ShipCrunch

What would Google do - if it was in shipping: Part 4

Markets are conversations. Some talk. Some listen. A few converse. AMVER's one of the latter.

By Ryan Skinner (email)

This "What Would Google Do" series of posts is quickly becoming a list of best practices in the shipping industry. There was John Watton sharing how ShipServ helps people find each other. Then, Franck Kayser of The Containership Company demonstrated how listening to market demands can and should drive business. Now, it's Ben Strong and AMVER.

This fourth installment of the series attacks the fourth of Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do precepts: "Markets are conversations". Maybe a price is an opening remark. A negotiation, a dialogue. A sale, a bon mot. More aptly, the conversation takes place as buyers and suppliers to and fro about needs and ideas. The size of the final transaction may just be an indicator of the value of the conversation.

That's putting a sharp point on conversations, but it is in fact the end result. The quantity and, more importantly, the quality of your talk will appear on or near the bottom line.

Now consider AMVER. Their marketing manager Ben Strong is everywhere on the maritime scene. Yes, he's at Marintec China (where I met him), and at Posidonia (where you'll meet him next week) and most trade shows in between. But he's also a prolific blogger, twitterer and facebook user. To those who meet AMVER in these contexts, the quality of the communications are spot on.

Strong understands that the same network forces that make the AMVER search and rescue system effective (the more vessels, the better the service) apply to AMVER's marketing voice. That is, the more often you hear AMVER saying interesting things, the more likely you'll think about AMVER in different contexts.

Most marketers would envy Strong the value of the AMVER service that he markets, and the price at which he can market it - effectively, free. Not only that, they've got backing from the American government, and support from the increasingly tech-savvy US Coast Guard.

But the kind of services AMVER provides don't market themselves. No one needs them. So AMVER and Strong start up and follow multiple conversations, about safety, about ship monitoring, about rescues, about the issues that apply to them and potential users. These conversations then build the market.

Ironically, AMVER didn't embark on this conversational path because of a surplus of time and money - rather, the opposite. With a need to focus its budget and meet people where it could afford to reach them, Strong and AMVER chose slim online channels. They had little experience of things like twitter and facebook (as Strong says, "I'm a generation late") but they pooled experience and...just started.

I talked with Strong at length over Skype. In order to follow that chat in video, just look below. The full conversation lasts about 17 minutes.

What would Google do - if it was in shipping: Part 3

In the age of Google, shippers with narrow interests can be profitably marketed, served 

By Ryan Skinner (email)

For this third instalment in the series inspired by Jeff Jarvis' excellent book What Would Google Do? (previous instalments here and here), I found the perfect example to illustrate Jarvis' third precept - "the mass market is dead; long live the mass of niches." Who better to talk to than Franck Kayser, the rebel shipowner who defied the market and launched The Containership Company in the teeth of a recession?  

I talked to Kayser at length about the business plan that drove him and his partners to found their company last year, and much of that will come in an article later this week. But here I'll look at how he's managed to prize away a market segment with specific needs, from the grips of the big container lines, and how this tactic can be exploited in the age of Google.

What would Google do - if it was in shipping: Part 2

Easy access to rich information can change an industry; seek and ye shall find

By Ryan Skinner (email)  

Four months ago, I first asked the question "What would Google do - if it was in shipping?" based on the book by Jeff Jarvis. I explored the first precept - customers are now in charge - and how this could apply to shipping; now for the next precept:

• People can find each other anywhere

I'll close read two essential bits of that idea, and apply them to shipping. First: "Find each other".

What would Google do - if it was in shipping?

By Ryan Skinner (email)

 

A recent book by Jeff Jarvis called "What would Google do?" aims to boil down the latter-day logic of one of the world's most successful companies, so that it can be employed for others' benefit. Many writers have then translated the philosophy to the peculiarities of their own business.

 

With that, I undertake to do the same for shipping - a little thought experiment. The book opens with eight key precepts that underlie the success of Google. I will take each one of these precepts separately. Today, I write of the first:

• Customers are now in charge. They can be heard around the globe and have an impact on huge institutions in an instant.

Customers have been in charge of shipping ever since chartered shipping began. They demand the lowest price possible to move their goods, and this mover wins the contract.

 

But, digging deeper, what could it mean to say that customers are in charge?