Numbers Can't Tell "The Rest of the Story"

We're obsessed with "data".  Numbers.  Crunching.  "The numbers don't lie!"  That's true, as far as it goes. But only as far as it goes.  Some of you small business owners will remember a time when your phone would ring and you didn't know <gasp> who was calling!  And there was no such thing as a "landline" (in fact, your telephone would, as often as not, be mounted on the wall).  

Then "wireless" telephones revolutionized electronic communication (you could actually walk around your house while talking to someone - as long as you didn't get too far from "the base station").  Now, I have a "smartphone" (and so do 74% of your customers).  Not only is it possible for me to know who's calling*, I even have a headset that tells me their name:  "John Smith calling.  Answer or ignore?"  Of course, if the caller is not someone who's already identified in my "phone book" (now "database"?), there's a better than average chance that I still don't know who's calling, because the Numbers Can't Tell "The Rest of the Story" (see how I did that? <grin>)

And as pointed out in a recent MarketingLand article (h/t to author Claudine Bianchi), there's more to "marketing" than numbers.

Numbers ("data"),  can only measure what's measurable.  Measurement is limited to the quantifiable.  This is as true of "mobile marketing" as of "marketing", generally.   There's one thing (at least) that can't be quantified:

APPEAL.

Ms. Bianchi wrote about the pleasure she got from receiving "a direct mail piece".  She "delight[ed] in reading through the copy, mentally critiquing the design..."; enjoying the "almost nostalgia-inducing" effect of the experience (and yes, Virginia, direct mail still works).

The point of Ms. Bianchi's article was that all of the measuring, all of the tracking - eye movement, clicks, where they came from, where they go to, misses out on the "right-brain" engagement.  Even Ms. Bianchi, who does "NOT want to go back to those days", sees that.  But she still likes the measurable.  We all do.  We always did.

Coupons, for example, get results.  "Mobile" coupons get results.  The data say that "mobile coupons" get far superior results.  But there's another (better?) reason to test "mobile marketing":

THE "WOW" FACTOR.

The tools that mobile marketing brings to bear fascinate "millenials" as much as "seniors", and the generation(s) in-between. "Wow!  You have a coupon on your phone?!?" isn't as common as it was just a couple of years ago, but even my grandkids are fascinated when I lay my smartphone down on what looks like a regular, old business card, and one of my websites "just opens up" with no further action on my part.  "What just happened?  How'd you DO that?"  They've never heard of "NFC".    That's at least understandable for those of my (dinosaur) generation.  Less so for my kids' generation. But, for some reason, even millenials - including my grandkids - don't know that I can put my logo inside a QR Code; or download a mobile coupon or rewards card with either of those tools.

RESPOND VS REACT

Data can tell us "how many" people respond to a given marketing campaign.  But data can't tell us "how they respond"; how they react.  Data can only tell us what the left brain can measure; not how their right brain was engaged.  Data can tell us "how many" responded to a "lock screen message" delivered when they came close to a business.  But it's their right brain that reacts with "ooh, THAT'S what I want!"

And that's where "mobile" shines.  Reaching your customer with WHAT they want, at the precise moment WHEN they want it, WHEREVER they are.

Numbers can't tell you that.  Numbers Can't Tell "The Rest of the Story"

For more insight on NFC, smartphone-friendly content, mobile and data usage, see this and this. For how direct mail is still relevant, this.

Star Trek, MarTech, and McLuhan

There’s at least one generation out there (probably 2, maybe 3, counting a large contingent of my own generation) that have never heard of Marshall McLuhan. Or, even if they’ve heard the name, they have no frame of reference; no context. So, I’ll provide a way to find that below, for anyone who’s of a mind to.

To my surprise, the first generation to which I refer – “Millenials” (by that I mean the generation born in “the ‘80s” and “coming of age” at the turn of the millennium, as well as those born since) – is nearly as unaware of MarTech as the two prior generations mentioned. I know this from direct feedback I’ve received from “Millenials” when I’ve demonstrated NFC. I’ll explain MarTech and NFC, below, too.

Star Trek needs no explanation. Anyone living in the last half-century has heard of Star Trek, even if they’re not sci-fi “fans”.

What brought all this to mind are feeds; rss articles I receive in my email. The first was “Why the Rebirth of Email Is Coming in 2016”. You can read the article at http://www.convinceandconvert.com/email/rebirth-of-email/, but the gist of it was how “everyone” thought that email was “dead” after the rise of social media. That would come as a surprise to my email accounts. Of course, email was going to kill “commercial” mail. You know, that stuff that still fills your mailbox? Yeah, that didn’t happen either. And neither the internet nor online video killed tv. Which didn’t kill movies. And movies didn’t kill radio, which didn’t kill conversation. Etc., etc., etc.

The second article examined how “‘mobile’ encompasses your product, your marketing, your content, your customer service touch points and every other opportunity for your brand to connect with your customers.” http://marketingland.com/two-mobile-questions-shouldnt-ask-one-really-matters-156156?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed-main. Basically, it’s 3 “truths” just boil down to one point: if you plan to be in business, you have to “get real” about mobile.

So, how do these relate to each other? And to Star Trek, MarTech, and McLuhan? Let’s take it one step at a time.

“The medium is the message.”

McLuhan is most famous (to those of my – and the preceding – generation) for that observation alone, coined in a book he co-authored in 1964. McLuhan postulated that the characteristics of any given medium, itself, rather than its content, shaped and controlled “the scale and form of human association and action”.   Each new medium, from mass-production printing (thanx, Johann!) to photography to "moving pictures" to radio to "talkies" to television to the internet to mobile "shaped and controlled" how we communicate.   And all are still in use, still "alive" (even "print", 560 years later).

That brings us to MarTech.

Only those “in the industry” are even remotely familiar with the term. It’s jargon. Techno-babble. A “geek-speak” contraction for marketing technology. Now, you might think, depending on which generation you “belong” to (of the three generations discussed), that marketing technology is conceptually new; a by-product of the “information age”. It’s not. Only the term, MarTech, is relatively new.

Paraphrasing McLuhan, you might say that “MarTech is the medium”. More grammatically correct would be “MarTech is the media”, because MarTech encompasses marketing through multiple media that McLuhan never even dreamt of. Websites. WiFi. Social Media. And the supporting characters: geo-location (via GPS); QR Codes; NFC (Near-Field Communications, where merely holding a device close to a “tag” triggers a transfer of information; usable for content as well as for payment) and other “proximity” marketing tools.

The way I see it, MarTech, in terms of “the characteristics” of the multiple media now usable (and used) by “business” to communicate with potential customers (and just as available for small businesses) now shapes and controls “the scale and form of human association and action". "Mobile" is how we communicate, regardless of the content. That makes McLuhan’s observation as relevant to MarTech as MarTech is to Star Trek. And that brings us full circle.

“Live long and prosper.”

Think about this: There’s not much that Spock, Sulu, Chekov or McCoy could accomplish with a “tri-corder” that can’t be accomplished on or with a modern smartphone. Want to know where somebody is? Want to know how many steps you’ve walked? Calories burned? Time it. Give yourself 60 seconds to think of as many tasks as you can that could only be accomplished on a “tri-corder”. Comment your results. It'll be fun to see what I've missed.

You can learn more about Marshall McLuhan at http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message, and http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html. 

Is it worth it? Here’s a hint: To McLuhan, the light bulb was a medium. So is mobile. One of many media known as MarTech.

For more on NFC, email and direct mail (and their effectiveness), and smartphone -friendly content, see this post.

You can learn more about how you can use the latest marketing technology to benefit your small business.  We can help you “boldly go” in search of new customers.

A New Year, and a New Gear

Over the past 12 months, industry analysts recognized:
1. that the focus on mobile apps would shift to mobile websites, because of the difficulty in getting users to adopt apps, the necessity of “reinventing the wheel” so that “each” app meets constantly-evolving requirements of an ever-expanding galaxy of operating systems, and because search engines can’t see the “silo’d” app data; that technologies like NFC and Beacons, as well as mobile payments and other proximity technologies, would effect a change in the merchant-customer loyalty relationship;
http://marketingland.com/5-key-mobile-marketing-trends-for-2015-112838
January 8, 2015
2. the rise of mobile “push notifications” (while noting that email was and is still effective); advantages of Bluetooth low-energy (BLE), beacons, and mesh-network wi-fi “grids” to deliver in-store promotions messages; with the caveat that “too much of a good thing” could become toxic;
http://marketingland.com/can-push-notifications-replace-marketing-emails-116359
February 5, 2015
3. that, ironically(?), consumers were using mobile phones to research potential smartphone or tablet purchases;
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Smart-Device-Shoppers-Smart-via-Mobile/1012110#sthash.cUrhlFZN.dpuf
February 26, 2015
4. the schism between mobile apps and mobile web were demonstrated by a survey published in March (eMarketer, “Secrets of the Mobile Masters”) showing that $5.5 million was being per year on apps, and only $4.9 million on mobile websites;
https://offers.adobe.com/content/dam/offer-manager/en/na/marketing/Marketing%20Cloud%20PDFs/55265_mobile_marketing_survey_whitepaper_ue.pdf
March 16, 2015 (email: “eMarketer, “Win the Mobile Game”)
5. what was called – by some – the “mobile apocalypse” of google changing its search algorithms to give preferential treatment to “mobile friendly” sites, e.g., those that feature smartphone-screen-sized content (to eliminate horizontal scrolling) text that’s readable without zooming, easy linkage and the absence of non-mobile applications (like Flash); along with examining the growing importance of engagement and retargeting;
http://marketingland.com/what-google-mobile-first-rules-mean-for-your-marketing-strategy-126879
May 6, 2015
6. that “mobile” was the “driving force behind global Internet growth”, but that SMS/text campaigns would remain the only way to connect with non-smartphone users (still more than ¼ of Americans); mobile video was taking the lead in mobile data usage; and that a majority of internet searches were “mobile” (with some happening on “smartwatches); as well as predicting the rise of “native” advertising;
http://marketingland.com/12-mobile-marketing-stats-need-know-129494
June 8, 2015

And throughout the year, “content” and “engagement” achieved proverbial status, while “mobile automation” was being hailed as “ad-blockers” were coming to the fore (with “native” again being touted as the latest savior).

Yes, 2015 was an exciting year. And 2016 promises to be at least as exciting.

See you out there.