Light Minds Think Alike : marketing

Another Periodic Table!

john.kuehl — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:53:00 GMT

With our Periodic Table of Element still top of mind around here, a link to this periodic table of video game controllers just lept out at me today on Twitter (via @Rands).

A new approach, design for Controls on etcconnect.com

john.kuehl — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:40:00 GMT

We recently made several notable changes to the section of our website dedicated to presenting our Controls products (both Entertainment and Architectural). I wanted to share some of the thought process and strategic planning that went into this project to bring a little extra attention to it and to invite any comments on the changes.

Problems

The project to redesign this section of our website was intended to address several problems. Mainly:

We had recognized the existence and importance of our product families as a company, and had started to advertise around the idea, but we had not actively promoted these product relationships online.
On etcconnect.com, all consoles from all families were treated just about equally, diluting efforts to brand and position our products among one another and against the competition.
Our established method of segmenting entertainment and architectural control products just wasn't working.

Approach

You could say that we sought out to address these problems with nothing more than some basic marketing principles - defining our target more precisely and addressing the needs of that target more directly - and you'd be right to an extent. Especially when it comes to our three lines of architectural control systems under the Unison brand, which are well-articulated in their purpose and ideal applications. However, since our two flagship lines of entertainment controls are each functionally appropriate for a wide variety of lighting situations - a fact that the product managers for our controls products are very proud of - it was going to take a broader, more integrated approach to communicate the philosophical differences that could help users decide if they're a better fit for an Eos or Ion or for a Congo or Congo jr. So from a web marketing perspective, we aimed to solve our problems with the following strategies:

Raise the visibility of our product families, and let their unique personalities shine through.
Make product pages a true hub of relevant and related content.
Offer more decision-making resources.

Results

New Entertainment Controls "Product Category" page

New version of this page uses a fast-loading interactive Flash module to allow buyers to explore a little bit about all our product families without having to click through to a new page. Graphics are meant to convey a sense of each families style and personality - the Congo family as being dynamic, fun, and effects-driven, for instance. Brief positioning copy gives newbies a hint at the strengths of the different products, and subtle visual accents help to distinguish them further. What was the single laundry list of product links is now multiple, short lists grouped by family, making individual products easy to find for repeat visitors. The links have rollover descriptions to help buyers get a little bit of information on consoles before deciding which one to check out. Cross-promotional bits below the product links call out other important news and and product features. An Architectural Control Systems version of this page was launched, too, with a separate navigation item under "Products", which resolves nicely one of three main problems outlined at the start of this post.

New Entertainment Controls "Product Family" page

Improvements to this page included, from the top down, the addition of a breadcrumb navigation; a rotating series of images highlighting the consoles that make up the selected family; a slick new series of tabs that instantly reveal more new content - a useful pop-up intra-family comparison chart, testimonials from actual product owners and users, and links to installation stories that previously had no linked connection whatsoever to the products they featured. Family consoles are obviously featured in a vertical list, with focused, meaningful and easily-digestible descriptions. All content is geared toward helping a buyer figure out if a family feels right, and if so, which of the offerings feels most right for them. Architectural version of this page is currently available for our new Mosaic Show Control family of products.

New Entertainment Controls Product page

With this template, many of the same elements are carried over from the old design, with some usability improvements made along the way. From the top down, again, you see the breadcrumb navigation to allow for easy browsing back to the family - or all the way back to the category page should a user decide to explore a different family; the new product photo gallery auto-rotates, and also offers more obvious buttons to manually do the same thing; a repeat of the positioning headline is followed by small icons that detail some of the core operational concepts associated with each console (we have more in store for these); a row of new links below the hero image links a user for the first time from a product page to the forum for that product on our Online Community; new tab design makes the full extent of product-related content much more obvious - and includes a new "Tech Specs" tab to give buyers a quick look at key facts and figures from our downloadable datasheets; and the potential is now there for really enhancing the description of each console's features.

Reactions?

Of course we're already monitoring our web traffic reports to see how and how often the new pages are being used, and will be continuing to fill in and enhance content (web projects seem to rarely reach a point of being totally "complete", especially when our products are always evolving). For instance, the new Tech Specs and Testimonials pages have been utilized by hundreds of site visitors already, and we expect that we'll be helping more current and potential ETC console operators than ever find our user forums - which would be a huge benefit for everyone.

Quantitative results aside, what are your reactions to these changes?

A new look at Net3

john.kuehl — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:48:00 GMT

Someone said to me recently, "I honestly believe you shouldn't have to know Net3 from the wind in your hair." Perhaps that's a fair statement - how many people in any office around the world have the slightest idea what's going on behind the scenes with their computer network? Still, we certainly think an ETC system connected with Net3 brings many, many benefits to the system's users, and starting today, there's a new way for people to discover those benefits - even if they may not need or want to understand what's going on under the hood.

Check out our new Net3 feature on etcconnect.com for a dynamic, humanized look at the benefits that Net3 delivers to you. We encourage you to use the feedback from on the site (or the comment form here) to share your comments on what you see, and, if you're so inclined, to use the demo request form to make an appointment to get a closer look at Net3.

Have a good time.

chiefjoseph — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:10:00 GMT

So, I've been a little preoccupied. Lincecum and I talked quite a while ago about adding my two cents to the ETC blog pool and I was all jazzed about it. I mean, what a great opportunity to actually get to write something interesting! No offense to those of you who actually wait with baited breath for the next version of the Eos manual.

But of course, real work got in the way. Always does. Nonetheless, the influx of bloggers to the ETC community has been expanding and each time there is a new post I get a little email notice telling me that someone else has posted. Like an annoying 7-year-old (Bill Cosby called them "Informers"), these notifications poked my subconscious as if to say, "Other people are getting to do something FUN!"

Well, I decided that I finally had to make time. Not just for blogging, but for all of the side projects that, when faced with a looming deadline, seem to crowd the back burner. So today, I made it my mission to pick up a few of those dusty tasks and dedicate a little time to them. Basically, a renewed effort to make room for having a good time (Yes, I have Paul Simon playing in the background). One of those projects was blogging.

Luckily, another one was familiarizing myself with some of the efforts going into Workshop 2008. And this coincides with “Joe's newfound blogging effort” quite well. Particularly since I found that what's buzzing around ETC for Workshop is pretty darn cool.

I'm sure most of you have your own perception of what Workshop is, has been, or will be to you. Information overload? Possibly. A great social engagement? I hope so. A waste of time? I doubt it. And I have a pretty good feel for how ETCers tend to perceive it, which is a whirlwind of friends and colleagues, familiar voices being matched to faces, and an enormous information download. Personally, I look forward to it every year. If for no other reason than I get to surround myself with a mass of people who actually have an interest in what I do for a living...what we all do for a living. How rare an opportunity is that?

In poking around today within Marketing, I garnered a lot of zeal about all the things we're going to be doing to enhance the Workshop experience. I'm even lucky enough to get to participate in some of it. And after I had made the rounds, I got to thinking about all of it and what it means.

To be sure, a lot of what we are doing involves our newest products or changes in strategies. Of course there are all of the training and informational classes that are the drive for the entire event. Then there are the social aspects: the Welcome reception, dinner, barbeque, and softball to name a few. But on top of that, I found that there are a lot of little plans in the works that aren't really there for any discernible reason...other than for your enjoyment. Nothing more. And THAT is what I think is really exceptional.

Sure, we want you to come and see the factory. Yes, we hope that we can teach you something while you're here. And we certainly hope that you will be well-fed. But to top it all off, we truly are working hard on a lot of little extras in hopes that you will enjoy yourself. How many companies have that on their list of objectives for a 3-day workshop?

Personally, I find it remarkable. In the midst of so much else going on, there are plenty of individual efforts going into ensuring that you can come to ETC, learn a few things, and most importantly, have a good time doing it....really....we mean it.

So here's to hoping that all of our efforts come to fruition in the next couple of weeks. Workshop is shaping up to be a great event, yet again, and we look forward to seeing you. When you're here, keep your eyes peeled for the little extras that we've whipped up for you, try to learn something, and most importantly, have a good time.

"So God bless the goods we was given
And God bless the U. S. of A.
And God bless our standard of livin’
Let’s keep it that way
And we’ll all have a good time."
- Paul Simon

Lesson on launching new features

john.kuehl — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:19:00 GMT

There's quite a bit of chatter online the last few weeks regarding Netflix's decision to first kill, then revive, a little-used, cumbersome feature of it's service called "Profiles". I'm not a Netflix subscriber (I actually use Blockbuster's mail service), but this story is one that made me stop and think about the way we consider and commit to web projects here at ETC.

The story goes like this:

Some time ago, Netflix added a "Profiles" feature to their website, which was essentially an advanced way for users to manage their queues. At some point - presumably based on feedback from their users - Netflix decided this feature was a bust, and decided to kill it. They wrote about their decision on their community blog:
http://blog.netflix.com/2008/06/profiles-feature-going-away.html

Well, the outcry among the users that actually used this feature was fairly immediate and fairly noisy. And, less than two weeks after they took the feature away, Neflix added "Profiles" back. They wrote about their decision to reverse their previous decision:
http://blog.netflix.com/2008/06/profiles-feature-not-going-away.html

Once again, since I'm not a Netflix user, I don't have an opinion on the usefulness of the feature in question, nor on whether or not the folks at Netflix handled the PR of this well. It's just a really clear anecdotal lesson on thinking through features before you decide to build them, and thinking through (your commitment to) those features even more before you decide to launch them. Once you've made your investment, and especially once users have made theirs, there's a marriage in place and the separation costs aren't likely to be inconsequential.

I've probably not followed this guideline in the past on websites I've worked on, and will conceivably make the same conscious decision to ignore it again in the future on etcconnect.com or some other site. But, as they say about rules, you have to know them before you can break them.

Thanks for the refresher, Netflix!

Hey, what are you all looking at?

john.kuehl — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:03:00 GMT

On etcconnect.com, that is.

I just finished compiling an internal report on web activity on our site for May, and thought it might be interesting to share openly some notable ETC web trends.

First of all, we've been having a great start to 2008. Before May, every month had brought more visitors to our site than the last. April was our second-busiest month on etcconnect.com since we started using Google Analytics to track web activity back in Q2 2007. Even though growth stalled (for the moment) in May, we're still topping our averages from the previous six months, and seeing double-digit percentage growth in visits from countries like China and Australia. May brought visits from over 130 countries and from every continent. Thirty-two countries accounted for more than 100 visits, and a dozen countries generated 500 visits or more.

So, what's getting all the attention from our customers online? Here's what we're seeing from the whole - does it reflect your usage, too?

Not all that surprisingly, we get a lot of customers looking for product support information - posting questions or looking for answers in the forums, finding datasheets and other product details, downloading software updates. In fact, in May, support-related content accounted for about 30% of pageviews on etcconnect.com in May. The online community, where you're reading this post, captured nearly 43,000 pageviews all by itself! What was launched on a hunch a little more than a year ago has become a tremendous resource for our business partners and end users, and their use of it and contributions to it make it better every day. People like you are bookmarking our forums and making them one of your regular online destinations, and we thank you whole-heartedly for that!

As a company built on both great service and great products, we naturally get a lot of people researching for purchases of controls, fixtures, dimming networking and more. With millions sold, it's also no wonder that the Source Four is the most popular product section on etcconnect.com. A photometric tool and minisite for the Source Four that was produced two years ago still averages thousands of hits each month. Pages highlighting our newest entertainment console, Ion, has been a traffic magnet for months, but we still get gobs of people looking for information on Express consoles, too, after all these years. This was surprising to me when I started working here, and then I began to understand ETC's extreme dedication to supporting users of ALL its products.

In May, we launched Congo v5, and supported that groundbreaking software release with a series of videos on etcconnect.com. The two main videos produced for this page by the Congo team - "Don't own a Congo?" and "Already own a Congo, but not v5?" - were each available in three sizes. Which set of videos was more popular? Neither! Each video (when combining the views of all three sizes) captured exactly 404 views in May. Say what you will about the accuracy of exact view counts in web reporting, but this is a great example of etcconnect.com capturing consumers in different stages of a purchase or usage cycle - and delivering appropriate information to everyone.

Some other interesting facts:

Last month, 10% of our visitors viewed just one page before leaving the site. However, 28% viewed 10 or more, and 10% viewed 20 or more!
The average user spends more than 5 minutes on our site per visit.
Fourteen percent of our visitors are on Macs.

That's really just the tip of the iceberg, and again, I'm sharing this in part as a way to get some feedback on how each of you individually use our site. Do you spend more of your time in the forums than our product pages? What do you think we do well online? Where do we fall short? What do you want to see more of?

Please share! As always, we're listening.

SNAP! Are you focusing on the right things?

john.kuehl — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:02:00 GMT

Any Harvard Business Review readers in the audience today? Before I started working at ETC, I wouldn't have raised my hand and wouldn't have felt like I was missing anything relevant to me. Now, after reading through a few issues passed on to me by a coworker, I've done a 180. It is good stuff.

One recent article, "The New Leader's Guide to Diagnosing the Business" (February, 2008), had a bunch of great insights that really have broad application to things beyond trying to run the most profitable company possible. Notably, a little chart that goes by the name SNAP, or, Segments Needs and Performance.

What it's meant to do is provide a tool for assessing how well your company is meeting the needs of the consumers you're trying to reach. Here's a completely imaginary (honestly) example of one I sketched out:

Each column represents a market need - a need for quality, a good price, customer service, selection. Each of those needs carries a certain weight with your consumers. In my chart, the taller bar equals greater importance to the consumer. After taking some measure to determine your company's performance, you plot that performance over the bars for each need. Add in a plot of your competitor's performance, and the result is brilliant in its stark truth and graphic simplicity.

If you trust the data that went into the chart, what you have is a clear assessment of your performance - and also, arguably, the validity of all business decisions made - up to this point in time. Customers care about service; did you invest resources in providing it? Your competitors are competing mostly on price at the expense of other needs; is it working for them? You're way over-delivering on selection relative to its reported importance; is that extra effort worth it?

Staring right back at you is a report that either tells you, "Props, dude, you really nailed this and your customers probably love you for it", or, "Boy did YOU miss the mark" (or, I suppose, something in between). I think the emphasis on the SNAP chart in this HBR article was pretty clearly on the attributes of a particular product or service, but the concept could apply is so many other areas.

For example, it's not just about WHAT you're trying to provide to your customers, but HOW you're marketing it to them. Hypothetically: should you spend tens of thousands of dollars on print ads when your market stopped reading trade rags about two years ago? Should you pour money into interactive when your audience has signed up for as many email newsletters as they've won Olympic medals?

***

It is almost criminally easy to lose track of priorities. As fast as time passes, with a few misguided days or decisions you can pretty quickly lose sight of where you started and what you were trying to accomplish to begin with. Similarly, as fast as time passes, you can pretty quickly get stuck doing "what we've always done" without realizing your customers had really been hoping for you to evolve along with them for the past 10 years.

For me, taking a SNAP look at the way we spend our days and comparing that to how we'd like to or should spend them is powerful stuff. And this isn't a hokey motivational speech telling you to just chase you dreams - sometimes what we should be doing isn't at all what we'd like to be doing, but that doesn't mean we can ignore the former. I see it as more of an exercise in taking time to chart progress, and to look for achievable ways of staying on a desired course.

I suppose it's the intersection of those two paths - the want and the should - that makes for a happy and productive individual, or a successful company. I'm being truthful when I say that I have no idea if ETC has done assessments like this and what the results were if we did. But I think it's something I'd like to look into.