How to turn a good song bad
Have you heard Muse’s Olympic anthem yet?
I did, yesterday.
In case you’ve missed it, here it is… but beware. Listen to the pundits, and you’ll be worried that pressing the play button will cause your computer to explode like an amp turned up to 111.
To be honest, it was all a bit underwhelming.
It’s not a bad song. In fact, it’s pretty good. Definitely wipes the floor with the usual Erasure-based rubbish that gets wheeled out for events like this.
But I’d been told that this was some kind of apocalyptic call to arms, a song banned from radio play in case it caused airplanes to fall from the sky and listeners spontaneously combust.
And it just can’t live up to that. There’s nothing wrong with it… but it’s not as epic as Time is Running Out, or Plug In Baby, or even when New Born kicks in to high gear.
Thing is , the problem isn’t the song. The problem is that my expectations were raised, and a song I would have quite enjoyed coming to cold I now find a bit… meh.
Essentially, this is how not to do a pre-sell.
Your prospect doesn’t see your advertising in a vacuum. They see it in the context of everything else they know and feel on that subject. It’s all anchoring – there’s far more to that than just making prices seem small.
So don’t just give them the advertising. Give them the context too.
But try not to do it like that.
Database segmentation, Nigerian style
Everyone in the marketing industry has something to learn from this business.
They’ve got one of the most aggressive niching systems known. But thanks to this niching system, they can discard vast portions of the potential market, concentrate their sales efforts on the very best prospects and, most of the time, generate a significant financial return on these qualified leads.
I am, of course, referring to the Nigerian E-mail Scam industry.
You’ve probably had one of their lead-qualification e-mails in the past. From some guy whose father was a Nigerian prince and had $5billion locked away in a bank account. Unfortunately, to access this money he needs some outside help. Could you provide that help for a small consideration, say $500 million?
And… it’s ridiculous. I’m guessing you didn’t fall for it, because 99.99% of people don’t.
So why make the e-mails so unbelievable? It certainly wouldn’t be hard to increase the response rate just by using a more realistic story.
The thing, is while sending the e-mail may be extremely cheap, running the rest of the scam isn’t. The scammers have to invest time and money before being paid. If, at any point during the process, the scamee works out that everything is not entirely legit, then that investment has been lost.
So the scammers narrow down their market. They niche.
The e-mails that go out aren’t meant to attract people so much as discard a whole huge bunch of potential leads. They’re written to be so obvious, so utterly ridiculous that only the most gullible are going to respond.
That is, the ones who have most chance of making it all the way through the funnel.
Marketing costs money. If you’re constantly investing time, effort and your marketing budget in leads who are have only the smallest chance of buying from you, you’re just throwing that money away.
This is particularly true for businesses who buy data in from brokers. Just because you’re aiming at businesses who have about the right number of employees or in the right industry doesn’t mean they are ever going to care about what you have to say.
Qualify your prospects. Find the best leads, and spend your money on them. The only thing that’s keeping you mailing the 60,000 leads who have never shown any interest is the thought that this time, just maybe, they’ll pull out their wallet. But if mailing the group didn’t make you a profit on the 20th mail, they’re not going to make you a profit on the 21st. If you insist on thinking they will… then it just so happens, my uncle is the Crown Prince of Siam and for a small initial investment he could make us all very, very rich…
P.S. The original research is here – quite dry, but well worth a read
On inspiration, Thomas Heatherwick and broad beans
Here’s an insight into my Sunday.
Right now, I’m shelling broad beans. (Actually, I’m clearly procrastinating because shelling broad beans is boring.) These will become part of a broad bean pilau which I’ll serve with spiced grilled courgettes. It’s vegetarian; not because we are but because cooking satisfying vegetarian meals is far more of a challenge, and therefore far more interesting, than serving a slab of meat. It won’t be vegan, because there are limits to what I consider right and proper.
Before I was shelling broad beans, I went to the Heatherwick exhibition at the Victoria and Albert.
Thomas Heatherwick takes a unique approach to design, and it’s one I’m quite fond of. His studio looks at production processes and finds applications for them in new areas, resulting in amazing furniture like these chairs, based on a process used for metal turning (though inspiration could equally have come from a potter’s wheel).
Or the bridge at Paddington Basin that folds up like a caterpillar.
It’s a reminder to all of us to look outside our own field. It’s important to keep up with what your peers are doing, but sometimes the bit of inspiration is going to come from somewhere outside.
Probably the most famous example of this is Google… while Yahoo and AltaVista were all using a directory-based search model, the Google boys looked outside their field, at academic journal citations.
And, well, we all know how that turned out.
One easy example for the V&A, if you’re reading…
The queue to get tickets for that exhibition was easily half an hour long. And I happen to know you have a membership program where someone can pay £60ish pounds and walk up to any exhibition whenever they feel like it, and walk in for free.
The absolute perfect time to try and sell that to me is when I’ve just been in a queue for half an hour, and when you can tell me that buying the membership will also get me in to the exhibition I was about to pay for anyway, but the guy on the ticket desk didn’t even try.
Actually, that’s a bit of a lie… the BEST time to try and sell it to me would be when I’ve just joined the queue that is about to take half an hour.
If you can get your ticket desk staff to ask people buying a ticket if they’re interested in a membership, you’ll make a lot more sales of it and get a lot more money. All these new members are also more likely to come to the museum more, see more of your collection and spend more time in your gift shop. And in times when government funding’s looking doubtful, that’s good for everyone.
Just think of it as the equivalent of saying “Would you like fries with that?”
No need to thank me. But if you could ask Thomas Heatherwick to come up with a new way of shelling broad beans, I’d appreciate it.
Evolve or die
Radio 4 is playing next to me.
I’m that damn rock n’ roll.
And they’re talking about a team of scientists who are trying to evolve music from noise. (Actually, now they’re talking about sustainable living and whether or not we should care about resources running out, because the Today program does have some similarities to a child with ADD.)
Robert MacCallum started with a series of noise loops, and asked people to pick the ones they liked best.
The most popular were allowed to breed – a computer mixed 2 popular loops to make a new one.
The rest were thrown out of the gene pool.
People were then asked to vote on the next generation, and the cycle repeated again.
You can go play at the Darwin Tunes website.
Evolutionary processes are amazing. Circuits can be ‘evolved’ to perform a task and reach the point where even their builders don’t quite know how they work. Computer programs designed to ‘evolve’ solutions to a problem come up with hugely varied solutions from the most basic starting points.
Because survival of the fittest works. It’s how every creature on this planet got where it is today.
(To every Creationist reading here… just stop it. Adults are talking.)
And you can apply it to anything.
Including your business and your marketing.
Evolution is a market, and one that’s rather closer to perfect than the market for businesses.
So if you’re looking to try something new or do something a bit differently, whether it’s a new marketing channel, a new product line or even starting a whole new business…
Don’t try to come up with a new idea from scratch. That’s the creationist approach. Try evolving. Look at what other people are doing, see what works, then do it better.
Do the research. You’ll be surprised.
Just over a week ago I signed up to Drayton Bird’s e-mail list.
One thing I love about Drayton Bird’s e-mails is that they’re always good reading, even when the whole thing is a subtle pitch.
(And the whole thing is a subtle pitch for various products, either Drayton’s own or ones he’s an affiliate for. I’m almost certainly buying a couple before the series is done, too…)
I’ve read a load of copywriting books over the years, and Drayton’s Sales Letters That Sell is up there with the best. I’ve learned more from him about direct response than anyone else.
All this is a fairly long winded way of saying that I think the man knows what he’s talking about.
One of his recent e-mails was on knowing who your customers are. Every company thinks they know who they are. Most of the time, this is based on assumptions and gut feeling.
The problem with assumptions and gut feelings is that they’re almost always wrong.
You’ve got an idea about who your customer is, but none of it is based on facts.
I’ve been just as guilty of this. I once thought my primary target market for a product range was young men, £20,000-£30,000 income, 20-30 years old.
When we actually did some research, it turned out that while that group was in there, there were even more 55-65 year old men, currently reasonably high-earning but well aware they were coming up to retirement.
We started targeting this group more directly, and saw sales go up by 47%.
The first step to making a sale is understanding who you’re trying to sell to. Talk to your customers. Send out some surveys. Do the research. You’ll be surprised.
Why I like characters who are followed by butterflies
Today, a story post, because my latest one is being a pain.
I like stories with elements of the fantastic, but where the fantastic is just part of how the world works.
Tamed fantastic.
The kind of fantastic where a man can be followed everywhere he goes by a cloud of yellow butterflies, and no-one remarks on it. It’s just his thing.
I think this is because I like the stories I read (and write) to have something to say… they’re entertainment, sure, but they’re not just entertainment. They’ve also got a message, that you can take on board or ignore as you choose. And I like stories that use fantastic elements because you can be so much more creative about how you deliver that message.
I like science fiction and fantasy for this reason, but best of all are the stories of a world that either is this one or works like this one, but has a few small twists that throw everything else into sharp relief.
Do it well, and you can write stories that change lives.
Do it badly… and you’ve just got a bad story. Having any of this stuff isn’t as important as how it’s used.
That’s part of the problem with the latest one – it’s just not as good as I thought it was going to be. But I’ve got to finish it, because until it’s finished I won’t be able to concentrate on any of my other ideas.
Unfortunately, writing a story you’re no longer fond of isn’t particularly fun, and that breeds apathy.
What I need to remember is that while this one isn’t going to be my best story, my next one will. I’ve just got to get there.
Getting it wrong
Today’s bit of early-morning reading was this from Technology Review, provided by the ever-reliable Tim Harford’s Twitter stream.
It’s one of those articles written by someone who clearly doesn’t know that much about their subject…
Advertising hasn’t been a black art since Claude Hopkins published Scientific Advertising in the 30s.
If you think it is, you’re doing it wrong.
That said, this part…
That’s a significant pot of money. And those with the computational fire power to best exploit this new world are likely to claim the majority of it.
Is right on the money. A futures market in online ad space would also be a pretty cool development.
And now, it’s sunny, so I’m going for a walk.
How aliens can help you sell more
Have you read the Slate’s latest article on podcasting? If you haven’t, check it out. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Slate doubles down on podcasts
Done? Good.
Now, here’s a problem…
Why did the Slate’s podcasts do so well when the Times and the Boston Globe flopped?
It’s the same reason that people don’t read your e-mails, or your letters. Or, come to that, any of your advertising.
Sorry to put this so harshly…
But they just don’t want to listen to you.
And this doesn’t just apply to the people who pound their lists with ad after ad.
If your e-mails are full of useful content, but also about as engaging as old bathwater, you’re not going to get much response.
You’ve got to get people engaged. You’ve got to get people excited. You’ve got to get them listening.
If your customer actively listens to what you have to say, they will listen to EVERYTHING you have to say. Including the advert you drop into the middle of your chat.
That’s why when you e-mail your customer list, sending them ad after ad is short term thinking. You need to build up a relationship. That means be interesting. Have opinions. Crack a couple of jokes. Be human.
Listen to the Slate and it’s like listening to a radio show – you enjoy it. You agree with the presenter. You’ve got a relationship with them. The Boston Globe put out a staid news broadcast, and while you might listen to it to get the information you’re not going to form a relationship with a newsreader – they’re just not engaging enough.
You’ll turn a few people off. That’s fine. Because the ones you keep will be far more responsive.
The Vorlons had the right idea. (Remember Babylon 5? Storytelling on truly epic scale. Still not as good as Firefly.)
Their signature question to all the characters was: Who are you?
So try asking that question yourself: who are you to your customers, and who do you want to be?
How to charge more
I’m sure you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule.
Here’s a variation: 20% of the quality produces 80% of the result.
If you’re aiming at the higher tier of your market – a Selfridges rather than a BHS – then you need to remember this. Your customers are the ones who won’t be satisfied with 80% of the result, and will pay the cash to go the whole way.
Another thing to remember is this: ‘result’ can be a very simple word for a very complex set of outcomes.
Case in point:
Recently, I had a suit made by Gresham Blake. They’ve dressed Eddie Izzard and Nick Cave, and accordingly when I wear this suit I feel like a rockstar.
And it cost me a lot of money. I spent on this suit a significant fraction of what my sister spent on her last car.
Here’s what I’m looking for when I go suit shopping. These are different levels of ‘result’:
1. I get something to wear
2. The suit is comfortable
3. The suit is well-constructed
4. The suit is made of decent material
5. The suit is well-fitted
6. The suit makes a statement
There’s a rough order here from ‘general’ to ‘specific’. I can get something comfortable to wear by buying jeans and a t-shirt for £15 from Primark. That’ll meet all the basic requirements for not being arrested next time I go outside, but that’s about it.
In an ideal world, every suit I buy meets all these points. In reality, I settle for less. For instance, I can go to TM Lewin and pick up an off-the-peg suit for £250 or so. As well as meeting the first 2 points, this suit would be reasonably well constructed, OK material, and fits as well as an off-the-peg suit can – that is, well enough for most occasions. One of their suits gets me about 80% of the way to my ideal.
My Gresham Blake suit is better in every way. The construction is exceptional, the wool is a better grade, it’s made specifically to my measurements so the fit is superb. It’s just a far higher quality item.
But the thing is…
I could have had 5 suits and some change from TM Lewin for what I paid for the rock star suit. Much as I love it, I can’t justify spending that much extra on an increase in quality alone.
What makes me buy high-ticket here is Gresham Blake’s value-add. In this case, it’s #6 of my result list. No off-the-peg suit can really make a statement, because it’s a mass-produced model. It says nothing about me beyond ‘my office is closer to TM Lewin than Charles Tyrwhitt’.
At Gresham Blake, I chose my own fabric. The lining is from a limited run that was only enough to do 30 suits or so, and is now no longer available. The lapels are peaked and the jacket skirt is a good 2 inches longer than standard – it’s hard enough to find either of these on an off-the-peg suit, finding both just won’t happen. This is all part of my ideal result that I will never get if I don’t go for a high-ticket item, and it’s what persuades me to go for a high-ticket item.
Here’s the point, after all that: if you’re going to charge high-ticket prices for your service, you’ve got to justify those prices. There will be people offering a lower-ticket offering, and those lower-ticket offerings will do a decent job.
Your customers are going to be looking for a whole lot of different things as part of their final result. You can either do those things better, or you can add something they’ll never find with your lower-priced competition. Ideally, you’ll do both.
I paid 80% of my money for 20% of the result. And it was worth every penny.
Why this blog is selfish
Whenever I try something new, there’s always a bit of thinking involved. What am I trying to achieve here? What problems will there be? How do I fix them?
Some of that makes sense. When I write a story, I should have a vague idea of who the characters are and what motivates them. When I write copy, I should know enough about the market and product to know why it’s going to appeal.
But it can go too far.
There’s always the temptation to keep gathering information, keep doing preparation. It can be fun, and it feels like you’re doing stuff.
You’re not doing stuff. Knowing the lay of the land is useful. Beyond that, you’re just procrastinating.
You won’t get better at anything if at some point you don’t stop thinking and start doing.
And once you’ve cleared that hurdle, you won’t get any better if you don’t keep doing it.
I’m good at writing. But I don’t have any special talent to thank for that. I’m good because I’ve been writing since I was four years old. Practice, practice, and practice again.
And that’s what this blog is for. I’m glad you’re reading. I hope you get some value here.
But mostly, this is for me. Because the more I write, the better I get.