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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Wendy Ruyle
April - May 2013

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Look outside your industry to make changes within

A quick and informal cross-industry review can uncover best-practice ideas along with missteps to avoid. Here are a few tips on how to go about a best-practice discovery process, where to gather ideas and examples, what goals and outcomes you can expect to reveal, and what to do with the knowledge you gain.

We all spend time looking at what our competitors are doing and trying to do the same thing, but better. What if we looked somewhere else? There’s value in looking outside your industry. Certain industries are great at customer service. Others are great at efficiency or education or employee satisfaction.

If you want to improve efficiency, for example, why not look at the fast food industry? What techniques do they use to get customers in and out and on their way with a product they like? Maybe you want to get your employees to sing your praises. The jobs with the highest satisfaction rate tend to be those where employees are helping others: clergy, firefighters and teachers. What can you learn from those sectors? What do they get out of their jobs that your employees could too?

This six-step process can happen during a few days or a few months depending on how much research you want to do and how much time you have available. It can be as simple as visiting a few stores or as complex as a series of interviews, tours and job shadowing for a few weeks. You can scale each step up or down, depending on your needs, but make sure to touch on each one as you go.

Step 1: Identify goals

The first thing you have to do is identify your business goals. Get your project team together and ask yourselves a series of questions. What are you trying to do? Sell more widgets? Increase market share? Get more buzz in your industry? Improve customer satisfaction? Identify the key traits you want your organization to have. Do you want to be seen as the high-tech leader? Do you want customers to feel like a king or queen when they pass through your doors?

During this step set some lofty goals but make sure you identify what success means as well. Establish tangible measurements you can achieve that go with your goals. For example, if your lofty goal is to treat customers like royalty, your tangible measurement might be: Increase average satisfaction survey results from 50 percent to 70 percent in the next three months.

Step 2: Identify best-practice industries

Once you’ve identified your goals, select a group of industries that have the traits you want to achieve. Don’t be afraid to consider a business that seems foreign.

You might be an auto mechanic but if your goal is to make customers feel relaxed and comfortable, look at spas. If you want to provide high-tech conveniences, look at airlines or banks that provide mobile access, or an organization like CaringBridge that uses technology to help families during a health event.

Pick three to four different industries where you think you can learn something new. Then select a few businesses in each of those industries to study.

Choose organizations that are at the top of their field. You want to learn from the best. If necessary, build relationships with individuals in those fields so you can arrange tours and do interviews.

Step 3: Discover

This is the time to go out into the field. Divide up into teams and visit your cross-industry locations. (This could be an online experience, too!) Go through the process of purchasing that product or service. Pay attention to everything around you: sights, sounds, smells. How are you greeted when you walk in the door? Is it clean? Is it bright or dark? Is the music loud?

How are you guided through the process? Is there someone to help you? Are there signs guiding you? Do you feel lost at any point? What works well and what could be better? Even industry leaders can miss something once in a while.

If you’re online, use the same technique. How are you greeted? Is it clean and organized? How are you guided through the site? What special pieces of technology are available to you?

Step 4: Report back

Once you’ve done your fieldwork, bring the teams back together and report what you’ve learned. Identify processes your organization could emulate and what you might need to do to alter them for your industry.

Having an outside viewpoint in this step can be helpful to pinpoint and critique suggestions. You’ll come back with a lot of ideas. You can’t implement all of them so you need to choose which ones are best.

Always go back to your original goals. Do these ideas help you meet those goals? Are they achievable? Are they worth the investment?

Step 5: Implement

When you’ve determined what your organization can do, put together a plan for implementation. Identify who will be responsible for each element and what support they will need from various departments. Create a timeline that allows for all the pieces to come together. Develop a system for measurement and set your tangible goals.

Step 6: Test and refine

Just because you’ve implemented your plan doesn’t mean you’re done. You need to keep checking in and make sure you’re getting results.

Utilize your measurement system and get reports at regular intervals. Use both hard data (are your sales up?) and anecdotal evidence (customer A gave us a glowing review) to see if the changes you’ve made are working.

Always be ready to go through the process again because best practices can change. Customer expectations will adjust with improvements in technology and social norms are always evolving.

This simple six-step process will help you uncover the best practices that are right under your nose. From coffee shops to online retailers, other businesses are doing things right. Learn from someone outside your industry and you might just change your own.

Contact: Wendy Ruyle is co-owner of 5 by 5 Design,
Minneapolis, a marketing, design, and communications firm:
612.377.2428; wendy@5by5design.com; www.5by5design.com.