Armed with modern technology at the cost Human touch?

Last night I was thinking about what I have done and doing for last 7 years. A sudden repercussion of neuron and I had my answer which is marketing (which again I am not sure how much is plain vanilla). Then there was another thought came creeping in, that this is not something I started working. Obviously as the time went by, along with corporate environment the marketing eco-system also changed a lot. From someone who saw this from ground zero, I think I have a ‘point of view’ about all these changes / movement / so called modernization (which is negative, to some extent).

But before you make your assumptions please read though. To start with let’s see about the innovation which came into the picture –

New technologies like marketing automation, statistics models (Being quite weak in maths, this segment translates as hebrew to me) changed the whole ball game. For instance, 

How I used to plan the marketing activities? Still remember those funnel planning to connect revenue with approx. number of leads or responses depending upon some numbers (they were easy though I must say than the current marketing models). Do we still follow this? I don't... I do it with the help of more statistical, probability models which seems to predict where we should invest and what to expect. But I don't think marketing is that easy. If you feel otherwise then would like to know with the growing complexity of marketing models did the results grown? Please don't tell me your sales has increased because that's bound to happen because of your existing brand value, increased market, increased budget of other companies etc. You are bound to get more than what you have got last year (Else you are almost out of business in this competition). If you are growing more than market's growth then I would say please don't rest of the topic because you don't need them your models and complexities are paying their price, but leave a comment so that I can learn something. 

What I feel about this whole scenario is, these technologies are taking out human touch. I forgot to understand our clients and started to define them with some attributes (e.g. persona) i.e. revenue, vertical, sector, employee number. And by doing so I might have increased the number of target market, responses, efficiency. But without increasing the conversion ratio, which resulted into nothing but ability to sustain in this market (either growing below market growth rate or running business as no profit organization). Personally I would say my previous work scenario was better because even though I couldn't target 100 people per day but I knew my target market personally. Because I had to understand each of them by their name not only by the attributes. Yes attributes then also played a role but not as main criteria instead it played a secondary subtle one to classify people. Now because of all these technology I missed that human touch to understand to each of my clients separately from each other. And along side I am not able to target them with their specific pain points and connect them personally.

This circumstance is available not only in marketing. For a better understanding lets take  another great example of this technological catastrophe. Think about your resume what it is today? A 2 page document with full of generic jargon's. Every-thing is point based, but actually point-less. We don’t feel like explaining things in details, at least for them who wants to read them anymore.  Lets think why this change happened? It’s because our HR friends (please don’t take anything personal friends because I might need your help too in future..) they search their fit for resume as per the key-words. But that doesn't give a proper selection panel / view? For an example suppose I have some previous experience in java, j2ee product selling and it’s mentioned in one line deep inside of my resume. But still I get java j2ee development job offers because our friends doesn't have enough time to check why I wrote those words.

Not sure if this helped anyone but creating a nuisance into the environment. I still understand that the volume of work is humongous. Adding up personalization into everything is gonna take 100% time than what’s current performance yardstick. And reading up resumes which are 5-6 page long is not gonna reduce the job. Instead I am advocating on the basis of penetration rate. Don’t you think if we are facing this issue it’s time for us to decide what we need, is it quality or quantity. I know many of us are thinking quality in our mind but while executing it, we will choose quantity way for it's thin risk distribution. I think this mindset is restricting our new ideas? Are we that afraid that can’t go beyond technology and place innovation above all?

After reading all these you must be thinking that I am against technology, I hate technology, sophistication, statistics. To all of you who are thinking in this way would humbly say that “no, I am not”. I love technology, automation but will withstand when technology suck out the best part us, 'human touch'. In current market it’s huge getting into this market without the help of technology will be a foolishness. Today’s market is not only driven but depended on technology like mobile, internet. So technology is the way-out and may be only one because traditional mediums are kind of either became or becoming obsolete day by day. But does that mean, there isn't a way to utilize the technology and personalization together? I would say “sure thing, mate” we just have to find the break-even point. Don’t let the automation do what you are supposed to do. Use your gray matter then take help of technology to make the best use of it. I would like to have a personal touch with every one of my clients, because there is no way better than hard-way. Because usage of internet and mobile doesn't change my client or their mindset, then why should I.

Sometime I also think about this if I am working in this way (without personalization), why shouldn't I be replaced by a fully automated marketing system which will automatically find its target audience based upon given criteria, finds out the best marketing campaign previously worked on them change it with relevant data (up to date numbers and stats again) and run the campaigns and then follow up. Am I doing enough to be relevant in this world? Am I using my gray matters (automation's can be the result of gray matter but can’t evolve because it’s not with them) to the best? I would like to use technology as a cart behind horse, but the horse.

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)

Personalized marketing glorified. Rightly so?

Personalized marketing indeed is a buzz word now. Reason of this new topic / technique / theory is same old reason of making marketing investment more fruitful and to make the process more streamlined & effective. But the beauty of marketing is its impact are not bonded or related directly into ROI. That's more of a sales thing, marketing can have its impact but direct sales values (obviously there are few specifically designed campaigns can generate revenue but without a guarantee). Marketing is more of an impact business, and convincing people for your clients. Coming back to the point topic we are here to discuss or dissect.

Before the start, we need to understand what is personalized marketing? It's not a rocket science but science of grass root. It tells about customers who are the very first reason we need marketing. Personalized marketing from its name itself means planning your marketing around each of customers differently. Even you will understand that all your customers are unique in their personalities, business patters, needs, demands, and aspirations. If your each customer is so different from each other how one marketing campaign can create the traction/requirement pull from all over of them. 

So is it something came from any alien planet? is it something we never knew about? Is it an invention or Innovation? Here comes the fact that previously we used to do the same with little more crude way i.e. segmentisized marketing which is again fading because of the very reason of its existence. So how it's different than segmentized marketing and personalized marketing? Personalized marketing is nothing but more refined (market research) and intelligent (statistical analysis) than its forefather. e.g.

Personalized Marketing = Existing Data + Market research + Statistics + Persona + Specialized Campaign Design + Segmentation + Marketing 

In today’s world need more targeted or pinpointed marketing where the concept of segment is each of your customers. One big benefit of this is your customer gets an overall feeling of personal touch in your communication towards them. It creates faith, trust that they will be in a hand who will visualize her/his profits or goods as their own. Problem of their own will be handled with a specific view which is very own to their company.

This concept can be best utilized or followed in B2C business and service industry than a product base environment. The basic reason for that is product is a result of customer requirement and has a static foundation. So the there is a static amount of rigidity comes along like a mobile banking app will not give you a Restaurant review (bluntly). All in all it does what marketing wants to do in the bestest way possible. It creates the visibility, along with trust. It creates brand as if it's your clients own extension. It's will delight your customers and push them to say Wow. Kudos to the concept. But is it viable in today's landscape where cost is still a big thing and companies are fighting a silo slow-downed business?

To understand that let’s talk about the concept in details along with some ground zero implementation part of it and find if it's worthy enough for a shot. I, personally would say yes and no. Why yes will be because it's a new concept, it has all potential to pay you back in near future. It  give you a delighted set of clients who will be happy that you are taking care / helping their business in the best way it can be done. You can have an awesome word of mouth business with the help your delighted customers and a good word about your services can make or break a deal for you. 

But (I hate to say this but word) is it all bed of roses no thrones along? I will say no (toad is making its sound again) there are hidden thrones which you will come to know once you start walking on these roads. Like there is fixed success way/method of doing it, or a ration of traditional / and personalized marketing (yes I am talking about hybrid model because I am skeptical enough to believe it 100%).  The main question of this kind of marketing model will be what’s the cost involved. Because from open play eye it's actually, but virtually impossible to have a campaign for each single of your customers unless you have less than 50 customers (its ball park figure). 

Let’s get into one step deeper; to have this kind of model implemented you need to identify different flags (e.g. Revenue, size, location, vertical, action points, recent actions, infrastructure etc.) of your existing customer base & pipeline. When I say flags it can simple means criteria. The accumulate those criteria s or flags into different division buckets to create a persona (persona is a fictional customer type with given attribute with maximum probability to buy your product. Persona is nothing but a set of customer, remember segmentation?). These personas will be your eyes and ears for whole campaign. 

These persona's will define how your customer will look like, what they do, how they do, how is their business, how you can help them. They will have pain points, happy points and delight points (You must have heard about the first one but the last 2, will have another blog explaining them). And you will build a campaign around each of these personas, why because these personas will have a set of background details and a set of problems attached to them. What you need to do the draw those relationship line, find out the actual issues and fit your product in such a way that your product is bet fit or built only for them. These personas will give you a glimpse of your segmented market and you will divide your target market into those segmented ones by matching those flags into your personas, and there you go. You have reached a level where you can start your personalized campaigns.

Now let’s think about what all channels are best fit for this (as per me digital is the best channel except CSR level contacts in a simple terms cheap is best) like TVC is the worst channel you can think of because of the cost involved. But on the other hand internet / digital / online channel seems to be an almost fit because of low cost quotient.

Let’s do a SWOT analysis of this concept and try to understand the summarized picture, 

Finally does personalized marketing really convince people? I would say being a customer myself, yes it does. For an example, last year I was traveling to my native place for a festival and I booked my tickets from an airline online through a merchant website. Now I didn't know they were tracking my travel, so this year I get a sudden call from the airline that I have a subsidized ticket during this year festival and I can book them within a month of time, with in this one month the ticket price will not change for me. So for personalized marketing there is a fair chance that I will book with the same airlines again. 

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)

13 Mistakes - What went wrong with my content marketing last year

I had a real roller coaster ride last year for all the content marketing campaigns sent in market. Then as usual I started thinking what might have gone wrong, I should thank numerous internet articles which actually helped me to switch on my wisdom light.

Now my analysis might misfire or back fire my next year but at least I am happy that, I have something in my mind to work on than try to get a bull’s-eye in dark. Here are some pointers which I have already identified.

1. My Content tried to sell than wanted to increase the awareness, create new demand. So I missed the main reason why am doing this.
2. My content spoke about my company more kind of bragging, as we are this and we are that. Biggest mistake here I made is I forgot that my clients have the most powerful informative tool in this earth i.e. internet. And they have more, faster, accurate information about my company than I do.
3. My content spoke about what my company can do than what clients are looking for. In the process of doing it I tried to sort out issues which might happen and this is a solution. Wherein I should have work around on finding out what roadblocks my clients are facing and then help them by overlaying our products as per the need.
4. I worked in silos. I thought whatever I am doing is unique in my company. Wherein others are doing same or better job on the same field. I kept on putting my foot on others toes and vice versa which resulted into sabotaging each other’s campaigns without even knowing that we are trying to accomplish the same thing for same company.
5. I am speaking too niche. I forgot one simple point that marketing alone can’t bring business (on a regular basis) without sales. I went on speaking niche, more niche and more niche where in while I went dipper I kept on targeting lesser number of target area than my previous target market. Marketing works for creating the ground which is easier for sales to play on.
6. One content multiple channels. I didn’t take in a count that different contents sell themselves differently on different channels. So I should have kept on eye on the combination on, for an example the content made for social media, display ad, 30 sec commercial, or an email can’t be interchangeable. Content should be channel specific.
7. Overdo of marketing. I crowded the target market with contents in such a way that I would have felt suffocated by the same. If we have a cheap and effective way to sending out contents that doesn’t mean we have to juice it as hard as possible.
8. Success pressure. I thought I have to be successful with all my campaigns and by doing it sometimes below standard campaigns slipped out of my desk which eventually failed miserably taking down yearly success ratio.
9. Quantity over quality. I thought it’s better to get in market on time even if the content is not up to the mark and vague. Which kept clients thinking that even though the information/content is useful but what exactly I want to convey.
10. Minimum action points kept clients looking for what to do with this and how to contact the company.
11. Too much of importance to the analysis data. Because by the time I acted on the analysis it was no more real time analysis made on real time data. So it’s all historical data I am working on thinking that I am ahead of time. Instead I could have changed the analysis by doing something new.
12. Reactive than being proactive. I tried to think about countering my competitor’s campaigns than trying to make something for which my competitors should plan counter. By doing so I can save my time and get some new campaigns in market meanwhile to keep my competitors so busy that they couldn’t spread out the right kind of content into the market.
13. Finally I forgot that Innovation is all that matters. I kept on doing the same campaigns which were successful last year or previous quarter and in the process of same I forgot to try and test new ideas. Where in new ideas are like short lived king life and you can do whatever you want to during your kingship.

2014 Resolution against my 13 mistakes

• Reuse of existing content.
• More client centric and client issue centric content
• Will reduce the number of campaigns
• No vague messaging and clear action points for clients to want to take some action
• Will keep in mind that marketing is for awareness and information sharing to create demand
• Analysis will be an important part of decision making, campaign selection but will try out new thing on 80-20 ratio (Where ratio of innovation and trying out new things will be 20)
• Will plan more on my clients demand than what competitors are doing
• Will not be running behind 100% success ratio

One new scenario I want to try to create this year. Create demand of marketing content, where customers will wait for my content. Will not flood with information and will bring measure in madness. I understand that it’s not a year’s job but at least I can start putting the foundation stone. This scenario can place my company to a thought leadership role where we don’t have to think about competition and we can become niche not only in offering but as a company.

I have to accept that client knows their problem better than me, they have enough information about their problems. What they want to listen is how easily, securely, cheaply, and quickly they can sort it with what I am proposing.

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)

Website Marketing?? Hmmmm a tough one…

When I start thinking about website or website marketing, there are couple of inevitable questions comes along with that. What is a website? Is it a couple of related web pages served from single domain? As described in Wikipedia or is it something more? Is it something which can be seen online? Is it something which starts with a www? Or is it some technical words junkyard? I think when the concept of website came into the market (if I am not wrong during 1990) and what it is now are two different arena all together, it’s like was a seed before but now became a race.

I can’t understand tough things, so let me make it simple for me (I am in 2013 and into digital marketing profession). Website is your online face. It’s because why people come to know you even though they do or don’t share the same language / nationality / interest / requirement / line of thought etc.

Now why do we need a website at the first place? During my work stint with different companies I found out it can’t be one single reason behind any business need and every business need should end with profit and loss balance sheet. Now let’s see what the advantages of a website are

• Reachability – we can be available for our client round the clock
• Clear representation of company, deliverables, people, credibility
• No confusion about what you are trying to convey, no loose talk no extra promise
• It’s less costly than any other promotional activity
• Works as a PR agent, sales professional, HR professional for you
• Less maintenance cost…So on and so forth
• Flexibility to the changes happening in your organization is faster
• You can check the performances faster than other medium

Ohhok.. I understand that website can’t be called and ground zero necessity for all business, but if you have to grow it’s a must have. It’s cheaper and works like many.
I am good till here but if it’s a must have while growing then why should I think so much about it. Now this is where I got real easy answer, let’s take couple of example which happens,

There is normal tendency in human being in today’s heavily connected wired environment is whenever someone come to  know about a company, reason might be anything from becoming a prospective customer / employee / news agency they tend to open internet and try to search for that company and then the most important thing happens. The website comes in front and in couple of minutes that person becomes judgmental about the goodness and authenticity of that company. For an example If we see a good website kind of jazzy looking full of color some people will feel good and thinks that it’s a good company wherein a simple white background might bore some people will say nothing good about it lets check out something else, now if this is happening with your website then you might be losing out your precious business opportunity or some cream of talents which can help you to take up the clients challenge. If we see a somewhat complicated website hard to find what we are looking for then it’s a waste most of us will say forget it not my cup of tea. Now being complicated might be helpful for you to pull younger generation but this generation will not come for business but for jobs.

And moreover if I am investing a single penny into it I should make sure it gives me back more than that. So let see what it takes to make it successful,

4 most important parts a website –

1. Design – Why design? Because if you have a chance to create your own face it’s obvious you want to have one of most beautiful one. Now I know beauty lies in the eyes of beholder and here it’s your eyes which is taking the call.  A combination of vibrant color is good idea until it’s not overdone or matching the concept of the business. For an example a marriage properties website will not suit black or white as it will with red.
2. Usability – Wow what an aspect, we all love gorgeous man / woman in our life who is less complex in mind :o). If your website looks awesome but I don’t know how to go to your contact page it’s a waste. So we should think as if we are school students / novice and design it. The usability factor actually doesn’t work hand on hand with design all the time. Designing an attractive website is easy but an attractive and ease usable website is not a piece of cake.
3. Content – Finally my favorite point and the most important point. Who likes a good looking person without brain? No one right. I think content plays the role of life in flesh. I have seen website which are too technically sound that layman people like me don’t find it interesting to read. Please prepare the website as generic as possible and more of a business centric. You have to keep another thing in mind that usage of right keywords are another most important part as it makes life of SEO professionals easy. And make it client centric, while writing your content please keep your client in mind and try to think why he / she should come and read your content. He is not increasing their knowledge as there are forums to help them with. They are coming to your website to learn and solve their existing / future problems or getting information if you worth their penny. Experiment with your content because that’s the only way out to become leader of your field.
4. Update – If your website is an instant hit don’t take a back seat, keep changing the content to provide better data, new information before they become obsolete, so that people who have visited website will come back again and again. Change the design as per visitors’ feedback because change is inevitable and it’s the only way you can be in business for a longer time.

Now as I said content is one of the most important part of a campaign lets discuss some more on that part like what might go wrong, don’t ask me why I am not discussing what will go right because if you are not going wrong then you have good chance of going right. But becoming 100% accurate with content is like mirage. So here are some points where we should not do,

• Don’t try to teach your clients, they know more than what is required because of online media
• Don’t write a history paper, follow the KISS theory with a D and respect your viewer’s time – Keep is Simple and Sweet and Dumb
• Don’t make impossible claims and don’t furnish incorrect data
• Don’t be selfish and speak only about you – remember people are coming to your site to find out if there is something useful for him / her.
• Don’t miss the story – everyone likes story telling. So if your content doesn’t have a story and continuation then there is no good reason to read
• Don’t miss the page content layout. Because once a customer lands into your page it might take anywhere between 10-30 page surfing for becoming a lead, but to get that you have to make sure they are surfing that many.

There are few more things I think I should mention here only to complete the story, They are the measurement matrix 

• Bounce rate – it’s the rate how many people closed your site on the first touch
• Average viewing time – it’s the time spent by viewers in your website
• Page view
• Organic traffic
• Inorganic traffic
• Search traffic
• And so on and so forth.. (There are many things in this world unseen)

I think till here we are all good in getting a website, measure them. So investment decision is done but how to find out ROI, the very one reason a business runs.

We can measure the ROI of a website, try to look into the traffic report which you can get from many way. Take a count how many people actually called your contact me number or mailed you in mail me option or chatted with one of your executive or dropped their details for you to get in touch with them. And you can see how it’s helping you in your business. These are very direct ROI of website but there are indirect ROI also.

Finally as there is say in sales that “every sales starts with a no” we can pull a similar one about website marketing i.e. “Every visitor can be your customer or influencer”

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)

Data – From Big to Small and Real to Old

From last couple of days I am thinking about different marketing campaigns their designs, usage of different channels and most importantly role of data playing in them. During this wasted thinking items I was asking one question to myself.

Is it a good idea to go after real time data or depend on your predictive models for marketing? Now let me tell you why I am behind data this time. If I am correct the most important and expensive piece in any planning is data. More specifically so called real time data, you must be wondering why I am calling it ‘so called’ when the whole world is calling it otherwise?

The main reason behind this is why we call it as real time is the data just came out of the system. It’s as true / valid as it can be. It gives you the knowledge of what your customers / listeners / readers / prospective customers / the WORLD is thinking right now or doing right now or looking for right now. It can make you king / queen as you have the power to use the data as you want to make you successful. Now after all these you must be thinking that if I am agreeing to this then why I am not supporting the concept of it? The idea of using the real time data and become successful is a myth.

Four points to support my points,

• Real time data are way too expensive and get the actual value becomes hard for some company
• Getting meaningful information from those huge / small and clustered / un-clustered data takes some time
• Mold your existing / planned campaign with respect to the market demand and the kind of information coming out of these real time data takes time
• Decision making process in every company takes its own sweet time depending upon the company size and decision making flexibility

In above four points last three ones can take any time between couple of days to weeks to months, which actually makes the data no more real time but old time. As you know real time data in consumers market changes every day and business market might be not that fast because but it changes every quarter. So by the time you are ready to take an action on the data it became invalid for current time as some vendor will be ready to give you real time data of that date.

Once all these thinking done, I was looking for an easy way out. And guess what I had one which cheaper too. Let’s use the older data (a year may be) and a proven predictive model to give you an answer of what you are looking for. I think the older data are cheaper than real time. And I always feel comfortable working with older data and a proven statistical models to get the answers regarding campaign planning. This plan does work for me (Would love to know your experience on this).

Exclude the artificial intelligence systems which are making use of real time data, because they are best combinations for this concept. Gist of it can be if you have to make use of real time data in proper way, prepare a human free model.

Now the question is whether you are ready to pay, loads for something which you can’t actually use as it’s sold. It would be great if you can let me know your take on this in comments below, as I love to change my concepts if I am wrong.

This is a personal scribble ground. The opinions expressed here are all personal they do not express any direct or indirect linkage to the organization I am attached to. But I love changes so they might be changing time to time. :o)