Politics and misogyny aside, Rush Limbaugh’s recent vilification of a coed for using birth control, and more than 20 of his sponsors’ subsequent desertions, exposed a critical flaw. And it’s a flaw that many businesses have, including, possibly, yours.

It’s bad marketing.

Good marketing starts with understanding how your customers think and make decisions. We can assume that Rush did not think of his sponsors as customers nor did he understand them very well. That’s bad marketing.

David Friend, CEO of Carbonite, one of Rush’s sponsors that pulled its ads, put it this way:

No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.

[Source: A Message from Carbonite CEO, David Friend Regarding Ads on Limbaugh]

My guess is that Rush had no clue that the CEO of one of his major corporate sponsors had college age daughters. Or that so many customers of his sponsors would be outraged at his attacks on a “well-intentioned young lady” when they normally abide his attacks on the President and other politicians he disagrees with.

Would he have altered his remarks had he known?

I have no idea but I think most business owners would avoid driving away their major sources of income, armed with such intelligence.

So how do you gain the intelligence that might help you avoid even small mistakes that cost your business revenue or cause it to miss major opportunities?

Ask.

Conduct surveys to learn how your customers think and make decisions.

In a recent article, E-Myth Worldwide featured several survey ideas you can use to learn about your customers. One of them is a customer satisfaction survey.

While there is a large range of customer satisfaction surveys to choose from, one of the best researched and proven formats is Net Promoter Score (NPS), a methodology created by Bain Consultant Fred Reichheld. In his book, The Ultimate Question, he details how one simple question — How likely is it that you would recommend [company] to a friend or colleague? — has been shown to be the single best measure of whether or not a customer will become a repeat customer and refer business in the future.

[Source: Six Business Surveys You Can Use Today]

Net Promoter Scores measure the difference between the percentage of “promoters” versus “detractors,” i.e., customers who return positive versus negative responses to that question. You can learn more about the methodology here or check out the book below.

Another way to learn about customers is through online quizzes.

These are typically more casual in nature, but they can spark a positive conversation and engagement.  Quizzes can be featured in one newsletter and then the results can be shared in a blog post, social media and the next newsletter to keep visitors coming back.

Interactive Learning Experiences

Survey expert Jeanne Hurlbert, Ph.D.,  is also a big proponent of online quizzes as a way to gain understanding of your customers’ opinions and decision-making patterns. However, she sees two points of differentiation between quizzes and surveys.

Online quizzes done well are a blend of survey science and marketing. First of all, quizzes are more suited to prospects than to customers. Surveys can be off-putting to prospects when they haven’t established a relationship with you yet. Second, while the purpose of surveys is to collect data, the purpose of online quizzes should be to create interactive learning experiences that engage your prospects and gets them thinking, “This business (i.e., your company) knows things I don’t know.”

Quizzes should be structured to gently reveal what the prospect knows and doesn’t know. This is done through a handful of multiple choice questions. According to Hurlbert, the final quiz question should ask the prospect to identify the problems, pain points or challenges they need help with. Once submitted, their results should teach them a few surprising truths and describe how your business can help them solve their problems. That’s where the marketing begins.

Learn about your prospects and customers with surveys, quizzes and polls. It’s good marketing. You’ll serve them better and avoid catastrophes like the one Rush Limbaugh created by delivering a “product” that was totally misaligned with his sponsors and their patrons.

(Jeanne Hurlbert, Ph.D. consults with businesses to build custom online quizzes. Send an email to jeanne@mysurveyexpert.com and mention Rocket Content to receive a free phone strategy session.)

A diet is a prescription for what we eat and how we eat. Some famous diets include the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, Fit for Life, the Mediterranean Diet and many others.

Unfortunately, most people don’t really think about their diets. They eat whatever they feel like eating whenever they feel like it. Lack of diet contributes to the obesity epidemic and a variety of other modern maladies like heart disease, high blood pressure and alarming increase in the incidence of diabetes.

Here’s the diet I try to follow: Eat mainly fish and vegetables. Avoid sugar. Drink lots of water with lemon and lime. Drink brewed iced tea instead of soda pop. Eat real ingredients. Limit carbs and eat whole grains when I do consume them. I stick to this diet most of the time—80 to 95% depending on the week’s schedule. Sometimes I diverge or “cheat” but for the most part, that’s it.

What I’ve discovered about my diet also applies to diets in general:

• A diet is a plan for how we’re going to eat. At best, it’s a system for staying healthy and energized, for growing and excelling at what we do.
• A diet is largely about saying no the majority of the time to food opportunities if they aren’t part of the plan.
• A diet allows for some “divergence” sometimes.

The Success In Life Diet

A diet is also a great analogy for what we need to do to be successful in life, whatever our goals may be. If you look at in these terms, there are some pretty clear things you should do to achieve success:

1. Define your diet. You need a strategic plan for how you’re going to create the results you want. Write it down and refine it until you are ready to commit to it.
2. Build systems. These are tactical processes or “shortcuts” that make it easier to maintain your plan. When you follow a diet, you do certain things to help yourself stay on track—like count carbs and grams of sugar, check the ingredient labels of all the food you buy, schedule your meals and snacks so you always know the next one isn’t too far away. In your business or other endeavors, you create processes to handle recurring customer inquiries or schedule presentations and follow up on their results.
3. Just say no. If it’s not part of the plan, you must say no, no matter how luscious it looks. Obviously, there are ways to do this that don’t close the door completely on people or ideas you may want to work into your plan down the road.
4. Say yes once in awhile. Once in awhile you could consider an opportunity if you think you can handle it without blowing up your diet. The #1 condition for saying yes is being honest with yourself about what it will take or cost to say yes to something that isn’t part of the plan.

Copyright © Rocket Content, Inc. 2010