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Personal equals professional – we are one

November 9, 2016

One of the downsides of our digitally driven lives is that the dotted line is no more. What I mean by that is that you used to be able to artificially draw a dotted line in between your personal life and your professional life and to a great extent, you could control whether something would cross from one side to the other. Not anymore. Personal equals professional.

That dotted line was probably never as real or protective as we thought it was, but in today’s world, it no longer exists.

I just read a friend’s Facebook status and he said something to the effect of “I don’t like to blend my personal Facebook account with business, but we’re hosting a workshop that I am really proud of — so I’d like to invite all of you.”

This guy owns the company that is putting on the workshop. So in theory, his personal Facebook friends all know what he does for a living and some of them are probably even clients. But most of them are probably not fans of his official company page on Facebook. If he’d only announced it there, most of his Facebook connections would have missed it entirely.

And no one is going to unfriend him for mentioning his work alter ego on a site that some might deem for personal use only.

The truth is – there is no “personal use only” anymore. I actually think that’s better – don’t you want to know who you’re doing business with? Don’t you actually work better with someone when you know that they love rescue dogs, take an annual trip to the Tetons and hate the Yankees?

By the way, talking about your work/business is different from constantly hawking one’s wares. You shouldn’t be doing that at all – but especially not where people expect you to be social.

But the time of hiding your personal side from your professional side and visa versa is over. You aren’t two separate people and what you do outside of work and what you believe actually influences the work you do.

In fact, your personal brand – what you are all about, stand for, believe in, etc. is part of your professional brand. Personal equals professional. And just like a company’s brand should inform and influence consumers – so should your personal one.

Regardless of which side of the Chick-fil-A fence you landed on, when the CEO, Dan Kathy, came out and talked about his personal beliefs and where he invests his company’s charitable dollars, I’m betting you suddenly had an opinion about that business. Even if you’d never eaten there before.

Did they lose customers over the controversy? Absolutely. But did they gain brand zealots who now go out of their way to support Chick-fil-A and spend even more money there? Absolutely.

The goal of branding is to locate your sweet spot customers. Those who are best aligned with you. Who you are – as a company, an employee of a company, and as a person can all help in that endeavor.

I’m not suggesting you can’t or shouldn’t have a private life that is actually private. But if you don’t want your prospective customers knowing your stance on a political issue, a family situation you’re facing or take offense at your secret love of all things Hello Kitty – then never, ever post about it online. Anywhere.

But stop artificially separating the two halves of you. It was probably never a good idea but in today’s world, it’s not only impossible but it feels very inauthentic. People want to do business with people they know, like and trust and that isn’t just about 50% of you.

Whether you are a geek freak, a Greek freak or a chic freak – let your flag fly and let it draw like-minded people to you and your business.

Keep Up

November 2, 2016

I was recently asked to give a presentation on what students can do/learn so they can keep up with the ever-changing landscape of business and marketing today. As I was preparing the material to deliver, I quickly realized that my counsel wasn’t just for today’s students. It’s what all of us, whether we are a student or seasoned professional, need to be doing to stay current in this never static environment that we all exist in.

Recognize that your employer is not going to invest in your continuing growth. You need to do it for yourself: I’m not saying you won’t have the opportunity to attend a conference or take a class, but the reality is, no company can afford to provide as much continuing education as we need.

We have to be motivated to keep learning on our own or we will very quickly fall behind and once that happens, it’s tough to catch up. Regular consumption of podcasts, webinars, books, blogs, TED talks or whatever method works for you is critical.

Consume information wisely and quickly: We’ve all done it. You click on one online article and next thing you know, an hour has passed and you are far away from where you started. Today’s information overload can bury us in a blink if we’re not careful. We definitely need to consume information every day but we need to have a plan.

Use tools that help you sort and filter all the information out there to find what you need to keep up. An RSS Feed reader (I like Feedly) is an easy way to sort through huge volumes of data. You can also use customizable news apps like Flipboard to aggregate the latest news in the categories that matter most to your industry and career.

Learn to teach, write to learn: The linear nature of mentorships is evolving into a new model. We old dogs have a lot to learn from our younger, digital-native co-workers and we still have a few things to teach as well. When you know you’re going to be teaching others, you learn at a different level.

One of the best ways to teach is to write. As you do your research and fact checking, you will learn even more. A side benefit is that your writing skills will get stronger as well.

Be productive at the start: Most days, the distractions win. We rarely get as much done as we’d like, simply because of the interruptions and constant distractions that bombard us throughout the day.

But if you start your day in relative quiet and get the most pressing of your work done before you log into email, walk into a meeting or take that first call – you’ll feel less rushed and frenetic. If you include some of your media/information consumption into that morning routine, you’ll also feel more plugged into what’s going on in the world.

Surround yourself with other learners and thinkers: You can’t possibly learn it all. And even tougher – you can’t see it all from every angle. You need to create your own tribe of people who will share freely, encourage you, hold you accountable, challenge you and cheer you on.

Very few professionals make the time to create this sort of mastermind group of their own. But I can tell you from personal experience, it’s a safe place to admit you don’t know something, to ask someone you trust to hold you accountable to a goal or just to compare notes/experiences.

The world is not going to slow down. If anything, the speed of change is just going to accelerate even more. If we don’t master these habits now and develop this ability to keep learning and evolving – to keep up – we may never catch up.

Are you accidentally doing public relations?

October 26, 2016

According to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) the definition of public relations is “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

My translation is that public relations is any communication that benefits both the sender and the receiver. It delivers a value to everyone in the conversation. That sounds like a worthy target – after all, who wouldn’t appreciate hearing from someone that delivers information, stories, or news that adds value to their day?

In today’s vernacular public relations is earned media. In other words, you didn’t buy the coverage. I’m not suggesting that PR is free – just that you don’t buy placement like you might purchase ad space.

When most people hear the phrase public relations, they think media relations. Working with the traditional media to write a story about your organization is certainly one aspect of public relations but it’s just part of the picture. I’m guessing that you’re accidentally dabbling in public relations, you just don’t realize it.

Many would argue that social media community building, helping a client avoid a crisis, or making an event something special are all PR tactics. See – you’ve already started down the PR path – why not try these less common but very effective tactics?

Reach out to bloggers: A kissing cousin to traditional media relations is connecting to bloggers who write for an audience that matters to your company. Bloggers are often more accessible than a traditional journalist and may be more open to helping you tell your story. A great tool for identifying bloggers who cover topics that relate to your organization is www.alltop.com.

Remember that top bloggers receive dozens of pitches every day so do your homework. Ideally, you’d spend some time getting to know their content before you need to make your pitch. Bloggers notice people who contribute to the conversations they’re having on their site so jump into the comments section and add value.

If you do all of that, you’ll know exactly which blogs are the best fit for what you’re trying to do and they’ll be glad to hear from you because you won’t be wasting their time.

Own a branded study: Thought leadership is one of those buzzwords that has almost worn out its welcome. The only reason it hasn’t is because the logic behind it makes so much sense. Again keeping in mind the PR credo – benefit your audience as well as yourself – the PR spin to thought leadership is that you share what you know. Identify something that your audience really needs to know and invest in getting the information for them. Then shout it from the rooftops and go out of your way to make sure that anyone who would gain from knowing what you learned, hears about it.

The key to this tactic is that you don’t hold the information hostage. Be absolutely reckless in how you give it away. The beautiful thing is that pretty soon you’ll be known as the company who went out of your way to help others and you made them smarter along the way. Every year, they’ll actually look forward to hearing from you. Soon, you’ll be branded as the organization that A) seeks the information every year and B) shares the information every year.

Who wouldn’t want to do business with a company that offers that combination? The cherry on top is that you can probably garner the media’s attention as well.

That’s actually the secret sauce of PR. The more you help others, whether that’s a reporter or a member of your target audience, the more attention you earn for your own organization as well.

Are you ready to go native?

October 19, 2016

One of the things I both love and hate about the marketing industry is the constant quest for creating the hot new thing. Sometimes, there really is something that is so new and innovative, like the topic for last week’s column – retargeting – that it can legitimately make the claim “hot new thing.”

But there are other times when the hot new thing is really more of an updated or revised thing. That’s my take on this whole “native advertising” hype that is surging through marketing circles right now.

Native advertising is paid advertising that is camouflaged in some way to look like it’s just helpful content or natively belongs in the setting that it’s placed in. It’s usually clearly marked in some way, but the whole goal is for it to be less “ad like” so the audience will not ignore it.

I know the definition itself is as clear as mud, so let me give you a couple examples. The advertorial is a form of native advertising. An advertorial looks like editorial content but is actually an ad that a company bought. Many “special sections” of a newspaper or magazine are in truth, advertorials. But because they are written and designed to look like a story rather than an ad – they are hiding in plain view.

Another example of native advertising is product placement. Watch a couple hours of HGTV on Saturday morning and you will begin to spot all the different products being used. When you see a label or the host mentions a product by name, odds are very good that someone paid good money (or donated product) for that.

I’m not suggesting that native advertising isn’t a good idea. It can be a great way to expose an audience to your offerings. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t believe all the hype about it being something new.

What is “newish” bout native advertising are the digital options. For example, you can now marry online ads to relevant online content. Have you noticed that at the bottom of many online news stories you can find a “what’s trending now” area with links to other, related stories? If you click on one of those stories, what you’ll often discover is that you’ve been taken to a landing page that is selling a product that is tangentially connected to the topic of the first story.

Another way you can digitally go native is to pay someone to publish your content or write content for you and build calls to action within that content. You can drive traffic to your website, a product page, an event or whatever you’d like. Many times this sort of purchased content is appearing in online magazines and authoritative websites on specific topics. These native ad articles are usually marked with the word sponsored to indicate that they were paid for. But they look just like the rest of the “pure” content on the site. Another advantage to you, the advertiser, is the SEO value of the backlinks.

Native ads within videos is a very popular option right now as well. You can run your ads on YouTube videos that contain relevant content. You can also produce a video and like the sponsored story on a website, you can actually embed your ads right into the video itself. You can just create brand awareness or you can actually have calls to action within your message.

Native advertising begins with content. Whether the content is created by the brand, by the publisher for compensation or the ads is just aligning itself with topically relevant content – the goal is look and feel more editorial to avoid the audience’s aversion to traditionally intrusive ads.

There’s nothing new about that idea.

Five Ways to Get it Done

October 12, 2016

$Get it done$ How do you get it done? If I ask any marketing pro, business leader or entrepreneur what they need more of (and I take money out of the list of possible answers) 99% of them will give me the same response.

Time.

Whether it’s the pace of life, the vast variety of channels, information overload or that most companies are getting by with fewer people – everyone is time starved. I believe that the popularity of many of our modern conveniences is simply a result of our never-ending hunger for just a little bit more time.

The alternate title of this column could have been “live every day like you’re going on vacation tomorrow.” I marvel at how much I get done in the 48 hours before I leave for vacation. It’s practically magical how the To Do list relinquishes itself to me. I’ve learned to harness some of that pre-vacation magic to get it done and here’s how you can too.

One list, one focus: I’m not so sure Post-it Notes are our friend. It’s so easy to jot something down as a reminder to get it done and next thing you know, you’ve got a Post-It Note panorama on your desk, monitor or taped into a few notebooks.

To truly get more done – capture everything you need to accomplish in one place. Whether it’s a smartphone app or old-fashioned pen and paper – have a master list that you can trust is complete.

Once you have your master list, chunk like chores together. It’s much more efficient to make five phone calls in a row than piecemeal them out throughout the day. You get in a groove and shifting in and out of the groove takes time and energy you don’t want to waste.

Declare a deadline: The reason the pre-vacation thing works is because you have a hard and fast deadline. You can use that psychology to your advantage on a regular basis. You need to create your own deadlines and build in accountability by telling co-workers, friends or whoever is going to hold you to it. If you have to – create a consequence for missing the deadline. The more public the deadline/consequence, the more effective it will be.

Know your rhythm: Odds are the things on your To Do list aren’t new experiences. You’ve done most of them before, and you know what they require of you. If you write better in the morning, make sure you get all the writing tasks done before noon. If you get a little sleepy/lazy mid-afternoon, do something that revs you up in that time slot. Everyone has their own rhythm, so cater to yours to maximize each minute.

Protect your time: When you’re going on vacation, it’s so much easier to say to that chatty co-worker “Sorry but I have to get this report done before vacation.” You need to learn how to do that every day. Depending on how and where you work, – that might mean closing the door, coming in early, or working from home for a couple hours. But do it every week, and you will be amazed at how much more you get done.

Block the shiny objects: Email, Facebook, the conversation in the hallway, or that junk drawer that is begging to be cleaned. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s easy to give in to whatever shiny object is in front of you. You need to outsmart the shiny objects by blocking their access. Turn off that email ping, that Facebook stream and anything else that tempts your attention.

Imagine it – if you treated every week like it was your pre-vacation week, you’d tear through your tasks. You might even get enough done that you could actually not work on your real vacation … once you take it!

How is showcasing changing your business?

October 5, 2016

Showcasing is yet another new wrinkle that the internet and mobile technology has brought to our culture. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s when someone goes to a brick and mortar store to look at an item but fully intends to make their purchase online. This isn’t a new behavior but it’s certainly been on the increase for the past decade.

Smartphones have really contributed to the increase of this practice. Now shoppers can compare prices on the go, right there in the store. In fact, “showroomers” as they’re called, use their phones in retail establishments 50-60% of the time.

They might be comparing prices, checking product reviews or even creating a shopping list for later.

Whether you own a retail establishment or not, you can see the rub. The retailer goes to the expense and time to stock the item, the person actually is in their store and yet – they still don’t buy it there. There’s no reward to the retailer at all for helping the shopper get exactly what they want.

When asked, the number one reason cited for showcasing is price. Almost 3/4ths of showroomers checked and discovered that they could get a better price online. Interestingly – very few of them had ever asked the retailer to match the lower price.

Almost 50% of the time, the shopper walked into the store fully intending to actually purchase it later but they wanted to see the item before they made the purchase or do a little legwork before they went home and made the buy.

One of the main reasons for not making the purchase? They did not want to carry the item home. Many showroomers have gotten very used to the convenience of home delivery and as we know – in most cases, they are not paying extra for that service.

Interestingly – these shoppers are different from the “I like to shop at 2 am shoppers” who rate the 24/7 access as the primary reason they shop online.

The retailers own some of this trend too. If 50% of the showroomers walked into the store intending to buy online, that means the other 50% intended to make their purchase right there in the store. So why didn’t they?

About half of them discovered that the store didn’t actually have the product they were interested in on their shelves. The store was out of stock or didn’t offer some of the conveniences (like free home delivery) that could swing the decision.

But this isn’t all gloomy news for retailers. There are also plenty of shoppers who are reverse showroomers. They do their research online but want to buy locally, for a variety of reasons.

So what should a retailer do, to encourage the showroomers to buy immediately rather than going online to shop and at the same time, to keep the reverse showroomers happy?

Increase the caliber of your sales staff: Make sure they know the merchandise and also have the tools in the store to get an answer if they don’t know. They also need more sales training so they can be genuinely helpful.

Over service to keep selling: Try a mix of price matching, free home delivery, extended warranties, tech support and checking in on customers after the sale. An online store can’t offer that level of service.

Leverage their phone time: Why not send time sensitive coupons and offers to their phone using geo-targeting to get them to buy right now? Invite them to use your in store wifi and help them comparison shop.

This connection between our mobile devices and shopping isn’t going away. This is the new normal and if anything – it’s going to get more pervasive. Retailers have to find a way to leverage showcasing to their advantage.

Honestly – it’s about honesty.

September 28, 2016

I can remember being in one of my undergrad advertising classes and the professor told us about a recent study that measured the trustworthiness or honesty of various professions. Keep in mind, this was 30+ years ago but I can still see the slides he used to show us the results. The least trusted professional was the car salesman, he revealed. Following the car salesman were members of Congress and then he paused for effect and with a click, there was the slide that besmirched the career we’d all chosen — advertising professionals.

Ouch.

Out of curiosity, I googled the topic today and guess what — in Gallup’s 2012 poll, the bottom three were the same. (Apparently, nurses have topped the list ever since the profession was included in the annual poll, except for 2001 when firefighters got the nod right after 9/11.)

Sadly, what those three professions have in common is that people believe that they’re not always truthful. No one wants to be taken advantage of or fooled and that’s the stereotype these professions have to fight against. The upside is that people can behave themselves out of these stereotypes. We all know honest car dealers, politicians and as marketers – we can change the perception of our profession too.

Whether you work inside a company and are responsible for its marketing, or work at an agency, or own your own business – there is hope. You can actually be the one they trust and look to for honesty.

As marketing messages got more and more prevalent, the average ad/marketing effort seemed to get louder. Everything was hyperbole and bigger, better or bolder. No wonder it created fatigue and mistrust. It’s not possible for everything to be perfect for everyone.

But your marketing can break through all of that and be something different. It can be honest and still be effective. In fact, follow these best practices and you’ll be amazed at how effective.

Use real language: When you’re writing copy – be it a tweet or for a 5-minute video, be mindful of the words you choose. Make sure you sound like the people you’re talking to. Make sure there aren’t any communication barriers that get in between you and your audience. Remember that consumers are hypersensitive to boasting and spin, so be very frugal with words that exaggerate, hype or promise too much.

Don’t try to be a round hole for someone’s square peg: You can’t possibly be the right solution for everyone, so admit that. Help your prospective customer find the best fit – even if it’s not you. While they may not put money in your pocket – I promise you, someone they know will because they’ll have heard about how you put the prospect’s best interests ahead of your own.

Don’t sugar coat the truth: This isn’t easy but it’s vital. Everyone can tell someone what they want to hear. Very few will tell them what they need to hear. As a marketing professional, you can differentiate yourself by kindly but firmly speaking the truth. By doing that, you can actually begin to look for a solution. If they can’t count on us to tell them the truth, what can they count on us for?

Help, don’t sell: Create helpful marketing that educates and elevates your audience. Don’t shout at them — teach them. People are intelligent – they’ll figure out for themselves if they should do business with you. Let them see who you are, what you know and how you can help them.

Want to break the stereotype and be a marketer characterized by honesty? Don’t exaggerate, talk like a regular human being, don’t chase everyone with a dollar in their pocket, tell the truth and be helpful.

That doesn’t sound so tough, does it?

Insincerity is not good for your brand

September 21, 2016

I love it when employees really adopt their company’s brand and make it their own. That’s one of the ways you know that your brand has really woven itself into the culture of your organization. But it rarely happens by accident. In any brand process, part of the process should be about helping your employees understand and internalize the brand.

Then, you need to work with your team by job functions, helping each type of employee figure out how the brand influences their work. For example – if you’re a bank, how the tellers bring the brand to life will be very different from how the fraud department will live the brand.

Unfortunately, most companies take a shortcut that just makes their brand feel forced and artificial.

The first time I checked out at Walgreens and the clerk said “Be well,” I thought, well that’s cool – it fits with their whole brand and bravo to the clerk for making the brand her own.

After being in about five different Walgreens in several different states, I caught on. They had all been told to use “be well” as their farewell to customers. Suddenly the only thing “be well” communicated to me was a robotic script that completely lacked even an ounce of sincerity.

Probably not what Walgreens wants us to think about their “at the corner of happy and healthy” brand position.

That’s the problem with a lot of brands. You can’t just create a brand and slap it on your marketing materials. For a brand to actually mean something to your customers or your employees – it needs to be grounded in what you actually believe. It has to be built from your corporate values and be the sword you’re willing to fall on when there’s a conflict.

Your customers and employees have a pretty accurate BS meter and if your brand promise is superficial, they’re going to figure it out pretty quickly. Here are some things that trigger the meter.

Hyperbole: When you use loaded words that seem hyped and exaggerated, it immediately makes people suspicious. Use language that your audience can connect with and relate to, rather than words that feel artificial or impossible to achieve.

When it’s rote: Much like my experience in Walgreens, there’s a fine line between creating consistency in how your brand is communicated and it being robotic and stale. How often have you thought that a customer service rep was just reading from a script and really didn’t care if he had “met or exceeded all of your expectations today?”

One size fits all: If your brand position is so generic to your industry that your competitor could adopt and reasonably honor your brand – it’s not really a brand position at all. It’s simply a statement of what everyone in your industry should be delivering.

When it’s nothing more than marketing speak: A genuine brand isn’t just a marketing tool. It’s a divining rod that helps direct the entire company. I should feel your brand in my interactions with every single employee. But that requires commitment and investment on your part. It’s just spin if you sprinkle it in your marketing but not work to make it a part of your organization’s foundation.

When it works on the outside, but not inside: Your brand promise needs to be just as true internally as it is with your best customers. Remember – a good brand is your values in action. Values aren’t situational. You can’t expect your employees to behave according to your brand if you don’t in your dealings with them.

A brand is a promise of what it’s like to do business with you. Insincerity can kill your chances of even having a shot at delivering on that promise.

Disruption – Are you the next Dodo bird?

September 14, 2016

Marketing is always ripe with buzzwords that may or may not have any traction. Part of our role as marketing professionals and business leaders is to recognize when it’s hype and when it’s important. One of the words/trends that seems to be the new darling is the idea of disruption. This is one we can’t afford to dismiss as hype. It’s a huge opportunity and a huge threat.

Many people misunderstand the term. Disruptive does not mean that your marketing tactics disrupt or interrupt your audience. Instead, what it actually means is that a new technology or product is going to disrupt an existing market or industry and actually create a new market or value proposition. Often this leads to the extinction of the original product or service by replacing it with something better. It’s the ultimate in creativity and destruction, all in one.

A great example is the point and shoot camera. The smart phone crushed the demand for inexpensive cameras and today; it’s tough to even find one in a store. The camera function wasn’t the primary focus of the smart phone, it was simply a feature. But that feature, coupled with technologies that actually made it superior to the original, ended up being a product killer.

Disruption isn’t about making a better mousetrap. It’s about making the mousetrap obsolete. Just ask Blockbuster or Kodak. They’re a great example of incredibly successful and profitable businesses that are now obsolete.

Disruption is fine and dandy, if you’re the one doing the disrupting, but how do you know if a new trend or technology has you in it’s sights?

Keep your perspective broad: Odds are, the disruption won’t come from within your own industry. It’s likely a technology that’s developing in a completely different field. It’s probably an innovation within it’s own category but runs the risk of being a game changer in yours.

Listen to your best users: It’s always a good plan to listen to your customers but if you’re worried about disruption – you need to step it up to a whole different level. Watch for an erosion of their usage or loyalty. Listen to their requests for product enhancements or add-ons.

Track trends: Disruptors don’t appear out of the blue. Typically they’re born from a broader trend or cultural shift. Watch for emerging trends, especially those that impact your super users/customers. If the trend is going to alter their lives, it could well alter yours too.

Explore and innovate: The best way to avoid becoming a disruptor’s victim is to keep evolving. You have to keep experimenting and exploring new ideas for the needs your customers have today and the ones they don’t even know they’re going to have tomorrow.

Measure and monitor: Part of surviving a disruptor may mean knowing when it’s time to pivot because you’re fighting a losing battle. You can’t afford to be caught off guard so now is not the time to get lax with your key performance indicators.

It’s important that we all recognize that we won’t escape disruption forever. It isn’t new and the world has always evolved over time. Think about the impact of the first cars, TV sets, and the personal computer and what they did to carriages, radio and typewriters. Disruption has always been around. It’s just that it’s coming at a pace we’ve never seen before. Technology is accelerating the disruption and that’s not likely to stop.

Your industry might have dodged it so far, but odds are – change is coming. You can brace yourself for the impact, you can see it on the horizon but most of all – you need to be thinking like a disruptor.

How can you evolve your offerings before someone makes you obsolete?

The Art of Selling to Women

September 7, 2016

Last week, we talked about the science of selling to women and how our brains differ by gender and how that affects buying patterns and decision-making. So this week, I thought it would make sense to take that science and use it as a filter to think about how to create marketing that resonates with your female audience – or as I like to call it, the art of selling to women.

Don’t skimp on the details: This is a tricky one. Many marketing types go right to the bullet pointed list for the details. That works fine for your male buyers but the ladies need more. This can be where testimonials or case studies will really serve you well.

This need speaks to how you build out your website too. Think layers and details. Everyone who comes to your site will need it to be simple to navigate and find what they’re looking for. Women will need your site to go beyond that. Build in layers of information with links to more detail, photos, FAQs, and stories. You’ll get bonus points from your female website visitors if you make your content easy to share.

Be graphic: Emotions are brilliantly communicated in visuals. Shapes, colors, facial expressions and even packaging all convey emotional connections. You literally want to draw those connections out for your female audiences whenever you can – the art of selling.

Video, and its combination of visuals and sounds, can be incredibly compelling. Multimedia can capture both the facts and the underlying energy of your company or product/service in a very memorable way. This is a great example of being smart about both what you say and how you say it.

Give her a place to listen: Because of the value women place on other women’s opinions, it will also serve your brand to provide a place for these sorts of consumer-to-consumer interactions. Whether it’s a message board, a review site or even your Facebook page, invite and encourage women to share their experiences with your brand.

Women generate seven times more referrals than men, so the more you can get them to tell stories, ask questions, and find like-minded women, the better for your brand. Another benefit is that once a woman is a loyal consumer, she’s your greatest advocate. If someone starts to complain about something, it’s often your own best customers who will defend your honor.

Find the gender balance: This is another tricky one. Women are not the same as men and they appreciate when that is acknowledged. But they don’t want to be diminished in any way. Dumbing things down for them or making something seem less than (like the pink toolbox sets) what is available for men or that they’re not as capable as a man – that’s trouble.

Build a relationship with her: Above all else, women are connectors. It’s how their brain works. It’s how their hearts work. It’s how their lives work. They want to be seen, they want to matter and they want to be in relationship with the people they buy from.

Your communications strategy needs to be for the long haul. Your goal is to be a helpful resource for her. You want her to grow to rely on you and trust your input. Better yet, you want to be so helpful to her that she shares you with her family and friends. That’s the brand/marketing nirvana – when you are trusted enough that she’s willing to share you with those that matter to her.

If you want women to take an interest in what you have to offer — recognize them, respect them, listen to them, help them and above all else – connect with them.

That’s how you become relevant to them.

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