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

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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

Your product's lemming factor: are you following your competitors off a cliff?

I have seen it happen time & time again... and it always reminds me of the psychology of crowds, and how the individuals within the crowds assume their fellow crowd-members know something they don't know. So the individual continues to follow the crowd, all the while not realizing that the crowd is often an amalgam of equally confused individuals...

The Lemming Effect
Ok, enough of the philo-babble. The "lemming effect" as I call it is no doubt present within many organizations, and all of us at one time or another fall into its trap. Its influence within product management & product development is pervasive, frequently resulting in products that get bulkier & costlier over time. But we would be remiss to equate the proliferation of bells, whistles & "performance enhancers" with greater levels of customer value.

There are many drivers of the phenomenon of "Frankensteining" a product, and the lemming effect is at the top of the list. It all starts when we become more focused on our competitors than on our customers. One day Acme, our arch rival, increases the performance of its product or adds a new feature. "Hmmm", we think to ourselves, "What does Acme know that we don't? Are customers demanding greater levels of performance?" And then, voila, with limited thought or analysis we quickly 'upgrade' our product. Acme no doubts catches wind of our "2.0", and the arms race ensues.

All the while, our customers might not even be looking for the increased performance or the new bell or whistle. Perhaps our target customer looks a little different from Acme's target customer, and have somewhat differing needs. Perhaps Acme's reason for making enhancements to its product were ill-conceived or driven by internal factors that are invisible to us. Regardless of the reason, the one thing we have successfully achieved is increasing the cost of both our product as well as Acme's, who will no doubt follow suite with their "3.0". Whether we're able to "pass along" this incremental cost to our customers in the form of higher prices is something we certainly hope we can do.

Never take your eyes off your customers
The moral of the above faux situation, and of the lemming effect in general is to be wary of the moves that your competitors make. Do not assume the moves they are making are the right ones or that they have generated an insight that has given them the secret to building the perfect service for customers. The remedy to the lemming effect is quite straightforward, yet often ignored. Stay abreast of what your competitors are doing, but keep your eye on the ball - aka, your customers! Stay close to your customers. Develop multiple channels & methods for gaining access to the "voices of your customers". Understand their needs, desires, motivations, decision-making processes, changes in their outlooks or needs, etc. If you do these things right, you will be far less vulnerable to the lemming instinct, and far more confident in product decisions that you choose to make.

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