Strategic Marketing Framework to print out & hang on your wall at work

I've found this framework to be immensely helpful to me throughout my career.  Particularly during those fire-fighting, short-term focused periods of work that we all experience from time to time, this framework has always helped me to reorient myself & recalibrate.     

There's a lot more to come with the framework - I'll be drilling down into the different dimensions in more detail so you can have a richer understanding for how to use it to develop robust new marketing strategies and to improve existing ones.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about how to put the framework to use within your business.

download framework (pdf)

Related Posts

• Akin Arikan, author of Multichannel Marketing: Metrics and Methods for On and Offline Success, "digitizes" my strategic marketing framework

Check out my favorite business books

read more

Strategic Marketing Framework to print out & hang on your wall at work

I've found this framework to be immensely helpful to me throughout my career.  Particularly during those fire-fighting, short-term focused periods of work that we all experience from time to time, this framework has always helped me to reorient myself & recalibrate.     

There's a lot more to come with the framework - I'll be drilling down into the different dimensions in more detail so you can have a richer understanding for how to use it to develop robust new marketing strategies and to improve existing ones.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about how to put the framework to use within your business.

download framework (pdf)

Related Posts

• Akin Arikan "digitizes" my strategic marketing framework

read more

Engaging Influentials: Twitter and Beyond

By David Capece, Managing Partner at Sparxoo

With the rapid adoption of social media, we have accelerated into a network economy. In a network economy, connectivity enables value to be created and shared by network members. The larger the network, the greater the potential benefits. In the digital world, network activities take place on an open platform that enables participation and cloud computing (think Wikipedia and widgets).

In networks, some members are more connected and active, and therefore have more influence. These influentials are important members because they add significantly more value to the network. In the digital world, they blog, twitter, upload videos, experiment with new gadgets, and create widgets. As early adopters, they tend to be trendsetters that are followed by their friends and sometimes the masses. The book, the Whuffie Factor, talks about Social Capital, and how our society is increasingly motivated to become more useful and creative. Today, more people want to be influencers, and they want to be enabled.

In 2009, Twitter has emerged as one of the most talked about platforms in the network economy. Indeed, there is a simple network exchange on Twitter: influencer creates bite-size content, and follower discovers new information. Here are a few examples of the exchange:

• Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco and California Governor Candidate, has over 500,000 followers. He keeps his followers informed about upcoming events and fundraising, and enables them to interact with him directly.
• Mike Massimino, a NASA astronaut, has over 400,000 followers. He combines his human life story with a behind the scenes look at being an astronaut.
• And of course there is Oprah, approaching 1.4 million followers.

Twitter makes it easy to share your voice and build your presence in the community. RegularGeek’s comment sums up the value: “Even someone like myself, and I do not have a huge social media presence, can talk to and possibly influence about five thousand people. If I have two thousand subscribers on the blog, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook, the number of unique people could be around 5,000. That is direct contact, and the network effects could create an audience much larger.”

While we are all familiar with Twitter, there are many more communities that engage and enable an influential audience with network principles. One of the key elements of a network is the idea of reciprocity. The idea of “I win, you lose” doesn’t work in a network, or it will fall apart. Instead, there must be mutual win-win exchanges. One such example is at Triggerstreet, was founded in 2002 by Academy Award Winner Kevin Spacey, which is a community for emerging artists. The promise of the network is to democratize exposure and offer a career boost through a network of peers who review your work, rate it, and provide feedback. Further, the network has engaged influentials in the form of participating judges, including Michael Myers, Sean Penn, Snoop Dog, Sheryl Crow, and Liv Tyler.

It is this very concept of participation by influentials that is becoming increasingly important with each passing day. In our world of choice and overcapacity, influentials are an important element of the decision making process. As we de-emphasize paid media such as television commercials and print ads, the power of earned media and word of mouth is amplified. As you consider new ways to share your story and build your reputation, learn from entrepreneurial initiatives that listen to and engage the influentials.

Our first example is Jodangle which helps you listen to and monitor the online chatter by influentials. In an environment where influential content originates from an exploding number of information sources, Jodange provides intelligence on who and what is influencing customers, competitors, and the overall marketplace. In April 2009, Jodangle received $1.2 million of investments.

Our second and third examples are currently in development at DreamIt Ventures, which helps entrepreneurs launch their ventures and build great companies. Trendsta is a new way for trendsetting teens to test and review the latest hot products. Like BuzzAgent, the principal is that word-of-mouth marketing is powerful. Trendsta has even more of a laser focus on the influentials by engaging trendy teens in the digital world. Our final example is Scribnia, which is a rating and discovery engine for bloggers and columnists. Much like Triggerstreet, the promise is to build an influential community that is engaged in sharing creative work and providing feedback.

Consider your role in the network economy. How you are going to add value to and expand your network? As you build your presence and your reputation, listen to the conversation around you, pursue authentic participation, and engage influentials who can amplify your message.

Original post: http://sparxoo.com/2009/07/01/engaging-influentials-twitter-and-beyond/

read more

Engaging Influentials: Twitter and Beyond

By David Capece, Managing Partner at Sparxoo

With the rapid adoption of social media, we have accelerated into a network economy. In a network economy, connectivity enables value to be created and shared by network members. The larger the network, the greater the potential benefits. In the digital world, network activities take place on an open platform that enables participation and cloud computing (think Wikipedia and widgets).

In networks, some members are more connected and active, and therefore have more influence. These influentials are important members because they add significantly more value to the network. In the digital world, they blog, twitter, upload videos, experiment with new gadgets, and create widgets. As early adopters, they tend to be trendsetters that are followed by their friends and sometimes the masses. The book, the Whuffie Factor, talks about Social Capital, and how our society is increasingly motivated to become more useful and creative. Today, more people want to be influencers, and they want to be enabled.

In 2009, Twitter has emerged as one of the most talked about platforms in the network economy. Indeed, there is a simple network exchange on Twitter: influencer creates bite-size content, and follower discovers new information. Here are a few examples of the exchange:

• Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco and California Governor Candidate, has over 500,000 followers. He keeps his followers informed about upcoming events and fundraising, and enables them to interact with him directly.
• Mike Massimino, a NASA astronaut, has over 400,000 followers. He combines his human life story with a behind the scenes look at being an astronaut.
• And of course there is Oprah, approaching 1.4 million followers.

Twitter makes it easy to share your voice and build your presence in the community. RegularGeek’s comment sums up the value: “Even someone like myself, and I do not have a huge social media presence, can talk to and possibly influence about five thousand people. If I have two thousand subscribers on the blog, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook, the number of unique people could be around 5,000. That is direct contact, and the network effects could create an audience much larger.”

While we are all familiar with Twitter, there are many more communities that engage and enable an influential audience with network principles. One of the key elements of a network is the idea of reciprocity. The idea of “I win, you lose” doesn’t work in a network, or it will fall apart. Instead, there must be mutual win-win exchanges. One such example is at Triggerstreet, was founded in 2002 by Academy Award Winner Kevin Spacey, which is a community for emerging artists. The promise of the network is to democratize exposure and offer a career boost through a network of peers who review your work, rate it, and provide feedback. Further, the network has engaged influentials in the form of participating judges, including Michael Myers, Sean Penn, Snoop Dog, Sheryl Crow, and Liv Tyler.

It is this very concept of participation by influentials that is becoming increasingly important with each passing day. In our world of choice and overcapacity, influentials are an important element of the decision making process. As we de-emphasize paid media such as television commercials and print ads, the power of earned media and word of mouth is amplified. As you consider new ways to share your story and build your reputation, learn from entrepreneurial initiatives that listen to and engage the influentials.

Our first example is Jodangle which helps you listen to and monitor the online chatter by influentials. In an environment where influential content originates from an exploding number of information sources, Jodange provides intelligence on who and what is influencing customers, competitors, and the overall marketplace. In April 2009, Jodangle received $1.2 million of investments.

Our second and third examples are currently in development at DreamIt Ventures, which helps entrepreneurs launch their ventures and build great companies. Trendsta is a new way for trendsetting teens to test and review the latest hot products. Like BuzzAgent, the principal is that word-of-mouth marketing is powerful. Trendsta has even more of a laser focus on the influentials by engaging trendy teens in the digital world. Our final example is Scribnia, which is a rating and discovery engine for bloggers and columnists. Much like Triggerstreet, the promise is to build an influential community that is engaged in sharing creative work and providing feedback.

Consider your role in the network economy. How you are going to add value to and expand your network? As you build your presence and your reputation, listen to the conversation around you, pursue authentic participation, and engage influentials who can amplify your message.

Original post: http://sparxoo.com/2009/07/01/engaging-influentials-twitter-and-beyond/

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How to unleash the power of context and turbo-charge your marketing

There are few more powerful insights you can generate than learning the main contexts in which demand for your product/product category arises. Having such knowledge will allow you to elevate your marketing and develop deeper, more profitable relationships with your customers.

------------

Step 1: identify the most frequent demand contexts
The first step in unleashing the power of context is to identify the different contexts in which demand for your product is triggered. Think of yourself as a detective attempting to answer the questions:

• Under what situations do people become interested in my product?
  
• What triggers their interest in my product? (Events, changing circumstances, etc.)
  

In sleuthing your way to an answer, you may find that there is a series of events that take place before demand is sparked. You will also likely learn that there are several distinct demand contexts for your product, some of which will occur with far greater frequency than others.

Your key objective in step 1 is to assemble a list of those demand contexts that account for at least 75%-80% of total demand for your product/product category.


Step 2: ask the 6 power-questions to elevate your marketing strategy
For each of the most frequently occurring demand contexts for your product, ask the below six questions:

1) How can I tweak or reconfigure my product to better meet the consumer need in the given context?

2) Are there complementary products or services I should consider offering, whether though my company or a partner?

3) How might I adjust my pricing to better reflect the value provided by my product within the given context?

4) How can I more effectively communicate & position the value provided by my product within the given context? Is there specific imagery, tonality & language I should use in my marketing communication?

5) Are there any changes I should make from a channel perspective, whether it be my channels for building awareness, for selling, or for servicing customers?

6) How can I detect when demand has been triggered for this given context? Can I actually identify these people with some degree of certainty? (Dig deep to answer this crucial question. There is almost always a way)
(Note that some of the questions may not be pertinent for certain product categories and demand contexts)


Let's make this pop! with a brief real-world example

Product du jour: Cars

Step 1: identify the most frequent demand contexts for cars
-The lease is expiring on the existing car
-The price of gasoline jumps and the person owns a gas-guzzler**
-The car is old & worn out (tail pipe tickling the pavement, etc.)
-The car died & resuscitating it would cost a whole lot of money
-The person is moving from the City to the ‘Burbs

Step 2: ask the 6 power-questions for each frequently-occurring demand context for cars
**Below I've answered the questions for the demand context in which the price of gasoline jumps and the person owns a gas-guzzler

1) How might we tweak our cars to better meet the needs of the owners of gas-guzzlers?
We could develop a fuel-efficient car or one that could run on cheaper types of fuel (given the long R&D cycle for new models, auto companies are always best suited to have such a model either always available for sale or one that can easily be ramped up for production)

2) Are there complementary products or services we should consider offering, whether though our company or a partner?
We could develop services or partnerships that would cheapen the price of gas - e.g., partner with credit card companies to develop attractive cash-back rewards on gasoline purchases

3) How might we adjust our pricing to better reflect the value that our cars provide to owners of gas-guzzlers?
Consumers who are feeling increasing pain at the gas pump are likely willing to pay more for a car that will significantly reduce their “gas pains”... Then again attempting consumer-level pricing can be tricky and a risky move from a brand perspective (not to mention the current distribution structure for cars does not readily lend itself to such a pricing strategy).

4) How can we more effectively communicate & position the value provided by our cars to owners of gas-guzzlers? Is there specific imagery, tonality & language we should use in our marketing communication?
We could position our cars as “fuel-smart” alternatives that could save them thousands of dollars, which could be put towards more enjoyable things than gasoline, such as a much-needed vacation in the Caribbean(!)

5) Are there any considerations we should make from a channel perspective, whether it be our channels for building awareness, selling, or servicing?
(Response not included to maintain brevity)

6) How can we detect when this demand trigger has been fired? Can we identify the owners of gas-guzzlers during a spike in gas prices?
Knowledge of rising gas prices is a layup - CNN & our local gas stations would make any major rise in gas prices abundantly clear. And, there are a number of ways to identify owners of “gas-guzzlers” with fairly good precision, starting with identifying the geographic distribution of SUV sales & SUV dealerships.


Your assignment
1) Select one of your products or services – especially one that you believe has the most “improvement potential” & could provide the most upside for your business.

2) With a pad & pen in hand, walk the product through Step #1. Also, ask colleagues and friends & family to complete Step #1. And, hold a brainstorming session if timing & calendars permit. (I’ve always found the collective IQ of a good group to be far greater than any one individual flying solo)

3) Take each of your top demand contexts and run through Step #2. For this step it is particularly valuable to hold a brainstorming session or two, as the collective brainpower of your colleagues in this step can be the difference between a $1mm idea and a $10mm idea.

4) Share your experience with us here on the blog, including any interesting things you learned from the process and, of course, any successes you have to-date.


A note on business strategy & demand context
In a future post I’ll be writing about the role that the demand contexts of your product should play in (re)designing your business strategy. Depending upon a number of factors including the economics of your business and the positioning of your brand, there are likely certain demand contexts that you would want to focus your efforts upon. More to come on this, so stay tuned...

And, as always, please feel free to leave a comment, question or shout-out.

Sources: car demand contexts based upon 2005 study by the American International Automobile Dealers (AIADA).

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Injecting some Maslow into your marketing

What would you say if I told you that just a few miles off the coast of Australia was a tiny island where a man's success was indicated by the colorfulness of his shirt? Think male peacocks or Seinfeld-as-pirate, whichever is easier to visualize.

For fear of defaming the semester I studied anthropology in London, I will leave the "anthro-isms" to the anthropologists. That said, we in the US are as knee-deep in symbols as the aboriginal cultures of Papua New Guinea. Of course, most of our symbols have been manufactured by companies competing for our attention & disposable income - and some of them have done remarkable jobs imbuing seemingly ordinary "objects" with profound meaning.


American Express & Maslow
Case in point - American Express, a company that successfully turned a tiny piece of plastic, into a symbol that represents the fulfillment of one of Maslow's core human needs: the need to feel significant. Companies, such as Amex, that successfully transform their products & brands into symbols that represent the fulfillment of a Maslow need are often some of the most successful.

This has no doubt been one of the biggest success factors for American Express since it introduced its charge card fifty years ago. The card quickly became a powerful symbol of one's success (and hence significance); pulling it out from one's wallet generated a profound "buzz", filling one with feelings of pride, accomplishment, and a rush of endorphins. Pretty wild to think that a little piece of plastic (or back then, a piece of paper!) could mimic the feeling one might get from a quadruple espresso or pulling up to one's high school reunion in a shiny red Porsche.


How to inject Maslow into your marketing
While your company or product might not have the tailwind of 150 years of brand-building at its back as Amex does, thinking about how to inject aspects of Maslow's hierarchy of needs into your marketing is an absolute must.

The key to achieving this is to first identify which of Maslow's needs is addressed by your product or service - and yes, it may address more than one. Then, ask yourself the following questions to stimulate your thinking and get the ball rolling:

1) How can my marketing better communicate how the benefits of my service satisfy this Maslow need?

• Example: the old “reach out & touch someone”AT&T ads are a perfect illustration of taking the core Maslow need filled by phones - social connectedness - and bringing it to life in compelling, emotive ways.


Note: if you don't see the video of the old AT&T ad on your browser, the link to the ad can be found here on YouTube.

2) How can I link my product touch points & brand elements to reinforce the fulfillment of this Maslow need? Are there tweaks or enhancements I can make to my service that would enable it to provide even greater fulfillment of the Maslow need?

• Example: Imagine you do marketing for a group of upscale lounges in your town. One of the core Maslow needs you would likely be trying to satisfy is the need to feel important. In thinking about how to add touch points or brand elements to support the fulfillment of this need, you may consider adding to your lounges amenities such as bathroom attendants, coat checkers, well-garbed doormen, and servers who address patrons as Mr/Ms .

3) Are there aspects of my product that undermine the success with which it satisfies this Maslow need? How can I remove or reduce them?

4) Are there other Maslow needs I should try to satisfy in order to provide even greater value to my customers, and perhaps attract new customer segments?

• Example: a simple, yet highly successful move made by many manufacturers of home appliances has been to tap into the Maslow need for beauty by imbuing every-day appliances with style, color and form. In fact, in his excellent book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink devotes an entire chapter to this trend, and retailers such as Design Within Reach have successfully exploited it.
  

As always, feel free to send me an email or leave your comments & questions. Best of luck in your endeavors and in building some Maslow into your business! It's well worth your time & energy!






Other posts on Maslow:

• Innovating around Maslow's needs

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Marketing warriors, fight for thy customer!

Whenever I need a little marketing pick-me-up, I turn to this guy, The Ultimate Warrior (the nice-looking gentleman pictured to the right). A beacon of strength, courage & determination, Ultimate fought his way to the top of the World Wrestling Federation during my youth, despite the greater popularity of Hulk Hogan. Sure, much of his energy was likely derived from illicit muscle-enhancers pumping through his body, but that's beside the point.

Much the way The Ultimate Warrior fought his way to the top through his courage & determination, I am calling on all marketers to reach into their "inner Warriors" and fight for the single most important long-term success factor of any company, your customers. It's up to you to ensure that your customer remains king within your organization.

To pull a couple of quotes from the modern-day Plato of business, the late Peter Drucker, everything begins & ends with the customer:

"The purpose of a business is to create a customer"

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself"

Battling product-centric thinking
While the business world purports to live in the age of customer-centricity, I am convinced that we still live in an era of product-centered thought. There are numerous factors that underlie this, from organizational structure to the science of human cognition & our inability to hold onto abstract concepts such as needs (vs. far more concrete concepts like products or services).

While I find such topics fascinating, this post in not about exploring what cognitive science can tell us about business thinking. It's about making one thing clear to all marketers, and that is that within your organization you are the ultimate champion of the customer. And without your strong voice, your organization's long-term future may be put in jeopardy. It's a heck of a responsibility to have, which makes it all the more rewarding.

What I have attempted to do in previous posts is to introduce concepts to help us become more customer-centric in our thinking, and in our approach to business. Whether it be through the help of tools such as the purchase journal, talking to your mother, or the cultivating of your inner consumer voice, developing fluency in customer-centric thought is key to great marketing as well as successful business outcomes.

In closing, a few wisdoms for us to keep in mind

• We think about about our products 100x more often than our customers ever do. The inverse is likely true with respect to their needs.
  

• Our products are tools used by our customers to satisfy their given needs, problems or desires. Our products are a means to an end for our customers, not ends in themselves.
  

• Deep insights about consumers is the foundation upon which great new products are built. The Field of Dreams approach (i.e., "build it and they will come") generally only works in the movies.

• As humans (& marketers), we're wired in such a way that makes it easier for us to think about the concrete (i.e., our products) than the abstract (i.e., our customers' needs). Given this, we need to continuously work-out our customer-centric "muscles" to battle against our tendency to shift back to thinking about our products.
  

As always, please post your comments, questions or thoughts, or feel free to send me an email. Happy marketing, fellow Warriors.

read more

Marketing warriors, fight for thy customer!

Whenever I need a little marketing pick-me-up, I turn to this guy, The Ultimate Warrior (the nice-looking gentleman pictured to the right). A beacon of strength, courage & determination, Ultimate fought his way to the top of the World Wrestling Federation during my youth, despite the greater popularity of Hulk Hogan. Sure, much of his energy was likely derived from illicit muscle-enhancers pumping through his body, but that's beside the point.

Much the way The Ultimate Warrior fought his way to the top through his courage & determination, I am calling on all marketers to reach into their "inner Warriors" and fight for the single most important long-term success factor of any company, your customers. It's up to you to ensure that your customer remains king within your organization.

To pull a couple of quotes from the modern-day Plato of business, the late Peter Drucker, everything begins & ends with the customer:

"The purpose of a business is to create a customer"

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself"

Battling product-centric thinking
While the business world purports to live in the age of customer-centricity, I am convinced that we still live in an era of product-centered thought. There are numerous factors that underlie this, from organizational structure to the science of human cognition & our inability to hold onto abstract concepts such as needs (vs. far more concrete concepts like products or services).

While I find such topics fascinating, this post in not about exploring what cognitive science can tell us about business thinking. It's about making one thing clear to all marketers, and that is that within your organization you are the ultimate champion of the customer. And without your strong voice, your organization's long-term future may be put in jeopardy. It's a heck of a responsibility to have, which makes it all the more rewarding.

What I have attempted to do in previous posts is to introduce concepts to help us become more customer-centric in our thinking, and in our approach to business. Whether it be through the help of tools such as the purchase journal, talking to your mother, or the cultivating of your inner consumer voice, developing fluency in customer-centric thought is key to great marketing as well as successful business outcomes.

In closing, a few wisdoms for us to keep in mind

• We think about about our products 100x more often than our customers ever do. The inverse is likely true with respect to their needs.
  

• Our products are tools used by our customers to satisfy their given needs, problems or desires. Our products are a means to an end for our customers, not ends in themselves.
  

• Deep insights about consumers is the foundation upon which great new products are built. The Field of Dreams approach (i.e., "build it and they will come") generally only works in the movies.

• As humans (& marketers), we're wired in such a way that makes it easier for us to think about the concrete (i.e., our products) than the abstract (i.e., our customers' needs). Given this, we need to continuously work-out our customer-centric "muscles" to battle against our tendency to shift back to thinking about our products.
  

As always, please post your comments, questions or thoughts, or feel free to send me an email. Happy marketing, fellow Warriors.

read more

Innoviation via other worlds: a tool for generating powerful ideas for your business

I'm not quite referring to Mars or Pluto when I say "other worlds". Although, there is no doubt that even a few seconds of stargazing can inspire & fuel your innovation efforts.

By "other worlds" I'm talking a little closer to home than Mars or Pluto. What I am referring to is a great framework for innovation in which we explore other worlds (i.e., people, places or things) that provide the samehigher-order benefits as those provided by our product or service.

The Analogous Worlds Framework consists of three steps:

1. Identifying the higher-order benefit(s) provided by your product/service (e.g., save money, save time, guidance, peace of mind, confidence, social connectedness, pleasure, etc.)
   
2. Making a list of those people, places or things that provide the same higher-order benefit (s)
3. Asking how these "other worlds" that you identified in step 2 go about providing the higher-order benefit. Is there anything about what they do or how they do it which you could incorporate into your product, or use in aspects of your marketing strategy*?

*By marketing strategy, I am referring here specifically to product, price, promotion, distribution, segmentation, positioning, and targeting.

Analogous Worlds Framework - PPT template
click here to download slide (use it, share it!)

The Analogous Worlds Framework: a brief example - BMW
Let's take "the ultimate driving machine" for a test drive through the framework and see what we can come up with...

Step 1: Identify the high-order benefits provided by a BMW:

• Saves time. Transportation inventions such as the automobile have cut down the time it takes to get from point A to point B in dramatic fashion (assuming you don't line in LA).
• Provides feeling of importance; status. This should come as no surprise from the Bimmer.
  
• Provides access; empowerment. BMWs, and cars in general are incredibly empowering tools, enabling people to explore places that otherwise would have been unreachable by foot, horse, bike or train.

Step 2: Make a list of those people, places or things that provide the same higher-order benefit(s):

Analogous Worlds Framework for BMW

Step 3: Ask how these "other worlds" that you identified in step 2 go about providing the higher-order benefit(s). Is there anything about what they do or how they do it which you could incorporate into your product, or use in aspects of your marketing strategy?

Here are a few of many thoughts that come to mind (note that I have bolded those items in the BMW framework above which led to the ideas below):

• The BMW butler. Leverage the butler concept and design an on board, voice-activated, computerized "butler" that can do various tasks for you while you drive - e.g., manage the radio settings, climate control, seat positioning, etc.
  

• The Car Doorman. Leverage the concept of a doorman, and develop a feature that allows drivers to push a button and have the car door open for them, saving them the time & effort of having to open the doors for themselves - an activity which is especially difficult when their hands are full (e.g., when carrying bags of groceries, carrying children).

• In-car Google. Leverage Google's approach to providing access (via pertinent information now!), and develop a voice-activated capability that allows drivers to access information about local traffic, road conditions, local commerce, the "health" of the car, etc.
  

• Your driving anthem. Similar to the Nike+ / iPod "Power Song" feature that allows runners to push a button and listen to their favorite high-adrenaline song, develop a button under the steering wheel which plays your favorite "cruising song" when pushed. This concept leverages the method via which Tony Robbins provides "empowerment".
  

Hopefully the BMW example will give you a taste of the potential power of The Analogous Worlds Framework. It's a framework that effectively "shakes things up" and gets you to think in terms of the higher-order benefit(s) provided by your product, getting you out of the feature-focused, product-centric paralysis that consumes all of us from time to time.

Please feel free to download the framework, pass it along to your friends & colleagues - and more important than anything, use it. Like many tools, the more you use it, the more it will work for you, and help you generate high-impact, game-changing opportunities.

As always, feel free to contact me with any of your thoughts, comments, or questions.

Great books on innovation & creativity

• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition)

• Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas

• The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth

read more

Innoviation via other worlds: a tool for generating powerful ideas for your business

I'm not quite referring to Mars or Pluto when I say "other worlds". Although, there is no doubt that even a few seconds of stargazing can inspire & fuel your innovation efforts.

By "other worlds" I'm talking a little closer to home than Mars or Pluto. What I am referring to is a great framework for innovation in which we explore other worlds (i.e., people, places or things) that provide the samehigher-order benefits as those provided by our product or service.

The Analogous Worlds Framework consists of three steps:

1. Identifying the higher-order benefit(s) provided by your product/service (e.g., save money, save time, guidance, peace of mind, confidence, social connectedness, pleasure, etc.)
   
2. Making a list of those people, places or things that provide the same higher-order benefit (s)
3. Asking how these "other worlds" that you identified in step 2 go about providing the higher-order benefit. Is there anything about what they do or how they do it which you could incorporate into your product, or use in aspects of your marketing strategy*?

*By marketing strategy, I am referring here specifically to product, price, promotion, distribution, segmentation, positioning, and targeting.

Analogous Worlds Framework - PPT template
click here to download slide (use it, share it!)

The Analogous Worlds Framework: a brief example - BMW
Let's take "the ultimate driving machine" for a test drive through the framework and see what we can come up with...

Step 1: Identify the high-order benefits provided by a BMW:

• Saves time. Transportation inventions such as the automobile have cut down the time it takes to get from point A to point B in dramatic fashion (assuming you don't line in LA).
• Provides feeling of importance; status. This should come as no surprise from the Bimmer.
  
• Provides access; empowerment. BMWs, and cars in general are incredibly empowering tools, enabling people to explore places that otherwise would have been unreachable by foot, horse, bike or train.

Step 2: Make a list of those people, places or things that provide the same higher-order benefit(s):

Analogous Worlds Framework for BMW

Step 3: Ask how these "other worlds" that you identified in step 2 go about providing the higher-order benefit(s). Is there anything about what they do or how they do it which you could incorporate into your product, or use in aspects of your marketing strategy?

Here are a few of many thoughts that come to mind (note that I have bolded those items in the BMW framework above which led to the ideas below):

• The BMW butler. Leverage the butler concept and design an on board, voice-activated, computerized "butler" that can do various tasks for you while you drive - e.g., manage the radio settings, climate control, seat positioning, etc.
  

• The Car Doorman. Leverage the concept of a doorman, and develop a feature that allows drivers to push a button and have the car door open for them, saving them the time & effort of having to open the doors for themselves - an activity which is especially difficult when their hands are full (e.g., when carrying bags of groceries, carrying children).

• In-car Google. Leverage Google's approach to providing access (via pertinent information now!), and develop a voice-activated capability that allows drivers to access information about local traffic, road conditions, local commerce, the "health" of the car, etc.
  

• Your driving anthem. Similar to the Nike+ / iPod "Power Song" feature that allows runners to push a button and listen to their favorite high-adrenaline song, develop a button under the steering wheel which plays your favorite "cruising song" when pushed. This concept leverages the method via which Tony Robbins provides "empowerment".
  

Hopefully the BMW example will give you a taste of the potential power of The Analogous Worlds Framework. It's a framework that effectively "shakes things up" and gets you to think in terms of the higher-order benefit(s) provided by your product, getting you out of the feature-focused, product-centric paralysis that consumes all of us from time to time.

Please feel free to download the framework, pass it along to your friends & colleagues - and more important than anything, use it. Like many tools, the more you use it, the more it will work for you, and help you generate high-impact, game-changing opportunities.

As always, feel free to contact me with any of your thoughts, comments, or questions.

Great books on innovation & creativity

• Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition)

• Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas

• The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth

read more

Marketing & the 5 W's: why every marketer should take a journalism class

Journalism 101. Who, what, when, where, why, how?... these key dimensions that are the foundation of journalism can also be used to design great marketing & segmentation strategies, and to turbo-charge your innovation efforts.

The 5 W's as they have been dubbed, can serve as a powerful tool for gaining deep insight into the contextual nature surrounding the need for and use of your product. I like to think of the 5W's as the marketing equivalent of an industrial-grade power shovel, allowing you to "dig deep" so you can get to those precious consumer gems that lay beneath your feet.

Context is king
Powering the 5W's is the essential notion that everything that we do is embedded in a context, and the better you, the marketer, understand the different contexts in which the need for/use of your product occurs, the better equipped you will be to develop marketing strategies or innovations that truly pop!

How do I use the 5 W's?
The simplest way to begin using the 5W's is to start with the most basic question and loop it through each W:

• {When/Where/Why/How/For whom} might the need for my product arise?

Spend at least 5-10 minutes on each W, making a list along the way. Allow your thoughts to percolate; don't be afraid to make assumptions - you can always validate them in the future. Do the exercise again a day or two later - often the most insightful thoughts will come after a period of incubation.

As you begin to use the 5W's, one thing that will become clear to you is that one or two of the Ws will often be more relevant to your product than others. You'll also notice that the Ws will frequently interact with each other in meaningful ways, and that you'll often want to drill down on a given insight using "follow-up" Ws. Note these interactions and drill-downs and allow them to generate further insight into the contextual nature of demand for your product. Often the deepest insights lay in these pockets.

Gatorade: a brief example of the 5 W's in action
Let's take Gatorade, that cold, refreshing beverage that most of us have purchased at some point in our lives. Reaching into our magic hat of W's, we come up with "Where?", leading us to ask, "Where might the need for Gatorade arise?"

Given that Gatorade is 'the ultimate thirst quencher', I begin to think of places where the need for thirst-quenching is likely to arise. A few examples that come to mind include basketball courts, hot climates (e.g., Phoenix, The Mojave Desert), marathons, and the Dead Sea.

Let's reach into the hat again... this time I pull out "When?", leading us to ask, "When might the need for Gatorade (thirst-quenching) arise?" Some initial thoughts that come to mind include summertime, playing sports, during a long hike, the morning following a night of drinking, a few hours after eating extremely salty food, and last but certainly not least, during a prolonged bout of diarrhea.

Let's now drill down on one of the "When's" - during a prolonged bout of diarrhea - and ask, "Where might such bouts occur?" One thought that comes to mind is certain poor villages around the globe where outbreaks occur regularly. Gatorade could be used in such places to quickly rehydrate people, especially children, who can die from the dehydration caused by the outbreak. Needless to say the potential benefits to Gatorade, the Gatorade brand, and the people of such villages would be numerous.

5 W's Recap
How to use the 5W's for developing marketing strategies & for business innovation likely merits an entire book; perhaps we'll put one together in the near future. Hopefully in this post I've given you a little taste of how one of the bedrocks of journalism can also serve as a potent tool for marketers & innovators alike. Much more to come.





More posts on the 5 W's:

• 5 Ws innovation framework
• Using the 5Ws to reduce customer churn
  

Check out my favorite business books

read more

Marketing & the 5 W's: why every marketer should take a journalism class

Journalism 101. Who, what, when, where, why, how?... these key dimensions that are the foundation of journalism can also be used to design great marketing & segmentation strategies, and to turbo-charge your innovation efforts.

The 5 W's as they have been dubbed, can serve as a powerful tool for gaining deep insight into the contextual nature surrounding the need for and use of your product. I like to think of the 5W's as the marketing equivalent of an industrial-grade power shovel, allowing you to "dig deep" so you can get to those precious consumer gems that lay beneath your feet.

Context is king
Powering the 5W's is the essential notion that everything that we do is embedded in a context, and the better you, the marketer, understand the different contexts in which the need for/use of your product occurs, the better equipped you will be to develop marketing strategies or innovations that truly pop!

How do I use the 5 W's?
The simplest way to begin using the 5W's is to start with the most basic question and loop it through each W:

• {When/Where/Why/How/For whom} might the need for my product arise?

Spend at least 5-10 minutes on each W, making a list along the way. Allow your thoughts to percolate; don't be afraid to make assumptions - you can always validate them in the future. Do the exercise again a day or two later - often the most insightful thoughts will come after a period of incubation.

As you begin to use the 5W's, one thing that will become clear to you is that one or two of the Ws will often be more relevant to your product than others. You'll also notice that the Ws will frequently interact with each other in meaningful ways, and that you'll often want to drill down on a given insight using "follow-up" Ws. Note these interactions and drill-downs and allow them to generate further insight into the contextual nature of demand for your product. Often the deepest insights lay in these pockets.

Gatorade: a brief example of the 5 W's in action
Let's take Gatorade, that cold, refreshing beverage that most of us have purchased at some point in our lives. Reaching into our magic hat of W's, we come up with "Where?", leading us to ask, "Where might the need for Gatorade arise?"

Given that Gatorade is 'the ultimate thirst quencher', I begin to think of places where the need for thirst-quenching is likely to arise. A few examples that come to mind include basketball courts, hot climates (e.g., Phoenix, The Mojave Desert), marathons, and the Dead Sea.

Let's reach into the hat again... this time I pull out "When?", leading us to ask, "When might the need for Gatorade (thirst-quenching) arise?" Some initial thoughts that come to mind include summertime, playing sports, during a long hike, the morning following a night of drinking, a few hours after eating extremely salty food, and last but certainly not least, during a prolonged bout of diarrhea.

Let's now drill down on one of the "When's" - during a prolonged bout of diarrhea - and ask, "Where might such bouts occur?" One thought that comes to mind is certain poor villages around the globe where outbreaks occur regularly. Gatorade could be used in such places to quickly rehydrate people, especially children, who can die from the dehydration caused by the outbreak. Needless to say the potential benefits to Gatorade, the Gatorade brand, and the people of such villages would be numerous.

5 W's Recap
How to use the 5W's for developing marketing strategies & for business innovation likely merits an entire book; perhaps we'll put one together in the near future. Hopefully in this post I've given you a little taste of how one of the bedrocks of journalism can also serve as a potent tool for marketers & innovators alike. Much more to come.




More posts on the 5 W's:

• 5 Ws innovation framework
• Using the 5Ws to reduce customer churn
  

read more

How to target your best prospects and maximize your ROI

In a prior post I discussed customer segmentation, a topic renowned for producing headaches and mild bouts of anxiety among even the sharpest of business people. The makers of Tylenol might want to consider becoming a sponsor for seminars on the topic; of course, providing free samples for those in need throughout.

In that earlier post I promised that I would discuss some of the ways in which segmentation can be used; in this post I'd like to talk about one such way - segmenting customers by profitability, and then using this knowledge to significantly improve your prospect targeting, and hence your ROI.

The concept behind segmenting your customers by profitability makes intuitive sense. Wouldn't you want to know which of your customers are providing you with your profits, and how to find prospects who look just like them?... wouldn't you also want to know which customers say adios to your service mere days after signing up for it - especially after you've spent so much effort & money acquiring them?

The friendship analogy
The analogy that always comes to mind when I think about this topic is that of friendships. Did you ever have a friend who would constantly borrow money from you and never pay you back? And, of course, whenever you needed a favor, he was nowhere to be found. My guess is that such a friend would likely not be the best man at your wedding, if he received an invitation at all.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the angelic friend. The friend who would give you the shirt off his back. The friend who carried you miles to the nearest hospital after you twisted your ankle during your annual camping trip.

To ask the obvious follow-up question, which of these two friends did you prefer? And, for future "friend-making", if you could buy a crystal ball that would allow you to discern "the angels" from "the moochers", would you purchase it? I know I would.

Bringing it full circle
Segmenting your customers by profitability, and using the insights to improve your prospect targeting is a lot like picking new friends.

When picking new friends you want to look for people who have the same qualities as those of of your closest, dearest friends (i.e., "the angels"). So too is the case with your prospect targeting - you want to target those prospects who share the same qualities as your most profitable customers (e.g., have similar information profiles in your database). And in addition, you want to limit or stop targeting those prospects who look like your unprofitable customers (i.e., "the moochers").

Plenty more on segmentation to come in future posts. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or would be interested in discussing the topic in more detail.

-------

More posts on segmentation:

• Using the 5Ws for segmentation & marketing innovation
• Using segmentation to develop your marketing strategy
• What is customer segmentation?
  

Great books & articles on segmentation:

• Making Segmentation Work (PDF)
• Market Segmentation: How to do it, how to profit from it
• Counterintuitive Marketing: Achieve Great Results Using Uncommon Sense (One of the best general marketing books with an excellent chapter on segmentation)
  

read more

How to target your best prospects and maximize your ROI

In a prior post I discussed customer segmentation, a topic renowned for producing headaches and mild bouts of anxiety among even the sharpest of business people. The makers of Tylenol might want to consider becoming a sponsor for seminars on the topic; of course, providing free samples for those in need throughout.

In that earlier post I promised that I would discuss some of the ways in which segmentation can be used; in this post I'd like to talk about one such way - segmenting customers by profitability, and then using this knowledge to significantly improve your prospect targeting, and hence your ROI.

The concept behind segmenting your customers by profitability makes intuitive sense. Wouldn't you want to know which of your customers are providing you with your profits, and how to find prospects who look just like them?... wouldn't you also want to know which customers say adios to your service mere days after signing up for it - especially after you've spent so much effort & money acquiring them?

The friendship analogy
The analogy that always comes to mind when I think about this topic is that of friendships. Did you ever have a friend who would constantly borrow money from you and never pay you back? And, of course, whenever you needed a favor, he was nowhere to be found. My guess is that such a friend would likely not be the best man at your wedding, if he received an invitation at all.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have the angelic friend. The friend who would give you the shirt off his back. The friend who carried you miles to the nearest hospital after you twisted your ankle during your annual camping trip.

To ask the obvious follow-up question, which of these two friends did you prefer? And, for future "friend-making", if you could buy a crystal ball that would allow you to discern "the angels" from "the moochers", would you purchase it? I know I would.

Bringing it full circle
Segmenting your customers by profitability, and using the insights to improve your prospect targeting is a lot like picking new friends.

When picking new friends you want to look for people who have the same qualities as those of of your closest, dearest friends (i.e., "the angels"). So too is the case with your prospect targeting - you want to target those prospects who share the same qualities as your most profitable customers (e.g., have similar information profiles in your database). And in addition, you want to limit or stop targeting those prospects who look like your unprofitable customers (i.e., "the moochers").

Plenty more on segmentation to come in future posts. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or would be interested in discussing the topic in more detail.

-------

More posts on segmentation:

• Using the 5Ws for segmentation & marketing innovation
• Using segmentation to develop your marketing strategy
• What is customer segmentation?
  

Great books & articles on segmentation:

• Making Segmentation Work (PDF)
• Market Segmentation: How to do it, how to profit from it
• Counterintuitive Marketing: Achieve Great Results Using Uncommon Sense (One of the best general marketing books with an excellent chapter on segmentation)
  

read more