|
 |
Customer Manufacturing Update |  |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dear Mitchell,
Here is your April Customer
Manufacturing Update. This month we're looking
at how to develop effective press and market relations
programs. If you have friends or colleagues who would appreciate receiving this e-zine, feel free to forward a copy to them using the "Forward e-mail" link at the bottom of the e-zine.
To communicate effectively you must establish a properly focused market relations program. The press can be an important method for achieving your goals of increased awareness for your company and its products/services. This month's white paper, Using The Press As Part of Your Market Relations Plan gives you an understanding of how to go about making this work in today's "multi-media" market.
You should measure your marketing results. If you are going to take action (make an investment of time, resources, people and/or money), you need to understand how that action contributes to the achievement of your goals. As marketing is expected to become more accountable for their actions, pressure continues to rise to measure ... something. We have seen and heard of significant investments being made in so-called "marketing dashboards" that look pretty but don't provide actionable information. Measurement that does not lead to improved action is a waste. Measurement that results in the wrong actions is competitive suicide. One of the more popular advertising measurements is "awareness" or memorable-ness (probably not a word, but you get the idea). A brief article in the April issue of Business 2.0 reminds us of this point ... yet again. Many of our North American readers have probably seen the quirky TV ads that feature Abe Lincoln, a beaver, and a deep sea diver. The ads are intriguingly weird. Many people apparently remember seeing them, but aren't sure what the ads are trying to communicate. (If you haven't seen the ads and want to, visit the Rozerem website.) It has even been suggested that the ads are so weird, they detract from the message. Could be, but in reality, it was extremely difficult to deduce what the message was even if you paid close attention. Net result:
You don't need a sophisticated calculator to understand that math doesn't work. When you promote your product or service, make sure the message gets through and that style doesn't get in the way of what you should be saying. We have noticed that in 2007, Takeda appears to have modified some of the copy in the ad to make the value proposition (the What as we call it) clearer. Time will tell if it works. In case you're wondering, Rozerem is the first non-addictive prescription sleep aid.
We have previous written about the importance of customer experience in one of our papers. (If you want to read it for the first time, or re-read our white paper "Being Customer-Centered" you can use this link.) Our feelings about this important aspect of business are very strong so we are always on the lookout for examples to share with you ... both good and bad. An article in the February 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review reported on recent findings by a Bain and Company survey on the topic of customer experience. (Again, if you are not as clear as you'd like to be on this topic, read our white paper.) For this survey, Bain talked with the customers of 362 different companies as well as executives within those same companies. The survey asked the customers to describe their experience with the company. Bain found that 8% of the customers felt that their experience had been "superior." The executives at these same companies felt that their companies provided "superior" customer experience 80% of the time. Why the disconnect? Drugs or other delusional beliefs? Hope? Strong belief that how they wish it was is how it is (wait, isn't that just hope rephrased)? Total disconnect with reality? Misunderstanding of what customers want? Whatever the cause, do not assume your company is any different. If you are not talking with your customers on a regular basis to understand their evaluation of their experience with your company, you don't know. As the HBR article noted, customers have increasing numbers of choices and they will quickly leave you to try to find the experience they need, want and demand. Customer experience is a complex process. And managing it well can give you a competitive advantage. In 1983 (almost 25 years ago) Tom Peters said that, "If you raise your level of customer service to mediocre, you can stand out in the crowd." In today's world it is about total customer experience and if you want to "stand out in the crowd" you need to make a focused effort to make yours superior. The opportunity is there for someone to excel. Will it be you or your competitor? Or are you just hoping they're too lazy to bother to rise above mediocre?
For those of you who are new to these Updates or have not yet bought our new book Value Acceleration, we are going to give you one last chance to get an incentive from us to buy the book. If you buy a copy of the book (it is available from amazon.com and other on-line locations) on or before April 30, 2007 we will send you a free unpublished bonus chapter. To get your free bonus, send an email to info@customermfg.com and tell us when and where you bought the book, and we'll email you the bonus chapter as a pdf file. This is it, we aren't offering any more incentives to buy the book, so if you want to buy it, amazon is offering a 30% discount from list, and we'll send you the free bonus chapter. We think you'll like the book (of course we are biased) and the bonus chapter is really good too. If you want to learn more about the book visit its website.
We appreciate any feedback you can provide to help us make sure these Updates give you value each month. Feel free to respond to this e-mail with any comments or suggestions for future topics or ways we can make these Customer Manufacturing Updates more valuable to you.
Thank you for your interest, and if we can provide
any
additional assistance in sales, marketing, strategy, or
innovation to help you increase your sales,
let us know.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
