Marketing Safari

Ryan Air's Social Media Strategy - Insanely Brave or Incredibly Stupid?

I guess Ryan Air is the buzzing brand of the week, getting a lot of attention from bloggers and Twitters. It started when Jason Roe, a freelance programmer, blogged about an error in Ryan Air's booking engine (read the comments as well). He had discovered a way to book a flight for 0.00 pounds. The reaction he got from Ryan Air is what got the buzz started.

Travolution got it confirmed that this comment and others claimed to be from Ryan Air staff, indeed did trace back to the Ryan Air HQ in Ireland. And Kevin May did get a confirmation from Stephen McNamara of Ryan Air that said:

"Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.

It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.

Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel".

This really got the buzz going getting coverage in many major media outlets. And they didn't stop there. To follow up, they started a Twitter account on @ryanaironline where they kept going in the same voice, shocking people as a Travolution reader Paul Dawson commented:

Are you serious? Can't believe they'd go this far...

Agressive, sexist, offensive to customers... Some recent tweets from @ryanaironline:

"Just reminiscing about the time a guest had terrible, offensive, flatulence. You know that seat right by the loo? Sucks to be you idiots."

"About 2 weeks till the big guy's bday, yeah? It's time to boogie down. Short skirts at the office, ladies."

"Look... it isn't like we aren't meant to have fun here. This is a world we not only don't get, we simply don't care about it."

"that lady actually blackmailed my friend near the end of a flight. She was a tactless bird. Apologies to be sure."

 At first, people thought this was a fake, someone trying to get attention based on Ryan Air's reputation. Then Kevin May of Travolution got Dara Brady head of Marketing at Ryan Air to confirm it was their Twitter account. Later it was withdrawn and now the account has been suspended. It's hard to say if it was real or not, if they chickened out on their strategy.

But it is clear that shocking people is the PR strategy Ryan Air is following. Will Clement of the Bloggers Guide explains how it works for Ryan Air:

"That's the important point here - Ryanair have once again hammered the message home that "our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.

A few years ago I met a non executive director of Ryanair, an experienced and respected businessman who was also a non exec of many other companies. He told me that board meetings at Ryanair were colossally different to any other company he worked with. Other companies focus was entirely on customer satisfaction whereas at board level Ryanair's official strategy is "f*ck the customer, if we give them the flights cheap enough, they'll keep coming back no matter how bad we treat them."

All publicity is good publicity is sometimes said. For a noname - this is usually true. But as a continuous strategy, I doubt it. Surely enough, Ryan Air has it's branding clear - being the cheapest. The service people is complaining about is exactly what you're not paying for. But how good of a strategy is flaming your customers just to get publicity and word-of-mouth in the long run? What do you think?

Hjörtur

PR Rule of Thumb

Some say today it's all about PR becasue advertising is dead. Others say PR people are just adding to the noise in journalists' inboxes and burning start-up money. I guess it depends on your own skills and the skills of the "professional".

What it all comes down to, is the same as in marketing, blogging, internet marketing and actually, anything else you do. Content is king. The quality of what you do is the breaker (if you manage to get someone to look at it).

Jason Calacanis (of Mahalo) wrote an excellent post on "How to get PR for your start-up company". The unbeatable value of picking up the bill. I highly recommend that reading. In short, it's about the importance of building up your network with journalists and helping them out so that they help you out later on. The same as with social media (maybe traditional media is more social than we've realized). But I guess you do need to be a certain character to pull it of. A people's person. But if you follow Calacanis advice, you should get covered.

Seth Godin wrote another post on the "Myth of launch PR". The "Big bang" strategy is what most try to achieve. But if you don't get on the cover of Time in first try, don't despair. There's also the "long tail" of PR. If you've got the quality, the right product or service, people will notice and the word will spread, both in media and outside. Just like Apple, Linux, Google, Starbucks, Harry Potter, Wikipedia and so many others.

Now, I've never got any formal training in PR, but I am a successful link baiter. And I look at what I write from the perspective of the reader, not the company trying to get coverage. While the manager probably focuses on getting all the necessary information into the press release I use a method I picked up in anthropology. Thinking like the subject. I pick out what is interesting for the reader, not the submitter. What is it that is new, different, revolutionary as well as human and personal (and if there's nothing, create it). That's the focus of the story. The information about your new product, company or service is only like the platform or scenery for your story but not what carries it on (unless you've really got a revolutionary product). Just don't forget to keep the vital information in your press release - who, where, what, when and why and a link to more information.

To sum it up - content is king! Also in PR. People like to read interesting stories, so tell them one.

Hjörtur

Let Customers Run Customer Support

The weather has been fantastic this weekend. The garden was filled with I-don't-know-how-many kids, we had 7 kids for dinner and 6 kids over the night. And when I sat at the dinner table, I was just thinking how little problem it was to have so many kids (only 4 of them are mine though).

People with one or two kids sometimes shake their head in horror when they hear how many I have and ask how I manage. And I point out that it's actually easier to have two young kids, when you have two older ones at the same time, because they help out, babysit and they play together.

When I have many kids, they will also be a great network for each other when they grow older which they can rely on, both in good times or bad. They will always have each other to lean on and go to for support.

Your customers can be the same for your product and brand. Don't try to manage all communication with your customers yourself. Allow them to communicate with each other.

Forums are brilliant for customer support. If you look at how support is for open source software, for Google, Dell or any other of the rising stars of today, you'll see that before you can contact customer service, you're encouraged to look through faq and then you can ask in their forum. In the forum, you are just as likely to get a reply to your question from another customer, as from an employee of the company.

The replies from the customers are often better than the ones you get from customer service because they are from people who have been in exactly the same situation and therefore, know where you're coming from. That gives the other customers a lot better understanding and support than if you have someone at your office, or in India, answering from a manual. Someone that has maybe never even seen the product in action.

If your forum turns out to be a good one where your customers become active, you take a lot of heat off your support team. The more activity there is on your forum, the less work it is to maintain it. Another thing that happens when your customers start to interact is that they build up a relationship, not only with you and your product, but also with each other. They exchange experience and ideas regarding the use of your service or product and you actually start to build a brand community.

Hjörtur

If Everything Else Failes - Read the Manual

Now, why would you do that? Why don't we save us the hassle and start with the manual?

Because it's boring.

It's strange, but true. Producers spend fortunes on inventing new bells and whistles for their products so that they can do more, spend fortunes on advertising it, stating that it's the best and most capable product in it's category but when it comes to the manual, that's just something that has to be done with minimum effort. Yet, it is vital for the users of your product to use it correctly to get the best results and to get the most out of it. It's in your benefit that the users learn how to use your product.

So how comes manuals are so boring when they are the key to the user experience? You should use the same principles when you create your manual as when you do your marketing. Make it interesting, fun, attractive and to the point (and that doesn't have to mean expensive) so that I can't wait to read the manual and learn how to make the most of my new device.

Hjörtur

Target - Who Decides if You Participate on Blogs or Not?

I do. And Amy Jussel who has a blog called ShapingYouth. And any other blogger that feels like writing about Target. Amy Jussel contacted Target a few days ago for a feedback on an ad she was not so happy about. She felt it inappropriate to have the bulls eye in the crotch of the woman. You can see the ad here to the right.

Now, the ad is not the issue here, but the reply that Amy got when she wanted a feedback from Target. As explained in the NYTimes:

Early this month, the blog's founder, Amy Jussel, called Target, complaining about a new advertising campaign that depicted a woman splayed across a big target pattern--the retailer's emblem--with the bull's-eye at her crotch.

"Targeting crotches with a bull's-eye is not the message we should be putting out there," she said in an e-mail interview.

Target offered an e-mail response:

"Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets," a public relations person wrote to ShapingYouth.

"This practice," the public relations person added, "is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest," as Target refers to its shoppers.

In other words, Target is telling bloggers and readers of blogs that they do not matter to them. They are second class customers and that Target is not participating in "untraditional media". But the fact is, they don't have a say about if they participate in the blogosphere or not. It's not like buying ads or sending out press releases. The blogosphere starts the discussion and it will create stories about Target and build their image, whether they like it or not. So the question is simply if Target wants to protect their reputation or not.

Their answer saying that they only focus on traditional media because that's were their core guests are, is very unfortunate. I'm a blogger and Target is one of my favorite shops. But I'm obviously not one of their favorite customers. So what happens?

They have insulted the whole blogosphere and everyone is writing about it. There are articles on Trend Hunter, WOMMA, Mediabistro and even Marketing Safari about Target. And it's not about the ad, it's about their reaction to the blogger. If they would have answered Amy about the ad, that would never have been any issue. The ad itself is not that controversial that it would spark an outrage like this in the blogosphere.

When Target was asked about their reaction (by a traditional media called NYTimes) they got this reply:

“We do not work with bloggers currently,” said a company spokeswoman, Amy von Walter, who agreed to speak with this traditional media outlet. “But we have made exceptions,” Ms. von Walter said. “And we are reviewing the policy and may adjust it.” Target’s policy is to focus limited resources on the big media outlets, like television stations and newspapers, which reach large numbers of shoppers. With a small public relations team, she said “we want to make sure we are making an educated decision and we live up to any promises we make, in terms of service.”

Limited resources? Like they can't find the resources to hire even one person to take care of the blogosphere? It's got nothing to do with resources. It's a matter of interest and will.

This is a good reminder to companies who think they can decide not to take part in the blogosphere. It's not your decission. You will be discussed in online communities and on blogs whether you like ot not. You have to monitor the blogosphere and be ready to react when a discussion is started. Only that way can you try to channel the discussion and your reputation in the right direction. Otherwise it will find directions on its own. I hope Target has learned their lesson and that next time a blogger wants to ask them something, the reply will be totally different.

Hjörtur

Marketing Tactics in a Recession

Remember the Y2K computer break down? Neither do I. But there always has to be some scare it seems. This time around, it's the RECESSION! A spouky, scary thing that tells everybody to keep their pockets closed and wait it off.

One of the first thing companies cut down is often marketing. I mean, it seems so easy. It's just cost, you don't have to sell anything, close anything down nor lay anyone off. Or what? What affect does cutting down on marketing have? Usually that means less sales, smaller market share, and even less sales so eventually that company is going to be forced into real cost cuts.

Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men, once revealed his big secret to success in business: "Buy low, sell high!" When everyone is selling you buy. When everyone is buying you sell. If you want to get to the top, you will have to go upstream.

The same goes for marketing. If your competition is cutting back on advertising, increase your advertising. Fill the vacuum they are leaving behind with your message. It will be easier to grab the attention of potential customers when the competition is not there and it will even be cheaper too if the media gets a bit more desperate selling the ad space.

If recession is really hitting you hard, you're going to need marketing more than ever. You may have to cut down on expencive mass marketing, but mass marketing is dead anyway, so who cares. So what can you do instead?

1. Internet marketing
Increase your effort in Internet marketing, SMM (social media marketing) and blog marketing. The Internet has some very effective alternatives where you can get to your primary target group on a very low budget. Engage in the conversation. Just be targeted.

2. Guerilla marketing
Use guerilla marketing tactics to get to the customers, sponsor events and make headlines by doing something out of the ordinary for your customer.

3. CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
Increase your CSR efforts. Don't cut CSR out though it may be tempting. The "correct reason" for not cutting CSR out is because people are going to be needing it more than before. But the other reason is that if people are low on money, they are going to appreciate all social responsibility you and your company take on, much more than if nothing worries them. If they can imagine they might need a helping hand, they will respect the giving hand so much more.

4. Word-of-mouth
Remember that it's much cheaper to keep your present customers than getting new ones. The next thing that is cut down after marketing is the service level. All those little extras are removed. Portions shrink. Bags and parking start to cost. Well think about this: If your competitors think this way, they become very easy to beat in the competition. If everyone else thinks this way, including your customers, they are going to really value your free parking, your little extras and those small pleasures they are denying themselves. You are sending them the message that you're not going anywhere. You are staying on the market and continuing to provide excellent service. So they are all coming to you and if you're really good enough, they will bring all their friends with them.

Most see a recession as a depression. Others see the opportunities it brings. It will never be as easy to gain market share as in a recession. Carpe diem!

Always look at the bright side of life
Hjörtur

UPDATE: I've released an ebook on this subject called "The Marketer's Magic Chest - Marketing tips, tricks and tools to unlock the chains of recession".

Punishing Your Best Customers?

I spent the weekend in Copenhagen, one of my favorite cities. One of the things I did was going to Fields, a new shopping mall in the outskirts of Copenhagen to do some Christmas shopping.

After spending way to many hours shopping we went back to the car which we had parked in the parking house. Before leaving we had to pay for our parking. It wasn't much. The first hour is free and the following hours are cheap. But it struck what the message was. What the management of the mall is actually doing by this is punishing me for spending more time - and money - in their shopping mall when they should rather be rewarding me.

First of all, by giving the first hour free, they are telling me that they would prefer that I wouldn't stay any longer than one hour. Secondly, they are charging me more when I do more business with them, when what they should be doing is offering me a free car wash and waxing if I spend more than five hours or spend more than 1.000 dollars. In that way they encourage me to spend more time and money, making me a happier customer (in my clean car) at the same time.

Hjörtur Smárason