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A collection of article and ideas that help Smart Marketers to become Smarter
What are the Benefits of Simplicity in Marketing?
Do you think Simplicity is important for your Marketing? Is it a compulsory process for being successful with your Marketing? Why some Brands are capable to be extremely simple while others are complex, sometimes leading to confusion or frustration? Let's investigate.
Following Leonardo Da Vinci, Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It is not a given, it doesn't come like that, unfortunately. Some says that it is one of the most complicated skills.
Do you think Simplicity is important for your Marketing? Is it a compulsory process for being successful with your Marketing? Why some Brands are capable to be extremely simple while others are complex, sometimes leading to confusion or frustration? Let's investigate.
What do we mean by being Simple or Simplicity?
Before finding out if Simplicity is important, let's have a common understanding of what Simplicity is! Some external definitions could help us.
Quality or condition of being easy to understand or do (1)
Simplicity lies at the intersection of remarkably clear and unexpectedly fresh. Brands that deliver clear, human and useful experiences—win (2)
The question is then the following: Do we believe that being remarkably clear and easy to understand is impacting positively the efficiency and effectiveness of our Marketing actions? Differently said, if we are complex and unclear, do we have a worst ROI?
Some facts...
61% - The percentage of consumers who are more likely to recommend a brand because it provides simpler experiences and communications (2)
64% -The percentage of consumers willing to pay more for simpler experiences (2)
62% -Employees who can be considered Brand Champions in companies perceived to be simple (2)
© Crazyegg.com - Why is Apple’s Marketing Just So Darn Good?
The single biggest driver of stickiness, by far, was “decision simplicity”—the ease with which consumers can gather trustworthy information about a product and confidently and efficiently weigh their purchase options. What consumers want from marketers is, simply, simplicity. (3)
A recent A.T. Kearney analysis estimates that, on average, systematic complexity management can lead to an upturn in EBIT of 3 to 5 percentage points. A.T. Kearney estimates the additional EBIT potential for DAX companies alone to be worth more than €30 billion overall.
We can say that there is a consensus about the impact of simplicity on company performance (commercially and financially).
Now that we have validated the fact that Simplicity delivers Value, the question is what should I do for making it happen (just do it might not work without some help)?
Some tips that might help you...
Simplicity doesn’t mean being boring. It is just being clear and consistent. I have noticed that marketers like to start new things but are easily bored when they have to manage existing business. This propensity to launch continuously new concepts might be a root cause for creating complexity and confusion. Let’s think about VW Golf. It is still the same concept but continuously improved. It gives a lot of confidence to customers and clients. It is clear and remarkably fresh because the concept is revisited at each new release. Ensure that you have enough people in your team working on making the existing great, delivering fantastic basics!
Management could be an issue as well. Team members want to demonstrate their creativity and leadership which push them to promote new things. It is good as long as we keep the consistency of the portfolio. Ensure that you give enough recognition to people that deliver easy and useful experiences to your customers more than permanently releasing new concepts on the market.
Be customer centric. We see it more and more hopefully but when you start from product features most of the times you are talking product and not consumer language. It is a real barrier to simplicity. Ensure you always start from consumer needs and talk their language when you build something.
Technology astuteness. Big issue is when Marketers have no clue how the concept will be built! This major gap between idea and technological feasibility leads to endless discussion between production and marketing teams. We see at the end of these discussions the creation of a Frankenstein, a monster product, something you would never do normally. Ensure you have marketers that understand how products are built and use lean/agile methodologies for building new concepts.
Ensure to revisit permanently your portfolio and ask yourself the following questions: how to make it effortless, more simple to understand, more easy to use, more easy to buy, what can we remove, what can we stop doing, …
Consider working in releases. What does it mean? You define 3 months release where you list a number of changes you would like to do on your product for improving it. It can be small changes or global revisit. This will help you structurally to manage the evolution of your product portfolio. Ensure to work in release mode as it will help you balancing improvements and innovation in a consistent way.
Finally, ensure that YOU ARE SIMPLE in the way you work, communicate, manage. Don’t forget LESS IS MORE.
Sources
- Cambridge dictionary
- Siegel+Gate (2017) - Global Brands Simplicity Index - http://simplicityindex.com/
- Harvard Business Review - Patrick Spenner, Karen Freeman - To keep your customers, keep it simple -
- ATKearney (2007) - How Much Does Complexity Really Cost?
Credit
photo from amazing unsplash.com, igor ovsyannykov
Growth in a Digital World
By 2020 every business will become a digital predator or digital prey — which will your company evolve into? 5 attitudes you should have if you want to create growth in a this new digital world.
“By 2020 every business will become a digital predator or digital prey — which will your company evolve into?”
If you are reading this article, you might probably be interested in growing your business. While the question is easy to ask (I remember financial controllers asking me to find extra 3% revenue growth while my corporate building had been attacked by 2000 people and we suffered 50M$ damage), the answer is certainly not so obvious these days!
What growth means?
Before defining the solution, we need to understand the problem. If you want more revenue, you need to play with the following parameters of your revenue equation:
- More paid users than today with same number of transactions: you should have more clients on a yearly basis buying your product and services than last year. It can come from the market (population is growing, available market is important) and/or from your commercial actions (acquisition and retention).
- More transactions than today with same number of users: these clients should spend more on average for each commercial transactions they do with you. This can come from either (1) more products purchased during the transaction (e.g. menu versus separated items) and/or (2) an higher price paid for these products (discounted brand versus premium brand). Usually it comes from your commercial activity (stimulation).
- A positive mix of users and/or transactions: Usually the reality sits in a positive mix between users and transactions (we called it elasticity).
At the end, the combination between users and transactions should generate an higher revenue. This is the only way for generating growth. The last 20 years, we were palying with these combination by IMPROVING our commercial processes (doing better) or EXTENDING it (doing more). It did work primarily because population was growing, people economic power was growing and products were not fully available everywhere. Those days are unfortunately gone.
The thesis I am submitting to you is that for the next decade, it is not sufficient and we can only survive as a company if we CHANGE our commercial processes (new business model). Let's find out if my thesis is right.
Insight 1 - Consumers are Changing
People are changing and I am quite optimistic wth this trend. We can see this as a DES-INDUSTRIALISATION of their consumption habits.
They want abundance but they care about waste. They want you to be genuinely true. They want you to be closer. They want all options. And finally, they want you to positvely contribute to their life and world.
Insight 2 - Your World is Changing
In these days, the old habit of looking at what happened last year and extrapolating commercial figures from these data might not work because we are living in a turbulent period. If you are still doubting that we are living in a turbulent period, I really invite you to read Jeremy Rifkin on the Third Industrial Revolution.
The last century, 12,5% of economical growth can only explained by labour performance and machine capital. The rest (87.5%) was a mystery and commonly referred as "the mesure of our ignorance". After 25 years of investigations, a number of analysts concluded that economic growth could be explained by 3 factors: labour performance, machine capital and energy use. During the last 100 years, we have created economic growth thanks to the combination of electricity grid, telecommunications network, road system and fossil fuel energies. Maybe a little bit simplistic, but I would say: WE CREATED GROWTH BY BURNING THE PLANET.
The fantastic news is that we are entering in a third industrial revolution. This revolution is driven by free energy, automated transportation, internet and dematerialisation.
Insight 3 - You have new competitors
Insight 4 - How will you play the game?
5 Attitudes for creating Growth in a Digital World
If you are not taking this digital revolution seriously (dematerialisation, collaboration, distributed capitalism), you will be most probably a digital prey in the coming years.
As the attention of people is shrinking (we are in an Attention Economy), it is fundamental that you are clear about why people would buy and stay with you (What is your purpose? What job to be done are you in? How do you monetise your activities?).
People and companies are expecting you to be generous because we are in the OUTCOME ECONOMY era where you should help people save time and effort in their daily lives.
Peter Drucker rightly said: "Culture eats strategy at breakfast". It means that even if you have the smartest strategy, you will only be successful if you have the right people and culture for delivering it.
Remember the S-Curve! What you do today, will only generate real results in 2 to 3 years. Start early when you still have time to do it because it is much more difficult when you are running out of cash or profit.