Category Archives: Brand

04.04.19
by

IMC Conference 2019

Recently attended the IMC “Marketing gets Nak*d” conference, which was a first since the inaugural conference I attended many years ago. IMC has come on leaps and bounds since the early days and is definitely a conference that must be attended on a yearly basis.

IMC b 2

Before jumping into why this year’s conference was great, lets get what didn’t work out the way.

  • The venue wasn’t suited for such a large conference, felt cramped, limited space for interaction when moving around during the breaks.
  • This impacted the other gripe on the day, which was the food serving didn’t work well.
  • Lastly, starting the day earlier would be ideal as those flying out the night could still attend the networking session at the end of the conference.

What worked

  • The 20 minute speaker slots worked really well, it kept attendees engaged and for the odd speaker that wasn’t awesome it wasn’t long before the next one appeared.
  • Overall the content was lit, thought provoking and different. Nothing wrong with expanding your perspective.
  • My top 3 speakers in reverse order were Grant Pereira, Musa Kalenga and my absolute crush at the moment Elaine Rumboll. Their content was memorable and delivery on the day added to the energy in the room. Can’t wait to work with them in the future.
  • Elaine takes top spot not only due to her speaker ability, the gravitas she brings to the podium but her ability to dumb down dense concepts for us mere mortals was amazing to experience. I’m a huge Lego fanboy so Elaine’s work with Lego Serious Play resonates on another level.

To get a feel for the other speakers view them here.

The IMC Conference is definitely a yearly event that should be attended, it’s not pretentious, is value-additive and engages the mind positively. Click here to get your 2020 tickets now.

04.09.15
by

UX≠CX

Although the difference between User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX) appears marginal they are in fact substantial.

Simplistically UX focuses on how somebody be it an employee or customer interacts with a thing. In most instances this will be a digital interface like a website (consumer focused) or a call center interface (employee focused). CX on the other hand looks at the customers total experience with the organisation not only its website and includes the often variable yet personal interaction between a customer and an employee. This also extends to the physical space in which this interaction occurs. As CX evolves and matures, large and or forward thinking organisations will increasingly add this capability to its skill set and area of focus. CX like an organisation’s Brand is everybody’s responsibility but does need a champion with sufficient gravitas and authority to tweak multiple team’s interactions across the company to positively impact CX. Often processes which impact customers are silo-ed within teams who will fiercely protect their turf!customer-service-skills-cloud

If you subscribe to the formula ∑Brand = sum of experiences, the notation that CX straddles across the organisation intuitively and realistically makes sense. Tom Bottorf provides an interesting perspective when highlighting the difference between UX & CX. He describes the outcome of great UX as answering the the question: “How can I leverage this device to create the best overall experience for my customer?” while for CX: “What can we do to build the best possible relationship between customers and our company?”. The difference in outcomes are massive when trying to answer those questions although they appear subtle when reading it the first time.

When incorporating great CX in the organisation’s DNA, incremental changes to processes and interactions probably will lead to more sustainable results over time rather than a slash and burn approach with the hope that a big bang implementation will kickstart and ensure employees think about customers differently. Here being bold and using elements of Scrum through trailing different short sprints of prototyped processes and allowing employees the freedom to deviate from standardised decision trees depending on the customer should allow the organisation to find an optimal service model in a shorter space of time while ensuring the journey to great CX is embraced across the organisation.

 Happy hunting.

03.03.15
by

YOUR 10 COMMANDMENTS

This list is by no means complete. Its a summary of key considerations when creating and implementing a social media campaign within a wider marketing strategy.

Focus on people not tech

Technology is a hygiene factor, a ticket to the game everybody can buy. Connecting with people’s hearts and leaving them emotionally positively disposed to you is the only sustainable currency. It seems intuitive and very obvious but for most brands it remains elusive. Apple have repeatedly made a success of launching products that are people centric hence the sustainability of its success and its ever increasing share price and market valuation.

Build conversations, not campaigns

Campaigns have a finite timeline be it weeks, months and even days, but conversations linger. They push, prod and permeate your thoughts.

Content is an enabler

Content should not be the objective. Ultimately it’s a means to an end, it’s the firelighter sparking a call to action and hopefully the beginning of a lingering conversation.

Add value

Make a difference! Sometimes its tangible but most often its an intangible a feel good factor which over time is reinforced into a hallow effect for you and your brand.

Listen

Campaigns are perceived as communication in one direction whereas a conversation requires a speaker and a listener. Listening is inherently complicated, as missing messaging nuances can easily derail a positive experience. Listening requires patience, a willingness to understand and add value.

Spread the word

Positive reinforcement and remaining relevant requires action and persistency. Across multiple social media platforms this can easily be achieved without making the messaging redundant, stale or appearing repetitive. Get family and friends to share your content, remember sharing is caring.

Be prepared (Alert, Assess, Act)

Given the always on nature of social media engagement, remaining connected at all times is essential. Using an aggregator like Hootsuite allows for easy and timeous reviews of timelines without flipping through a number of web pages.

Measure progress

For a defined objective set up key metrics to measure the success of the engagement. Set benchmarks for specific milestones and never stop measuring. There is never too little data.

Continual optimisation

Tweaking and finessing interactions as they unfold is one of the key benefits of using social media platforms. Social media can be highly interactive or as dreary as a newspaper, the greater the investment in generating a positive conversation the greater the long-term engagement.

Be in it for the long-term (relationships take time to build)

Much like beneficial offline personal relationships which are developed over time through consistency of interactions, online relationships are no different. The same principles apply but are often forgotten given the perceived anonymity. Focus on remaining relevant.

 Until next time, please send your comments and thoughts.