Successful Blog

Accidents Happen … The Extreme Customer Service of the IT Man

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The Wisdom of the LAN Specialist

We all have winning days that the world goes exaclty as it should. Business is fun and customers are a pleasure. Then there are others. On those days when it seems that nothing knows its proper order, life might be easier if we remember what this IT Man said.

Readers, clients, customers, family, friends, even the guy selling papers on the corner, it makes it easier if we show them the extreme customer service of the IT Man.

Do you believe in the wisdom of the IT Man?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Got a Halo or Horns? First Minutes Last

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Showing Up for the First Test

When I was in college, I was struck with massive migraine on the day of an important class final. As I picked up my pen, the words on the page moved before my eyes as I tried to write. I brought this to the attention of the professor, who moved me into his office for the “lovely” experience.

I have to say I must have done dismally — at least not stellar — on that written exam. But I still Aced the class.

The most important test in that class was the first one, not the final. That was when the professor decided whether I was intelligent, whether I was a serious student, invested in learning. That first test left an indelible impression about who I am.

From that day forward, I always studied hardest for the first test in every class.

Halo or Horns

It’s called the “halo effect.” It’s a cognitive bias we all have toward what we decide from the start. Interviewers and clients, customers, … all of us … decide almost immediately from an initial trait or perception whether something is “good” or “bad.”
Research abounds on the topic … Wikipedia describes it well.

Physically attractive people are perceived to have an array of attractive qualities.

A bracelet in a Tiffany catalogue is perceived as more valuable than one in craft shop.

We make those assumptions in seconds on as little as a single trait generalized over an entire subject area. It makes sense in sorting the world on a global scale, but is error ridden in the specific instance.

The problem is that one we decide, we support our instant diagnosis by interpretting information in favor of our bias. We even work toward proving the premise. We’ll give the attractive person benefit for great qualities we’ve never seen or experienced. We’ll ask the “less impressive” interview candidate harder questions and be more critical of the answers. We’ll underscore the reasons that a craft jeweler can’t produce Tiffany quality.

If we love you, your faux pas was an accident. If we don’t, it was surely evil intent.

According to the research, even when we know that we’re biased by our first impressions and perceptions, we still can’t stop our halo effect response. It shows up in

  • brands we buy
  • candidates we hire
  • friends we defend
  • music we like
  • people we admire
  • politicians we elect
  • social media platforms we stay with
  • the insults we perceive or forgive
  • the causes we support

And Byron Kalies of training zone made a pointed out a fundamental flaw in this characteristic of human perception. .

It seems sensible and strikes a chord with us because we’ve all done it. We’ve all made an instant decision and found out it was true in the face of all the evidence. However, I wonder how often we’ve made an instant decision and found it to be wrong? I guess we don’t remember those occasions. There’s a phrase for this in psychological jargon – ‘bottom drawer evidence’. This concerns the mass of evidence gathered that doesn’t fit the theory and is conveniently hidden in the bottom drawer.

It takes serious energy and time to reverse thinking like that. Makes more sense to get the first minutes right. Invest, relate, and establish credibility that lasts.

Halo or horns. No person or product is all good or all bad. Yet the product lesson is clear. The “halo effect” makes fiercely loyal fans who evangelize and argue for the validity of their perceptions.

Got a good example of the halo effect in your life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Epilogue: Motrin, Take Two and Don’t Wait ‘Til Morning

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The Headache Rx

relationships button

The folks on the Motrin team are suffering from a sefl-induced headache today. It was caused by being focused on the wrong things in their “WE FEEL YOUR PAIN” AD CAMPAIGN.

Now they’re at a crossroads where the social media sphere is watching for how they’ll respond. Will they apologize, explain, and move on? Will they love their ideas or love learning about their customers? Were I the healthcare practioner on this case, I’d suggest that they take two …

  1. Step away from the the clever ideas — build relationships not campaigns. Send out an actual human being to talk with your customers. They’re your heroes.
  2. Trust that human being, trust your customers, and give people every reason to trust you. Trust is the currency of lasting relationships.

Don’t wait until morning.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Motrinmoms: The Spectacular Opportunity to Rise from a Colossal Mistake

Motrinmoms: The Spectacular Opportunity to Rise from a Colossal Mistake

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Savvy Companies Don’t Have to Do This

Tonight, a corporation made a colossal mistake. Motrin put up this ad.

The ad was meant to tell Moms with new babies that Motrin understood their pain. Except, in the process of building their campaign and that ad, they forgot to get in touch with new Moms and their pain.

I’m hoping this won’t scare off other corporations looking to enter the social media sphere. What happened here was problem with a team that didn’t do it’s job on two fronts.

Motrin didn’t do what they claimed. They also didn’t know the media in which they placed the ad. Savvy companies don’t have to make the same mistakes.

What Motrin Didn’t “Get” about New Moms

Some folks are saying that Motrin needs to understand social media. I’m with that. They blew it big. But social media only speaks to the size, speed, and volume of the response to their collosal mistake.

A company that claims WE FEEL YOUR PAIN. Better know what they’re talking about long before they get to the social web.

WE FEEL YOUR PAIN?
Motrin made it obvious that they don’t.

If you felt the pain of new mothers, then you’d realize that it’s off to use high heels and carrying a feverish child in the same sentence as examples of feeling underappreciated.

If you felt the pain of new mothers, then you’d see that the “fashion” of baby slings is a luxury very few new mothers think about. New mothers — with and without baby slings — are worried about more important things than that.

If you felt the pain of new mothers, then you’d understand that it’s not the ache in their back or in their head that makes them cry or say “what about me?”

The pain of new mothers is people who make light of their feelings.

It’s the hope that they’ll measure up and the worry that they won’t. It’s the folks who offer advice as if they know more than the new mom about what’s best for her child. It’s the people who say “Here, take a couple of headache pills and you’ll feel better after that.” It’s people who claim they feel her pain and don’t bother to find out what her pain is really like.

That’s the part that Motrin didn’t get about new moms.

What Motrin Didn’t “Get” About Social Media

The fundamental problem with the ad is that the “unique pain of baby sling” isn’t one of fashion or feeling underappreciated. The fundamental pain of a baby sling isn’t much more than “ouch, my back,” and then, only when the sling doesn’t fit.

That’s the kind of pain Motrin can fix. That story isn’t as glitzy or clever, but it is authentic.

Do you like the woman in the ad?

Was she joking? Do new moms say stuff like that? Sure they do — with their friends — not with strangers. Friends can say things because friends already know that I love my kid no matter how I joke. Strangers can’t because they don’t.

Here’s where social media savvy comes in. A company has to be a friend before it can communicate with customers like friends. THAT’s the part about social media that Motrin didn’t get.

The Spectacular Opportunity

What would I advise the Motrin team to do? Get over being clever and get serious about learning. Here’s a short action plan.

  • Read enough to understand the mistake. A wise, open-mind doesn’t have to read long to see what went wrong.
  • Admit the mistake and apologize. Say thank you to folks who pointed it out.
  • Read everything — every tweet, post, conversation about it. Put several folks on knowing every blog and blogger, every tweet and tweeter. Respond with appropriate apologies and a beginner’s mind.
  • Listen. Listen. Listen. Say thank you again.
  • Ask for help. Offer new moms a chance to make their version of what the ad might have been. Put serious resources at their disposal. Participate with time. Don’t just throw money at them.
  • Use as many of what they make as you can. Feature their ads on your site as big as your own. Pay the moms for their investment in you.

It’s a spectacular opportunity to learn social media and to turn critics into heroes. A company that does that with everyone watchng could win over the social web.

Got more ideas for how Motrin might recover from this?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Attracting the Offline Customer: Why Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?

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by Scott McIntyre

Scott McIntyre — The Avid Blog Reader Without a Blog

Last week, I suggested a few practical methods and communication channels that you might use to promote your blog offline. I was pleased to read in your comments that many of you are trying these technques to achieve great results for your online businesses.

As a number of you are already finding, promotional activities such as talking to local organizations, advertising in offline media, and the use of Press Releases and branded goods can effectively contribute to getting your message in front of the offline customer.

But why would you consider doing this in the first place?

Today, I would like to explore several reasons why it can be of great benefit to build an awareness of your blog in the offline marketplace.

Building Awareness of Your Blog Offline: What are the Benefits?

There are two direct benefits that can be realized by extending the reach of your blog beyond the blogosphere: 1) to enhance your own personal reputation within your niche industry and 2) to increase the visibility of your blog’s brand to the wider offline community.

Both of these positive benefits can be achieved through promoting your blog offline.

Brand Building Through Offline Promotion

  • Building your personal brand

    It can be a highly profitable business aim to develop a strong name for yourself offline within your specific industry sector.

    Having a presence online provides a valuable launchpad from which to gain publicity for yourself offline. It is an effective means of making a respected name for yourself amongst your peers, and to seize the opportunities that exist from tapping into the offline customer base.

    I can guess that not all of your competitors have a blog or website yet. If you do, then you are already ahead of them when it comes to attracting your target audience. You have somewhere to bring them back to in order to win them over to your products or services.

    To build your personal brand offline, it is necessary to get people talking about you in a manner which is in line with your business strategy. Ideally, you want to be seen as the ‘go to’ person in your niche.

    By offering first-class advice and by providing useful information and resources to the offline audience, they are likely to view you as the authority figure within your industry. When you achieve this position, you are well placed to leverage it to capture their attention and interest in your blog.

    Personal branding through offline promotion, however, may not be right for every blogger. You may have opted to write under a pseudonym or else prefer to maintain a degree of anonymity.

    There are many reasons why this is a valid approach. If this applies to you, it would be great to hear your views in the comments section.

  • Building your blog brand

    You can work on developing your own personal brand offline safe in the knowledge that you have a quality blog waiting ‘back home’.

    A quality blog can mean many things. Valuable content is crucial, as is having a good design, ease of use and accessibility. All of these factors contribute to whether your efforts to build a brand for your blog offline will be a success.

    If you can foster a sense of trust and respect for your blog’s offering through your offline promotional activities, it will lead to customers being willing to use your products or services.

    Blogs provide a tremendous opportunity to interact with your audience. A blog can help to create mutually beneficial relationships between you and your customers. Satisfied customers indulge in positive word-of-mouth recommendations, and this inevitably leads to a buzz about your business offline.

    A blog which does not aim to be a quality offering will likely not impress or enhance its reputation with these potential customers.

    When offline personal reputation building is combined with that of developing your blog’s brand, the benefits can be immense for your online business as a whole. The skill is to effectively engage in promotional activities which achieve each separate goal while, at the same time, are supportive of each other’s aims.

Next week, I will be considering some of the ways in which you can use the increasingly popular social media and social networking sites as valuable channels to engage with the offline customer.

If you’re a blogger, leave a comment to let me know of your experiences in promoting both yourself and your blog offline. What results have you achieved? If you’re a blogger who isn’t yet engaged in offline promotion, what questions do you have regarding how to go about it?

If you’re a non-blogger, tell them what they can do to attract your interest in both them and their blog.

–Scott McIntyre

Related
Week 1: Connecting with the Offline Customer: A Non-Blogger’s Perspective
Week 2: Targeting the Offline Customer: Do You Blog for Non-Bloggers?
Week 3: Reaching the Offline Customer: Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?

Reaching the Offline Customer: Do You Promote Your Blog Offline?

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by Scott McIntyre

Scott McIntyre — The Avid Blog Reader Without a Blog

Last week, I shared with you my thoughts on how the nature of your online business will influence any decisions you make as to whether you might consider targeting offline customers. Some of you commented that you are already using a range of techniques to spread your message to the world beyond the blogosphere.

Today, I want to look at some of the practical methods and communication channels you can use to promote your blog, or website, offline. Many of you are likely using some of the methods, while others may want to try the most suitable ideas as new ways for you to reach the offline market segment.

Promoting Your Blog Offline: What are the Benefits?

There are still many people who either a) don’t use the internet regularly, b) have never read a blog, or c) don’t blog themselves. When combined, these groups constitute a sizeable target market.

To connect effectively with these potential customers, it is necessary to engage in some form of offline promotional activity. If your goal is to attract these people back to your blog, then you first need to take your blog to them.

The following list of communication methods is by no means exhaustive. There may be additional ones you are currently using.

If so, it would be great to learn of them in the comments section.

Offline Promotion Methods

  • Your current network

    You probably have family, friends, and colleagues who either don’t read blogs or are not bloggers themselves. Have you shown them your blog? Often, your best customers are right there beside you now and these folk can become loyal customers or enthusiastic advocates on your behalf.

    There is no more effective marketing tool than positive word of mouth when it is backed up by your quality product or service.

  • Talk to local organizations

    There will, no doubt, be organizations in your locality with an interest in what you have to say. Examples might include charities, church groups, Chambers of Commerce etc.

    In my experience, these groups are keen to attract a variety of guest speakers to their meetings. If you are invited to address such a gathering, you can introduce your business to them (not by ‘hard selling’), and also distribute take away literature, like flyers and brochures, which carry your website contact details.

  • Advertising in offline media

    While advertising may be financially out of the question for a lot of smaller online businesses, properly targeted local media campaigns can prove highly effective.

    If you have the resources, local television and radio advertising can provide a good way of getting your message seen and heard by customers in your neighborhood.

    It may also not be feasible for you to take out full page ads in newspapers and magazines. However, a first step might be to run a small advert in the classified section of your local newspaper.

  • Press Releases

    Another method of interacting with the media is through the use of a Press Release.

    Industry publications and local newspapers are always on the lookout for news stories that are of interest to their readership- who might also be your potential customers. By writing a good quality Press Release, which is both newsworthy and focuses on your business at the same time, your message can be conveyed more effectively than advertising.

    In these cases, your Press Release stands a better chance of being picked up if you have cultivated a relationship with the reporter or editor beforehand.

  • Company literature

    In the daily running of your business, I’m sure you use many types of documents such as letters, envelopes, compliment slips, invoices, fax sheets, product packaging, business cards, etc.

    It is important that your URL features on all printed material you issue as this is a cheap and ready made way of attracting visitors to your website.

  • Branded goods

    Many businesses find it useful to develop a range of supporting merchandise which carry their website address. Often, these items are given away free or as prizes in contests.

    Examples of such items include: calendars, pens, pencils, mouse mats, coffee mugs, Christmas cards, t-shirts, bumper stickers, badges etc. The list is endless!

    The key to selecting merchandise which is effective as part of your offline promotional activity is to ensure that the products are of high quality and consistent with your brand. This method works because the items get your website URL out into the real world and in front of the eyes of your potential customers.

    • There is, of course, an initial cost to produce these items, but they can prove an effective communication tool.

The promotional activities I have described above are only a small selection of the methods which can form the basis of an effective offline promotional campaign.

If you’re a blogger, leave a comment to let me know what offline promotional methods you are using? What are your experiences of these methods? If you’re a blogger who hasn’t yet engaged in offline promotion, which of the methods might suit your business?

If you’re a non-blogger, tell them how they can get your attention offline.

Week 1: Connecting with the Offline Customer: A Non-Blogger’s Perspective
Week 2: Targeting the Offline Customer: Do You Blog for Non-Bloggers?