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Author Archive
A Force for Good Goes Prime Time!
Friday, July 29th, 2011 by Butch WhitmireA Force For Good makes it on WNDU News Center 16! Check out Force 5′s David Morgan on video here.
“A Force for Good” Non-Profit Awareness Contest
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 by Butch Whitmire
Real Superheroes Don't Wear Capes
The greatest heroes don’t wear capes, can’t fly and aren’t from a distant planet. They are ordinary people doing extraordinary things every day. They lead, operate or volunteer at the many non-profit organizations (NPOs) in our community in an effort to make our world a better place. And like all heroes, when they are empowered, they become a Force for Good.
Our agency, Force 5, (South Bend) is committed to doing good work for people who do good works. So, we would like to help empower one NPO based in St. Joseph Country, IN, by offering them $5,000.00 in brand development and marketing communication services—enough to help them let the community know who they are, what they do and why their work matters. Because there are so many great organizations in our area, we need to select one that we can help empower in 2011. So, we’ve come up with a little contest called, A Force for Good. Our contest will allow anyone to nominate and vote for their favorite NPO.
Nominations will be open from Aug. 1st – Aug. 12th. Voting will begin on Aug. 12thand last for two weeks. Our selection committee will announce their selected organization on Sep. 6th.
Our “Force for Good” website and will have more details about our contest, selection process, and can be found at http://www.force4good.org. Make sure to tell all your friends to nominate and vote!
The SPAM Litmus Test
Friday, July 15th, 2011 by Butch Whitmire
As part of my role here at Force 5, I make unsolicited contact with potential clients almost every day. I do this through a variety of means - letters, phone calls, emails – to let people know about the great things our company can do for them. I realize my activity can be an invasion of a busy person’s privacy, so I always do my best to be courteous, professional, and respectful in all my communications.
Force 5 was recently contacted through our “contact us” page on our website. The email tone was friendly enough, but it appeared to be cut-and-paste and was written using bad grammar. At the bottom of the email was the following disclaimer:
Note: This email is not spam, it was manually sent by us, our sole purpose being to introduce ourselves to you with no obligation on your part. Your email address was found to be publicly available on your website and it has not been added to any list. We consider this to be a polite way to contact you and apologize sincerely if you have been inconvenienced in any way. We are obliged to offer you an ‘OPT-OUT’ from future mailings from us; should you wish to exercise this right, please reply with “OPT-OUT” in the subject field.
Polite enough, I think. So, what do you think? Was this SPAM or not?
My litmus test: if you have to explain to someone why it’s not SPAM then it probably is.
Pricing That Shapes Reality
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011 by Butch WhitmireI read a great article yesterday, Why it Can Feel Good to Overspend, and it challenged my thinking. Several months ago I wrote a post on the Force 5 blog saying that marketing promises set customer expectations; and that unless the customer’s experience meets or exceeds those expectations, customers are not satisfied.
However, according to a study conducted in 2008, when it comes to setting high expectations based on price, customers can actually experience more satisfaction. Researchers placed the same wine in two different bottles. One bottle was a $90.00 label, the other a $10 label. When the volunteers were told the prices of the wine they were drinking, they ranked wine from the $90.00 bottle as twice as good.
Volunteers were not simply tricking themselves. Brain scans of the drinkers showed the areas of the brain that detected pleasantness being activated while consuming the $90 bottle. This meant that the drinkers we actually experiencing a better-tasting wine from the $90 bottle even though the two wines were identical.
So, what do you think? Does setting high expectations for customers have greater potential to increase their experience with your business or diminish it?
Bringing Next Generation to This Generation
Thursday, July 7th, 2011 by Butch WhitmireForce 5 remains steadfast in its commitment to be a “next generation brand development and marketing communications firm.” Determing what that next generation technology is and how to bring it to clients in an effective and practical way is the real challenge in fullfilling our commitment.
One next generation technology is mobile. Today, all indicators show that in the foreseeable future, mobile will play a larger and larger role in marketing strategy. As mobile continues to expand rapidly, enabling clients to embrace that technology in a manner that delivers a solid ROI is crucial. Recently, Visibility Magazine published a case study about Force 5′s client, Starcraft Marine. To help starcraft more fully embrace mobile technology and utilize their existing marketing collateral, Force 5 developed a practical mobile interface. (detailed info can be found here.)
The interface utilized MicroSoft TAGs, and Starcraft Marine’s existing video and web to leverage the growing power of mobile. Because it continues to utilize effective legacy strategies, this Force 5 solution brings clients closer to the next generation today.
Customer Advocacy and Company Blasphemy
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 by Butch WhitmireLast week when I realized we were out of bottled water in our offices at Force 5 a few hours before a potential client was stopping by, I decided to make a quick run to the grocery store. After loading my cart with some H2O, I quickly made my way to the checkout register. Along the way I noticed my favorite cookies – old fashioned sugar cookies. I grabbed a tray and thought, “our guest will like these, and if not, our staff will.” (Yep, staff members are the most important brand ambassadors you have; so treat them well.)
So, I’m in line to pay and Ethyl the cashier says, “Look at that!” as she points to the price tag on the cookies, “those cookies are $3.59!”
“I know,” I say, “but man, are they good!” (I’d bought them at least 5 times before.)
She picks up the clear container and starts for count them out for me, “two, four, six … eightcookies! I can’t believe how expensive they are. I wouldn’t pay that for just eight cookies.”
I just smiled and bought my cookies. I smiled at her manager too, who had listened to the entire conversation.
Ok. Ethyl meant well. She wanted for me what she valued for herself – maximum cookie quantity per dollar spent. Ethyl wanted me to be happy.
Unfortunately, Ethyl did the opposite. In this exchange Ethyl communicated three pretty awful things:
1) You must like to waste money.
2) Apparently you can’t read or count or make decisions.
3) Be careful. Unless I was here to protect you, this place would screw you over every chance it gets.
There’s a fine line between customer advocacy and company blasphemy. I’ve found throughout my career that sales people who understand the difference are the ones who are the most successful. Have you ever run across a salesperson like this and how did they make you feel as a buyer?
Pent Up
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011 by Butch Whitmire
I read in a brief from Ad-ology that nearly 35% of U.S. adults said they intend to buy a new or used car in the next 12 months. One explanation is pent up demand. This means consumers have been holding back on their spending like a corralled stallion and now they are finally going to let that stud burst out of its pen in a money-spending whirlwind of hooves and mane.
I am hopeful this is the reason that people will be buying cars this year. Pent up demand suggests that consumers who were once caution-filled about the economy are now optimistic enough to let go of their cash or comfortable enough to take on debt. This type of demand reflects consumer confidence.
Another explanation as to why consumers will purchase cars this year is simply because they have to. That is, they are neither confident nor do they have any greater belief they will remain employed long tern or have more disposable income; they must buy a car. Their current car is just too old and worn out and to get to work, or to the unemployment office, they need a car. This type of demand, a replacement demand, reflects consumer fear.
Now don’t get me wrong, regardless of the reason, people buying cars or any product or service will be good for our economy. Demand creates production, which creates jobs, which encourages spending which creates more demand. Wonderful!
The challenge for marketers will be determining the latent, emotional cause for their customer’s demand: do customers want to buy or do they have to buy? The marketing message you send to someone who is afraid should be much different than to someone buying eagerly. Helping our clients determine their audience and the message they should send them is part of our Soul Searching™ process here at Force 5 and we’d welcome the opportunity to talk with you about our methodology. Feel free to contact us.
So, will your customers be buying from you like an unleashed stallion this year, or like some other creature? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
The Cost of Free
Thursday, June 16th, 2011 by Butch WhitmireI emailed a respected marketer and he made a statement that was quite profound. He said, “Free stuff we’ll take all day long. But I also don’t want to work with somebody who gives away their products or services too cheap – if they can’t sell their own stuff, how can they help me sell mine?”
I loved his perspective in a time when open source code, free downloads, Groupons, free newsletters, “kids eat free,” are running rampant. People seem to crave “free” and statistically, they move in big numbers when the see the word “free” attached to a marketing campaign. However, I have big concerns with “free” (or the ridiculously reduced.)
As I wrote in an earlier post about scarcity, for things to be valuable people must perceive them as both a) useful and b) scarce. So, when we say something is “free” (meaning zero monetary value) people intuit that the service or good is either not very useful to them or it is abundantly available to all. Free lowers perceived value.
Another reason I am concerned about free is that people intrinsically intuit that “nothing is free.” So, clients assume there are strings or other cost attached. For example, our developers utilize an amazing open-source CMS/CMF called Drupal. This PHP-based code is available to us and everyone for no cash outlay. However, learning Drupal has been anything but free to Force 5. Our team has invested scores and scores of unbillable R&D hours to learn this protocol. “Free” usually has a cost attached – somewhere.
So, why are so many sales people and marketers using “free” (or ridiculously under-priced) to gain business? For me, there are only four plausible explanations:
1) You are lowering the barrier to entry. Free trials can lead to sales but they must be made scarce; meaning they are limited. Free one time to get to know your product or service. After that, it’s time to charge – drug dealers have known this for years.
2) You are relying on the social norm of reciprocity. (You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.) This is a risky approach. As I mentioned, people usually assume “nothing is for free” so they will take and take from you with little compulsion to give you anything in return.
3) You don’t believe your product or service is really very valuable. If this is the case, it’s time for a gut check. It’s time to evaluate and change your product or service to meet the demands of a crazily competitive market.
4) You’re a little lazy or at least not very creative. Free is easy. Free is fast. Free is simple. Free creates a lot of activity. Free doesn’t require you to make a compelling case for your product. Maybe it’s time to work on your marketing or selling skills, at least a little.
So the question must be asked: Are you overusing “free” and at what cost?
The Value of Small + Smart
Tuesday, June 7th, 2011 by Butch WhitmireWhenever I’m asked about Force 5, one of the things I say about our company is that we are“small and smart.” Most people understand immediately what half of that means. We have only a handful of people on our staff – so, we’re small – pretty easy. Small is good these days. That means we don’t carry a lot of overhead so we can be competitive. Being small also means that we can be pretty agile, too. There aren’t too many people or committees required to make decisions. We can quickly decide what to do and move – and that’s a good thing for our clients.
When I say “We’re smart,” I think I run the risk of sounding arrogant. Granted, there are some pretty sharp people I get to work with here (me - not so much.) The “smart” part is really about bringing in the right resources when we need them. This allows us to assemble the best possible talent for a specific need and remain laser-focused on the client. Being smart also keeps us fresh and creative.
From a personal standpoint, being “small and smart” forces me to be more rounded as a business person. It’s made me realize that client issues are most often multi-faceted and that one area of expertise is seldom the cure for a particular issue. This regularly pushes me outside the limits of my capacity and into the realms of more capable people in specialize areas. The results are: wins for the client, wins for Force 5, wins for freelancers, and wins for me. And who wouldn’t want that?
Remembering
Friday, May 27th, 2011 by Butch Whitmire
It’s Memorial Day weekend so I thought I would take a picture of the Flag that flies outside our offices here at Force 5. There is a lot happening this weekend: Graduations, cookouts, parties and all kinds of outdoor fun. The famed Indianapolis 500 will run this weekend too. For many, Memorial Day marks the beginning of a great Summer.
I am hopeful though, that in the midst of all that fun and fraternity, we’ll take a moment to remember what Memorial Day is about. Just a moment to pause and reflect on the over 1 million Americans who have died in wars since the Revolutionary War. I am hopeful that we are aware that there might be among us, a family that will not have a son or daughter returning from the Middle East alive.
Force 5 wishes to thank the many service people and their families who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Freedom.
