Marketing

Marketing Tips from a Marketing Agency: Make the invisible visible

April 26, 2007

It would only stand to reason that a marketing & branding agency would be pretty good at branding and marketing itself.

So I thought it might be fun to explore some branding & marketing concepts using our own agency, McLellan Marketing Group, as the guinea pig.

Make the invisible visible

Let’s face it — there are many elements of business that are pretty ordinary.  Not only are they ordinary but 99% of businesses do them the same way. 

Think of all the communication elements that you pretty much ignore because everyone’s looks and behaves the same.  Posted hours of operation, fax cover sheets, privacy disclaimers, e-mail signatures.  And on and on the list goes.  We’re so used to them being ordinary that, as consumers, we don’t even notice them.

Which makes them invisible.

A smart marketer will use the element of surprise and make the invisible visible.  An agency friend of ours in Denver (AOR) sends out a quarterly newsletter.  At the bottom of the newsletter, just like everyone else, they have a privacy disclaimer.  But theirs reads something like:

We’ll never sell or give your e-mail address to anyone.  Because that wouldn’t be nice.

They turned the invisible visible and gave us a hint of what working with them might be like. 

At MMG, one of the invisible things we make visible is our titles.  Could I be CEO or President?  Sure.  But yawn.

But by being the Top Dog, suddenly we’re visible.  When was the last time someone looked at your business card and make a comment?  It happens to all of us at MMG every day.  Along with the Top Dog, some of the present and past MMG titles have been:

The Warden (are you going to risk not giving her your time sheets?)
Girl Wonder
Sgt. of Strategy
Brandologist
Chaos Curator
Conductor
Go To Guy
Dr. Designo

Do our titles say much more about the agency, our work style and our attitude than CEO, CFO, Art Director, etc. would say?

What’s invisible in your world that you could make visible?

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Marketing Tips from a Marketing Agency: Be a drip

April 25, 2007

It would only stands to reason that a marketing & branding agency would be pretty good at branding and marketing itself.

So I thought it might be fun to explore some branding & marketing concepts using our own agency, McLellan Marketing Group, as the guinea pig.

Be A Drip

The natural urge it seems is to deluge our potential consumers with information. How often have you seen one of these:

• A brochure with no white space and so much copy that your eyes blur
• A company who explodes onto the marketplace and you see them everywhere – TV, radio, print for about 2 months…and then you never hear of them again
• An e-mail campaign that floods your in box with multiple messages in a short period of time
• A 12-page newsletter (white space or no)
• A corporate website’s homepage that is packed with copy, starbursts and news items galore

Some marketers are compelled to shove as much information at their consumers as possible.  Perhaps it’s a concern that they’ll only get one shot at them.  Or the misconception that if they don’t explain every nuance of their product/service, the audience won’t get it.

I think in most cases, it’s a mix of insecurity and not really understanding the audience.  It’s as though they’re saying "I’m not confident in knowing what my audience needs/wants to know and I don’t trust my own instincts…so I am going to throw everything but the kitchen sink at them."

Bad marketing strategy.

Here’s the analogy we use to help clients understand this concept.  When there’s a hard, driving rain, the ground can only absorb so much of it before the water just runs off.  Consumers are the same way.  They can only absorb so much information before our well-crafted words just run off, falling on deaf ears.

But a gentle all-day rain has a different result.  Because of its slow and steady pace, the ground can easily, over time, absorb all the water that comes.

We need to be a drip, not a downpour when it comes to our marketing efforts.  Want an example?

Since 1999 at MMG we’ve been producing a weekly marketing e-newsletter called (wait for it…) the Marketing Minute.  Never more than 300 words and a few links.  Drip, drip.

Every week.  We’ve never let anything keep us from getting it out.  Not kidney stones, internet connection problems, or client deadlines.  Drip, drip.

People have said we should charge for it or discourage people forwarding it along.  Never going to happen.  Drip, drip.

We’ve had some readers for over 8 years. We get new additions every week.  Drip, drip.

We’ve gotten RFPs and business from subscribers 2, 3 and 4 years after they started reading it. They hadn’t needed us or been in a position to hire us until then.  Drip, drip.

How can you be a drip when it comes to marketing your company?

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How to use informal surveys to generate some buzz

April 14, 2007

People are very curious about each other. Which is why the media loves surveys.

Surveys needn’t be massive, scientifically rigorous affairs to generate buzz for you. There is definitely a proper time and place for quality market research. But, in this case, I’m talking about just polling your customers with an interesting question that does not have an obvious answer so you can create some buzz.

Wonder how you could adapt it to your profession?  Let’s try a couple.

Photographer:   "If you could take only one of your photos with you before evacuating your home, which one would you choose?"

Restaurant owner:   "Do you count calories when you go out to eat?"

Computer consultant: “Do you ever talk to your computers (cursing and coaxing included!)

If nothing else, it’s great for newsletter filler, blog post, bag stuffer or a bill insert, etc.  It will spark a conversation with your customers and who knows, you might even uncover an idea for a new offering!

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Don Imus: The dark side of citizen marketing?

April 13, 2007

Let me cut to the chase.

I have never listened to Don Imus.  I could care less what he says.  I could care less if he got to keep his job or not.  Do I think he’s a boorish pig, based on what he said about the Rutgers basketball team?  Sure.  But he certainly does not hold exclusive rights to that label. 

To me, all of that is irrelevant.

Because the issue isn’t Don Imus.  It isn’t racism.  Or political correctness.  Or respecting women.  If it were about those issues, most of the shock jocks and reality TV producers would also have lost their jobs yesterday.

Imus isn’t the worst of them…he’s just one of them.

What matters in the Imus firing is who fired the fatal shot.  And why.

We’re experiencing the birth of a new era – Citizen Marketing. We’ve all celebrated it.  But perhaps that is only half the story.

In the old days, the power rested in the hands of a few.  The zookeepers, or the sellers, ran the zoo.  They decided what the animals ate, which animals were in the petting zoo and what the hours of operation were.  It was at best, a very paternal relationship.  At worst, it was a one-sided dictatorship.

But today, the chimpanzees have the keys.  And in this early phase of this marketplace shift, where the buyers are actually the ones in power, it’s more than a little chaotic.  There are no rules.  Bananas on tap 24 hours a day! 

On the good side – the chimpanzees’ exuberance can be very contagious and they can encourage/force the zookeepers to be better at their job, just to keep up with them. 

But because there are no rules, the chimpanzees can also just as easily decide to pick on a particular zookeeper and fling feces at him.  And because there are so many of them and because human nature says, "join the crowd," once a few of the chimpanzees start tossing poop, many of the other chimpanzees join in.  Without really stopping to understand why. Mob mentality flashes hot and bright. And reason rarely has a starring role.  That doesn’t mean the mob is always wrong.  But it does suggest that the firestorm doesn’t allow for a lot of introspection or consideration.

Let’s face it.  Don Imus earned ratings and advertisers because he was a boorish pig.  And the chimpanzees (in this case…advertisers and the target audiences of those advertisers) rewarded him by buying more advertising, giving him a more prestigious time slot, more guest appearances, more fame, etc. etc.

I am also quite sure that the Rutgers comment was not Don’s first racist or sexist comment.  I’m even willing to bet that some things he has said in the past were even more hurtful and offensive to some.   But the chimpanzees screeched and hooted, loving his antics.

Until one day, a few chimpanzees didn’t like what he said.  Who knows why.  He was shooting off his mouth saying vulgar things, like they had trained him to do.  But for whatever reason, this particular statement got everyone’s attention.  And the chimpanzees started making a different kind of noise.  And throwing feces.  Pretty soon, they were making enough noise that others noticed.  And joined in.  And pretty soon, the only way to calm the chimpanzees was to get the zookeeper out of there.

And its not just Imus.

A story about an American Girl store and a 6 year-old’s Target doll garners over 409,000 Google results in less than a month. 

A story about a blogger who received death threats now has an excess of 553,000 Google results, A CNN appearance, and professional and personal lives altered forever. 

Mob mentality.  Good or bad.  Right or wrong.  Who knows?

Who will the chimpanzees go after next? A good guy?  A bad guy? Your favorite brand?  Your company?

Should Don Imus have been fired?  I have no idea.  The truth is, he’ll have another gig in less than a month and we’ll chalk this up to, "well, that’s Imus."  And he’ll still be a boorish pig.

It doesn’t matter.  What matters is that we need to understand that just like there was a good and a bad side to the zookeepers being in charge, there’s a dark side to citizen-driven marketing as well.  It’s a glorious day at the zoo until the chimpanzees start tossing the feces in your direction.

We are the citizens of citizen marketing.  We’re going to set the course. 

Unless of course, we get swept up into the mob.

Flickr photo courtesy of jj_mac

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Do you have a brand inferiority complex?

April 10, 2007

Weasel words.  At McLellan Marketing Group, we use that term for the buzz words that people use when they don’t know what to say.  It’s almost like a magician’s slight of hand.  If I use these words, you won’t recognize that I’m not really saying anything.

Yesterday, I held up a mission statement that sounds like thousands of mission statements on corporate walls across the business world.  Word like "market leader" and "exemplary service" are pretty but meaningless.

David Reich adds food for thought in his post Ban the E-Word.  David points to the overuse of the word engagement and how it used to be a word that had meaning.  But now its been tossed on the pile with empowerment, paradigm and innovation.

Contrast those weasel words with this simple but meaning packed sentence. It comes from the values statement of one of our clients (they wrote these themselves, so we’re not patting ourselves on the back.) 

"Fun provides energy for success."  I not only understood every word…but it gives me a sense of who they are.  And what they’d be like to work with.

I think people use weasel words because they are at a loss.  They feel like they need to fill space or deflect our attention.  Or that somehow we won’t think they’re legit if they talk like regular people.  They’re afraid they won’t measure up.  They won’t be good enough.

They have a brand inferiority complex.

Mark True brings this point home in his elegant post Is Your Brand Sincere.  Mark talks about how a sincere brand is not a perfect brand.  And in fact, sincerity begs us to show the cracks along with the beauty.

Are you confident enough in your brand to let us see the cracks?

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Here’s to the Age of Conversation

April 6, 2007

Here’s how it all happened.

I posted about a project called We Are Smarter than Me which gives people a chance to help author a guest book.

In the comments of that post Gavin Heaton said “Great concept! And it sounds like it could be fun … but you know what, Drew? I reckon between a few of us we could knock out a short book…All we need is a theme and a charity …”

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Bloggers sharing for profit — the next wave?

April 6, 2007

After only two months of blogging, one of the best things I’ve noticed is how sharing and supportive most bloggers are.  They’re eager to help others get noticed and read through tipping, links and kind references.  There seems to be very little ego in the marketing blogosphere.

So it doesn’t surprise me that Drew, on getting his 1,000th comment at Drew’s Marketing Minute, would invite the author of that comment to write a guest post.  What a wonderful and generous way to mark a milestone.  And how fortunate for me that the 1,000th comment happened to be mine.

Drew’s invitation is typical of the sharing mindset that is pervasive throughout the marketing blogosphere.  I think it’s a major reason so many of us become active bloggers.

But what do you do when someone asks you to share information when it’s for their commercial gain? 

As blogs are becoming recognized by marketers as an important form of social media that can influence and motivate, public relations and advertising agencies are starting to pitch bloggers, in hopes of gaining write-ups about their clients’ products and services.  Since blogs are such personal forms of mass communications, marketers realize they can be powerful persuaders.

In the past several days, I received my first two pitches from PR people.  Each represents a different end of the spectrum of professionalism.

My first pitch came from Harley Jebens at Click Here, a Dallas interactive marketing agency where our blogging friend Cam Beck works.  Harley’s email to me was simple, straightforward and professional – he identified himself and his agency and said he was attaching information on a campaign my readers might find of interest.  No hype – no obnoxious push.  A news release and website were attached, if I wanted more info, along with a promise to answer any questions if I gave him a call or email.

Although I have no interest in talking about The MySpace page for the Travelocity Roaming Gnome  it was a professional pitch and my compliments to Harley for a good try.

The second pitch came from a book publisher’s PR department.  It was an email full of hyperbole about a book unrelated to anything I write about. In the email, the publicist tells me (not asks) that it’s something my readers will want to know about.  How could she know that if, obviously, she hadn’t done her homework by looking at my blog.  It wasn’t even addressed to me by name; it said Dear Blogger.  The pitch told me where to buy the book.  (You want me to write about your product and you won’t send or offer to send me a review copy?  Thanks a lot.)

In the 30 years I’ve been doing public relations at agencies large and small, including my own firm for the past 15, I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t.   The second pitch method does not work.  It wouldn’t work if I were pitching a writer at a newspaper or magazine, and it won’t work to get into a blog.   

I approached several bloggers on a client’s behalf for the first time back in January.  After researching to find blogs on parenting, I viewed as many as I could, to get an idea of what they write about.  I emailed the authors, with an approach similar to what Harley did when he pitched me – honest, transparent, not pushy.

The response was encouraging.  Most responded by asking questions and/or asking to talk with my client before they told their readers about the product.  Some took me up on my offer to send a product sample.  One blogger asked me to have my client post a comment on her blog, talking about the product.  A few didn’t respond and probably chose not to talk about the item.  Overall, the client got some positive reviews and  spirited discussion of the product’s merits in comments.

Key is that the approach was done gently and professionally, with full disclosure and no deception or trickery.  No attempt to sneak onto a blog by posting a "sell" as a comment, as I saw tried just this week on two blogs.  (One of the bloggers was annoyed and quickly deleted the comment.  Lucky for the offending PR person that he didn’t choose instead to blast the product being pitched.)

You may have already been pitched by a PR person.  If not, I bet you will in the coming year as the PR profession discovers the blogosphere.  How bloggers are treated by marketers and their public relations representatives seeking to use their channels of communication will make a difference, since, ultimately, the decision will be yours as to what you care to share with your readers. 

How would you prefer to be pitched?

~ David Reich, My 2 Cents

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Eye tracking study yields surprising results for bloggers

April 4, 2007

The Poynter Institute wanted to take a scientific look at how people read news and if there was a difference when the news was presented in an online, tabloid or broadsheet format. 

It’s the largest study they’ve ever done and is the first time they’ve compared both print and online media.

The Institute just released the results of their EyeTrack07 study.

Here are some findings that will not be a surprise:

• People are drawn to alternative story forms like Q&A’s, timelines, sidebars and lists
• Photos get a lot of attention in print
• Real photos got more attention than staged or studio photographs

Here’s the surprise:

The largest percentage of story text read was in the online format.

• 77% online
• 62% in broadsheet
• 57% in tabloid

And…nearly two-thirds of online readers, once they selected an item to read, read ALL of the text.

Interestingly, the study was partially funded by mainstream print newspapers. You can download a teaser of the research results.  They’ll also be selling the full results in mid-April.

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Is branding only an external activity?

April 1, 2007

The answer is no. 

In fact…as a business owner or leader, you should be branding your organization to your employees every day.  There is no audience more important to your brand’s success.

But all too often, its internal communication budgets that get cut. Or leadership consistently says one thing and then does another — losing credibility and trust.

If you want to learn how to lead an employee-centric company, you only need to go to one blog to learn the ropes.  Anna Farmery of The Engaging Brand focuses on how to inspire your employees to help you deliver the brand promise to your clients.  Her posts on leadership, retaining employees and her podcast series are packed with gems you can put to immediate use.

Last week, I had the incredible good fortune to speak to Anna on the phone.  We talked about how the relationship between the employer and the employee is experiencing a power shift, just like the one we’re seeing between customers and companies.  We also talked about recruiting, generational differences and a whole lot more.

Anna captured our conversation and I’m very proud to be the voice of Show #73 of the Engaging Brand podcast series — Secrets of a Great Employer.

Go over and take a listen.  And while you are there — bask in the smarts of Anna Farmery.

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Turn things upside down: How to get your customers to talk about you

March 28, 2007

Want your customers to create some buzz for you?  Turn something upside down. 

We find comfort in conformity.  The "it always happens this way" comfort.  Which is exactly why we can’t stop ourselves from talking when someone flips things on us.

 

Phil Romano, the founder of Romano Concepts and Eatzi’s Market & Bakery, understood this. His place was always packed on Mondays and Tuesdays, which is normally a dead night for restaurants.

How’d he do it?

On a randomly chosen Monday or Tuesday, 200+ customers received a letter instead of a bill. The letter stated that because the restaurant’s mission was to make people feel like guests – it didn’t seem right to charge them for their food. Once a month, unannounced, this happened.

He comped meals one night a month, but he had a full house eight nights a month when all the other restaurants in town were empty. And, he got all of that word of mouth advertising for free!

What could you turn upside down?

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