Loyalty

Objective Opinion

definitions*: 

Objective - "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations."

Opinion - "a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter."

Out of all the terms and words that are falsely applied by people, not just marketers, the word objectivity is very high on my 'oy vey-a-meter.' The reason is that there can be only one 'voice' that is truly objective - data. 

At some point, a line was blurred between what constitutes objectivity versus subjectivity and fact versus opinion. Too many marketers try to apply opinion (subjectivity), masquerading as fact (objectivity), and then wonder why they don't get the results they want. A perfect example of this is the epidemic level of over-spend on social media marketing that exists. It typically goes something like this -

"I want to advertise on this page because they have 2MM followers."

Noble Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman once said "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts" and to that end, as one of my heroes, Bob Hoffman, often points out, we must return to a world where facts matter more than the opinions of those who qualify themselves as experts. Experience doesn't make you an objective expert - there is no such thing. Data (fact) and data alone is the only true source of objectivity. These so-called experts are sharing their opinions and sure, you can argue that their experience justifies them being considered an expert but all this (actually) does is demonstrate that their subjectivity would likely be more informed than someone with less tenure. It doesn't, however, make them more objective. 

If something is objective, it cannot be an opinion. Now, if you want to claim you have an informed opinion...have at it but consider this is subjective, not objective. If someone claims their informed opinion is that they want to advertise on a page because they have 2MM followers...fire them. There is nothing objective about an informed opinion or any opinion for that matter. 

Using the example above, objective analysis would detail when these followers were added and how many active ones still exist, today. This completely changes ROI calculations and is (un)ironically a metric Facebook and those who profit off of social media marketing, fail to report on. To tell a story, one must use all data, not only the selection that proves their case or empowers them to avoid painting an accurate picture. If they are being selective, they are no longer being objective.

Examples:

Objective Opinion - Doesn't exist. 

Subjective Opinion - Doesn't exist. This is like saying "I have hungry hunger." If it is subjective...it is an opinion.

Informed Opinion - "Yes, they have 2MM followers but only 10,000 of them are active and the average engagement rate is 0.27%. But I've never seen anything like this work, so let's do a small test first to determine if this is worth pursuing further."

Objective Analysis - "They have 2MM followers. 10,000 of them are active and the average engagement rate is .27%."

Objective Analysis is the only, truly, objective statement because I am only referencing facts. And analysis is not synonymous with a plan...it is just analysis.

Thanks for reading!

Sales Enablement

definition*: "Sales enablement is the iterative process of providing your business's sales team with the resources they need to close more deals. These resources may include content, tools, knowledge, and information to effectively sell your product or service to customers."

Sometimes, what bothers me isn't that improper or illogical names are associated with different marketing concepts but rather that useless terms and practices are created that are unbearably ridiculous. Such is the case with Sales Enablement. The definition above basically suggests that the entire concept revolves around giving salespeople the tools they need to succeed. Um...is it me or...when wasn't this a thing?

Gartner, a company I tend to like notably more than full of shit companies, such as Forrester, has developed a framework** for Sales Enablement. At first glance, I thought (maybe) I was being a bit hard on the idea of laying out such a framework but after I digested it a while, I have concluded that it is just another attempt to distance people from doing any (actual) work, focusing instead on more processes that take their eye off of an ever-moving ball. 

Before the Internet, did anyone call buying stationary for a salesperson, Sales Enablement? No! It was just the materials they needed to do their job. It is no more involved, here. I am not discounting the components that Gartner has laid out but at the same time, I believe there is also no need for a framework. People go to school for marketing...nobody goes to school for sales and the reason is that sales requires an unbridled need for street smarts. Who have you met that has a Master's degree in sales enablement? If you start to distract a salesperson with irrelevant marketing jargon and force them to take their eye off the ball (networking, relationship building, yes, training), you will hurt your sales efforts.

If all of those surrounding sales are doing their jobs, salespeople should be enabled. Maybe on its merits, it is nice to try to demonstrate a deliberate focus on structure for sales departments...but in my experience, all this will do is distract and piss them off.

Thanks for reading!

Analysis

definition*: "a detailed examination of anything complex in order to understand its nature or to determine its essential features"

I chose analysis this week because it baffles me how much this term is abused by marketers, Business Intelligence (BI) companies, and more. Examples - 

• As with CX and Forrester, companies like to make up terms in order to create relevance and leverage the bandwagon effect to get people to buy into it all
  
  
• This agile culture that has poisoned the business world has meant that the meaning of the terms we use, matters less and less, as time passes
  
  
• Just as with the bandwagon effect, if structure exists...any structure, it is often leveraged as a way to avoid doing any (actual) work. In my experience, agile = complacency (when it is not applied in a genuine way by qualified professionals). "Sure. We're agile now. We don't really know what it means...but we're agile"

Descriptive Analytics is a ridiculous term. How do we describe our analytics?

"It has all sorts of fancy blue lines and green bars and a ton of percentages most people won't understand upon reading them but they make me feel warm and fuzzy?"

It also speaks to the heart of one of my greatest pet-peeves. Analytics is not synonymous with reporting. If this were called descriptive reporting, I wouldn't have an issue with it.

Predictive analytics isn’t a thing and I'm tired of hearing about it. You can’t analyze something that hasn’t happened yet! Go back to the definition of analysis - "a detailed examination." When was the last time your orthopedist told you how X-Rays you haven't done yet, look? Or maybe your a food critic should advise you on how the food they haven't eaten yet, tastes. It's ridiculous.

Prescriptive Analytics also isn't a thing. ALL analytics are prescriptive (unless you ignore them). And if you want to state that this creates any form of roadmap as to what decisions should be made next...that's called...wait for it...a strategy. 

I want to reiterate that this blog is about definitions - the meaning of words. It isn't that I dismiss what Berkeley (and those like them) are offering, implying that there is no practical application or potential benefit. It is their naming that creates unnecessary confusion and I guarantee, reduces interest.

And in the spirit of practicing what we preach, given the role marketers are also consumers, they should consider the impact more accurate naming and descriptions would have on garnering their own interests. For example, predictive modeling sounds notably more intriguing than predictive analytics. It is more accurate as to what will be taught or leveraged and is also, more descriptive. I know this, quantitatively, due to simple logic. If something doesn't make sense, it won't spark emotional interest, only confusion. Whereas I am confident that improved naming will undoubtedly have a stronger impact on someone, I'd love to see Berkeley facilitate a survey of 50 people - and determine which phrase leaves the participants with a more comprehensive understanding of what they will actually learn - based solely on these options - predictive analytics and predictive modeling, without describing the course. Hey Berkeley! Hook me up!

Thanks for reading!

CX

definition*: According to Forrester - "The customer experience team at Forrester has been debating the definition of customer experience for a while now, and it took us until recently to reach consensus. We now define customer experience as: How customers perceive their interactions with your company."

That's the definition (according to the company that defined it). And while I am going to try, try not to deviate from the intention of this blog and begin to focus on how much I detest Forrester (I've already done that), I will quickly reiterate one, relevant point - when companies create new acronyms, they do so as a means to support their marketing efforts, allowing buzz over made-up terms, to masquerade as relevance. They then create new profit centers off of this nonsense and between useless certifications and fictional job titles, they have gone off the deep-end with CX.

I want to stress that my issue is with CX as a function or term. CX has always existed and the baseless innovations that have been created only further ensure marketers and businesses keep their eyes completely off the ball. 

Here's an example for you:

Customer Experience Enablement at GE. They add the word "enablement" as if this does anything other than add more fluff to the already fluffy. 

GE defines this as -

"Customer experience enablement is the set of customer experience management components for acting extensively on voice-of-the-customer to earn customer engagement and enduring customer experience business results."**

Here's my definition -

you enable the customer experience by selling your shit. 

But let me prove my point even further. I own a GE refrigerator. This is the most poorly designed fridge I have ever seen. There is no ideal place to hold a 2-liter bottle because you can't set any of the shelves to the proper height. It has a really cool feature where, as I place a cup under the water dispenser, it counts the number of ounces on the screen. The problem is that when I reach 8 oz on the screen, I've actually only filled 7 oz. It is only that perfectly timed moment, just before it reaches "9 oz" on the screen that I will have an (actual) 8 oz. Oy - I hope that made sense.

The point here is simple...the customer experience has ALWAYS mattered and no amount of tables or graphs is going to tell you anything. Go out and interview your customers. Ask them what they want and deliver on it. And if you need a certification to take these steps...well...I'm sorry but you've lost the plot as Gordon Ramsay would say.

Thanks for reading!

Semantics

definition: the meaning or relationship of meanings of a sign or set of signs especially : connotative meaning*.

That's the definition. Well, it's the definition of General semantics. 

There is literally not one day that goes by where someone isn't challenging me that my arguments against the application of certain definitions or concepts are (actually) a matter of semantics. As George Carlin said, I agree that we must stick to the "language we've all agreed to," in our daily lives and in business. To this day, I have to take a minute to think through my purchase when I'm looking at a jar of pitted olives. As Carlin noted in his book, Complaints and Grievances, if they are pitted...then they should have pits! I don't right off recall the last time I was at a BBQ and someone asked me if I wanted seeded watermelon. 

I also hear people say, "well, that's not how the word is typically applied." I'm sorry but how does that make me wrong? If I say "green" but it is interpreted as "yellow" and then I'm upset because my house was painted the wrong color - with the excuse being that this isn't how the word "green" is typically applied - why am I wrong? Language matters - especially in business.

In my experience, people apply a label of semantics to anything about which they don't want to think critically. But what do I mean by this? If someone tells you the difference between two ideas is a matter of semantics that's fine...but why does this dismiss its relevance? "Semantics is the study of the meaning of words. Many words have very similar meanings and it is important to be able to distinguish subtle differences between them. For example, ‘anger’ and ‘rage’ are similar in meaning (synonyms) but ‘rage’ implies a stronger human reaction to a situation than ‘anger.’"**

Where this label of semantics arguably bothers me the most pertains to the role awareness plays in sales and marketing initiatives. As my hero, Gerry Tabio has stated, if you want people to be aware of you, light a building on fire. Awareness is not the first step in any process and it literally can't be. Awareness is the result of a first step. It is also unquantifiable. 

If we consider traditional, printed newspapers, let's think about how engagement was measured. An auditing bureau, called AAC (formally ABC) would audit sales and the return of masthead's back to the publisher, where the net difference would be formally audited and reported on, as actual sales to ad agencies and direct buyers of advertising. Does this mean that there was any way to quantify how many people saw an ad on page 4 on a given day? Of course not. Instead, it was through direct response that success was (or at least, should have) been measured. It didn't matter how many people were aware of an ad in print and it doesn't matter, in digital. If it can't be quantified - meaning it can't directly be tied to how it impacts revenue, it is irrelevant. 

If a person buys or even just inquires about your product, rest assured, they are aware of it. But it isn't a matter of semantics, either way. Investing time, energy, money, and thought into an awareness stage leads to pure loss. It is not a matter of semantics to state that a person engages with a brand. Being engaged and being aware are not synonymous and their difference is not even close to being a matter of semantics.

Thanks for reading!

Optimization

definition: an act, process, or methodology of making something (such as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible*.

That's the definition.

Rather than actually being relevant, companies often try to create products or manipulate the definitions of terms in an effort to instill an illusion of relevancy (ahem, CX and Forrester).

Here is how one of the countless companies that claim specialize in marketing optimization define it our word of the week: Marketing Optimization is the process of improving the marketing efforts of an organization in an effort to maximize the desired business outcomes. Marketing optimization is performed on each individual marketing tactic employed, as well as optimizing the fit of those tactics into the marketing strategy as a whole**.

Right off, the first sentence does not tell us anything. Apparently, they are applying a process of improving efforts, in an attempt to improve an effort that maximizes business outcomes. You get that? Every person working at a company is focused on maximizing business outcomes. The second sentence is also entertaining –

• Marketing optimization is performed on each individual marketing tactic employed…"
  
  
• They have yet to tell us what marketing optimization is but it is apparently applied to individual marketing tactics and not a greater strategy. That's ridiculous
  
  
• "…as well as optimizing the fit of those tactics into the marketing strategy as a whole." This isn't optimization. They are confusing efficiencies with optimization. If you intend to remove waste, you aren't optimizing anything

Marketing optimization isn't a thing. Period. Optimization, when appropriately applied discusses the processes and methodology of how marketing is executed and not how many Facebook ads you've purchased. Yes, you can argue that spending on advertising in only those periods when you see the best lift in engagement is a form of optimization but it isn't. It is still an exercise in driving efficiencies. The reason is, the same number of people are going to respond to your advertising as compared to conversion rate no matter how many extra emails you send.

Optimization is best attributed to the technologies you are using, as well as the processes and methods you are applying. And I'll write more on this topic, shortly.

Thanks for reading!