Watch out for cross-selling

When you try to increment your cross-selling you need to be careful about a handful of dimensions. But one that is key is profitability, as highlighted on the latest edition of Harvard Business Review.

Cross-selling may seem a marketer dream - you are expanding the size of your customers checks with you, without the cost of acquiring a new one. But that may actually be deceptive, as there are no free lunches - you will probably have to communicate or give incentives for that basket increase. My advice on cross-selling is:

- have a good and solid profitability analysis and carefully monitor cross-selling in-market performance. It is easy that in products with different profitabilities, one of them might mask the other's lower margin. So, think about this;

- ensure you have the right incentives to your sales people. Make sure that they are being measured in terms of profitability and not volume;

- make sure you are taking all costs of cross-selling in your analysis.

- focus on your consumer. Why would those products association make sense? What can we ensure our customer is winning with this association? Remember that consumer and customer should be at the centre - not your cross-sell intention. Don't start selling baby diapers because a 80 years old is buying baby food.

But don't be afraid to cross-sell. It may just be the right think to do. You just need to make sure you are not taking your eyes from the ball.

Some of the best social campaigns from 2012

I will not dare to say these are the definitive 10 best campaigns from 2012 (I am noticing Red Bull Strato Jump is not there), but, if you want to see a number of good examples, backed by good monitoring, you might want to follow this link and see Nike, Cadbury and Old Spice mingling up with unknown brands on the best social campaigns for 2012. Enjoy!

http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/11244-10-of-the-best-social-media-campaigns-from-2012

Wear out

Campaigns and campaign themes will not be effective forever. After a while, the target audience will grow tired of the ad, it will lose its freshness, its surprise. It will become predictable and boring. And it is time for a change. 

There is no scientific way to predict the wear out of a campaign. It depends a lot on the market, the target group, even the way the campaign was built. The best more, way to understand it is to keep track of the target group response to the campaign, using emotional attributes. Most of the consumers will try to rationalise and will speak loudly about a successful campaign that they really liked in the past - even if nowadays it is borgin to them. Thus, ask questions like "what does this campaign make you feel now", "what is the first reaction you have when you see this ad now",... So, keep close watch of your campaigns. Because one thing is for sure - however successful a campaign has been, if the target is perceiving it as old and boring, if it is not refreshing to watch it anymore, it is worn out. And it is urgent to have a new concept on top of your mind.

Note: A great campaign idea that is now completely worn out? Nespresso's with George Clooney. Simply predictable and tirable to watch nowadays. And it has been a classic.

A couple of basic social media tactics

This article from Brad Smith ( http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/991816/3-best-social-media-tactics-get-more-customers ) highlights 3 usual social media tactics to drive customer acquisition and conversion, namely:

- Associate your social media account with a traffic generator - being it a relevant database or a complementary social account that share the same target group.

-  Advertise on relevant social media, but don't forget to give prospective consumers a nugget to convert views to engagement

- Ensure you have good, engaging content for your target group that can actually "grab" them consistenly.

6 basic ways to reach your consumer through mobile

Mobile is becoming a key media to reach consumer and get his / her engagement with our brand.When we think about mobile, we usually think about 6 ways to get contact with consumer:

- through plain (or enhanced) messaging, that takes advantage of the very high penetration rate of phones and smartphones - but that might be an intrusive contact, if not managed the right way;

- having mobile prepared website. Just keep in mind that this shouldn't be your usual site, you need to make sure that it is prepared to fit a smartphone / phone screen and avoids any conflict in terms of files being used (just remember the classic flash issue with Apples...). This allows the engagement on-the-go, totally spontaneous. It is also cross-mobile platform and enhances your reach in a very simple way.

- prepare apps. This is turning to be the new way of engaging consumers over the last 2 years, as it usually allows for greater quality of contact. But, the fact is this requires a higher initial level of engagement vs a mobile web site. And to prove it, there is the stat that in the US, a considerable number of apps (25%)  is bought but never used more than once. So, do it - but make sure that you have content and your app is robust enough to engage your target

- QR codes are used only by a restricted number of persons and, actually, let me tell I am still not very sure if it will actually catch or not. It is used to redirect traffic and provide further engagement with your brand or product

- geo-location streams might be provided when someone crosses a or gets into a specific area, impacting the consumer with our message

- and then... social media. Twitter, Facebook, G+ all have apps that provide a way to engage with your target on the go. Each of these platforms has a huge penetration and allows for very good interaction with your target - expanding the interaction beyond only one person But then, remember to combine the rules of these 2 games - social and mobile.

Some of this is further explained in http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/33024.asp?goback=%2Egde_78240_member_182512374 . But I think the main message is that you should be aware of these basic ways, put pay attention to their development in the near future - in addition to other mobile communication paths that are still being developed. Keep your senses open!

Creativity is not fueled by money

I was reading this very good article from Daniel Goleman ( http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121113194359-117825785-people-aren-t-creative-for-money ) and I found myself nodding approvingly. I started thinking about the most creative people I know, and revised if money was a top incentive for them - if you paid them more, could they be more creative? And the answer was "no".

You can pay for time that is allocated to your projects - and that might actually result on a redirection of creative efforts, or in you hiring an external creative team to do the work or inspire it. But that is it! If you are talking of the talent that you already have in your company, it is not the act of paying it that will make them more creative.

Creativity is fueled (as Daniel is saying in his article) by motivation and passion. It is feeling excited about the work one is developing, positive about outcomes and conditions. It is believing that the idea that is being developed will cause an impact. And that is where a company can work the most to stimulate creativity - it is on ensuring that positive mood, focus on what is important, make sure employees find themselves meaningful. I truly believe the human mind is an amazing thing, and, nothing drives positiveness as much as feeling we are making progress in something that matters and has an impact (as Daniel is stating).

Multi-site innovation - a challenge

One of the biggest challenges when you have innovation development spread through multiple sites is on alignment. You need to make sure that everyone's progression is visible and aligned - from project's objectives to market and technical specs, financial assumptions to in-market reality, from global design to local execution. The truth is, when you have teams that are distant, with different functions, you need to ensure everyone is working together in the same direction - and that's no easy task.

Just a couple of examples that highlight this:

- a company that has its development spread across 2 sites (one focused on consumer that then briefs the technical site that actually develops the product) soon discovered both of them were not aligned. The technical site was actually working on projects the consumer team had already scrapped.

- it is frequent that in-market teams innovation cases don't reflect the design teams assumptions, especially in areas like net price, as they simply are unaware of them.

Frequent communication between all sites, both formal and informal, is part of the solution. But it shouldn't be the only. The fact is, it is not enough - and that's a hard lesson for single site innovation companies when they grow bigger. You need to go beyond that.

You need to establish a tool that drives alignment. A tool that clearly states the current state of development at multiple levels - stating clearly its objectives, financial and non-financial targets, consumer and costumer requirements and expectations, competitive considerations, technical development. That is very up-front about where the project is in terms of its development stage and highlights next steps and challenges ahead. A tool that is accessed, commented and updated by the different teams at their multiple sites and can, thus, reflect and spread reality throughout all sites. 

Though this may seem obvious to bigger multinationals and operating framework experts, many times, the importance of this is not well understood by smaller companies that want to expand rapidly or even by teams that don't understand how key updated and spread out information is. Because, the truth is, this is a crucial step (though not the only one) to help multi-sited innovation to be successful. So, if you are working on innovation development that is spread across multiple sites, take my word, and start working on this tool.