1: Are you Relevant?
Coville mentions the Wobegon effect - taken from a phrase in a book some time ago that described a town in which "all the children are above average." The effect is that people seem to think that they are above average, their children are above average, and the products they make are above average in most regards - they have to be doing something very badly to rate themselves below a five on a scale of one to ten. This is because we tend to see things we care about in a flattering light and look for confirmation of our beliefs and ignore evidence to the contrary.
The point here is that most companies think their products are relevant to the customers they serve. They very much want them to be, and will look for flattering evidence and ignore contradictory facts. So it requires taking a step back, and maybe getting a second opinion, preferably from those whose opinion matters most (the customers).
Why Relevance?
Many firms strive to make a good product, and one that is extremely well-suited for a given purpose. They believe that if their mousetrap is good enough, the world will beat a path to their door. The problem is that they define the criteria by which they rate their products and, consciously or not, define them in a way that ensures that they will score well against them.
However, the customer is the one why will buy the product. The customer gets to decide what's good, but his own standards. The customer has his own criteria - and is indifferent the designer, the engineers, the executives, and the industry press thinks he ought to consider. And he does not buy the product unless it scores well against measurements that are relevant to his needs and interests.
Companies attempted to do this through positioning - showing that their product is better than other products according to certain parameters. A common criterion is price, and companies compete to be the cheapest - but that means nothing to the customer who wants a quality product and is willing to pay for it. And for businesses to compete on quality is tougher, because it returns to the issue of what qualities are the basis of competition - and very often, businesses try to compete on qualities that are not important to the customer.
She returns to the notion of the customer, who in the modern age has a number of characteristics:
- They are bombarded by commercial messages - There are various estimates, but the average seems to be around 5,000 commercial messages per day, which is more than they have the ability or desire to give attention.
- There are more options - They are no longer limited to what is on hand at the corner store, but can shop all over town, via telephone or the internet, to find and purchase exactly what they want.
- Their budgets are tighter - Particularly during the recent financial downturn, people have less disposable income than before and are less likely to take a chance of a product that may not suit their needs
- They are pressed for time - People in the present age have more demands on their time, and even the hours outside of work are often scheduled for various activities. They are less willing to give it away freely to others.
- They feel more in command - Unlike older generations, who became accustomed to taking what was on offer and obeying authority, the modern customer doesn't compromise easily and doesn't believe what he's told as readily.
- They are more individualized - The modern world is multicultural, and there is more of an emphasis on being yourself than trying to fit in with a group of homogenized others. Even though Millennial generation are joiners, they are picky about what groups they want to be identified with.
The net result is that customers demand relevance. They will decide quickly whether a message is relevant, and will tune out if it is not. They will decide whether a product appeals to them, and will lost interest if it is not. So you have a limited time to convince them that you are worth listening to and your product is worth buying - which is to say you have to quickly prove your relevance, and be ignored.
(EN: There are a few more sections that don't add very much to what was just said: be relevant or be ignored.)
Listening to the Crowd
Coville suggests listening to the crowd to see what people are saying about your brand. You can monitor social media (Facebook and Twitter) to find phrases in which people mention your brand by name, and see what they are saying to one another, which is different to what they will say when they know you are listening.
A first measure is simply to see whether people think your brand is good or bad, in a general way. But more than that, pay attention to the adjectives they use to describe your brand and the qualities they associate to it.
There is a range of levels of attachment people feel to a brand - to say "The brand is good for performing a task" is complementary, but not as good as "The brand stands for the same things I do" or "The brand is for people like me."
She notes that having "real" people say these things about your brand is more important and more resounding with others than anything you claim in your advertising, because people trust that others customers do not have a profit motive in saying positive things about your brand. It's also worth noting that when the things you say about yourself match the things that others say about you, it builds trust and confidence in your honesty. If you are saying different things, then there is the sense that you are not being honest and cannot be trusted.
Return on Relevance
There is a list of things that happen when a firm becomes relevant to its consumers:
- Sales increase. More people are attracted to the brand
- Share-of-wallet increases. People buy your brand more often
- Loyalty increases. People stay loyal to a brand for a longer period of time.
- Defection decreases. People are less open to the competition's overtures
- Margins increase. Loyal and regular customers require less support and tolerate price increases