Marketing Insight Archives - Page 12 of 15

Magnation – great battle story

Posted on April 22, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Last night Sahil Merchant the founder and CEO of Magnation (uber terrific magazine retailer) gave an inspiring talk at the Hive.

It was great to hear a great battle story, and not some story by an egoistical rich guy. A real battle story. His honesty was brilliant, and everyone loved it. Rather than re-tell it – I’ve used the power of twitter and and captured all the tweets with #hivemelb from last night which occurred while he was speaking in real time. It’s very interesting to see what caught peoples attention.

Read bottom up to see the tweets in order of occurance.

Steve Sammartino

When seeking investors

Posted on April 10, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Here’s some simple advice when seeking investors for your startup.

Never use the words ‘The Next’…

picture-411

Regardless of the uber successful business which follows these two words it just isn’t going to happen. For two reasons. The first is our probability of being this successful is almost non existent. Secondly if we are this successful, we wont be the next, but something new.

The main point is when people use the words the next, they lose credibility. And when someone says it to me regarding their new business venture, I find it hard to believe anything they say after that.

Best Packaging Ever

Posted on April 6, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

What does great packaging look like?

Chances are you will have to package your widget for your start up. Or at least something in your new business. I often ask people the best packaging they have ever seen. Coming from a consumer goods background I get a lot of varied answers, but never do I get the answer I propose the be the ultimate.

The banana:

Easy opening, but only when it’s ripe

Consume straight from packaging

Changes color from green to yellow as it nears its zenith

Quality of each unit verified by packaging

Built in ‘used by date’ indicator – packaging changes color – so awesome.

Category defining

Gives off product fragrance

Uber Ergonomic design & handling

Ship in packaging with mutlipack nesting design

Childproof

Protects interior

Biodegradable

Oh, I nearly forgot, good for slipping enemies in a car chase.

What can you learn from Nature?

How would nature package your product?

Southwest Airlines – customer service

Posted on April 6, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a nice piece of personal input from a staff member at Southwest Airlines. Although they do have a reputation of doing things a little different, the thing that really matters is the fact that they let staff ‘add value’ and be real people.

I like it…. I’d be interested to know if you do, or if you’d find it annoying?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0KbDUUt63M]

For startups, simple service innovations and staff input cost almost nothing. If you’re lucky, 25,000 people will see it on the internet!

Creating Brand Loyalty

Posted on April 4, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Here’s a list of brands for which I am personally brand loyal with. And to the right of each brand I have a given a reason.

Brand & reason
Qantas Domestic: They are the only full service domestic airline in Australia.

Ripcurl Wetsuits : They are simply the best quality, and the warmest. I will never, ever switch as the cost of getting it wrong is $600+ mistake. I also love the brand history.

Collingwood FC: I am a fan and I support the club, in this category performance wont create switching, but it does reduce my purchase frequency

iphone: I love it’s seamless funcationality and integrating so much, I find it hard to believe a better option will ever exist. I don’t even mind putting up with a few dropouts

Crumpler Bags: I love their design, and functionality, I also love the story of how they started and the fact the owners are from my local city.

Seth’s Blog: I know I’ll get a golden entry aroud once a week.

Twitter: It’s the only social network which suits my attitude & lifestyle. I like it’s brevity & immediacy.

Google Search: Works best. Would switch if better one came along. On occasion I now search on twitter for attitudinal & results based on timeliness.

Lavazza Coffee : Best tasting Roast & ground coffee after trying many others.

If we are fortunate enough to have a level of brand loyalty, then it’s equally important that we understand why we have it. In the case of Qantas, it’s more serendipitous than through providing a super product. Notice I’m only loyal with domestic travel, I’ll switch to Singapore or Cathay on international travel. Other brands like the Collingwood football club suffer from reduced revenue rather than losing market share. And Google, well they are only as good as their product where the switching costs are extremely low…. Once upon a time I was loyal Yahoo search…

The point for startups is simple. The reasons for brand loyalty are varied. Generating it is almost always related to having an awesome product. If our product isn’t awesome enough, then we need to ‘Awesomize it’. Only then will the brand story matter. Once we get loyalty our next job is to build a wall around it where switching costs are too high.

Mind your language – Hyperbole

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Light, Low fat, no fat, fat free, rain forest alliance, low carb, high protein, calcium enriched, fair trade, retail partnership, heart foundation approved, recycled packing, reduced packing, no msg, low salt, low sodium, 5 star energy rating, green energy, eco, carbon offset, carbon free, carbon neutral, low sugar, no sugar, no trans fat, recycled materials, as seen on TV, television first, world premier, made for TV, made fresh, frozen fresh, real, all natural, nothing artificial, easy opening, 25% off, 10% extra, free, no added colors or flavours, diet, bite size, king size, sugar free, caffeine free, may contain nuts, dolphin safe, premium, value, gluten free, Low GI, lowers cholesterol, imported, made locally, no added sugar, made locally from imported ingredients, Australian owned, vitamin enriched, concentrated, biodegradable, recommended daily intake, enjoy responsibly….

Enough.

We’ve all read this oxymoronic language. But when we are using any of these words in our marketing we should step back and ask why?

Are we trying to ‘clean up’ our stuff?

Turns out most times people use these words to sell stuff, they are trying to ‘de-bad’ (from the startup blog dictionary) something. A banana doesn’t need any descriptors – we already know it’s biodegradable, easy opening, no artificial colors and isn’t passed it’s used by date just by looking at it. The point for startups is this – if we are using language of this ilk, we must ensure it is authentic. If not, people will see right through it and will spread the ‘truth’ for us.

Digital Footprints – the power of

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Steve Sammartino

Recently I took a photo in New York of something I thought to be particularly interesting. I uploaded it to twitpic and posted it on my twitter page. The net result was approx 100 views of the image. Here it is below:

Fast forward 2 months and the image is ‘re-tweeted’ back to me from someone else after it has made the rounds and it now has more than 38,000 views. Holy Wow. (You can click the image to see the current view count)

How did it get 38,000+ views after only 100 people cared when I first posted it? Well the answer is simple, it’s digital, which means its footprint stays forever – the digital footprint. And when someone more influential on the web than me share’s it, it spreads in a compound fashion. Sure it got shared, call it viral, call it what you please. But the thing of true power here is the digital footprint. It wasn’t an instant in market reaction. The spreading happened 2 months after the launch. Not the day it went to air, like a TV advertisement.

The lesson for startups and marketers is simple. The real power of digital media is the footprint it leaves, the permanency, and the ability for people to catch up. This is something traditional media (newspapers, radio, billboards, Tv) just don’t have.