The Engaging Brand

What Business Can Learn From UK Elections

Speak the truth not spin. Speak in words we understand. Speak as if you have lived rather than studied.

European and local elections have been held in the UK this week and irrelevant of your political views, it is another sign that people just don't do spin.

Why is the voting so unpredictable? Why is there anti establishment movement? 

Listening to people about why and how they voted, people are tired of the constant soundbits, the evasive answers, the collective message rather than the party line. They are tired of being manipulated by messaging and brands need to recognise this is not just happening in politics....

.....social media is your customer's voting system.

Liken that to customer service and brands can learn some key lessons

1. Listening does not mean what the "spin doctors" think people are saying...it means listening from living in the world rather than your business world.
2. If you make a mistake, just say sorry. Just tell the truth and deal with it as openly as possible. Policitians across all parties don't seem to want to admit mistakes, yet we all make them. Admit them, move on and work hard to put them right.
3. Values are important. If you don't hold yourself to the standards you espouse, no one will ever believe the words you say. That means losing great people, it means removing friends which is tough....but without hard decisions on individuals you risk the welfare of the whole.
4. Answer the question asked by your customer rather than giving the line that has been agreed by your brand.
5. Being successful in the past is no guarantee for the future. You biggest competitor....complacency.
6. The value of the truth. People see through lies, no matter how well you think you have hidden them.
7. Words have the power to change the world. Imagine if Martin Luther King had said

"I have knocked on doors and understand your issues. From that we have created policies. If I was in power, then I would have a mission which will be tracked by key performance indicators" 

People demand honesty. People demand an answer. People demand accountability. Therein lies a business opportunity.....because the brands that can ACTUALLY deliver their promises, ACCEPT when they fall short, ADDRESS what caused it and APPEAR human whilst they do all this...will be way ahead of their competition!

Do you have the 4 A approach to your customer?

The Trick to Relationship Super Powers

How great is the web?

Yes, it can overwhelm us. Yes, it can be frustrating at times. Yes, it can be a great time waster IF you don't develop strong focus and a degree of self control BUT just think of what it brings into your life.....

Simple, easy connection with the world; a world full of products, people and places.

Simplicity and ease of use have one main drawback, they can make us lazy.

You see... when hyperconnectivity is at our fingertips, we need to remember it needs hypersensitivity to work for us in the business world.

Not the hypersensitivity of emotional ups and downs but hypersensitivity to "how we make people feel".

Who do we forget in our personal lives? Who do we get angry with when we can't get angry with our boss or our customers? Who do we promise never to take for granted, only to fall into the trap over the medium term?

Yes, our family and close friends - the people who forgive our human failings. The people who love us despite ourselves! But the web is not so forgiving.....

On the web our business connections can become like our family. It is so easy to sell rather than value, so easy to connect rather than develop a relationship.

We can take those connections for granted. We promise with our mission statements. We promise with our words and then our actions over time destroy that promise. We send general invites, we send spammy emails, we collect rather connection people.

When something is easy, you need to recognise the problem; the problem that easy can lead to a disregard for the deep thinking required.

We need to be sensitive on a grand scale. We need to be human. We need to think of others before ourselves.

We need to be emotionally intelligent to connections, to feedback and to how our words, video and audio express our personality.

The question is.... do we all think deeply enough about the 'how' of benefiting from hyperconnectivity?

The question is... do we all think deeply about how we build value into those connections, to move them from connections to relationships?

The question is... do we all think deeply about how hard hyperconnectivity truly is......it demands more of you, it demands more of your brand. It needs a time investment.

And what is more...that is good news!

It is good news because differentiation is key to sales and marketing....and by investing in a little thought of how we connect....then the return on this type of interest can be exponential!

Want more challenges to your thinking...here are 30 days of questions that will get you thinking about your hyper-sensitivity! 

10 Ideas For Creating Compelling Content

Ever felt stuck knowing what to write, what to say?

Ever felt the pressure to create and yet could not think of anything new to say?

We have all been there, don't worry! I wanted to share a great tip that I picked up from Billy Bragg of all people on the art of writing.

He was asked to write a piece of music for a BBC radio program which was covering the story of the Titanic.All he could think about was how the Titantic is so closely linked with Celine Dion and My Heart Will Go On.

He was stuck.

He didn't know how to make the story interesting, compelling....how on earth was he going to create something 'new'.

He then realised that no one had told the story from the perspective of the iceberg! Once he thought about how that iceberg was created, how it had been formed from free flowing water which had travelled thousands of miles....only to create one of the most tragic stories ever...the creative juices started to flow.

This is a great example of what I call the Social Diamond perspective. 

Our world, our markets, our customers, our brand....none of them are flat one dimensional subjects. Think of your topic as a diamond with many different perpectives...and remember it is the multi dimensional nature of a diamond that makes it sparkle....

So when you are creating content for the web, think about 

1. Think about the problems you can solve.
2. Think about the opportunities you can offer.
3. Think about the issues in relation to your market - maybe causes, reforms required, public policy.
4. Think about the questions you get asked.
5. Think about the different angles from a consumer and a customer perspective i.e. the person who buys a present is not the person who uses the gift.
6. Think about how non users view your market.
7. Think about your brand from the competition's angle.
8. Think about the history and story of your brand and how you can share them
9. Think about how the full life cycle of the product/service - well, after the transaction has taken place.
10. Think about the supply chain and the stories to be told.

What is your iceberg? What are the different perspectives that will give a diamond-like sparkle to your brand? (Tweet this)

Step away from the desk and see your brand from through the eyes of others. (Tweet this)

Here is a little Bob-o-graphic to remind you....

Why You Should 'Feel' Before Being Social

Great products, great service help of course! But is that enough in the social era?

Maybe..but not always.

If you can combine this with a great brand voice, a brand voice that sings your values on the social stage then you can win NOT only the product war but also the war for customer attention.

When you think of a voice it has different elements. It has a tone. It has an accent. It has emotion.

When you think of a brand, too often business leaders think message, tools and what they want to say.....

But when a human voice resonates it expresses the right tone, the right emotion and the right note for the audience.

Imagine if you thought of your brand messaging as a human voice rather than a communication tool.

Imagine if you used social marketing not as a tool but as a demonstration of that human voice.

Imagine if you thought human rather than professional.

Imagine if you thought more about how the listener feels rather than what we want to say.....

Greatness in people is often described by their speeches; From Lincoln to Churchill, from the Dalai Lama to Pope Frances to Nelson Mandela......they speak to create change, they speak to the heart not the tool. They speak with the right voice with the right emotion at the right time.

Social is not about communication, social is about emotion to create motion. (Tweet this)

When you have a great product or service and add the power of the voice, you don't just connect you engage.....(Tweet this)

This needs planned action. You need to understand who you are, what 'motion' you want to create and how to connect with someone's heart to create that motion.

Now all that makes sense. Nothing new. So why blog about it?

Because too often we forget....and create communication rather than feel what needs to be communicated.

 

The Market Opportunity of Being Worse at What You Do!

When I interviewed David Burkus on The Engaging Brand podcast last week it made me wonder why we never have a meeting about being less good at our strength!!

Now I know that seems counterintuitive but here's the thing...how many innovations come from something being taken away or not working for their intended purpose ? For instance in our discussion we discussed that Post It notes came from something being less adhesive...

We sometimes meet and focus our thinking on being better.....what about we looked at being 'worse' at what we do? Do you think 3M would have had a meeting to think about a product that was less adhesive? No...yet look at the commercial success of Post It Notes.

Here is a weird Bob-o-graphic challenge...

 

Do you make a call to action or inspire people to try?

During a recent tweetchat we were discussing creating a call to action and I argued that call to action was maybe the wrong way to think about how to write a blog post or design a website.

Call to me -  encourages us to shout at the customer.

Action to me - encourages us to almost force the customer to click through.

The reason I don't like the phrase call to action is that it doesn't necessarily make business think

'how do I inspire the customer to know more'

I know it sounds pedantic but when asked "How to design a website" I prefer to speak about writing a blog or designing a website with one thing in mind 

'how do I inspire to try our products and services'

Inspire to try gives a different focus than call to action. It focuses upon the customer not your aim, it focuses upon value to the customer not value to you.

A business goal is not in your direct control - it is the customer who you need to persuade in order to deliver it. Persuasion is about inspiration. So when you are writing a blog then you need to understand the customer needs, the customer demographic and what will inspire them..

That is why how to, lists, insights, analysis are popular blog posts for heavily trafficked sites. It is not that they are ignoring their business objectives...it is that they understand the objective is to engage the customer in order to deliver those business objectives.

So the question for today is....how well do you inspire customers to try your brand?

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Selling Your Products and Services Online

Sometimes I feel as humans we strive to make everything so complicated....in truth, when I say sometimes that may be underestimating the problem.

When you are thinking about 2013 simplicity and clarity are two important aspects of selling online. I interviewed Carmine Gallo - fabulous communications expert who has worked with the great communication brand...Apple. He talked about how we can use a simple communication structure to help convey the brand message...

• The Need - Grab the reader or listener's attention - show that you understand their issues, frustrations and desire's. This creates the emotional need which people can relate to and open their mind to potential solutions. As Carmine says - "Your brain craves meaning before detail", yet we tend in business to give the detail first.
• The Problem - Now take that emotion and explain what the problem is - which creates that need for change.
• The Solution - Show the solution to the problem. They are now ready, they are desperate to know the answer to their problems.
• How it Works -Now give some details - now they have seen it, they want to know more about the solution. 

Too often in person, on the social web, in writing....we flip this approach and provide the detail up front, leaving the person cold to the idea.

Dad has a saying...

"Selling is the bridge between the pain felt by the customer ...to the land of imagination - a land  in which pain is replaced with joy and problems morphed into opportunities..."