RENEGADE THINKING from the CEO of Renegade, the social media & marketing consultancy that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service."
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Marketing Metrics: Q&A w Dan Marks, CMO, First Tennessee Bank

02/14/12

Dan Marks, CMO of First Tennessee Bank, is a big believer in learning from his peers. Having seen him speak at The CMO Club Summit in NYC last year, I would say Dan gives as much as he gets, if not more. As such, I was delighted to be able to catch up with Dan a couple of weeks for a conversation about marketing metrics. Dan is also responsible for orchestrating one of the most effective marketing metrics program I’ve heard about, a program that can not only look backwards at the impact of 84% of his marketing spend but also has the ability to predict with “reasonable” accuracy what will happen when budgets get cut.  If you are a marketer and don’t have a metrics program in place, you’ll read this and weep.

DN: Please speak to the advantages, to you as the CMO, of having a strong metrics program in place.
The advantage of having strong metrics in place is it helps you understand how good the creativity is and helps in conversations with the rest of the business.  So for instance, when you’re talking about changing resourcing between business lines or overall budgets you’re able to quantify the impact of your actions, maybe not to an ultimate level of precision but good enough that it lets you have a comparable type conversation to other investments the company makes.  At the end of the day, marketing is a huge line item at any company.  And so having the same level of accountability and quantification that you might have in other areas puts you at equal conversation and helps raise the credibility of the conversation.

DN:  Have you been able to move the conversation from where marketing is no longer just a cost center but is rather a revenue driver as a result of having the metrics in place?
We’re on that journey.  I’m not sure we’re completely there yet, but we’re definitely on that journey to more precisely quantify the linkage to revenue and to be able to quantify the revenue impact of different marketing approaches. Marketing is a matter of talking the customer’s language, right?  So when you are talking to sales and you can show a stack ranking of your marketing programs and their benefit, all of a sudden you’re talking their language because they stack rank their salespeople.

DN: One of the terms that you used that I really liked is the notion that creating a metrics program is a journey. Talk to me a little bit about the journey.
The revolution really is in saying, let’s not have a separate set of metrics or let’s, at the very least, connect the marketing metrics to the core bottom line revenue and costs and profit objectives.  And so that’s the journey. The measurement approach varies by type of marketing activity and channel. So the stages of the journey start with direct marketing, where the linkages and the science are the most developed. Even in B2B, if I can quantify that I’m helping create opportunities from introduction or helping move things along the pipeline, all of a sudden now you are speaking the same language that sales is.  One of the most elusive goals and one that’s still not there yet is the overall full media mix impact–what’s the cumulative impact of everything working together?

DN:  If you could measure the impact of the full media mix, what would be the benefit of that?
Other places that spend cash have ability to quantify the impact of that cash.  So in operation, it might be a cost per output or what my cost is to deliver a dollar of revenue.  And so it allows that same sort of conversation around marketing, what is the revenue impact of a dollar spent with me as I make decisions and look to optimize it–is that getting better or worse? And so it’s several layers of precision, of getting to be more precise and being able to forecast the impact of different decisions.  And then track what happens and continue to optimize– that just adds that much more credibility and confidence in making marketing decisions and the organization.

And related to that is giving you the confidence to be able to pursue it scientifically.  So we can creatively think of a few different ideas and then decide based on the risk tolerance or the level of uncertainty we’re willing to approach.  We may try a very uncertain idea at a lower spending level knowing that, okay, we’re going to take a chance on that huge one, but we’re not going to bet the farm on something that’s very unknown.  Yet we’re going to take more incremental experiments around more proven ideas.

DN: I want to make sure that we clarify language.  What’s the difference between an outcome measure and a diagnostic measure and then can you put them in a priority order relative to job security and doing your job well?
Sure.  So when I think of outcome measures, [these have] impact on revenue profits and margins.  These are the key results that the CEO and board ultimately care about.  And so those are the cardinal metrics.  Diagnostic measures are important to understand outcomes.  So for example, we look at awareness.  But my team still cringes when I say, ‘You can’t eat awareness.’   But it’s important to understand that customers do go through this buying process of awareness, consideration, purchase, all this kind of stuff.  But our goal is not to create awareness.  Our goal is to get people to buy stuff and generate revenue.  We have to understand the buying process.  We have to understand if we’re having trouble getting people to buy stuff, is it because the awareness low, do they not know about the product, or are they are trying it but not repeating it therefore the likelihood to recommend the product to others is low or the experience is bad?  When I said diagnostic metrics, these are things that help us understand what the potential actions we should take are, and the prioritization of those actions based on understanding the customer, the customer and the marketplace, and the buying process and the competition.

DN:  Do you use Net Promoter Score?
We look at likelihood to recommend, we look at it in the total likelihood and in net time basis.  But we don’t just rely on that.

DN: Do you look at the various points of contact in the customer experience and measure each of those?
We look at it both overall and after a key experience point.  So after you’ve had an interaction at a branch, after you’ve had an interaction with a business banker, after you’ve interacted with some of our online technology.  So we do — we definitely understand how they are all different.  And we’ve studied it.  So we also know that our experience scores and our recommend scores strongly correlate/predict future changes in retention and revenue.

DN:  So when you see your experience core decline, you can go to the CEO and say, ‘sales are going to be down next quarter?’
Well, maybe not quite that quickly!  We know over time if scores are trending down or scores are trending up, that will translate into a strong probability of having lower or higher revenue in the future.

DN: Give me a sense of how often you’re looking at numbers.
Well, we do have an alert mechanism.  So if poor scores are spiking, we know that pretty fast.  But generally speaking, we look at our customer experience and customer buying metrics on a monthly basis– and that’s where you see trends.

DN:  Is a commitment to a metrics space approach sort of a guarantee incrementalism
Well, that’s something that we talk about a great deal.  And I think misunderstood, it could. But I would say it’s better to spend a little bit of time on testing than to take a huge leap of faith and fail.  And usually your level of urgency is not so great that it doesn’t make sense to spend a little bit of time testing it.  It’s a lot easier to scale something up that is successful than to pull back when it’s not.

DN:  So at some point is it possible to spend too much on analytics?
At the end of the day, it’s some expensive people and some expensive technology but in the grand scheme of things that’s still, in the neighborhood of one or two percent of your budget.  And I have not talked to anybody yet who didn’t say after they started getting better analytics, they weren’t able to reallocate at least 10 percent of budget.  You spend one percent to find out that 10 percent of your budget is not working or not working as well as it could be.  And, that’s a 10 to 1 return.

DN: I’m assuming that there was a budget cut at some point in the last three years?
That’s right because everybody had one.

DN:  So were you able to predict how the marketing budget cut would impact your business?
Oh, yes.  And the level of prediction was pretty close.  I mean, not a hundred percent.  No model is completely perfect, but it’s definitely useful.

DN: What three pieces of advice do you have for CMOs about to start the metrics journey?
First, definitely have the conversation with your key partners, whether it’s your CEO, CFO or sales leaders. Figure out who is going to judge your performance and collaborate with you because most of the time CMOs can’t actually sell stuff themselves. They’re influencing sales activities. Have that conversation early on, and ask what metrics are important to them and what are the outcomes that you should focus on. And number two, I would definitely commit to a program of optimization and continuous improvement of marketing results.

And then thirdly, I would say for sure, connect to and focus on giving back to the community. And there are a number of different ways to do that– The CMO Club is one example. There are also several great CMO type organizations that exist to help CMOs share information. And you’ve got to do that, carefully. You don’t want to give away trade secrets, but there are great resources out there to help talk about common challenges, common best practices. And every CMO has got something to add to the conversation, and what you give, you get back in spades.

You can follow Dan on Twitter @wdanmarks

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Marketing The Grammys (Q&A w CMO Evan Greene)

02/13/12

Turns out a number of folks tuning into The Grammys last night didn’t know who Paul McCartney is.  Really.  See Buzzfeed.  That’s just one of the challenges the folks at The Grammys face when marketing Music’s big night to multiple generations of music fans.  For the record, this particular boomer blogger thought the show rocked and the associated marketing was worth singing about too.  As such, I am working on a case study/article that should run next month.

In the meantime, I thought it would be timely to share part of my interview late last year with Evan Greene, the CMO of the Recording Academy, the folks behind The Grammys. Greene offers savvy insights into how his team developed their new campaign, how they measure success and how they integrate social media into their campaign from the get go.  (And by the way, if you are an app fan and a music fan, you’ll probably enjoy the We are Music iPhone app.)

DN: So, what are you doing new this year?
What we’ve really tried to do is continue to find innovation both from a macro and a micro standpoint, and as you and I have talked about, it really is about feeding the conversation, finding new and exciting and engaging ways to feed the conversation all throughout the year.   As we prepare for the Grammys again this year, we will again create a campaign that gets noticed, that gets talked about across the digital and social space and becomes more and more deeply into society and pop culture.  We’re going far beyond the idea of just promoting a television show or entertainment event.  We want to make sure that our message starts from a social standpoint and we emanate from there.

So, our campaign will be something that is easily translatable across all media, both traditional and digital media. It will be accompanied by a significant mobile presence, will be a micro site accompanying it, will be an app accompanying it.  We wanna make sure that we are part of the conversation in as many relevant and organic places as possible.  And it terms of sharing specifics, were about to launch the campaign and I can tell you that in terms of what I can share, I can tell you that in the past, you know we’ve really focused on music’s inspiration and its ability to connect us to a shared community.

DN: So this year’s idea is…
Its called, “We are Music,” and it’s about creating a visual interpretation of music, because if you look at the way music shows are traditionally promoted or marketed, its very simple, its “Hey, watch “x” show and see stars.  And the challenge is that its very one-dimensional and it doesn’t really say anything about the brand itself, and a lot of these award shows share talent anyway, if you watch one show versus another, you see the same artist in two or three or four of them. So, rather than just say the same thing as everybody else, how do we differentiate ourselves? We have to differentiate ourselves by becoming part of the story of people’s lives.

DN: Tell me more.
Were focusing on the idea that when we listen to music, we surround ourselves in it, it becomes who we are, part of our DNA, an extension of our personality, inexplicably linked with our identity, and our campaign, like music itself, is a driving pulse and is infused with energy and music.  So we think that just with that kind of simple concept that is executed very dynamically, that we’ve got something that will really excite people.

DN:  You said something really interesting in your intro; you said you wanted to make sure that the campaign starts in social. Why and what do you mean by that?
I think a lot of brands take the position that they’ll come up with an idea and then create a bolt-on digital solution or a bolt-on digital extension and what we’ve really endeavored to do and we’ve kind of indoctrinated this into our DNA here at the Academy, that everything starts from a digital place, everything starts as part of the digital conversation. Because, candidly, that’s how people are really communicating these days in a more aggressive and dynamic way, and so rather than create an idea that we think makes sense for a traditional “above the line” media approach, we started from the standpoint of “let’s create something that’s meaningful and organic socially” that can then and if we can achieve that, we think that the next natural extension is to be able to extend and engage across the board.

Because it’s hard to retrofit your idea into a digital realm and have it really make perfect sense.  So if you look at what we’ve done over the last several years, not only during the Grammys, but throughout the year, we’ve really been looking for ways to continue to feed the digital conversation around us.  And that’s really all that our campaign is, it’s another way to feed the conversation, its not the end all be all, the conversation’s going on, we’re all having the conversation all throughout the year, and the digital music conversation is certainly something that we’re part of for the other 364.  So really all were doing is finding ways to, more innovative ways to engage and get people interested in the conversation.

DN: I’ve seen the stat that showed that your ratings were up 35 % in 2010 due in part to the success of your “We’re All Fans” campaign. How did it go in 2011?
I’ll tell you, after 2010’s monster numbers, we were hoping that our campaign and our 2011 efforts would be good enough to remain flat but what we found was that our ratings were up over 3% in the aggregate, which is an extraordinary number for us. And the thing that’s really been gratifying and reassuring is that while we’re up 3% in the aggregate, we were up 4% in teens and young adults.

DN: Do you have an agency that helps you stay on the cutting edge?
We’re now on our 5th year of our AOR relationship with Chiat/Day, and many of these things that were talking about specifically related to our telecasted campaigns would not have been possible without Chiat.  We give them a brief of what we need to achieve and they do really some incredibly creative and dynamic things, so I couldn’t ask for a better creative partner than Chiat.

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Socializing the Retail Experience

01/20/12

Climbing way up the tallest building in the world (Dubai’s Burj Khalifa,) one of Tom Cruise’s electronic gloves loses its grip and the hero of the latest “Mission: Impossible” thriller is forced to improvise. At this moment, the viewer is also reminded that technology can only get you so far, at which point it is time for some lifesaving human ingenuity.

Looking ahead to a panel discussion at MediaPost’s Social Media Insider Summit next Wednesday in Key Largo, I’ve decided to go out on a somewhat futuristic ledge here and imagine how social media could dramatically alter the retail experience. Since most of this technology already exists, add in a touch of creativity and this becomes my very own “Mission: Possible.”

Knowing: “So Nice to See You Again, Ms. Shopalot”
Since many of the ideas below are dependent upon you, the shopper, sharing your social graph with retailers, let’s get the basic enabling technology out of the way. Near Field Communications (NFC) already allow for the instantaneous transfer of credit/debit card data from consumer to retailer, so sharing your social info via NFC shouldn’t be too far away. Now the fun can begin.

Personalizing: “Is that Beyoncé Wearing a Maternity Gown in Your Size?”
Now that the retailer knows who you are, opportunities for personalization abound. Electronic signage reacting to your social preferences could display your favorite celeb wearing an outfit that was on your posted shopping list or simply point to the floor or dressing room where you can find a product selection in the colors you like.

Bargaining: “Would You Like Some Friends With That?”
In the brave new social world, it won’t be the size of your closets that determines access to volume discounts. Instead, it will be the size and collective bargaining ability of your social graph. For example, a “social” wine store could provide their 10% case discount on single purchases because your social network completed the case requirement together that week.

Hearing: “OMG, Best Song Ever”
Sorry Muzak, but the days of one-size-fits-all audio at retail are soon to be over. Social retailers could tune into the preferences of individual shoppers, piping out personalized streams of music built from shared Spotify or Ping playlists. A shopper hearing their favorite jam will be pumped up and in the perfect mood for a heaping dose of retail therapy.

Surprising: “That’s the Coolest Thing I’ve Ever Seen”
Projected touch screen displays (see demo of PicoMagic at CES 2012) combined with social data could completely transform the retail shopping experience. Entire walls could become interactive, allowing shoppers to sort through vast amounts of virtual inventory that is preselected based on social preferences. Sharing and comparing also would become a snap.

Out-smarting: “Dude, Where’s My Bar?”
Social integration into products might just save us from ourselves if we’re so inclined. For example, if you check in at a bar, your car instantly will know to only start the engine after you pass the Breathalyzer on your smart phone. If you don’t pass the test, your phone will track down your nearest and most sober friends.

Rating: “That’s the Way (Uh-Huh Uh-Huh) I Like It… On Facebook”
Reviews of products and services are ubiquitous online, and it is only a matter of time until these move in-store. Now imagine that the products themselves can display reviews in real-time and highlight those from your social graph. Suddenly that banana-flavored craft beer your friends liked is just what the doctor ordered.

Klouting: “Tell You What I’m Gonna Do Just For You…”
Rewarding influential customers with superior service or free/discounted goods is nothing new, but social integration could take those perks to new heights. For example, once a retailer recognizes a customer with a high Klout score (or equivalent), discounts commensurate with their potential influence could be offered with a promise of more after the social sharing occurs.

Gaming: “Shopping is a Game, Isn’t It?”
Once a retailer can respond to your social graph, the opportunities to introduce game mechanics multiply faster than you can say “Batman: Arkham City.” Based on your in-store behavior, instant coupons could be earned or, perhaps more interestingly, virtual points could be aggregated for redemption in Farmville or another Facebook favorite.

Traveling: See You in Key Largo?
Clearly, this little imaginary excursion just scratches the surface when it comes to the true potential of integrating social media into real-world products, which is why I hope you’ll join me down in Key Largo next week along with fellow panelists like John Yi of Facebook and Lars Djuvik of Specific Media/MySpace. It should be a lot more fun than hanging from a window with a broken electronic glove…

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Teaching Social Business at San Jose State (with IBM)

01/13/12

Ben Franklin’s line, “well done is better than well said,” gets at the very heart of Marketing as Service.  If you want to truly engage your target to the point that they have a genuine desire to do business with you then you have to do something–it can’t be just talk.  A great example of doing something is IBM’s recently announced collaboration with San Jose State University with a program they call The Great Mind Challenge.  This program brings together students, teachers, IBM’ers (as mentors) and local companies that seems to be a win/win/win/win for all involved.

As part of my background research for a story on this program (see FastCompany.com), I interviewed Larry Gee, the SJSU instructor working with IBM to teach “social business” to a select group of undergrads.  I think you’ll find what Gee has to say about this business/academic collaboration quite interesting.

DN: Can you give me a little background on this program from SJSU’s perspective?
SJSU,  College of Business, has always brought innovation to the classroom so students can learn, apply, and differentiate themselves in the business world.   SJSU and IBM has a long relationship over the years.  It is only natural that ideas are bounced back and forth between us;  how we can make a difference when preparing the next generation of leaders.  Bringing social business into the classroom was one of those ideas that fit the innovation framework.

DN: Why did SJSU decide to collaborate with IBM on this project?
SJSU, College of Business,  decided to collaborate with IBM on this project because Social Business is a critical skill that students need to have to be competitive in the market place.   Social Business is a transferable skill across multiple disciplines ie business, bio-sciences, engineering, humanity & arts, etc.  Students worked on a real business problem, real time, to learn and apply social business tools and processes.

DN: Do you have collaborations with other large corporations?
Yes, we have collaborated with other large corporations such as Cisco, Google, Microsoft to name a few.

DN: If you were talking to another educator at a different university who was considering a similar collaboration, what advice would you give them?
My advice:  1) Identify key social business partner asap.  This is critical because a real life component is needed to reinforce key concept and process.  2)  Plan quickly with a clear course work and administration buy-in roadmap for execution in 60 days.  3)  Execute plan and have class up and running by next term.

DN: How are you evaluating the success of this program?
Students must be able to understand and apply social business tools/process to a real life problem.  The program success is measured on how well students learn, grasp, apply, and demonstrate how social business can be used in a business environment to increase competitive advantage or improve business process cycle time.

DN: How have students responded?
Students response has been great because they have already been exposed and used social media, Facebook, blogs, bookmarks, wiki, to name a few,  basic components of social business, at a very young age.   What is new then?  They are able to build a social business environment using various social media tools they already know and use, but this time, in a business setting.

DN: Can you speak to the advantages of having IBM experts mentor your students?
Certainly.  Having a subject matter experts available to talk, demonstrate, and relate to actual projects are key.   One can read articles and talk about them in class.  But when you are given access to the latest  materials and platform to create a social business environment then this is collaboration at its highest.  Mentor is only a few clicks away to kick around ideas and bring those ideas to reality.  This is where academia  and business intersect.

DN: Is there a risk with a program like this that it will be perceived more as a marketing ploy for IBM than a more company-neutral business course?
I don’t believe the program is a major marketing ploy but rather a  business neutral course because majority of tools and contents used were not IBM but rather current tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Bookmark, wiki, etc.  GBS, IBM Business Partner, provided the real life problem for students to do a deep dive into their social business space.

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“Either Write Things Worth Reading or Do Things Worth the Writing”

01/11/12

One of my favorite bits of wisdom from my favorite founding father, Ben Franklin, is:

If you wou’d not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worth reading,
or do things worth the writing.

I believe the folks at IBM are doing a lot of things “worth the writing,” which is why I seem to be writing about them all the time.  That and the fact that they treat me like a journalist by providing access to interesting people within their organization.  One such person is Michael Riegel, VP of Academics & Startups, who provided his insights on a just announced “social business” curriculum they are coordinating with San Jose State University.  As part of something IBM calls The Great Mind Challenge, I believe this is an enlightened example of how companies can do well by doing good.

DN: Please give me a brief description of The Great Mind Challenge?
In 2012′s The Great Mind Challenge, students investigate the emerging sphere of social business using the real-world example of an IBM Business Partner. Working in teams over a period of two months, students conduct a social business assessment of the partner organization, and then build a prototype social business solution based on their recommendations. Students receive education, tuition and mentoring from social business thought leaders, authors, top executives in the social business and of course IBM social business experts. Top-performing teams during the Challenge receive prizes and the potential for internships. The social business skills program with San Jose State University was the first time this challenge was offered in the US. However, globally, over the past several years, The Great Mind Challenge has attracted over 100,000 students and hasn’t only focused on social business skills, IBM is also mentoring students in key areas of technology and engineering including analytics, programming and software development.

DN: What is the primary goal of the collaboration between IBM and SJSU?
IBM and SJSU are collaborating to help students develop market-ready, social business skills. To be successful in today’s business environment, students need to be able to demonstrate that they can turn their personal, social networking savvy skills along with the things they have learned in the classroom, into real-world business solutions. The Great Mind Challenge presents students with an opportunity to develop their collaboration and problem-solving skills while working on exciting, real-world business projects. Students who participate in the Challenge have the opportunity to be recognized for their ideas and talents, while also working to make our planet smarter through the use of social business technology.

DN: Why San Jose State? Does its location in Silicon Valley play some role?
There is a long-standing relationship between IBM and SJSU. Beyond this exceptional relationship, there is so much innovation around social business taking place in the Silicon Valley area. For example, IBM Almaden Research Center, where many of IBM’s social business researchers and consultants are pushing the envelope and helping organizations develop the necessary skills for social business adoption, while breaking down the traditional barriers that might stunt adoption success. With this in mind, SJSU was seen as a logical fit for the pilot of this social business skills challenge.

DN: What was the planning cycle for the collaboration between IBM and SJSU? When did the initial planning start and how has it evolved over time?
Planning for the project with SJSU started in Spring 2011. IBM worked through the summer recess with faculty at SJSU to develop various parts of the social business skills program, including the education (curriculum) and measurement. During the course of the program we fine-tuned the delivery of educational webinars and online feedback sessions with students. As we move into 2012, and expand the social business skills program to include universities across the country, we will continue to modify various aspects of the program to ensure students get as much from this program as they possibly can.

DN: What are the metrics for success for the new IBM/SJSU program from IBM’s perspective?
First and foremost is the delivery of market-facing social business skills. When a student tells us they were able to progress through the interview stages and finally get a job in part because of the social business skills they learnt through The Great Mind Challenge, we take this as validation for this program and IBM’s vision of a Smarter Planet engendered by social business. We also look at the number of students who successfully complete the program and were happy to see that 100% of the SJSU students made it through to the finish line.

DN: The SJSU program involves a number of participants including SJSU faculty/students, IBM employee experts as mentors and business partners as real-life test cases. Can you speak to the challenges of coordinating all these players as well as the benefits of having so many different levels of participation?
We knew at the outset that we wanted the focus for this social business skills challenge to be as rich as possible. Bringing in IBM business partners helps tell a broader story and provides students with the opportunity to explore social business from different angles, different organizations and different business needs. IBM worked closely with SJSU faculty and students to ensure that the training was appropriate and not too “vendor-centric” as to strip it of its application throughout the market. Somewhat fittingly, we don’t feel a program of this scope would have been possible without having social networking tools available, whether it was collaborating on the design of educational materials, or handling project management across businesses and faculty. That’s where IBM’s market leading social business technology created real value for the students.

DN: Since the program includes training on IBM software and promulgates a major IBM initiative (i.e. social business), is there a risk that it might be perceived as one big marketing campaign? Or asked differently, is there a fine line between doing good for the community and doing too much good for the brand?
IBM’s social business vision has a broad scope that goes beyond pure technical adoption. This is one of the messages we are trying to get across with this challenge – social networking can fundamentally change the way businesses operate and create value, but it’s not just about adopting the technology. An organization must create a business culture that fosters transparency, sharing, and trust from its leadership down to those employees out in the field. Throughout the challenge with SJSU, we also encouraged students to explore and consider a variety of social networks inside and outside the firewall. They learned that a social business isn’t just a company with a Facebook page or Twitter presence, it’s about taking advantage of social internally, melding these social networking concepts into traditional business processes to fundamentally change how we do work and create business value. Yes, we did show the students how tools like IBM Connections can be used for social networking within the firewall, but for the continued success of the program, IBM was and is focused on developing and building social business skills that are not exclusive to any one product or technology.

Final note: stay tuned for my related article about “doing well by doing good” and interview with Larry Gee, the professor at San Jose State University who is responsible for teaching the “social business” curriculum discussed above.  And as always, if you found this post of interest, feel free to subscribe to this blog.

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What Great Apps Can Teach Brands

01/10/12

Created with ColorSplash app

Just in case you missed this on MediaPost, here’s an overview of some interesting apps and what brands can learn from them.

I flat out love apps. Every time I discover a new one that enhances my life in some small way, I feel a burst of joy that demands sharing. Obviously, I’m not alone in my enthusiasm. Last week, Google announced the 10 billionth download of Droid apps, and Apple said they hit 18 billion downloads back in October. That’s a lot of apps to love.

Needless to say, not all of these apps are getting used. Like most, I download many more than I end up trying, let alone using regularly. No, it takes something truly special for an app to gain traction. Those that do find purchase, however, can teach numerous lessons to brands operating outside the app-happy universe.

Do One Thing Really Well
Despite Jim Collins’ advice for companies to have a “hedgehog” concept, very few brands have the discipline to stand for one thing and stick with it. Colorsplash, a beautifully restrained app, is a basic editing tool that dramatizes your photos by removing all the color and then filling in specific objects with your chosen hue.

Don’t Hang Out All By Yourself
Though the evidence is clear that tapping into social network APIs like Facebook and Twitter can build awareness and even drive sales, too few brands are doing it. Successful apps like Instagram, another photo modifying app, make ease of sharing across social networks a fundamental usage component.

There Are Still Unmet Needs to Be Found
Brands must continually strive to improve their offerings by identifying unmet needs. One trailblazing app is ZocDoc. The ingenious app allows you not only to locate nearby doctors that accept your insurance plan (in 13 US markets now) but also book an appointment at a specified time. Think OpenTable for doctors.

A Little Hand Holding Goes A Long Way
Some products are complex by nature and finding the added support you need to understand them can be challenging. Ringtones, a fun app that allows you to convert any song in your iTunes library into a ringtone, is a bit complicated at first, but knowing this, the creators also offer a great demo video that makes learning the 3 requisite steps a snap.

Extend the Utility You Already Offer to Mobile
Lots of brands offer great resources on the web that aren’t yet mobile-friendly. This is a big oversight. OpenTable.com, my favorite online restaurant reservation service, has a brilliantly functional iPhone app. Integrating nicely with iPhone GPS, this tasty app helps you find a restaurant with open tables and secure a reservation in less than a New York minute.

Form is as Important as Function
Today, having a product that works is not enough – aesthetics matter, too. To understand this notion, just look at the new Flipboard app for iPhone. The design experience is the brand. Never before has information consumption on a phone felt so joyously elegant, so positively delectable that mere words don’t do it justice.

Turn Your Customer Into the Star
For years brands have been saying the “customer is king” while spending the bulk of their marketing budget on self-congratulatory ads. Songify, a beyond-genius app that turns spoken words into a melodic song, is silly but addictive because it plays into my desire to be an acceptable, if not talented, singer rather than a tone-deaf writer.

Tap Into Your Customer’s Emotional Needs
All too often, brands focus on the practical needs of their audience, overlooking the irrationality that frequently guides behavior. One new app that appeals to our softer, whimsical side is Qwips. Built around personal voice recordings, Qwips allows you to manipulate your audio with effects and pictures sure to touch the heartstrings.

Deliver a Little Bit of Magic
Admittedly, not every brand can be Disney or Apple and find the magic in all they do. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. An app called Drinks and Cocktails delivers my kind of magic by helping me figure out what special cocktail I can make based on what’s in my liquor cabinet. The Sidecar I made Friday night was indeed heaven-sent!

Another marvel of ColorSplash.

Final Note
The average iPhone user has over 100 apps on their phone and spends over an hour a day using them. As apps become indispensible, consumer phone usage increases, as do their expectations for all mobile experiences. If your brand doesn’t have a mobile-friendly site, then you better make one fast. Beyond that, dare I suggest: ‘Appy New Year!

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