Kumar's Blog

Today, I introduce you to a wonderful service - IFTTT (If this then that). Some of you may know about it and some of you may be using it as well, but if you're not, you should definitely give this a try.

The name says it all. Bringing together 77 channels like Facebok, Twitter, Linkedin, Blogger, Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr, Youtube, it allows users to create recipes for their digital activities. A recipe is nothing but an 'if this then that' statement defining what action (that) needs to be done on what trigger (if this).

In the age where every person is active on scores of digital services (I myself can be reached in eleven different ways for an immediate response on my phone alone) performing hundreds of digital transactions (liking a photo, tweeting a link, writing a blogpost) every day, a little automation will go a long way in making the whole ordeal easier.

You can create some interesting recipes like 'if I like a photo on Instagram, then download it', 'if there is a new job suggestion in LinkedIn, add a new row with details in a Google Drive spreadsheet'. You can even turn your recipes on and off at will. In fact, you can even write a recipe to automatically turn other recipes on or off.

Like most awesome services, this has its privacy concerns. Through your recipes, you are basically telling your thought process for many types of transactions.

While Uncle Sam might not give a rat's a** about your thought process (in most cases at least), marketers do. They practically drool on information that can be as rich and accurate as your IFTTT usage provides.

Then again, no awesome product is free.

Do you continue consuming the product hoping the product will eventually start delivering more? Or do you stop using it and look for alternatives where you might have to change your routine and incorporate consumption of the alternate in your routine? Or do you continue consuming and look for alternatives on the side, ready to jump the moment something that offers more comes along?

Marketers are at wit's end trying to get their customers to fall in the first category. They are doing this through loyalty programs, customised offers, discounts, advertisements, and every other avenue they can think of. But majority of the customers are in the third category.

So am I.

As adoption of a product increases, it gets harder and harder to keep people in the first category. Products need little to no diversity in their consumers in order to keep exceeding their expectations. More diverse the consumer, more varied are their expectations. Thus, harder to exceed them all.

Brands tell stories. Stories that generate trust. And trust is what keeps people in the first category. If your story is consistent, a diverse set of people will continue to trust you.

You can either do the easy and divide your user base into groups on a spreadsheet and tell a different story to each one. And have them all slip to the third category.

Or you can tell a consistent story.

When that is the case, having just one key will not get you through the door. You need the other one as well. But before you start thinking about the keys, you need to know where the door is.

Some people like nearly every movie they watch and every book they read. While some others find ways to criticize every movie they watch and every book they read. And neither kind is wrong. They just see what they are looking for.

Unless you are looking for the right things, you are not going to find them even if they are starring you in the face. That is why you are advised to meditate before performing a session of Yoga. That is why you are asked to remove your footwear and wash your feet before you enter a temple. That is why food tends to taste good in restaurants with good ambience. You need to get yourself in the right frame of mind. You need to be looking for the right thing in order to find the right thing.

If you're looking at the right thing without an idea as to what you need it for, you will find it, and when you do, you will not have a clue as to what to do with it. Having found the right thing will still keep you in good spirits for a while. Then it wears off.

If you know what to do with the thing you are looking for, you will get to work as soon as you find it.

You need to know where the door is. You need to know your goal. You should succeed in finding both keys. You should succeed in understanding what you're looking for and also in finding it. When you have found the former, the latter is staring you in the face everywhere you look. Then all that is left is to open the door. To make art. To ship it.

There are always two sides to things. If you focus all your energy on one side, the other will slip out of your fingers and fall and crash.

You're balancing your time between playing and studying. Between watching TV and reading a book. Between spending time with your family and spending time with your friends. Between going back home to your loved one and putting in that extra hour at work. Between that extra dessert and your gym time.

Organizations spend a lot of time designing processes, hiring the right people, engaging consultants, all in the hope of ensuring profits are balanced with customer satisfaction. But this is at the highest level. Some organization succeed while others fail because not every organization understands how to keep the balancing act intact as the highest level goal is drilled down into smaller bits and pieces which have to come together.

This is why someone who does a great job as CEO of a small start-up will most likely fail to do a great job as the CEO of a big conglomerate. And why someone who does a great job of preventing a football club, favourites to finish bottom, from being relegated will most likely fail to win the league with the team that are favourites to finish first.

Marketers need to balance the expectations created by the hook (advertisement, title of a blog post, etc) with the user experience (the actual product, the content of the blog post, etc).

The first step is to understand what the two things that need to be balanced are. Then comes the actual act of balancing them.

How often do you hear that? I'm guessing very. On the streets while passing by people who could have been helped. At the work place when someone failing to meet a deadline. When a customer is facing a problem whose responsibility is evaded through a disclaimer. When the government fails to provide good infrastructure.

We are ready to live with a lot of consequences. Ready to blame others for them. But never ready to take the blame ourselves for those consequences.

This is especially true when it comes to product manufacturers. A lot of thought goes into making products in a way that enables the manufacturers to say 'Its not my problem' when the customer is in trouble.

You would think it makes business sense. It makes financial sense, yes, that too only in the short term. But it does not make business sense.

It is best to isolate grumpy customers (and incentivise them to move their accounts to competitors) who are in trouble, as long as they are few. But, if the grumpy customers are few in number, it makes little difference financially to ease their troubles and turn them happy. It takes a lot of difference in attitude though.

Its not our problem, but why should that stop us from finding a solution?

In answer, a quote from The Dark Knight comes to mind, "If you're good at something, never do it for free". But we all know where the Joker ended up.

If you are working at a company, small or big, it is extremely likely for you to have heard that your organization always keeps the customer's priorities first. All the systems and processes will be designed to make sure you support your customers as best you can. Not just while designing products and selling them, but while addressing customer queries through your customer care portal.

It's a good practice, isn't it?

Not entirely. You do need to put customers' priorities first. But not all customers. If your strategy is to make a product that will satisfy at least 80% of the customer needs that you aim to address, or if your strategy is to ensure query resolution within 6 hours of the time when the ticket was raised, you will spend a huge chunk of time servicing customers who make up a very little portion of the revenue pie.

You're not building a community by doing this. If you go out of your way to satisfy the needs of customers who bring little revenue, but a lot of complaints, it is a huge drain on your vital resources. And for no good reason either.

If you put in your best efforts in satisfying the needs of such customers, then such are the customers you will attract. If you decide to dedicate most of your resources to satisfying the needs of customers who appreciate your work, who seek you out and who are willing to give and take (as opposed to take and take), then such are the customers you will attract.

It is true that the former category of customers are much larger in number as compared to the latter. If you're focusing on the latter, you're making a luxury product for a community that wants to belong and that takes pride in consuming your product. If you're focusing on the former, you are making a commodity product.

It is up to you to decide what kind of product you wish to make.

When you are marketing a product to consumers (B2C), the best approach to take is to understand why your target audience needs your product, what user need it is satisfying, how it fares in comparison with all the competing products in the market that claim to satisfy the same set of needs, whether the target audience is interested in paying money for satisfying the need in question, and then design a communication strategy that takes into account these understandings.

When you are marketing a product to a business (B2B), this approach no longer provides the best result. Although it theoretically makes perfect sense to go about the exercise the same way as you would for a B2C case, the mere practicality of 'agency' disrupts the process.

The concept of 'agency' involves a person (or a set of people) acting on behalf of another person or set of people. In most B2B cases, you invariably have to deal with an agent, and the mentality of the agent is generally 'No one ever got fired for buying IBM'.

What this mentality means is that the agent will have little trouble convincing the people she reports to that a brand of IBM's stature is the best choice. Even if that is not necessarily the case. There could be better, cheaper options, but from vendors not as established as IBM. The agent hesitates in choosing that option not because she doesn't believe that a better solution than the likes of IBM can exist, but because she will come in the line of fire if things go wrong down the line.

The biggest challenge in B2B Marketing is not proving that you have the best product on offer, but to convince the agent to choose you over an established solution. The way to do it is by giving the agent enough ammunition to justify to whoever she reports to that your product is the best choice.

So it is not enough just to understand what the needs of the target audience is, but it is essential to understand the dynamics of the relationships between the agent and the people she is answerable to.

You can, but what after that?

When an attack-minded free-flowing football team plays against another that parks the bus (plays only with the intention of not allowing the other team to score), the neutrals (those who don't support either team) hate watching the game. They hate it because the team that decides to sit back and defend is playing with a mindset of getting it over with. The team wants the game to get over as quickly as possible. They will disrupt play, waste time in restarting the game whenever the ball goes out of play and make no attempt of their own to mount an attack. They might achieve the desired result (a clean sheet) at the end of the game. But they will let the people who came to watch with certain expectations down. They will fail to make a mark (a positive one) on the audience (other than some of their own fans).

Whereas, if the team plays a free-flowing and attacking game of football, they allow themselves to be vulnerable to defeat which will not sit well with their established fan-base. But the spirit and the passion might endear them to the neutral audience.

This is the dilemma most products face. Whether to get all actions at the product end over with as quickly and efficiently as possible, pleasing their existing customers, or to show passion and creativity in introducing new features in an attempt to acquire new users (but risk losing existing ones).

Seth Godin explains the pitfalls of choosing the first option and makes a good case for choosing the second in this post.

Stop thinking in the short term and start a journey with your customers instead.

You can design your products for two people. You can either do it to please your boss or you can do it to please your customers. You might think these two are the same. But this is rarely so. When you're designing products to please your boss, you will accept every suggestion of a feature change without question. You will expect your decisions on product to be approved and validated. But you will never fight for having the features that you think the product should have.

You might think that you can design your products for a third person instead of the above two. Yourself. But this is only true if you are a user of the product, and if you are a user, you will fall into one of the two categories above.

When you are designing for the customers, you will not think whether your boss might approve certain features. You will fight to keep those features you think will benefit the customers. You will have a specific answer to 'What do you want the users to do?' at any stage of the product/application.

You can design your products for two people. There is a world of difference in designing for one or the other. So, this is the first question you need to answer. And the answer will define your ownership level of the product.

If you don't have the answer to 'What do you want the users to do?', then your product is bound to be a failure. 

Is the same as building a brand.

When you go (un)prepared to a class, you are setting the expectation that even the basics ought to be covered and that there will be little conversation (as opposed to a monologue) in the class. Eventually, the teacher comes to class with this expectation.

When you turn up to and leave office at pre-defined hours, you are setting the expectation that you have more important things to do outside of work and that you have a clear demarcation of work-life and outside-of-work-life whose intersection is actively prevented by you. Eventually, your boss and colleagues will learn to expect this behaviour from you and it will reflect in your promotions and appraisals.

It is the same with how often you visit your parents, how often you go out with your significant other, how much time you spend with your kids, how dedicated you are to your hobbies, and everything else. Your behaviour sets expectations. This expectation defines how those around you will treat you and engage with you. No matter what you say or claim, eventually, it is your actions and behaviour that define what is to be expected from you.

You can charm people with your words and get projects, get assignments, get a job or get a date. But pretty soon, those engaging with you will be able to see through the words.

It is the same when it comes to brands. It is easy to gather users through tall claims and over-the-top sales and marketing efforts. But after the first sale, it is the product behaviour that will set expectations and not the claims made by the brand.

It is essential to be charming to entice customers into initiating that first sale. But it is even more essential to have the character to live up to the expectations set. For this to happen, the product must be remarkable.

Because most purchase decisions made by people are irrational.

Most organizations crave for diversity in their employee profiles because people with different backgrounds bring in different perspectives. When a team with a diverse set of people are presented with an open-ended problem (nearly all vital problems that an organization has to address to stay afloat and trudge forward are open-ended), it is highly likely that each one will bring her own perspective in addressing the problem.

Yet, while deciding on how to present advertisements, how to design product features, we still try to think in a rational way by understanding what need the product is solving or the advertisement is claiming that the product will solve and use that understanding to design the features that define the product or the advertisement.

Over the last one month, I have been involved in designing the User Experience (UX) for our product and that has been a very revealing experience. The traditional way to go about it is to put ourselves in the skin of the customer and decipher what she would like to see in the product. The actual design will reflect that understanding. But when putting ourselves in the customer's skin, the time has come to ask 'which' customer's skin?

While organizations understand and appreciate diversity in their own employees, they actively disregard diversity in the customer base for their products. Until recently, this was acceptable because it was not practical to understand the background and the expectations of the customer base. It was good enough to think rationally by entering an 'average' customer's skin and deciding product features. But no longer.

It is now possible to understand all the quirks and the seemingly irrational behaviour of our customer base. It is only rational that we go ahead and obtain this knowledge. And then make use of it to customize our offerings to exceed the expectations of every customer. Not just the average customer. 

We ran a proof of concept for one of our products over the last one month. The aim was to better understand our target audience and their reaction to our product. The whole process highlighted the problem that every marketer faces. The problem is one of attribution.

The target audience for any product are exposed to many types of touch points through which they receive communication about the product. It is every marketer's nightmare to attribute how much each of those communications contributes to the final decision that the customer makes about making the purchase.

I like to see the potential customer as a bucket and the marketing efforts as water. The purchase action happens only when the bucket is full of water and is about to overflow. Every marketer has jugs of varying shapes and capacities at her disposal. This could be social media marketing, TV advertising, referral marketing, direct sales efforts, etc.

Every time a marketer gets her communication across to a potential customer, she has used one of the jugs to fill some water in the bucket. Now, each jug takes its own time for re-filling. For example, if a potential customer sees two advertisements for the same product one after another, the incremental effect of the second one is very little. Whereas, if some time elapses between the two, the incremental effect is higher.

At the same time, two plus two isn't always four. In fact, it is never four. During the time that elapses while the marketer is re-filling her jug, there are competitors that make their own efforts at targeting the customer. This is akin to making holes in the bucket that the marketer is trying to fill. The customer herself tends to forget about the communication as time elapses. This is akin to the bucket being out in the sun where the water being filled constantly evaporates.

The task of the marketer lies in identifying how quickly the target audience forgets about the communication, the effect that the competitor's communication has on the target audience, the weight associated with each type of communication that a marketer can use and the ideal frequency at which they should be used for the best incremental effect. All this is clubbed as the problem of attribution.

In order to know how to be less wrong with your attribution (you can never be right!), I highly recommend this wonderful article by Avinash Kaushik.

It is common for marketers to be working with different product teams at the same time, especially if they're part of a company with a big product portfolio. It makes business sense to have a common Marketing department overlooking all products, rather than having individual marketing teams for each product. It is a lot cheaper and a lot more efficient in terms of resource usage.

But it comes with its own problems.

When the same set of people are working on several products simultaneously, it is easy to get lost in the thick of things and start neglecting the differences between the products. This can be very dangerous and can lead to incurring the wrath of the product teams.

It is essential to understand the working and the aims of each product and to keep them in mind while doing any work related to that product. But, too often, I see marketing teams trying to follow the same procedures and the same communication strategies for different products. This will make the work of the marketing teams very easy, but it will add little value to the product.

Each product is different and must be treated that way. Not just by Marketing teams, but by every team whose resources are dedicated to multiple products simultaneously.

When this is not done, and it is often not done, big companies end up churning out mediocre products that is accepted by a mass who are ready to jump onto the next company that can offer similar products at a cheaper price. The new models and new products that come out are only incrementally different from their predecessors and innovation slowly grinds to a halt.

It is essential that big companies manage all their resources effectively to continue to innovate.

I make the case for Big Data and the opportunities it offers quite often on this blog. It will make it possible for you to identify and map the usage and behaviour patterns of a lot of people with respect to the products, software services and several other things that they use. Many marketers and business developers have their own plans for using Big Data.

Marketing strategies are being formulated, SEO optimization techniques are being planned, new product ideas are being thought of, advertisements are being scripted, movies are being made, even as I write this. All looking to capitalize on the learnings from Big Data.

The opportunities on offer can be capitalized on only when there is an understanding of what all the data means. It is not at all enough to just know historic patterns and extrapolate them to predict future behaviour. It is unfortunate that many marketers tend to forget the first lesson in Statistics in the excitement of all the opportunities. They tend to forget that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation.

Technologies are being disrupted in ever quicker cycles. If Apple had mined Big Data about phone usage patterns, they would never have disrupted and made the iPhone.

Big Data is not a replacement for disruptive innovation. You just have to make use of it to aid innovation. Not incremental innovation like adding a small extra feature. That is no good in the long term. But disruptive innovation. You need to understand usage and behaviour patterns not to make more products that will allow the users to continue using these products and services in the same way. All small companies that have become big, overshadowing the existing giants, have done it by disrupting user behaviour and hooking them on to a newer and better way of doing things.

How will you use Big Data?

Not material possessions. Not things you can buy in exchange for money or for any other service that you can offer. These things rarely affect people around you.

Do you own something that can gravitate people around you? Do you own something that can channelize the efforts of those around you (and your own) towards achieving a greater goal? Do you own something that will stir up passion in those around you? Do you own something that can make a dent in the Universe (hat tip to Steve Jobs)?

Do you own a vision? Do you own an idea?

Only if you do will you be able to put in your best efforts and convince those around you to do the same. Without ownership, you're just meeting deadlines or just meeting expectations set by others. Without ownership, there is never a high amount of internal motivation. Without ownership, you will not take not achieving targets as a personal failure. You will only see it as a situation to be handled with those who have set the expectations in the first place. You will settle for second best or third best. You will settle for whatever it is that you can get away with.

When you build your product this way, without ownership, you will always benchmark your performance with the competition. You will end up doing (or trying to do) just a little better than your competitors. You will treat your customers as sources of profit rather than the group whose problem you're addressing. You will only have short term goals in sight. And your product will never be anything more than average (at best) that will fizzle out of the market before you can do anything about it.

Even if you're an employee of a large organization, unless you own some project (however small), you will have no commitment to meeting deadlines. You will start wilting under the pressure applied on you by your boss, and you will start hating your boss, or your job, or both.

When you own an idea, you always have the grand vision in sight. You will look forward to getting there. And you will do everything you can to move things in that direction.

What do you own?