Marketing tips from Tinseltown
The truly transformative discipline in business is marketing. With one crystal-clear insight, you can remake your business (think of Google's pay-per-click advertising model) or take customer loyalty to a whole new level (see Apple's "think different" campaign)
Rick Spence
The truly transformative discipline in business is marketing. With one crystal-clear insight, you can remake your business (think of Google's pay-per-click advertising model) or take customer loyalty to a whole new level (see Apple's "think different" campaign).
The key is to stand out; to whisper where others shout, or vice versa; to treat prospects and customers so well they can't help but buy more. On a recent trip to Los Angeles, where popular culture gets reinvented more often than Jennifer Aniston changes her hairstyle, I was struck by several marketing ideas and initiatives that every business can learn from. Here are five solid-gold marketing lessons from Tinseltown:
— Just outside the Los Angeles airport sits a modern, nondescript office building. It stands out for one reason: it is entirely wrapped in a semi-transparent mesh that advertises Cadillac on one side and Nissan on another. It could be the world's biggest billboard (or the second-biggest, if you count the legendary "Hollywood" sign). Bold and colourful, these ads grab your attention through in-your-face audacity — and because the building is just outside LAX, they are seen by the most mobile, affluent demographic on the continent. Someone deserves an honorary Oscar for thinking up a daring advertising concept that makes prospects look twice at your message, and tell their friends about it, too.
I'm not suggesting you wrap your building in a sign (although it couldn't hurt to get a price quote). The building-as-billboard concept should inspire you to consider other breakthrough marketing tactics waiting for someone to dream them up. Maybe it's a new medium no one else has tried, or a bold value proposition no one else would dare -anything that elevates your message above the everyday hubbub. As Robin Williams' character urged his students in Dead Poets Society, "Carpe Diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."
Disneyland calls itself "the happiest place on earth" (a good example of the "bold idea" concept). But all that happiness doesn't spring from fairy dust -park employees, or "cast members," are trained to create the happy with every guest interaction.
For instance, Disneyland's gift-shop cashiers are taught to engage customers by praising whatever they're buying ("Isn't that cute?" "That's one of my favourites." "Oh, someone's going to love this!"). This makes park visitors feel good about the trinkets they've picked out, and probably encourages them to buy more. Happy, confident people spend more than unsure, nervous people do. How can your employees make their customers happier about what they buy?
— Back on the billboard front, I was impressed with the giant, high-def video screens found all over L.A. It's not just that they make the electronic billboards along Toronto's Gardiner Expressway look like tiny iPod screens; it's the creative intensity with which they are used. On Tuesday, an ad for the TV series Glee shrieks "TONIGHT" at you; on Thursday, an ad for a new movie amps up the excitement by saying "TOMORROW!"
The energetic timeliness of these ads create an unexpected intensity; instead of just advertising a cool new product, they urge customers to take action now. It's direct, interactive advertising where you don't expect it — 25 metres up — and it packs an emotional punch that transcends the visual technology. The takeaway for you: how can you make your marketing more direct, timely and personal — and thus more unexpectedly powerful?
— Customer service is an aspect of marketing that's often overlooked. In this age of "divert all customer activity to the Web," I was impressed by a customer-first concept from the airline I flew (Virgin America, which sadly is about to drop service to Canada). When I called with a question about my ticket, I was greeted with the usual line about having to wait while other customers are being served. But then they make you an offer you can't refuse: you can leave your number with the system and they will call you back as soon as an operator is free. You get to do something else besides sitting on hold, and (the system assures us), you won't lose your spot in the queue.
That's using technology to solve customers' problems, not just your own, and demonstrates how understanding client needs can help differentiate your business.
— Arriving at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits late in the day, I was impressed by another customerservice innovation. Since we would have time only to see a fraction of the exhibits, the museum halved admission fees for the last hour of the day. It's a win-win deal. Since we had already seen a number of outdoor exhibits, we didn't have to see the fossils inside the museum, but the discount made a quick tour much more palatable. And the deal doesn't hurt the museum, since the marginal cost of a visitor arriving at 4 p.m. is just about zilch.
How can you use dynamic pricing to entice marginal or reluctant prospects to become paying customers? What plausible (or even implausible) discounts can you offer to boost revenues without annoying loyal customers?
As Apple's Steve Jobs, now a big Hollywood player through Disney/Pixar, has noted, it's all about thinking differently.
— Rick Spence is a writer, consultant and speaker specializing in entrepreneurship. His column appears weekly in the Financial Post. He can be reached at rick@rickspence.ca.
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