Have you thought about personalization recently? Perhaps you just recorded and watched only the shows you wanted on your DVR, or you’re reading this blog (thank you!) through an RSS reader that brings you just the right content or you just custom-ordered something online made just the way you like it.

I was going through some email this morning and came across one from Starbucks that got me thinking about personalization. A few years back, I had signed up for the Starbucks custom card program. I put my name, the drink I usually order and a smiley face one the card. I felt good about it and used it often. Then they came out with the Gold Card program, which I happily signed up for…and then had to carry two cards, or put all my money on the gold card…so I shelved the personalized card and went gold… So much for the smiley face and all. Since their rescinding of the 10% discount benefit of the gold card, there’s no reason to have it and just this AM I switched back to my personalized card. Yeah… but so what, right? Who really gives a crap about my Starbucks card. Hold on…this is going somewhere.

Just this morning, I also read an article in the WSJ about Bank of America’s updated policy on overdrafts for their debit card customers. Basically, they are eliminating overdraft fees and will deny your purchase at the register…unless you opt in to a program that allows you to go into a deficit situation on your account.  However, this statement from the article gave me pause.

New federal rules on overdraft fees that take effect later this year will permit banks to charge overdraft fees on such transactions if a customer opts into the program. But some banks are struggling to upgrade their computer systems to adapt to different customer preferences.

Wow!  Struggling to upgrade to adapt to customer preferences.  Now, in the grand scheme of things, so what…but this is real work.  Enterprise systems don’t move on a dime (nor do the enterprises that run them for that matter) and infusing the discipline of customer preference into the inner workings of the enterprise doesn’t come easily either.  That said, aren’t we past that point already?  I mean, Neville Hobson wrote about “The age of media personalization” half a decade ago…and we’ve been advancing ever since, or so we thought.

The point here is this.  What systems, processes, sites, tools, outlets, inlets, portals and protocols are you working on now that could use a bit of ‘customer preference adaptation’? Have you considered it? Have your customers adapted and you haven’t? What if someone else adapts faster?

The Starbucks card example earlier is perhaps a quick and pedestrian example, but it’s a critical touchpoint in that it gives a customer the opportunity to take further ownership of the brand experience. Knowing just that and having that damn card in my wallet every day (which is a small bill clip and only holds a few things…so I’m very choosy about what I carry around) keeps Starbucks top of mind.  In fact, knowing that a local ATM remembers my preferences keeps me coming back to that ATM because it saves me something like 17 seconds every visit.

Take a few minutes today to rethink what you’re working on in terms of the ‘customer preference adaptability’ of it all.  Ask a few customers if you need to. Whatever it takes…but be prepared – the age of nuanced customers preference is alive and well.

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“”Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” — Henry Ford

I love the Olympics. For a few weeks every couple of years, you might as well just cancel my evenings and erase everything else on the DVR – it’s Olympics time!

Throughout the Olympics, we’re literally watching history being made. Comebacks, upsets, personal bests and records upon records being set and broken. It’s fascinating to see how in a moment, history changes forever. It’s more fascinating when you realize how years or even decades of training, history and failures have all culminated in history-altering success.

In businesses everywhere, we make history every day as well. Someday, you’ll probably have the opportunity to read a great business biography on Alan Mulally, Ford’s current president and chief executive officer. Mr. Mulally is re-writing history at Ford while you read this very email. If he maintains his current pace Mr. Mulally “will be credited with one of the great turnarounds in corporate history. His method has been to simplify, relentlessly and systematically, a business that had grown way too complicated and costly to be managed effectively”, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. It’s ironic that the success that Ford is seeing comes from bringing the company right back to Henry Ford’s original vision!

This brings us to your own organization. What history are you writing today? What history have you written already this year? Have you been paying attention to the records you’re setting, the comebacks you’ve made, the competitive upsets you’ve architected and the results that have come from your daily marketing efforts?

It’s been said that the unobserved life is not worth living. I submit that the “unobserved company is not worth marketing.” Look at the history you’re making today, track it, take notes, learn from it, and think of how much easier things will be when you look back next year on your results from this year. Marketing and sales are cumulative, yet some many of us treat them as ‘one-off’ activities. As a ‘going concern’ our job is to build, build and build some more…even if that building sometimes means tearing down and going back to basics.

Watch history in the making. It works for Olympians, it’s working for Ford, and it will work for you!

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Many attendees asked for the slides…so here they are.  Click through to Slideshare and download away!

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Focus is a discipline that many individuals and businesses struggle to maintain. Between the emerging opportunities, daily fires to douse, persistent issues and humans just being human, it’s harder than ever to stay on track. When you add in the compounding pressures of a challenging economy, we tend to lose focus chasing after potential revenue opportunities.

That’s not the case for Publix, the employee-owned grocery store chain, which opened 79 new stores in 2008 and acquired another 49 from Albertson’s. By comparison, Kroger opened 60 stores, Whole Foods opened 20 and SuperValue added 14.

Publix attributes that success to a single factor: customer service. Even though its short-term profits are down,

“Publix is staying at full staffing levels and lowering prices in hopes of keeping its existing customers happy and attracting new ones.”

The approach is nothing new. The retailer’s founder, George Jenkins, built Publix on a simple philosophy of customer service and, wouldn’t you know it, “the same relentless focus … is helping the company through the current tough market.”

That philosophy means that Publix president Todd Jones jumps in and starts bagging to keep checkout lanes moving (his first job at Publix actually was as a bagger). It means that the deli is staffed by eight to 10 people, not two (like most supermarkets). It means there’s usually a Publix employee handy to help shoppers find stuff. The Publix definition of customer service also extends to include its prices, which it has lowered by 20 percent on staple items even as its own costs have increased. Publix plans to open another 30 stores this year, and its sales per square foot ($548) is second only to Whole Foods ($820).

Action Summary:

Focus, focus, focus! Scan your operations and decide on one thing to apply relentless focus to during challenging times. Carry through with that focus as we head into an upswing you’ll leap-frog your competitors!

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If the call for policy and regulation is any sign of the maturity in an industry, the current buzz from marketing and HR departments about the need for social media policies to govern online social interactions could very well be a ‘coming of age’ sign for social media. That said, just sitting down and writing out a policy is not the end of the story. In fact, it’s barely the beginning.

Let’s step back a moment. In reality, most companies have an ethics, code of conduct and acceptable use of technology policy that will likely cover many of the challenges that arise in social media, as they’re the same across most media. That said, there are nuances, but a social media policy alone is not going to really make your organization ‘social media ready’. The ideal place to start in any organization is with training employees on the ins and outs of the social web and how to incorporate social media into their daily jobs. Show them how to use social media to drive business results and provide a framework for employees to increase their participation in social media and you’ll realize the business results that social media can deliver.

Finally, the best social media policy and education efforts come from a team of Legal, Marketing, PR, IT and HR professionals working together to ensure that everyone’s needs are understood and addressed. The team should meet at least yearly to address emerging opportunities and challenges in social media.

For a look at 105 Social Media policy documents from a wide variety of companies, I suggest digging into the Social Media Governance Database at http://socialmediagovernance.com/

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“If your customers cannot differentiate you, then they will fall back upon the one point where they can always discover distinction – price!” — Scott McKain, author of Collapse of Distinction

Distinction is in the Details

The only perception that matters is the customers’.

Price is the single worst point of differentiation for any organization in any industry. One of the great things about being a marketer is that I tend to walk around with a ‘marketer’s mindset’, looking at nearly everything through the eyes of marketing. Yes, I know, that’s limited, maybe shallow and not that exciting for many of you, but for me, it’s a blast. Last week held a special treat for me in that I made a first visit to a local restaurant that’s full of little points of distinction. In fact, I took several photos with the phone while we were there just to capture the little things that I thought were ‘distinct’. The owner clearly followed, whether by intent or by default, the laws of distinction.

In his book, Collapse of Distinction, McKain tells the story of why Roger Ebert, the film critic, gives such high marks to foreign films. Oddly enough, it’s not that they’re ‘better’ along the lines of film fundamentals that we might all judge a film on, rather, they’re simply ‘distinct enough’ from the traditional films so as to seem superior, if only for a moment. We call that “The Ebert Effect:”

“When people, from their perspectives, are inundated with indistinguishable choices, they perceive product, service, approach and experience with a specific point of differentiation to be superior.”

McKain’s four cornerstones of distinction are simply:

1. Clarity (develop clarity in who you are)
2. Creativity
3. Communication
4. Customer Experience Focus

What does this cost? Better question…what’s it costing you by NOT being as ‘distinct as you can be? Come to think of it, I can’t tell you what our bill was (and I almost always remember) because I was so enamored with all of the distinctions that everything else faded away… Will we be back… You bet!

Q&A | QUESTIONS & ACTIONS

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create small, solid points of distinction that are recognizable and important from the customers’ perspective…because customers perceive that different is better.

What are you doing today to be genuinely distinct in your business?

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This is my favorite type of story and it’s one of my personal favorite marketing tactics. Edge out your competitors by helping out, in some meaningful way, with an organization that can really help to grow your business. More to the point, it involves pets…which always gets my attention.

What story am I referring to?

Well, this week in the Wall Street Journal, Cheryl Staab’s dog walking business, DogCentric Inc. was featured as a great ‘fast fix’ marketing case where she has effectively muzzled her competitors and gained a strong foothold in the market by providing some greater good in exchange for warm leads.

Cheryl volunteers to walk the dogs at the Washington Animal Rescue League, a local non-profit animal shelter and rehab facility. In turn, when they turn a pet over to a new adoptive owner, they actively recommend Cheryl’s services as their sole dog walking partner organization.

“[I wanted] to reach $1 million in [total] overall revenue before I was 30,” she says. The revenue that DogCentric posted in 2009 helped her reach that milestone, just in time for her birthday.

The partnership has provided an unexpected outcome, too. “We see some of the [shelter] dogs again as [adopted] customers,” she says. “It’s a Cinderella story.”

We recommend this to nearly every business we’ve ever worked with. Get involved in your industry, help out, volunteer, do something good, do something cool and the in-kind rewards will come your way. They always do, as they have for Cheryl.  It’s not always an easy sell, but I’ve never seen this pay anything but positive dividends(oddly enough…to the best business owners, you never have to sell it).

For those of you who are interested in this concept and are looking for ideas, here’s a few to get started.

• First, we look for organizations in our area that we could benefit. We work with a few non-profits on a pro-bono basis and have seen numerous leads come from those relationships. Look for an organization that not only fits your industry, but also for one that you have passion for and can maintain a strong personal and professional connection.
• Second, look for how you can give and give, to solve a very real challenge for that organiation, before you ever expect to recieve anything in return. That’s exactly what Cheryl did and it’s exactly what we do.
• Finally, make sure that your entire team is involved. The best cultures and the best companies permeate the entire organization and the spirit of giving, sharing and being involved in the community is best done with the whole team on board.

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Einstein said, “If it weren’t for time, everything would happen all at once!”

Some business owners may think that’s how marketing and sales happen for their business – all at once. It’s either all or nothing. The fact is, the path to purchase begins well before someone enters your store, gets a referral, sees your ad or gets your email. According to the Advertising Research Foundation, “Whenever a person begins a process intended to end in purchase, they have started down the path to purchase and are shoppers.”

Social media can help you market to consumers, shoppers and prospects at multiple points in the path to purchase, but you have to think through what that path is for your business.  The pressures of time, price and lifestyle are driving consumer decisions and should drive your social media participation. Get started by thinking about your path to purchase in these categories and mapping your social media activities to each of them:

Awareness → Attraction → Engagement → Motivation → Activation

Perhaps you need an approach for learning about consumers in your area and what they’re thinking? Start “listening” in social media. Perhaps you need to integrate current customers into the mix. Start a social media community (Facebook page). What if you wanted to capture people when they started to search? Start a blog and improve your search engine rankings.

Social media gives you the power to make relevant connections with your customers at multiple points along the path to purchase. Focus on how you can “engage” and “motivate” them, as these are the key catalysts for purchase, and you’ll be miles ahead of your competitors who are standing by the social media sidelines. 

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With a tip of the hat to Patrick Lencioni, author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, the following are the five dysfunctions that keep organizations from reaching their peak potential with social media.

1. Absence of Trust

The first dysfunction is the absence of trust in social media as a concept, mistrust of employees, a mistrust of customers and an all around feeling of invulnerability, when, in fact, it is this very absence of trust that makes organizations more vulnerable than ever.

Lead by example, start the conversation and invite all comers. Trust that your customers want the best for you and for them and engage with them on the social web.

2. Fear of Negative Comments

Everyone gets a good or bad review at some point. Embrace it — and in the case of a bad review, don’t sweat it. Look at every comment as an opportunity to have a conversation.

You can’t control the conversation, but social media gives you the opportunity to re-frame the conversation and influence the outcome of the situation.

3. Lack of Capacity and Commitment

Organizations “bolt-on” social media as if it were just another marketing outlet like a billboard. It’s not, and your commitment and personnel capacity devoted to social media needs to reflect the commitment you have to customer intimacy. Make it a priority to devote your most passionate team members to engaging with customers in social media.

4. Avoidance of Metrics

Social media may not be about hard ROI metrics, but rather may be a key influencer of brand reputation. Most companies actually use a mix of hard and soft metrics to calculate the effectiveness of their social media marketing programs.

5. Inattention to the Audience

Marketers that get caught up in the ‘bright shiny object syndrome’ of social media often neglect to ask their customers how they’d like to engage in social media. Do everyone a favor and ask the question before jumping into social media. Relevance is king.

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2. Social Media Survey Results – A Report on the State of Social Media in Northeast Wisconsin
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