Thinking like your customers when designing site navigation

By Lee Wright | Published: May 8, 2009
The home page of Organize.com with selected types of navigation highlighted.

The home page of Organize.com, with selected types of navigation highlighted

Much has been written about designing website navigation, but Organize.com does an especially good job of showing the kind of helpful navigation that results when you think like your customers.

By understanding that there are different types of customers that will be looking for things in different ways, the designers have created navigation that gives buyers many ways to find what they’re looking for—in spite of the fact that the navigation groupings fly in the face of the some of the traditional ways that people have thought about navigation.

Three very different approaches (also highlighted in yellow in the screenshot):

  • As seen in . . . — Navigation by magazine cover (with date).  The screenshot shows the expanded view that appears when you click on the link in the main nav.
  • Organized by color
  • Shop by brand

In addition, the designers have included a variety of other content categories, including . . .

  • What’s New—By date, making it easy for frequent shoppers to zero in on the items recently added to the site.
  • Video Library—By content format; a different way to engage buyers and stimulate interest in featured products.
  • Eco-Friendly—By item material and construction, though more likely this works as a psychographic profile of a buyer segment.
  • Clearance—By price (i.e., lowered); attracting the segment of shoppers interested in “a deal.”
  • Mrs. Organized—By application, with a blog written by in-house and guest experts.

Along with As seen in . . . , these are all in the same navigation area, the brown tabs shown in the screenshot.  What’s the common element that would cause one to group these together?  None whatsoever, other than that these work in helping the many different types of buyers.

Other main navigation items include . . .

  • Gifts and Occasions
  • She—A category that includes The Career Girl, The Hostess, The Mommy, and others
  • College
  • Kitchen, Closet, Bath, Storage, Shelving, and other locations and applications

As above, there is no logical reason that these would be grouped together.

In other words, if a person were to go through the exercise of thinking, “What goes together?” you would never end up with these navigation groupings.  On the other hand, if you were to think, “Why might someone be coming to the site?” and “What are they trying to accomplish?” and “What factors are most important to them?” one might easily end up with top level navigation that includes As seen in . . . , Kitchen, and Eco-Friendly and Shop by Color.

It all comes down to thinking like a customer rather than as an information architect, or at least the way many information architects have approached this problem.

And what brought me to Organize.com?  Trying to match a tall white plastic bin purchased several years ago at The Container Store, earlier today I stopped into one of their stores and walked down every aisle looking for the item.  I didn’t see it, and asked a clerk.  She summoned other clerks, I described to them the size, shape, style, material, and color of the item—I hadn’t brought it with me—and they said that they didn’t think they carried it anymore.

At home, I looked at the bottom of the bin and saw the name of the manufacturer molded into the bottom.  A quick Google search brought me to Organize.com, where I clicked on Shop by Brand.  I selected the manufacturer and clicked on “View all” when I got to the manufacturer’s page, and then quickly scrolled through what would have otherwise been 46 pages of items and found that they do make the same bin, though in a slightly different shade of white.  Total elapsed time from the Google search?  About three minutes, thanks to the site’s helpful navigation.

(The Container Store’s site doesn’t include the shopping brand as a navigation choice; entering the name of the manufacturer in the search box on the site returns no results.)


A note about the IDEA Process

In work for Nokia, GameStop, and other clients we developed the IDEA process: Iterative Development, Evaluation, and Analysis, which is a process for creating site blueprints (including navigation and information architecture) based on in-depth sessions with users interacting with current and development sites to complete tasks.

Posted in Channels, Consumer behavior, Marketing, Mobile applications, Retail stores, Site design, The IDEA Process, The competition between the Web and bricks and mortar stores, The economy, Uncategorized, Working with industry analysts, iPhone | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Misunderstanding the impact of technology on newspapers–Post #1,029

By Lee Wright | Published: April 16, 2009

Truth be told, you won’t find 1,028 earlier posts here about the impact of technology on newspapers, just one, but the number of posts and articles written on this topic in the last six months is easily ten times that figure.

Nonetheless, the lead editorial in this morning’s Boston Globe is a good example of those in an industry failing to understand impact of technology on the very function they perform and need they fulfill.

While much has been made of the “business model” of print newspapers and the fact that online ad rates are insufficient to support the same news gathering infrastructure as newspapers employ today, that line of reasoning assumes that the only difference that matters is simply a difference in delivery mechanism, from ink on paper on my front porch every morning, to online on my laptop anytime anywhere.

Instead, the ubiquity of web access and its broad adoption throughout society combined with the growing number of free, easy-to-use tools for collaboration and information sharing,  means that the fundamental way in which information is gathered, analyzed, and distributed is changing.

Gone are the days in which full-time employees (reporters) were the only ones who could spend the time needed to deeply research a topic and the only ones who had access to the needed people and documents.

And it’s those days that the Globe laments this morning when it describes the three examples of journalistic perseverance and fairness to be recognized tonight with Taylor Family Awards for Fairness in Newspapers administered by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard.

Read the editorial and the descriptions of these and other honorees and one immediately thinks of the way in which the web puts this information in the hands of so many and gives them the tools to analyze, collaborate, comment, and rate the analysis and discussion of anyone who wishes to participate.

Consider the most celebrated example of journalistic success from the past fifty years, the coverage of Watergate and the Nixon administration’s attempted cover up, and one quickly imagines that if this were to occur today that more people would come forward with bits and pieces, and others would help knit them together more quickly than any two men, however talented and persistent, could accomplish on their own.  (Would Watergate have given rise to the first wiki?)

The awards are, in fact, rich with irony, including . . .

  • They were created by former Globe publisher Bill Taylor, whose family owned the Globe for many years (before selling it to the New York Times Company) and under whose ownership lifetime employment was introduced.  Today, 435 employees at the Globe have been promised lifetime employment.
  • The awards are administered by the Nieman Foundation, which was funded originally by Agnes Wahl Nieman’s gift of $1 million to Harvard in 1937.  As the Foundation’s site states,

Her directive to ‘… promote and elevate the standards of journalism and educate persons deemed especially qualified for journalism‘ ultimately gave virtue to the concept of continuing education for working journalists.” [emphasis added]

With the web, the tools to gather and freely disseminate information broadly are available to all, regardless of education or station in life.

  • The source of money was her enterprising husband, who is also described on the Foundation’s site:

    The Milwaukee Sentinel Building (1911)

    The Milwaukee Sentinel Building (1911)

Lucius had a hardscrabble youth.  He lost both parents as a boy and was raised by his grandparents. Attracted to journalism at an early age, he started work as a printer’s devil when he was just 12 and rose quickly through the ranks to become managing editor of The Milwaukee Sentinel only six year later.  By 25, he owned his own paper, The Milwaukee Journal, which he ran for half a century.

Lucius’s lifelong commitment to telling the news fully and truthfully won the respect and loyalty of his readership and eventually, the Pulitzer Prize for the Journal in 1919.

Reading this one can’t help but think of the opportunities that the Web has ushered forth, including for men and women as young (and younger than) 12 years of age.

If Lucius were alive today, do you think he would have sought a job in the press room of a newspaper?  (He would have been barred from such employment based on his age alone, which is yet another barrier that doesn’t exist on the web.)    Or that, at the age of 25, he would have invested in a traditional print newspaper?

Posted in Industry evolution, The web and newspapers | Leave a comment

The impact of technology on the evolution of mass print media

By Lee Wright | Published: April 10, 2009

The Boston Globe is only the latest print mass media publication to wrestle with their cost structure—they are currently losing roughly $1,000,000/week—and with every incident, “Whither newspapers?” turns into “Whither journalism?”

The Boston Globe in somewhat happier times.

The Boston Globe in somewhat happier times.

This confuses many things, including what is created (a news story) with the means and form of delivery (ink on paper tossed on to my porch every morning).

A recent post by Doc Searls discussed different technologies and models that may be developed to support new payment and subscriber models.

My comment, which appears below the post, follows:

Interesting discussion, as always.

Observations from someone who grew up in a two newspaper (a.m. and p.m.) household, has subscribed to the main city paper everywhere he’s lived, and who can’t imagine not opening two papers (the WSJ and now the Globe) every morning:

- It’s helpful to understand whether a comment or conversation is about what we would like to have happen or what we think will likely emerge in the market and be sustained over the intermediate- to long-term.

- Various technology-driven approaches that require a modification of consumer behavior will be suitable for the (relatively) small number of people who who choose to make the change.  Some mass media properties will try them; others won’t.  Whether they survive at all will be based on that competition and the resulting business models that each is able to establish.  There is no reason to believe that all newspapers (really, traditional print mass media organizations) will choose the same model.  And of course some niche print and online efforts will be supported by subscribers.

- Little of the discussion around the fate of print mass media has reflected an understanding of the various value-creating components and the way in which they serve different audiences.

In the case of newspapers, for example, there is less value than ever in the traditional physical, branded collection of journalists, editors, and advertisers.

When a plane lands in the Hudson and you want an an up-close view of what happened, you may find it in someone’s phone camera images posted on CNN.  For a follow-up report on bird strikes and the response of manufacturers, airlines, and the FAA, the authoritative source may very well be someone who writes exclusively about the aviation industry for a niche site/pub.  There is no value added by having, in this case, a Boston Globe reporter trying to cover all of that.  They may, however, get the first interview with Boston-based passengers when they land at Logan, and if they do, the audience for that piece may be much larger than the audience for the Globe.

Aside from the editorial page, for online readers there is less of a connection between hard news sources and a masthead than ever before.  (The NYT, WSJ, and a few other traditional print newspapers are probably also exceptions.)

- Online, one wants to have a curated (by one editor or a crowd or a search utility) list of the news that’s of interest and an easy way to follow particular stories from the “best” source, which may or may not be from the source that broke the story.

The ability to do that online with near-zero costs for the reader exposes the fact that the traditional print media business model has a cost structure that people no longer need to pay for.  And with alternatives that many readers see as hard to distinguish, they see no reason to pay the premium.

- Online advertising is a surprisingly elegant solution for paying for content creation, despite the distaste of some that such a grubby commercial venture as selling things should appear next to articles.  After all, for many media companies that are publicly-held, the goal is to deliver target readers to advertisers.  Compelling content is the way that’s done.  Online advertising provides tremendous precision around this, with the ability to connect reader with advertiser in ways that heretofore weren’t possible

The fact that advertising rates are much lower online than in print is a function of competition among online content creators/publishers.

Print rates will decrease further as the decision makers at traditional print buyers (advertisers and their agencies) continue to be replaced with younger individuals who have no ties (mentally, emotionally, or socially) to the traditional print media advertising infrastructure.

- We will have fewer full-time traditional journalists in the future, just as we have fewer TV repairmen than we used to have.

- And the role of technology in the evolution of the mass print media?  As opposed to innovation on the payment side, broad, lasting impact will likely be in continuing to drive down the cost and increase the quality of the tools journalists (however defined) use to gather and publish news, the ones readers use to sift/sort/track and comment/share/rate, and the ones advertisers and publishers use to match message/offer with individual.

Posted in Channels, Consumer behavior, Industry evolution | Tagged | 1 Comment

Sipping Champagne in Sea Island Cotton socks and enjoying higher margins

By Lee Wright | Published: April 7, 2009

Manufacturers of commodities face the challenge of earning higher margins and ultimately higher returns despite the fact that they are selling commodities, or what might be perceived by many as commodities.

In food and now fiber, some growers have approached this problem by creating a brand for their products that consumers are willing to pay more for, and then limiting the ability of other growers to claim that their product is the same.  In many cases, the brand has evolved organically, with the name often initially associated with a geographic region and later codified into law through law or regulation.  Ultimately, by reducing supply and the threat of new entrants, these growers are able to earn a higher margin than they otherwise would.

Examples include . . .

  • Vidalia onions—Defined in 1986 by the Georgia state  legislature as coming from a specific 20-county region; in 1989 the USDA extended this protection to the Federal level.
  • Champagne—Only applies to what is produced in the Champagne region of France.  In addition to various international treaties, this designation is protected by the EU as a Protected Designation of Origin.  PDOs and related protections have been applied within the EU to several food products.
  • Sea Island Cotton—This was the surprise, but as shown by the holographic label complete with registration number (pictured below), an association has been formed to certify the use of this cotton.  In fact, the West Indian Sea Island Cotton Association has, at times, gone to court to protect the geographic exclusivity of their brand.

The West Indian Sea Island Cotton Association holographic label on socks made in Germany.

The West Indian Sea Island Cotton Association holographic label on socks made in Germany.

There is a related approach: Forming a cooperative or marketing organization whose members pay a fee to market their commodity.  One example of a cooperative is . . .

  • Ocean Spray cranberries—The organization is a cooperative owned by 600 cranberry growers and 50 grapefruit growers in North America an Canada.  In this case, the growers, by banding together, have created a brand for their product, which is a similar role to the one usually played by a traditional packaged goods company.

Some marketing organizations have been the closed due to the efforts of larger producers, which is what happened in the case of the state-chartered California Pistachio Commission.  Growers later formed the California Pistachio Board, which administers a voluntary program drawn up by the state department of agriculture and codified in the California Pistachio Marketing Agreement.

Elsewhere, some efforts to require all growers pay into a fund to support marketing of their commodity have been met with lawsuits.

Posted in Marketing, Price competition, Product differentiation | Tagged | Leave a comment

Misusing market research in assessing the demand for new services

By Lee Wright | Published: March 23, 2009
In response to an article reporting the findings of a recent global study by Accenture in which it was claimed that consumer market research showed “. . . 54 percent indicating their don’t want or need mobile video services:”

“This is a great example of research that is not helpful in making investment and partnering decisions, and this outcome could have been predicted before the study went to the field.

“Instead of asking consumers the questions in the study, try this simple thought experiment:

  • What percentage of the population watches one or more TV shows regularly?
  • Are there live events that caused people to seek out live TV wherever they were?  It’s easy to think of several, including the OJ chase, 9-11, the flight that landed in the Hudson, many major sports championships, and the inauguration.

“The question isn’t, ‘Do you want mobile video?’  Instead, it’s, ‘If you heard that [name of event] was being broadcast right now, would you be interested in seeing a live broadcast?  [If yes,] Where would you go to watch it?  If you also had the option of watching it right here right now using a high resolution color screen handset that you already owned with a plan that you already had, how likely would you be to pull it out of your pocket or purse and watch it now?’

“The challenge for the industry isn’t whether or not people want it or will use it once it’s mainstream, but rather developing the enabling infrastructure and identifying the business model that supports the reliable, affordable, easy-to-use delivery of live video.”

A later comment from another reader pointed out that the article immediately following this one proved the point that compelling live video content will pull people to mobile video, reporting this finding:

“More than 2.7 million unique visitors checked out digital coverage of Thursday’s opening round of the 2009 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship according to CBSSports.com, which adds that traffic increased 56 percent over last year’s first-day total. Perhaps even more notable, CBSSports.com reports that its new NCAA March Madness on Demand iPhone application, which provides sports live streaming tournament video to iPhone and iPod touch devices, topped the paid application rankings in Apple’s App Store.”

Posted in Consumer behavior, Market research, Mobile applications, New product/service introduction, Uncategorized, Working with industry analysts, iPhone | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Inside one of the world’s largest analyst firms: “Let’s set up a call and see if we get some money out of them.”

By Lee Wright | Published: March 21, 2009

In most categories today, traditional analyst firms play a smaller role than ever.

In 2005, however, while serving as the VP of marketing for a security start-up in Cambridge, we thought that commissioning global research from a well-known analyst firm would help the efforts of a large partner—they owned more than 150 companies around the world and posted annual sales in excess of $3 billion—who was investing in us and other companies in order to establish a presence in an emerging field.

As a result, I contacted a range of firms, from a small boutique that focused on this growing segment to one of the world’s largest firms that had offices around the world.  In my initial messages to them I explained the project and made clear that it would be paid for our global partner, which I identified by name.

In the case of the largest firm I contacted, I included a note asking about recent coverage, or lack thereof:

My message to the account person at the analyst firm

Kevin–

We continue to be mystified by some of the reports that come out, including the recent one that has no mention of [our company] despite the fact that we designed the architecture of one of the largest [deployments] in the world, the [name of deployment and client].

Can you shed any light on why in the Worldwide Identity and Access Management Market Analysis (Filing Information: August 2005, [name of analyst firm] #[publication number]) there’s no mention at all of [our firm], not even in this section:

Many Players, Many IAM Solutions
In addition to the market leaders that most IT shops are very familiar with, several newer companies have emerged in the IAM market over the past 12.24 months.

On another note, we’re talking to a few firms about the project I’ve described below.
If this is of interest, please let me know.

Best regards–

Lee

[Name of our company] has a very close relationship with [name of global partner], and we have recently identified an opportunity to work together to help advance the understanding of [technology] around the world.
To this end, we’re looking for a firm that is interested in the following:
- Creating a comprehensive list of [technology] programs around the world
= All government-sponsored programs
= Large, innovative, or otherwise notable commercial or non-profit programs
- Identifying and commenting on key trends.
- Profiling specific programs that are useful illustrations of critical implementation principles.
- Conducting quantitative and qualitative research on key topics identified in the data.
- Compiling this into an annual report available to selected individuals and (potentially) sold.
- Participating in joint press activities around the release of the results.

This is ambitious, and in the first year the focus may be on the basics, and especially the creation of the comprehensive list.  With the format and process established, later years might include more discussion of trends as well as primary research.

In the process of trading calls and e-mail messages in order to arrange a call with this analyst firm, the administrative assistant at the firm forwarded some of her company’s internal discussion when she sent the Outlook appointment to the several people from offices in the US and Europe who were to be on this call.

It is included below in its entirety, though some information has been withheld in order to protect (?) the identity of the firm.

The Outlook meeting request that I received from the analyst firm

Hello-

Below you will find the dial info for the above meeting.  Please feel free to contact me should you need additional information.

Dialing in from:

An outside line: 1-866-xxx-xxxx follow the system prompts and enter in the ID# which is xxxx

[location name]: dial into extension xxxxxx,  follow the system prompts and enter in the ID# which is xxxx

[location name]: dial into extension xxxxxxx, follow the system prompts and enter in the ID# which is xxxx

Here’s  the string of e-mails relative to this meeting:

Kevin,
I found some old notes about this company. It is a small company that has changed stategies a few times. It seemes to be more of a systems integrator than a product vendor. Given that they probay didn’t buy our report and their outrageous demand that we cover them, I’m a little leery.

The report they cited only covered Identity Management software. [Their company] seems to sell mostly hardware and system integration services. Sally will cover hardware in another report and Allan [witheld] covers SIs. As of Oct 1, this coverage is combined in a single CIS, Security Services & Identity Management.

As for their projects, it would be very, very expensive for them to complete this laundry list.

In any, let’s set up a call and see if we get some money out of them.

Chris
————————–
Chris [withheld]
VP, [withheld]
[withheld]
xxx-xxx-xxxx Cell
xxx-xxx-xxxx Office

From: Kevin [withheld]
Sent: 08/22/2005 11:23 AM
To: Chris [withheld]
Cc: Sally [withheld]
Subject: Fw: [Our] most recent report, and interest in a new project

Chris,

Here is the email I mentioned to you this am, thoughts/feedback?

Also, any interest or feedback on the project he outlines at the bottom of his email?

Thanks,
Kevin

Posted in Working with industry analysts | Leave a comment

Channel competition in the distribution of mobile applications

By Lee Wright | Published: February 3, 2009

In response to an article in Fierce Wireless, “New boutique App Store changes the rules of the game,” about changes at Apple’s iPhone App Store:

“I’m puzzled by the ‘playing fair’ concept.  Who set the rules?  Apple isn’t a public entity, but rather a for-profit corporation.

“There’s another puzzle here, though, and that’s the implication that this will somehow hurt developers.   As has been the case in the physical world, distribution and awareness can make a huge difference in the success or failure of a product or service.

“And anyone who has offered software for PCs through Download.com and others knows the challenges of competing against “free” products or those that have been some of the most downloaded.

“The evolution of the App Store will likely create opportunities for developers and for different business models that don’t exist today.

“Overall, distribution and the relative power of the owner of “the store” is simply another consideration for developers in choosing the platform or platforms they’re targeting.  And unless they own the store or have more power than the owner, they’re at their mercy.

“Any developer that lets himself get in that position will find that his only alternative is to shift resources to another platform.”

Posted in Channels, Mobile applications, iPhone | Tagged | Leave a comment

Success in recessionary times

By Lee Wright | Published: January 1, 2009

The landscape today is filled with an abundance of me-too start-ups. How many of these will be missed when they’re washed out by the recession?

In every downturn there are a few, however, with smart, committed teams that have found a niche and have an up-close, living, breathing understanding of the critical needs of their target customers. They’re working night and day to address those needs, and are ruthless in sizing up how they’re doing and adjusting their plans.

The recession may also help wash out some of the soft thinking in marketing, though here I’m less optimistic. For all of the analytics that the web provides, we still see the mad rush from popular tactic to popular tactic, with sometimes the most tenuous connection with the underlying business. It’s marketing plan by marketing tactic, following the dictates of Sales, or the overbearing direction of a founder CEO, or the crowd, doing what everyone else seems to be doing. (”We need a Facebook page!” Really? “Follow us on Twitter!” Why? . . .) In the echo chamber that is the web, a reassuring voice is never far away.

What’s missing? A strategy that links these tactics to a business objective. Without one, these activities merely drain resources–budgets, staff time, management attention–from what may be far more critical efforts.

One of the defining characteristics of those start-ups that will succeed is that everyone is pulling in the same direction, with the same vision and commitment. It comes in part by staying focused on the long-term while at the same time getting the execs and key members of their groups out into the field meeting with customers and potential customers, hearing from them directly and taking the responsibility to make sure that the company responds.

It’s both challenging and rewarding, and it’s the best way to make it through the downturn and come out stronger on the other side.

Posted in Marketing, The economy | Tagged | Leave a comment

“We signed a term sheet! Quick, get me marketing!”

By Lee Wright | Published: November 5, 2007

The message below was written in response to a plea from a colleague who was struggling with getting his organization focusing on the things that matter in the marketplace.  Names, of course, have been omitted.

“I sympathize with your situation, and it’s one that’s all too common: Lack of clear thinking and objective facts leads to decision-making based on power, position, and experience, with conflicts resolved along these lines.

“As is so often the case with start-ups, it appears that the hard conversations around just who the customers are and the fundamental nature of the business were never conducted, or at least never resolved clearly or correctly. And in the middle of this the CMO was brought in and charged with, among other things, redoing the website. ‘We signed a term sheet! Quick, get me marketing! We need Marketing!’

“In the minds of the leaders of many technology-centric companies, marketing = ‘Explaining to the world why I, the inventor, am a genius—using my words, of course.’

“This turns into directives to the new CMO, such as, ‘Re-do the website!’

“The superior approach, proven time and again, is to get objective information straight from the market—customers and potential customers—and then use that to make recommendations to the management team. The goal is to drive fact-based decision making, which is resolved through the creation of a simple document that would contain the elements of a creative brief. In the case of a site or other marketing material, the work product would be judged based on the implementation of the document.

“If this would have been done, the project’s goals would have probably been different.

“And in the absence of this approach, each viewer judges the site by comparing it to what’s in his mind. Of course everyone’s a critic of marketing materials (advertising, PR, websites) because the general perception is that anyone can do the work, and without objective measures of success, or the ability to clearly tie effort to results, every viewpoint seems equally valid.

“Because the basic issues about the company appear not to have been resolved or the wrong decisions made and wrong project goals selected, viewers are judging both the muddled thinking about the company (and the target customers) and the explanation of those ideas.

“Topline comments about the new [company name withheld] website (and the project goals you listed):

(1) Your company’s target customer is the owner of the site that will use your services. There is no need to introduce a brand that competes with your customer’s brand. In addition, with limited resources and a lot of noise in the marketplace, you need to focus your resources on the one brand that matters: The name of the company.

“Product- or service-specific names can be added on to the company name. . . . You could also use a ‘Powered by’ ingredient brand, which is the approach I implemented at CoreStreet, and which you appear to use in your fashion example. However, [your company] should be the focus; the ingredient brand is designed solely as a means to get other potential target customers to know that you’re out there and to make an inquiry.

(2) The site should speak to your target customers and should deliver this simple value proposition:

  • Signing up for [company's] service is the easy, low risk way to boost your site’s ROI.
  • You will make more money using our service than you will with any other solution
  • You don’t have to believe us or trust us because . . .
    • You don’t have to invest any significant time or money to get started.
    • If you ever want to leave, we make that easy, too. (We’d hate to see you go, but staying is your choice, not your contractual obligation.)
  • How can you be certain that your current solution is the best one? After all, other companies you trust have made the decision to use usor are us right now. And as more people—possibly your boss or his boss or your peers—learn about us, you need to defend your current choice, and that means at least meeting with us and taking a close look.

“One wouldn’t use those exact words, but would choose language that conveys that sense.

(3) There need not be anything flashy about delivering this message. And given the froth in the market, and since flash is often used when there is no content, erring on the side of straightforward and clear—dry, even—will make it easier for prospective customers to understand what you do and help convince themselves that they should invest the time to make an inquiry.

Along these lines, the customer quotes are critical, but they’re too over-the-top. (The CEO of [client company], probably your most important endorser, sounds almost breathless.)

Recognizing the fact that your customers don’t want to have their details revealed for all to see, these still need to be case studies, objective and believable.

There is some cognitive dissonance around this in two regards, since if you’re so great . . .

  • Why are these companies so willing to endorse you publicly?
  • Why is [client company] the only well-known company?

Also, why bury the fact that do you do business with [large number of] companies?

(4) Analysts may be interested in the creation of a new category and the intellectual pursuit of the distinctions [between established categories]. However, this distinction is really a distraction that is not meaningful for your customers. Their language (and that of their bosses and the owners of their companies) is revenue, profit, ROI, and the like. Win them over by talking to them in the language that matters to them. Save the rest for a white paper and an analyst presentation.

“If the company becomes very successful, then you’ll look smart at a conference in six months to a year by describing the theoretical underpinnings of the firm. Until then, get the company, including the sales and marketing effort, focused on what it takes to be successful: Making a difference in the lives of your customers by helping them increase the ROI of their sites.

“There’s a long list of specific items that should be changed, including simplifying the offering and creating useful category-specific examples and case studies, but they all flow from the basic points above, which should remain the focus of discussion until they’re resolved.”

Good luck–

Lee

Posted in Marketing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

“Would you consider yourself a shopper?”

By Lee Wright | Published: October 1, 2004

A good friend of mine, legendary retail entrepreneur Gary Hoover . . .


. . .  read some of Buying in a Post-Store World and sent a note that included this question:

Lee, would you consider yourself a shopper or not?   Do you like stores, hate stores, etc?

I love finding a great store, but there are so few.

I drive further to buy produce and meat at Central Market, and further to North Haven Gardens, a nursery with knowledgeable, helpful staff. I enjoyed REI’s flagship store when I was in Seattle. I still have fond memories of the Georgetown University Shop, a men’s clothing store located near the Georgetown campus where I shopped when I lived in Washington, Gimcracks, a store with unique crafts and decorative items located in Evanston where I bought several gifts when I lived in Evanston, and the Cameron Trading Post, which we discovered this winter along a desolate section of road on a Navajo reservation.

While this varies greatly by product category, my biggest frustration with stores is frequently the difficulty in finding useful information upon which to make a buying decision.

How many times have you asked a clerk about a product, only for them to fish around and begin to read the hang tag (in the case of a garment) or the box in which the product comes? I once explained to a clerk, “Literacy isn’t the problem here; I’ve already read the box. Do you know anything in addition to what’s on the box?”

I’ve given up on mass marketers reversing the tide and investing significantly in staffing and training, but even if they did, the Web is unparalleled in its ability to deliver a large amount of objective (or at least, more objective) information on products, from reviews in traditional media and insights from hobbyist and fan sites, to newsgroup posts and comments on shopping sites (Amazon, for example) from people who have bought the product.

In addition, the Web can also usually delivers more product details, including technical specifications and how the product is installed, set up, and used. Many sites are wisely making their product manuals available for download, which can be a great tool to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into before you buy the product. Thankfully, product manuals are written in a more detailed and accurate manner than most of the blurbs on boxes or in the short product descriptions in catalogs, all which are typically written by copywriters under the direction of marketing and advertising folks.

My second biggest frustration is figuring out if they have the item I want. Rather than driving all over town, sorting through racks and walking down aisle after aisle, then searching for a clerk to confirm that they don’t have what you’re looking for, the Web cuts through all of that.

On a recent trip to Borders I had some clues to the specific book I wanted, but the information I had was not well-suited to the only search tool that they provide, and the computerized search at the information counter returned hundreds of results when I tried to search for the cookbook I’d read about.

After about 15 minutes, I finally called a friend who I knew was probably near a PC. Within a couple of minutes, thanks to her Google search, I had the title of the book.

“Do you have it?”

The clerk didn’t know, and pointed me in the direction of the aisle where it would be if they had it. After searching through the stacks, I couldn’t find it.

When I got back I did a search on the Web, read the reviews, and learned that there was another cookbook that would probably be better.

Total time at the store: About 30 minutes; with drive time, about an hour.

Total time online: About 10 minutes.

(Note: Give Target Stores credit for investing in an integrated inventory management system that enables store employees to scan the shelf tag with their handheld scanner and then, after punching a few buttons, tell you whether they have anymore of that item in stock. This improves the consumer experience and employee productivity. )

My third is feeling confident that I’ve got the best item for me (i.e., the right product with the right features at the right price). Again, the Web’s ability to compare products is unparalleled.

So given my typical goals in product acquisition . . .

  • Will this product meet my needs?
  • Is this the optimal product (given the price-feature trade-off) to meet my needs?
  • Is this the optimal merchant (given trade-offs between price, return policy, shipping and handling, taxes, and delivery schedule, and overall confidence) from which to buy this product.

. . . I frequently find that the Web is the best way to maximize these, and then seek other avenues for entertainment.

For things that are difficult or expensive to ship, items where fit, texture, color, or finish are critical, items where there is a high value placed on local service,  perishables, inexpensive things I need right away, and staples I usually head to the store—the one down the street, that is.

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