Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

Apologies yet again.

Last week Cicero went AWOL. He disappeared over the wall constructed by Hadrian before he could collect and publish his thoughts. He now wishes that he had stayed behind and continued his communion and conversation with his devotees instead of watching the tribe from beyond the Dyke of Offa beat the living daylights out of the Pictish Tribe. It was a weekend to forget.

And to respond the devotee who asked what brands were giving their people a great reason to come to work-John Lewis and Apple spring immediately to mind. Any others you want to add?

Last week Cicero bought a book online.

This is not an uncommon or unusual activity for Cicero but while doing so Cicero was struck by the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the recommendations offered to Cicero. It was as if Cicero and the book seller had lived together all their lives. And yet said book seller knew very little about Cicero. Amazing.

Now since Cicero stopped being an Apparatchik with responsibility for protecting our security and freedoms, he has joined a Luvvie Agency helping clients become great at marketing, with his help of course. Now you would not believe how much data brands collect about their customers. And yet despite this many brands fail to make use of this data and continue to send out generic marketing. And this is where Cicero comes in.

And it is worth point out at this point that the advice you are about to be given you get for free, others pay a small fortune. Aren’t you lucky?

Now if you have been charged by your business to come up with a customer data and customer marketing strategy, please think about what’s important and what will really make a difference, and to collect only the data you really need to make your marketing truly great. It sounds obvious but you would be amazed how many times the obvious is overlooked.

Now some people may tell you that information is power. They are wrong. Information is not power but powerful but do we really need all the information we seek to store?
Brands certainly have a habit of collecting lots of information about us that never seems to be used. For example, how many times have you completed an extensive registration form stating your preferences, gender, date of birth and much else beside yet received nothing but generic marketing in return?

So what’s the answer? Don’t collect information and save the storage space? It’s an option but probably not the most intelligent one.

Instead think about what will make a difference, and focus on customer behaviour.
This information will expand your understanding of your customers and allow you to influence their behaviour and buying patterns. It’s called marketing, darling.

Graze, the company that delivers healthy snacks for anorexics to their desk, seems to get this. After each delivery they will ask customers to rate the foods, if you can call nuts and raisins food, and to edit preferences for the next time.
These simple bits of data are key to targeting customer behaviour and purchases with the brand. Arguably everything else is superfluous.

Relevance and attractiveness is key. If you can glean information about your customer’s preferences, your marketing can be very specific to their needs. This is exactly how Cicero’s amazing bookseller chappie. They know nothing about Cicero expect how he behaves when buying a book and that is the information they use to nudge his behaviour. Genius.

And as they might have said in the ‘King and I’ great marketing is really all about ‘getting to know you, getting to know all about you’.

Now it might only be me but.............................libraries should RIP.

Have you been to a library recently? Nope thought not. Neither have it. But that does not mean we don’t read books. In my case my appetite for books is only bested by my appetite for the kind of foods that the Nanny State wants to ban. In other words food that is not good for me. But I do like books but a library is the last place I would go for a book.

And yet society is up in arms because the councils supposedly acting on behalf of the Two Caesars, which is a debatable point in itself if they stood up and accepted responsibility, are reducing funding to libraries, an act of ‘cultural vandalism’ according to some. Get over it.

It has been estimated that in some councils only 2.5p out of every pound spent on the library service is being spent on books. No doubt much of the rest is being siphoned off to pay for Local Council Apparatchiks to have fancy chairs and gold plated pensions.

And have you seen who are using the libraries these days? There might be a better argument for retaining them if they were an invaluable weapon to combat illiteracy and poor people were using them to source learning. Now I’m sure this might be the case in some instances but in most cases, and I have studied the sort of people using this service, the type of people going in and out of libraries are the retired middle class. Is this just not another hidden subsidy for the middle class?

And then I heard an interview the other day with some woman who used her local library to source Mills and Boon novels. And I will repeat this....she was borrowing Mills and Boon novels. Come on. It is hardly cultural vandalism if this is what we are subsidising. Indeed I would argue it is cultural vandalism to disseminate this time of material.

Let’s face facts. We are going to hell in a hand cart. The number of people visiting libraries is in long term decline. The amount of books being borrowed is in long term decline. And yet we are being asked to continue to pay for this so that some people can access Mills and Boon and so that Local Council Apparatchiks can have fancy chairs and retire on the kind of pension that of us can dream of.

Now it might only be me but the day of the library is over. It has done its job. We can all now read and write and if we can’t then it is not like you will be the sort of person who will be hanging around a library. They tend not to like ASBO-ites down there. If we were starting out today would we invent the library? I don’t think so.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.