Catch 'em early

Everett Rogers described the Early Adopters as:

(1) integrated part of the local social system,
(2) greatest degree of opinion leadership in most systems,
(3) serve as role model for others,
(4) respected by peers, and
(5) successful.
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These people are critical because they carry your innovation into the profit zone.

Cheers!

Vive la difference!

In the 1940's, two sociologists, Bryce Ryan and Neal Gross published a seminal study of the adoption of hybrid seed among Iowa farmers.

Based on this study, in the 1960's Everett Rogers proposed a five-way classification: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards.

The categories are based on the normal distribution (bell-curve) and each category is one standard deviation wide, except for 'laggards' which is 2 standard deviations wide.

Innovators represent the first 2.5% of the population, Early Adopters the next 13.5%, Early Majority the next 34%, Late Majority the next 34% and Laggards, the remaining 16%.

In the 1940's report, the first farmers to adopt (the innovators) were more cosmopolitan (traveling more frequently to the big city, Des Moines) and of higher socioeconomic status than later adopters. One of the most important characteristics of the innovators is that they require a shorter adoption period than any other category.

Other traits of the innovator type:

(1) venturesome, daring,
(2) substantial financial resources to absorb possible loss from an unprofitable innovation.
(3) can understand and apply complex technical knowledge, and
(4) can cope with a high degree of uncertainty about an innovation.

Is there a market in the gap?

You see that juicy big opportunity in the market? Quick! Let's move on it fast...

Oh, no. Where did all our money go?

Yes, there is a gap in the market. But is there a market in the gap?

Why hasn't someone else seen it? Chances are they have..

Proceed, but proceed with caution.

WAKE UP!

GOODMORNING!

I'M SHOUTING TO WAKE YOU UP TO AN OPPORTUNITY!

The babyboomers are inheriting. Right now. You can hear the assets being transferred all around you.

We are in the middle of the greatest transfer of wealth know to mankind. Trillions of dollars are sluicing around - all of it unearned and most of it not ear marked for anything.

IS your organisation getting a slice of the action?

Those crafty Christians

A thought for Easter Monday morn...

Marketers can learn a lot from those crafty Christians. To baptise 10,000 English pagans, including their king, on a single afternoon was a feat. To convert the entire population of Iceland by means of a public debate was spectacular.

How did they do it?
They converted the masses by making it easy to make the change. Softly softly catchee monkey.

They didn't destroy their temples and altars, they simply redecorated them. They didn't ban their pagan festivals, they 'repurposed' them. So Christmas - which could not have seen shepherds watching their flocks by night in Palestine in mid winter - was chosen because it was the pagan festival of the birth of the Sun - the winter solstice. Easter was chosen because it was the pagan festival of rebirth and fertility.

Those Christians were flexible. They designed the product to suit the customer - customised it for each region until they had market dominance.

Then they did a Microsoft and made it 'whatever Bill decides'.

You'll find a similar strategy for " Crossing the Chasm" in Geoffrey Moore's book of the same name. Niche until you dominate.

Christ's Message for Marketers

How did a small cult become the official religion of the most powerful nation on Earth?

Jesus Christ was executed in the most humiliating way the Roman Empire could devise - crucifixion. The victim was completely deprived of dignity and held up to the derision of the world. For the Romans, within 500 years the sandal was on the other foot. They were bowing down to Jesus as his cult had become the official religion of the Empire under the Emperor Constantine.

500 years is not a long time when it comes to growing from micro-cult to official belief system of the western world.

How did the Christians do it? What lessons are there for marketers?

Product: They had a radical new God the Father who loved each individual like his child. The God of the Jews was a ferocious vengeful jealous God. The Gods of the Romans were equally cruel and fickle. The God of the Christians spoke to the masses, the prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, fishermen, widows and orphans. Jesus said God was inside the weakest person. He was the God of the Lowest Common Denominator.

Logo: The Cross is an instrument of torture, a symbol of humiliation. Hardly a proud symbol for a conquering army. But It was used in a powerful way. It is stark. Anyone can reproduce it. And it carries the core proposition over and over: JC died and rose from the dead - defied death - and you can too.

Sales message: "Love". Long before Kevin Someone from saatchi & saatchi "invented" Lovemarks, the Christians were leveraging 'love'. Christ gave a new commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you." The early missionaries knew their message would appeal to women more than men. So, when going among the pagan races they recruited the wives and mothers of the male rulers and, as we know, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the nation."

Loyalty program: The Christians invented a points system for earning a place in Heaven. It was called "Grace" and you earned it by good works and holiness and you lost it snakes-and-ladders style by erring towards the dark side. The best part about this loyalty system is that no one could tell if anyone ever got the payout because you had to die to find out. Brilliant!
Ya gotta have faith!

Marketing communications: The Christians took the Jewish literature and added a few of their own items, and voila! They looked like a big established religion overnight. Their literature was all stories that simple people could absorb.

Spokescelebrity: JC was a natural. He spoke to the heart. He used parables. He was a brilliant orator and performer. And he had a huge voice - because he could talk from on top of a mountain and all the people around could hear him. He performed miracles. He was able to levitate, appear in two places at once, turn water into wine, and raise the dead. He earned his status as Brand Spokesperson of the Ages.

Customer support: The Christians started out with a party plan. People would meet at one believer's home and eat a meal, sing a few popular songs of inspiration, and share 'fellowship'. The entire operation was decentralised for hundreds of years before the bureaucrats took over and wrote the rules.

Product extensions: Absolute flexibility was built into Christianity, so that today you can find its brand name and logo used by vicious haters of their fellow men and courageous lovers of their fellow men, believers in the death penality and believes in "Thou Shalt Not Kill", by thieves and brigands as well as Good Samaritans.

I could talk about how the Christians took over pagan festivals like Easter and Christmas and made them their own.

This could go on and on... Like into Eternity.

And it all started with a young carpenter's son in a backwater of the Roman Empire during the rule of Caesar Augustus around whom there grew a cult.

Any one with a mouth

When Mo and Jo (a couple of Aussie jokers) were part of Chiat Day-o they pitched the Coke account in the US, so legend has it. After strumming their jingle to the boys from Coke, they were asked, "And who do you see as the target audience for our product?" to which one of them laconically replied "Any c--- with a mouth..."

They did not win the account.

I met a client last week who believes his core target audience is anyone with a pulse and a wallet. Encino Man. Preserved in the ice. Direct from the 1960s. I wanted to take his photo.

He has a vanilla product in a highly segmented market and he's wondering why people aren't beating his doors down.

Hey, Encino Man. The Mammoth went that-a-way.

To hide in a forest

If you want to hide in a forest, look like a tree.

If your advertisement looks like a tree in a forest you have failed the first test.

It will pass like a ship in the night.

Clients without courage force their agencies to produce wallpaper.

Every client can buy the same 30 seconds of air time or page of publication. It's what you fill the space with that makes the difference.

Clients who refuse to maximise return on media dollar invested are committing the crime of negligence against their shareholders.

Looking around you can see that the majority of clients should be fired.

When you look at a group photo...

When you look at a group photo that you are in, whose face do you search for first?

Your own? Don't be so surprised. We are obsessed about ourselves, by nature.

How much can we hear about ourselves?

Endless amounts?

So who does a prospect want to hear you talking about in a sales letter?

Themselves?

And how much of the letter should you devote to them and how much to your company?

I'll let you decide...

Winking in the dark

"Trying to run a business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark."

Now, try using that in a presentation these days...
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Stand naked

Imagine a room full of people shouting at a person standing on a stage, trying to get their attention. That's what it is like when you are trying to get your message across to a prospect in a market. The one who stops shouting and quietly peels off their clothes and stands naked (or does the equivalent) will stand out.

Some are more equal....

I promised to tell you why some companies - especially telcos and banks - treat people like s---, as though the customer service revolution had never happened.

It goes like this: there was this guy called Pareto who worked out that 20% of your customers give you 80% of your business.

You could work out who they were by looking st your books This came as a revelation to many companies, who used the 80:20 principle as a means of allocating resources.

For the fortunate 20%, times got better, but for the 80%, things got worse. Prices and fees went up, service levels fell.

So now these companies are working on a principle that it is good business to p--- off the majority of your customers.

S----- f----- i-----!

When the customer is wrong...

The following was carved into a giant rock that stood outside the doors of Stew Leonard's "Dairy" in Connecticut, USA. In the late 1980s it was the most profitable grocery outlet In the world. Then Stew got into some trouble with the IRS and I lost touch. But the message remains valid and instructive:

"Rule No. 1: The Customer is always right.
Rule No. 2: If the Customer is ever wrong, read Rule No. 1"


The way some banks and telcos treat people, you'd think the customer revolution hadn't happened. (I'll tell you why tomorrow.)

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If I had a hammer...

I'd hammer in the morning, I'd hammer in the evening, all over this world...

If all you hold in your hand is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

If you ask an advertising agency to solve a marketing problem, the solution will be advertising, whether or not advertising is the most appropriate solution.

The same can be said for PR firms and DM agencies.

If the solution you are offered is one dimensional, choose another supplier.

I had no thoughts yesterday

...so here's two for today:

1. Marketing is a life skill. It's about creating the conditions within which getting what you want is inevitable.

2. Don't take anything I say seriously. Or anything anyone else says.

3. Always deliver more than you promise.

Fish where the fish are

This sounds like the bleeding obvious, but you'd be amazed at how many companies spend money talking to people who can't or won't buy their products. How does a television advertiser know there is anyone watching their ad?They don't. They are fed crap by television stations called TARPS (Target Audience Ratings Points) that are measured by some witchdoctor's formula that says it can tell if the lounge chair in front of the tv set is empty during the breaks. Ratings, schmatings. It's amazing how much faith some marketers have - truly religious zealots - in TARPS. I say show me the money. If I'm gonna spend a fortune keeping Kerry Packer's zillionaire kids in a manner to which they've become accustomed, I want proof that Channel 9 actually sells something. I'll believe it when a viewer calls a telephone number on the screen and goes on to buy my product... Either right there and then or soon. "Real Response TV" is a great new idea of mine - invite people to call or email or dial up a web site and interact with the brand. D'uh!

Pain

I posted this on my Man Overboard blog about human love, yet it contains a message for marketers.

..........

Everyone in the world is in some kind of pain.
Feel it, and you will understand them.
When they feel you understand them, they will hear you.
Only then will you know what to say.

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Except the marketer is inclined to change the last line to:

Then you can sell them anything.

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

It's an oldy, but a goody. And it says much the same thing. A con artist is a 'confidence trickster', someone who gains your confidence for as long as it takes to relieve you of your money.

So the insight above about pain is like any power - it can be used for good or evil.

We can take advantage of another person's vulnerability or we can respect the privilege they have given us by opening up.

Everyone suffers from pain of some description. For many it is physical. For many more it is emotional pain - memories of past trauma, anxiety about the future, fear of patterns repeating themselves. For the vast majority it is the pain of loneliness, which is in epidemic proportions in our society. And for many there is the spiritual pain arising from a sense of meaninglessness of life. Most people spend their time running from the fact that their time here is finite and that one day they will die. We fill our lives with amusements and obsessions while the Grim Reaper stands waiting at the back of the room. And the question this forces on us? What does it all mean? What is the meaning of my life? The lack of a satisfactory answer brings pain.

Buddha's great insight was that the whole of life is suffering. And he developed his system of spiritual practice to eliminate suffering - which he said was caused by our attachment to the material world. The principle of Surrender that I recommend in the book man Overboard is a Buddhist principle. It is also a Christian principle. Surrender to Christ, and, through Him, to each other.

Each of us bear our private pain courageously. Just living through a day for many is a triumph. But the light comes breaking through the clouds when another human being acknowledges our pain, can feel what we feel. These moments confirm our existence and affirm our goodness. Finding someone who does this can be like falling in love. I suspect there is a good deal of this behind Infatuation. Perhaps the illusion of genuine understanding.

The word for building such a bridge across people's pain is COMPASSION. Christ was said to be full of it. Mother Teresa's compassion was legendary. We all have the ability to be compassionate, like the Good Samaritan.

The Dalai Lama, who doesn't believe in romantic love, says the two building blocks of human love are empathy (identifying with another person) and compassion (feeling their pain).

In fact compassion means, literally, "suffering with" another. Walking alongside someone. That's how a Christian Brother described his version of Christian love.

When someone attacks you or is angry with you, and you can understand that they are simply expressing their pain - searching for someone to acknowledge it - you will feel less inclined to counter-attack and more inclined to seek to make peace.

If you can see all the people suffering and feel a little of it, you can grow your heart, literally. You can grow your ability to feel love.

You also grow your ability to sell stuff to people.

Now ain't that something?

Act boldly!

"Act boldly and mighty forces will come to your aid."

I found this statement in Reader's Digest.

Don't be put off by that. The statement is true. The difference between success and failure is not that you got beaten by someone else or circumstances. Most of the time we fail because we don't even get on the starting blocks.

Woody Allen says 85% of success is simply turning up.

Look at the great brands. Not one of them has been built by meekness. Aggressive self-belief and dramatic action typifies success in marketing.

Zigging when the others zag. Risking ridicule. Almost inviting it.

Now I met with a 'client' recently who has been in the marketing boss's chair way too long. This person can't act boldly because they have so much to defend. And they are afraid that any time the knife will drop. Probably a great marketing operator stifled by having too much to lose.

This person tells me they know their customers - plainly bullshit. It's a very rare company that knows its customers at a level they need to for making intelligent decisions. Do you know their favourite radio announcer or the last book they read? Those that do know their customers well vibrate at a higher frequency than this organisation. My task: to win the client's confidence and free them from the shackles of office to make bold decisions.

I'll write a paper just for him, on 'customer DNA'. That ought to cheer him up.

You can't do good work for a client who's afraid. The best and most spectacular successes I have engineered for clients have been for those who had more faith in the solution than even I had.

Anyway, back to the topic. You make your own luck. If you expect to fail you will. Even if it's the wrong thing to do, do it boldly and you'll probably win through just through impulsion and energy.

If someone asks me can I do something, I say "Yes" and then go and find out how to do it. That's a risky strategy, but it works for me. Takes me out of my comfort zone, into the danger zone.

Dancing in the danger zone... Nothing like it!

...Without attachment to the outcome...

What happens to a golfer when they choke? The downside risk of the shot gets to them. That's attachment to outcomes. When you have filled your mind with the experience of your successful outcome, you close your mind to doubt by removing the emotional attachment to success. Adopt a "so what" attitude. Relax. When Arjurna is called upon to shoot a fish in the eye from 100 paces in order to save his son's life, he asks Krishna what to do. Krishna says "See only the eye." Focus and relax.

Doesn't sound like a marketing idea?
Every move you make in marketing should involve risk.
The best marketers are always in the danger zone, on the frontier.
Watching other people choking.

...Then act!

Start with the end in mind (continued).

Visualise success.

If it is a new product concept, write the ad for it.

If it is a launch, write the news report.

If it is a presentation, picture shaking hands on the deal.

Then act...

With no attachment to the outcome.


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