Why Dont You Have A Honeywell Tattoo?

JH
John Honovich
Nov 22, 2014
IPVM

For those of you missed the Honeywell Security conference (us included), they had a sales keynote who observed, “I don’t see anyone with Honeywell tattoos,” drawing big laughs from his audience.

Why? What's the solution?

According to the presenter, Jeffrey Gitomer, here is the answer:

"Social media has changed the way you sell and serve forever....

You don’t need to drop your price, you need to increase your perceived value,” and social media is the way to do it, be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other online venues, he said.

“Tweet about safety once a day. Get your customers to follow you. Attract, engage and then connect,” he said."

And then, integrators will tattoo your brand...

I see the opposite.

Social media is fundamentally erosive to big brands.

In the 'old days', only a few large companies with big budgets could increase their 'perceived value' through media / marketing. Honeywell is clearly one of the success stories of that era.

Even if Honeywell was 'great' at social media, it is far easier for a small upstart to be equally great there, whereas that would have been nearly impossible before social media.

Alternatively, Honeywell could increase loyalty (the other theme in the speech) by helping their dealers make more money or deliver better products but Honeywell is being undercut by their own OEMs who inceasingly sell the same products in Honeywell's markets.

So what do you think? What can Honeywell do to inspire you to get a Honeywell tattoo?

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UE
Undisclosed End User #1
Nov 22, 2014
Because gone are the days when a company purchases closed protocol proprietary systems, companies require control over their destiny.
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Carl Lindgren
Nov 24, 2014

You don't want to know, LOL.

Rv
Rogier van der Heide
Nov 24, 2014

I wonder how long all this social media advertisements can last. When I sometimes look at my relatives, I can understand it will still last a few years. The number of times I see them sharing some nonesense message from company X, promising goods if you share their story, are still frequent.
But surely they will learn in time what we internet 'veterans' already learned, that they are only being played.

Or, I just have idle hope, and this goes on forever..... thinking about it... yeah it will go on forever...

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UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #2
Nov 24, 2014

Social media doesn't have to be erosive to big brands. However, it does have to be real and enaging. It cannot be just another "push" mechanism through which other advertising copy is re-tweeted. It cannot be a place where any value is added by running your copy through an automated translator: "Reloj" means watch or clock, not "Watch" as in watch this video

Social media can work for large companies, IF it is a real conversation, and the account admin has real industry knowledge, pull in the organization, and is a real back-and-forth conversation.

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JH
John Honovich
Nov 24, 2014
IPVM

Large companies can be good (or bad) at social media, agreed.

My point is that, unlike previous era marketing, there are no barriers to entry that prevent small companies from engaging in the same tactics.

Social media is either unpaid or can be done at very low cost (we run twitter and LinkedIn campaigns that reach 10,000+ people for a few hundred dollars).

By contrast, 30 years ago, before the Internet / social media, it was dramatically more costly for companies to advertise. To that end, social media erodes the barrier to entry / advantages that large companies traditionally had in marketing. Yes/no?

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Rv
Rogier van der Heide
Nov 24, 2014

I think it does and at the same time, it doesn't. One example that really pops up for me is a small icecream store in America.

A women made a post on Reddit about how her mother put in allot of effort in her Facebook page of her store and how she always so gleefull about getting another like.

She asked the people on Reddit to like the page to cheer up her mother even more. And so they did, thousands did. In one post her company was known to people around the globe.

Sounds like a succes right ? Well sort of. So people now know her company. But it doesn't really help me, someone living in the Netherlands, much, since I prolly never visit the store in my lifetime. Due to the small scale of her company, large scale advertisement doesn't really fit her needs. She was better of being extremely well known around her area.

The store closed a half year later.

JH
John Honovich
Nov 24, 2014
IPVM

"Due to the small scale of her company, large scale advertisement doesn't really fit her needs."

But what money and time did she really spend?

I could understand if she spent $100,000 on an international marketing campaign. But she spent some time on Facebook and Reddit, right? That's not a big investment compared to global exposure.

Are you trying to say her time on Facebook and Reddit caused her store to fail?

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #3
Nov 24, 2014

A million Facebook "Likes" does not a business make.

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #4
Nov 24, 2014

That kind of exposure is garunteed to generate some amount of business. A positive association with your company may influence the decisions they make when they're in the market for X product down the road.

I recently attended a social media for startups seminar. The speaker had an interesting strategy for his social media campaigns: Post several motivational/funny/emotional quotes and pictures for every call to action you make. The idea is that even if you aren’t posting an explicit advertisement, you’re priming people to have a positive disposition towards your brand. The take away isn’t that you should use this exact strategy (it’s meant for startups), but that less explicit ways to promote your business shouldn’t be discounted.

JH
John Honovich
Nov 24, 2014
IPVM

Agreed, it is just a matter of how you got that 1 million Facebook likes. Some people buy / pay Facebook to get likes. Doing that may not be worth it...

JB
Jeremiah Boughton
Nov 24, 2014

Facebook is actually going to crack down on business advertisment "likes". As a consumer, that is great news. As a small business, that would probably be bad news and Facebook basically stabbed you in the back as they sold this to you in the past.

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Joel Kriener
Nov 24, 2014
IPVMU Certified

Advertising is destroying the orginal intent of Social Media. It has become a nuisance which makes you want to avoid using it. Facebook is a prime example.

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JH
John Honovich
Nov 24, 2014
IPVM

Joel, as the saying goes re: Facebook, "You're not the customer, you're the product."

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #3
Nov 24, 2014

The only way someone would end up with a Honeywell tattoo is if they were the loser in the "Tattoo Fantasy Football League" and the winner was a security integrator with an especially sick sense of humor. The only brand that is consistently a tattoo is Harley-Davidson and that's a statement of lifestyle choice rather than product superiority. Unless bikers start riding Honeywell's mediocre cameras or access control panel offerings to Daytona Bike Week every year, it's doubtful that tattoo parlors are going to add the Honeywell logo to their repertoire.

Gitomer is a professional public speaker and exactly the kind of guy you would expect most corporate suits to hire for a security conference. He's entertaining but as deep as a cookie sheet. I used to subscribe to his sales newsletter years ago when I was in sales, it had plenty of slaes platitudes, but was horribly lacking in detail.

"More Social Media!" is the battle cry of every marketing shill, primarily because it's cheap. It's a repeat of the late 90's internet bubble. There is so much advertising on social media nowadays, it's is killing the medium and making it an irrelevant pile of noise. I've pretty much given up on twitter as most of my incoming tweets are manufacturer's links to uninteresting, bland product marketing pages or brochures or even worse promos for riveting Ginger Hill type security rag articles. The hashtag bubble has burst, at least for me.

Piece of advice to manufacturers: save the tweets for the important stuff like new product releases or innovations. Tweeting every day just for the sake of "staying in front of the customer" is the marketing equivalent of the boy who cried wolf. Please also knock it off with the "Come See US at Booth XXX" stuff, we know you're there and we will find you if we want to.

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JH
John Honovich
Nov 24, 2014
IPVM

Wow....

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Vince Regan
Nov 24, 2014

Certainly, using social media (properly) a "David" can now have that erosive impact on a "Goliath" in ways not previosly affordable.

I am using a broad brush, but believe the real key is in having real security professionals being the ones putting forth the social media. To often, even in technical, well-known security manufacturers/integrators/distributors you end up with some disconnected marketing leadership putting out messages and strategy that are social media for the sake of social media. The disconnect is caused because these non-security professionals cannot do much more than provide a "fluff and promo" approach due to their inability to engage at the "nuts and bolts" level.

A start-up often, on the other hand, has those who are close to their product/service engaged in every aspect of the company, and their social media can therefore be more engaging and effective because they are the source of knowledge for what their product/service is all about.

Additionally, and it is just my opinion, but if you take a large player who has been around decades and grew their market before social media, I think their audience (in addition to those in the organization) is less apt to embrace social media than the audience of a start-up or new player--thereby compounding the ability of the smaller, more agile newcomer to use social media to erode the old guard.

JH
John Honovich
Nov 24, 2014
IPVM

Vince, good points. Agreed.

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Ari Erenthal
Nov 24, 2014
Chesapeake & Midlantic

The problem with social media is that, due to its superlow barrier to entry, literally anyone with access to electricity and Internet can do it, but very, very few can really do it well.

A photography store with which I am familiar does do it well, and while I'm not aware of anyone with a tattoo of their logo, this photography store sells hats and T shirts with their logo, and people actually buy these hats and T shirts and then tweet pictures of themselves wearing them. So there's that.

Social media marketing is not a megaphone. Social media marketing is a conversation, or rather hundreds of simultaneous conversations.

Look at Zappos. Look at Oreos. Look at Taco Bell. Look at Avaya.

None of these companies use their social media presence to scream about how great they are. They use their social media presence to first listen to their customers and then to have a conversation with them. Social media is an old fashioned shoe store with a little old Italian man who measures both your feet, asks you about your wardrobe and how often you wear out your shoes and wether your ankles hurt at the end of a long day and then explains why the particular shoe he's recommending will work best for you and your budget.

It's hard work with little quantifiable impact, and very few people are good at it. But it pays off immensly.

It's embarrassing that the big brands, with all their marketing dollars, don't inspire enough love and devotion that someone would get a tattoo of their logo. He isn't saying that Honeywell should snatch conventiongowers and brand them with a Honeywell logo against their will, although it would make ISC more interesting. He's saying that their goal, every company's goal, should be to make turn their customers into fans.

JH
John Honovich
Nov 24, 2014
IPVM

"this photography store sells hats and T shirts with their logo, and people actually buy these hats and T shirts and then tweet pictures of themselves wearing them."

That's not a function of social media, right?

That's an output the company's business practices / comparative value in the marketplace?

To that extent, Honeywell does not have a marketing problem, it has a product / business problem.

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Ari Erenthal
Nov 24, 2014
Chesapeake & Midlantic

That's not a function of social media, right?

That's an output the company's business practices / comparative value in the marketplace?

Those are the same thing! Social media is marketing is sales is post sales support is social media. Every interaction a customer or potential customer has with a company has to be with the same voice speaking the same message. That's why I argue that your traditional marketing people and social marketing people and sales people and customer service people should always be talking to each other on a regular basis.

JH
John Honovich
Nov 24, 2014
IPVM

"Those are the same thing!"

Then you have a different definition than common use. I am not saying it's right or wrong, just that when most people say "social media", they mean Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, instragram, blog post, etc.

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Ari Erenthal
Nov 24, 2014
Chesapeake & Midlantic

Sorry, I think I was unclear.

My argument is, there are companies that do social media right, like Zappos, Oreos, Avaya, Taco Bell, and so forth. These companies use blog posts, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and so forth to listen to their customers, not shout at them. There's no reason a surveillance manufacturer doesn't have the same social media strategy as, say, Avaya. Treating social media marketing like traditional marketing is a mistake. Tweeting is easier and cheaper than putting an ad in the paper, but too many companies think that putting a picture of an ad on Instagram is as effective as putting the same ad in the paper when in fact that kind of social media engagement is counterproductive.

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Brian Rhodes
Nov 24, 2014
IPVMU Certified

This might be strangely offtopic, but I don't think Honeywell would permit a tattoo anyway under its logo terms of use.

TG
Tedor Gligorich
Nov 24, 2014

Here 'Fair' use claimed since good looking claimant.*

adverts tip: Fevered noise at a premium in pub, so that in fact sometime 'word of mouth' trumphed by 'word on shoulder'.

*no, claimer is not I. I cried like a chicken when was my turn to the seat... :(

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #3
Nov 24, 2014

Here's an example GoPro's effective use of Twitter advertising showing people having fun using their product in cool an innovative ways. They have over a million followers on Twitter. I know this is probably hard to do with video surveillance cameras, but the closest thing I can come up with.

My motorcycling GoPro videos are lame as compared to the ones they have on Twitter and for me their camera and klunky editing software is a pain to use. But they still make me want to use it and I click away on their links, despite the difficulty I have with their stuff.

Manufacturers, show me something cool about your product, how it works, how it's better, how easy it is to install, some nifty feature that people seldom use, not a "have you checked out our (insert 5-year old product line) lately?" or "Come see us at booth #3 of the International Left-Handed Tiddlywink Players Trade Show tomorrow" shtick.

Most major security manufacturers treat Twitter as an outlet for what I like to call "Marketing Tourette's Syndrome" to randomly blurt out whatever lame vanilla marketing materials that the suits up in marketing at the corporate HQ came up with.

Here's an example of somewhat decent social media marketing attempt showing Axis' founder taking the ALS "Ice Bucket Challenge" and at showing us how it affects thermal cameras in the process. It's borderline lame and kinda cheesy (the whole ice bucket challenge thing was in my opinion), but it's better than 90+% of other manufacturer's social media attempts and some thought went into it.

Another example of effective tweeting is IPVM, where when new articles or interesting discussions are highlighted in a manner that makes me want to know more, at times like the "film at 11" news teases on TV. Because of being familair with IPVM, I know there's meat (not fluff) behind the tweet, and they inspire me to want to click through. They are simple and effective and make me want to come back here for more on a regular basis. I'm sure John H can attest to the amount of traffic directed to this site from Twitter.

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UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #5
Nov 26, 2014

Seems that social media would be more successful for products which consumers are willing to let their friends know they are using, like maybe an iWatch or Sonos stereo... leading to all the likes and retweeting and so forth.

Why would a consumer want to broadcast what brand of alarm system, or other security system product they are using?

JH
John Honovich
Nov 26, 2014
IPVM

That's a good point regarding consumers.

In Honeywell Security's case, though, you could reasonably argue that their 'consumer' / buyer is the dealer, not the end user.

For sure, Joe Sixpack shouldn't consider a Honeywell Security tattoo but perhaps the Honeywell integrator who just won a car should ;)

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Hal Bennick
Dec 03, 2014
Trafficware, a CUBIC Company

So, I'm a huge Gitomer fan. I can say that I would not be where I am today without his advice. That being said - no one has Honeywell tattoos because we all know Honeywell to well. They're history is their liability.

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