iMedia Connection: Experience Wanted

iMedia Connection: Experience Wanted:

Gay is challenging us as business people to focus on giving our customers what they want... a better and deeper experience.
This a a portion of her remarks recently.


"Old-school thinking

I'm still seeing a lot of hesitation amongst old-school marketers to try this. These are the same dinosaurs that are willing to spend tons of money on TV spots and other branding efforts without any honest-to-god results. They're driving with their blinders on, and if they're not careful, they're going to be left behind.

You can't score if you don't play the game. Experiment with different messages and media placements. Give your online creative teams bigger budgets for photography, video, animation and illustration. With the right resources, they may just come up with that stopping experience that gives people a reason to take a detour and invest their time with your brand-- leaving a lasting impression and taking the first step toward increasing sales.

Disciplines and wild rides
I'd like to leave you with three points that I think are crucial to success:

As you test your way into this, be disciplined not only about collecting data, but also about understanding your data.

Commit budget, tools and staff to analyze your findings-- and use that information to refine, refine, refine.

Embrace the different media that are out there. From podcasts to cell phones, there is an unprecedented number of avenues available today to convey your message. Dig deep to see if the medium is right for the message and to gain a clear understanding of how you can leverage each medium to the best possible means.

Keep an eagle-eye on the cost-effectiveness of what you're doing. Stick with your testing, and give it enough time to see if it works. However, if after a sales cycle you see that something isn't working, don't hesitate to put a bullet in its head. It's like I always tell my team-- fail fast, and get 80 percent of it right.

Gay Warren Gaddis is the President and CEO of T3 (The Think Tank). I get her ezine on occassion and find what she and her team have to say informative and challenging/