Branding Archives - Page 23 of 42 - McLellan Marketing Group

Serve a steady stream of snack-sized messages

October 18, 2007

Ever hear those radio spots where the poor on-air talent is talking so fast it sounds as if they didn’t take a breath for the entire :60 seconds?

That’s an example of the "shove it all in" thinking.

Many business owners believe that they have to cram all the facts, figures and information into every single ad, sign, brochure and web page. They are in a panic, imagining that they might never have another chance to tell their story.

Of course, when they create marketing tools that are over-packed, that’s exactly what happens. The audience turns a deaf ear.

When you think about creating a marketing piece — think bite-sized snacks. One piece, one message.

Have you ever over indulged on Thanksgiving and when you finally pushed away from the table, you felt like you might burst? Contrast that with how you feel when you eat several mini-meals throughout a day.

Your marketing tools should be like mini-meals. Tasty treats that your audience will look forward to because they are not too filling and were created to delight the consumer.

Mason Hipp of SmallFuel Marketing, gets this concept in spades. His excellent series, Small Business Marketing 101 breaks down his counsel into 9 bite-sized posts. Could he have written one mammoth white paper? Sure…but his readers would have felt bloated and saturated.

Be a smart marketer. Don’t drive your audience away by drowning them in details. Give them plenty of time and space to slowly absorb your message. One bite at a time.

UPDATE: Got this note via e-mail:

From a 20 year radio guy- THANK YOU!!

I loved your example of trying to get too much in a radio commercial.

The main reason radio’s getting bad press is our own dumb moves. People as a whole are still satisfied with radio’s delivery quality- and the dirty little secret is they’re also satisfied with hearing their FAVORITE songs (look at most people’s iPod most played lists).

Thinking of using a globe in your logo?

October 14, 2007

I was standing in Office Depot this weekend and noticed their "let us design your logo" display. And there they were. The painfully trite visuals that business owners seem to be drawn to when designing their own logo.

You know the ones — globes, shaking hands, the outline of your state, or the very popular paw print (you pick the animal of choice).

If you want your business to be perceived as unique — don’t use the same, tired visuals that everyone else has already used. A logo does not have to be a literal translation of your business’ name or deliverable.

Think beyond the expected. Think abstract. Think about building a brand by being fresh and different.

Think anything but a globe.

Dr. Marketer?

October 13, 2007

Sometimes, we get so caught up in discussing tactics or crunching numbers that we forget we’re in the human behavior business. At the very root of marketing is this reality:

Our job is to get people to do something. Believe something. Care about something. Our job is to affect human behavior. And to affect it, we must understand it.

I’m not saying we all need to run out and get our doctorate in psychiatry. But I am suggesting we’d better be avid students.

On any given day, a marketing professional might have to:

Understand what motivates a 33 year old suburban mom
Talk a client down from the figurative ledge because their boss is demanding instant results
Ask questions that get people to think in a new way
Write in a way that’s native and comforting to a person facing their death
Motivate employees to do superior work for a client who nitpicks and changes direction mid-stream
Take a furious customer from screaming to calm and feeling heard
Guide a group discussion to help a client unearth an uncomfortable truth about their company’s service
Figure out how and why three 19 year olds react completely differently to a new product
And so much more

I don’t believe a person can be successful in marketing if they don’t understand and care about how people tick.

Of course, the couch is optional.

What do you think? Am I placing too much importance on this aspect of marketing?

BrandingWire: Why are we losing business?

October 8, 2007

This month’s BrandingWire offering asks an interesting question. A B2B consultancy that works primarily with high-tech and health care clients is losing market share. What should they do?

Here’s their current situation:

They are losing contracts to lower pricing and bigger firms.
They’ve stopped growing.
If they do land a client, they usually only buy one project and don’t return.

Here’s how they describe their client profile:

Revenues: $1 million to $25 million
Employees: 150 or fewer
Verticals: High-tech and health care
Location: North America

Sometimes the best advice we need to offer a prospect or client is — you shouldn’t market anything right now. To jump into marketing tactics at this stage with this particular client would be putting lipstick on a pig.

There are questions that need asking long before we pull the trigger on any attempt to help them attract new clients. They have problems that marketing cannot fix. And it would be irresponsible of us to encourage them to spend money that’s just going to perpetuate the problem.

This is a classic mistake many businesses make. They’re struggling so they throw more marketing dollars at the problem. But what if the problem has little to do with marketing? Here are some harsh realities that this client needs to face before they launch any new marketing initiatives.

Your target market is too big

The range between $1 million and $25 million is huge. Companies on each side of that size spectrum behave completely differently. My guess is that our client needs to drastically narrow that range to find their sweet spot. Right now, they are aiming at much too wide a target.

You don’t know how you are perceived

We need to have some in-depth conversations with past clients, current clients and those clients who opted for a competitor. We need to understand, from their perspective, how this company is coming across.

The biggie: You can’t sustain business

But, without a doubt the most glaring problem we need to solve is the company’s inability to keep current clients happy and coming back for more.

If you can’t earn a current client’s trust and more business, then you are destined to fail. No business can be profitable with a revolving door or clients. The costs of acquisition is just too high.

Bottom line:

This year’s marketing budget is going to be dedicated to identifying and fixing the problems that have gotten our client into this situation. We can’t market them out of the hole they’ve dug.

As is the BrandingWire tradition, there will be several other marketing pros who will weigh in on this scenario. Check out their posts as well!

Olivier Blanchard
Becky Carroll
Derrick Daye
Kevin Dugan
Lewis Green
Gavin Heaton
Martin Jelsema
Valeria Maltoni
Drew McLellan
Patrick Schaber
Steve Woodruff

Have you seen the branding periodic table?

October 4, 2007

So….I get an e-mail from Tanya, an intern at the Kolbrener agency in Pittsburgh. She loves my blog and wanted to share something her employers created – the branding periodic table.

Note: It’s cool, I am not knocking that at all. Very inventive and visually appealing. See….

But here’s my observation. ~~Tanya likes many marketing blogs~~. (An update — I had a conversation with Brandon Fritz of Kolbrener and he assured me Tanya only e-mailed a handful of bloggers she really does like. She likes me! She really likes me!) And like Pavlov’s dog — we all jumped up when she rang the bell. And then we each told ten friends, who told ten friends…

Have we contributed to the pollution of sameness in the blogosphere? Do we as blog authors have a responsibility to try to differentiate our copy if we’re going to jump on someone’s bandwagon and all write about the same thing? (Which some did)

Or is it a "no harm, no foul" deal. Who cares if a bunch of blogs all point at the same thing in relatively the same way?

What do you think?

Here are some of this week’s links to the interactive table:

Peep the Technique
Doug Karr
Orbit Now
Ryan Moede
Techy News Blog
Passionate Manager
Clever Think
Bloggermacha
Debbie Millman
The Branding Blog
Uwe’s blog
James & Joe
BrandUnited
Brand Autopsy

What is the most powerful selling tool?

October 3, 2007

This just in from the folks at Nielsen. No great shock (I don’t think) to see word of mouth topping the chart, in terms of effective selling tools. The power of a recommendation from a known/trusted source has long been the gold standard.

But what’s pretty interesting, and a big change from a few years ago, is the third highest item on the list. Opinions posted online.

So, what do you think? What does this say about blogging? Sites like epinion.com?

If you’re on the company side — what do you think it means for you and where you spend your resources? If you’re a consultant or agency-side pro — what do you think it means for you and for your clients?

By the way…this was an international survey. It covers 47 Markets: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom, US and Vietnam.

Join us for breakfast and some branding tomorrow?

October 2, 2007

As you know, we MMGers are passionate about branding. So much so that we want to share it with the business world. That’s why two years ago, we started hosting our monthly Branding Breakfast.

October’s Branding Breakfast is tomorrow. Other than the fact that it’s at the crack of dawn — it’s a good time. You can enjoy a hot breakfast and a lively discussion about branding and how it could be applied to your business.

Here are the particulars:

Wednesday, October 3rd (7:30 am – 8:30 am)
Workforce Development Office
430 East Grand
Downtown Des Moines

We hope you can join in the fun!

Ready to do a brand check?

September 23, 2007

Consumers are bombarded with 3,000+ marketing messages a day. Are you sure you're breaking through the clutter with a consistent brand message?

Swing over to my post at Small Business Branding to see if you've missed anything.

Who will your customers mimic?

September 21, 2007

I flew to San Francisco yesterday on United. (Only one mechanical delay, so they are improving.)

One of my pet peeves is when the flight attendant is doing her safety spiel….no one listens. They keep talking, reading or whatever, but they are not listening.

Do I think most of us need to hear the speech again? No. I just think it's incredibly rude. (props to Mom and Dad for the manners lesson).

So…I always make a show of putting away whatever I am reading and pay rapt attention. I always hope I am setting an example and others around me will follow suit.

Well, the guy I was sitting next to on this flight did not. He calmly kept reading his magazine, completely ignoring the flight attendant.

Oh, did I mention he was a United employee in full uniform?

If your employees don't get it and don't care about setting a good example, your customers never will. What rule/expectation do you need to reinforce with your employees next week?

Don’t play hide and seek with an unhappy client

September 20, 2007

Sooner or later it happens. Something goes horribly wrong. You want to crawl in a hole. Or slam your office door.

But the one thing you do not want to do to face the client.

Too bad. How you handle this disaster will say more about your brand than any marketing tactic or campaign. Zane Safrit tells a story of how he dealt with a client's event that went down the tubes in a hurry.

All too often, companies dodge the problems. Or they recite company policy when a sincere "I'm sorry" would actually heal the situation. There's no empathy. Just rhetoric. And that just won't cut it.

Do your employees understand how you want them to deal with the situation when a client is angry or disappointed? Have you not only told them but modeled the behavior?

How have you handled this in the past?

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