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The ingredients of WOW!

June 2, 2008

When was the last time you raved about a business? Was it because their product was so notably superior? Or was it because something they did WOWed you?

Think of the companies that we hear about every day. Disney, Nordstroms, and Whole Foods comes to mind. We don’t hear about their rides, shirts or olive selection. We hear about something memorable they did or created. We hear about the atmosphere, the attitudes and the energy level.

We hear about the WOW.

Think about the last time you were WOWed. What elements were present? How did they create that moment that you couldn’t help but talk about?

Or….how do you create WOW for your clients? What do you do that absolutely delights them?

For me, one of the absolutes is surprise. it doesn’t have to be a big surprise. In fact, the more minute the detail, the better.

Once you’ve thought about it (and hopefully shared here) for a bit, check out this post by Michael Hyatt. He talks about his own experiment in trying to identify WOW. What do you think of his concoction of WOW ingredients?

Who is doing a stellar job of harnessing the power of their client base?

June 1, 2008

I gave a presentation on branding in Marco Island, FL (not a bad gig in January) and have since struck up an e-mail conversation with a gentleman from the UK who was there.

He asked me a question that I’m not sure I know the answer to….so I thought I would ask you. I am confident that you’ll know.

Do "we" know of some other B-to-B companies who are doing a stellar job of marketing to their existing client base to generate additional projects/revenue (in other words…turning clients into a referral source)?

What say you? Do you have some examples of work you’ve done for a client? Case studies you’ve read? Other blog posts you could point us to? Something you are doing inside your own company?

Taking the Fear From Selling and the Mystery from Marketing (Barry Moltz)

May 30, 2008

Have you heard either of these before?

The Sales Person: "It’s scary! I don’t want to call people I do not know."

Marketing: "It’s a mystery to me! What worked and what did not work in my marketing plan?"

This is where so many business people can get stuck in launching a successful marketing and sales campaign within their company. Unfortunately, without strong sales and marketing we do not have customers and without customers, well, all we have in is more inventory and debt.

What we have to understand about sales is that people only buy when they are in pain and have the money to solve that pain. When I ask someone to buy, it’s not personal. If they are in pain and have the money to solve the pain, they will buy from me (assuming I can solve that pain).

It’s that simple.

Our job in sales is to find the people who have the pain and the money to solve that pain. Where this job gets complicated is that salespeople have the tendency to focus a lot of attention on prospects who either are not in great pain or don’t have the money to solve the pain.

We accept a "maybe" from our prospects for answers and keep working on getting them to say "yes" even though there is no prize down that path. We keep doing this because it is more comfortable to call on people we already have had contact with and we do not want to admit to ourselves that maybe this person who we hoped would buy from us, just won’t.

The second best answer from a prospect is "no". A "no" allows us to let go, bounce, take an action and find people that have the pain and money to say yes!

Marketing begins to work when the prospect says no. Marketing is critical because we actually can’t sell anything to anyone, we just need to be there when people are ready to buy-period!

Marketing’s job is to consistently inform our prospects (the people who have the pain) that we are here. We retain visibility in front of them so when they are ready to make the buying decision, they call us. We can be considered.

One of my mentors, Robin Creasman calls this "the maybe pile". You get a chance to compete. That’s all we need to do. Most companies close 30% of the proposals they submit. When marketing gets us into the maybe pile we have more chance to close more sales.

Barry Moltz has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 15 years. His second book, “Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success”, teaches how to gain true business confidence. Barry is a nationally recognized expert on entrepreneurship who has given over 100 speeches to audiences ranging from 20 to 20,000.

Every Friday is "grab the mic" day. Want to grab the mic and be a guest blogger on Drew’s Marketing Minute? Shoot me an e-mail.

The evolution of today’s newspapers?

May 28, 2008

You see it in headlines everywhere. You can practically hear them clanging the church bells to signal it’s all over. "Newspapers are dying. Circulation is dropping. Blah, blah, blah." Which of course, sends advertisers into a panic. Maybe a newspaper buy is foolish?

Not so fast.

David Reich, an expert on such things, suggests that the death knoll is premature and I tend to agree with him.

Are the publishers under incredible pressures? You bet. Has the competition stepped up their game? Indeed. Is there simply more competition? Without a doubt. Are more young people turning to the internet to get their news? By the droves.

So how can David and I remain optimistic?

Ask yourself this. If you want to dive into the news of your local community, where do you turn? If there’s a natural disaster like a tornado or scandal at your local university, where do you go?

Research shows that most of us still turn to our local newspaper when we want to be in the know. Which makes sense. They’re right here, gathering the facts and creating tons of fresh content every day. Now, it’s true that many of us may go online to the paper’s website rather than read the actual paper. But, it’s still who we trust to give us the straight scoop.

Do I think today’s newspapers need to step it up and compete differently? Yes. I think they need to recognize that how (paper versus online or some other delivery model) they deliver their news is less important than understanding the news they can uniquely deliver.

I also think they need to get very comfortable straddling their historical place in the community and their need for being a part of this century. Check out this thought provoking by Jason Kintzler over at Social Media Today. How newspapers could harness and leverage the power of social media.

What do you think?

If your company won’t embrace social media — watch out…

May 26, 2008

…because your next generation of employees will have grown up immersed in it. Watch this video and then check out Gavin Heaton’s thought-provoking post on the death of education and the dawn of learning.

The real question is — in this day of budget squeezes and spending freezes in our school systems, how do we help teachers and schools get up to speed, so they can keep up with their students?

The elasticity of price

May 26, 2008

Gas prices are scooting over $4/gallon here in the states and yet consumption has not shown signs of significant reduction. How can that be?

That’s the question that reporter Gail Rosenblum of the Minneapolis Star Tribune posed to me late last week. Her article, Paying a lot for gas, changing lifestyles a little" appeared in Friday’s edition of the Star Tribune.

While I know this specific topic (gas prices) is on everyone’s mind, it seems to me that the conversation Gail and I had is even more interesting when you step back and look at consumer attitudes about prices in general.

Two years ago, we were in a tizzy over gas prices. We couldn’t believe they were going to be $2/gallon. We were outraged. We were going to cut back. (Of course, we didn’t) Fast forward to today. Imagine if I stopped people on the street and asked them what they would think of paying $2/gallon for gas. They would weep for joy. In fact, it would sound too good to be true and they’d ask me "what’s the catch?"

Ahhh, the elasticity of price perception.

Why do I think this is worthy of some thought? A few things to note:

The elasticity of price is a one-way street (we are never happy about going higher in price after the marketplace reduces costs.)

The elasticity of price is fast-acting (we get used to the higher price pretty quickly.)

The elasticity of price works best for necessities (we can cut back on stuff we don’t "need" but endure price hikes on stuff we think we do need.)

So how could you apply this thinking to how you set prices? If everyone in your industry is lowering prices because of the recession — how will this hold them back when they’re ready to re-raise their prices? How will it affect you if you resist the urge to lower prices now?

Are your actions drowning out your words?

May 19, 2008

We’ve all been pretty impressed with LifeLock’s marketing. The CEO publicly shares his social security number to prove his confidence in LifeLock’s ability to guarantee protection from identity theft.

It’s very bold and attention-getting. So I decided I wanted some more information. After all, I don’t want anyone stealing my identity. (Although a teen-aged daughter makes you wonder if some bad guy could really do more damage than a trip to the local DSW store!)

I went to their website and found the member services e-mail address (easily accessible under Contact Us) and fired off my relatively simple questions.

No reply.

So, I repeated the steps and re-sent my questions.

No reply.

Because I am a stubborn cuss — I actually did it for a third time. Guess what happened.

No reply. No automated — "thanks for your e-mail, we’ll get right back to you." No canned "have you tried our FAQ section." Nothing.

Hmm. These are the people who promise me diligence in watching over my identity? These are the people who I am going to try to contact if there’s a problem?

I had bought the promise — hook, line and sinker. I was ready to buy. I practically had my credit card out of my wallet. But now, I’m not so sure. Now, their actions have contradicted their words. And the actions are much louder.

How about your business? You’re making a bold brand promise, right? Are you sure that your actions match that promise? Is there a weak spot?

Could your actions, reactions or lack of action be drowning out your words?

UPDATE: Several of you have shared the breaking news story that Lifelock’s CEO has just had his identity stolen. No wonder they’re behind in answering their e-mail!

I don’t know much about that…

May 18, 2008

Marketing and marketing tactics are changing at the speed of light. Have you caught yourself saying "I don’t know anything (or much) about XYZ?"

What happens next? Do you accept that you just aren’t that familiar with it? Or do you recognize you’d better fix that situation?

I think how you answer that question says a great deal about you and how well suited you are for a marketing career. You can’t afford not to know. I don’t care how many years of experience you’ve got. I promise you, you’ve got things to learn.

If you don’t have the curiosity or the drive to keep learning how to help your business or your client’s business grow and communicate — then dust off the resume, my friend. Because you need to get out of marketing.

How can you learn? Lots of ways.

Find someone who does know and ask them to teach you. They’ll be flattered.
Take a class or pay someone to teach you.
Find a blog written by an expert in the field. Do more than read it — participate.
Read a few books on the topic.
Wade in…and try it. Most of us learn best from doing.

If you hesitated when asked the question, remember this. Do you suppose your co-worker who is climbing up the same ladder you are hesitated? How about your competition?

Age of Conversation has us a little buried

May 16, 2008

If Gavin Heaton or I seem a little slow to respond to an e-mail or comment over the next few days, you’ll have to excuse us. The Age of Conversation submissions are flooding in and we’re just working on keeping our heads above water.

It’s cool. It’s exactly what we wanted. But, this is definitely the beginning of the hard labor portion of this labor of love!

Shall we practice our breathing exercises together?

Come on marketers, what would you do with this?

May 15, 2008

This is really a "still on the drawing board" idea from South Korea and I know it’s meant to be a whole new generation of traffic lights, but come on….you’re a marketer. What would/could you do with it?

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