An Unexpectedly Polite Marketing Campaign

By Laura Iles - Sr. Consultant, Integrated Insight

My friend was recently in the market for a new smartphone and service plan. Of course, we knew all the major providers, and had a long discussion about our past experiences with the various firms.

While driving around one day running errands, she was listening to the radio when she heard MetroPCS was sponsoring the station that afternoon. They promised to play only one Metro commercial each 15 minutes, and leave the rest of the time completely commercial free.

She later told me that it was a nice break from the usual influx of commercials, and Metro’s commercial was played just often enough to stick in her mind, but not so often that it became aggravating.

To be honest, Metro had not even occurred to us as a possibility. While they previously merged with T-Mobile, they are still struggling against the existing consumer perception of having a lower-quality network, at least among the individuals with whom I've spoken. Neither my friend nor I would have thought of them as a potential new service provider on our own;  they just weren't top of mind for us in the telecom industry.

But, by the end of the day, she had heard the commercials enough times that Metro was ingrained as a contender for her next purchase. Feeling grateful for the fact that they actually made the drive more pleasant by reducing the number of commercials overall, my friend decided it couldn't hurt to go in and talk with them.

On impulse, she stopped at a store on the way home. Within an hour, she signed up for service with MetroPCS and bought her new phone from them.

A simple, unexpectedly polite, radio marketing strategy drove incremental sales. Metro profited from not only her phone purchase that day, but the ongoing monthly service, and positive word of mouth as well. It’s been over a month and she’s still happy.

While the commercials themselves were nothing special, displaying a little goodwill toward customers can sometimes make all the difference. It’s such a refreshing change from the back to back commercials that, often quite literally, scream at you to BUY NOW!

For Metro to purchase the airtime, and then be gracious enough to resist filling it up nonstop with their firm's commercials, was an unexpected generosity. Customers often switch providers for reasons other than price. Could something so simple, yet unexpected, be your firm’s point of differentiation in marketing?

Why the Airlines Created Premium Economy to Solve a Pricing Problem

By Brett Snyder

Brett Snyder is the author of the award-winning airline industry blog, “The Cranky Flier," and president and chief airline dork of Cranky Concierge air travel assistance, for which he has been named one of the Top Travel Specialists for the past three years by Conde Nast Traveler.  He is a contributing editor for PlaneBusiness and he writes for both CNTraveler.com and the Intuit Small Business Blog.  Snyder previously worked in pricing, marketing and strategy roles with several airlines, including America West and United.  In 2005, Snyder created the travel search site for leading comparison shopping company PriceGrabber.com.  Snyder graduated from The George Washington University with a bachelor’s in business in 1999 and Master of Business Administration from Stanford University in 2004.

Part of having an effective pricing strategy is ensuring that you have the right products in the market to cater to interested consumers.  This might sound like a startup issue, but it's not.  Product and pricing are constantly evolving, so ongoing reviews are very important.

One needs to look no further than the airline industry to see an example of how the product offerings have evolved.

Initially there was only one class of service, and it was expensive.  Travelers were treated well (or as well as possible flying small, slow airplanes for hours and hours on end), and they paid for it.  But eventually the airlines began to realize that there was real opportunity at a lower price point.  Coach travel was born.

Initially, the difference between coach and what became First Class wasn't all that different.  And the pricing reflected that.  But as countries moved toward deregulating their airline industries, pricing diverged dramatically.

In the US, coach prices plunged as airlines raced to add capacity and serve this growing demand.  First Class prices, however, stayed high.  They were meant to cater to the original air traveler who wanted a superior experience.

In the intercontinental market, the price differential became so great that eventually a middle tier was introduced.  That was Business Class.  Business Class was created as a way for travelers to get something better than coach without having to pay the many multiples above the coach price to sit in First Class.

That lasted for some time until the same trends from before took hold in the new three-cabin environment.  Many airlines decided to remove First Class or shrink the First Class section while improving their Business Class product, hoping to take traffic from those who flew First Class on competitors.  When British Airways and Virgin Atlantic introduced flat beds in Business Class more than a decade ago, it was the first shot fired in a race that would make flat beds the standard.

First Class became something for the super rich with small, intimate cabins on fewer and fewer flights.  Business Class continued to be a premium product but one that was at a price point that could appeal to more people.  At the same time, coach prices continued to plunge in inflation-adjusted dollars.

The result was yet again a massive divergence between coach prices and the next class up.  How could this conflict be resolved?  The airlines began introducing another class.  This has manifested itself differently in the US than it has elsewhere.

In the US, airlines have simply increased legroom in a few rows at the front of coach and they sell those for a few dollars over the coach fare.  But around the world, airlines like ANA, Japan Air Lines, Air France, British Airways, and, just recently, Lufthansa have introduced a truly new premium economy class.  

[Lufthansa link: http://www.lufthansagroup.com/en/press/news-releases/singleview/archive/2014/march/05/article/2828.html].

Now if a flight from the US to Europe is running about $1,000 in coach, $6,000 in Business, and $9,000 in First, there is now a premium economy option in the $2,500 range.

Having products that fill in the gap like this become important because they provide a real upsell opportunity for the price-conscious consumer who also values a premium offering.  For the airlines, Business Class had become too much of an upsell to tempt the average coach traveler.  But premium economy provides the right product at the right price.

Please Don’t Make Me Think

Keeping Promotions Simple

Laura Iles - Senior Consultant, Integrated Insight

My favorite grocery store runs a weekly ad, Thursday through Wednesday. It took me a little while to remember that the ad doesn't run with the calendar week, but I grew accustomed to it quickly enough. The challenge is, the store also gives out coupons in the flier. Coupons that run through Sunday.

Interestingly enough, it’s often the same coupons from week to week, but they are only available half the time. If I want to take advantage of the sales pricing and the coupon, I now have a 4 day window each week to do my shopping. 

I never remember in time. I can’t tell you how many coupons I've thrown away, sadly unused.

A friend who used to work as a cashier at the store rolled his eyes when he saw the most recent coupon. “Oh yes, and come Monday, half the customers will come in and try to use that coupon, since it’s a weekly flier. Explaining why we would put out coupons with different dates than the fliers they are in was always a treat.” 

I thought about that for a minute, relieved that I wasn't the only one who had made that mistake. “Why would the store do that?” I wondered. “They’re just making it harder on everyone.” 

For every customer who tries to use an expired coupon, the manager either has to honor an out-of-date offer (in which case, why limit it at all?) or risk upsetting the client. That’s a losing situation for someone, no matter how it is resolved. And it slows down the checkout process, frustrating other waiting customers. But still the out of sync promotions keep coming, week after week. 

Certain offers need to be fenced, and consumers understand that. But, why is the store running the promotion in the first place? Perhaps it’s driving incrementality, keeping the store front-of-mind, or rewarding longstanding customers. No matter the end goal, if the offer is confusing enough that half the customers consistently misunderstand, is it really driving behavior the way it was intended to? 

So please don’t make me think. We’re all on information overload, and for many of us, we just aren't interested in expending additional mental resources on a company’s promotions. The design team can emblazon “4 DAYS ONLY” in capital letters and bold typeface at the top of the coupon, but when it’s buried in a visually busy flier, it’s still easy to overlook. Online, in print, on TV – we've all learned to tune out the clutter. 

If it isn't necessary, don’t complicate the promotion. Run the coupon for the full week, but don’t run it every single week. Or put out a special insert, separate from the weekly flier. I’ll happily try a new product or buy extras of something if you give me a coupon – but not if I have to rearrange my schedule for it.

This store is not a discount store and, like most of the regulars, I am not an avid coupon clipper. I pay a little more for the service, the selection and the convenience. When promotions are out of sync with each other, it muddies the waters for the customer, which in turn makes work more difficult for the front-line employees. No one wins in that scenario. Whenever possible, keep it simple.

Common Courtesy Counts in the Customer Experience

By Candy Parks - Director, Integrated Insight

As children, some of the first words we learn are ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ - the common courtesies. Another important one is ‘you’re welcome’ - one we seem to forget as we grow up. In years of doing customer satisfaction research, I’m always amazed at how wowed consumers are by courteous behavior from businesses with which they interact. It’s often this common courtesy that sets one grocery store, bank, or hotel apart from another. As consumers, they are taught to HOPE for courteous behavior, but not to EXPECT it. So when a business delivers, it sets them apart. And voila, a consumer advocate is born. Consider how people talk about Publix, Nordstrom, Disney, Ritz Carlton, American Express, and Chase banks.

I’ve learned there are few acceptable replacements for the common courtesies, especially ‘you’re welcome.’ Ritz Carlton and Chick-Fil-A use ‘It’s my pleasure’ and that’s a winner. It conveys that they were happy to be of service. What customer doesn’t appreciate that?

In contrast, here are some that I think should be stricken from the customer-facing vocabulary. When a customer says ‘thank you,’ it is not appropriate to say:

• ‘No problem.’ I just gave you $500 and I say ‘thank you’ for the service/attention/product/etc. And you say, ‘no problem.’ Really? Of course it’s not a problem for you. You just got $500 of my money!
• ‘Sure thing.’ Well, yes, I guess I was a sure thing, but you’re not making me feel very good about it.
• ‘Yeah,’ ‘Yep,’ ‘Uh huh’ or any other variation of ‘yes.’ I didn’t just ask you a question!
• And the absolute worst response to ‘thank you’ is NO RESPONSE AT ALL. A head nod is not a substitution for actual words. Surely you can trouble yourself to say ‘you’re welcome’ or ‘thank YOU, I hope to see you again.’

If you want to create a customer experience that is outstanding in your field, create a culture of courtesy. Make it a basic expectation of how you deal with each other in the workplace (because you are modeling the behavior), and how you deal with your customers. Train for it, monitor it, and hold people accountable for the behavior. It will cost you nothing in capital, but could net you loyalty and increased revenue. I drive past two other grocery stores to get to my Publix – and I pay more for my groceries – because I like the atmosphere and the way I’m treated. I don’t think I’m alone.

Why Pizza Should be Square

By Kirsten Snyder - Director, Integrated Insight

The announcement of Sbarro’s bankruptcy filing this week got me thinking about Pizza. And although Sbarro’s problems are much bigger than just the price of their pizza, I wonder if traditional pizza chains couldn’t benefit from abandoning their traditional round pies.

Have you ever ordered a pizza and asked how many pieces are in a medium vs. a large?  Chances are that you have been told 8 in one and 10 in other.  However, in the world of round pizza not all slices are created equal. So, how much pizza do you really get?

Pizza companies try to answer this question by using the diameter or with large and overlapping ranges of the number of people it feeds. Both of these methods still leave much interpretation to the customers.

Think back to your high school geometry class. When you calculate the area of a 12” circle versus a 14” circle, although there is only a 2” difference in diameter the difference in area is about a third.

So, the more difficult it is to understand the difference in size, the more difficult it is to see the value in the buy up structure. This makes it challenging for pizza companies to ideally stratify pricing by the size of the pie.

For example, at my local Domino’s a small 10” cheese pizza is $5.99, a medium 12” is $7.99 and a large 14” is $9.99.

As customers contemplate what size pizza they actually need, the buy up structure easily draws them into the largest pie without a second thought.  But it might not be optimal for the customer or for the pizza company.

That leads me to my point:  square pizzas are better. I will admit that square pizzas create the undesirable middle pieces with no crust. And in Naples, Italy the mention of square pizza would probably cause a riot, but financially it gives companies more pricing leverage through a clearer buy up structure. It is easier to communicate that a small square pizza gives you nine 3-inch pieces while a large pizza gives you 25 3-inch pieces – more than double that of a small pizza. So, now pizza companies can optimize their pricing structure, allowing them to take more pricing, while still providing the strong value proposition on the largest size pizzas.

Consumer products and overwhelming choice

How much is too much?

By Joni Newkirk - CEO, Integrated Insight

I see it frequently:  The blank stare at a shelf in the grocery store or the menu board at a fast food restaurant.  I know it well as I often find myself in the same situation, looking for a certain item and finding everything but.  It doesn’t seem to stem from too many brands, but rather, the ever increasing number of choices for almost identical products within a brand.   Sometimes, it seems the simpler the product, the more complicated the choice, like ordering a Starbucks coffee.

Take for example, Triscuits.  I love the original Triscuit, but more than once I’ve walked out of the store empty handed.  The original was either sold out or shoved so far away that it became difficult and time consuming to find.  Today, you can buy Triscuits in at least 15 flavors, not including Thin Crisps.  This photo, posted by Ted Parsnips at www.tedparsnips.com, sums up the resulting display that consumers are faced with every day.

  

Drive-thru menus arguably provide an elevated level of frustration for the consumer.   Even younger generations who have been raised in the world of overwhelming choice can find it less than inviting as evident from this post by my 22 year old son:

“Taco Bell’s drive thru menu is really big and intimidating and I just can’t handle it sometimes.  You’ve got someone behind you in line, the lady in the box waiting on my order, and I’m trying to sort through what seems like thousands of grandes, chalupas, locos, cantinas and whatever the hell a gordita is to find what I want.  It’s like the first world problem of our generation.”

Which led me to wonder how often companies study “non-purchasers” versus mining the transactional data among those who did purchase.  Do they really know why consumers behave as they do?  Does my neighborhood grocery store know how often I didn’t buy a product because I lacked the patience to spend more time searching?  Does a fast food restaurant realize how many customers balked because the line was moving too slow as others studied a menu of overwhelming choice?   Does an online merchant know how often their carts are abandoned because consumers run out of time studying the long lists of almost identical items?  A recent article in QSR confirms drive-thru transactions are indeed becoming longer, but is the increased choice really paying off?  According to a now infamous study on the purchase of jam, when faced with significantly more choice, consumers were far less likely to make a purchase.

“Congratulations! You’ve created a taco grand burrito.”  

Working toward more streamlined and simplified selling may help manage the choice. For those that know what they want – “I’ll have the Beefy Crunch Burrito with Flamin' Hot Fritos, please” - have at it. Perhaps mobile apps to pre-order will alleviate some of the pain, but others may be better served by throwing them a “build your own” lifeline, much like the Cantina Bell menu attempts to do for a limited portion of the overall Taco Bell offering. 

We all want it our way, so the trend toward more choice is likely to continue. Just don’t make us think too hard. 

“What’s in it for me?”

Writing Compelling Website Copy

By Sue O’Shea - Director, Integrated Insight

Often times my “go-to” resource for all things website is Smashing Magazine, the online magazine for professional website designers and developers. In their article “A Quick Course on Effective Website Copywriting,” the author, Peep Laja, reminds copywriters that “the goal of Web copy (and ideally your website in general) is to get people to do something—to sign up, make a purchase, or something similar.”

Approaching copy from the “What’s in it for me?” viewpoint – the benefit visitors will receive by taking action - helps keep copy focused on the end goal. Visitors come for information and solutions to their problems. Don’t make it hard for them to find by using unnecessary lines of descriptive or flowery copy to describe your product or service. Another land mine, especially for organizations offering professional services, can be going on too long about your company, its history, and the many awards its won – all your readers really care about is how you can help them. Retail sites are discovering that giving consumers a reason to come to their sites other than to shop can create sales. By adding copy and content that offers advice on using a product, the best styles for your body type, or answers to common problems will enhance your shoppers experience and increase the odds of purchasing and returning again and again.

Another practice I try to employ is the avoidance of industry jargon and “insider terms.” It can confuse readers and make them work too hard to understand what you’re trying to communicate. I suggest asking a co-worker to act as the “jargon police” to keep the copy as lingo free as possible. Keep it simple, straight forward, and specific.

Your Home Page is your first impression. Therefore it is important it include your company’s value proposition – the primary reason a customer should buy from you.  Smashing Magazine indicates that there is no one right way to go about it, but suggests you start with the following formula and work from there:

• Headline: What is the end-benefit you’re offering, in one short sentence. The Attention grabber.
• Sub-headline or a two-to-three sentence paragraph: A specific explanation of what you do/offer, for whom, and why is it useful.
• Bullet points: List the key benefits or features, but focus mostly on the benefits.

The product page is where you sell the value of your product and where the user takes action (adds to cart, signs up, makes a purchase, etc.). This is the place to drive home the benefits of your product and how your product or service will solve the issue at hand. There is always the question of how much information is too much, but an IDC (International Data Corporation) study showed that 50% of the uncompleted purchases were due to lack of information. Include as much of the product information as practical, and be sure to have a strong call to action. Studies have shown website visitors want to be led through the process, therefore the call to action must be clear and compelling. The article “Five Copywriting Errors That Can Ruin A Company’sWebsite” offers these examples:

•  “Order now to save 15%,”
• “Get your artist’s rendering within 24 hours,”
• “Learn the 5 secrets to permanent weight loss.”

Call to action is further strengthened with testimonials (it worked!), credibility statements (it’s reliable!), high value (it’s worth having!) and urgency (it’s now or never!). It is recommended that your site have a primary and secondary call to action such as a down loadable white paper or case study. A potential client may not be ready to order, but they may be willing to learn more. Today’s white paper could be tomorrow’s conversion.

The above is only a short primer on compelling website copy. The two articles I referenced provide additional outlines and tips to help along the way. To quote Smashing Magazine’s contributor Peep Laja, “The best Web copy is not the one that uses sophisticated persuasion and mind manipulation techniques. The best copy provides full information about the product, its benefits, and makes it clear whether it’s the right one for the user.”