Discover the secret of marketing to GenMe

Are you wanting to engage, and market more products to tweens, teens & 20-somethings?

What’s the secret to attracting and keeping these GenY, Millenials or what I like to call the GenMe?

It’s all about them. 

Well most research points to the fact that youth culture is more self-obsessed today than it was decades ago. Jean Twinge, a psychologist at San Diago State University, California pulled a little nugget out of the annual American Freshman survey of college students that stated, 52% of the students surveyed rated themselves as having a higher level of social self-esteem than the average population, as compared to 30% in 1966.

Is it really all about them?

If you look at how self-obsession has taken hold, then you invariably track back to key themes around:

• poor parenting – overinflating children’s egos in a more competitive environment
• access to more open information via the internet rather than than from respected elders or teachers
• prosperity and positive life events
• the rise and rise of celebrities
• access to credit

So it’s no surprise that our children are more self-obsessed, however this doesn’t mean that they are easy to market to.

Self-obsession does not equal self-belief

On the contrary they are probably the most fickle, dis-loyal, impulsive, schizophrenic, and difficult generation to build a long term marketing connection with.

Why? The secret is self-belief.

I was reading a recent research paper on ‘Willpower, rediscovering our greatest strength’, and found it fascinating that many parents have forgotten to teach their kids how to control their impulses and persevere at tasks. Parents are too busy these days and find it all too easy to cave in to a child’s self obsession.

So it’s actually all about us!

If we focus on encouraging good habits and real achievement rather than meaningless praise and overindulgence, then as parents we’ll succeed.

And as marketers you should do exactly the same.

Focus on self-belief with the GenMe and show them how your brand or product can really help THEM achieve THEIR goals. And if you get it right you’ll turn GenMe into GenUS.

And if you add the internet i, then you’ll be a youth marketing genius!

First World Happiness Report launched at UN Conference

Yes on April 2, 2012 the first ever UN conference on happiness and wellbeing took place.

Australia came in 9th (pipped by NZ, not happy Jan!) and Togo unfortunately sits at the bottom of the list.

You can read all about it here: http://www.actionforhappiness.org/news/first-world-happiness-report-launched-at-united-nations

It’s not designed to push the UN as a saviour, but it does continue to put the spotlight on countries trying to attain happiness and social justice, as well as promote the end of suffering in addition to GNP.

There’s more to life than material gain

A few interesting points:

• happiness is lowest in middle age
• stable family life and enduring marriages are important
• societal trust and mutual respect are essential ingredients
• mental health (die to obesity, smoking, diabetes, depression) has become one of the biggest issues impacting on happiness. In memory of an old work colleague, Gavin Larkin, please ask your friends RUOK? http://www.ruokday.com.au

So what are the implications for marketers and advertising agencies?

Well, I’ll go out on a limb and say that the pursuit of profit growth at the expense of happy employees, customers and consumers is a foolish mission.

Look at what Zappos has done in growing a wildly successful online shoe business. And they’ve done it all based on creating a happy culture around 10 core values, including WOW customer service. http://about.zappos.com/our-unique-culture/zappos-core-values

A leading digital relationship marketing agency in Sydney is also about to launch a regular happiness employee measure based around 8 key dimensions. Management are focusing on understanding what impacts employee happiness.

Just do it…

So please ask your business what are they doing to measure happiness, in addition to chasing revenue and profit growth?

 

Ever tried a cashmob?

Occasionally you stumble across a beautiful business idea. I unearthed one this week.

Sydney Cashmobs.

You can find out more about it on Twitter @SydneyCashMobs or Facebook http://facebook.com/sydneycashmobs .

Or you can join the originators in Cleveland Ohio: http://cashmobs.wordpress.com

Their claim is, “Similar to flash mobs, Cash Mobs organize customers to spend money at locally owned businesses to support their community.”

Once a month they announce a secret small business location and then descend upon it, with cash in hand, to give a little bit of a boost to that business.

A simple idea based on the concept of giving (and having some fun along the way).

The first “mob” is at 4pm Saturday 24 March, 2012 (which by the way coincides with International Cash Mob Day!)

The location is revealed the day before, so be sure to follow them to find out where it will be!

Join the movement and nominate a business that needs a boost.

 

New niche social network for families living with autism

With social connection & interaction sites such as Facebook, Twitter, G+, Pinterest and many more taking over our life do we need another one?

An interesting vertical social network has recently launched in the US for parents with autistic children. It’s called myautismteam.com

The concept is a niche network to help parents build their ‘team’ of helpers. They can interact with other parents, discuss issues, share successes and find local service providers based on other families’ opinions and experiences.

It certainly seems to me like a great network for families that can often feel isolated and struggle with the disorder.

It also makes me ponder:

• Should it be within a mainstream network such as Facebook?
• Will there be an explosion of vertical social networks based on disorders to help families and providers unite?
• Can social networks go further and incorporate the medical community?
• How do niche networks gain mainstream exposure, interest and engagement for volunteering, fundraising, and other donations?
• Can they effectively expand globally or are they limited to borders?

What do you think?

Discover the most powerful word in marketing…

Why?

Because more marketers should use it.

Yes, WHY is the most powerful word a marketer should use.

And if you’re a marketer reading this, then you should use it wisely for both internal planning purposes, and for external consumer behaviour analysis.

Ask yourself these two golden internal questions:

• Why is your product or service a benefit to its target market? Is it a better experience emotionally or functionally?
• Why are you really doing a marketing campaign about it? Look at the value exchange and not just price & promotion.

And then answer these two questions:

• Why is a consumer going to react when he or she discovers the benefit?
• Why, if they discovered it, did they react that way? Did they evangelise or denigrate?

The questions above are designed to be thought provoking. And if you spend some time really searching for their true answers, then you’ll not only guide your company to more effective marketing campaigns, but will also start creating more profitable, two-way brand  & consumer engagement.

The 4 P’s of marketing died many years ago. And with the advent of the 4 E’s, brand engagement now rules supreme.

However in a globally connected world on social steroids don’t think brand engagement is the saviour. It’s the outcome!

I bet Qantas and Woolworths wished they’d answered these questions before running these two #epicfails!

• http://mumbrella.com.au/qantas-in-new-social-media-fail-with-qantasluxury-hashtag-backlash-66093
• http://mumbrella.com.au/this-weekend-woolworths-cant-wait-to-give-everyone-an-opportunity-to-give-them-a-massive-kicking-74262

Why do more marketers not use the most powerful word in marketing? Why?

Welcome back…

….to:

• work
• kids @ school
• more traffic on the roads
• a longer than normal Feb
• Q1 (or Q3 depending how you see it) already whizzing by
• senior management meetings

Yes, welcome back to routine. How are you feeling? A little daunted already?

Don’t be. It’s going to be a great year.

And there’s no better way to kickstart your relationship marketing activity than with a welcome back strategy. 

I’m working on 2 projects at the moment where activating dormant or inactive customers will be critical.

Many customer relationship marketers focus on fine tuning their relatively low response rates. Think differently in 2012. Focus on activating your inactive customers.

A simple, “we’ve noticed that you haven’t been active for a while. Can we help you?” message may do the trick. Or better still, focus on delivering a more relevant and targeted offering. And if you don’t know what your dormant customers want, then how about a short survey to re-activate them and discover what they really want from you.

As a rule of thumb, if you can’t activate them after 3 contacts, then don’t be afraid to ask whether they wish to be removed from your database!

Welcome back to proactive relationship marketing.

 

Start your new year’s marketing resolutions now – will these be amongst them?

As I went for a run this morning I started thinking about New Year’s resolutions. And then I thought, why wait a few days, start now!

Started today

So to share with you all, here’s one of my resolutions that I started today. I’m going to eat a more balanced diet and one of my secret weapons is raw virgin coconut oil. It’s apparently good for the immune system, the heart (blood pressure and cholesterol) and helps bones absorb vital minerals. Sounds good to me. And all I had to do was add a spoonful to my smoothie. Tick, done, doing it again tomorrow!

What are your resolutions? Are they personal or for your business?

If you’re thinking about your business here are a few thought starters. I wish I had a dollar for every time I ask a senior manager why do they do marketing that way and they answer, “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

We are creatures of habit and whilst marketing campaigns change their creative spots most marketers do the same strategies year in year out.

Mix things up in 2012

Whether you’re the CEO, Marketing Director, coordinator or agency service person, challenge the norms and conventional marketing activities in your business. Here are a few ideas for 2012:

• Welcome campaign. Companies generally do a poor  job of welcoming customers into their brand world. They spend so much time and budget acquiring customers and then just assume they’ll understand all about their products or services. Do you do a good enough job at communicating about all the channels and services available to customers in your brand world? And if you think you do, how are you measuring it?
• Onboarding strategy. In addition to informing new customers with a welcome campaign you need to ‘onboard’ them to become engaged with your brand. You should start to migrate customers into their channels of choice and measure the level of success. How many of you are measuring the different customers that regularly click through on emails, or have commented in your social networks or actively engaged in relevant content sections of your website?
• Lifecycle targeting. Do you do regular one-size-fits all customer communication or have you tried targeting different segments of customers with different communication and offers at various stages throughout their lifecycle? If the former, then think about a simple 6 or 12 month tailored thank you message for being a customer.
• Advocacy program. Are you harnessing your best customers to spread the word for your business? Delve into your database and discover which customers are valuable (ie: have purchased multiple products fairly regularly from you) and which ones are ‘actively engaged’ with your brand (ie: customers that have regularly clicked through on emails that you’ve sent them over the past 6 months, have commented fairly regularly in your social networks or website, or have used an app that you may have created). Or better still find the customers that regularly share information that you create (ie: send to a friend, retweet, like, share, +1 etc) And then create a unique, VIP style offer and see how your valuable customers start to spread the word on your business.

So please don’t just change your advertising campaign executions in 2012. Challenge conventional thinking. Do something different. Treat customers as you’d like to be treated. And most of all, have a bit of fun!

Happy New Year everyone.