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Recession…a word that everyone these days has had at least once on their minds. Changes in our personal lifestyles and even professional directions could not help but happen. There is not so much freedom of realizing our plans and dreams. There is not so much passion any more in things that fueled us before.  At the same time, the show must go on and if you are an observant marketer or a simple consumer, you must have started witnessing the following consumer trends driven by these challenging times.

1. “Sellsuming” - the increased need for cash prompted most consumers become “sellsumers” as the folks behind April’s 2009 trendswatching report named them.  Consumers become very creative in selling “extra” space, services or products.  Great examples include: renting space (residential and even parking), reselling unwanted clothes, furniture, jewelry, providing expert advice or extra help in gardening and on.  What have you done recently?

2. Fishing for low-cost entertainment - spending more time than money on entertainment, or getting entertained at home becomes another common pastime for recession-councious consumers. Some turn to online gaming, which is free and easily accessible, some arrange for more movie/favorite show nights using hulu.com or renting a bunch of DVDs on Netflix or elsewhere.  According to emarketers’ analyst Paul Verna, “comScore’s measurements (up 27% more unique visits and 42% more total playing time in December 2008 than in December 2007) highlight the ongoing shift from high-cost, console-based gaming toward free, browser-based alternatives.”

3. If affluent, buying more online with discretion - people with extra money now flock on web to keep their shopping lifestyle in a more discrete way.  According to emarketers’ article, affluent shoppers comprise of one fourth of all US internet audience, mostly focusing on buying PCs and mobile devices.  Online merchants - this is your audience to court these days!

4. Increased online services and social media usage - increased unemployment and job “insecurity” causes many people spend more time online while looking through the classified ads for jobs, services and then “some”.  According to the Pew Research Center, the use of online classified advertising Websites doubled from 2005 to 2009. Emarketer also points out that “Twenty-two percent of US Internet users went on the sites in 2005, and in 2009, the proportion climbed to 49%. Daily use went from 4% to 9% in the same timeframe”. The “some” represents becoming more engaged in social networking sites to collectively share ideas, connections and any other information that simultaneously adds flavor to the trends # 6, 9 and 10.

5. Smart shopping - looking for bargains offline and online becomes more usual pastime in efforts to economize on price and value, while trading in more time. Internet shopping again becomes a more preferable channel to accommodate this buying behavior. Do you use any of the shared secrets to get your best deals?

6. Increased propensity to social harmony - our natural inclination to re-prioritize our values in “cold and severe” economic climate drives us to spend more time with our families, friends and loved ones. We tend to turn to our families to get through the tough slides on the way.  Companies that cater to these emerging “quality time” experiences can bolster loyalty and engagement of their existing customers and gain a number of new ones!

7. Increased value of health - focusing on health as the “real wealth” motivates increased popularity of engaging into various sports activities to maintain this “somewhat” controllable asset we all have. Finding happiness in health of bodies versus stock market is much more feasible and tangible. While gyms owners might ponder on this trend, consumers can still choose from a variety of free alternatives, including jogging, walking and biking.

8. Skills enhancement and training - laid off or not, people tend to become more genuinely interested in continuing their education to add value to their employability, or to cope with the reduced resources to maintain their career or a small business or to get distracted from the “depressed job market”.

9. More love and dating - who knew that recession induces romance? According to NYTimes, “Online and offline matchmakers are reporting that dating interest is up, way up. Match.com, for instance, had its strongest fourth quarter in the last seven years, and brick-and-mortar outfits like Amy Laurent International, a matchmaking service with outposts in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, say business is up 40 percent among women over the last four months.” The reasons vary from more time on hands due to being unemployed or underemployed, more affordable way to meet singles online to seeking comfort in relationships during the difficult times (closer to trend # 6)!

10. Cooking from scratch to save and have fun - less money as discretional income translates into less often dining out and more cooking at home choices. Simultaniously, the propensity to cherish relationships and social affiliations drives consumers to arrange for more cookout get-togethers. Sharing a meal made from scratch both provides quality dining experience and befriends all engaged participants!

I am sure there are more peculiar trends out there that define the recession market these days. If you know of any that I missed and you see their popularity rising - share with us and add your comments!

If you are constrained with time and resources, but need to create a compelling piece of marketing collateral that serves its purpose naturally, instantly and with ease of engagement, what would you choose - a one page guide, a white paper, a site or a video? My recent observations on the effectiveness of marketing content pushed out to the masses, (or seeded towards, be those targeted or not), compel me to pay a tribute, or to confess in love, as you will, to online videos that meet all our secret marketing needs!

Why videos? Well, let’s see.  If we start with 5 common sense reasons why online videos are effective in engaging your target viewer, we will find:

1) Ease of use - it is so easy to view a video versus to read an article - so much less effort and attention needed to decipher the message.

2) Entertaining factor - for long, we have been primed to be entertained by TV ads, movies, TV programs, etc. that it becomes a second nature to get into that state of expecting a show worth of our attention.  No wonder why all the mentioned media strive to entertain us first to utilize that captivated attention.  Hence, when it comes to video content, we are more likely to engage into viewership on the premise of the anticipated “show”.

3) Message interpretation accuracy - “even though visual communication is a less direct way of communicating, most people rely on this form of communication and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world! Visual communication adds another layer of information in our communication with each other, and perhaps that is why we cherish our vision so much.” Numerous studies, books, articles emphasize the importance of body language or visual memory in communications. The referenced article by Debbie Jensen explains why visual memory precedes all others - a simple reflex or function of our mind to organize information beyond one point - the law of continuation. So if we see the message, we are better off comprehending it.

4) Longer life in audience memory - people remember better in pictures than words. How many times you recalled something faster because it had an association with the name of your home town or some other event? How many times you were able to achieve something because you visualized it? You simply gave a command to execute the vision to your mind. Imagine what it can do for your call to action - it can be easily presented in action to your audience.  In other words, videos are visualized messages that you can more effectively plant into your customers’ memories!

5) Wide range of channels to place those wonderful “communication machines” for free - isn’t that something? Usually, you do not need to worry about media placement costs, run of time and on and on…the key “details” that rank up your marketing spend when it comes to TV ads, or product placements.  Plus, a myriad of “audience-heavy” user-generated sites from YouTube to MySpace provides you with various options on where to seed your videos.  So, go and use them…wisely!

On the other hand, if we browse the latest industry trends on online video usage, we will support the above 5 reasons with the following facts:

1) Overall, the average US online video viewer watched 327 minutes of video in March, nearly 5.5 hours - according to emarketer, online video ad spending in the US will pass the $1 billion mark in 2011. Go and capture your audience right there, right now, when it browses YouTube or its online newspaper sites.  A good video marketing strategy can produce stellar results for your brand!

2) In total, 138 million Americans - approximately three in four US Internet users - viewed online video - according to comScore. And that was measured in November 2007 - imagine what it is now (or conservatively stay within the same data point) and use it to support your marketing web strategy rationale to invest in video production.

3) Private studies show that awareness and purchase intent grow significantly as a result of online video views - according to AdAge author Kevin Nalty. Though, there is no reference to study results, the statement makes sense even from the personal shopping experience - yes, I will more than likely buy an item that I saw in action in a video.  Moreover, if that video was shared by my respected Facebook friend, I am to invest more thought into the buying process.

So, are you convinced to produce some “kick-ass” videos? Your marketing strategy might get a well-deserved lift!

Soft skills and general management knowledge come very handy whether you are a marketer or product manager or some other professional. To be successful, it pays off to refresh your insights and ponder on how you can use them today in your current project. 

Thinking of this topic made me look through a current version of PM Network Magazine, I receive monthly, and surely I ran into a very concise but valuable article by Chauncey Hollingsworth on ”5 Ways to Make or Break Your Team”.  I felt compelled to share the tips with you and add my experiences on top. So what are those 5 situations you can “zoom into” today and make a choice where to lead them? And the “winners” are:

Issue 1: Out-of-control meetings

How many times have you experienced days full of meetings which painfully kept all other work getting piled on, becoming a huge mountain of “to dos” that you are still responsible for? How many times have you experienced an hour meeting becoming a two-hour? If you are the one scheduling those numerous meetings or dragging them on and on (though rightfully so to clarify the issue), time to stop and think how to start controlling the meetings avalanche before it starts controlling you!

What to do?

The article suggests to  ”give people what they want - nothing more, nothing less…stick to the point.” How often we forget that! My tip to remind yourself of this rule - think how much money you will earn doing something else these 30 mins times seven days a week? Now works? Adding monetary value always works for me. Another way to prevent this, that I use daily - ask yourself if the information you need from those people can be received in a more time-saving manner and preferably documented to save you even more time in the future.

Issue 2: Seemingly random changes in project direction

What a common scenario? Have you only managed to get into “production groove” with a well-earned sigh of relief from overcoming the review stage (always reminds me a musical chairs game), when the out-of-the blue change request comes in from a client?  And now your perfectly orchestrated order falls into a chaos again!

What to do?

The article encourages “keeping the lines of communication open” and providing reasons why the change is necessary to all team members to alleviate resentment and irritation. I would also add that before the change is executed, it is advisable to evaluate its effect.

Issue 3: Overly demanding stakeholders

I loved how the author brought the example to life ” The team met the deadline and feeling pretty good about their accomplishment. Then, the client comes in with a 12-point list of revisions. And they are going to need those by tomorrow - end of day is fine.”  I confess, I experienced it on both sides!

What to do?

Sitting down with a team and assessing what realistically can be done is one way as recommended. Communicating the change request effect to the client in relation to scope, time and budget and clarifying what he/she wants to accomplish as a whole is also advised.  From my view and experience, if you are the one giving a laundry list - make it easy for the vendor to implement - help them understand the changes, provide only approved changes and brief on the selected list in a separate discussion with reasons why those are critical. Imagining yourself in their shoes also helps! What would you wish to hear or to see from your client if you were in this situation?

Issue 4: Energy-zapping unexpected delays

How easy do you lose your cool when something is to happen - does not happen? I mean - the deliverable? A glitch in planning or a real problem that is being hidden for a moment? What if, you are waiting that deliverable to start on your part, because without it, it is not possible or your progress is in jeopardy? The team member that once inspired you, the same one that is to deliver, becomes an energy sapping issue? Trust and respect get broken so easily if timely communication does not happen. What if you are the one - “flanking” on the deadline?

What to do?

Communication, communication, communication! Oh how deeply I agree with that advice! Tell the truth and save the energy. Admit the mistake and rectify it right there and then and tell about it to your partner/team - he/she will surely be standing behind you 100 percent if you sync up with them. When I see a risk that is inevitable, I do my best to sit down, write it up clearly and read its description out loud and deliver it with a proposal on how to fix it. That instantly turns a problem into a potential bonding experience for your team, as they will see you in action, as opposing to in panic.

Issue 5: Team squabbles gone awry

And the finalist described becomes the favorite - “getting personal” stuff! If someone tells me that there are no conflicts in the team, chances are - they exist, they burst, but are not explicitly admitted. Every team experiences a conflict - which is a normal state of a working social group. The trick is in how they deal with the conflict that makes it or breaks it. Almost like a statement from Dr. Phil on marriages & relationships!

What to do?

Saving time is the ultimate incentive and as the article recommends, ” the project manager must be willing to get the two members together to iron the differences between each other firstly on their own, then if fails, together with an option of exit.  When things get personal, there is no other way but elimination of one to save the bunch.  How to do that? Who is the one with the most value to the project?  Who is the one most committed to its success? Answer those questions and decide, provided you have the authority to do that.

This is all you need to know today! Now go and act on the insights!

“Interruptions? “- you say. “How come? Aren’t we supposed to provide a seamless and consistent experience? “Yes, you are, but add some “time away” for the consumer to start missing that pleasure.”

In two new studies, researchers who study consumer behavior argue that interrupting an experience, whether dreary or pleasant, can make it significantly more intense,” - says New York Times, Research columnist, Benedict Carey. The cause is rooted in the necessary opposing duality of our experiences that help us sharpen and distinguish among our perceptions. In other words, if you always lived in luxury, you might see it as a norm that gets boring and so “everyday”. Examples, would be occupational choices of people, who grew up wealthy, to pursue the lives of pioneers in underdeveloped countries or people who grew up in small towns, striving to live in “megapolislike” cities.

The concept is as old as the world, but why do we forget about it so often? Because, as marketers, we are so focused on listening to our customers, “who actually do not know what makes them happy most of the times”, and let our own thinking guard disregard the basics of consumer behavior and psychology.  Even here, the balance is the key, psychology findings and consumer insights must be “interrupted” & “diluted” by each other’s informational value that we can use in our marketing efforts.

 ”Over the years, psychological research has found that people are not always so clear on what makes them happy. When reporting on their own well-being, they exhibit a kind of equilibrium: After a loss (divorce, say) or a gain (a promotion), they typically return in time to about the same happiness level as before. Humans habituate quickly, to hardship and prosperity, to war and peace. Yet even modest pleasures — a cup of coffee in the morning, an afternoon walk, a Scotch before bed — seem to follow a law of diminishing returns.”

 So if it is natural for us humans to ride the waves of ups and downs, as consumers we would be so happy to follow the pattern.  Though, this research is primarily focused on commercials and TV programs as products “to miss” - try to reflect this concept against the general consumption of your product or service. 

What are the product management strategies available to play on that evolutionary phenomenon?

- Launching “exclusive” editions to make the supply very much demanded. But, do as you say - do not make exclusive editions available for all - otherwise, the tactic will not work.

- Adding novel experiences to the product use, or purchase experience. Start selling your service online or make it available on mobile phones. Integrate it in some other product.

- Setting “usage levels” to basic, professional and advanced accounts, with features and benefits exponentially increasing in accordance to product price.

What are the marketing strategies available to play on that evolutionary phenomenon?

- Changing the advertising themes & channels - mix it up, change colors, a spokesperson and music to your ads.

- Use “pulse” schedule for your product message publishing - it will add the excitement and even save your advertising/publishing dollars.

- Frame your product usage message around an opposing life event - use the contrast to enhance the value perception of your brand.

There could be a limitless number of ideas generated if you dwell on this concept for a while and see what you are doing today for your product and service and how you can evolve it in the future. Make it a part of your marketing and product management reviews and you will keep your customers in a delighted state much longer.

All in all, take your customer’s wish at a grain of salt, especially when they say “I just wish I never had to watch a commercial.”

P.S. If you want more detail on this study, find this paper in the Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 36, August 2009.

How was your week? Really? Did you happen to create what you planned? Did you manage to create the reality you want? Or was it “just fine”? Or did you happen to hold tight to the status quo you worked for years and the work that you have done? Do you spend more time defending your projects versus creating them? If so, think again.

Creativity is an ultimate aphrodisiac of life. It is an ultimate catalyst for success in what you do. You know it. You experienced it before. Remember the time when you took over that pet project of yours that you grew faith for? Remember how fun it was to spend hours to make it happen? Remember the tribe of followers you created once the project got materialized more and more into something beautiful? You felt like an artist and you loved every minute of it?

Oddly enough, this very “seem-to-be-general” idea of finding happiness in what you do is also explored by Seth Godin in his new book “Tribes“. What I did not expect to see in the new book of a marketing genius of our times - such a simple, but yet, very prominent thought - “Create your own reality, take initiative and make things happen the way you see them, and success will follow”.

I grabbed the book with an expectation to brush up on the next “hot” marketing techniques and to my utter surprise, I find the similar idea that has been feeding my curiosity over the possibilities of life over the past few months. Seth points out that brilliant marketing happens when you lead, not just manage. I loved that!

In other words, if you ever felt like “a unicorn in a balloon factory“, or you feel like one today - in your organization - you might have opportunities for something spectacular to produce! Go and dare to make it happen! Do not ask for permission, take charge and show us what you can! We are all looking forward to your new masterpiece!

If you sell online or think of doing it, the first question you might have: “What are the best of online retailers do?”. Scouting the web for a few hours might bring you great insights. You will even save a number of favorites. Sounds a bit tedious? But, guess what - there is already a good source publication that did a comprehensive analysis for people like you and me. You will learn all you need to know about selling online today from the top 100 sites of 2009 and apply ideas shared for your site.

The recent article by Internet Retailer on America’s Best Retail Web Sites (Hot 100), provides wells of useful information for online retailers that delight its customers and sell more, segmented by the industry (apparel and accessories, books/film/music, computer/electronics, flowers/gifts/jewelry, food/drug, housewares and home, mass merchants, specialty and sporting goods). It is worthwhile to both study the article and visit those sites if you want to increase your conversions. No doubt that not all strategies shared might work for you and your customers, but at least this list will spike up your creativity.

The first four (4) strategies common for all 100 are as follows:

1) Create your own
Customization, or to be precise, personalization is well-received by the audience and goes beyond creating mini sites. You would say - well, who has the time to play with the site all day long? There are shoppers that love doing it, and there are ones that use those customized reviews or pages for their own needs. As an example, Spanish - speaking users of BestBuys.com, notably bring the printouts of other customers’ reviews to the store to make a purchase. TheKnot.com makes the whole bridal experience unique and self-well-planned!

2) Consumers have their say
Of course, social networks rule these days. “You tell me where you got that. As I want it …and I will tell a bunch of my friends and some. I might as well share about it on my Facebook or create a fan group”. People love sharing their purchase and brand preferences as well as bad customer experiences! People love extending their personality through the products they consume daily to connect more to the rest of the social circle! Use this opportunity with caution - by simply letting your customers do that - add “Share This” application on your pages - and the trick will happen! People want to know the opinions of their social network when it comes to buyer behavior. They love bragging about the best deal! Make the word-of-mouth easy for them! Reward them for the evangelism! Example - Popcuts.com, rewards its customers that buy early the tunes that become hits.

3) Beyond the site
Make the purchase feasible beyond your site - via text or other widget! American Eagles capitalizes well on the teenage seem-to-be-only-way-of-communication texting. Again, Facebook widgets and applications, YouTube widgets - all help to drive the magic of human capital. Capitalize on blogs - see what people are saying and deliver suggestions. They might outweigh all your PR efforts! Install live chats and instant-representative-call! See what happens.

4) The personal touch
This is my favorite: Borders.com allows its employees review new book arrivals and utilize their own expertise to share those. Skis.com posts videos of its employees trying on various merchandise and commenting on the experience! Imagine the possibilities! You can not only document the customer service value that your employees provide, you turn it into a personalized library and marketing material! Plus, both employees and customers enjoy it! Work and marketing benefit in-one.

The other best practices include:
a) Address a niche customer, make the design speak to a very particular audience, not all customers you can imagine. If you need, create a number of variants - you will sell more and return your web development costs very fast. “Serve your target, but serve it well!”

b) Simple is chic, and it does brings a buck. Make your audience online shopping experience easy from getting the need and desire to fulfillment. Make returns free and time-manageable, or to be correct time-feasible (45 days vs. 2 weeks). Simulate the try-on/usage experience - get the need started, visualized. Make it easy to share, save and review. Moreover, strive for a one click buy!

c) “Got 2 have it”, applies text messaging templates with merchandise codes for your customers (especially teenage or heavy users’ “tribe”). Influence the buyer behavior! Smart!

d) Visually rich, implies presenting your products in various formats, catering to diverse and ever-changing shopping experience a user might have. Use category menu, simulated try-ons, mix and match suggestions based on the browsing history. Brilliant! “Today, I know what I want and I go straight to the skirts section, tomorrow….I am just browsing and you might sell ideas if you help me see them!”

e) Use inspiring real-life imagery (related to the product, of course) to support the buying intent. Athleta did that well while illustrating that fashion and fitness go well together. Instead of using stunning models in exotic backgrounds, they used real-life women! Dah! Talking about the basics of personas and the benefits of good quality UI!

f) Connecting every day, allows you fortify relationships with your customers, keep them involved about new arrivals and deals! Do not forget to make it very personal, tailoring to their needs based on the purchase history. They left without a purchase since they had not found what they wanted! Alert them when the appropriate product arrives, win them back.

g) Online video demos go YouTube and all, provides you with an opportunity to make your audience watch it. Ok, you would argue - “But I will lose my traffic, I only want people come to my site!” Well, by loosening up controls, you can scoop more traffic from the most trafficked sites. This is what Roxy did, a site for women surfers - a niche, so underserved and unknown. By posting a video on YouTube, their site got 500,000 extra views in 48 hours.

h) Got a complex product? Educate your customers with free articles, dictionary references, and make it even customizable by expertise level (easy, hard and harder). See what Scholastic.com did! Take the stress out of buying and provide all-you-need-to-know-about-product content!

i) Power up your site search! Make it user-friendly! Try to use the same basics you use to bring traffic by your search campaigns, foresee search terms for your users - capitalize on our basic instinct to use a search bar! Dah! Moreover, segment the search outcome by low/high end options. Or segment your inventory at the minimum.

j) Speak the language of your customers, namely use the terms and “corky” copy to connect to their hearts and wallets. ThinkGeek.com did just that and made $33 million easily in 10 years.

k) Share your brand logos with your beloved customers to create personalized calendars, photos and greeting cards! That’s where your legal counsel might “irk”! But wait, remember when was the last time you really wanted to have your face on a T-shirt with your favorite “blank” product? See what MyMMs.com did.

l) Take a new look on navigation. Innovation does pay off and Overstock.com illustrates it well with its efficient site navigation. They synthesized online browsing and search experience! This is so breakthrough. If you have web design budget - replicate this valuable find within the next 6 months.

To learn more, you DO need to read the whole article! It will power your idea pool and make your online shopping experience so delightful as it did for me!

When the time comes to evaluate your business or product idea, with all the tools provided and research available, there is plenty infomation to make an assessment. Alternatively, it all comes to the bottom “3 questions”, according to Graig Stull et al, the authors of recently released product management masterpiece, TunedIn: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs.

1) Is the problem urgent?
Make sure your business addresses a real “burning”,hot need, which can be exemplified via incurring significant costs, losing value of time and money. The book talks about the ticket resale market, StubHub - where the urgency is very visible.
2) Is it pervasive in the market?
Size matters, especially when it comes to your potential market. If the problem you solve is common and can be found in a number of scenarios or buyer personas - go for it.
3) Are buyers willing to pay to have this problem solved?
This is the key: if your potential customers are not willing to part with their cash for your service, why bother? Check all alternatives that compete with your solution and test its “marketability”. The good news is: if the urgency relates to monetary costs, your chances of charging “what-market-can-bear” grow significantly.

Ask these top 3 questions, run this “pick-the-winner” acid test, when you think about your product!

Advertising is as old as human beings. In very simple terms, it is a form of communication to consume a product, that is available in abundance in possession by the selling party. When ads are done right, they do work and make a sale. However, the complexity of measuring advertising effectiveness brought this notion - “Ads do not work”. Perhaps, do not work for you (as an individual) or at this time (you are not considering this purchase). But, generally speaking when ads done right - they are still effective and they work - even in our noisy and information “overflown” world.

One of the key requirements for the ads to work is their relevance to the target audience. The potential buyer should be able to relate to the message and situation communicated by the ad. Just getting the attention by loud music, wild colors and odd situations or unrelated juxtaposition can help to break through the clutter. The question is - will it sell the product? Will it place the check mark into the consideration set of the consumer to take the next step? Most of the time, it will not. Relevance is important, as we need shortcuts to make decisions and being placed in the situation when the needs arise, works best to trigger our response.

My top favorites for the last two months are the following TV ads, that simply illustrate the ad relevance factor, in addition to the usage of humor and methaphor:
1) Ladders.com Campaign “When You Let Everyone Play…Nobody Wins.”
Every job seeker can relate to this experience of looking for jobs at major online sites. Tennis metaphor makes it even more vivid and helps to visualize the emotions and confusion every job seeker experienced in the process of online job search.

2) Axe Deodorant Campaign “Axe Dark Temptation: Chocolate Man”.
This ad mixes two perceptual worlds - male and female. Though, focused on men’s desire to be “desired”, this ad adds love for chocolate that all women can relate to! What an appetizing hybrid!

3) Campbell Soup Campaign “Dragging Yourself to Eat Low Sodium Soup”.
This ad mixes the contemporary lifestyle choice to eat less salt with the “not-so-psyched- attitude” we have when we think of any low sodium food choice. This emotional conflict and “that feeling” we oblige to follow the “healthy choice” very well depicted in the dragging motion. Funny too!

So, make your ads relevant. Referencing the meaning of the word “relevance” in Webster, can be a good start: “the ability (as of an information retrieval system) to retrieve material that satisfies the needs of the user’!

Thinking of starting your own business? Launching a new service or product? Become an anthropologist and start observing people using existing products and services. By single virtue of watching people do things, you are empowered to discover unmet needs - your business opportunities.

The so-called “unmet needs” exist in two variations: expressed and silent. The former are easy to spot as users of a product under surveillance would state their issues and difficulties. The latter are more challenging to discover: users cannot articulate those. This is where you start observing and journalizing your “show”. And it goes without saying that you must observe the user in their normal state of consumption. Perhaps, it is worthwhile not to mention what you are doing and play a secret agent role for a while. Then, try to practice a curious child role, when you constantly ask “Why?” and “Show Me How You Do It Again”.

Keeping a list of ideas that enter your mind at various points during the day and night is also a valuable practice. This list can cover challenging, time-consuming or pleasant experiences you notice about your users under the observation. Ultimately, your new product or service will either solve some pain or deliver a pleasant experience to make it in the market. Think about ways of completely eliminating the pain and extending the pleasure. Write down the words your users utter at moments of consumption and times it takes to fulfill the need or want.

Expanding your vision beyond the current users can bear fruits to new applications of the existing product or service or new markets. Journalize the alternative use (not the primary function) of the product or service and you will have another source of ideas for business opportunities.

Finally, while you are immersing yourself into this ongoing observing activity, spice it up with creative getaways, fun experiences and “timed reflection sessions”. Focus on keeping your thought process on the observed event and become a user for a while. Or try to think about it while you are doing something exciting that drives your emotions to blend with the thoughts. Remind yourself to escape into “thinking about this point” sessions when you are “stuck” on a plane or driving long distance. And, when you find the unmet need, start writing down, yes “writing down” the next steps to make it happen.

P.S. Added 3 days later: A good article from Entrepreneour.com provides a few ideas on everlasting businesses that “market to the 7 deadly sins“. Those businesses lust no matter what (economy, technology, evolution): the skills for having power over people, aphrodisiac food, wine, connoisseur experiences, and on-demand personal assistant to pick up/clean up your slack! Dah!

Marketing, as a business activity or profession, has a bad reputation. Most people think that anyone can do marketing and there is no need for professional training. From my personal experience in large and small companies, there are dozens of people who think they are good marketers. But, alas, they are not. Like in any industry, there is a certain percentage of people whose work is effective and worthwhile emulating. The rest are poor examples or attempts to mock something like it (”marketing”) in haste.

If we think of the best practices, successful product launches would illustrate the idea behind the quality of good marketing. It goes without saying that a product should be of value to the customers too, but its benefits must be communicated and marketed aggressively to succeed. The best products will not sell themselves, but a strong marketing effort, a well-targeted approach and efficient after-sales service will do the magic. This is where marketing planning comes into play: well-integrated, properly-targeted, proficiently-resourced and well-executed.

So, what is good quality marketing?

The top four qualities include:
1. Good marketing starts with a development of a marketing plan as an integral part of the new project or product process.

2. Good marketing means planning early and properly, identifying all the potential risks and opportunities before the execution of a campaign or a start of product development. Design cannot be started before its requirements are established, the target market is identified and positioning strategy is finalized.

3. Good marketing is only possible if you define its objectives clearly and early before execution. What do you want to achieve with your efforts? How does success look like? How are you going to track it? Measure, measure and measure your marketing to bring profitable results.

4. Good marketing is only as good as the market intelligence you have access to. You need that crucial information to build your game plan. Skipping on it - is going to cost you.

According to the studies by Robert Cooper, as listed in his book “Winning at New Products”, one of the persistent themes when it comes to problems and pitfalls of products that fail - is “that many marketing activities are seriously deficient….Many key activities are simply left out altogether”, especially the commonly critical ones like market research studies, trial sells, detailed business and financial analysis. Lack of market information remains the number one cause of product failures! Another trend showcases that marketing spend is only justified at the end (launch stage), when the product is designed. But this is where you are wasting the dollars if your assumptions are subjective and not supported by good marketing. This is where pieces of bad reputation are assigned to marketing as a discipline.

Learn on the mistakes other people made, do your homework first! Do your marketing planning first and you will reap profits from every dollar you spend.