Is Starbucks Diluting It’s Brand with Via?
October 7, 2009 @ 11:07am
by Mason Razavi
When Starbucks announced that they are launching their version of instant coffee, a thought went through my head: Good job Starbucks, way to take the “luxury” out of “luxury brand”. Known to many as providers of premium coffee, and to others still as simply carrying a premium price tag, entering the instant coffee market seems like a diversion from Starbucks’ overall plan of being the top coffee vendor in the world.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it’s become trendy to slam Starbucks by making a snide comment on paying $5 for a cup of coffee. I always found that statement slightly inaccurate; after all, can a triple grande non-fat, no whip, peppermint zebra mocha (my old supervisor’s drink of choice) really be considered just another cup of coffee?
Still, Starbucks has made efforts to downsize their organization and readjust their strategy to provide some lower priced options. Most notable was that they began to offer breakfast combos including a hot drink and a meal item for around $4. Now with their instant brew, Via, Starbucks takes another step in becoming a value-driven retailer.
One has to wonder how much this will impact Starbucks’ image in the long term. I once read something intriguing in a book on management and motivation about how you should play to your strengths instead of trying to be everything to everyone. Stick to your guns, do what you do best, and get even better at it. In another book I read that was geared to songwriters, the author very specifically and emphatically noted that it is paramount to make 1 or maybe 2 styles your own, and not try to become the be-all and end-all of songwriters who can write beautifully in every style. To that end, is Starbucks diluting it’s own brand by trying to be everything to everyone?
After all, people don’t drive BMWs because they’re practical, they don’t buy Tiffany’s because they’re affordable, and they certainly don’t wear Diesel jeans because of some “everyman” sort of image. People certainly don’t visit Starbucks for affordable, practical coffee buys. Most people walk into a Starbucks knowing what it is and expecting to spend a few bucks.
With the economy being the way it is, it’s certainly not a bad idea for Starbucks to reposition themselves as value-based retailer, or at least to have those options, and I trust that greater minds than mine are concerning themselves with the long-term affects of such decisions.
For what it’s worth, yes, I tried the taste challenge, and yes, they did taste remarkably similar. And no, unfortunately I’m not getting paid to say that.
Tags
branding, marketing, Starbucks
Comments
To Tweet or Not to Tweet
September 10, 2009 @ 3:11pm
Updated — September 10, 2009 @ 3:14pm
by Mason Razavi
I’ve had a few people ask me about the frequency of tweets lately. Usually they’re wondering how often their business should tweet, and if they really need to let the world know that they like the sandwhich from Vinnies, but could have done without the pepperoncinis. Of course I tell them that would be ridiculous…the word ‘pepperoncini’ takes up far too much real estate in a tweet.
Poor humor aside, the question of how often you make contact on Twitter is a valid one, particularly for businesses who count each tweet as a marketing effort.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re unsure, play it safe and tweet less. People on the web are usually pretty sensitive to spam and information overload, so if you overdo it, you’ll find people quickly losing interest.
Let’s say you have a new promotion that runs for a few days. Let people know no more than 2-3 times a day. Make sure you phrase your messages a little differently each time. This is a subtle indicator that there is an actual human being on the other end, which is always well-perceived by consumers.
What if your promotion is one day only? I would recommend no more than once per 2 hours tops throughout the business day.
Then there are tweets that describe events in your personal dealings throughout the day. Depending on the size of your company, and whether or not your Twitter strategy focuses on your personal brand or the company brand, you may want to post tidbits from your personal daily life. When done judiciously, it adds a human element to your company and allows people to more closely identify with your brand. When done in excess, you look like an attention-starved teen without a prom date. Feel free to post a tweet about things like your business lunch, a conference you’re attending, your graduate level classes, or anything of the like. Suffice it to say, personal talk should be present, but kept to a minimum.
Of course, there are many other times you’ll want to communicate through Twitter, and there is just not enough space here to break it all down. If I were to summarize it is the most boneheaded way possible, I’d say to tweet when you have something interesting to say. Advice so simple, it’s frustrating. However, if some companies (and individuals for that matter) would keep that little nugget of wisdom tucked away in their noggins, Twitter would be a better place.
All that being said, it’s important to remember that there are no hard and fast rules. The best way to figure out the optimal rate of contact is to keep your finger on the pulse of activity, monitor how people respond to your messaging, then make adjustments on the fly.
Tags
Comments
Ice Cream Sundae: An Email Marketing Blog
August 31, 2009 @ 11:09pm
Updated — September 1, 2009 @ 6:29am
by Mason Razavi
On the surface it seems simple, doesn’t it? You throw together a few lines of copy, your company logo at the top, and oh, don’t forget that list of email addresses you bought from a guy in an alley. Slap on a button to “Buy Now!”, and, oh, that subject line….how about “SAVE 10% TODAY!!!!!!!”
Not so fast. A well-crafted email can be a sweet treat, no different than the most inviting of desserts: the ice cream sundae.
Let’s start with the copy. Rich, flavorful, melt-in-your-mouth copy is the foundation, like a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. You copy should be sweet, simple, and provide a scrumptious place for toppings to lay. Don’t go rocky road, or neopolitan, or Cherry Garcia. Instead go with vanilla bean – not bland vanilla, but delicious creamy vanilla with specks of the bean. In other words, be brief, get to the point, but give it just a touch of excitement, enticement, or pizzaz to spark the reader’s interest.
The hot fudge, yes, that is the call to action button. What do you want your readers to do? Buy something? Take a peek at your new video? Donate to charity? Make sure your call to action buttons appear at least twice in the email – probably once at the top and once at the bottom (for those who actually read the whole thing…chocolate sauce drizzles all the way to the bottom, you know). Sure, the ice cream is good, but it’s the chocolate sauce that calls people to action.
Next, the whipped cream and sprinkles that make up the HTML email template. Just as fluffy whipped cream and colorful sprinkles excite your eyeballs and make you jump for joy, so it shall be with with an irresistible, visually delectable email template. Your company logo embedded in the attractive header, the sidebar with quotes, links, and promos….whipped cream and sprinkles make it all the more fun.
The cherry on top? Of course, the subject line. Perhaps the most important part of your email, a poorly written or spammy subject line will get as many people interested in your email as there would be people lining up to grab a sundae with a moldy yet mysteriously half-eaten cherry on top. Don’t type in all caps, don’t put 135 exclamation points in there, and stay away from cliches like “buy now”, “X% Off”, “Refinance Today”, or any other trite, rotten cherries. Even if your sundae, er, email makes it past the recipient’s spam filter, chances are that they will never be read with such subject lines. A marachino cherry is not only eye-catching, it is a sweet way to start a sundae. Make sure your subject lines are equally appealing at under 60 characters (the less the merrier, for the most part), and give people a reason to open your email.
Put it all together and you’ll have a delicious treat that will get the attention of your audience.
I’ve combined my advice and my vice in an effort to educate you, may it serve you well.
Tags
Comments
Twitter Goes Down; State of Humanity Threatened
August 6, 2009 @ 11:13am
by Mason Razavi
It was a dark morning. For starters, it was cloudy. That doesn’t happen in California. Ever.
Then the news hit: Twitter is down. Twitter. Is. Down.
Upon hearing this, I rushed to the street, to see hundreds or more people fleeing their homes, grabbing one another, shaking each other by the shoulders, asking how this could be possible.
I drove through Cupertino and Mountain View and discovered that buildings once occupied with quiet cubicles, bothersome copiers, and endless meetings on riveting topics such as enterprise-level IT security were now in ruins. Office chairs torn to shreds, shattered glass everywhere, and the lowercase letter ‘t’ that is emblematic of the Twitter brand sloppily tagged onto the walls of once towering buildings that were filled with Silicon Valley’s brightest.
All along I sensed that everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it finally did. News started spreading around town (without Twitter?!) that Facebook was also experiencing problems. Stunned, I stood in the middle of the seemingly war-torn street, my jaw agape, contemplating the meaning of the events that had transpired.
I had to make a split decision. Knowing that chaos would ensue, I packed some canned food, a bottle of penicillin, my BlackBerry, and some raw fish (Pompano, to be exact) I managed to steal from Marina Food in Cupertino, and fled town. I quickly realized that I was not alone; hundreds, no, thousands had setup camps outside of the bay area, in desolate areas such as…..whatever is east of the Bay Area.
As I prepared to plan out the rest of my life as a nomad, I got a text on my BlackBerry. “Hey, it’s Mark. Twitter’s back up, and Facebook seems to be working intermittently”.
Oh.
I dusted off my dockers shirt, did my best to straighten out the crease in my slacks, and started to make my way back to the office. I looked up and saw that the sun was starting to creep out from behind the clouds. That’s not even me using a clever literary device to imply hope and well-being, seriously, it just got sunnier, check the weather report. “Everything is going to be ok”, I thought, “everything is going to be ok”.
Tags
Comments
Observations from Hearing Alan Cohen of Cisco Speak
July 16, 2009 @ 3:21pm
Updated — July 24, 2009 @ 3:22pm
by Mason Razavi
I recently attended an event in Mountain View in which Alan Cohen, VP of Enterprise and Mid-Market Solutions for Cisco, spoke his mind about the nature of contemporary business communications. The meetup was billed partly as a networking event and partly as an opportunity to learn about emerging social technologies in enterprises, so naturally I was compelled to go. Unfortunately, the event turned out to be little more than a recital of the obvious mashed up with some advertising and seed-planting for Cisco products.
Don’t get me wrong. Alan Cohen is a talented and charismatic speaker who seemed to have the audience in the palm of his hand. As I am someone who truly appreciates talented performers, watching him deliver his piece was in this sense a delight and an education in itself.
However the content was….shall I say, lacking? Allow me to summarize:
“Meetings are boring, and people fall asleep during them. Big companies are inefficient, as they spend too much time trying to get information from one place to the next. Email kinda sucks. Not important. Sorta annoys me. Human interaction is important. Face to face contact is important. That’s why Cisco makes this really neat video stuff that lets you do that, and in the near future we’re coming out with some more neat video stuff that lets you do that even better. Awesome, huh?”
Alright, I might be simplifying just a tad. Still, talking about the sloth-like path of information within giant corporations and how meetings are boring and inefficient is not exactly groundbreaking news.
I was lured to the event with advertising that teased potential attendees by asking if Twitter and Google Wave were the future of enterprise-level communications. My disappointment stems from the fact that I was expecting to actually hear what tools, specifically, were going to change things, and not just some stats and filler about how you only retain 10% of what you read and how 39% of people admit to falling asleep in meetings, and how Cisco is going to save Mother Earth and all its businesses.
In the end, I have to say that observing Alan Cohen’s delivery and the Thai food provided were the true highlights of the evening, even if the noodles were a bit cold.
Tags
Alan Cohen, Cisco, communications, Enterprise, Google Wave, twitter
Comments
Email Marketing + Social Marketing ≠ Spam
July 13, 2009 @ 3:45pm
by Mason Razavi
I recently had a conversation with someone who asked if I thought that social media marketing should be considered spam. He posed an argument including the fact that people buy accounts and followers, and also that email marketing, which is in the same vein, is widely considered to be spam.
I began to think about some misconceptions regarding social network marketing and email marketing and how they might be thought of as spam. I thought I’d take a moment to clear that up for you – free of charge!
First of all, let’s talk email marketing. There are pretty strict laws in place about who you can and cannot contact with email. People have to opt-in to an email list before receiving contact. This is contrary to traditional direct mail marketing, where it’s standard practice to mail-bomb an entire neighborhood unsolicited. So, if people are asking for it, how can it be considered spam?
Secondly, social media marketing is anything but spam. Again, people choose who they want to hear from. Not only that, but companies that execute a smart social marketing plan can actually make it fun (say it with me: fun) to hear from them. The result is that sometimes people add certain profiles to their friends lists to appear cool, kitschy or irreverant. For instance, someone might add Family Guy, Pepsi, and Marvel Comics to their web 2.0 circle just for kicks. I’ve never seen anyone do that with spam!
Social marketing and email marketing campaigns, when well executed, are fun, interesting, entertaining, and provide value to fans. Still, even if it’s done poorly I don’t know that there is a case you can point to and call spam.
Tags
email marketing, social marketing, spam, web 2.0
Comments
NFL Says ‘No’ to In-Game Tweets
July 10, 2009 @ 4:59pm
by Mason Razavi
The NFL has banned its players from in-game Twittering, citing a rule they already have in place that prohibits cell phone usage during games. In doing so, they might be missing a golden opportunity.
On one hand, you have to side with the NFL. Giving a bunch of rowdy, adrenaline-pumped, larger-than-life professional athletes a forum to say whatever they want to the entire world during the heat of battle, with all the raw emotions that go with that – you can see how that might quickly turn into a PR nightmare.
Top that off with coaches who would likely not want their players diverting their attention from the game at hand, and you can see where this might start to make sense.
However, the NFL is missing out on a ton of fun. And really, isn’t that what sports is all about?
Imagine a player telling the world what he feels like as the final seconds tick off the clock to a superbowl victory. Or loss. Perhaps you could envision an injured player taken off the field letting the world know first hand that he’ll be ok. The possibilities are limitless.
My suggestion to the NFL would be to give a few key players the privilege of using Twitter during games. This could serve a similar function as an isolated camera that follows a single player during a game, and is similar to the “mic’d up” idea that some sports leagues (including my beloved NHL) have used to get prime audio clips from players during games.
In the end, it’s all about entertainment, and fans are increasingly searching for behind-the-scenes coverage on what players are doing and saying before, during, and after games. The occasional tweet would only be the next step in taking it to an online format.
Tags
Comments
Review: Seesmic Desktop
June 30, 2009 @ 2:46pm
by Mason Razavi
In the world of Twitter desktop applications, Seesmic Desktop has shown that it is perhaps the most valuable of them all for the novice Twitterer and the so-called power user alike.
The first thing that sets it apart is the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts. There are some others that do this as well, but just this one feature whiddles down the list of competitors significantly. Perfect for business users that have a personal and business account, as well as the split-personality sociopath who wants so bad for people to think they really are Brittney Spears, being able to manage multiple accounts in one place is a major plus. Additionally, you can also dedicate a pane to updates on Facebook, which is a nice touch.
It is a cinch to view, manage, and reply to responses in all of these accounts. For example, one smart feature automatically selects the current account with which to provide a response. User lists and searches can also be saved for future reference, a nice touch indeed.
A button to shrink text as well as the ability to add short links through bit.ly, digg, and is.gd round out a nice set of options for Seesmic.
One of my favorite things? The look. Perhaps not as important as the functionality of the application, it is none the less significant for the design of something that is meant to be stared at to be at least somewhat pleasing. Seesmic Desktop offers a slick and contemporary look that compliments my Mac desktop nicely.
If you’re looking for a feature-packed, easy to use Twitter application, I highly recommend giving Seesmic a try.
Tags
Comments
Where were you when….?
June 29, 2009 @ 2:07pm
by Mason Razavi
Where were you when you heard Michael Jackson had died? I was in my office, and found out when I switched tabs on my browser and saw a friend’s Facebook status. How did you find out about the passing of the world’s foremost pitchman Billy Mays? I found out through some Twitter posts, and learned more about it using Scoopler.
Though I could go on about paying homage to the tragic deaths of a handful of celebrities and TV personalities this week, I won’t. There are a million sites and a million blogs and a million groups on Facebook for that. So, I hope you don’t mind if I set the emotions aside and instead focus on the technology that empowered me to stay connected with these stunning current events, as well as a question to you: where were you?
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, social media has in many ways risen above traditional media in delivering up-to-the-minute information on a number of topics (Iran, anyone?). The past couple of weeks in particular have made for some tumultuous times and have provided incredible examples of how social media works in the context of our times.
So, where were you when David Carradine, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcet, Ed McMahon, or Billy Mays left us? How did you use social media to find out about it, communicate others, organize groups, etc? I’d love to know! Let’s see some comments about how we’ve used these incredible tools to talk to each other.
Tags
Billy Mays, David Carradine, ed mcmahon, Facebook, Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Scoopler, social media, twitter
Comments
Social Media Marketing and Business Results
June 23, 2009 @ 11:34am
Updated — June 26, 2009 @ 11:39am
by Mason Razavi
Despite the success and popularity of social media and networking sites, there are still plenty of objections, misconceptions, myths, and plain old concerns that I hear from people in small and large companies alike. Perhaps the most pressing question is one of metrics; can you really measure the results of a social marketing campaign?
Businesses are understandably concerned with how they invest their advertising dollars, especially in an economy where companies have cut costs by letting their marketing budgets shrivel like a salt-covered slug. As a result, marketing and advertising directors have to show that the money they do have is getting them real, measurable results and high ROI.
There are enough examples out there of businesses who have in fact come up with ways to measure the effectiveness in concrete, quantifiable terms. Perhaps the most prominent example is provided to us by Dell Computers, who reportedly have generated $3 millon in sales through Twitter. Dell has actually created proprietary software to measure very precisely the effectiveness of their Twitter presence, allowing them to confidently disclose such figures.
Of course, not everyone has the resources to build a proprietary analytic tool, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to throw in the towel. You might be able to measure the success of a well-implemented social media marketing campaign by tracking spikes in web traffic before, during, and after various points during the campaign. Also, you can offer promotions specifically through Twitter or Facebook and track the number of orders that come in that way.
Furthermore, even if you can’t asses the value of every click, the amount of brand equity built in every page view, or the likeliness that a Facebook fan will buy your product or service, you can take comfort in the fact that social media marketing is extremely cost-effective in nature. Some companies actually hire a full-time social marketing expert to drive such efforts, while others look to social media and web marketing specialists to create and monitor anything from a blog page to full-fledged, cross-channel online ad campaigns. If you play your cards right, you can get the right services for a great price, meaning you don’t necessarily need to plop down the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or more on your social marketing campaign. Yet, social marketing can reach as many if not more people, in a more meaningful and impactful way than many traditional marketing methods.
Finally, there is the copycat theory. As much as we strive to make business decisions that stress innovation, forward thinking, and unique strategy, it’s no secret that once one company does something to successfully improve itself, others will follow in its footsteps. Keeping that in mind, why not follow the footsteps of CNN, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Coca Cola, The Cleveland Cavaliers, and many other major organizations by hopping on into the social media pool. The water is fine, jump right in! The web is chock full of articles discussing how companies large and small alike have found that using web 2.0 tools to create personal, meaningful and direct dialogue with their customers has improved their business and made them more recognizable. If that isn’t measurable proof, I don’t know what is!
Tags
Facebook, marketing strategy, MySpace, social media marketing, social networking, twitter, web 2.0, web marketing
