Windsor Training: marketing

Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts

Saturday, 29 November 2014

One Small Thing You Can do Today to Start a Conversation with Anyone

By Adam Jones Adam63 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Every conversation needs to start somehow, but how can we do it in the most effective, simple, and natural way possible?

For some people it is effortless and they just seem to be able to spark a conversation with anyone, upon any occasion, and in any circumstances - if you are one of these people, then you might like to stop at this point and go off and read something else instead. But for the vast majority of us, however, whether at networking events, socially, or during various business occasions, it can be fraught with awkwardness and lead into a minefield of unintended offence or misunderstanding.

Variety is the spice of life, but being able to judge both the occasion and the audience is often the best approach to starting a conversation. Many articles and blog posts are written providing a whole repertoire of useful 'ice breakers' and conversation starters ("10 Ice Breakers" or "20 Conversation Starters"), but you still need to exercise some judgement in terms of delivering them to the right person, at the right time, and in the right place and you also need to remember which to use and when.

The most common conversation starter, by far, is the old favourite: What do you do? In the vast majority of cases this is perfectly acceptable and a natural conversation can be started from this simple question. But, what if the person doesn't like what they do? What if they are embarrassed by what they do? What if they'd rather you hadn't asked that, because now they have to explain it to you and they're not good at doing that? What if they are a home maker and they are worried that you will lose interest, because you'll think that they don't do anything? This seemingly simple question can lead to unease or get the conversation off to a wrong start from the very beginning and close off the chance of a dialogue even developing.

As the title of this post suggests, however, there is one small thing that you can do today to help start a conversation, which is less likely to cause offence, unease or discomfort. And that is to ask someone: Where are you from? Everyone is from somewhere and this is such a broad open conversation starter that they could tell you about their home town, or their company, or where they used to live and where they live now. How they love it here and they may even reciprocate and straight away come back by asking: And where are you from?

So if you want to change one small thing today and start to see a difference in how you spark a conversation in any situation, then start asking people where they are from, rather than what they do, and you may be amazed by the results. It doesn't entirely absolve you from exercising some judgement in how or when to use it, but I find it works more often than not and it's far easier than trying to remember when to use one of those twenty ice breakers you read about.

So, let's get this conversation started ... where are you from?

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training. Please click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from Will in the future. Feel free to also connect via his Linkedin page, or via Twitter and Facebook or email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

TESCO: What Went Wrong?

The picture shows a outdoors billboard advertising a competitor to Tesco superstores, but the poster uses a Tesco slogan and instead says, " Every Lidl Helps".

Few people could have predicted the demise of one of Britain’s leading retailers and fewer still would have dared to imagine it to have been quite so dramatic and as sudden as it was. Recently Tesco shares have plummeted, seeing nearly half their value wiped out on the back of a management admission that it overstated first half yearly earnings by £250 million ($400 million), with pre-tax profits down by 92% and a 56% fall in UK trading profits. Some have pointed to a failure of leadership and management and others have highlighted the role of 'Big Data'. But Tesco’s reversal of fortune has been such that even the billionaire investor and ‘Sage of Omaha’, Warren Buffett, was prompted to admit in a recent NBC interview:

"With Tesco, we definitely made a mistake. I made a mistake on that one more than anybody else made a mistake ... That was a huge mistake by me."

What has gone wrong with the UK’s leading retailer?

There are a number of factors that we can attribute to Tesco’s failure. Michael Schrage of MIT Sloan and HBR, has highlighted several areas, but particularly Tesco’s fabled reliance upon ‘Big Data’, so let's look at four key factors:

#1 - The failure of Fresh and Easy in the USA:

Tesco never quite recovered from the severe dent to its reputation from the high profile failure of its Fresh and Easy convenience stores in the USA. When the company finally pulled out, its plans to have over a 1,000 stores across the country were in tatters and it was nursing over £1.6 billion in losses from its investment.

#2 - The rise of the ‘deep discounters’ and greater price competition:

Tesco and a number of the other leading grocery retailers have failed to get to grips with the fierce price competition from discount chains such as Lidl and Aldi, particularly within Tesco’s home market, the UK. The discounters directly attacked the Tesco strategy of ‘everyday value’ and a recent marketing campaign by Lidl even mocked the well-known Tesco strapline, by substituting their own name, “Ever Lidl helps” (see the picture above).

#3 - Management Succession – the departure of Terry Leahy:

Academic books are probably already being written about the inability to effectively manage the succession from the previous chief executive, Terry Leahy, to the current embattled incumbent, Phil Clarke. Clarke has failed to reach the heights achieved by his predecessor. Tesco may yet become a case study in botched management succession to match the lessons to be learnt from the handover of Sir Alex Ferguson to his ill-fated successor, David Moyes, at Manchester United.

#4 - Big Data Disillusionment?

Tesco virtually wrote the book on using big data to hone its deft marketing with powerful analytics that enabled it to target and segment with the information gleaned from its Clubcard loyalty programme. Other retailers, both in the UK and internationally, viewed with awe the incredible dexterity with which Tesco was able to use its data to gather insights about customer loyalty and behaviour. Increasingly, however, as a recent Telegraph article made clear, consumers may be getting disillusioned by the loyalty cards which are seen as being more advantageous to the retailer than they are for the consumer. The appeal of the discounters, such as Aldi and Lidl, has perhaps come from their simplicity and straightforward approach, maybe offering a slice of how shopping used to be before data and analytics changed the retailing landscape.

Tesco: Corporate Failure or Future Turnaround?

All of this is not to suggest that Tesco is in terminal decline and it may yet regain its mojo, but there is no doubt that the average student’s favourite case study in business success, may be replaced by one of corporate failure. Whether that then morphs into a study in corporate turnaround, remains to be seen, but with recent media attention focusing on an ill-timed purchase of an executive jet, the retailer that could once do nothing wrong, now seems to be getting the attention for being unable to do anything right.

Thursday, 25 September 2014

"Open for business": why I am an open networker

I tend to accept most invitations to connect, whether that is on LinkedIn or Twitter, and so I guess that you would rightly call me an 'open networker'. There are exceptions to this rule: usually because the profile is not at all completed, or I have some security concerns over whether it is a genuine contact or not. Mercifully these are very rare. I now have a diverse range of contacts, from former clients to people I met when networking in person; and contacts on both side of the Atlantic, in the UK, where I used to live, and in the USA, which is where I am currently. I just don't mind where people are, or what they do, I am happy to connect and if some mutual benefit can arise from the connection, then all the better - sometimes it will and sometimes it won't.

People You May Know

In addition to the requests to connect that turn up 'out of the blue', I will also make use of the 'Who to follow' facility on Twitter and the 'People You May Know' tab on LinkedIn. Both of these apply an algorithm that gives you suggestions for further connections or followers, based upon your current list of followers or connections, and they are a great way of expanding your network.

Open Online: Open In Person

This same approach to being an open networker is how I conduct my networking in person, you just never know who can open doors for you and who you can help in return - that well-known principle of 'givers gain'. I enjoy my networking as a result and it has been instrumental in helping me to grow my business and will remain a key part of my marketing strategy for a long time to come.

Closed versus Open

Not everyone, however, is open to making new connections on LinkedIn, for example, unless they have met them first - whilst it is not my approach, I do respect their position. Often there is a concern that contacts will spam them with too many marketing messages, although this has not been my experience. For other people there is a suspicion of motives or intentions, and others, for understandable reasons, might have some security concerns.

I am often surprised as to why some people chose to be a 'closed' networker: I once read a very useful book, which I referred to frequently when I was teaching. I sent the author a request to connect on LinkedIn and they declined it, for whatever reason. In view of the fact it was a book on social media and marketing, I was a little surprised, as this was an ideal opportunity to keep a keen reader informed of any future books or updates of interest.

'Open for business'

The author, no doubt, had their reasons, but for me the ethos of an open networker is that you are open and receptive to new ideas and ways of thinking. You want to hear what is being said and you also want to join in that big conversation: it is all about listening and being heard. That is why I am, and will remain, an open networker and 'open for business'.

Are you an open or a closed networker?

Tuesday, 23 September 2014

STOP: Do NOT read this article!

5 Ways to Write Arresting Article Headlines

On the assumption that some people like to do the exact opposite of what they are told to do, I wanted to conduct a quick experiment to see how much a title that asks you not to read something - coupled with a picture of an authority figure - might compel you to take a quick peek instead. It obviously worked, in your case ... congratulations, you are clearly a contrarian, who doesn't like being told what to do and I am now ordering you not to read any further or even 'like' this post (don't you dare).

An Arresting Title ...

But on a serious note, and assuming that you are still reading, I wanted to explore how much the title influences the decision to stop and read the content and come up with 5 ways to write an 'arresting' headline (if you'll excuse the pun). Some might say that being drawn to an article because of an arresting title and picture, might be the virtual equivalent of 'judging a book by its cover', but in a world where we are inundated with information from multiple media, what other options do we have to cut through all that 'noise'? The title becomes an important tool in ensuring which content is read and which becomes part of the detritus of internet data and confined to cyber obscurity.

Getting Liked

There is no doubt that having a headline that is powerful and has impact will then attract viewers, which then encourages 'likes', which ensures, on LinkedIn at least, that the algorithms pick it up as relevant content, leading to further promotion and a snowball effect in terms of further likes and readers. This is a process that can happen very quickly, so if you are a little-known scribbler, then that arresting title becomes all-important. I am not saying that the title is the only way to get attention, because you can promote your article through social media as well, but it is increasingly a powerful first step in getting noticed.

5 Ways To Get Noticed

Having made a few posts, both on LinkedIn and elsewhere, it became apparent that some posts get read more than others and the title clearly plays a part in that, so here are my 5 points for writing a headline that gets noticed:

Intriguing - You might have gathered that I was playing this particular card, so time will tell if the headline was intriguing enough. Ultimately, you want something that poses a question, suggests a new way of looking at things, or hints at offering more in a way that tantalises and grasps the attention.
Brevity - the shorter the headline then the more that the reader's attention seems to be drawn to it, particularly if they are scanning their timeline and their brain only devotes a fraction of a second to each title as it whizzes past. The briefer it is, then the more I am likely to process it and then stop and actually read it.
Encouraging action - if you can create a title that encourages your reader to take some action, or suggest that they will be able to do something better, faster, or more effectively, after reading your post, then they may be more likely to see the potential value in what you have written and stop and read it.
Clarity - I have probably broken my own rule with this title - because it intrigues more than it is clear - but you can use subheadings to give greater clarity to what is contained within the body of the post. Remember that part of the first few lines is picked up by LinkedIn and posted, along with the title and photo, so you can use this to give further clarity to what your title is saying.
Keyword-conscious - be conscious of what the keywords are for the body of the content, whether that is in the main heading or by clarifying further in the subheading. Whilst I am probably breaking this particular rule, it becomes more important in terms of posts that are found by search engines.

I will be very interested to know your thoughts on this topic: did my headline work for you? What headlines have you seen recently that grabbed your attention? What was it about them that made you stop and read the content?

Will Trevor is the Founder and Training Consultant for Windsor Training and also an occasional blogger.

Picture credit: "British Policeman" by Southbanksteve from London, UK - My name is Will or Policeman as (arresting) model. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Policeman.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Britis

Monday, 22 September 2014

5 Marketing Lessons of the Ice Bucket Challenge

Few could have predicted how swiftly the ALS Ice Bucket challenge would go viral. The way that it spread must have been beyond the wildest imaginings of the ALS marketing team. If you have checked your Twitter feed or your Facebook timeline over the summer, then you cannot fail to have noticed that many of your connections will have been sitting in their gardens, backyards, or workplaces and then having buckets of iced water unceremoniously tipped over their heads, as if some kind of mass mania had gripped the planet. The act was then shared via social media and some further unwitting friends are then nominated to pick up the baton.

A Marketing Phenomenon

For those of you who may have missed it, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has seen celebrities – from Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg - and individuals pouring buckets of ice over their heads for the sake of the ALS charity and then nominating others to take on the feat. analysed how the Challenge went viral and they calculated that between June 1 and August 17, over 28 million people joined the conversation and 2.4 million videos were shared on the social networking site alone related to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Within a matter of days, the phenomenon had gone global, with challenges witnessed in many countries other countries.

A Textbook Case

The campaign was intended to raise awareness of Amyothrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), which is otherwise known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” – a little-known disease that causes the deterioration of nerve cells, leading to paralysis and death. “Little-known”, that is, until now. Marketing textbooks are probably now being written, or even re-written, with the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge as a case study in the successful use of cause-related social media marketing campaign, but why has it been so successful and what can we learn from it?

"Emotion, challenge and social currency"

Wharton University's Professor of Marketing, Jonah Berger, has suggested that, “[w]ith its combination of emotion, challenge and social currency, the campaign has become something of a marketing phenomenon.” Berger is an expert on social media and he has written extensively on why things go viral and the effects of word-of-mouth. Berger also described the Challenge as a form of social contagion, “[p]eople don’t want to be left out. Anytime you’re at a cocktail party and someone is talking about something, whether it’s a brand or a new band, … you don’t want to be the only person in the group who has no idea what they’re talking about.” This taps into a basic human emotion and need for belonging. Berger also believes that it succeeded because it is representing a worthy cause, so there is little that people can object to in terms of its message and call to action.

5 Social Media Marketing Lessons from the Ice Bucket Challenge

What are the five lessons that we can take from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge?

Timing – it came during the summer months, meaning that people had time to participate and lighter evenings enabled people to take part, whereas the nature of the challenge would have precluded participation during the cold winter months. Thus the planning and execution of the campaign was vital to ensure that the timetable allowed it to spread virally from early spring into summer.
Simple – there was no requirement for complicated equipment, instead it could be attempted by nothing more than someone with a bucket, some cold water, and a smartphone and friend in order to record the event for posting on social media.
Social – the challenge passed amongst friends and relatives in a genuinely word-of-mouth style, precisely because it was so personal. We associated with the people doing it and we also connected with their often personal reasons for doing it, both serious and frivolous. This is the 'social currency' that Berger is talking about.
Celebrity – the challenge has also passed amongst a number of high-profile celebrities, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, and this always helps to give a social media campaign velocity, particularly when they start spreading the challenge socially themselves, as was the case here.
Challenge – the Challenge tapped into the desire to have credibility in the eyes of your peers, but also the need to avoid shame, if you were not seen to take up the baton and take part when you had been nominated. People embraced the sense of challenge inherent in it.

Written by Will Trevor, Founder and Training Consultant at Windsor Training

Email: will.trevor@windsortraining.net

Picture Credit: By Rauglothgor (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons