketing revisited

I enjoyed this thought provoking aricle; Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet - by Eric Clemons, on techcrunch this week.
excerpt:
'Pushing a message at a potential customer when it has not been requested and when the consumer is in the midst of something else on the net, will fail as a major revenue source for most internet sites. This is particularly true when the consumer knows that the sponsor of the ad has paid to have this information, which was verified by no one, thrust at him.'

Clemons argues that advertising fails for 3 main reasons:

1. Consumers do not trust advertising
He quotes from Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational - a firm fave at Boat HQ...
'messages attributed to a commercial source have much lower credibility and much lower impact on the perception of product quality than the same message attributed to [non-ad sources].

Neilson's assertion that 78% of us trust peer recommendations above all other media backs this up. I use that chart in just about every presentation.

2. Consumers do not want to view advertising
I'll come back to this point in a minute.

3. And mostly consumers do not need advertising
No arguments there.

As it goes, Ive been re-reading Seth Godin's Permission Marketing in the last week or so while developing some ideas for a client eCRM programme and these two strands seem to intertwine.

To recap on Seth's premise, and I paraphrase...

The effectiveness of marketing directly corresponds to the level of permission the customer has given to receive the communication.
The level of permission we have - Combined with knowledge of customer and relevance of messaging - allows us to deliver 'anticipated, personal and relevant' messages to people who 'actually want to receive them.'



We don't start by asking for sales at first connection. We earn the right, over time, by developing our knowledge of the customer and increasing the relevance of our communication.

3 Steps to leverage permission
1. Offer the customer an incentive/reward to opt-in
2. Using the attention offered by the customer, inform about your products/service and build a relationship.
3. Over time, leverage the permission to influence customer behavior.
Benefits

One of the key benefits of a permission approach is the low cost of getting information to the people who want to receive it. Email, RSS and social platforms mean we can treat customers as individuals, and it means we can let them choose what they receive and in which format.

It is more effective because the person is more receptive to marketing that they have chosen to participate with and more cost-efficient because the prospect has already identified themselves, and the data we have tells us know which level of permission we have to talk to them.

note: see Clemens' point above about 'push'.

Seth's Five Levels of Permission Marketing

1- Intravenous.
This is the ultimate level of permission. The brand who has this level of permission can make buying decisions on behalf of the customer.

2. - Personal relationships
When we have a personal relationship, we have an ongoing dialogue. We have permission to ask more personal questions, recommend other products, even offer products or services on ‘approval’

3. - Loyalty/Points.
Air-miles and Nectar points are examples of this level of permission People opt-in to these programs because of the benefits to them. They offer their personal data to allow us track their purchase history and to send them related offers and information.

4. - Brand trust.
This is the level of trust that traditional marketing aspires to. Brand trust is fickle however, and is hard to measure. You can use brand trust to create brand extensions, or cross sell other products.

5 . - Situation.
This is the most basic form of permission. A customer has initiated an interaction by purchasing a product or making an enquiry. Employees who deal with customers and prospects are the tool to use for situational permission eg ‘Do you want fries with that?’.

I've switched points 2 and 3. Since 1999 when Permission Marketing was first published I think the developments of the social web etc validates moving Personal relationships up the ladder.

So, in a Permission based programme every contact with the prospective customer, should seek to move them one step further up the ‘permission’ ladder.

In many of the subsequent writings following the publication of PM it has been alluded to that their still requires that first 'interruption' to kick start the journey up the permission ladder. Generally that would be the role of some form of advertising.
It does not have to be in the form of an interruption though.

Going back to Clemons' statement that 'Consumers do not want to view advertising' I would argue that this is potentially a bit bold.
Advertising that someone has chosen to view (or participate with) is then permission based. It's how that advertising is distributed that is key.

And as Uncle Bert says: doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result - is insanity.

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'my inbox' article for marketing direct magazine

Here's the 'my inbox' piece I've written for Marketing Direct magazine. Not sure when it's being published - couple of weeks I suppose - so treat this as a sneak preview.

It still amazes me how so few companies go anywhere close to doing email marketing properly.
Seth Godin said in Permission Marketing (nearly 10 years ago now, yikes!) – [email ie permission marketing ] ‘…is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.’
The key words there are ‘personal’ and ‘relevant’ .
The success of any direct marketing is directly proportionate to the level of personalisation and relevance – to me, me, me – of the content, and the level of permission I have granted to the brand.
Miss that out and I’ll most likely ignore it.

With that in mind, my losers of the month are Oasis.
Somewhere back in 1998 I must have signed up for some mailing list or other. I have not heard a dickybird since, until now when they have something new to punt.
Oasis’ PR must have hired some multi channel bright spark who thinks it’s a good idea to bombard unsuspecting punters with tour dates and release news down the phone and email with annoying frequency and at silly times of the day. I was woken up by a text message about the album release at 5am the other day and now seem to get emails about world tours every day. Despite unsubscribing the message has not got through.
Just because you have my details doesn’t mean I want to hear about every thing you are doing.
If you are playing in Guildford or Basingstoke maybe. You know where I live, after all?
Personal. Relevant.

Why persist with one-way, broadcast tactics? I’ve volunteered information and given you permission to contact me when you might have something of interest to talk to me about. I probably have a purchase history.
With Mamas and Papas I do.
In fact I just spent 2 grand on furniture with them about two weeks ago!
So their one-size-fits-all 30% off furniture in November shot was particularly annoying.
A personalised, relevant communication would have recognized that and give me an offer on some other product.

Good job I’m not a vegetarian or the the massive side of roast beef oozing pink juices featured on my Waitrose promo email might have offended. They have never asked me of course.
At least the info overload is kept to a minimum,
Though I don’t get the offer. ‘If you don’t enjoy one of our products we’ll refund or replace’ – except this doesn’t apply to their online shopping service partner Ocado – I’m already confused so they have lost me.
When I attempt an order I’m told that the ‘Waitrose Deliver’ service is not available in my postcode area.
Might have been a better idea to check that out before sending me the email.

I used to love the lastminute.com emails from a couple of years back.
Seasonal themes, cool graphics and edgy humour made them stand out form the usual boring travel industry stuff .
The format has gone a bit dull but there’s still a bit of personality.
The usual ‘ If you cannot view this email line click here..’ is replaced with ‘Gone a bit Picasso? See it clearly here’
OK, the content is not that personal or relevant but the little bit of human-ness allows them to get away with it.

I’ve crowd-sourced a contribution from Sally, one of our Account Directors on Dorothy Perkins ‘whole-site-in-an-email’ newsletter
featuring fairly unauthentic editorial supposedly written by celeb fashion ‘guru’ Gok Wan.
Sally says ‘the content is up to date, nicely written and not overly sales-y. It’s nice, clean and simply laid-out – very readable.
Asos.com did this format first but it works well . As long as it’s not too frequent, I don’t mind receiving this, and it’s a great way to harness ‘immediate’ shopping, i.e. click through and buy something online now.
I also like that the overall hierarchy puts fashion tips above the 50% off offer. Not sure about the Gok Wan content but that’s probably just me!’

With tough economic times ahead, it’s more important than ever to nurture loyalty; and make you’re your marketing work as hard as possible. By keeping the focus on being personal and relevant , rewarding those customers who are paying attention – they’ve given permission – and delivering the kind of content , offers and products (!) that reflect their lifestyle, circumstances and interests you are in with a chance.

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