Black Friday

Welcome to Black Friday.

This is a "day" that means different things to different people.

• To the bargain hunter, it is nirvana.  
• To the retailer, it is a harbinger of how profitable the holiday season will end up being.  
• For the store manager, it is mostly a headache.  
• To some store employees, it is a family holiday lost.  
• To the Michigan police officers who coined the term "Black Friday" because the crowds of holiday shoppers and the crowds of hunters on the same weekend often made for a lot of problems and a huge crowd control issue, it was not something they looked forward to.
• To many of us, it is a day to go to the movies.

I have nothing against the concept of a big day of sales to kick off the holiday shopping season.  I understand the concept of retailers taking a loss on a few items to draw the crowds into their stores in the hopes they will buy more things.  I have no problem with that.

I do have a problem that Black Friday has morphed into Black Thursday evening or even Black Thursday AND Friday.

One of the things that I love about Thanksgiving is that it is one of the few holidays that has remained largely uncommercialized.  As retailers enter into an arms race as to who can open earliest and longest, and offer the most outrageous deals, Thanksgiving is threatened.  Or at the very least, disrespected.

I understand that retailers jobs are to make sales and sometimes you have to do things to attract shoppers into your store. What I don't understand is why Black Friday has become so popular among retailers.  I have talked to a couple managers of big box stores and they admitted that they lose money on this day.  Between the deeply discounted sale items and the extra staff hours and the huge amount of advertising, I think most retailers count on customers coming back into the store in December so they can make up the money they lose on Black Friday.  

I much prefer some of the corollary days that have sprung up around Black Friday.  My favorite is Shop Local Saturday.  It is not an organized thing in most communities.  You won't be able to get 50" televisions for $99.  But you will be able to find unique gifts and will support small, local businesses, which are the lifeblood of most communities.  

So if you missed the Thursday evening kick-off of Black Friday, or you didn't feel like camping out in front of your electronics store of choice to get a deal on an iPad, or you don't want to fight someone over the latest Furby, consider taking today off.  Go shopping tomorrow.  Go shopping locally.  

At the Movies

I love movies.  I always have and probably always will.  While I have always watched movies, the way I watch them has changed dramatically.

It used to be there were really just two ways to see a movie, catch it when it first ran in the theater or wait for it to be replayed on TV (if it wasn't too racy or violent) often years later.  My kids will never understand the importance of seeing a movie in the theater during its run, because you might never see it again if you didn't.  My kids, who are now adults, will never understand the way the annual broadcast of movies like The Wizard of Oz became an important community event.

These days, I am considered old fashioned because I still get movies delivered in little red envelopes.  In addition, I can stream movies any time I want on my TV, iPad or phone (does anyone REALLY watch a whole movie on their phone?)  I still go to the movie theater, but less than I used to.

When you think about it, the way movies are distributed has changed dramatically, but movie theaters, by and large, are still operating on the same model.  You wait in line to buy your ticket to the movie, wait in line again to by an obscenely large cup of soft drink and tub of popcorn, stumble into a theater that is already dark because they are showing advertisements, hope to find a seat that isn't broken or too sticky or trashed, hope that the person sitting next to you or behind you will remember they are in a theater and not their living room, and that the person on the other side of you will eventually let you share the arm rest.  And that's all before the previews.

Why would anyone continue to go to the theater when for the cost of two tickets and popcorn you can get unlimited movies for a month in the comfort of your home?  In the December issue of Fast Company, they profile several movie theater operators who are trying to answer that very question.

Their solutions are creative and diverse.  Some are looking to make going to the theater a more social experience.  They do this by locating theaters near where young professionals work, adding bars and creating reasons for people of like interests to gather at the theater before and after the film.  Others are doing it by increasing the luxury of the movie going experience with leather seats and food delivered to your seat or by improving the sound systems in the theater (George Lucas says audio is 50% of the theater experience).  One theater owner is offering monthly subscriptions that allow patrons to see one movie a day, and they are seeing their daytime and midweek business grow significantly.  Others are addressing the issue by looking at what is on the screen.  By offering smaller films targeted to specific demographic groups or other types of theater experiences such as live simulcasts of concerts, operas and sporting events, these theater operators are attracting new and more diverse crowds.

As Hamid Hashemi, Founder and CEO of iPic Entertainment says, "It used to be a year before movies made it to DVD.  Soon, you'll be able to see a movie on the big screen, iPad, iPhone, and TV on the same day, around the world.  It's the evolution of the business.  But that doesn't mean the theaters are going to go out of business.  They're just going to have to be more experimental.  This is just the start."

See you AT the movies!

Taking a Break

For a variety of reasons, I took a week off from this blog.  For a variety of reasons, I did not write anything for this or future posts.  I took a break.

Breaks are important.  Coffee breaks aren't just to move more java and gossip.  They are a chance to pause and refresh.  We are given vacation days in order to take a bit of a longer break in order to recharge the batteries and allow ourselves to do something different for a short while.  Vacations allow us to come back to our jobs refreshed and more productive.  Even trainers understand the value of a short rest in between reps and a day off from the weights now and then.

We don't all view vacations the same.  According to a recent Harris Interactive poll, on average Americans are offered 14 days of vacation but only take 10 days, leaving twice as many days on the table as the previous year.  We are not alone in our work ethic.  Both Japanese and South Korean workers leave a number of days unused.  On the other end of the spectrum, the French receive, and generally use, 30 days of vacation per year.  Even with that, 90% of French workers feel "vacation deprived."

While the poll indicated that the top reason Americans gave for not taking vacation is that they were stockpiling days for a future vacation, I suspect other reasons may be at play.

In a lot of American businesses, redundancy in job responsibilities has been greatly reduced.  This means that the chances that you are the only one who does what you do in your organization have increased.  That means that when you go on vacation, one of three things typically happens to your work:  You have to get it done before you go, you have to do it after you get back, or someone else "tries" to do it while you are gone and you have to re-do it when you get back.  In other words, we really aren't getting a break from the work of our jobs, just displacing it.  This makes vacation seems a bit less appealing.

There are many other reasons we tend to be reluctant to vacate:

• Economics:  The recent recession has more people reluctant to leave their jobs unattended.  There is an innate sense that it is more important than ever to prove one's worth at work.  Furthermore, lack of economic security make spending money "frivilously" on a vacation seems like less of a good idea to more people.
• Boredom:  At least in America, a lot of people fear being bored on vacation.  I call it the Chevy Chase effect.  There is a tendency to feel  that if we aren't taking a big family vacation, like Chevy Chase's family did in the movie "National Lampoon's Vacation", we aren't really doing vacation right.  If we aren't doing that, how can we help but be bored?  If we ARE doing that, it probably means days in the car or airport and how can we help but be bored?
• Family: Studies show that many people fear spending extended periods of time with their families as much as they do spending it alone. If there is strife or trouble within the family, work becomes a convenient and socially acceptable escape.  On vacation, that escape is removed.
• Importance:  There is a fear that when you are gone on vacation, your employer will decide that you are not that important to the organization.  One way to avoid that is to never be gone.

The reality is that your physical and mental health requires the occassional break.  Just like your body needs to sleep to recharge and rest, you need to take those breaks and vacations from time to time.  We need to work to overcome the fears and anxieties of stepping away from the job for a few days or a week and allow ourselves to recharge.

Likewise, it is important for employers to stop praying at the alter of employee efficiency and recognize that long term, the organization is better served and employees WILL be more productive, if they get the occassional break.

See you at the beach!

Related articles

• Why Taking Time Off Is Good for Your Brain

Strategically Speaking

Several organizations that I am involved with are currently, have just recently or really need to spend time developing a strategic plan.

I have been involved with dozens of these efforts over the years.  Without fail, every single one of those efforts, at some point, devolves into a debate about terminology.

Do goals flow out of missions and action steps out of goals?  Does a vision flow out of a mission or vice versa?.  Do action steps need to be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) or should that be goals?  What is the difference between a vision and a mission and a goal?  Which is most important?  Which should be developed first?  Why did the chicken cross the road?

Without a good moderator, the debate can go on for hours.  I am convinced that it is this conversation that drives most people away from strategic planning.  Which is a shame because there are two very good things that can usually flow out of strategic planning.

The first is that, if everyone sticks with it, you come up with a plan. A strategic plan provides some guidance as to what the members of the organization should focus on over the next year or two.  It provides some direction as to organizational priorities and plans. It broadcasts to staff and other stakeholders the organizational priorities of the leaders of the organization.

The second good thing to flow out of the strategic planning process is that the organization's leaders sit down and talk.  It is, in my opinion, the more important advantage.

Too often, the leaders in an organization don't bother to get together and really talk about the direction things are going and the direction they'd LIKE them to going.  Too often the leaders of an organization don't take the time out from putting out daily fires to look ahead and think about what the future should look like.  If nothing else, the strategic planning process gets the leaders into the same room talking about the same thing for a short while.

A structured strategic planning process helps to ensure that voices that are often drowned out or ignored get heard.  A planned process helps to ensure that the leaders are focused on positive, forward-looking plans for the organization and not arguing over terminology.  A well run strategic planning process is a positive for the organization, regardless of the resulting plan.

In the long run, strategically speaking, it doesn't matter how you label things in your strategic plan, as long as you are talking about them!

Service

Today, in the United States, we are celebrating Veteran's Day.  This is a day which honors the men and women who have served in the military. Honestly, one day is not enough.

This day always causes me to think about service.  Those in the military give greatly of themselves in the service of the country.  There is much we can also do as individual, as organizations and as communities to be of service to others.

You don't have to match the level of service demonstrated by our soldiers and veterans to have your service mean something.   Service comes in many forms, shapes and sizes.  Even little acts of service add up to make a significant difference.

A company that nurtures service with its employees, whether through company-wide days of community service or through supporting and encouraging community involvement, will find its employees more satisfied and more committed to their employer.  Employees are happy because they recognize that they are making a difference.

So honor those soldiers in your life.  Thank them for their service, then honor them by performing an act of service in their honor.  Happy Veterans Day!

A Novel Approach to Marketing

Why would anyone expect to learn anything useful from reading classic literature?  

No one in their right mind would expect to have to navigate the traditions of the royal court in 18^th century Russia or have to survive the trials and tribulations of the debtors’ prisons in Dickensian London.  

Knowing how a whaling boat operates or what it was like to take a road trip with hipsters in the 50's or how it felt to be a slave in the American South will not help you prepare your presentation on social media for tomorrow’s webinar.

The truth is great literature is, by and large, about people.  It is about how people think and how they talk and interact with each other.  Great literature deals with human relationships, motivations, fears and ambitions.  

And great marketing is about developing and nurturing relationships.  I have learned more about relationships from novels than from how to books.  I have read more truth about the human condition in biographies and memoirs than in any journal article.

Pick up a novel sometime.  You might learn something!

5 Things That Have Not Changed in Marketing

With the explosion of mobile marketing, the popularity of social media, the apparent decline of traditional media, and the growing cynicism of the public toward overt marketing messages, it seems as if marketing has totally changed.  Today, I want to remind you of a few things that haven't.

• Relationships Rule.  While you may have different tools to work with, the value of building a relationship with your customers remains highly important.  In many ways, building relationships with your customers is all that matters.

• Quality wins.  A high quality product still beats out an inferior product, all other things being equal.  Quality copy has more impact.  Quality products and services generate positive word of mouth.  Quality is sometimes the best marketing. 

• Content Matters.  Period.  And Exclamation Point!

• We are Still Talking About Value.  In marketing we are still promoting the intersection of price and product or service features.   We are still promoting the Value Proposition.

• Only One Measure Matters.  It doesn't really matter how many likes, tweets, views or readers you have, just like it doesn't really matter what your Neilson or Arbitron rating is.  What matters is how many sales you have.  It is the only number that counts.

Monday, Monday

"Monday Monday, can't trust that day, Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way"             

The Mamas and the Papas

Why are there so many songs celebrating the weekend and lamenting Monday?  Why are so many of them country songs?  Why does Monday have such a bad reputation?  Why is Wednesday known as "Hump Day"?  Why does the weekend go by so fast?  These are questions I have.

In November 2013 issue of Inc., there is an article titled "29 Skills Every Founder Needs to Master."
Number three on their list is "How to Love Your Own Company."

According to Brooks Bell, CEO of the eponymous technology company, not even founders always look forward to coming into the office.  "Everyone assumes the company's CEO is fully committed to the vision.  The truth is, a lot of CEO's aren't."

She goes on to talk about how her company had become opportunistic and were chasing after every customer and every sale instead of being focused and strategic.  The company she started, HER company, was no longer fun to work at.

Ms. Bell refocused the company so that it was more in line with her vision.  While the transition was painful ("...the most difficult moment I've ever had.") it set the company back on track.  It made the company, and her job, more exciting and rewarding.

Most of us do not have the opportunity to refocus our companies to make work more enjoyable.  But we have some influence on how our jobs are focused.  And how we focus on our jobs.  If you find yourself not loving what you do, not having fun, find something that you DO love, and chase after it.  Whether its in your current job, or your next one.

For those of you who have people working for you, it is important to think of this from their perspective.  Doesn't it make sense to operate your department, division or company in a way that makes employees excited about Monday?  Doesn't it make sense to engage your staff so that they have the opportunity to help you keep the company focused and with a clear vision?  Doesn't it make sense to help your staff learn to love their jobs?

Wouldn't it be nice to hear a happy song about Mondays?

"Most of my life I have done what I wanted to do.  I have had fun on the job." 

 Walt Disney

On the go

If you're wondering if mobile computing is ever really going to "take off," check out these astounding statistics from a variety of sources:

• 1.7 billion people using mobile internet services by 2013.*
• By 2014, mobile internet is estimated to overcome PC internet use.*
• 56% of American adults are now smartphone owners. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2013)
• Mobile now accounts for 12 percent of Americans’ media consumption time, triple its share in 2009. (Source: Digiday, 2013)
• Twice as many web ready mobile devices today as PCs.*
• 700% growth in traffic on smart phones by 2015.*
• Of the 70 percent of shoppers who used a mobile phone while in a retail store during the holidays, 62 percent accessed that store’s site or app and only 37 percent of respondents accessed a competitor’s site or app. (Source: ForeSee, 2013)
• Retailers’ apps with store mode gather five times more engagement. (Source: Point Inside, 2013)
• Last year, only 12% of consumers bought anything through social media. (Source: PwC, 2013)
• By the end of 2013, there were more mobile devices on Earth than people. (Source: Cisco, 2013)
• Mobile internet is growing faster than desktop internet ever did.*
• Mobile data traffic is expected to increase by almost 4000% by 2014.*
• 25% of international media and marketing executives see mobile as the most disruptive force in their industry. (Source: AdMedia Partners, 2013)
• 65% of U.S. shoppers research products and services on a PC and make a purchase in-store. (Source: Cisco, 2013)
• 54% use or would like to use digital touchscreens in-store. (Source: Cisco, 2013)
• 48% use or would like to use a smartphone to shop while in-store or on the go. (Source: Cisco, 2013)
• 80% of smartphone owners want more mobile-optimized product information while they’re shopping in stores. (Source: Moosylvania, 2013)
• Nearly 50% of shoppers believe they are better informed than store associates. (Source: Motorola, 2013)
• Americans spend an average of 2.7 hours on mobile internet each day.*
• 75 percent of Americans bring their phones to the bathroom. (Source: Digiday, 2013)
• Mobile brand exposure can be more effective than other media messages. Mobile internet users are 60% more likely to be open to mobile advertising than the average mobile data user.*
• Mobile visits to Facebook increased by 112% and Twitter by 374%.*
• It took 20 years for the first billion mobile internet subscribers and only 40 months for the second billion.*

          *Data collected from Adobe Web Analytics, Omniture, Smart Insights, Mobile Marketing Statistics 2013 by eSchool.

The summary of all that data (and there was much more I could have included) is that mobile computing is exploding.  What that means, is that while many of us marketers are struggling to figure out how to make social media relevant and valuable to our marketing strategy, we must now also consider mobile computing.

Including mobile computing into your marketing strategy is more than just making sure your website looks good on a smartphone.  It is figuring out how to use the unique aspects of mobile computing to enhance the customer's shopping experience.  It might include promotions or strategies to lure people who are near your physical location into your establishment, or it might be ways to engage visitors once they cross the threshhold.

It also means you need to understand that customers are comparison shopping while in your store; with your competitors and with your own online presence.

Marketing and communications are changing.  The tools that we have to reach customers and other stakeholders are constantly changing as well.  And the speed of that change seems to ramping up faster than the speeds of computers.

The important thing to remember is that the key responsibility of marketing to communicate with and develop relationships with customers and prospective customers has not changed.  You probably won't participate in every new tech innovation that comes along.  You probably shouldn't.  But don't have your head in the sand either.  Keep yourself aware of what the opportunities are and identify those that are strong opportunities for your business.  Then try your best to take advantage of all the new opportunties to make your brand shine.

You need to adapt some of the new technology.  You don't want to stay in one place because your customers are obviously on the go!

Related articles

• 7 Ways Mobile Will Change Business In 2014
• Do you have a people strategy?