There was an excellent article in Forbes magazine today about how Facebook and MySpace would like to help grow small businesses.
Ditch your Web site. Facebook and MySpace are eager to help small businesses find friends
The “curse of knowledge” is that when you know something, it’s extremely difficult to put yourself in the state of mind of someone who doesn’t know it. This psychological tendency consistently blocks our ability to create ideas and messages that stick in the mind of our target audience. We assume that they know things that they don’t because it’s common knowledge to us. This “curse of knowledege” can make us miss the mark on our messages.
In the business book “Made to Stick” the authors identify 6 principles at work whenever an idea or message breaks through the clutter and really “sticks” in the mind of the audience.
To communicate your message, simplicity is better than complexity. Concreteness provides the details that resonate in the brain. Credibility is essential to making people believe your message. Unexpectedness jolts listeners into thinking in new ways. Emotion makes people feel why your idea is important. And a good story can move others to action.
As I sat around the living room this evening with family, my brother-in-law quizzed us with top ten lists that he read from a book he had received as a Christmas present. It was very interesting. I didn’t get very many right, but one I did get is the answer to the question “what actress has had the most Oscar nominations?” And it is one of my favorites - Meryl Streep. Although Karl went on to tell us that the actress that has won the most Oscars is not Meryl, but Katherine Hepburn.
A few minutes later I joined another conversation with another brother-in-law, Ron, and he was talking about the ability to receive video on our cell phones. I shared some of the information that I had heard on a recent teleseminar on mobile marketing. The experts on that call suggested that in the coming years we will be receiving a great deal of our entertainment, information and communication primarily on our cell phones. Mobile marketing, as it is called, is a subject that I expect to be talking a lot about in 2008.
I anticipate that in the coming year there will be attorneys advertising on and sponsoring programming that is delivered to cell phones. The mobile device is rapidly maturing. Mobile 2007 is being compared to “Web 1995.” To lend some credence to this evolving industry you may be interested to know that some of the big advertisers that have already signed on include: Ford Motor Company, Starbucks, Financial Services, Gillette, Yahoo, Burger King, Best Buy, JC Penney, AT&T, Bank of America, and MTV.
So what is mobile advertising? As it currently exists it is text link ads and graphical banner ads that appear on your cell phone. These ads can be delivered exclusively to a zip code, media market, city, etc. As of yet, global positioning (GPS) capability is not part of the mix. In other words, the mobile industry cannot currently deliver a text ad with a 10% off coupon to cell phone users in a particular geographical area - close proximity to the business. However, that will undoubtedly develop.
By 2009, millions/billions of the following media types will be accessed via mobile:
So what kind of an opportunity exists? Research by Medio offers the following analysis:
US TV Ad Market - has 280 million viewers and spending of $73 billion
US Internet Ad Market - has 203 million users and spending of $16 billion
US Mobile Ad Market - has 203 million subscribers and spending of $100 million
Informa projects mobile advertising at $11.35 billion by 2011!
With that level of spending you and I both know that attorneys will be there. And those that get there first will have the greatest opportunity to benefit from this new avenue of media exposure.
If you’d like to talk about how and when to allocate a portion of your budget to mobile, I’d be happy to discuss it with you.
One of the things I really enjoy is reading case studies by some of my favorite marketing guru’s. One of those that I think has a lot for all of us to learn is Dan Kennedy. In his blog today he wrote about his business partner, Bill Glazer, and one of the tactics he uses to achieve “marketplace dominance” in the retail industry. I think it has some lessons for us.
Dan says of Bill:
“He very diligently makes certain that every customer that walks into one of his stores never leaves without his sales associates asking them for their complete contact information (name, address, phone, email, etc.). Now, depending on their spending, he communicates with them often. In fact, certain customers will receive from his store yearly:
Now in marketing, this is what we call marketplace dominance. It doesn’t matter how many expensive TV spots the big box retailers buy, they canNOT compete or make the impression that Bill’s store makes with his customers.”
In the legal industry, I find that many firms fall short when it comes to prioritizing building their databases and then systematically cultivating those relationships with consistent and varied communications.
My recommendation is that every single contact be put into your database - clients, referral attorneys, vendors, employees, etc and then each target audience should receive varied communications at pre-determined timed intervals. This is one of the very best ways to stay top of mind with your various audiences, thereby positioning your firm for a steady stream of referrals.
Here are links to some excellent online videos that you may want to email to your clients if you handle auto accident cases:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSj3FLO3IXA
The best customer service comes from the heart. I think the video below is the best example I’ve ever seen of the heart of customer service, of making a difference. I hope you’ll take a few minutes and watch it.
I am a big fan of online video and just see that market exploding in 2008. Well today I came across a great video about online video and thought I’d pass the link along. I especially appreciated the statistics they bring to light.
http://www.accelacast.com/jlp/inP_iaf/1/80226632/
Clicking the URL above will take you to “Getting Results with Online Video”
In 2006 Vertex Data Science, one of the world’s largest provider of call center outsourcing did a comprehensive study to improved the performance of its telephone sales operators. What they learned is fascinating and I think it is applicable to our call centers in the PI industry.
Successful operators, it turned out, speak little and listen much. When they do speak, their voices fluctuate strongly in amplitude and pitch, suggesting interest and responsiveness to the customer’s needs. Operators who speak with little variation come across as too determined and authoritative, but by speaking invitingly, being responsive but not pushy, a skilled operator can let callers find their own way to a sale. “Like a mother speaking singsong to a baby, variation sounds perky and inviting. If operators do it right, they’re almost certain to be successful.”
These valuable insights have allowed the company to train operators to converse more effectively, and it helps them seek new hires who exhibit these speech patterns. They say that the system has improved their telephone sales performance by 20 percent or more.
During the study, the scientists were able to very accurately predict the success or failure of the call very early in the conversation based on how things were said, not what was said. There is a growing volume of other evidence that confirms that the old theory is flawed - that theory being that what is said is more important than how it is said.
Let’s apply this to our industry. Wow, where do I start! I have done ghost calls at firms throughout the country and I can tell you that in most cases the operators do a good job of working their way through a script and getting the facts, but all too often they do a poor job of showing warmth and interest in the client’s situation. What is lacking in those instances is any kind of a connection. And only rarely do I find an operator that is innately a good listener.
A few months ago I did a study, in a firm, of conversion of new case calls by operator. We looked at this with the understanding that all calls were randomly distributed to the 6 operators. Yet the conversion rate differed quite substantially. The intake person that had the highest conversion had already been singled out by the firm as their “best operator.” What set her apart is the warmth in her voice, the genuine interest she had in helping people, and the connection she made with most of the callers.
Let me give you a real life example of how training for your intake people could heavily impact your bottom line.
Let’s suppose you get 300 new case calls a week. You currently sign 20% or 60 cases a week. If we could train your staff so that each operator converted just 2% more of the cases that are currently lost that could add as many as 6 cases a week. If the average value of a case in your firm is $5000, that could mean a difference of $30,000 a week.
You may have a completely different set of numbers but I want you to think about what the impact would be of adding 2% more cases to your bottom line. I think it will make you consider prioritizing training for your intake operators in the coming year.
A recent study of more than 20,000 online shoppers resulted in some key research findings about the effectiveness of various tools for acquiring customers. As you read them you will see that they provide great insights that can easily be adapted to our industry.
In light of these findings there are several best practices that can help us improve customer satisfaction with the site experience, relative to the acquisition source.
Total ad spending fell slightly in the first half of 2007, down 0.3% to $72.6 billion from the same time last year, reports TNS Media Intelligence.
“For the first time since 2001, media advertising expenditures have declined for two consecutive quarters,” says Steven Fredericks, TNS MI CEO, in a statement. “The results reflect weakness across a range of industries and advertisers.”
The biggest loser was newspaper advertising, losing a full percentage point in share, to 17.8% of the whole. Local television ads were next, slipping 0.6%, yet 10.8% of the total. Not surprisingly, Web advertising jumped to 7.6% of the ad share from 6.4% in 2006. Magazine advertising also grew to 20% from 19.1%.
But, “given the uncertainties about near-term economic growth and consumer spending, we expect core ad spending will continue to face challenges,” the report says.
What is most interesting for our industry, however, is that direct response advertising increased 11.3% in early 2007 - more than any other of the top ten advertising categories. I think we’re seeing the evidence of that with the growing number of attorneys advertisng on television.
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