The 543 Group

The Devil Is In The Details

We are able to build Websites usually faster than the content for them can be approved, and then sometimes clients wonder why a site can take a while in the later stages to be totally completed.  One really good reason?  Browser testing.  Every site we build is tested not only in all of the current predominant Web browsers and versions, but often emerging browsers such as Chrome is right now.  The real challenge is how far BACK to go with browser compatibility.  

As the chart above indicates, the market share for browsers shows that Version 6 of Internet Explorer actually has the largest percentage at present, even though most would not necessarily know or believe that.  Conversely, look at how fast adoption of IE Version 8 is happening even though it has only been out a short while (credit Windows 7 for that, in part).  And, once a new Website is completed and launched, there are usually  new versions or browsers out shortly thereafter that also should be tested to see if they result in any site anomalies. 

We work to make sites as 'future proof' as possible based on our code structure, but it is not usually viable to plan for a site to work perfectly in every version of every browser available.  There are scores of them going back many years, some of which will not support the latest types of engaging content desired very well.  So the next time someone asks why the last stage of launching a site takes a while, tell the devil really is in the details - browser testing, metadata, optimization for organic search, etc.  Lots of companies can build Websites.  Properly structured and coded sites tested to perfection takes a little longer, but it's worth it.
 

Buy-ology

In the iconic Broadway show, "The Music Man," Mayor Shinn keeps telling the youth to watch their 'phraseology' - that the words they use matter and that they should show respect for their elders.  In a market fraught with buzzwords and jargon many do not understand let alone leverage properly, this advice continues to be true.

 

Buyology - Truth and Lies About Why We Buyis the title of the bestselling book by Martin Lindstrom, in which he explores, among other topics, how to optimize one's brand based on neuroscience.  From his own Website, "This groundbreaking new science will revolutionize our understanding of our own buying behavior and send shock waves throughout the marketing and advertising industries and the business world as a whole. A subject they never taught you in school, you’re about to discover your own ‘buyology’."  I have not heard the marketing world come crashing down yet.  It is always good to explore new approaches, however, and discover, as I often do, that I learn something new every day, and today it may have been that what I learned yesterday was wrong.  That's useful, humble education. 

If you are ready to 'translate consumer brains into brand action,' that's great, and we can help you get inside those brains.  We still encourage you to develop sound online marketing strategies based on your core knowledge of customer and prospects needs, attitudes, and behaviors, and then translate that into engaging user experiences and practical solutions that exceed expectations.  We'll promise to use phrases and approaches all stakeholders will understand, and deliver measurable results.  That's our theory of buyology.

Stimulus Plan - Focus on Greater ROI

The 543 Group finished 2008 with significant triple digit increases in revenue and has experienced similar good fortune thus far in 2009, at a time when so many of our colleagues in the industry did not fare so well or went out of business entirely.  We are both gratified and humbled by the progress we have made with our business model.

How did we do it?  We can't divulge every competitive advantage here, but suffice to say we sharpened our focus even more on the needs of our clients, and how they can maximize return on investment for their marketing initiatives.  Smart marketing executives know they need to constantly look for ways to lower their costs and provide greater ROI, and we developed even better methods to deliver our services and solutions as cost-efficiently as possible, without sacrificing quality.  We even implemented a rather compelling outsourcing model that is finding significant traction in these challenging times.

This is a business where almost everything is measurable, and it is time to build better 'mousetraps' to maintain competitive advantage and capture, or re-capture, market share and share of mind.  We encourage you to do so for your own organization and invite you to call upon us if you need assistance.  We would love to share our ideas with you.

A Chuckle a Day

Reading through a recent article on the death of Tim Russert, a sage commentator on politics regardless of party affiliation, I was struck by a quotation given to Russert by a longtime friend and aide to John F. Kennedy.  Inscribed on a silver mug given to Powers on his birthday, Kennedy wrote the following:

"There are three things which are real:  God, Human Folly, and Laughter.  The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third."

Being a deeply religious man, Russert loved it.  So do I.  We get so caught up in everything we do and the stresses of the day, we all need to laugh more, at the right things, of course.  We're not doing brain surgery or saving babies in the work we do.  It is not life and death, and we need to keep it all in perspective while continuing to keep our eye on all the balls we have in the air.

I have often said that the most important contribution anyone can make to their company is to do the job right the first time.  What I also continue to know is that we all learn something new every day, and sometimes it is that what we learned yesterday was wrong.  And, sometimes, we need to laugh about that.

Social Media Marketing Lesson #1 - It's Only One Component

When you have been involved with social media marketing for years before it had that moniker, you learn several important lessons about what works best and what to avoid, and you try and pass those on to the next client and the one after that. 

In the late 1990s I learned that communities for health care could derive as much involvement and interest from children as from their parents; this is even more true now.  In online retail applications, I've long advocated emulating as many social aspects of the in-person customer experience to help foster the same affinity for the virtual experience.  For a non-profit, we learned together how online communities and forums could actually foster greater internal process management, leading to significant productivity improvements - it can get very interesting when you look at Web publishing first and other systems second.  In developing a brand strategy for a pureplay online service, I had to convince the client that the best application for social commerce in the world matters little if the user interface is poor or, more importantly, the value proposition is too hard to explain.  In e-commerce applications more recently, I have hammered home to clients the relationship of offline experiences to feelings toward online brands, and how the positive effect excellent online relationship-building activities can generate will quickly be erased by a bad offline encounter.

These all underscore perhaps the most important lesson to learn about social media marketing, if you do not already know it.  It is that social media marketing is only one of the many marketing touch points that affect a customer's or prospect's relationship with a brand.  Any sound strategy for social media marketing should be integrated with traditional offline and online marketing communications to create as seamless of an experience as possible.  Everything must work together, including every widget, community, blog, wiki, or other Web 2.0 technology being leveraged.  They need to work in synch with your print ads, television, Website, environmental, and every other component of taking your messages and experiences out in the marketplace.  Then you can begin to look at your forays into social media marketing the right way, as simply part of an integrated strategy to promulgate your brand and what it has to offer.

Leadership Goes Hand In Hand With Brand

In the ever increasingly complex world in which we live, where we are now bombarded with brand messages of every type in every medium online and off, many of which we choose to have delivered to our PCs, cell phones and other devices regularly, a key challenge is getting beyond all those messages to understand a company's ability to actually deliver on their promises.  Your customers, our customers, everyone who encounters a touch point with a brand, ultimately decide whether to interact with that brand, engage with it in some manner, perhaps make a purchase, and perhaps tell their friends. 

So, what is it that drives one brand to become and maintain its status as a true market leader?  What keeps the Fed-Ex reputation for fast, reliable delivery alive, or continues the innovation and elegant user interface design coming from Apple, or fuels the Disney organization to continue to delight millions with every form of entertainment?  It's leadership, and not just the CEO of the organization, but a top down reputation enhancement strategy that not only helps companies differentiate themselves from the competition, but enables them to stay prepared to continue to eclipse them.

While personal experience is the best way to learn how much leadership matters, a new book by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value, leverages numerous case studies to illustrate how leading brands have implemented these six core strategies:

1. Build a case for leadership brand. "Leadership helps make strategy happen. Without the right leaders at all levels, an organization can't deliver on its brand promise to customers, its financial promise to investors, its social promises to community stakeholders, or its cultural promise to employees."
2. Create a leadership brand statement. "Leadership brand becomes the process whereby the identity of the external customer translates to the behavior of the internal employee and organization processes. When this connection of the outside and inside is made real (in terms of both rhetoric and action), we call that a statement of leadership brand."
3. Assess leaders against the brand. "When assessments are a part of a thoughtful development process, there is great likelihood that the leadership brand is realized with leaders who have the right stuff...at the right leadership stage...that delivers the right results in the right way."
4. Invest in leadership brand. "Identify and support the training, developmental opportunities and life experiences needed to encourage the specific practices that instill your company's leadership brand in executives and managers throughout the organization."
5. Measure leadership brand investment. "Over the past 15 years, the measurement of leadership effectiveness has been characterized by two divergent approaches. One is the competency approach; the other looks for a concrete return on the training investment."
6. Build leadership brand awareness for key stakeholders. "Build a long-term reputation by communicating the efficacy of your company's leadership brand to interested stakeholders — customers, employees, investors, suppliers."

All of the above reminds one of the old adage that it is not only what you do, but how you do it, that matters.  When it comes to building and maintaining a strong brand that fosters true loyalty and referral and long-term value, it does come down to the people behind the brand, and the leadership demonstrated at all levels.

Better Meetings Made Simple

A long time ago a great business philosopher offered a solution to the endless stream of laborious meetings in which many corporate staffers found themselves.  They said that no meeting shall be convened without an agenda distributed in advance, and all meetings should be conducted with everyone standing.  Legend has it that one major corporation with average meeting lengths of over an hour and a half cut that average to 8 minutes using this method.  Think of the productivity increase, albeit at a cost.

As that approach appears to be a great challenge to implement, here are a few down-to-earth suggestions that may make your meeting life in 2008 a bit more enjoyable:

• Brainstorm, with everyone.  Nothing makes for a better meeting than participants knowing their ideas are welcome, and no idea is bad.  Formalize the exercise with an exercise or use of toys to get everyone's right brain cells working better.
• Encourage laughter.  Set an expectation of something enjoyable in which attendees want to participate, and let everyone know it's OK to laugh as long as meeting objectives are being met.
• Focus.  If the proper tone is set, those present will be fine with postponing e-mail replies and other PDA activity since they will know the meeting is purposeful and their attention is desired.
• That agenda idea?  It's still a good one.  Half of good business is managing expectations, and an agenda tells those invited what to expect as well as why it is important.

It's like the old IBM adage, 'Think.'  A little added planning, and respect for the time and creative thinking of participants, goes a long way to more enjoyable, more productive and, yes, likely shorter, meetings.

Curiosity Fuels Innovation

When I was a kid, my big 'thing' to play with was Motorific Slot Cars made by the Ideal Toy Company.  They were battery-powered cars and trucks of all makes and models, and the track was the snap-together variety that included long straight-aways, big curves, test track sections, bridges, and even crash-through barricades.  As I was rather enamored with Motorific cars, I received more for each birthday and at Christmas until it seemed I could fill the entire basement floor with endless configurations.  I never ran out of ways to put things together based on my own curiosity about what was possible.

When developing online marketing strategies, or conducting any brainstorming sessions for your business, it is beneficial to bring that same type of curiosity to the table.  All participants should be encouraged to look at all the 'parts' available to address the issues of the day, and to consider numerous possibilities about how they could be assembled or put together to create something innovative, something differentiated from the competition that is compelling and drives desired action by customers and prospects.

Keep a child-like (not childish) curiosity as you collaborate to build that better mousetrap for your business, and anything is possible.  Cultivate that culture in your business, and your teams will always be looking to build something better.

Avoiding Moral Bankruptcy

As part of our process for developing compelling online marketing and branding strategies, we often go through an exercise that prioritizes the 'Measures of Success' of the organization.  This is a pre-requisite to determination the measures of success and key perfomance indicators for evaluation of online marketing initiatives.

For one recent client, the top measure of success stated was Business Ethics and Integrity.  It was deemed to be more important than sales growth, profitability, product or service quality, customer satisfaction, and a host of other measures.  In fact, the President of the organization stated that business ethics were considered so high on the success measures that, if lacking or sub-par, would prevent any other measures from carrying any weight.  This is hard to argue with, but often it is challenging to see how some companies practice what they preach.

The truth is that ethical standards, high morals, personal integrity - core values in life as well as business - matter a great deal, every day.  Most organizations have stated core values, but it's what they do with them that matters, how they follow them that makes a difference, to their employees, to the clients, and to all those that come in contact with them.

It's not enough to say that the client's interests matter most - that must play itself out in how strategies are developed, contracts are written, and ongoing expectations are managed.  It's not enough to say you cultivate an environment that fosters creativity and new ideas; you have to demonstrate trust and support for your staff so they will deliver the impossible repeatedly, and enjoy it.  And, if the leadership of an organization does not set the right example, it is easy to see how all the other measures of success suffer and become barometers of failure.  It's a terrible spiral for some organizations, especially those too naive, inexperienced, or complacent to see what is happening and take action.

Some go bankrupt through circumstances beyond their control.  One way to at least decrease the odds of it happening to your organization is to make sure your ethical account is never bankrupt.

Building Stakeholder Consensus for Marketing Initiatives

In building any significantly new interactive or online brand experience, part of the challenge to ensure success of the initiative is to gain stakeholder consensus before anything is created.  This is not always easy, and is often overlooked during the strategic planning process. 

If we are conducting formal branding exercise or brand planning sessions, there is usually good participation from those with a significant stake in how their brand is perceived.  However, when it comes to participating in customer-focused research, stakeholders are often nowhere to be found, preferring to review the results in a nice PowerPoint presentation.  However, if you really want them to look past their departmental responsibilities and see how their customers really interact with their products or services, get them to be 'in the room' and observe that interaction first-hand.  There is no substitute.  Third-party findings can always be disputed, but if they see and hear what customers have to say first-hand, reaching consensus on recommended responses usually follows.  Suddenly the needed budgets free up, the value of customer research is no longer questioned and, if you are lucky, a stronger sense of urgency exists to respond with the right solutions.

This isn't brain surgery.  It is, however, creating the proper rationale and atmosphere for stakeholders to see the truth, and then act on it.  For some, those that regularly interact with their customers, results may not be breathtaking.  But for so many executives, who seldom have any direct contact with live customers, the revelations can lead to major shifts in brand marketing and advertising.

There are also many forms of such research.  Assessing all the options and choosing the right method is paramount to make sure that the research really fosters insights on true and unbiased needs, attitudes, and behaviors that lead to predictable purchase behavior.