Customer Experience: The Psychological Shortcut

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Everyday we face hundreds of choices. It gets complicated. And this is why we create habitual behaviour — whether it is to take the same route to work, whether we put on our underwear before our sock everyday, or simply the same breakfast. It makes our life easier and we can go onto autopilot.

Consumer Decision Making Shortcuts

When there is no autopilot system, these choice get a bit to hectic. We look for the mental shortcuts that will make our decision making process easier. Its why we use the peer review system so often. For example,

  • If a hundred people say its good, we will try it.
  • If a blogger has a 100 000 RSS readers we follow them.
  • If some one we respect loves that product or service, we will give it a try. [Read more...]

The Five Different Types of Word of Mouth Marketing and How to leverage Them

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In my last word of mouth post I look at the five different reasons why we talk about brands. And there is a good reason why we all get very excited about word of mouth when you look at the numbers:

  • Up to 80% of your customers will see Word of Mouth as the most credible form of marketing.
  • Word of Mouth has the most effective cost per conversion.
  • Any customer who arrives via the word of mouth channel is more likely to buy than any other.

But Don’t get To Excited About Word of Mouth Just Yet …

As not all word of mouth is equal.

These figures and points above are a generalization, and there is no doubt of their value, but we must keep word of mouth in context.

To do this we must explore the five different sources of word of mouth: [Read more...]

Why Your Competition Is Your Customer’s Expectations

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We tend to think of our competition as the person who is selling the closest product and services. Banks look at other banks, cell operators look at other cell operators. You know how this work but things have changed.

You are no longer just selling a product or services.

Let me use an example to put this into context.

I live in South Africa and if I order a Kindle from Amazon.com in the States I will get it (at my front door) within three working days. Brilliant. Mind blowing and superb service and customer care.

Yet when my Blackberry breaks and I take it to a MTN service centre in Northgate for repairs. Here is what happens. I wait close to an hour (or two) to see a consultant, it then takes over two weeks to swop the hand set and get it back to the service centre. And when it gets back to you its still broken. [Read more...]

Is Nando’s Advertising Is Broken?

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Nando’s are really good at getting us to talk about their advertising. They are quick to respond tactically and produce funny, witty adverts. It gets the word of mouth buzz going.

In this case they responded by taking a poke at Cell C with their other CEO – chief customer officer campaign with Trevor Noah. And yes I laughed. In fact I almost wet myself.

But here is the real rider:

Are you going to go and buy Nando’s because of this advert? I know I am not?

What is the point of advertising?

I am always reminded of David Ogilvy’s words when it comes to advertising. Sales, Sales Sales and yes, Sales.

Anything less is creative masturbation. It’s about a bunch of creative genius getting their creative rocks blown off at your expense. They are having fun but when the sales don’t come in, your board room discussions is anything but that.

I would like add another aspect to this –loyalty.

Conversation and Loyalty

[Read more...]

Why You Are Only Getting 1,5 % On Your Advertising – And How To Fix It

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Ouch! As a marketer I am sure this figure does sit well with you. Truth be told it is really hard to quantify what our advertising ROI is. It is a hard figure to measure and I am sure most marketers are not sure what their marketing return is.

There is the old saying that 50% of advertising work? We seem to be happy to go with this and every day we see marketers dedicating their budgets to the advertising gods.

So What’s The Real Cost Of Advertising?

[Read more...]

How To Make Your Campaign Go Viral

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I gave a viral campaign about a 0.0001% chance success to get you earned media in my last post,.

This is not a very good rate but does this discount the idea or value of a viral campaign?

Or is their simply another way to do it that is more effective? Is there a way to create very effective earned media?

Yes, we think there is. But first we need to see the flaw.

The biggest viral mistake marketers make?

[Read more...]

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