Category Archives: Customer Service

What you sell and what people buy are often two different things…

08 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by in Advertising, Customer Service, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales

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If you’ve studied any tertiary marketing course, you’re probably familiar with Theodore Levitt’s famous consumer insight about power drills.

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.”

Marketers and their agencies are often guilty of not understanding the reasons why people behave the way they do. They don’t take time to talk with their customers. This lack of real communication has increased in recent years alongside the growth of marketing automation. We’ve stopped talking, we’re only computing, and lost a layer of human involvement along the way.

As I’ve written before, you’ll be surprised what you learn if you just talk with your customers.

This lack of knowledge about what motivates customers was laid bare at a tourism marketing conference in New Zealand, at which I spoke some time ago. I met Jeanette Kelly – a women who has spent years working in the hospitality industry, running her own business as well as working for others. Jeanette presented a wonderful piece of research conducted by the University of Waikato.

The accommodation and marketing managers of various hotels, motels, guest houses and the like, were asked what they thought were the most important factors influencing accommodation choices. They said, in order of priority:

  1. Staffing and accommodation service
  2. Room rate
  3. Location
  4. Facilities
  5. Marketing and Sales programmes
  6. Seasonal tourism
  7. Competition from other properties
  8. Supply and demand
  9. Events taking place in the area
  10. The general state of the national economy
  11. The state of the property

Guess what the customers listed as the most important factors influencing their accommodation choices, in order of priority?

  1. Cleanliness of the room
  2. Quality of the bath towels and wash cloths
  3. Quality of staff service
  4. Friendliness of staff service
  5. Comfort of mattress and pillow
  6. Quietness of room
  7. Well maintained furnishings
  8. On-premise car parking
  9. Overall facilities
  10. Level of security

In case you’re wondering ‘room prices’ came 17th on the list of priorities for customers. And what were the marketers smoking to believe customers care about marketing and sales programmes?

More importantly, as you can see in this case, what customers want to buy and what marketers are trying to sell, are poles apart.

So take some time to really talk with your customers and understand what motivates them. You could be pleasantly surprised by what you learn. Who knows, you might find they’re looking to buy something other than what you’re selling, or even be willing to pay more?

Have to go now. My bride says she has a surprise for me. Why is she carrying a drill?

 

Let’s connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld/

Real estate agent fires art director for not dressing inappropriately…

05 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Customer Service, Marketing

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You cannot make this stuff up, so I’ll tell it to you straight.

One industry in which I’ve done lots of marketing education in the last 20+ years is the real estate industry. And as you marketers will know, real estate agents sit at the bottom of the consumer “Trust Barometer” either just above or below, advertising and marketing types, depending upon the measurement report.

Two things my proprietary research has revealed over the years:

  1. Consumers believe most real estate agents try too hard to pretend they’re something they’re not – professional – by overdressing to impress.
  2. The bigger the photo of the agent in the real estate ad, the less that consumers trust the agent.

Last week I was reminded of this by a mate of mine, who is a very talented art director. He was recently contracted by an average suburban real estate agent in Sydney, to design their ads, brochures and some digital assets.

He was to work in their back room and not have any dealings with the public. Here’s what he wore on his first day at work:

img_5277

This is a typical day’s clobber for most in the advertising and digital world. Quality casual clothes. There are no shiny suits, no completely useless neck ties, no Russian clown shoes that stick out 4 inches in front of your toes curling upwards on the end (minus the pom-pom) – in other words he did not dress like a spiv who leaves you counting your fingers after shaking hands with you.

Within an hour of starting work, the female who contracted him – no fashion princess herself – rang the recruiter and asked him to tell my mate he was inappropriately dressed for the job. She demanded he wear a suit and tie to be a back room art director designing her marketing collateral. Seriously, she did. She wanted him to dress completely inappropriately for the job he was tasked to do, because she had bad fashion sense.

The recruiter rang my mate, fearing he was working in board shorts, singlet and thongs. My mate promptly sent the recruiter a photo of himself in his fully acceptable work clobber. The recruiter’s response; “I’m speechless”.

Suffice to say my mate didn’t go back the next day.

Then a few days later my mate gets an email from GQ with a recommended look for this season. Here’s the image – it speaks for itself:

img_5276

I have friends and relatives who are very successful real estate agents. They dress comfortably, they don’t overdress. They never pretend to be anything but who they are – a real estate agent. They know that if they overdress they lose their customer’s trust, because they look like they are trying too hard and therefore by implication, have something to hide. This translates into dishonesty, just as the consumer trust barometer reveals.

So maybe if the fashion fools of real estate started dressing appropriately for the job and focused on customer service, rather than their Jimmy Choos, they might move up the consumer trust scale.

Gotta go to work now. Where are my designer stubbies?

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Connect with me: https://au.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld

Emotion Trumps Reason – always has, always will…

10 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by in Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital marketing, Marketing

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As the world digests the US election results, the TV screens are full of experts asking questions about how it was possible Trump got elected. Using the rational side of their brains, people are trying to explain why it shouldn’t be.

Well any marketer worth their salt will tell you, one of the most fundamental principles of marketing is this – people buy emotionally and justify their purchases rationally.

If people bought rationally, Jimmy Choo probably wouldn’t exist as a brand. No rational human wants to walk around in 6-10 inch high stilettos! If we bought rationally, the most dominant recent US contribution to the planet – the Kardashians – wouldn’t have any followers.

But we always buy emotionally. Take middle age men for example. They buy a red sports car, then justify their action by claiming a great trade-in deal, free cup holders, acceleration from 0-100 in 3 seconds and lots of other vehicular facts. The real reason they buy the car, is that when they take off at the lights they feel like God and believe it will help their chances with the feminine sex. Fools.

fatgycar

Politics aside – Trump is first and foremost a promoter. He knows that to win the hearts and minds of the people, you must tap into them emotionally.

“Make America Great Again” is a powerfully emotional proposition. Particularly when Trump shouts it as “Let’s Make America Great Again”.

trump-make-america-great-again-white-2-_6022

Compare it to Hillary Clinton’s – “Stronger Together”. This is nowhere near as emotionally appealing – despite all the focus groups used to develop it. The rational discussions in those research panels can easily justify anything – though rarely do they correctly understand human nature.

stronger

So if you want to succeed with your marketing, your proposition has to be an emotional one. Which is why the Content Con Artists are leading marketers into failure.

They claim you have to stop publishing salesy copy – you just have to publish lots of vanilla content and non-sales copy, or tell your boring story in an “awesome” way and the world will flock to your door. “You no longer need to sell” is their false mantra.

Let me explain something very simple – selling is emotional. People love being sold to – and the experience is called “excellent customer service”. So ignore the Content Con Artists and go forth and sell something if you want your business to succeed.

Like many of you I am a tad nervous about the future after today’s result, but I was also nervous about the quality of both candidates.

trump-versus-clinton

Now I’ll just wait for the sales pitch from the President elect once he’s in office and won’t waste time trying to justify why he won.

All that rational thought is too emotionally draining…

 

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Connect with me: https://au.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld

Hint to Telstra – Australia wants your service to work properly, Australia is not interested in your rebranding….

17 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in Advertising, BIG DATA, Branding, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation

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On Friday I received an email from a computer at Telstra. It was an announcement that mainly caused me to shake my head in dismay.

The subject line reads: See our new brand before Australia does

True dear reader. Apparently rebranding is the priority of the company that specialises in regular service outages, digitally disrupting businesses from functioning, preventing kids from doing homework and generally stopping people connecting in the connected world.

Someone needs to explain to Telstra what digital disruption really means.

The disruptions have happened so often that Telstra’s compensation offer of a free data day, now falls on deaf ears. Australia (to use Telstra’s collective noun for all people and businesses in this country) is fed up – we just want our internet and phones to work. After all that’s what we pay for. Well we pay more than that – if we want Telstra to mail monthly invoices to us, because we cannot rely on their internet to deliver it by email, we have to pay north of $3 an invoice. If this was a third world country there’d be riots in the streets.

film not video

The email content states:

There is nothing more important to us than our customers, so before we share the next chapter of our brand story with the world on Sunday night, we wanted to share it with you.

On what planet do these people live? What Telstra customers have bookmarked the Telstra brand story, anxiously awaiting the next chapter for their reading pleasure? Change hands please, we customers are begging you.

The message continues with a link to a video and a subtitle “Click to watch the film“. As they say, the devil is in the details and I suspect if you click you’ll watch a video not a film.

This ignorance of small data is what Telstra is famous for, apart from digital disruptions. Here’s an email Telstra sent to me two days before Friday’s rebranding message.

The subject line reads: Malcolm, here’s a hot deal on a Samsung Galaxy S7 and Tab A 8.0

Samsung offer

Samsung 2

There’s even a free footy pass for the two codes I don’t follow – just another small data glitch…

Samsung 3

Note to Telstra: I am currently about six months into a two-year iPhone plan with you. Why would I even consider switching to a Samsung now?

The computers at Telstra must know what phone and plan I’m on – aren’t I one of those customers referred to in the rebranding message – who are supposedly more important than anything else?

This is the simplest and smallest of data – a customer’s record. How does Telstra continue to get things so wrong? Why is mediocrity such a respectable KPI at Telstra?

But hey, why get the small customer data correct when you’re doing a rebrand?

In case you are waiting with baited breath dear reader, the rebrand is all about the magic of technology. And I must say it does reflect Telstra’s technology – it magically disappears when you want to use it.

You can watch the magic of technology here, or maybe you can put the garbage out, you’re call.

As a shareholder I’m so pleased Telstra is focusing on rebranding, rather than providing a service that works when I need it to. That’s sure to keep the analysts and the customers happy.

Gotta go – need to put the garbage out.

Youi’s awesome marketing automation is still failing awesomely – even for ex-customers…

02 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by in BIG DATA, Branding, Content Marketing, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, small data, social selling

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Regular readers of my musings may recall the appallingly mediocre service I received at the hands of Youi. I eventually rang them to ensure they had cancelled my policy, because they were still charging my credit card.

The lady who served me was wonderful and agreed I had received shocking service. She fully understood why I was leaving and was going to raise the issues with her supervisor. The supervisor was probably an awesome supervisor, most likely wearing lycra and a cape. After all, Youi constantly tell us how awesome they think they are.

awesome service

An awesome Youi supervisor?

At the end of the call, the customer service lady said I would receive an automated survey. I mentioned I was aware of the survey (see previous post). I explained it was designed by fools and didn’t allow me to rate individuals like her really well, as it wanted an overall rating for Youi.

She agreed the survey was badly designed and wished me luck. And you guessed it folks – the survey never arrived.

I haven’t been a Youi customer for a couple of months now. So I ask you dear reader, what do you think arrived in my inbox yesterday? Yes, that’s right, another Youi email asking me to “share my winter warmers” – as if I was still a customer. There’s even a hashtag #winterwarmers to create digi-credibility.

Here’s the first screen:

Youi 2

Malcolm, do you have a winter warmer to share?

What is going on at Youi? Why is the marketing automation so appallingly bad? They have my complaint on record, in numerous blogs, social media posts, emails, phone calls and text messages. I’ve cancelled my policy. I am an ex-customer. As John Cleese stated in the famous Monty Python dead parrot sketch; “this is an ex-parrot, he’s ceased to be”.

parrot

And I’ve ceased to be a Youi customer – yet their marketing automation technology is still sending me customer communications – I bet their digital marketers call it content marketing? Why do they accept such marketing mediocrity?

Here’s the second screen:

Youi survey 2

Even if I was a Youi customer, how am I supposed to remember the name of the person who served me, so I can mention them in my winter warmer? Certainly their CRM system wouldn’t be able to identify anyone linked to my account – that would require a simple computer system that works. And it’s pretty obvious Youi’s doesn’t – work that is.

How is it possible that I cancel my policy, have a customer service person state they are raising the reason for my cancellation with their awesome supervisor, and Youi still gets it sooo wrong?

Youi’s ridiculous tag line is “we get you”. Well they (and their marketing automation) obviously get you riled, frustrated, upset and p***d-off at the time-wasting they cause and the lack of service. Not to mention the lack of faith they create in modern data-driven automated marketing.

Worse still, even if I was a customer, they want me to go to their Facebook page and help grow Zuckerberg’s bank account, as well as influence my social feed to Youi-oriented posts for the next month. What planet is the Youi marketing team living on?

So dear reader, should I give them a red hot winter warmer and share my awesome customer experience journey? (I had to get some marketing jargon into the post) If you have a minute, please let me know your thoughts thanks.

poker

Here’s a winter warmer for you…

And if I am no longer a customer, does it mean Youi is in breach of the Privacy or Spam Act, by using my email address without my awesome permission?

Hmmm, maybe I should send an awesome complaint to the Privacy Commission – then Youi would really get me…

#youi
#winterwarmers
#awesome

How would you treat a loyal customer of 26 years?

27 Friday May 2016

Posted by in B2B Marketing, BIG DATA, Branding, Customer Service, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, small data

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When I was a National Marketing Manager at TNT, I had to fly Ansett domestically because TNT owned the airline. Consequently I only flew Qantas internationally. But in 1990, I joined the Qantas Frequent Flyer programme. Last year was the 25th anniversary of my custom and last month, my 26th came and went quietly.

anniversary

I’ve flown with them every year since 1990 and spent six figures in airfares. Like many of you, I have been up and down the Qantas ladder of membership. At my peak, I was what’s known as a CIP and my membership status was something like Super Godzilla Platinum. For the uninitiated, a CIP is a Commercially Important Passenger. The CIP acronym is more valuable than VIP – it means you pay serious dollars for your seat, whereas VIPs may not pay at all for the privilege.

The reason I was a CIP, was because an over-indulgent ad agency paid me to travel the world’s busiest route – Sydney/Melbourne – on a weekly basis, sitting at the pointy end of the plane. Eventually I left that role and my travel action declined. I gradually dropped from Super Godzilla Platinum to Shiny Gold and eventually arrived at the humble Dull Silver level – though apparently it’s a Lifetime Membership. Woo Hoo.

During the time I slid down the Qantas eligibility pole for a free beer at the bar and a couple of party pies at the bain marie, I also became a Velocity member at Virgin.

pies

Lifetime Silver means no more free party pies or beer on tap…

So I ask you dear marketer, why have I not heard one word from Qantas? If you had a customer who had done business continuously with you for 26 years, wouldn’t you like to know why they’d reduced the amount of business they did with you? Wouldn’t you pick up the phone and ask?

Wouldn’t you like to know if you still get 100% of their flying wallet – to use some marketing jargon? Has your service been the problem? Does your customer now fly with your competitor?

cards

Have you left us for another?

I’m not sure how many customers you have who’ve spent continuously with you for 26 years, but I’m sure you don’t have too many. But if you did have such a customer, aren’t these the typical questions you would ask if they stopped doing business with you?

So why don’t Qantas marketers care about the people who pay their salaries? Is it because they make so much money flogging the personal data of members to FF partners, who in turn flog stuff back to said members? Is the airline business so lucrative and simple, they can afford to lose long term customers?

Is suspect the reason is simple – they rely on marketing automation. The computer tracks flight purchases and allocates ‘status’ based on transactions. And we all know how risky it is to hand over your customer service to computers. More often than not, marketing automation equates to marketing disaster.

Epic Marketing Fails Banner

There is no layer of human intelligence being applied to the BIG DATA at Qantas. Worse still they’re ignoring the small data that matters. Unless of course it’s a budgetary issue – but you’d have to be concerned if the margins in your business restrict you from calling your customers to talk with them?

I’m obviously not the most profitable customer for Qantas, but I have been a customer for more than two and a half decades. You’d think even the lamest marketer would acknowledge the fact? After all, the management could afford to pay a $90 million bonus to the staff last year? But hey, why feign interest in customers?

If you want further evidence, here’s what happened to a friend of mine. Her partner (also a friend of mine) died suddenly from DVT, following an international flight. While sorting out his estate, my grieving friend rang Qantas late on a Friday afternoon to ask what will happen to her partner’s FF points. (you need to plan this in your Will too, dear reader)

She was told to get back to them within 48 hours with the name of a relative to whom they could transfer the points. So after a discussion over the weekend, she rang Qantas on Monday, only to be told she had missed her 48 hour window! The points were to be forfeited.

Suffice to say, she gave them a piece of her mind and eventually coerced the customer service staff into allowing the points to be transferred, somewhat begrudgingly.

Gotta luv the Spirit of Oz.

So I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised about their attitude towards one customer of 26 years…

More than ever before, customers want to be sold too…

28 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Remarketing, Sales, Social Media, social selling, Thought Leadership

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There is some serious B.S. being peddled claiming human DNA has miraculously changed in the last few years. The peddlers (known as content marketers) claim people don’t want to be sold anything anymore. They claim businesses that try to sell things to their customers and prospects will fail.

I’m not kidding, such absurd claims are being made at marketing seminars – if it wasn’t so sad it would be hilarious.

The claim of course, is complete rubbish and without supporting evidence.

hot_steamin_manure-500x375

content marketers shoveling content

The plain fact is this – people love to be sold to by good salespeople. And when they have a great sales experience they rave about it and call it “excellent customer service”. They tell friends at social functions and on social media. Some marketers even label them advocates.

Great sales technique doesn’t make the customer uncomfortable. It doesn’t sound “salesy” – to use an emerging piece of jargon. A good sales person is highly regarded by customers. And we all have our favourites, whether they be at our local cafe, clothing store, pub, hairdresser, mechanic, IT supplier, butcher, baker or grocer.

But when it comes to lousy salespeople or poor sales messages, people share a universal dislike. Since the beginning of time, people have disliked them – it is not a new sentiment just because of the internet or claims by content marketers.

How many times have you threatened to take your business elsewhere because a salesperson wasn’t available to serve you? We all love salespeople.

So to push a self-interest content marketing barrow and state all a marketer has to do is publish more and more non-sales information and the world will flock to your door, is pure fantasy. The content marketers may be smoking the wacky tobacky, but the punters aren’t having a bar of it.

wacky tobacky

Are content marketers smoking the wacky tobacky?

The common thread among modern consumers is they are time-poor and suffer from severe infobesity – much of this caused by useless content marketing messages that don’t give people a reason to act, or consider a brand. Content for content’s sake. Yet the last thing people want in their busy lives is more content.

Human beings are the laziest species on the planet – we always seek the path of least resistance. One of the key reasons apps are so popular for example, is their ease of use. So marketers have to make it as easy as possible for people to buy – which is why giving punters incentives, offers, propositions and reasons to “buy now” are key to getting sales.

To quote my old boss, David Ogilvy, “you cannot bore people into buying“. Yet content marketers are adamant you can. Waste more of people’s valuable time and you’re guaranteed to sell them more, they preach to the gullible.

Let’s examine some facts shall we:

The single biggest innovation in online shopping was an in-your-face sales tool. It was invented by Amazon – and customers love it! They call it customer service, because that’s what great selling is all about – serving customers and prospects well. The technique is now used on all major transaction websites.

Here’s an example with which you are all familiar – you visit Amazon and click on a book you are considering buying. The site then tells you “customers who bought this item also bought…”

Amazon

Look out, Amazon is daring to “sell things”…

Even “Facebook with a necktie” (known as LinkedIn) uses this technique. When you view a person’s profile, you are prompted with a message “People also viewed” and there is a list of people’s mug shots linking to their profiles. This is a sales technique as old as retail selling – suggesting alternatives to get customers to buy at least one option. It’s a sales tool, not a non-sales tool.

Companies have always published non-sales information, it is not a new invention. And they made the information available at every point possible along the “customer journey”. Sorry, I had to drop the journey buzzword at least once. Some of you ancient marketers will remember such non-sales content as brochures, websites, booklets, newsletters, educational videos, signage, on-pack instructions, seminars, user manuals – the list goes on.

This is all designed to assist customers and prospects to make buying decisions, or as after sales service. Why would the punters want more ‘information’?

Yet the content marketers are claiming the whole world has changed just because people can do some online research before buying. This is stretching credibility beyond truth. Just because a marketer can reach a prospective customer in more places than ever before, does not automatically translate into “don’t sell to consumers, just post information as much as possible“.

used content marketing

wanna read content rather than buy a product?

By all means, help build your brand by publishing relevant content that cost-effectively drives people to a sale, or keeps them coming back after they’ve bought. But make it easy for the punters to buy – they are already inundated with infobesity and can’t be bothered doing all the work themselves.

So please, you self-interested content marketers, stop the lying about content marketing and making fake claims all a brand has to do to succeed, is publish non-sales content. It’s dishonest. Brands have always published non-sales content, as well as sales content – and it’s the sales content that has the biggest impact on the business and always will.

I’m going on a customer journey to get a drink of water from the kitchen. Better check some influencers to see what non-sales content they have, so I can make my buying decision – do I get cold water from the fridge, just run water from the tap, or maybe drink sparkling water from a bottle? After all, I want to ensure my water-drinking customer experience journey is the best it can be…

OnePath – the complete path to incompetence…

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Advertising, Branding, Customer Service, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales

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Numerous media outlets reported today about an appalling situation at ANZ Bank’s insurance and superannuation arm, OnePath.

Apparently there has been a series of breaches affecting 1,300,000 customers, some of whom had their super paid into the wrong account for up to a year.

The review comes after markets regulator ASIC raised concerns about compliance at the OnePath division.

Concerns! I hope they are more than a tad concerned.

Mind you ANZ has a reputation for incompetence in the area of superannuation management. It lost millions of dollars of people’s superannuation by investing in Basis Capital – the disastrous investment share that started the GFC. It ruined people’s lives, but not management’s bonuses.

There is a very simple reason OnePath is not compliant. The staff cannot even perform the most basic clerical duties. Here’s a typical example:

Today I received this letter in the mail.

One Path return mail

OnePath to incompetence…

I’ve not opened it, just as I haven’t opened similar ones from OnePath for the last six years. And for the four years prior to that, I didn’t open the envelopes when OnePath was known as another brand.

The reason I didn’t open them is simple – they are addressed to the previous owner of our house. We bought the house in 2005. We have been returning the owner’s mail to his superannuation company for ten years – and still they send it to the incorrect address. I suspect another marketing automation fail?

So forget BIG DATA folks. If you cannot change small data like a customer’s address, particularly for something as regulated as superannuation, you deserve to be investigated in every nook and cranny of your business.

And I hope OnePath gets well and truly investigated.

checking nooks and crannies

Inspect every nook n cranny…

I’m no financial adviser, but if my superannuation or insurance was with OnePath I’d seriously reconsider my investment.

Hang on, I just remembered – I’m with ANZ…

Youi’s awesomely useless marketing automation continues to damage its brand…

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Advertising, BIG DATA, Branding, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Email marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales

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Regular readers may recall my recent customer experience when I tried to engage with Youi, as I went on my smash repair journey. #totallynotawesomeyoui

Wow, three different marketing buzzwords or phrases, plus a hashtag in one sentence:)

Well folks, the totally not awesome marketing automation system at Youi has done it again. It sent me another passionate survey from The Youi Team – almost a month after I picked up my car from the smash repairer.

second awesome survey

It’s the same as the first survey – useless. It doesn’t allow me any room to explain my answer. I only get to click on one word. I was going to reply directly to surveys@youi.com.au but I know from past experience, the passionate team never looks at this email inbox.

I tried the suggestion at the bottom of the survey, as I couldn’t select any of the words shown above: “If you are unable to select any of the words shown above, click here and follow the prompts.”

When I clicked, it just opened another version of the same survey in a browser!

second survey 2

I have now phoned, sent text messages and emailed Youi, as well as posted in social media – yet the passionate Youi team hasn’t responded once. I suggest they fire their digital marketing team, as they obviously aren’t as awesome as they claim.

In the last month, Youi has launched a bunch of new television commercials with their presenter driving around in customer’s cars, while bragging about Youi’s service. The presenter is the smarmy bloke my kids think is a bit creepy or sketchy.

So given their obvious problems, I’d like to help the awesome Youi team. Apart from teaching them to speak English, not Marketing, I’d like to volunteer myself to do a testimonial on one of their TVCs. The sketchy bloke could drive in my car, now it’s been repaired, and I could share my awesome Youi journey with him for all the viewers to hear.

I think dear reader, it would be like, totally awesome, don’t you???

awesome

Content infobesity is clogging digital arteries…

03 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in BIG DATA, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media

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Yesterday I received this email at least eleven times, from the American Express Content Hub – branded as American Express Open Forum. You’ll need to click on the image to see the detail.

Amex email

In case you didn’t know “Content Hub” is one of the latest buzzwords you need to use in marketing meetings. For example, “I’m just going to my content hub to download some thought leadership.” It will probably impress others in the room who don’t know what a content hub is, though most likely only for about six months, until they realise you’re talking rubbish. But hey, you’ll be using a new buzzword by then, so they won’t remember.

This inbox-clogging email avalanche, was most likely caused by a marketing automation stuff-up, as they seem to be standard operating procedure these days, so it’s difficult to blame Amex.

True-Story-Sales-Marketing-Failure

But let’s stick with the Content Hub for a minute. I recently conducted a digital marketing training event for Amex in Sydney – focusing on debunking the myths of content marketing, social media and other digital delights.

One of the things we examined briefly was the American Express Open Forum, because it was rated one of the Top 10 Content Hubs in the world. Yes folks, you heard it here first. Does your content hub rank on the global stage?

There are a few problems with the hub:

  • It’s referred to as a Content Hub.
  • It invites you to customise what you see on the hub, by nominating subjects you’re interested in. I did this, but nothing has ever been customised and I see the same screen as people who visit the hub for the first time – this was proven via testing. I believe this is called a UX problem in modern marketing vernacular?
  • The hub is content for content’s sake – much of the content is of dubious value to businesses.
  • To ingratiate itself to its clients, Amex gets them to provide business insights. These “insights” are then published and promoted on the site – again more content for content’s sake.

Here are a couple of examples of amazing insights on the Open Forum:

“It’s not about the dollar amount you put into your marketing effort – it’s about the thoughtfulness and effort.”

“I suggest in-office events for employees to mingle and have fun. Giving a few extra days off around the holidays – or allowing remote work during the holidays – may also be greatly appreciated.”

“Seasoned business owners may also use professionals to help determine the extent of estimated payments needed to avoid penalties. Consider doing whatever it takes to avoid the estimated taxes death spiral.

I suspect, like me dear reader, you are completely underwhelmed by these amazing insights – featured prominently on the home page of the Open Forum. Another example of content for content’s sake.

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When I asked the Aussie Amex digital team what they thought of the Open Forum, they ran for cover saying “it’s an American site, not ours“. They gave the impression they were very embarrassed by it.

But as you savvy readers will know, if it’s online it’s there for all to see, not just for the Yanks. And the punters don’t differentiate – it’s an Amex site, so if you’re an Amex card user, it’s for you.

There are many dictionaries these days, but here’s the definition for “insight” from the Oxford Dictionary – “the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of someone or something.” I’ll leave it to you to decide if the insights from the Amex Content Hub qualify.

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Amazing insights from the Content Hub

The content on the Content Hub, seems to typify the infobesity filling our inboxes and clogging the digital arteries of our customers. I have yet to find any customers who awaken daily, wanting more content from a brand, jammed down their throats – even when they are buying. Yet marketers are investing in content for content’s sake because, well just because…

Apparently there’s a growing trend of people creating content about trends in content marketing. I’m off to create a Content Hub that aggregates Content Hubs.

I think I’ll call it…..INCONTINENTO.COM…..