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How David beats Goliath (more often than you think)
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Underdogs win a lot more often than you think. Malcolm Gladwell explains how.
We're all familiar with the story of David and Goliath, where David stood before the giant of the Philistines and survived to tell about it. For forty days, Goliath had been dispensing soldiers with relative ease, until David came along. David rose to the challenge and, at first, girded himself with a helmet and mail and sword. But David recognized that waging this battle using conventional warfare would be suicide against Goliath. So he changed his strategy to take advantage of this strengths.
Malcolm Gladwell, in an article for The New Yorker, argues that this simple act of adjusting strategy is the key for weaker opponents – the Davids – to win against foes that greatly overpower them. He tells a compelling story of Vivek Ranadivé, who took on the job of coaching his daughters woeful basketball team, a bunch of “little blond girls” from Menlo Park, daughters of computer programmers. He says, “They weren’t all that tall. They couldn’t shoot. They weren’t particularly adept at dribbling. They were not the sort who played pickup games at the playground every evening.” Yet he was able to take them from obscurity to a national championship by changing the way they played: Instead of playing to the strengths of opponents, the adopted a relentless full-court press strategy and crushed the better-abled competition.
Gladwell suggests successes of this type aren't all that uncommon. In fact, political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. Thinking about the original David, who took off the heavy, unfamiliar armor and picked up five smooth stones, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”
Which begs the question, what should you be doing to change the game to play to your strengths?
[Read Gladwell's article, "How David Beats Goliath"]
Labels: basketball, business consulting, coaching, daughters, David and Goliath, email marketing, strategy, underdogs, Vivek Ranadivé
Focus on the message to survive the recession
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
"Cutting your marketing budget to save money is like stopping your watch to save time."
Charlie Williams
To help, a recent Knowledge@Wharton article offered some helpful advice that's worth considering: "The first reaction is to cut, cut, cut, and advertising is one of the first things to go," says Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader, adding that as companies slash advertising in a downturn, they leave empty space in consumers' minds for aggressive marketers to make strong inroads. Today's economy "provides an unusual opportunity to differentiate yourself and stand out from the crowd," says Fader, "but it takes a lot of courage and convincing to get senior management on board with that."
But as Wharton marketing professor Leonard Lodish points out, weakened demand causes the cost of many of these services to go down. "If your company has something to say that is relevant in this environment, it's going to be more efficient to say it now than to say it in better times," says Lodish.
Most interesting, however, is recent research that demonstrates just how powerful this economic downturn can be for companies that take advantage of the environment. According to the article, "a McGraw-Hill Research study looking at 600 companies from 1980 to 1985 found that those businesses which chose to maintain or raise their level of advertising expenditures during the 1981 and 1982 recession had significantly higher sales after the economy recovered. Specifically, companies that advertised aggressively during the recession had sales 256% higher than those that did not continue to advertise."
Some key concepts for success:
- Craft messages that reflect the times and explain how you can benefit the consumer
- Without dwelling on the economic conditions, realize that certain products require a straight-up approach; be authentic
- Focus on a goal-oriented message that helps people plan for the future
- While some can craft messages based on price, choose value instead
- Luxury products should appeal to emotion, highlighting the escapism, emotional release and comfort in difficult times
- Regardless of the tactic you choose, stay true to your brand
Labels: marketing, strategy, writing
Succeed in business: get the equation right
Monday, December 1, 2008
"I now get as much satisfaction from the challenges of keeping my restaurant fresh and exciting as I did from cooking. It is now more than twice as busy as it was and growing at 20% a year–teeming daily with regulars and newcomers."
Jonathan Rapp
Start with what the customer wants and go from there.This BusinessWeek article is about New York restaurateur Jonathan Rapp and his journey building a sustainable enterprise in the small town of Chester, Connecticut.
He left New York thinking his experience and reputation would be enough to succeed in the small town. He quickly learned otherwise. Says Rapp: "By Year Two, the trouble signs were too numerous to miss. Numbers were declining for both customers and revenue. There was a persistent drumbeat of criticism of virtually every aspect of the restaurant, except the food. No matter what we did, we couldn't shake the perception that we were too expensive, too “New York-y” (a nasty epithet here), and on top of that, had inconsistent, aloof service and a menu that was too limited."
He thought of selling, but after running the numbers realized he had nothing to sell. Quitting was also an unfavorable option, so he chose to take stock and try to turn the enterprise around. "I realized that I had the equation backwards," said Rapp. "I was making decisions based on what I wanted. In our own minds, we were the best restaurant around—but the fact was, we weren't connecting with our customers." Marketing Guru Seth Godin is fond of saying that you shouldn't create a product and then find a market for it. Instead, you should find out what the market wants and then create that product. This sounds like sage and obvious advice, but Rapp's story illustrates how easy it is to overlook it in practice.
So he fired his 'talented chef' that wouldn't adapt, formed a focus group of customers, and really dug into the community vibe of the small town. Specifically, he:
- Remodeled the restaurant to be cozier and more comfortable (less New York-y, to be sure)
- Began asking his customers what they wanted from a local restaurant
- Changed hours to be more accessible to when customers wanted to be customers (opening for lunch and dinner)
- Began communicating with customers on a regular basis to let them know what was happening in and around their 'community' restaurant
- Began collaborating with local artists, businesses and even other restaurants to create events and to reinforce their image as a member of an unique, thriving village.
The short article is worth the read.
Labels: business consulting, marketing, strategy
Put Transactional Email to Work
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Speaking in Washington last week, I encouraged the attendees to use the power of transactional emails as a viable means to improve their customer relationships. I noted that these messages tend to break through the clutter and are generally perceived as helpful tools for customers to remain current with the latest information regarding their orders. To illustrate the point, I suggested that retailers send emails at the following times (as examples):
- Order Confirmation
- Shipping Confirmation
- Customer Service Messages (e.g., "By now, you should have rec'd your order..."
- Requesting Feedback (e.g., "Please come back and write a review about your experience..."
- Re-Order Reminders
- RE-Engagement Efforts
Today I saw this chart from MarketingSherpa that speaks to this very issue. Customers pay attention to these messages, so they can be a valuable tool, but it's important that they are heavy on the information and light on offers.
Labels: email marketing, permission marketing, strategy
Target: So Many Things Right, One Big Thing Wrong
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.
Target Corp. Spokesperson
So it was with some alarm and a great deal of surprise when I learned that they seem to be so far out of touch with the reality of the world in which they do business. Here's the story:
They recently ran an ad that featured a young girl laying spread-eagle across a life-size representation of the notable trademark. This girl happened to be lying in a position that placed the center of the target -- the bullseye, so to speak -- directly between her akimbo legs.
A blogger named Amy Jussel from an organization called Shaping Youth took notice of the ad and sent a question to their corporate headquarters voicing her concern that this ad might be placing too much emphasis on the woman's genitals, and didn't they think this might be a little overly sexually subversive? (At this point in the story, you can choose to agree or disagree... it's their response that was truly imbecilic.)
Target responded with the following terse reply:
Good Morning Amy,
Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.
Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.
"We want to focus on publications that reach our core guest"? It's the Internet, folks, which part of your core do you think isn't being reached by the Internet? I could go on, but the stupidity of this stance is hopefully obvious.
I am forced to ask, however, "So what?" So they've alienated bloggers and marginalized that part of their core that is being served by the Internet. So what? Will they be generally incensed enough to write thousands of words about how idiotic Target is? Probably. Maybe Definitely. Will these people stop shopping at Target? Maybe. Maybe not. The truth is, Target may never know the full cost of taking this position, because it may hit them in ways unforeseen by methods not contemplated.
An example? Sure... It's a known fact that the inclusion of product reviews on an e-commerce site can provide a noticeable boost to sales, especially for products receiving positive reviews. The reviews that have the most impact are not written by professional reviewers, they're written by customers. Is it possible that some of these customers, perhaps bloggers themselves, might be less likely to take the time to write a positive product review on Target's web site? Or, realizing that Target devalues their input, isn't it also possible that these same people might be more likely to only share their negative reviews? I think you can count on it.
Labels: blogging, internet, marketing, strategy, stupidity
Business Consulting or Web Development?
Friday, December 21, 2007
Let's see... we talked about about design, site architecture, implementation strategy, marketing strategy...
I ran through a mental checklist... let's see, we talked about design, site architecture, implementation strategy, marketing strategy, product delivery, logo and identity development, branding issues and concerns, product pricing, sales efforts, post-launch PR and marketing efforts, beta testing, testimonials, and a few other things.
"Yes," says I, "that's a pretty good example of how these things go." His response surprised me:
"I'm surprised at how much business consulting goes on," he said.
Which is interesting to me, primarily because it can be difficult to define what we do. Obviously, we specialize in web development and new media, but there are so many other issues involved that we're providing a high level of business consulting at every step of the way. I just never really thought about it in that light before.
Thanks, Michael!
Labels: business consulting, marketing, strategy, web development
E-Commerce, Affiliate Marketing, and Predictive Modeling
Monday, November 19, 2007
The upside is that you can achieve similar results by targeting a much smaller portion of the whole. Pretty cool stuff.
Jim Cota
Some of the most interesting topics from the event dealt with the methods being employed by Tucker's group to provide realistic and accurate predictive modeling. Their analysis applies 138 different criteria to your database records to help you determine which segments would perform the best. The upside is that you can achieve similar results by targeting a much smaller portion of the whole. Pretty cool stuff.
We also spent some time discussing the ins and outs of strategic, triggered email events that can be used to automatically contact customers based on a variety of criteria. You're probably familiar with things like order and shipping confirmation, but this same approach can be used for a whole variety of contacts. Examples include customer service and promotional messages, and almost any kind of targeted communication based on customer order history, preferences, activities, etc. Also pretty cool.
My time was spent highlighting some of the best practices in web design, both at the product and the cart level, with a eye toward helping companies realize the best possible results from their online efforts. I'll get more into some of this later, but here's a hint of one item: too much choice can be a bad thing.