Setting Goals to Take You to the Top

Author and speaker Micheal Burt says “everybody needs a coach in life.” For the past 22 years, my coach has been Zig Ziglar. My coach passed away this week at age 86. Zig was a coach to millions of people worldwide. I discovered Zig Ziglar in 1990 when I was struggling to make a career of life insurance sales and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. While Zig was known as a motivational speaker he was truly a teacher. His books and seminars were not “pump up” fluff but rather provided a framework for implementing meaningful change and improvement. Zig Ziglar’s influence molded my attitude and determination to accomplish all that I have done professionally.

My tribute to Zig Ziglar will not be some long essay about how he has changed me life, although I could easily do that. Instead, I will share with you one nugget from Zig’s teachings that have relevance to individuals and organizations: the importance of setting goals. As we enter the last month of 2012 and prepare to hit the ground running in January to take on a new year, now is a good time to consider the role setting goals can have in making 2013 successful for you and your organization.

One of Zig Ziglar’s well known quotes on this topic is “a goal properly set is partially achieved.” When we have sound goals, we are on the road to achieving them if for no other reason we understand what it is we are trying to achieve. After all, as Zig asked “how can you hit a target that you do not have?”

To address the “properly set” qualifier when setting goals, assess whether your goals SMAC. Are they:

  • Specific – Stating a goal of “5% increase in sales” is preferred to “increasing sales”
  • Measurable – If a goal is specific it tends to make it measurable so that it can be determined if the goal was attained
  • Achievable – If a goal is unrealistic it can demotivate, not exactly the idea in mind when setting goals
  • Challenging – In addition to giving direction, goals should force people and organizations to “stretch” in order to grow. Even if a goal is not attained, the process of pursuing it should result in improvement.

I was saddened to learn of Zig’s passing this week, but I take comfort in two things. One, his impact will be felt for a long time beyond his 86 years on earth. Two, while he is no longer serving us with his gifts he has moved on to take a seat in the “sales meeting for the ages,” a reward he spent most of his life earning. See you at the top, Mr. Ziglar.

Wanted: Head Coach and Chief Marketing Officer

As a college football fan, I look forward to certain  happenings throughout the year that add to the enjoyment of the game. National signing day, spring games, preseason media days, opening weekend, rivalry week, and bowl games are among the traditions that contribute to the pageantry of college football. Unfortunately, there is one other event that has become tradition: coaching staff terminations. The conclusion of the regular season also marks the beginning of a period in which schools that are dissatisfied with the direction of their football program often fire their head coach and his assistants. As of now, thirteen NCAA football bowl subdivision (FBS) teams will have new head coaches in 2013 out of 124 FBS schools.

People have different opinions about whether we should feel sorry for football coaches who lose their jobs because of under-performance. The main argument for expecting results from head coaches is their compensation. A recent USA Today story reported that the average pay of a head coach at an FBS school is more than $1.6 million per year, easily making the head football coach the highest paid employee at many institutions. So, even if a coach gets fired he likely made a great deal of money while he was employed and should be set for the future, right?

The turnover in college football coaches parallels another employment phenomenon: the tenure of chief marketing officers (CMOs). Executive search firm Spencer Stuart tracks CMO tenure, and its research shows that average tenure of a CMO bears some similarity to the time frame given college football coaches to produce results. In 2011, CMO tenure averaged 43 months, which is comparable to the three to five-year window given to many college football coaches. Tenure length for CMOs has actually increased in recent years after bottoming at 23 months in 2006. CMO tenure varies by industry, with more turbulent industries like automobiles (25 month average tenure) and communications and media (33 months) being more unkind to CMOs.

If there are similarities between the tenure lengths of college football coaches and CMOs, maybe it is because the jobs entail similar responsibilities. Here are three characteristics the two positions have in common:

  1. Accountable for results – The number one reason coaches and CMOs lose their jobs is not meeting desired performance outcomes. For coaches, the primary metric is wins. CMOs are evaluated based on success indicators such as stock price and market share. If the results are not there, change is inevitable. The question is how long should a coach/CMO be given to instill the culture, recruit and develop personnel, and implement strategies.
  2. Face of the brand – The coach/CMO are the marketing leaders in their organizations. The transient nature of players, whose careers are four years or less, means that coaches are the constant personality around which marketing efforts can be created. Similarly, CMOs have the highest profile of any employee in a firm’s marketing organization and is expected to represent the brand’s interests not only internally but with external stakeholders including media and financial analysts.
  3. Build a culture within a culture – Coaches and CMOs share the challenge of shaping a brand culture within their organization that is subservient to the brand culture of a larger organization. Coaches must build a brand that is congruent with the values of the institution brand. Likewise, CMOs are tasked with building great product brands that mesh with the corporate brand.

A results-now mentality held by many fans, alumni, administrators, shareholders – whoever the relevant stakeholders are – applies pressure to coaches/CMOs to deliver results quickly. We must not lose sight of the human side of this phenomenon. Coaches/CMOs invest themselves heavily in their jobs, as do their families. When a coach/CMO is fired it is not usually because they are bad people, it is a consequence of brand performance not meeting expectations. They did not rise to the level of head coach or CMO without knowledge and skills… they are not dummies!

Given the similarities in the two positions, college football coaches and CMOs can look to each other for inspiration in how to lead their organizations and how to cope with the stark reality of job termination.

The Changing Role of Black Friday

 It’s showtime for retailers – the financial performance for the year will be influenced heavily by store sales occurring from now until Christmas. When I worked as a manager for McRae’s, a department store chain that is now part of Belk, our efforts focused on the “9 Weeks of Christmas.” It was the period from the first week of November through the end of December. Of course, the centerpiece of that key period was Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. The event was marked by great deals throughout the store and special promotions designed to bring shoppers through our doors.Fast forward to today and the intensity of Black Friday has increased substantially with many stores not waiting for Friday to get in the swing of low prices.

The role of Black Friday in retailers’ marketing plans is undergoing a change… or at least it should be. According to research reported by eMarketer, more people plan to shop on Cyber Monday (the Monday following Black Friday) than on Black Friday. Only 41% of persons surveyed said they intend to shop on Black Friday compared with 57% planning on Cyber Monday shopping. Many factors have contributed to the shift in consumer behavior when it comes to post-Thanksgiving shopping including:

  • Fuel prices – As the cost of gas increases, consumers weigh venturing out on Black Friday against shopping from their computer. Many retailers offer free shipping on e-commerce purchases, removing a cost of shopping online and enjoy shopping with geographic restrictions.
  • Convenience – It seems that there are more stories every year about unruly customer behavior at stores on Black Friday as shoppers vie to snag products that are available in limited quantities. Or, if you want an item that is on sale at a store you may be forced to stand in line waiting for a store to open at an odd time like 4:00 am. Or, you can shop online when you want minus the crowd and traffic.
  • Assortment – Shopping online overcomes the limitation of brick-and-mortar stores’ merchandise assortments. What you see is what you get in a store; e-commerce expands assortments significantly.

Instead of writing an obituary for Black Friday as an American cultural and business event, let’s rethink the role it plays for retailers. Two ways come to mind in which Black Friday continues to be relevant. First, many shoppers loathe Christmas decorations and merchandise hitting stores prior to Thanksgiving. Black Friday can continue to be the traditional start of our Christmas shopping season. Second, advertising and promotions around Black Friday are effective for sparking interest in Christmas shopping (even though 59% of us are not planning to do shopping that day). Consumers still need to be nudged or persuaded to get busy with Christmas shopping. Black Friday deals and promotions are an established event capable of putting people in the shopping spirit.

I, for one, plan to be part of the 59% sitting on the sidelines for Black Friday. However, I will eagerly look at retailers’ Black Friday advertising inserts and watch their Black Friday TV commercials. And, stores create a physical environment that can entice shopping. Retailers should embrace their experiential marketing capabilities and use Black Friday to build excitement, all the while complementing the store experience with a user friendly online shopping environment.

Brand Love: It’s not What You Think

Marketers talk a great deal about developing relationships between their brands and customers. The underlying assumption is that we can equate brand relationships that people have with interpersonal relationships. Are brand love and interpersonal love the same? Are the characteristics of a brand that attract customers to fall into love with a brand similar to the characteristics that attract people to each other?

These issues were examined in research performed by Rajeev Batra, Aaron Ahuvia, and Richard Bagozzi published earlier this year in Journal of Marketing. A series of three studies identified elements of brand love that ultimately yielded a three-factor model:

  1. Passion-driven behaviors (e.g., desire to use brand and past involvement with brand or company)
  2. Self-brand integration (e.g., brand matches current and desired self-identity; intrinsic benefits more important than extrinsic rewards)
  3. Positive emotional connection (e.g., emotional attachment and positive feelings or mood elicited by brand)

A contribution made by this research is that a distinction was made between brand love as an emotion felt by consumers and brand relationships exhibited by the behaviors of customers and clients. The latter is realized by tapping into the power of the former. Affinity held for a brand can be a catalyst for deepening one’s integration of a brand into his or her life. Thus, feelings of brand love (i.e., the emotion) cannot be equated with desired buyer behaviors like repeat purchasing and positive word-of-mouth. However, when brands leverage emotions to strengthen customers’ bonds with a brand it can be a catalyst to creating true love… brand love, that is.

Dare to Begin

As I was writing my last blog post earlier this week I noticed a number on my blog dashboard that had escaped me to that point: I was writing my 500th post. I began blogging in June 2007. I would love to tell you that I had a grand strategic plan for my blog, but that would be a lie. The idea to blog came in part from frequent requests I received from Middle Tennessee State University’s Office of News and Media Relations to give expert opinion on current events related to marketing. I enjoyed writing those pieces as they forced me to form opinions and give support for my take on the issues.

Fast forward to 2012 – I have written 500 times on the world of marketing as I see it. One thing that has changed for sure during the past five years is that I am a better, more confident writer. It is not that surprising because writing is like exercising – the more you do it the stronger you get. Infrequent practice will make one a mediocre writer (or athlete or musician). Blogging has been an invaluable tool for professional and intellectual development.

I have never worried about the size of my audience. In fact, in the early days of Marketing DR I did not even look at traffic on the blog. I focused on writing. It did not matter if anyone read it, although I am grateful every time someone takes a moment to read my thoughts. The words of Zig Ziglar often run through my mind as the reason why I began blogging. Zig says that everyone should write a book. You don’t have to publish it, but everyone should go through that process. The same case could be made for blogging. Everyone should write a blog, even if you are the only one reading it.

My advice to anyone considering launching a blog or diving into some other creative endeavor is dare to begin. For too many years in my life, I was pretty adept at being able to talk myself out of doing things. But, something changed, maybe it was Zig’s admonition to do something bold like write a book (which I have since done too, a sports marketing textbook). The impact that blogging has had for me has not only been career changing but life changing, too.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts with you. Dare to begin and see where your creative energy can take you.

Dealing with the In(box) Crowd

As a researcher and marketer, I like reading about studies related to marketing and consumer behavior. In addition to expanding my knowledge in these areas, sometimes I learn that I am normal, that my beliefs and behavior are in line with others. The latter feeling is what I experienced when I read about a study done by Blue Kangaroo on marketing emails.

Findings from a study of more than 1,000 adults on their opinions of marketing emails and how they respond to them reflected what I observe in my own inbox:

  • Clutter – More than half of the emails received in a typical week come from marketers
  • Enjoyment – Despite the clutter, people like getting marketing emails to keep up with offers and other news from marketers (43% agreed that they like getting these emails)
  • Work, but Worthwhile – 48% said it sometimes feels like a chore to open and read marketing emails but that it is worth the effort
  • Valuable – Most recipients are taking advantage of deals or coupons communicated via email; 35% had done it within the week prior to the survey and another 33% had taken advantage of an email marketing offer within the prior month.

Some marketing experts believe that increased social media usage will make email marketing less relevant in the future. In addition to people spending more time on social network sites, many people use the messaging functionality offered by networks like Facebook and Twitter as their email service. However, email still possesses the strengths of being able to deliver targeted, timely messages to people who have granted permission for the marketers to communicate with them.

The inbox is a crowded space. We need to be part of the in(box) crowd yet stand out at the same time. As is the case with many aspects of marketing, relevance is the key to fitting in and standing out simultaneously. Consumers want to receive and open email from marketers that is interesting and contains value for them- nothing complicated about that concept. The challenge is hitting on the right mix of interesting content, value-added offers or rewards, and the optimal frequency of message delivery.

Marketing: Opportunity vs. Insensitivity

The nation watched as Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc in the Northeast and impacted our cultural, economic, and media capitol, New York City. The effects of Sandy on businesses and individuals are still being tallied, but early evaluation of the marketing response was generally positive. Examples of businesses demonstrating sensitivity to the plight of their customers have been acknowledged such as banks waiving fees and companies including Allstate, American Express, Delta, and Jet Blue have been commended for the ways in which they have reached out to customers and the affected areas.

At the same time, there have been brands that not only failed to seize the opportunity to demonstrate genuine concern for customers and others, but they decided Hurricane Sandy provided a tie-in for an impromptu promotion. American Apparel was skewered on social media for its ill-timed email marketing promotion touting a “Sandy Sale”that offered free shipping as an incentive to shop “in case you’re bored at home.”

While American Apparel surely meant no offense (at least one would hope a business would not go out of its way to use marketing resources to offend people), the unintended consequence of a Sandy Sale was creating perceptions that the company was insensitive to the implications of the storm and generally oblivious to the world around them. American Apparel’s CEO defended the tactic, touting that it generated tens of thousands of dollars in sales. And, he said criticism of the promotion was limited to about 25 bloggers who were responsible for stirring the masses.

I cringed at American Apparel’s promotion because it made me think of a blog post I wrote in 2010 (see “Make Any Occasion a Selling Opportunity”). In that piece, it was implied that selling opportunities are created within the boundaries of good taste and common sense. But, as I often remind my students, marketers do not always stay within those boundaries. I look forward to seeing what American Apparel will do to help with Hurricane Sandy relief efforts. Hopefully, it will be a better strategic fit with socially responsible business practices than its Sandy Sale.

Marketing Daily – “Most Marketers Lauded for Reactions to Sandy”

Customer Experience is the New Black

Marketers sling the words “engagement” and “experience” like politicians trade barbs about their opponents – often and sometimes recklessly. They are ideas talked about a lot but tend to fall short in being realized. So, when good customer experience is recognized it can be like a breath of fresh air (instead of hot air). The Chief Customer Officer Council has named its Chief Customer Officer of the Year for 2013, an award that acknowledges a leader whose organization demonstrates a commitment to building customer relationships, cultivating profitable customer behaviors, and creates a customer-centric culture.

The recipient is Pete Winemiller, Senior Vice President of Guest Relations, for the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA franchise. The team has a reputation for offering one of the most exciting game atmospheres in the NBA and was number one in ESPN the Magazine Ultimate Fan Rankings this year. The fact that Winemiller and the OKC Thunder received the award is not surprising when you consider the mindset of the organization:

  • The Thunder aspires to be “the most fan-centric organization in professional sports”
  • The dedication of all employees, particularly front-line service personnel, is cited as a key to success
  • The experience created is seen as a way to reinforce the organization’s core values to customers

Curtis Bingham, CCO Council executive director, says that the customer is the most important ingredient for business success, not product, service, or technology. Bingham refers to customer experience as “the new black,” a popular mindset that must become ingrained in an organization’s values in order for it to reach its potential as a source of competitive advantage.  Bingham adds that products and services are increasingly becoming commodities, making customer experience the most powerful differentiator available to a marketer.

Customer experience may be the new black, but it should not be viewed merely as a fad or trend. When a business desires to have ongoing relationships with customers, a focus on experiences that convey the firm’s values as well as delivers value will be appreciated by customers and stand out in an environment in which many companies talk a good game about experiences but often do not deliver.

Direct Marketing News – “Aligning Customer Experience and Marketing at NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder”

Let Product Set Price

One of the worst kept secrets in the tech world was confirmed this week. Apple is adding the iPad mini to its tablet lineup. It’s 7.9 inch screen will combat Amazon’s Kindle Fire and other smaller tablets.

An area in which Apple is not targeting competitors is price. At $329 for the lowest priced model, the iPad mini is priced above comparable products… And that is OK. It runs counter to pricing strategy used by late entrants, but Apple is not the typical latecomer.

Apple does not have to obsess over competitors’ prices because price is set by product quality and customers’ perceived value of quality. Price for the iPad mini was set by the successes of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Users understand Apple!s value proposition; they need not be enticed by price to try the product.

Let your products and services set price instead of it being defined relative to other brands. To do that, a commitment to delivering a great experience is a must. The value you create today sets the stage for profitably pricing products tomorrow.

Putting the "Social" in Social Media

A brand is more than a name and logo. It has an image and a personality, just like a human. As marketers, we must figure out how to transform our inanimate brands into interesting, interactive beings. Our task has been made easier by the emergence of social media as a channel for interacting with customers and other people. But, we must remember that social media is only a channel, a means of connecting us with an audience.

In a recent blog post “Social Can’t Succeed without Experiential,” Buddy Media Chief Creative Officer Bryan Boettger brings out the point that brands need to be real, not just live. Yes, social media gives us “live” engagement with people, but as long as we are interacting from behind a keyboard the authentic nature of a brand may remain hidden. Boettger uses the presidential debates to make his point, saying they are live but not very real as the candidates are busy posturing and reciting talking points. In contrast, coverage of the recent event in which Red Bull was associated with Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the edge of space gave an unscripted, real glimpse into this extraordinary feat and the sponsor.

We crave control in brand communications – need to manage image, tick off brand proof points – there is no room for unscripted interaction with stakeholders, it seems. Such a mindset places image over authenticity. Boettger contends that there is no substitute for brand experiences. Reliance on digital experiences is like projecting a fake persona. An image can be created that no one gets to know or understand if all communication is carefully guarded.

Event and experiential marketing can complement social media by giving people a channel for tactile interaction with your brand. Being “social” requires putting ourselves in situations sometimes in which we do not have complete control. It reveals our core personality. Be real, and allow your brand to be real. Be prepared to put the “social” in social media.