When No Means Yes

I try to steer away from politics, but every so often something political will catch my eye and, from a communications perspective, I feel it might be worth wading into the foray. 

As many of my regular readers will know, I'm based in Scotland and this year my country faces a significant decision on whether it should, or should not, be an independent nation. 

The political debates have been raging for months, and are expected to heat up as we career towards Decision-Day in September 2014. 

The communications campaign is critical for both sides of the debate. But here's where, for me at least, it recently got very interesting. 

Putting aside my own political thoughts on the matter, the two sides have very clearly defined communication objectives:

The Yes Campaign is painting a portrait of hope, opportunity, possibility and passion. Underpinning these concepts, ideas and strategies is a lot of uncertainty and a lack of guarantee. 

The No Campaign is painting a portrait of maintaining the status quo, the fear of the great unknown independence would bring, the loss of certainty, and the security of unity. Underpinning these concepts, ideas, and strategies is knowing that the status quo will (and can continue to) prevail. 

However, from what I can see as a professional communicator, the No Campaign has already lost the battle. 

Faced with a growing lean towards "Yes", they've taken to amplifying their message and not urgently reviewing it. From afar speeches have been made. Phone a friend, says David Cameron. The pound is ours, says George Osbourne. All the big brand businesses are leaving, say all the big brand businesses. 

But even a recent trade union vote on whether or not to back any specific political goal, clearly identified that the "market" has shifted. Turns out no-one supported backing the No campaign, they were either for Yes or somewhere in the middle. 

The Yes Campaign, for all its uncertainty, has always been able to maintain strong concepts of hope, opportunity, possibility and passion. It's message is constant, unwavering and, recently, laudable in the face of adversity. 

So has the time come for No to re-evaluate their communications? Arguably, that time has come and gone. They've positioned themselves into a corner of selling us "same old, same old" and changing tack now may come off as a cynical ploy. And, let's face it, it really wouldn't be more than just that. 

For such an important political decision, and with some of the most clever communications strategists behind the campaign, it's actually distinctly surprising that they didn't see this coming from the outset. In fact, the No Campaign has done more for the Yes Campaign, than the Yes Campaign have done for the Yes Campaign. It's probably one of the biggest unintentional communication backfires in modern political history, but time will ultimately tell on that one. 

The Yes Campaign, by contrast, are to be congratulated on what has been an exceptionally well thought out strategy. 

They knew from the outset this was going to be as much an emotional vote as a logical one. But instead of treating the Scots like a bunch of imbeciles, unable to make logical decisions, they've made the respectful assumption that we'll suss out what many already know: when you set your mind on something, you can achieve anything. 

And so they've set out their stall in an ambitious manner. Scotland can be independent, they say. Look at what we have done. Look at what we can do. Look at what we could be. And, perhaps most importantly, look at what's holding us back. 

They know we've got the brains. Heck, Scots have invented some of the most widely used modern gadgets -  it ain't for the lack of brains that we're not ruling the world of technology. They know we've got the mettle. They know we just need the opportunity to make it happen. 

And slowly, but surely, their campaign has chipped away at the premise of the No Campaign. Because No can't fight back without first admitting that they have, actually, held us back. That they have treated us differently. That they intend to continue treating us differently. 

So what does No have to do if they are going to pull this back? Well, for a start, they'd better hurry. A good many people have watched the childish squabbling, quietly taken notes and have now firmly made up their mind to vote Yes. And that's what they are, arrogantly, not quite grasping. The market has changed. So the strategy needs to move with it. 

They are no longer communicating on the basis of why people should not leave, they have to start communicating on the basis of why people should stay. Strong, visionary reasons. Sell us a future we want, not a status quo we don't. And as for all this negativity? Bin it. At worst it's demeaning, at best it's boring.

And I say this as someone who stood firmly at the ouset of the campaign as a No vote. Over time, as I considered the possibilities, I moved to maybe. Maybe Yes, Maybe No. Now? Well, I'm comfortable with my decision to vote Yes. 

As a small business owner in Scotland, and an employer, I've had to take my fair share of risks over the years. But one thing is absolutely certain: without hope, you have nothing. And without opportunity, you will get nowhere. And without possibility, there is no progress. And without passion, there's no impact. Everything else? Well, I reckon we can tackle that as we go along, don't you?

The Importance of Being (Not too) Earnest

This may come as a bit of a surprise but I only check my personal emails once a week. 

Yes, in this crazy, joined up, interconnected world we live in, it is actually still possible to resist the urge to ignore incoming communications - for a considerable period of time. I also only open my snail mail post once or twice a week too (although there's much, much less of that). 

This gives me a fairly interesting perspective on the marketing tactics of some companies. In one batch of weekly emails I can have as many as five promotional emails from a some organisations, with varying deals and offers, each one better than the last. I don't open them all. In fact the more there are, the less I open. 

In the snail mail pile, it's the same. One persistent offender is a leading online butcher and it would not be unusual for me to have 2 separate pieces of direct mail plus several emails from this organisation over the course of an average week. 

There's only so many times a girl can buy steak.....

Now I'm the first to appreciate that frequency of contact in marketing is an essential ingredient for success, but there is such a thing a too much frequency. Too much contact. Too much invasion into the "top of my mind". 

In fact it feels as if some of these companies communicate with me more often than my family. That they believe they should be party to my daily life. 

Are they desperate for sales? The quality of their marketing would suggest not. But their communication patterns suggest otherwise. 

So far I've held back from cutting them off completely by justifying to myself the convenience of having yummy steak delivered straight to my door, and the possibility that unsubscribing may send them into an even blinder panic of over-marketing to get me back. Like the gym, who now communicate with me more often now that I am no longer a member, than they did when I was. 

Interestingly we recently took the less is more approach and recommended to one of our clients that they do a little bit less on social, and a little bit less frequent email marketing and, guess what, their online sales have gone up, conversion rates are growing and attrition is falling. Result!

Perhaps we're just too busy to absorb it all. Of course it's great to develop relationships with your customers, but please try to remember they are customers, not your best mate or your spouse. 

There's an importance in not being too earnest....... don't you think?

When a Promise Becomes a Threat

We are now several months into Tesco's latest marketing campaign, The Tesco Price Promise. 

And the anecdotal results I can see on social media are very interesting. 

On the face of it, this should be a successful campaign. What's not to like, at the heart of a recession, about promising your customers that, if you (accidentally) overcharge them, they'll get that overcharge off their very next shop? What's not to enjoy about your loyalty being rewarded and a financial incentive to return?

But there's a downside. If you continually overcharge your customers, and give them a piece of paper to prove that you are doing it. Every week. Then it's only a matter of time before the customer sits up and thinks "Hey, wait a minute here...."

And the flip side? Well, if you are saving money, it's only a matter of time before you get a little peeved that everyone's getting money off vouchers except you.....

This latest price promotion could spell disaster for the market leader. Already CNBC is predicting Tesco's fall from power, and rival supermarket chains are stepping up their marketing messages to compete with the price promise juggernaut head on. Sainsbury's is even challenging Tesco through official channels that their "comparisons" are not even real comparisons, and you have to agree: it's hard to compare the Fair Trade coffee to the ground coffee that was unethically extracted from its suppliers at rock bottom prices....

Social media is further fueling the spread of this disgruntlement, with irritated shoppers posting up pictures of their receipts, demonstrating just how much cheaper it would have been for them to do their grocery shop elsewhere. 

This doesn't really affect our household. We switched our weekly grocery shop to the so called "premium" supermarket Marks & Spencer a few years ago. At an average saving of £40 on the weekly shop, the two grand annual saving is worth the stick we get from our friends for pretending to be posh. Quite frankly, I'd rather be "pretend posh" than poor. 

A few recent trips to Tesco, to just get a few things, have resulted in numerous money off coupons, and our astonishment that just a couple of carrier bags of "bits and bobs" can come to such a high amount. 

I simply pity the poor families who shop there weekly, on limited budgets, and see their hard earned wages going straight to Tesco's bottom line.

So what should Tesco do now? 

Well, the sensible option would be to cut its prices. 

It might eat into some of the £1.4 billion pre-tax profits it has made in the last six months, but it's likely to lose less customers in the long term. 

Since the start of the recession, shopping habits have changed immensely. Discount shopping is no longer stigmatised, coupons are considered valuable commodities but, despite these changes,  long term shopping habits remain a constant. 

And once a customer has shifted their main supermarket, it is doubly difficult to lure them back. 

As a marketer, I can promise them that. 

Who Owns Your Firm’s Social Relationships and Why Should you Care?

We've never had a guest blogger before, but I felt that this content was so pertinent to so many small businesses who use LinkedIn as part of their marketing efforts that it was well worth passing on. So our thanks go to Alan Matthew at Miller Hendry Solicitors who has given us permission to reproduce his original article in full:

When it comes to social networks, there has been a tendency for professionals to dismiss the more personal social platform of Facebook, and dive straight into the more professional platform of LinkedIn.

A recent case, however, that keeping things purely “professional” has inadvertently blurred the lines for businesses when it comes to who owns the relationships and contact data cultivated on the world’s number one social network for business professionals.

LinkedIn may have replaced the old fashioned address book and database for keeping up with business contacts, but while many companies encourage employees to use the online social networking site to keep in touch with customers, few have realised the downside of such relationships when an employee moves on.

Company-held data, such as a customer database, clearly belongs to the company and can be easily protected against misuse, however in the LinkedIn era the boundaries are increasingly unclear, with many employees making personal contacts in the course of conducting their professional business. 

A recent case in the High Court tackled this thorny issue, and employers now have a clear route to tackle any misuse of contacts. “The LinkedIn Injunction”, as it is colloquially being referred to, has made it clear that employers may be able to act to secure contacts cultivated on behalf of the company in circumstances where they can show a legitimate proprietary interest in an employee’s LinkedIn profile. 

In those circumstances the company needs to be able to show that the loss or misuse of an employee’s profile may give rise to “irreparable harm that cannot be compensated” by any financial payment.

In the case of Whitmar Publications Limited v. Gamage and Others, publishing company Whitmar was granted a restraining injunction against three former employees who had set up in competition, alleging they did so whilst still employed.  Whitmar also alleged that contact information had been collected from members of LinkedIn groups that were maintained by Whitmar. 

The Court agreed that the LinkedIn groups involved constituted legitimate company property as one of the employees involved was responsible for maintaining these as part of their employment duties and using Whitmar’s computers, with a clear aim of promoting Whitmar’s business. 

It also accepted that the former employees had used contact information from the LinkedIn groups to send out promotional material about their new company. 

Granting the injunction to restrain the use of Whitmar’s confidential information, the ex-employees were also required to return confidential information and open up their computer systems for forensic inspection. 

So what action do you need to take? Here’s our top five tips in how to ensure your social media policies are kept up to date following this recent judgement: 

1. Assume that any LinkedIn account opened using an agreed company email address may subsequently belong to the company. LinkedIn accounts opened with a personal email will remain personal. Ensure this is clear to all employees.
2. All content on the profile, such as photographs and individual profile descriptions of an employee’s current role, should be cleared by the company prior to publication.
3. All job descriptions should clearly state that cultivating connections via LinkedIn is a part of business development for the company.
4. Employment contracts and social media policies need to specify that any LinkedIn activity by an employee, being conducted using LinkedIn on the employer’s behalf contribute to a database of proprietary trade information.
5. Employers need to be clear that compensation is being given for engaging in these business development activities as they take place during working hours.

And, finally, consider a more holistic approach to your social media activity. In light of this judgement, perhaps Twitter and Facebook have clearer personal and professional boundaries than once thought. 

Tales of the Unexpected

I recently lost my Gran.

After a long illness, at the age of 87 she finally succumbed to a rare brain tumor and passed away on the 1st August.

For two weeks now I have been adjusting to the loss. And to the rather strange feeling that, although we'd been expecting her death, it was still all too sudden. That I really wasn't prepared.

My Mum, however, who had been my Gran's carer for almost five years, had taken a different approach. Super organised, and mega-prepared, she handled everything with ease and grace. She knew it was coming. And in a bid to make the unavoidable easier, she'd prepared lists and taken action in advance. She'd even pre-paid the funeral!

Dealing with the unexpected is part of the day to day for any business owner. Change is the one constant you can expect in business. But even though it's expected, it can still have a catastrophic impact.

The key is to plan for what you know will happen so you can better deal with it when the time comes.

Know you're about to lose a client contract at the end of the year which will impact on cashflow and profitability? Then don't just sit there and wait for it to happen - start planning now: how will you get new customers to replace the lost revenues, speak to your bank and arrange an overdraft facility to smooth any short term cash flow difficulties.

Know that demand for a service or product is declining at a rapid rate? Then plan on how you are going to replace it. What's increasing in demand? Can you enhance the product to slow or reverse the decline?

My Gran was rarely fazed by any challenge. In her latter years she coped with complete loss of her sight without giving up her independence. In fact, just 4 weeks before her death she was toddling about her house, quite the thing. When my Grandfather died suddenly 30 years ago, she took over the running of his business: a butcher's shop.

But first she sat down with accountants and advisors and formed a plan of how it could be done.

She didn't even make her famous pancakes without following the recipe (a recipe which I've now fallen heir to - and the secret ingredient, which is NOT written down!).

The message is clear: want to survive life's ups and downs? Then you need a plan. No matter how small. It'll make all the difference.

This blog post is dedicated to my Gran:
Patricia Gavin Rattray, 1926 - 2013 RIP
PS: Nanny, I've got the message :-)

Change of Plan: Why Social Media Managers Need to be Flexible

For those businesses who are extremely active on social media platforms, pre-programming content is an absolute must, but there continues to be a disconnect between how some organisations treat social media communications, in comparison to other media, and it's a disconnect I will never fully understand. 

Take our local council, for example, who announced (via social media) at 4.30pm on Friday afternoon that an outdoor art event, due to take place on Saturday, had been cancelled. Just 16 hours later, they issued a reminder to the public not to forget about the art event on Saturday. Clearly a pre-programmed communication. 

They met with a barrage of confusion by followers of their facebook page, they then failed to respond to any of them or remove the inaccurate post. It's likely that no-one monitors social media at the weekend or, worse, no-one thinks social media's important enough to manage. 

There are far too numerous examples of this kind of thing happening. Businesses who tweeted promotional content while frantic families took to twitter to communicate with loved ones during the Boston Marathon bombings. Pre-planned tweets that encourage people to take walks in the countryside when storm force gales are circling the area.

How hard is it to know what you have planned? Seriously. 

So here's a few tips for those businesses who are not quite getting it. Pre-programming content is fine as long as you follow these four golden rules:

1. Be Aware. Know what content you have planned. We have records or every single tweet and facebook posts for every single client, we know what's going out and when - just like if we were broadcasting a TV advert..... it's the same difference. Comms professionals wouldn't sign off a TV or press advertising schedule without knowing the content, social media should be treated exactly the same. 
2. Monitor. Keep an eye on your social media - AT ALL TIMES - have more than one administrator on facebook, have mechanisms in place to alert you if (all of a sudden) there's a surge of activity on your account. 
3. Respond. Can't say this firmly enough. It's a two way dialogue on social media. TWO-way. Talk to your followers. It's OK to make a mistake - just apologise quickly, sincerely and move on. 
4. React. If circumstances change, pull the content. Sometimes it's just inappropriate to be going in with the hard sell. We removed all pre-planned content from social media for a client in the wake of the Boston Marathon Bombings out of respect for their community. Our actions may have gone unnoticed, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Dial 1 for the Sales Prevention Team

Apparently Dell have experienced an "unprecedented slump in sales". 

After attempting to purchase from them this week, I'm not terribly surprised. 

One would think that in this digital age, purchasing a PC would be as simple as buying sausages. In fact, you'd think that buying sausages would be the more difficult transaction. But, let me tell you, a recent purchase from Scottish online butcher Donald Russell fared significantly better than my attempts to purchase a computer from Dell. 

This week it took me around 56 hours, one internet transaction, 5 email exchanges and 6 phone calls to buy 2 PCs. It should have taken me about a minute. 

So what went wrong?

Well, with products carefully selected, my online order and payment details were submitted. Within seconds (and, I have to admit, it was so fast it was impressive) I had a call from my bank to verify two (not one) transactions from Dell. One for around £1000, the other for around 60p..... They (quite rightly) thought this was suspicious. 

I verified the transactions which added up to the full amount of the order, but my bank said I would need to contact Dell to request them to process payment. And then the fun began. 

Call 1: Describe situation, reassured that everything was fine, this happens every day (really?) and that payment would be processed within next 24 hours.

Wait........ 24 hours.........

Nothing. 

Call 2: Describe situation. Again. Get cut off. 

Call 3: Call back. Describe situation. Again. Get told that every single person who can help me in this multi-national company that employs tens of thousands of people are out to lunch. Yes, seriously. Could I call back later? It was 1pm. Requested, politely but firmly, that they call me back at 2pm once they'd finished eating. I was, after all, only trying to give them my money. 

Wait ......... No call .........

Call 4: Decided to take a different approach and asked to be put through to sales to purchase a computer. Success! Secured new order, payment put through, original internet order cancelled. All done. 

Or so I thought. 

Call 5: About 1 hour later......Panic call from Dell. I've submitted 2 identical orders!! What should they do?

Call 6: 10 minutes after the first call .....Second panic call from Dell. They are not sure which order to process....could I please call them back. 

Email from Dell: Stick an X in the box to tell us which order to process. 

I could tell you where I was tempted to stick my X, but it would be rude. So I won't. 

A seemingly simple purchase had turned into a saga of incompetency, incredulity (how can the entire multi-national company all be off at lunch at the same time??) and exasperation. 

Donald Russell, the butcher, managed to take my online order seamlessly in under one minute. It was delivered to me within 48 hours. Magic. Simple. 

So ask yourself, are you running a sales prevention business or are you trying to deliver. Because Dell certainly aren't. And that might easily explain their "unprecedented slump in sales".