One of my favorite things about having a blog is that I get access to some of the most amazing people to interview and to share with you.
This week's interview is no exception. I recently spent 30 or so minutes talking with John Rosen and AnnaMaria Turano of MCAWorks, and authors of the exciting new book Stop Watch Marketing. I met John and AnnaMaria at the 800 CEO-Read Author Pow-Wow in December, and I LOVED the concept of their book that they shared with me. I knew when the book came out I had to share the ideas with you, so here you are. I'll be posting the interview in audio form shortly so you can listen in.
For now, read and enjoy the written words from my conversation with John and AnnaMaria about Stopping the Clock for Your Customers!
Phil Gerbyshak: For those who don't know, please give me an overview of your backgrounds.
Stop Watch Marketing: John and I started working together at another consulting firm from 1999-2000. In 2002, we decided, along with John Hawkins who is another partner, that we could do our own thing along. We decided to write a book. In running the Consultancy, we called a meeting three years ago ago and said we have to do other things to market and build the firm, and to build intellectual capital. rather than calling clients and asking for more projects. Each partner (there are now five) took on a specific assignment. They all picked something beyond consulting to help build the firm. The one that Anna Marie and John picked was to get a book out there. We know there are a lot of things that we don't think are sufficiently addressed in the marketing world right now. We took that one on as a project.
The result is Stopwatch Marketing. It's basic premise is that Marketers (Managers, Vice President of Marketing, or small business people), are all charged with same thing, creating a sale. Marketers give insufficient importance to the importance and power and implications of the customers time. A lot of clients, we have found, really believed that the consumer hangs on every word in a 30 second commercial, or reading the print ad from beginning to end. We found ourselves constantly telling them that our research tells them that during the 30 second commercial, the consumer goes to the refrigerator to get a beer, and the Marketer is lucky to get 5 seconds across to them. Think about the “time” the target customer is willing to give you to sell them. Then we developed this image that had a lot of power with our clients. Think of every customer having, figuratively, a ticking stopwatch in the back of head, counting down to moment they actually decide to buy. Your role as Marketer is to either slow that ticking down so that you can capture their attention and make the sale, or speed up and stop it right then and there, and close sale. It is a complex issue. You have to figure what time segment you are going to work with, speed or slow down, so you can capitalize on the moment the customer decides to buy.
What Marketers fail to realize is the level of risk that the consumer is willing to take, or not willing to take, in any purchase decision. This is something that the book talks about. There are lots of decisions people make, having lunch, buying a soda, etc., that have a very small level of risk. On the other hand, it might be a decision they might have to live with a couple years, some for the rest of their lives. They could be buying furniture, painting walls of their home, or deciding on a college for their children. These decisions are of a higher level of risk, when there might be more thought put into it and Marketers need to realize how important this purchase decision is in someone's life.
PG: Why don't more companies do this?
SWM: Companies today know how to do the blocking and tackling of marketing so they have the P's C's, and everyone is embracing the idea of consumer centricity. But they are not going a level beyond, not thinking of their own time and consumers time. In a way, it is very self- centric thinking. As a Marketer, we know this, because we probably experienced that as well. You think about your product 24 hours a day 7 days a week. No consumer is ever giving that much thought and time to thinking about your product the same way as you, the Marketer, are. So you really need to flip your thinking, walk the walk of your customers life, how much time they are going to spend listening to messages, sifting though information, weighing purchase options and ultimately making a decision.
Flipping that thinking is so important, when you're thinking of anything, thinking of it from the other persons perspective instead your own. You know your message, customers don't know or care. Customers have no imperatives to care, unless it is something urgent and important to them at this point in time. Otherwise, customers have other things to do. An example in the book is replacing tires. We drive around three or four years, the last thing you think is that you need tires. When the moment comes you need them, it is deeply emotional, and highly urgent to the customer. Their thoughts may be that they don't know about tires, don't have time for this, and don't want to make a mistake. How am I going to do this ? The risk is two-fold: The customer doesn't want the wrong tires, or they don't want to feel like their next door neighbor got a better deal. More psychological than marketing research, people think in relative and competitive terms. It's not so much in an absolute sense, “Did I pay less for...” , rather, “Did I pay less than my neighbor”.
