Product Development – Today’s Lesson Is From McDonald’s

By Brendan Moore

You are probably aware that McDonald’s is not just an American experience anymore; the company has retail stores all over the world, and like other American fast-food corporations (KFC, etc.) has found great success in the international marketplace. 

The company didn’t achieve that success by ignoring local tastes, and if you’ve even been in a McDonald’s inJapanorGermanyor some other country, some of the menu will be unrecognizable. Even the food that looks familiar may have a very different name on it (for those Pulp Fiction fans, this is your cue to recite those lines about a “Royale with Cheese”). 

There’s a reason I’m bringing this up. According to article published in various newspapers, McDonald’s in France has just rolled out a new product named the McBaguette for a six-week market trial, and it’s a perfect example of great product development. I have no idea what it actually tastes like, but it is a superb product development concept. 

The New McBaguette

The new sandwich exploits the fact that the French love their bread (their fromage, too, but we’ll get to that in moment) with an admirable passion. In fact, 98% of all French people eat bread every day. And one of the most popular types of pain is the baguette, a cylindrical loaf baked with a hard crust. The French love bread; they really love baguettes, and this emotional attachment runs deep. Around 65% of the two billion sandwiches sold in France every year are built with a baguette as their underpinning. 

What better thing to put a couple of hamburger patties on, then? For the next six weeks, customers in France can plunk down four and a half euros on the counter at McDonalds, and get a burger on a baguette (albeit a square one), covered with melted Emmental cheese (from France, naturellement!) and spicy mustard. 

As I said, I have no idea how it tastes, or how it will taste to the average French man, woman or child, but it’s simple, yet brilliant product development and execution. 

And that concludes today’s lesson, mon amis.

Brendan Moore is a Principal Consultant with Cedar Point Consulting, a management consulting practice based in the Washington, DC area, where he advises businesses in marketing, sales, front-end operations, and strategy. Cedar Point Consulting can be found at http://www.cedarpointconsulting.com.

In Bank Wars, the Customer Strikes Back

As a long-time observer of the financial services industry, I was wondering how long Bank of America could hold onto plans for a new $5 monthly fee on debit accounts, starting in 2012.  The answer: About a month.  Earlier today, B of A announced that they are ending plans for the new fee roughly 32 days after it was announced, according to the Huffington Post. (Some wise senior manager at the bank probably had a monthly report dropped on their desk today showing high customer abandonment rates, shot through the roof, and called off the fee.)

In the past, banks have had the wiggle room to both add and increase fees, nudging them up to increase profits or stave off losses.  That, of course, was in the era before the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street and a myriad of other similar populist uprisings.

Last quarter, NetFlix CEO Reed Hastings learned what it means to draw the ire of the American consumer during tough economic times, when Hastings was forced to apologize for a planned product spin-off that amounted to a 60% price increase by the company.  Nearly 600,000 Netflix customers dropped the service after the price increase was initially announced and before his apology.

What is Your Social Media Content Strategy?

Yes, "Pick Any Two" generally applies to content as well

A common complaint from businesses, large and small, is that they have a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a website, a blog, they’re on LinkedIn and YouTube, etc. and they’re doing everything right in terms of being present in social media, but nothing is happening. 

Upon inspection of their customer source data and other metrics, it turns out that they called that pretty accurately; there is nothing happening as a result of their presence in the digital online world. 

Then you look at what is on their Facebook page, or their blog, or their Twitter feed, and it becomes obvious why nothing is happening. They have little or no content, and/or the content is awful and boring. 

As we mentioned in this piece titled, Business Blog Primer, having smart or funny or informative or engaging or thought-provoking content is key to making social media work for your company, whether that’s on a blog, or on YouTube, or on Facebook, or even if you’re simply participating in a discussion on LinkedIn. And it needs to be consistent, as we mentioned in that same piece from a few months ago. There is nothing more pathetic than a business blog that has three posts in the past 12 months. 

What Is Social CRM?

There is a very long definition, and then there is the one I’m going to give you: 

Social CRM is the enterprise version of Web 2.0; it enables businesses to share organizational knowledge easily, it gathers information from various sources on the internet, it allows companies to become more social in terms of how information flows back and forth across the organization, and, is specifically designed to help sales teams and developmental teams. 

That was pretty painless, right? 

But, why Social CRM? Don’t businesses already have CRM systems out the wazoo? What’s wrong with those systems? 

Having led some large sales teams, I can answer that question. 

The Real Scoop on “Authenticity” and What It Means to Your Customers

By Red Slice on May 4, 2011 – Reprinted here by express permission of Red SliceType “authentic branding” into Bing and you’ll pull up 581,000 results. The advice to “be authentic” hits business owners and entrepreneurs more than gray skies hit Seattle from October to May. And, yes, I give this advice to my clients. But what does being “authentic” really mean? This term has been bastardized a bit in the intersection between entrepreneurship and personal development. Many coaches and consultants are advising people to “live their passion” and “live an authentic life” and to find careers and businesses that “authentically” play to their strengths. This is all great advice. But some business owners confuse “authenticity” with “only the stuff I care about.” And that’s not really what we’re talking about from a branding perspective. Having an authentic brand means that you deliver what you promise. Period. You do what you say, You walk your talk. When I go to Walmart, I don’t expect great service or quality fashion. I expect what they promise: low prices. That is authenticity. It has more to do with company values, service quality, product line and image. It means that if you advertise your brand as hip, sexy and cool, then your products, your company – heck, maybe even your people – need to walk that talk. It means if you are going to tout “Customer Service is our #1 Priority” that you authentically take care of your customers, go above and beyond, and empower your call center employees to do whatever it takes to solve their problems quickly and painlessly. It means that if you claim to be cheap and disposable, that you ARE cheap and disposable, because that what people want from you if you are promising that.

In A Surprise Move, Radio Gained Listeners Last Year

The “Statistical Abstract of the United States”, a weighty, riveting (that’s veiled sarcasm, its dry as dust) tome produced by the United States Census Bureau, states that the number of hours America spends with radio has fallen from 836 hours per year per person in 2003 (about 16 per week) to a projected 716 hours in 2009 per person (about 13.7 hours per week).

However, Arbitron, the media and marketing research company that tracks radio listening, among other things, released a study Monday (3/22/11) that states that listenership among people 12 years of age and older actually rose in 2010. Arbitron’s numbers say that an average of 241.6 million people in this group listened to conventional radio stations each week last year, an increase of 2.1 million over 2009.

Carol Hanley, Arbitron’s executive VP of Sales and Marketing, commented, “Radio is much stronger than the general perception of it has been”.

My response is: “Maybe”.

If you’re in charge of marketing somewhere, and you’re thinking about spending some money on radio spots, here are some things to consider:

The renewed vigor of radio listenership numbers is due in no small part to the increase in Hispanic radio stations and the Hispanic listeners that come with them. Radio added 1.1 million Hispanic listeners in the United States last year. As an industry analyst (not with Arbitron) pointed out recently, the state of Texas alone went from 25 Spanish-language stations in 2000 to 154 Spanish-language stations in 2009, and at least a few more were added in 2010, although those numbers are not yet out. That’s great if Hispanics is one of your target markets, but not so meaningful if this group is not in your target demographics.

Interest In Blogs Among Teens and Young Adults Fades

If your organization or business has young people as a target audience or target customers, here’s hoping that you are reaching them through your Facebook site or your Twitter feed.

Surprising no one that follows social media, the most recent data available shows that fewer young people are keeping blogs, and more importantly for businesses, fewer young people are visiting blogs.

The sentiment driving this behavior seems to be a combination of:

• A feeling that writing a blog takes too long
• Low readership of small blogs
• Facebook and Twitter are meeting whatever needs they have for self-expression

Business Blog Primer

BLOG ME

If you’re a business these days, you’re supposed to have a blog to go along with your company website. The reasons why?

Well, it can keep your customers informed, for one. It can provide a great platform for your customers to interact with the company, for two. Third, it’s a great way to keep talking about the company in a positive way. Fourth, it’s a good way for the company viewpoint on issues to be delineated, if that is important to the business. Fifth, people may actually come to your site just to read your blog, or, some other site may find something interesting on your blog and link to it, thereby driving potential customers to your site. Sixth, each new blog post (and each new comment, if you allow comments) is yet another reason for the search engine bots to crawl your site, thereby moving you up in the search engine rankings, which is always good for business.

Okay, so a lot of good reasons to have a company blog. The problem is, of course, just as with other things, the execution. Apropos of that execution, how do you get a blog, how do you get good, relevant content for the blog, and how do you keep it going?

Stodgy Old-Fashioned Dull Obsolete Antique Outdated Sales and Marketing

What I need is a really cool website.

Online marketing is the only kind of marketing I want to do for my company.

Who needs salespeople when you have the web?

Who needs a call center when you have the web?

I hate actually interacting with someone face-to-face and I’m sure all of my customers hate it, too.

Isn’t everyone on the Internet now?

Digital marketing is always cheaper on a cost-per-account basis.

Everyone just throws out direct mail solicitations.

Outdoor media? You mean, like billboards and stuff? Wow, that’s really old-school, isn’t it?

Why would I bother offering sales training to my customer service employees and my other employees? That’s not their job.

Industry conventions seem like a massive waste of time and, plus, they’re a huge pain.

IF you talk to companies about sales and marketing, you’ll frequently hear comments and questions like this, because everyone’s dream these days is to have a virtual organization that does all its sales and marketing over the web, or on mobile phones, or whatever. You know; the kind of organization where you just click on keys, your advertisements go out, customers respond to your website through an online checkout, and you make millions of dollars with less than 10 employees, and very little overhead.

That’s the kind of marketing plan I want, companies will say.

Well, sure.

I want to date Halle Berry, have my own island, and have Warren Buffet asking me for advice about investing, too. The chance of even one of the items in that scenario occurring for me is about the same as all of the pieces falling into place for the kind of company to happen. Yes, occasionally the planets line up and your idea that turns into your product that your company sells is both irresistible and is able to be sold over the internet in such large numbers that you then have articles in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times business section written about your firm.

But most of the time, the results are less lofty. The internet is merely one small part of all the moving parts that make up a typical successful company, and that’s not how most business comes in the door. Some small companies have less than a dozen employees, but large companies have hundreds, or thousands, of employees. Everyone in the company works hard, because they’re competing with other people at other companies that are working just as hard in the same segment, and that hard work eventually makes for a good living and a good return for the company’s shareholders. It’s not exciting and notable enough so that it’s newsworthy, but it’s a good result. That’s what usually happens.

The reason I’m noting this is because many companies, in their rush to embrace Web 2.0 technology, are now giving short shrift to perfectly good customer acquisition platforms that they’ve successfully used for years, things like a field sales force or radio advertising. Seduced by a younger, more attractive face, these businesses are abandoning their long-time partners for a tempestuous fling with digital marketing. They’re doing this even if that doesn’t make sense in terms of their revenue, profit and strategic goals.

Now, just to be clear, I would not advise any client to eschew a meaningful presence on the web. If you’re in business, your customers need to be able to find you on the web. Much of the work we do for clients is in the area of bolstering their presence on the web, whether that’s through SEO marketing, developing a better website for them, developing a blog component for their corporate site, etc. So we are strong cheerleaders for a healthy web presence.

No, what I’m saying here is that traditional marketing and sales may still be where your company’s bread will be buttered, and there is absolutely no reason to cut back or discard those customer acquisition platforms simply because they’re “not new”.

For many companies, those “old-fashioned” methods are still the most cost-effective, despite all the infrastructure needed, and the blocking and tackling needed to execute, and frankly, with a little tuning up and focused process-improvement work, those old-school platforms can be made even more attractive from a cost-acquisition ratio.

Furthermore, there is absolutely no reason you cannot keep doing what is bringing you good business results currently, and, beef up your profile and capabilities on the internet at the same time. In other words, there isn’t any way to do too much marketing in too many places.

There is an optimum mix of traditional marketing and digital marketing, specific to your company’s needs and goals. Find that mix and your company will prosper. Because, despite what you read in the media about the latest company to set up a website, and 18 months later, launch a $6 billion IPO, most companies still need the combination of traditional marketing and digital marketing to thrive.

Brendan Moore is a Principal Consultant with Cedar Point Consulting, a management consulting practice based in the Washington, DC area, where he advises businesses in marketing, sales, front-end operations, and strategy. Cedar Point Consulting can be found at http://cedarpointconsulting.com

Five Signs of a Power Brand

By Red Slice on December 21, 2010 – Reprinted here by express permission of Red Slice

Clients often ask us, “How will we know when we’ve got a winning brand?” Rather than telling them, “You’ll know it when you see it” there are some guideposts along the way to tell you your brand is moving in the right direction.

At first, it starts small: increased website hits, increased referrals, uptick in positive social media chatter – even anecdotal evidence like more positive comments from customers or partners. You can look at metrics like newsletter signups, store visits, or customer phone inquiries. Obviously, it all leads to “more sales” but, let’s get real: the sales cycle is like courtship. You don’t propose of the first date, but there are little steps along the way that you must take to get to marriage.

If you launch a new brand or rebrand an existing one, you can put feedback mechanisms in place to see if you’re going in the right direction: focus groups, email surveys, sales trends, even just good ole fashioned talking to your customers and partners. Seek out unbiased feedback but make sure it’s from people that matter to your sales. Asking your 15 year old nephew or your spouse what they think is fine – if they are your target audience. Believe me, more often than not, they are not the right people to be asking, no matter how much your respect their opinion.

Here are some signs of a power brand to which you can map your progress, at whatever scale your business operates:

1.People are proud to say they work, partner or shop with your company: If customer, partners or employees find that they get greater cache when they sport your brand on their website, paycheck or shopping bag, you know you’ve got a winner. Your brand is transcending into a world where people want to identify themselves as part of your tribe and bask in your brand “halo effect” to make themselves or their business look good. Sort of like hanging out with the cool kids at school. Examples” Apple iPhone and iPad, Harley-Davidson

2.Your customers are advocates, spreading your story: Word of mouth is key and if customers are going around – unpaid – doing your advertising for you, then that is the holy grail of marketing. Are they chatting you up on social media, sharing unprompted referrals with friends (“You have GOT to shop at Zappos! They have the best customer service.”) creating “spoof” videos on YouTube, or even inking themselves with your logo (hello, Harley)? Then you’re doing everything right. Examples: Disney, JetBlue and Virgin Atlantic (ie customer-generated YouTube “ads” vs. other airlines).

3.Some people (outside your target) don’t like you: When you are effectively creating a brand, you have a clear ideal customer target and you serve them. This naturally means there will be those who don’t “get” you. And that’s okay. The Justin Bieber craze annoys me to no end, but it doesn’t matter: I’m not the target audience. Having people who don’t like you means you are not trying to be all things to all people. Examples: Dunkin Donuts v. Starbucks; Hyundai “Beware of 16-year-olds” campaign.

4.You can elegantly recover from occasional mistakes: If your brand has enough “brand good will” built up, it can withstand some gaffes and missteps along the way. It’s like a bank account: the more you put in, the more confortable you can be withdrawing every now and then. As long as you recover with dignity and transparency, a strong brand can withstand a lot. Examples: JetBlue during their infamous winter flight debacles, Apple’s recent flubs with the iPhone.

5.Articles about your company talk about your impact on the industry and/or the world: Rather that just talking about what you sell, press and organizations seek you out as a thought leader and innovator. Examples: People quote Zappos when it comes to innovative online customer service, not just shoes and accessories. Having transformed the coffee category by emphasizing flavor and experience, Starbucks last year introduced value packs in the supermarkets, which allowed them to stay competitive during the recession.

Maria Ross is the founder and chief strategist of Red Slice, a branding and marketing consultancy based in Seattle. Her passion is storytelling and she has advised start-ups, solopreneurs, non-profits and large enterprises on how to craft their brand story to engage, inform and delight customers. Maria is the author of Branding Basics for Small Business: How to Create an Irresistible Brand on Any Budget (2010, Norlights Press).