Reviews, McFlurries, Google, and Techspeak – Sales Lead Digest
This week we start with a long read from the WSJ about the psychology of reviews. Worth digging into and comparing to how you approach reviews and thinking about how your buyers might match or differ. We have a young McDonalds McFlurry fan who hacked the McDonald’s app for the benefit of McFlurry lovers everywhere. We found it irresistible to read through a detailed set of examples illustrating Google’s ever changing search results and how it’s impacting consumers. Finally, we have a gobbledygook press release which reached into my brain and tickled the right spot. Enjoy!
How Consumers Really Use Online Reviews (may be paywalled)
“One implication is that marketers might potentially increase sales by featuring reviews that have obviously deviated from the default,” Prof. Kupor says. Highlighting thoughtful reviews also could boost sales, she says. “A very thoughtful, moderately positive review can more greatly persuade people to purchase a product than an extremely positive review that clearly didn’t result from a lot of thought.”
This article comes closest to describing how we think people use reviews. 2,000 five-star reviews? Don’t trust it. 150 reviews at a 4.2 average? Let’s see what the haters have to say, let’s see how the company responds, and in the end I trust it more. The article has a lot of tips to dig out if you’re relying on reviews to help sell your product. (for a lot of our large ticket, business-to-business customers, it’s still a low priority. . . but prepare yourself. Consumer trends always drift into B2B sales eventually.
Meet the 24-year-old who’s tracking every broken McDonald’s ice-cream machine in the US
“Rashiq Zahid came up with McBroken over the summer. In July, he visited a McDonald’s in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin and attempted to order a McSundae from a touchscreen kiosk — but no ice cream was available. He attempted to order from the mobile app, but was similarly thwarted. His trip had been for naught. ‘I was like, there must be something that can be done about this,’ Zahid said. So he built a bot.”
When McDonalds built its app, heck, when anyone builds an app, you never know what consumers are going to do with it. This example hits close to home because when my kids were young those McFlurry machines seemed to ALWAYS be broken. Good to know it’s only 15% of them. (I figured I might be unlucky) The best part of the article is McDonald’s initial response, “they must really be fans of ours to build it,” because it’s right on. Only a big fan builds a McFlurry bot.
How does Google’s monopoly hurt you? Try these searches.
“We all know Google has ads. But back when Google first won us over, it had fewer ads, and they were generally marked with a colorful background. Today, my T-shirts result is buried under four ads, as well as nine shopping ad results over on the right side. There’s also a giant map with links – we’ll talk about the proliferation of this kind of stuff in a moment.
Relative to 2000, today you have to scroll six times as far down the page to get to the first real, unpaid link to an outside website.”
Google’s anti-trust case brought on by the USA is big news. For someone who used to sell t-shirts online, the first example in this article is a lived experience. When all the data is concentrated in one place, it just might not be best for competition. Does it hurt consumers when competition is stifled if the search overlord is acting in a benevolent fashion? I’ll leave it to the courts. All I know is it’s getting more expensive and Google is getting more opaque, even when we pay for ads. (see: search terms missing in reports)
Mediafly Acquires Presentify
“Mediafly, a provider of sales enablement technology, content management, and advisory services that create interactive, value-based selling experiences, announced it has acquired Presentify, a global visual communication solution based in the UK. Expanding its global presence . . . further enforces Mediafly’s commitment to placing content at the center of everything it does, helping customers create an optimal buyer engagement experience that accelerates the path to purchase and drives revenue.”
I’m ending with this because I love the headline. Never heard of Mediafly? Never bumped into Presentify? Me neither. Yet, here they are, joining forces and supporting well known customers like Pitney-Bowes and Avalara. Wait, I’m not sure what Avalara does but I think they sponsor a podcast I listen to. Long time readers may remember my multiple posts about the huge number of marketing technology companies popping up. Tens of thousands of them. All out to let you know their solution will help you sell more, faster. Who can keep track of them? You may not need to. The market may do the sorting for us.
