Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’
The Future Of Business – What Could The Hardcore Hockey Fan Tell You?
I know the question is odd when talking about the future of business, but I ask you to play along. Let’s see where I take you : )
If you were hired by your local hockey team (In my case, the Abbotsford Heat) to market the club in the digital realm, what might be there first question out of your mouth? No it’s not how much do I make. If the resources were in place, funding and say personnel, what would you ask?
Lets consider that all the questions are not dumb questions, no matter how obvious they might be, what would you ask?
I would most likely ask what the current cost is for customer acquisition, there is a cost with online marketing, so what is it?
Knowing that number would tell you at least two things, what they have been doing and, what they aren’t doing, that is provided you understand some simple marketing metrics and the overall understanding of what the strategy be.
You might even ask where the marketing dollars have been spent, like Google Ad Words and so on. Make a list. But there are two more important issues or questions I would be asking. Because frankly, I don’t care where the money is spent unless I know the answer to one primary question, and if I don’t get that answer, we are going to get it through some due diligence.
My first question is more about what the hardcore hockey fan wants, do the fans want free tickets to games, food or beer, or would they want dedicated, intimate free time with their favorite Player / Coach/ or even Executive?
It’s an Access over Ownership question, if we don’t know the answer, we better find out, and fast, because everything else that follows will be based on that data. I’m certain the average fan will pay the ticket price, but how much would they pay to have one-on-one time with their favorite hockey player? Maybe over a nice meal, I mean dedicated time, an intimate time to just be. What would you pay for that? A better question to ask yourself would be, would we be willing to give that access away for FREE?
You see, it’s easy to sell tickets, it’s even easier to sell club merchandise, but give the hardcore hockey fan access, and you have something really exciting.
The digital strategy will be built around what the hardcore fan really wants, and I’m willing to bet access is the secret sauce to your marketing efforts. The future of business as I have researched it, over the next 3 – 5 years will be Access over Ownership. Fill that need, and your hockey club will have a whole new set of marketing tactics to play with, a new view of the community, and a great way to Connect With Fans. Add that with a Reason To Buy, and you have a thing called revenue. (CWF + RTB = $$$$)
There are many, many more questions to ask, and this is a very low level, very loose post, but I’m flying at 50,000 feet and blue skying it.
If you knew access was the key, what other great ideas come to mind? Share them here in the comments, it would be great fun.
Related articles
- The Future Of Business – Social Is A Feature Not A Platform (owengreaves.com)
- The Future Of Business – Fight Off The Mainstream Media & Big Business (owengreaves.com)
Businesses Need To Grow Up!
I don’t get all in a flap very often but, while driving into Vancouver one morning I was listening to CBC Radio, I’m not sure who the host was but it was during Rick Cluff’s time slot. The interview was with the Executive Director of the Coquitlam Chamber of Commerce, the discussion was about all the construction parallel to United Blvd. How the new Port Mann Bridge and the freeway construction was hurting business on the boulevard. Now I’m not sure what prompted the host of the show to suggest this but it got me, he asked the Executive Director of the Chamber if the government was going to bail these businesses out or help them out in some way. Say WHAT!
Why is it that everyone believes the government should give people money when most of the businesses could have done something to at least minimize the damage. Hell, I’m certain these businesses in question knew for months if not years this construction was coming, that it was going to happen. The perception now is that they did nothing to prepare, they figured we’ll wait and see how it goes, and if it doesn’t go well, we will put pressure on the government to give us money. I can with all certainty tell you that the future of business will not tolerate this model, in fact, this entitlement thinking will keep our country broke and even bankrupt if allowed to continue.
I would love to know what crazy ideas came to the table behind the closed doors of these businesses, to help get through the next 12 weeks, how many ideas were shutdown and squashed due to fear. There is a huge Casino on this boulevard, the Red Robinson Theatre too. There is much that could be done to partner all these businesses with their hands out, they could work together, now there’s a concept. I’m willing to bet my lunch money The Red Robinson Theatre & The Casino will do just fine, why, people will do anything, go anywhere to feed the need of entertainment and gambling. If that’s the case, then these businesses on United Boulevard should work together to strategize how to work through the next 12 weeks, the big anchors could lead the way.
As you can see, my perception of this dilemma, this was a marketing agencies wet dream, the opportunity is/was huge, but did anyone approach this group of businesses. I suspect not, to my knowledge there has been absolutely no marketing to my neighbourhood, I haven’t seen, heard a Radio or TV ad, not a Tweet about anything to entice me to shop United Boulevard. With all that is availabe to these businesses to market themselves during this construction, I have yet to find any ads in traditional media let alone digital, no crazy awesome deals to make me venture into the construction soup. Maybe I’m not looking in the right place, maybe I don’t care, or maybe they haven’t reached out to make me care.
I shared this story with a group of marketers, the look on their faces was enough for me. So is construction an excuse, is it really the root problem. Or is being prepared the real issue at hand, if you have read this blog regularly, you would know that the future of business has the upper hand. The problem isn’t construction, it isn’t the business, it is however, the owners of those businesses, how they think, and it possibly reveals a lack of foresight. I would like to give the business owners the benefit of the doubt, but, in times like this, businesses need to grow up!
I know, I’m ranting a bit, but this is a great case study don’t you think? So how could these business help themselves, what would you do if you had the opportunity to help these businesses? What crazy marketing ideas would you bring to the table? Would you let road construction be the reason the doors closed your business?
Scott Stratten's UNMarketing Book
It took me two days to read this book, and what a joy it was to finish it so I could share with you. I was emotionally moved while reading this book, that doesn’t happen often, I’m not sure why yet but I’ll figure it out. It could be because he has son named Owen : ) Now I read alot, I like to learn, I like to read other perspectives, and I love to take what I’ve read and learned and then apply it. I’ll admit up front I have been a Scott Stratten fan upon learning he was in this space, he joined Twitter a month earlier than me and I’m proud to say he has made something of Twitter that most haven’t. The book is part of his overall plan I think, he didn’t expect to get asked to write the book but if you follow Scott, it was only a matter of time. The Title is his Twitter handle, @unmarketing. The Book is called, UNMarketing – Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.
Once you start reading, you get the impression he practices what he preaches. I was reading along around chapter 10 and I had this notion, this feeling that I have heard all this before. In fact, I did! I heard it from Scott since the day he joined Twitter, these 64,000 words he put together in this book are actually 457 Tweets on Twitter! If you do the math, 457 x 140 Characters = 63,980 words! I felt like I was reading bite sized chicken nuggets (Tweets) from Scott, bite sized stories, this book reads like a Twitter stream to me. I know, I’m weird, but when you read it, you’ll understand what I mean. I don’t know if he intended it that way, but that’s what it was like for me.
There are 56 Chapters, they are somewhat short, but all are packed with well thoughtout points, some you have to read twice. I found myself saying yes many times while sifting through the pages, because, everything, most things he was talking about, all were simply the use of common sense. Looking at a business in a new way, not using old Industrial Age thinking. I believe that anyone over the age of 35 is stuck, stuck in old thinking. It’s no ones fault, it’s everyone’s fault, from our parents who couldn’t see past what was in front of them. To our leaders in the school system that had to buy into a lie. And we believed the Government was going to look after us, another lie. I think we are seeing that the system is not humane and it merely serves itself.
The first two chapters didn’t really grab me, but the third one did, it’s called the Trust Gap. From that point on, I was giving Scott all of my attention, right through to the Index. The restaurant story is one of my favorites, I have actually lived and tried to get that one done, you’ll love it. If you can get a restaurant owner to do it, the fun they will have, and the money will be a by-product of their trust in the people formerly known as consumers.
There is one thing I don’t agree with Scott on, I hate Wal-Mart, he loves them! His reason’s for loving Wal-Mart are valid to him, he admits he is lazy, and that’s why he goes there. One stop shopping. What I really don’t like about Wal-Mart is this, it makes people think in a broke frame of mind, by cheap stuff 500 times when quality might only cost a few bucks more, and you buy it 5 times instead of 500. That’s just my view on stores that sell in that fashion, right down to Dollar Stores & the new $5 Store. I should talk, I used to work at a store equally as bad back in the 70’s, F.W. Woolworth! But that’s a whole lifetime ago and another Blog Post.
OK, let’s get back to the book…..Buy It! Don’t take my word alone, you will learn, you will get perspective you may not have had before, and you will see a much bigger picture when you get to the Index. There is much more I could cover, but let’s face it, I didn’t write the book, and I can’t possibly do it justice here. Thanks Scott, and good luck on the Book Tour.
Be sure to follow Scott in your Social networks, buy his book, there is much wisdom between the covers, and most definitely visit his UN-Marketing Blog.
A tease for you, you will love The UnEnding : )
Attention Bloggers & Marketers
The Internets future is of great interest to me, I study some of the worlds smartest technology people because they see things differently than the rest of us. The Futurists are an interesting lot, they even cause me to chuckle now and then, but we need them because it forces us to look outside the box. I share and talk about the possibilities technology can bring, I care very much how it impacts society and our economy’s, plus I love looking into the future.
So I ask you Bloggers & Marketer’s, have you stopped to consider what and how the new economy is going to work, what it might look like, and how it will impact how you Blog and Market? Do you know what the New Economy is? There is and will be a New Economy, it will be The Data Economy, the New Content Economy. We will connect data to data, line to line, not web-page to web-page, this economy will set the table for a revolutionary way of doing business on the Internet. Google is ensuring this will happen, everything will be mobile and on the cloud.
We are entering a time where Command & Control will become Coordinate & Cultivate, where domination is out – and Collaboration is in. Where the current economic egoism no longer works, because now we are all connected, it breeds mediocrity. Mediocrity is what we have / had under the control model. We need to build an Ecosystem, where we freely, openly share & collaborate, with the right blend of sharing rather than piracy. Collaboration is and will be required to build in this new economy.
An entirely new way of thinking comes from being connected, Trust is the Key, Trust is the new currency. This trust will be developed over time, it will make or break organizations and indivduals with large followings and high levels of influence, but this trust won’t come easy. Advertising in the connected world has to be radically different, otherwise it will keep declining. We can no longer market on the Internet by yelling. Marketing needs to hit the RESET button and figure out how to function in the new economy.
Content today is copied, you download a PDF, an MP3 and what have you, it’s a copy. The Internet is a giant copy machine, if you disconnect the copy function, you disconnect the listening function. The fight to keep control of copies is a losing battle on this network, but how do we get the money from a network that can copy everything for free? We need to sell things that can’t be copied, the conversation is the sell. We need to sell things around the content, the packaging, the experience. Money is moving from the selling of copies, to selling the experience. After all, your Brand will be judged by that experience, if it’s bad, you will be out of business sooner than later. You can see the landscape is changing, the end of control is taking shape everywhere.
Social Media is a very human driven practice, it can’t be done with a single person, it just doesn’t scale well that way. Gary Vaynerchuk has shown us how hard it is to keep up and stay on top of all that is data, he won’t be able to sustain the demand on his time and become ineffective.
It’s important to state that Social Media is not about technology, it’s about a culture change, a paradigm shift, we have to get better at believing in the impossible.
We need to think about how we Blog & Market, re-write the books on how it’s done, because what we are doing is a diminishing return. What kind of experience do people have when they come to your Blog, and what kind of emotions are engaged when they see and hear your marketing messages? The power is now in the hands of the people formerly known as consumers, how will you engage them?
You’ve heard this message before a million times, you probably preached it over and over, but the real question is, are you one of the change agents helping shape this new economy? Have you studied what’s to come, do you know and see the indicators? The New Economy views content first as a service, then an experience – and only then (maybe) a product.
I know my voice gets lost in the noise, that’s OK. I know the Internet is a big place, and a very large network that dissects, crosses over and loops back, and some how we are supposed to find what we are looking for. Companies like Google are trying to filter the content and help us all get exactly what we want. But that my friends, is whole nother story. Filtering and curation are the keys to the next phase, and eventually we’ll find ourselves dealing with smart noise.
Are you paying attention, what do you see?
Your Customers Are Dying To Talk To You!
Something is terribly wrong with the business world at large don’t you think? I mean, customer service is still failing and businesses and their owners don’t seem to care! Yes some get it and are doing something about it, but lets be honest here, have you seen a grand scale change of mind and heart on what customers really want from local businesses?
A while back a shared a couple stories with you, one where Black & Decker failed bigtime in my books, one where SAVE-ON FOODS went way out of their way to make my life easier, and then there was the BEST BUY stupidity. I was out with my oldest son this afternoon, he said hey let’s go to Best Buy! My response, why? He looked at me kind of funny and said what? I said these guys don’t get customer service and I won’t buy from them again. Of course he asked what happened and I shared with him, he said I understand. The stupid thing about this experience is that I got more attention from Best Buy USA online staffers and I never did hear from anyone in Canada at the time of my rant. I did get a Tweet from someone a wekk later but that was it, and that person solved nothing, did nothing and didn’t even ask for details. No nothing, no how can we make this right, sorry you had that problem….NOTHING! I won’t be back, That I can control.
Black & Decker made absolutely no effort to fix their website and or make my experience with them a positive one. SAVE-ON FOODS, they were amazing, well one staff person was (Lorna) , they get my business, that store ONLY gets my business unless I’m out of town.
The oxymoron of all businesses is, they ask for our input, how were we today, how can we be better, make a suggestion and so on. But are they really listening, and if they are, they must be using selective hearing. I rarely see improvement from those businesses that blow it and know about it. So why am I pissed? They don’t get it, and I’m not confident that they will anytime soon. They don’t understand that their clients, their customers want to talk to them, and want to be heard. Don’t they know that their customers want that relationship, want to trust that company, want to have a positive experience with their Brand. I don’t get it, why don’t they want to give us what we really want?
Don’t you know – Your Customers Are Dying To Talk To You!
We can all take a lesson from these experiences, I know you have your own stories to tell but somehow the message is getting lost in translation. Is Social Media that confusing they don’t understand what Social Media is all about, I think it is, orherwise we would see more movement for the better.
Am I over reacting? What do you think?