A couple of days ago I was reading my book while aboard Metro. A couple of stops into the ride, a group of three guys got on and sat right next to me. For the next 30 minutes I was “treated” to a non-stop, curse-filled treatise on everything from how women dress to jobs to how living in the suburbs is for the birds (although that was not the way it was actually said). These guys were not speaking amongst themselves. They were loud and obnoxious and did not care who heard them. 

I felt uncomfortable, and I wondered, had I had a child with me, whether they would have moderated their behavior or whether they would have responded if I had asked them to watch their language.

I know, it seems old-fashioned to “watch your language.” But there is a public space and a private space, and when you are in public, you are sharing the air and space with other people. You should try to be considerate.

Instead, we see cursing all the time on Twitter, Facebook and every which way we turn. Some people are bring cursing to advertising, in order “to break through the clutter.” I just read this article on Talent Zoo about cursing in the ad industry, where the author feels the need to be graphic in demonstrating what he is referring to.

There is no need to curse in public. You can do whatever you want in private. You can smoke and drink and overindulge in ice cream. In the public space–in communications–you should put a lid on it.

What do you think? Do you curse or not in public? Do you care?

I recently flew to Fort Lauderdale and back on US Airways. On both flights, the flight attendants had a “special” offer for us, a “specially selected flight.” The offer– only available until April 30 (or the whole month of April, whichever way you look at it) was to sign up for a credit card, and get bonus miles. The rest was so complicated that the flight attendant was struggling to explain what it was and how it worked (something to the effect that if you spent x dollars then you could buy a free companion ticket to anywhere except where it is not available).

Photo by Dr. Keats from Flickr

This was not a special offer.  It was a run of the mill sign up today for our credit card so that we credit you 5000 miles for the trip. This is not different from any of the airline credit cards or even the points credit cards out there.

This was not unique to our flight. The flight attendants made the same pitch twice. And the guy next to me had heard it on another flight.

Moral of the story: Don’t say something is special if it is not. Most people are savvy enough to know when something is really special and when it is not. Also, don’t repeat your special offer by saying it is only available to a select few when you’ve already offered it to many many others.

The single worst mistake you can make in communications is not living up to your promise (s). Why? It breaks trust.

Sadly, we see it all the time from big companies and small. Like when a wireless carrier tells you that you will have unlimited data, only to cap you after a certain amount. Or when an airline advertises a low price on a fare only to reference some small print saying it is available only at midnight of the day that Jupiter lines up with Mars.

When you continually break promises you create a cynical customer. He or she no longer trusts what you say, and takes what you say with a grain of salt. Cynical customers are not loyal customers.

It goes beyond false advertising though. In business and personal communication, you also can run the risk of losing trust. If you tell your friend you will be at her birthday party and then don’t show up. If you promise your client that you will send a document and then you don’t. 

We’ve all heard that the most common lie is “the check’s in the mail.” How many times can you tell someone payment is forthcoming and the check is not there?

When you as a business or you as an individual fail to live up to your promises, you are helping create a culture of mistrust, cynicism and disappointment.

Do you agree? Is there something worse than making your customers/friends distrust/mistrust you or your business?

Have you ever gone to a new (to you) website or blog and before you can read anything you get a pop up ad or form DEMANDING that you fill it out? It happened to me today as I was following a link from someone on Twitter. And what was worse, there was no opting out, no little “thanks but no thanks” box I could click. It was either sign up for my newsletter or you can’t read my blog.

Can  you imagine if a bricks and mortar store did that? You would walk in, ready to browse (and perhaps you were ready to buy something), and there would be someone standing in the doorway, demanding that you fill out a survey or a customer sign up sheet. If you didn’t want to comply, then you would not be allowed to enter the store.  You know what would happen to that store? It would lose all sorts of potential customers/business.

I understand that blog and websites want to have something tangible from visitors: a sign up or a purchase. But making it a condition for reading your website/blog’s content, guarantees you will lose some potential readers. Why would I want to sign up for your newsletter if I can’t even read about you?

Don’t beat your customers over the head. Ask them to sign up, but don’t make it a precondition for a relationship unless you want to destroy relationships before they start.

Passover is almost over for those of us who celebrate it. The eight-day-long Jewish holiday celebrates liberation from slavery in Egypt. For most people, the main observance of the holiday is abstaining from eating bread and other leavened products (because the Israelites fleeing Egypt did not have enough time to allow their bread to rise), and substituting matza instead.

Can Passover inform any marketing communications decisions? I think it can. Here are four Passover lessons for you marcomm efforts:

One: Freedom rules!

Passover is a festival that celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. In marketing and communications, we also celebrate freedom. We don’t want to be tied to one platform, one way of thinking, solutions that no longer work. Celebrate and use your freedom!

Two: Change is good

During passover, we eat matza for eight days, and don’t eat bread, pasta, etc. It is a change for most people, a pause, a reset. It challenges your routine, forces your creativity. When you do things differently for a short time, you may discover what works and what doesn’t.

Three: Dress it up a bit

In my opinion, matza is infinitely better when spread with cream cheese or jelly (or both). Plain is just OK. In other words, some bells and whistles help. For example, having a well designed, attractive website can give your business an edge over a dull, plain website.

Four: Friends and family are key

Passover is a holiday that is better when celebrated with friends and family. In marketing and communications, your “friends and family” are your customers and your promoters. In social media they are your followers and “likers.” Your friends and family are the cornerstone of your outreach efforts.

Do you see any other lessons in Passover?

Lately, I have been seeing lots of articles being written about how important storytelling is, most recently 3 Reasons to Master the Art of Storytelling on Inc. Magazine’s website. This has got me to thinking on whether you can become a better storyteller, or is it something you are born with. Or, does it matter at all if you are good or bad at storytelling if your story is great (or terrible).

So, is it the story or the storyteller?

A bit of both in my opinion. A bad storyteller could ruin the best story, but a boring story won’t get any more exciting if someone tells it really well.

But, can you make the telling of the story better?

Yes!

These are my tips for improving your storytelling ability, while cautioning you that you have to have a good story to start with.

1) Have a point, and don’t bury it. Start with the end in mind. Is there anything worse than a pointless story?

2) Don’t get bogged down with all the details. I had a friend years ago who was the kind of storyteller that would make you look at your watch ten times because she had to relay every single last detail. (Like this: I was walking to the train station in my new blue shoes with tassels, and then I saw the cutest cocker spaniel, and I started talking to the woman who was walking the dog, she was wearing  a jumpsuit that I had seen in a store window…..).

3) Realize your audience may not view the story the same way you do.  You have a specific point of view, but if it is very specific to you and your worldview, it may fall flat with your audience.There are things that are more universal than others, and to resonate, your story has to have some type of “universal truth.”

4) Adapt to your surroundings. If you are telling a story to your friends in your living room you may be more informal, whereas if you are telling a story to the board in the corporate headquarters, you may need to be a tad more buttoned up.

5) Use humor, but only if it is not offensive or obtuse. Have you ever been told a story, and the teller throws in some weird joke you don’t think is funny? Or worse, you think is offensive (these jokes are usually tired canards about women, or racist stereotypes)?

What would add? And do you think the right storyteller can make up for a bad story? Let me know in the comments.

Have you ever run into a situation where a company has absolutely gorgeous marketing materials, but its service or product is sub par? That’s a situation where the marketing draws people in, but the product  or service loses them.

I am looking to do some home improvement and I went to Angie’s List. I found several companies in the category and checked out each company website. I was pretty impressed with one company in particular. Their website was not only attractive, but functional and informative. I called to make an appointment for an estimate. The woman seemed friendly and knowledgeable and set up an appointment that would be confirmed via email. This company seems to be pretty technologically savvy. The appointment was confirmed but a couple of hours later I got an email from a manager saying that he couldn’t keep that appointment and could we change it. We went back and forth and settled on Tuesday (yesterday) at 6 p.m.

At 5 p.m. yesterday the estimator called to tell me he can’t make it and can he come tomorrow. As it turns out, I don’t have time today, and I figured that if a company can’t keep an appointment that does not bode well for the process. Further, it is not professional to keep changing appointments and to offer excuses. My time is valuable and if this company wants my business, the estimator would make an effort to show at the appointed time. I told him to forget it. There are other companies that do this work, and so far, two other companies have shown up on time for our estimate appointments. For me, punctuality and reliability are important indicators of how a company performs.

In this case, this company appears to be competent but in practice is not.

When your marketing is bad, you may not get the customers you want. But if your marketing is better than you are, your potential customers will not stick with you. They will be drawn in, but you will lose them.

Your marketing should be attractive, but if you are spending more money and time on marketing and less on your service or product, that marketing dollar is wasted.

Thoughts?

I have been thinking a lot about loyalty and whether companies value it or not.

Take for  example, my customer relationship with ATT Wireless. I have been a customer for several years now (although not by choice rather by the acquisition of my old carrier Cingular). I called customer service the other day to see if they would credit several spam texts I received (I don”t have unlimited text and pay 20 cents per message). The agent placed me on a ten  minute hold “to check my account” and later informed that it was not company policy to do so, but she would credit 40 cents to my account. Now, mind you, I had a similar conversation with another agent last year, and there was no problem crediting my account. No need to review. No lengthy process. I asked the agent if she was really giving me a hard time over 40 cents when I had been a customer for so many years.

This interaction seems to prove that ATT is not particularly concerned with customer loyalty. They would rather talk “company policy” to me than think about rewarding my patronage, which over the years is in the several $1000s.

I have been at my gym for several years. Has it ever given me anything to show appreciation for staying with it? NEW members get perks (free personal training or a t-shirt or whatever) but what do OLD members get? NOTHING. How does this reinforce customer loyalty?

Yet, everywhere you turn there are loyalty programs. From the local bakery, where 12 stamps will result in one free loaf of bread to the pharmacy where you swipe your card to get “reward dollars” after you’ve spent a certain amount.  Some of these loyalty programs do reward a loyal customer with something tangible and some are meant as a database mining operation. Guess which is which.

Large companies, especially financial institutions, seem to take customer loyalty for granted. Either that, or they simply don’t care if customers are loyal. If you have been at your bank for more than five years, are you getting anything? A better interest rate? A free safety deposit box?  I bet the answer is no, you aren’t getting a single cent. Yet, some banks will reward new customers by giving them a cash bonus deposited to their new accounts.

Customer loyalty is an area that marketing communications can’t fix by itself. It needs operations/institutional support. However, as a marketer, you need to be concerned about it. You can attract all sorts of new business with good communications efforts, but can you retain it? Are you doing something to reward “old” business?

If you aren’t thinking about customer loyalty and what you are doing to maintain it and reward it, they you are probably losing customers at this very moment.

There is a women’s networking group here in Maryland that offers some nice events every couple of months. For April, they had been touting a well known health expert as the speaker to their event. This speaker was a huge draw. Yesterday, I decided to register. When I went to event page, lo and behold, the speaker is not listed. Instead, there is a panel of speakers (none of them “famous”) who will discuss health issues.

Is this a bait and switch? Did the speaker bow out due to an unforeseen circumstance? Why the change in speakers?

I have no answer because this group has not addressed it. Instead, they proceed as if nothing has changed.

They are making an assumption that people will want to attend the event regardless. They are making an assumption that you will get it. They are making an assumption that they don’t have to provide an explanation.

Don’t make assumptions! Be transparent. Be clear. All that needed to be said in this case was: We had scheduled speaker x for this event, but due to (reason) she is no longer available. Instead, we are presenting a fabulous panel….

This type of thing is what irritates people and turns them off. Say you signed up a month ago expecting the original speaker. You get to the event and she is not there. Don’t you feel ripped off? Disappointed? Or maybe you are just uninterested in the panel.

Don’t assume your audience will follow you if you don’t explain. Be transparent. Be honest. Be upfront.

Rant over.

Just this morning, I have seen all three of these mistakes, and by prominent websites/social media marketers.

Number 1: Not having links open in a new page/tab. Why is this a mistake? Because you are practically pushing people OFF your website and on to another.

Number 2: Poor social sharing tools (or worse, not having them). Poor social sharing tools are those that don’t provide the title of the post, or the blog, or the author. The example I came across this morning gave me this when I clicked to share on Twitter: Currently reading [URL address]). How is this sharing helpful to anyone?  You have to provide a reason for people to read your Tweet.

Number 3: Not checking @ mentions on Twitter. Someone is trying to communicate directly with you–is it wise to ignore him/her?  Big companies with customer service problems would do well to check their @ mentions. This is easier done with a Twitter client like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck that automatically puts @ mentions in their own column. 

Are these your top three mistakes? What would you add or subtract?