atkinson advisor

All buying decisions are selfish. They just are. Consumers buy the product that makes them feel better about themselves.

This applies to personal decisions – “I look good in this suit.” – and business products – “The boss is going to notice my good work.” Or it could be, “I’m not going to get in trouble for recommending XYZ Company.”

These decisions don’t involve the features that marketers so often turn to when selling products. “I look good in this suit” doesn’t make reference to the color, the cut, the craftsmanship, etc.

Transforming features to personal benefits is an enormous challenge. Fortunately, researchers have invented a tool to help.

The Benefit Ladder is a process for understanding the personal benefits of your products and services. Here’s how it works:

• Take a feature of your company’s product or service.
• Ask yourself, “What does this do for my customer?”
• And then, “Why does the customer care about that?”
• And then, “Why does the customer care about that?”
• Stay with the process until the answer is, “It makes my customer feel good about herself.”

The personal benefits will be clues to help you develop more relevant and personal messages that connect with customers.

Kudos to Sonia Simone from Copyblogger and Remarkable Communication for introducing us to the benefit ladder.

YOUR TURN: How do you help customers better understand benefits of working with you?

Entrepreneur ran an article recently about the impact of excessive communication interruptions in the workplace. The article was titled “Blunt the e-mail interruption.”

A few of the findings from the article:

• E-mail volume is growing at a rate of 66 percent a year.
• The average employee checks e-mail 50 times a day and responds to 77 instant messages.
• University of Minnesota researchers discovered that frequent interruptions caused error rates on other work to double.

Research suggests the brain can focus successfully on one task at a time and that frequent switching reduces productivity. The Entrepreneur article highlights how several companies have purposefully created time without interruptions to improve productivity.

The opposing school of thought is that businesspeople cannot afford to unplug given the volume of information that is important to our everyday business lives and the speed with which that information is moving. The proponents of this approach are more apt to embrace social media and the constant connectedness that it brings.

What do you think? Is multitasking good or bad?

We often hear from prospects that they want to “get our name out there.” They believe that being “out there” will translate into new business.

This is possible if their service or product costs less than $100, because the consequences of a bad decision are minimal. For everything above $100, getting the business’ name out there is important, but it’s only step one in the process of landing a new client.

The better question is, “How do I get people to choose my company?”

It’s also a bigger question.

Prospects make decisions to spend their hard-earned money after they have cleared several other hurdles.  They include:

1. Awareness
2. Introduction
3. Attention
4. Understanding
5. Preference
6. Choice

We will tackle each one of these hurdles — and certain combinations of them — in future issues of the Atkinson Advisor.

The fear of content – more precisely the fear of a lack of content – stifles most blogs before they launch or grounds them soon after.

Sonia Simone is an expert blogger who writes for copyblogger.com and her personal blog. Here is a content mix that she suggests in her Internet Marketing for Smart People series.

• Tips: 50 – 60%
• Weighty, cerebral content: 10 -15%
• Entertainment/personality: 10 -15%
• References to other blogger’s content:  5 -15%
• Selling what you do:  5%

Simone’s recommendations are an excellent starting point and help to demystify blog content.  Not everything has to be weighty and groundbreaking. In fact, tips are the most useful.

It’s a good practice to share content from other bloggers. It generates link traffic and positions you as a resource for readers.

Personality is important but must be balanced. Readers want to understand the people with whom they are doing business. Personality creates that connection.

Forbes Insights, in association with Google, surveyed more than 350 executives at U.S. companies with annual sales exceeding $1 billion about their use of the Internet.

The survey categorizes Generation PC as executives under 50 and Generation Netscape as those under 40.

The findings demonstrate clearly that top executives are actively using the Internet on their own to find information online. The primary findings from the survey are:

• A generational shift is occurring in the C-suite that is transforming how they use the Internet.
• The Internet is the C-suite’s top information resource.
• Members of the C-suite search for information themselves.
• When they go to locate information, the C-suite first turns to mainstream search engines.
• Video and online networks are emerging as C-suite tools.
• Executives in IT are the most prevalent users of the Internet for information gathering.
• Executives under 40 (Generation Netscape) are the most willing to engage with emerging Internet technologies, such as social media.

Download The Rise of the Digital C-Suite: How Executives Locate and Filter Business Information (PDF / registration required).

Businesses often tout the strength of its team and exult, “Our greatest competitive advantage is our people.” Some experts estimate talent can account for as much as half of a company’s market value.

Yet rarely do you see the people unless you engage with the company.

The equation has flipped thanks to social media. It’s now affordable, practical, and srategic for employees to build a dynamic online presence that connects them with potential customers and existing clients. It’s powerful stuff.

The new equation also raises some interesting marketing challenges that businesses will have to tackle.

• Who controls the content? Right now, marketing departments have complete control of their marketing message. Social media requires giving up some of that control and trusting employees to do the right thing. Social media guidelines are a must for any business.
• What’s the balance of professional insights to personal information? Social media is predicated on personality. Too much business information = pushy sales. Too much personal information = TMI.
• Why invest in employee branding when they could leave? This is a valid concern. Pioneers in the area of employee branding will be able to point to their investment in an employee’s brand as a reason point for staying. Eventually we believe employee branding will be a necessity for attracting and retaining any top talent.