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Aggregated Credibility

March 2, 2019 //

Aggregated Credibility is a valuable, dynamic asset most businesses underutilize.  The products and services your business sells everyday have positive impacts on your customers lives and each sale (or service you provide) inspires trust in your company and brand.  This trustworthiness adds up over time to impressive, confidence-inspiring information that should be shared with your current and future customers.

Small, as well as large businesses, can create powerful, compelling headlines and press releases proudly proclaiming their Aggregated Credibility.  If Joe’s Plumbing, a local plumbing company, services 10 customers a day, five days a week, over the course of a year it earns the Aggregated Credibility of Happily Servicing Over 2,000 Local Neighbors in the Past Year or Joe’s Plumbing, Your Local Plumber, Proudly Servicing 2,000 Fairfield County Neighbors in the Past Year.

Many people choose their supermarket based on coupons.  If a supermarket sees 400 customers a day, and the average customer saves $10, then in six months the supermarket has saved customers $700,000.  We saved customers over $700,000 in the last six months, how much can we save for you?  Or We saved customers over $123,000 last month, how much will you save today?  Both are potentially enticing headlines.

Bombas.com utilizes Aggregated Credibility to inspire confidence in the company and the company’s mission of donating socks to those in need for every pair purchased.  The constantly growing ticker displayed on their website of the 16.6 Million Pairs Donated shouts instant credibility for Bombas and encourages customers to engage in their socially responsible mission.

Aggregated Credibility needs to be relatable to resonate with customers.  In 1955 McDonald’s, under its famous Golden Arches displayed Over 1 Million Served.  In 1960, the sign was increased to 400 Million, and to 1 Billion in 1963.  McDonald’s periodically increased it at various milestones (5 Billion in 1969, 20 Billion in 1976 and 50 Billion in 1984), until 1994, when McDonald’s served its 100 Billionth customer and changed the iconic Golden Arches signage to Billions and Billions Served.  Even though they have served over 300 billion customers to date, McDonald’s continues displaying Billions and Billions Served.

Your company has worked hard to develop trust and authenticity one customer at a time, and deserves to effectively utilize the impressive, persuasive headlines it has earned. What is your Aggregated Credibility?

#AggregatedCredibility  #UnderutilizedAssets

 

Aggregated Credibility Cloud

Categories Informative Ramblings, Marketing, Uncategorized

February Learning

March 1, 2019 //

February continued 2019’s strong continuous learning agenda.  The three books read were excellent for varied reasons.  Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller and Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins by Mark Schaefer, both pushed the human aspect of marketing which was a distant approach from the programmatic, digital side discussed in most of the online courses.  In reality, marketing is not an either/or scenario, as optimally both sides are symbiotic.  The information obtainable from digital, which makes any data-junkie salivate, can inform and enhance personal story-telling strategies.

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, by Saifedean Ammous, did not discuss Bitcoin significantly for the first 2/3rd of the book, instead focusing history gold as well as other monetary commodities and discussed hard versus soft money.  A fascinating read (although a biased anti-Keynesian view) on hard versus soft money.

Books:

  1. Building a Story Brand, by Donald Miller discusses the ebb and flow of a story and positions the company as the guide to the hero (the customer)
  2. The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, by Saifedean Ammous
  3. Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins, by Mark Schaefer

Courses/Lectures

  1. LinkedIn Learning Course: Building Your Marketing Stack (2hrs 19 min)
  2. LinkedIn Learning Course: Business Intelligence for Consultants (29 min)
  3. LinkedIn Learning Course: Strategic Partnerships (49 min)
  4. LinkedIn Learning Course: Agile Marketing Foundations (1hr 13 min)
  5. Udemy Digital Marketing 301 (2hrs)
  6. Udemy Scrum Prep + Scrum Master + Scrum Training (3hrs)
  7. Google Analytics Academy

The LinkedIn Courses as well as the Google Analytics Academy were free.  Udemy was $15-$20 per course.  The total cost for February was again under $100; that’s a lot of information to digest for less than a single dinner for two, but, then again, it is a lot easier for your stomach to feel full, than your head.

#ContinuousLearning  #ContinuousImprovement

Categories Books, Continuous Learning, Informative Ramblings, Uncategorized

Continuous Learning

February 2, 2019 //

I am an avid believer in continuous improvement and continuous learning.  Personal education is the ultimate asymmetric bet with virtually the only downside being the potential opportunity cost of time, while upside is limitless knowledge that can benefit your current business/clients and/or your future self.  My goal of reading 40 books for 2019, which would have been easier before I fell down the online lecture rabbit hole (again), but the internet offers a never-ending ability to search for new knowledge and fall-down more rabbit holes. Most of the lectures were refreshments of current knowledge, but if I can gain one new idea (or a re-remembrance of prior knowledge) per hour, it is an hour well-spent.

January was a solid start for 2019 with the following:

Books:

  1. Blitzscaling, The Lightning-Fast Path To Building Massively Valuable Companies, by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh. My thoughts on Blitzscaling.
  2. Creative Selection, Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, by Ken Kocienda. My thoughts on Creative Selection.
  3. Ninja Future: Secrets to Success in the World of Innovation, by Gary Shapiro
  4. This is Marketing: You Cannot Be Seen Until You See, by Seth Godin
  5. Industry e-book for a sustainability project I am working on.

Courses/Lectures:

  1. LinkedIn LearningPath: Become a Digital Advertising Specialist. This consisted of 11 courses; Most are overly basic, but I did enjoy a couple, including Programmatic Advertising
  2. LinkedIn Learning Course: Introduction to Attribution and Mix Modeling (1hr 41 min)
  3. LinkedIn Learning Course: Digital Marketing (1hr 27 min)
  4. LinkedIn Learning Course: Creative Thinking (47 min)
  5. Udemy Digital Marketing 201. This course is relatively basic, but still worthwhile, as there were a few snippets of information.

The LinkedIn courses are free.  Udemy was $10.  The total cost of the above was less than $100, and all are definitely more worthwhile than spending time in front of the television.  Looking forward to what February brings!

#ContinuousLearning  #ContinuousImprovement

Categories Books, Continuous Learning, Informative Ramblings, Uncategorized

Creative Selection – Apple’s Design Process for Creating Magical Products

January 8, 2019 //

I have always been a tremendous believer of continuous improvement.  There is so much to learn, and the internet makes it exceptionally easy to fall-down new rabbit holes.  Between LinkedIn Learning, Cousera, the Kindle, podcasts, and the internet in general, the amount of acquirable knowledge is limitless.  For 2019, I have set the goal to read 40 books.  Creative Selection, by Ken Kocienda was my first pick for 2019, and I highly recommend it.

Creative Selection, Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, by Ken Kocienda is well written and a thoroughly enjoyable read regarding Apple’s constant reiterative demo process, where Apple creates concrete and specific demos so peers can make judgements/comments/criticisms/improvements based off actual ‘physical’ samples.  Substantial work is put into each demo, similar to the way ideas are pitched at Amazon in detailed memo form, rather than simple power point presentations.  Unlike Amazon memos that are polished, complete plans, Apple demos are down and dirty focusing on the specific area/item being demoed, with the background staged (potentially a Hollywood-type façade) to engross to the viewer into experiencing the demo portion as if the viewer is using the complete product.  The comprehensive due diligence/research involved in creating the demo (or memo for Amazon), helps to continually refine the idea.  As a side note, this reminds me of writing detailed marketing and disposal plans years ago at MBI.  As a young associate, I was amazed by the hours necessary to perfect these plans and to summarize them into short one or two page memos.  The substantial efforts required to ‘meticulously craft’ these short memos forced me to truly understand the plan, as well as, the what if scenarios associated with it.  Proposals would have been far easier (and far less efficient) to put forward as rambling multi-page plans than the concise, productive versions which educated me and allowed my managers to efficiently critique (and improve) them.

Concrete, specific demos allow peers to discuss the item being created in explicit detail, and offer distinct criticisms and suggestions.  Ken Kocienda presents an interesting illustration of the importance of having a specific ‘physical’ item to discuss and critique.  He uses puppies as an example.  Think of a cute puppy in your mind and imagine as many details about your puppy as you can.  I’ll think of one as well, I bet my puppy is cuter than yours.  Under this scenario, we both have imagined cute puppies, but there is no way to distinguish which one is cuter.  We can argue as we each describe our puppy, but we cannot resolve which is cuter without concrete and specific examples.  However, if we have physical pictures of each puppy, we can easily discuss their actual merits.  This example is relatively silly, but it demonstrates the importance of concrete examples. Without them the theoretical argument is virtually impossible, with them the discussion is efficient and relatively simple.

The production of the demos at Apple forces the creator to get a true understanding of the underlying issues with his creation.  The comments/criticisms received from peers utilizing the physical demo (rather than discussing theoretical images) are integrated into the following demo version.  Each demo, building on all prior work.  The best ideas survive, while the weaker ideas go extinct.  From these constant, reiterative improvements, magical, one-of a kind generational products have been created.

#CreativeSelection #AppleMagic #AppleDemos #KenKocienda

Categories Books, Informative Ramblings

Obama Coins – 100,000 Orders in 10 Days, 10 Years Ago

October 1, 2018 //

It is hard to believe that it has been 10 years since the launch of the Obama Coin program.  October 2008 was an interesting time with the upcoming Presidential Election.  The Barack Obama campaign seemed more like a movement than a campaign, with individual events filling arenas and drawing as many as seventy-five thousand people.  There was a buzz around the candidate, and the campaign, that was unlike prior recent Presidential elections.

By late October, Obama appeared to be the strong front-runner (We did not bother to do a McCain commercial as we didn’t think he would win and even if he did, his supporters did not seem to have the same level of passion as Obama supporters). The products were created, offer developed and scripts written over a weekend.  The commercial was produced from start to finish in five days and cost a modest $5k.  The spot could probably flow perfectly in a Saturday Night Live skit, but I really liked the attention-grabbing opening “Own a Piece of American History”, and felt the spot had a decent chance for success.

Media test schedules were booked on the condition to run if Obama won, tapes arrived at stations the day before election day.  A little luck never hurts. The Presidential election results were announced the day after Election Day and the first Obama Coin commercial ran on MSNBC at 9:57 Thursday morning.  The results were obvious instantly as the CPO of that initial spot came in at under a dollar. By that afternoon we were already booking the roll-out. We were fortunate to have a week head start before competitors aired other Obama collectible commercials.  We tested dozens of stations, analyzed results several times a day and expanded to the strongest stations as soon as we had reliable reads.  The program received 100,000 orders in the first ten days and over 250,000 within about 45 days.

I was originally told that the Obama commercial would never work for numerous reasons.  We had tested Obama coins in print twice earlier in the year, once versus Hillary Clinton and once versus John McCain.  Both times the test failed miserably, but black & white print is not necessarily a good predictor of TV success.  The economics of the product also did not fit the typical DR formula.  Typical DRTV markup was 5:1, but we were at 3:1 since both coins were gold layered, colorized and had intrinsic currency value.  To combat the tough economics, we developed five strong, complementary upsells which helped the campaign bring in an average rpo of $66 from the original $10 plus s&h offer.

Overall it was a phenomenal lesson on maximizing an event.  We were a marketing led organization, but back-end operations were also vital to the program’s success, and provided numerous lessons as well.  Successful campaigns can quickly turn into true disasters if back-end operations do not ramp efficiently.  The Obama Coins were a simple product, but it still offered fantastic logistical experiences.  The 250,000 orders came in quickly, but there were significant production issues to solve (originally only 10,000 coins could be produced per week, and we would need nearly two million coins).  The presidential dollars and half dollars were acquired directly from the US Mint (we bought the entire remaining supply of 2008 halves, and at one point needed to wait until 2009 to purchase additional half dollars).  After receiving batches of coins from the Mint, they were sent to the gold plater, from the gold plater the coins went to a contract manufacturer to add the colorization.  The coins were then shipped to a newly created make-shift workshop to encapsulate the individual coins (Thinner capsules were specifically designed to make the encapsulation process more efficient), batch them together along with a certificate of authenticity, and seal everything in cellophane packages.  Finally finished product was shipped the fulfilment center.

It took until March 2009 to fulfill the final orders, but we kept in constant communication with customers (mainly through postcards).  Fortunately, our creativity and adaptability allowed us to successfully fulfill the large influx of orders, while keeping cancellations to a minimum.

The Obama Coin Program was a fantastic educational experience.  The success of the campaign was due to a passionate audience, fortunate timing, strong complementary upsells, maximizing marketing opportunities, a flexible and adaptive supply chain, as well as, collaborating with strong vendors whose turnaround times were exceptional.

#MarketingLessons #DirectResponse #Collectibles #Direct-to-Consumer #Fulfillment #Operations

Categories DRTV, Informative Ramblings, Marketing, Uncategorized

A Marketing Lesson from Collectibles

August 8, 2018 //

A company’s most important asset is its customers.  They are extremely expensive to acquire, but keeping them happy is incrementally inexpensive.  Happy customers buy more product and stay in programs longer.  They are more responsive, and potentially purchase large multiples of product, or higher margin deluxe versions.  They are your best advocates.  What is the lifetime value of a happy advocate?

My first job after university was as a program manager at The Danbury Mint (MBI) overseeing various collectibles (dolls, plates, ornaments, die-cast cars, etc).  Most programs were sold as a one-shot, then converted in-shipment (and through follow-up mailings) to the rest of the series (typically a collection of either 4, 8 or 12 items).  The customer acquisition cost often exceeded 50% of the retail price, and on larger series could be 200%.  If a customer only bought the lead item, the amount of profitable marketing available was minimal.  Through conversions to the rest of the collection, the average customer purchased 2.2 to 2.7 products in a four-item program.  This additional margin allowed us to mail deeper inside, as well as, more outside lists.  Since lead customers were so expensive to acquire, it was vital that we treated them like gold.  It was essential that products shipped quickly, with packaging that would enhance the customer experience.  This was a fantastic educational experience on the lifetime value of a customer.

Direct Response is a fantastic medium that can ramp-up quickly and effectively in a test-expand approach.  Unfortunately, too many marketers focus only on the short term, with a one and done mentality; they often ignore the longer-term value of customers at the expense of immediate profits.  Think more from your customer’s perspective.  Have diligent inventory management so that shipments are never delayed and make sure to regularly ship product to yourself.  How does the product arrive?  Are the proper additional offers enclosed in package?  Is the unboxing experience impressive to your customer?  Is he incentivized to reorder?  Is she incentivized to tell a friend?

Treating the customer well may be slightly more expensive today, but invaluable for tomorrow.

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Categories Collectibles, Informative Ramblings, Marketing, Uncategorized

The Amazon Squeeze

July 14, 2018 //

Amazon has been a fantastic deflationary source for consumers, however it is also constantly squeezing seller margins.  Fees, as a percentage of Gross Selling Price, have increased every year since 2009. In 2009, Amazon fees totaled less than 20% of the gross selling price for most third-party sellers.  Now, nearly 10 years later, Amazon fees have risen to nearly 35%.  Since most third-party sellers are unable to increase prices to offset the majority of these fees, margins are constantly under pressure.

Sellers can combat some of the increasing Amazon fees by more effectively managing their inventory to reduce monthly and long-term storage.  Sellers can also redesign certain products to reduce weight and optimize shipping expenses.  However, sellers ultimately have no choice, but to accept the Amazon fee increases.  The margin squeeze has caused valuation multiples of Amazon only businesses to drop significantly over the last several years, especially sellers of staple white-label items.

Several years ago, sellers could offer white-label products, optimize their listings and enjoy year-over-year growth due to the increasing Amazon audience.  However, Amazon is directly capturing an ever-increasing share of white-label products (from batteries and charging cables, to bedding, luggage, and recently small appliances and apparel).  Amazon only had a minor share (or even zero share) of these markets a few years ago, but will control the vast majority of each within the next couple of years.

The speed of this transition is rarely talked about, but will make an amazing case-study in the future, as Amazon is capturing, virtually, entire category after category.  Differentiated, proprietary products were beneficial for third-party sellers in the past, but now they are an absolute must to thrive on the Amazon platform.

Update:  The New York Times published an detailed article today (July 23, 2018) on Amazon capturing increasing market share of white-label products.  How Amazon Is Winning the Online Retail Game. Again.  A few snippets below:

The results were stunning. In just a few years, AmazonBasics had grabbed nearly a third of the online market for batteries, outselling both Energizer and Duracell on its site.

The company now has roughly 100 private-label brands for sale on its huge online marketplace, of which more than five dozen have been introduced in the past year alone. But few of those are sold under the Amazon brand. Instead, they have been given a variety of anodyne, disposable names like Spotted Zebra (kids’ clothes), Good Brief (men’s underwear), Wag (dog food) and Rivet (home furnishings). Want to buy a stylish but affordable cap-sleeve dress? A flared version from Lark & Ro ($39), maybe in millennial pink, might be just what you’re looking for.

Amazon is utilizing its knowledge of its powerful marketplace machine — from optimizing word-search algorithms to analyzing competitors’ sales data to using its customer-review networks — to steer shoppers toward its in-house brands and away from its competitors, analysts say.

Update: October 16, 2018: The below excerpt is from a Bloomberg published article:  Amazon Doles Out Freebies to Juice Sales of Its Own Brands

Amazon has more than 120 brands, about 100 of which were introduced over the past two years, according to TJI Research. One is Amazon Basics motor oil. Less than three months since its July debut, the product has a 4.5-star rating based on about 100 customer reviews. That’s almost as many reviews as a similar Valvoline product sold on the site for six years. More than 80 percent of the reviews for Amazon’s new oil came through the Vine program;  the Valvoline oil had zero Vine reviews.

#Amazon  #DirecttoConsumer  #Private-label  # AmazonThirdParty  #AmazonSqueeze

View at Medium.com

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Categories Amazon, Informative Ramblings, Marketing, Uncategorized

Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior

March 23, 2018 //

Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior, is is another well-written, fun read by Johan Berger.  We underestimate the social influence of others on ourselves, yet we acknowledge its influence on others.  Through various research studies and quirky experiments, the book discusses how everything around us influences how we act, even if we don’t realize the impact.  Invisible Influence discusses how people imitate each other, as its safer to choose what has already been chosen by someone else, and this popularity can be self-fulling.  That restaurant must be good since its always crowded.  (This lasts until its oversaturated and eventually falls into the Yogism: Nobody goes there anymore, its too crowded).  Invisible Influence is an excellent companion to his bestseller Contagious: Why Things Catch On published in 2013.

Invisible Influence also touches on how successful products are often ‘similar but different’ than prior successful items.  This matches a personal mantra of offering customers more of what they are already buying.  If a customer is making a purchase they obviously like the item, therefore the next questions should be:  Do they want multiples of the item, Do they want the item in a different color (or format), Would they like a deluxe (or miniature) version of the item, Do they want complimentary/symbiotic items?  When we introduced Obama Coins years back, the original item was $10, but through offering additional strong similar and complementary items, we were able to raise the revenue per order to $66.

Below is a short animated introductory video to Invisible Influence:

Categories Informative Ramblings, Marketing

Little White Dog inc Announces the Acquisition of Cook’s Choice by SCS Direct Inc

May 31, 2017 //

Tenth Successful Transaction Sourced by Little White Dog inc for SCS Direct Inc in the Past Four Years

Little White Dog inc is honored to announce the addition of Cooks Choice to SCS Direct’s Housewares portfolio.  Cooks Choice, creator of numerous innovative products for grilling and home cooking, should be strong fit in SCS Direct’s growing housewares brands.  SCS looks forward to continuing the longstanding relationships Cooks Choice has developed since its founding in 26 years ago.

Little White Dog is proud to have worked with SCS Direct on its acquisitions of Cook’s Choice, Bentology, Kuissential, CucinaPro, SVAN, MD Essentials, Fasta Pasta, Itzbeen Innovated, Camerons Products and FlyeBaby.  Little White Dog continues to search for additional strategic partners with proprietary, quality products and strong retail distribution that can enhance SCS Direct’s platform.

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Categories Informative Ramblings, Special Purpose Project

Little White Dog inc Announces the Acquisition of Fasta Pasta by SCS Direct Inc

October 2, 2014 //

Little White Dog is proud to announce SCS Direct Inc’s acquisition of Fasta Pasta.  This is the third transaction Little White Dog inc has sourced for SCS Direct in the past twelve months.  The official press release is below:

SCS Direct Inc Acquires Fasta Pasta – The Award-Winning Original Microwave Pasta Cooker

Fasta Pasta Joins the SCS Direct Inc Line of Revolutionary Products

Fairfield CT (PRWEB) September 25, 2014

Fasta Pasta – the original microwave pasta cooker was recently acquired by SCS Direct Inc., a consumer products company based in Milford, CT. Fasta Pasta perfectly cooks Al Dente spaghetti, fettucini, linguini, macaroni and lasagna quickly in any microwave. In fact, Fasta Pasta was recently awarded best microwave pasta cooker by Cooks Illustrated, August 2014, beating out products costing two and a half times as much. In addition, Fasta Pasta has been featured on dozens of TV shows including Rachel Ray.

Fasta Pasta cooks pasta quicker and better, with less mess, than boiling noodles in a pot. It saves time, energy, and is easy to use. Simply fill to the marked water line, add pasta, and in half the time of boiling, your pasta is perfectly cooked. Fasta Pasta is also great for rice, ramen noodles and perfectly steamed vegetables. The Fasta Pasta Original Microwave Cooker can be found at specialty cooking stores and Amazon.com

SCS Direct proudly offers award-winning lines of household products, including Camerons Products, Good Cooking, Deco, and Simple Cups. “When Fasta Pasta was introduced years ago, it revolutionized pasta making for the busy family, ” notes Howard Greenspan. “We are thrilled to offer this award winning product as part of our growing product line.”

The Fasta Pasta transaction was sourced and negotiated by Little White Dog Inc based in Norwalk, CT (http://www.LittleWhiteDoginc.com). Fasta Pasta is SCS Direct’s third successful transaction in the previous twelve months, including Camerons Products and Itzbeen Innovated. Little White Dog continues to search for additional strategic partners with proprietary, quality products and strong retail distribution that can enhance SCS Direct’s platform.

SCS Direct Inc. is a product development company and creator of best selling brands that include: Flyebaby, Ride Along Dolly, Simple Cups, Deco, Good Cooking and numerous others. SCS products are featured in countless independent stores and many mass retailers including Amazon, Bed Bath and Beyond, William Sonoma, BJs Warehouse, ToysRus, and more.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/09/prweb12198734.htm

Categories Informative Ramblings, Special Purpose Project
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