Nick Baggott

I’ve just read an excellent book - The Long Tail. It is well worth a read Like most business books the idea is simple and some of the chapters can be skimmed, but there are still some useful nuggets all the way through.

The premise is that whilst “hits” such as movie blockbusters, best selling books or hit TV shows are what the industry focuses on - the % of air time they are getting is falling because the internet driven “free” distribution opportunities like Amazon & iTunes allows consumers to buy whatever they like - choice is everything.

In fact the 98% rule applies - that 98% of every CD or book or download sells something. This Long tail equates to around 25% of all their revenue. i.e 25% of sales come from more obscure songs or books or whatever, that the retailer wouldn’t normally stock.

That means bands or books or brands can set themselves up and sell their products and services so much easier directly now. Take google - there is good business from brands paying for search, there is also another great business selling obscure terms to specilialists, such as an individual orchid grower or someone that repairs Tag watches or advises people on gluten free diets or whatever they do.

The opportunities for retailers, aggregators, brands and individual small businesses are great.

Anyway - well worth a read.

The Long Tail - by Chris Anderson and only £4.99 on Amazon

I’ve recently been working for Microsoft in Moscow, helping them to understand the new digital landscape and how marketers can use them to promote their brands. One of the delegates sent me this viral marketing example.

The campaign promotes the Microsoft Razer gaming mouse. The tag line is “wrong & proper ways to kill with Razer” and is one of a series of 4. This is the least violent execution, but is still pretty graphic!

Interestingly, it wasn’t created by Microsoft. It was made by a Microsoft enthusiast.

A former copywriter at our Agency has set about buying a football club. Maybe Leeds, or Cambridge or Accrington Stanley (Who are they?, as the old milk commercial said).

He intends to do it virally, aiming to get 50,000 fans to pledge £35 to raise the cash. The neat idea is that the fans would own the club and make the decisions i.e. pick the team, appoint a manager, buy a player by web voting. This has to be the ultimate community web initiative. According to The Times this week, he is close to raising the cash and has a reality TV production company interested.

Read more and sign up here

I was at SoccerEx at Wembley this week (great show, shame about the Wembley conference organisation!). One of the many great presentations was a debate between McDonalds, FIFA, Barcelona and JJB on football sponsorship.

FC Barcelona have been cleverer than I thought. Not only have they got loads of very positive PR for giving Unicef free shirt sponsorship, they have enhanced their brand values and have attracted a whole range of new corporate partnerships.

Actually, I think it is even smarter. Instead of having one headline shirt sponsor, they can now attract a range of commercial partners with none being the dominant one. This probably brings in as much cash as one main shirt sponsor, but crucially it also increases reach by having a range of partners, all promoting FC Barcelona and Unicef. Now that is smart!

To read more, read this:

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_35642.html

If you’d like to receive a regular e-newsletter covering news, views and links relating to CRM Strategy & Training, click on this link and sign up. I promise, I won’t use your data for any reason other than this.

http://www.chemistryconsulting.co.uk/pg.asp?enewsletter

Indie band Crimea has a novel way of promoting their music. They are giving it away free! Their strategy is that by doing so, they will build up a larger fan base that they can promote their tours and merchandise too. This is effectively using content as a hook to get people to join a relationship marketing program with them. Read more here

This is a form of tryvertising, allowing people to try before they buy. To find out more about tryvertising, follow the posts below (written on 1st March).

There is a free conference, called Internet World at Earl’s Court from May 1st to 3rd. there are some excellent speakers and topics covered include social networking, web 2.0, user generated content etc, which are key to developing a CRM solution in today’s environment. I shall be attending. If you want to, then sign up here.

As I travel around the world training marketing teams in CRM, segmentation, digital & direct marketing, a thought keeps occurring to me.

The further the subsidiary is from the global HQ, the greater the marketing talent. I believe there are 3 key reasons for this:

1. The smaller the sub, the wider responsibility each individual has - this allows them to see and be concerned by a wider range of issues

2. The people employed in those markets are just hungrier - they make an effort to attend the training, they prepare better and they are more determined to use the skills learned

3. They have to just get on and do the job. They receive less support and as a result have to do the best they can with what they have, rather than waiting for direction from corp

I am willing to be persuaded otherwise, but I take it as I see it and the evidence to me is overwhelming. If you are in global HQ or a major sub and disagree, please state your case now…

Postscript: I have just received my course evaluation results for the sessions I ran for Microsoft Middle East Region in Turkey - they are the highest scores I have ever received. I guess this demonstrates the desire for learning in the region and substantiates my point…

The portal slice of the ad revenue pie is growing, not diminishing. This year, ad revenues at the four major portal sites, will account for two-thirds of total online ad spending. eMarketer estimates that net U.S. ad revenues at Yahoo, AOL, MSN and Google accounted for 57.4 percent of the total Internet ad spend in 2006.

The top portals will increase U.S. net ad revenues in 2007, with nearly $13 billion going to just those four sites, up from $9.4 billion in 2006, according to eMarketer.

Read more here

If you are thinking of building an integrated customer database and contact management system, you don’t need to invest a fortune or be swamped in consultants from IBM, SAP or Siebel.

Microsoft CRM is a brilliant solution for small and medium sized businesses. It works in Outlook and links seamlessly with Excel and Word, so there is minimum training of users needed.

It will enable you to run simple event driven campaigns, measure success, make campaign selections and link with customer services. It doesn’t cost a fortune to instal or use either and can be viewed remotely by sales guys with lap tops or PDA’s.

If you are in financial services, you can download a great Datamonitor report (here). Otherwise contact me and I’ll help you to find the right partner using my Microsoft contacts.

Download the Data Monitor report at www.ciber.com/uk/products/microsoft/crm/

Š

CRM & Relationship Marketing, the terms are often interchangeable. I receive numerous invitations to meet prospective clients or speak at events to talk CRM. But what do they mean?

As I see it, there are five approaches:

1) Transactional Sales driven CRM - this generally involves SAP or Siebel or some other expensive operational CRM system. It costs a fortune, rarely pays back and generally delivers about half of the original project scope. But if you are a sales driven organisation, that manages a large number of leads (someone like Yell for example), you need one.

2) Next generation CRM - think of this as a smarter, more integrated version of Transactional CRM. It probably involves a global database, but the key is to add some automated processes and tools for registration, measurement, campaign management and similar operations. This is smarter and more marketing friendly. Still a huge investment, but at least it helps you measure what you are doing and create a learning organisation. Microsoft’s internal Global Marketing Platform is a great example of this.

3) Event Driven CRM - extremely customer focused, but still automated and process driven. The focus is on reacting to changes in customer behaviour and circumstances. Think of a mobile telco sending you a note to suggest changing tariffs when you increase your overseas calling or a frequent flyer program that recognises that you have just achieved silver. The key here is to develop the rules that drive the system that are driven by genuine customer insights.

4) RM programs. FMCG brands don’t really do CRM. They do Relationship Marketing, some (like Diageo) do it really well. You don’t need a huge SAP system. All you need is great content, a marketing database and genuine consumer insight to help you to segment audiences and deliver a personal experience. If you get the content right and enough high value consumers love your brand, then you can build a large scale program that delivers ROI.

5) Community RM - this is the coming force. Forget one way beamed communication from brand to consumer, think two way engaging content co-creation. Allow loyal consumers to be advocates. Let them re-publish and share your content for free. Let them create content for your site. Let them share the experience with whoever they think will appreciate it. We’re working on a number of these sites right now - watch this space…

You know when you go on iTunes and you can listen to 30 seconds of a song before you buy it? That’s ‘Tryvertising’. The artist is giving you a chance to try before you buy, allowing you to check that the song is the right one or giving it a listen to see if it’s something you might like.  Canon and H&M are doing this too, like so many others…Our question to you is if you could give someone a sample of your product or service for 30 seconds what would it be?

Click here to find out more…

For valentines day we stepped on the Free Hugs bandwagon. It seemed sort of right, given the name of the agency, and a lot of our material features pictures of people hugging things. I know about the orginal free hugs film, but didn’t realise there’s quite a global meme behind it already. Nathan got around 50 hugs, and quite a few people pulled out at the last minute. So there must be some deep seated need for people to connect in the real world. Second Life is doomed?

See the film on YouTube here

I’ve just received my invitation to the IDM symposium. This year the agenda is based around 10 supertrends in brands, consumers, the web, media & data.

The marketing world is evolving rapidly and I’m delighted that the IDM is recognising this (as a Fellow of the IDM this particularly pleases me!).

Here are some highlights:

Co-creation - how consumers have taken control of your brand. Try it, search your brand on flickr, YouTube & of course Google. What do you find? You’d be amazed what you can find. The truth is, to get customers engaged, allow them to co-create content, share it & use yours royalty free.

Social networking - this is totally linked to the co-creation point. People are forming communities all of the time & this changes the way opinions are formed. Did you know that nearly 4 million people are registered with Second Life? www.secondlife.com

Automation - CRM is so simple. You just need to be able to react to changes in customer needs, circumstances or behaviours. To do this on a large scale, you need marketing automation. To achieve marketing automation you need an event driven marketing strategy.

The full list of 10 and more info on the event can be found at www.theidm.com/symposium

Š

There are now over 1 million people signed up for Corporate TPS (Telephone Preference Service) and 86,000 more have signed up in the last month. That means you can’t prospect call all of these businesses. Even more importantly, it says that all of these people don’t want to be sold to. That means you need to find a new way of engaging with them. You need to make your proposition so strong that they will call you or visit your web site.

All of this makes permission based marketing, community based marketing & customer retention more important than ever.

Have you seen the NBC iPhone spoof ad? Very funny! I guess it makes a good point about how many devices we really need. Personally, I like to keep a separate phone & PDA. It works for me.

www.viralvideochart.com/youtube/conan__iphone_commercial

Precision Marketing has broken the news that Chemistry has been appointed to handle the sizeable Emirates Airline account. This is a substantial account win and highlights the impact made by new Executive Creative Director, Mike Cavers.

What is it that binds together the brands of the future? Why do some new concepts fly, while most fall by the wayside?

It is that entrepreneurial spirit that sets them apart - that willingness to try something different and be passionate about being different. They take the best of the Challenger Brands philosophy and make it their own. They do it instinctively. They have a feel for who their customers are and what they need. They also have a higher cause that drives them - to knock the established leader brand or to provide a service that they feel is missing.

Take some great entrepreunerial brands, that I have come across recently….

Brighter Business is a start up, direct sell insurance business. They are driven by a passion for offering a better service to the often neglected small business sector in a no-nonsense, jargon free way. The founders come from the big establishment insurance brands and know how this audience gets a raw deal. The Marketing Director does not come from within the industry, so has taken a fresh look at how to market in this sector. They see the opportunity.

How about Go Lower? A low carb snack - Hannah was driven by the lack of low carb options available and decided she’d give up corporate world and make a go of it. Now they are selling Go Lower snacks in the UK & US and in the major mults too. Check them out next time you are in Tesco…

Take Beanscene. A wonderful Scottish coffee & music brand. They are not Starbucks - they deliberately do the opposite of Starbucks, Costa and the rest. They don’t over brand the coffee shops, they don’t spend fortunes on advertising, they don’t use clever analytics to find the best locations, they don’t have a business model based on small locations in high density areas. They have an instinct for their brand and their customers. They don’t over sell & they satisfy their customers’ needs in the most surprising ways - “you like the music you hear - we’ll show you where you can get it” or “you like the sofa you are sitting on - we’ll show you where to buy it”. People visit Beanscene for different reasons to Starbucks. Sure you can pop in for a coffee to kill 30 mins and put your feet up, but you can also head down there in the evening to catch a new band play live or to just turn on your lap top, do some emails and listen to some cool new sounds. They have embraced the digital age, but they don’t shove it down your throat.

What are these challenger brand principles? There are a few and they have been published many times before. Here’s three that I think really make the difference…

Build a lighthouse identity - i.e.stand for something and stick by it

Assume thought leadership - use PR and have a voice about the things that make you different

Become idea centred - make the idea bigger than the brand - actually, make the idea the brand. A brand is a set of values not a logo and strapline. The ideas behind Beanscene and Brighter Business are simple, engaging and motivating to consumers. They are also genuinely different.

Check them out:

www.beanscene.com

www.brighterbusiness.com

www.golower.co.uk

Š

Not an easy question to answer that one!

Why should they be interested? People get 100’s of emails a day, many of them internal. You can’t possibly read them all. An email from the CISO about how to protect the business against information security issues is unlikely to be top of their agendas is it?

This is true of so many issues that need to be communicated to everyone….changes in the evacuation procedure….our policy on home working when there is a major transport problem….a reminder to change and update your password…an invitation to a security awareness meeting…

So how do you get them to listen to your message? Here are 5 golden rules:

1. Make it experiential - get them to think about the consequences of not doing what we are asking (act it out if that will work in your culture)

2. Talk about “when” not “if” there is an incident (but don’t scare them needlessly, as this will seriously impact on morale)

3. Make it personal - how will it affect them, personally?

4. Think about the barriers. What is stopping them doing what we need them to do? Fix it, so that it is easy to do. It is up to you to make it easy.

5. Show them the benefits. Show how their changing behaviour will enable you to provide home working, wireless offices and less email spam.

Having done this for Diageo, I know it works.

www.chemistryconsulting.co.uk/pg.asp?diageo

I’m also a Special Advisor to the FIRST Global Corporate Exec Programme and have discussed these issues with a number of CISO’s and CSO’s at their forums in Gleneagles & London. To find out more about how to join the CEP, or to attend a meeting to find out more, then click on this link and talk to John Lyons. www.globalcep.com

Our Planning Director, Robin Jaffray wrote his top 10 predictions for 2007 and enterred them onto his blog.

These predictions have just been picked up and used in the Wall Street Journal. Cool huh!

See what the fuss is all about, by reading Rob’s thoughts here