Archive for the 'marketing' Category

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9 Branding Tips for Small Biz

Published on March 8, 2008 in Client Magnet Archives, branding and marketing. 16 Comments

Think branding is only for large multi-national corporations? Think again. Here are 9 easy tips you can use to grow your brand with your client or customers.

  1. The design of your logo really doesn’t matter in the end. Would you choose MSN as your search engine over Google because of their logo? No. How about Dell over Apple? Audi over BMW? Delta over Southwest? Nope. Nope. Nope. Having a nice professionally designed logo is great, but it very rarely increases sales by itself. Now, before you freak out, I’m all for a professional logo. If you’re using some crappy Microsoft clipart style logo, that definitely won’t cut it. Professional logos are cheap today. It’s more important to include your logo on every piece of communication. Put it on business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, yellow page ads, building signage, newsletters, etc… It’s more important to be consistent and for it to visually represent what you want your company to stand for. If you value creativity, don’t have a logo that looks like everyone else. If you value stability, don’t have a logo that looks too fluffy and airy. Don’t “boil the ocean” trying to get it perfect. Your logo is one minor element of branding.
  2. Have a professional website. It’s not just good enough to just have a website, you must reflect your desired brand image. If your known as a top notch photographer, the last thing you want is a website designed 10 years ago. It doesn’t reflect well on you. Everyone, yes everyone, uses the web today to check references and gauge credibility. If someone recommends your service, you can almost guarantee that the prospect will go online to look for you. Your website design should be updated at least every two years to stay current. Your website is your #1 piece marketing material. Done right, it can become your best sales person–and always focus on what your client gets from working with you, not what you do.
  3. Blogs are good. Blogs help your business on multiple levels. First off, publishing valuable content on a consistent basis will make you look like an expert. People are looking for experts, not apprentices. The software that powers blogs has multiple advantages. It’s very easy to publish without technical knowledge. It’s a database driven environment where style is separate from content so you will not need to go back to your web design agency for every little change. And use of tags and sitemaps make basic search engine optimization easy. But the real reason blogs are great is that they enable conversation. Two-way dialog is much more valuable than a company that just dumps messaging and collateral on their customers.
  4. Blogs are good, but they’re just one tool. A blog should not be your sole marketing strategy. You should have a comprehensive multi-touch marketing plan to get your value proposition in front of your target audience. This can take many forms. You can launch a direct mail campaign, email campaign, host a webinar, sponsor a local event, attend a trade show, attend networking events, host seminars, cold call prospects, win awards, etc… There are a thousand different ways for you to be noticed. You need to be working at least three different marketing strategies to grow your business – referrals alone won’t get you where you want to go. Data shows that people need to be exposed to a brand at least seven times before they buy. If you simply do one touch and stop, you’re wasting valuable budget dollars and probably wondering why your efforts are not successful. There are 11 different marketing strategies that professional service firms can employ successfully. I recommend working a minimum of three separate marketing strategies all the time (more to come on this next month); this way you ensure that your audience is exposed to your message in multiple formats. It’s naive to think that a prospect will jump after seeing your marketing materials/efforts once. It typically takes 3-7 “touches” for a prospect to take action.
  5. Prepare a one page corporate overview. This one pager will be vital as a leave behind when you meet a prospect. Use short sentences in short paragraphs – people like to read quickly. Also make it very conversational; it’s not a white paper. Your one page overview should highlight that you understand the pain points of your target audience, how those pain points affect their business, the benefits gained by addressing those pains and a mini-case study – and don’t forget your contact information.
  6. Participate in local business groups/events. And by participate, I mean be on a committee. Just showing up at events is great, but you’re just a face in the crowd. Ask to be on one of the committees. Believe it or not, it’s as simple as just asking most of time. Groups are looking for volunteer help and it’s a great way to elevate your status and visibility among the entire organization.
  7. Do what you say you’re going to do. I know it may sound like common sense, but one of the primary drivers of brand loyalty is a consistent experience. If you say you’re going to have the deliverable ready on a set day, be sure its ready. Nothing leaves a bad taste in someone’s mouth like unmet expectations. Positive experiences lead to good feelings which lead to telling their friends. But don’t forget that bad experiences spread much faster and are harder to overcome – if you get a chance at all.
  8. Stand for something. People latch on to something they can understand and appreciate. If you’re trying to be everything to everybody, chances are you’ll attract no one. If you think it’s too controversial or risky choosing a niche, remember the power of being seen as an expert. Experts are not good at every thing, they’re awesome at one thing. This allows you to better position yourself and charge more for your services. People seek out (and pay more for) experts, not generalists.
  9. Realize that you’re not in control of your brand. That’s right, you only set the direction for your brand. Your actual brand image is determined by your audience. You can use these tips to ensure alignment between your desired brand image and your actual brand image in the minds of your customers. Branding isn’t a one shot deal, it’s an on-going juggling act of marketing, research and conversation. If you’re not tapping into those conversations with your audience, how do you know what their real impression of you is? How will you know how to address it? Brand growth comes from alignment. You have to ensure that your actions and marketing efforts put out the image you desire. But you cannot stop there–those are pre-sales activities that get you noticed–and hopefully bought. You also have to ensure that all actions during the sale and post-sale are positive and in line with your desired brand image. If your audience has a different view of you than you’d like, then your brand is out of alignment and you need to address it.
  10. BONUS TIP: Branding is as much about your people as anything else. Never forget that the best chances for positive brand reinforcement comes from one-on-one conversations between executives, employees, suppliers, customers and prospects. Every interaction is a chance to create, reinforce or erode brand equity. All it takes is one stupid mistake or harsh word to send it all crashing to the ground.


Unfortunately, branding is one of the most over-used and misunderstood words in business today–strategy is a close second. But, proper branding is critical to your long term success.

Effective branding is all about ensuring that your target audience feels what you want them to feel about your company and offerings. When you’re able to evoke the emotions that you want them to feel, your brand will grow and you’ll create more loyal and profitable customers. It’s not easy, but it’s what separates everyday firms from world-class firms.

PR Smackdown

Published on January 11, 2008 in marketing and social media. 0 Comments

This goes back a few weeks, but I was just turned on to it by Marketing Profs. Chris Anderson, of Long Tail and Wired fame, has finally gotten sick of PR spam artists who do not take the time to fully understand their intended audience and craft personalized messages to pitch stories.

In a pretty ballsy move, he has published a list of “offenders from the last 30 days” on his Long Tail blog. And trust me, there are some big time PR firms on the list. Calling them out is one thing, but thanks to web bots, there’s a very good chance that these email addresses will be harvested by spammers themselves. “Turnabout is fair play” according to Anderson; and I can’t say that I blame him. Even this little blog is hit daily by spammers wanting to trade links.

Just look at how many of the emails are generic addresses – pr@…, news@…, press@…, mail@… In today’s world, you have to communicate in a one-on-one manner. Target your messages towards your recipient’s goals. We’re all too busy to figure out how you can help me.

A few folks on the list have tried to defend their actions in the comments, but it’s clear. When you take the easy way out, bad things will happen sooner or later.

Excellence versus Perfection

Published on January 9, 2008 in Client Magnet Archives, marketing and strategy. 3 Comments

Michael J. Fox once said, “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.” Those words rang true as soon as I read them.

Early in my career I was a graphic designer for a local university. I was responsible for creating text books and classroom materials for the International College of Dentistry – super exciting work by the way :) . Like any job I had deadlines to meet with the editors, publishers, printers, etc… One day I caught myself going back to tweak the layout for a certain book. That particular book was printed six months earlier and currently in use in Dental Schools throughout the Middle East. But here I was futzing with margins, font spacing and the like.

Something made me stop and think about what I was doing. Why in the world was I messing with a text book that would never be reprinted? I had other things to work on, but internally I was going nuts because I knew I could do a better job than I had originally. Mind you, there was nothing wrong with the final published book. It was great. Everyone signed off on my designs and loved it. Not to mention that it was a critical component of actually training and producing dentists. It was working.

And in that moment I realized that I was a “tweaker”. My edits had nothing to do with my audience. They were strictly for my own benefit and justification. I wanted better margins simply because it was the right thing to do in my mind. Tweaking was a constant thread in my professional life for years. And to this day I still fight the urge to pull up a logo I designed nine months ago, or a strategic plan that I helped write with a client and make a few tweaks. It’s just a part of who I am.

But a few years ago I realized that tweaking was just for me – not my clients – most of the time they never saw my tweaks anyway. When I did bring my revised files to a client, they would look at me like I just handed them a moon rock. You could see it in their eyes, “What is this? Why are you bringing this to me now?”

After more than a few of those interactions, I decided that perfectionism doesn’t work for me. In fact, it was actually hurting my client relationships. They had moved on. I was obsessing. I was the crazy consultant or designer that couldn’t let go. So today, I actively strive for excellence.

Excellence is something completely different than perfection. And it took me a long time to fully understand how powerful and good simply being excellent was. For me, perfection was the top. It was it. Anything else seemed like failure. I look back now and realize how silly I was to think that being excellent meant failure.

And here’s the funny thing that all perfectionists know – perfection isn’t possible. If it isn’t possible, why keep killing ourselves to reach it? If it isn’t possible, why even think and act like it is? Why assume that nothing else will suffice? Why do we set ourselves up for a letdown?

Being excellent is attainable. It’s not always easy, but it is doable. Excellence doesn’t mean that you’re sacrificing your soul. It doesn’t mean anything other than excellent. And how can that be a bad thing?

When you strive for perfection, you shoot yourself in the foot right from the start. You’ve given yourself a goal that’s unreachable. You will never be satisfied with the end result and that creates a type of myopia. You cannot see past perfection. Perfection holds you back from reaching your true potential. It’s a constrictive way of being. Perfection costs you more than you realize.

And here’s the kicker – no one expects you to be perfect. People expect you to strive for excellence. Excellence is what people pay for. It’s what people really want from you.

Being recognized as excellent in your field is the key to success. So I encourage all of you perfectionist out there to take a few minutes and look at how your never-ending quest for perfection affects your life and relationships. Is it helping or hurting you? Are you getting what you want?

If you’re open to looking at it from another angle, ask yourself these two questions:

  1. If it were impossible to be perfect who would I prefer to be?
  2. If I could be the new way, what would things be like? What would happen?

If you’re like me, you’ll find that the new way of being is much better than the current constrictive way. Once you come to that realization, life and work take on a whole new meaning.

Like I said, I still fight the urge to tweak, but recognizing how it affects me and actively striving for excellence has allowed me to be more productive, more effective and happier. And that’s something that most New Year’s resolutions can’t beat.

BTW, There are probably spelling and/or grammar mistakes in this blog post. And that’s okay. I’ve spell checked it and I’ve re-read it and now I’m sending it. I want it to be right, but I also know that I can spend hours obsessing over every detail and it won’t go out until tomorrow or the next day. Hopefully a few grammatical errors (if you catch them) won’t keep you from thinking about what I’ve said. So here goes…

What’s the Game Plan?

Published on December 7, 2007 in Client Magnet Archives, business, management and marketing. 0 Comments

It’s funny how clearly you see in an emergency. Monday morning, after about four weeks of ear infections, our one year old son was vomiting and had a nasty bout of diarrhea. All of you parents know this can spell trouble for a little kid. We were worried enough to take him to the doctor, who promptly told us that either the antibiotics or a stomach bug had caused him to become dehydrated and that he was sending us to the hospital straight away.

Any time you check into a hospital they run a barrage of tests, they put in an IV (which let me tell you, it is a nightmare holding your infant son down so a nurse can stick him in both arms, both hands and finally a foot to get a vein), and in general people are just running around doing a lot of stuff.

My wife hates it when I do this, but I always ask, “So, what’s the game plan for our kid? What are you looking for and what does he need to do in order to go home.” I just want to know what’s going on. Unfortunately, it’s frightening how many times I was told, “The doctor knows what to do.” That’s great; I fully expect that he/she does, but can someone kindly tell me?!?!

Then for whatever reason I connected the dots between a few unrelated client and prospective clients’ conversations. For most small businesses, marketing is no different than dealing with these medical professionals. Most of the time there is no marketing game plan in a small business. If you have a written marketing plan, chances are it’s collecting dust on the shelf. Not to mention that if there is a plan, most of the time the people responsible for executing and tracking the activities don’t understand how to build individual campaigns or programs that support the grand plan or strategy. But the reality is that most small to medium sized businesses do not even have a marketing plan.

When a business owner begins to feel the pain of an economy slowing down or the referral stream starting to trickle, they always try something. They may send out a direct mail postcard to a group of clients or to a particular zip code. They may pick up the phone and start dialing for projects. They may attend a networking event and try to close everyone for an appointment. They always try something.

But guess what; that’s not a plan. That’s a one-off activity – done in desperation – that results in nothing most of the time. And then a funny thing happens, the owner will look up and say, “Well, it’s obvious that marketing doesn’t work! I tried a postcard and I went to two Chamber networking events and didn’t get a single phone call. I just wasted a few hundred bucks and a couple of evenings with my family that I can never get back.”

It didn’t work because it wasn’t done strategically. It wasn’t done as part of a greater plan to purposefully grow business. And 95% of the time, it doesn’t work because it was half-arsed. There’s no follow up; there’s no call to action; there’s nothing that tells the prospective client how you will solve their problems. It doesn’t work because it’s all about you and the desperation you feel.

Until you totally understand and internalize the principles of marketing, stop wasting your time, energy and money with tactics. There is an entire industry of promotional shops, mailing houses, and ad agencies that love to “get your name in front of your audience.” You might as well throw your money out of the window. I’m not saying that promotional items, direct mail and marketing communications won’t work. They work great when used strategically as part of your overall marketing game plan. But YOU have to own that. You cannot expect an outside agency to give you a plan for your business.

You have to understand who you are, what your strengths are, where you’re going, what your client’s struggle with, what it would be like for them to solve their issues, and how you’re best equipped to do so.

There are thousands, if not millions, of marketing tactics that you can employee to grow your business. But if those tactics are not founded in Seven Marketing Principles AND if they are not aligned with your marketing game plan, you’re putting success at risk.

By the way, you can download the Seven Principles of Marketing article by filling out the form in the right hand sidebar (sorry, all you RSS readers will need to click here).

What do you do?

Published on November 6, 2007 in Client Magnet Archives, branding, entrepreneur and marketing. 3 Comments

No matter where you go – especially in America – one of the first questions out of the mouth of a new connection is, “What do you do”. And if you’re like the vast majority of people you answer with something along the lines of:

  • I’m an engineer
  • I’m an attorney
  • I own a few restaurants
  • I’m a consultant
  • I’m a doctor
  • I’m a graphic designer
  • I’m an architect
  • I work for Acme Company – we make widgets

This response is what I call your “label”. It has very little to do with what you actually do. It’s just the quickest path to make a solid connection – or so we think.

Labels are like stereotypes. Right or wrong, we all have an internal definition of engineer, doctor, lawyer, marketing VP, accountant, attorney, consultant, etc… Think about it for a minute. What do you think of when you hear those labels above. How many of those labels come with built-in negative connotations? Which label am I talking about when I say nerdy, pocket protector, unfashionable, geek? What label am I talking about when I say expensive, elitist, necessary evil?

How many lawyer jokes have you heard? Doctors are commonly referred to as “quacks”. Is this the first impression you want to give?

With initial introductions like this, is it any wonder that most people struggle to see the business benefit in networking? If you lead with your label, you’re not controlling the recipient’s impression. You’re relying on their internal stereotype for where they place you. And how does anyone rank a bunch of attorneys or advertising execs when they all say the same thing?

In order to regain control of the conversation, stop using your label and start using the formula below:

I work with (target audience) who struggle with (issue/challenge).

THEN STOP! DO NOT SAY ANYTHING ELSE!

This short and sweet formula is the beginning of revolutionizing your marketing efforts. In order for this to work, you must have a clear understanding of who your target audience is and their #1 struggle related to your business.

With this answer, you’ll get interest and excitement instead of glazed over eyes. By using this formula it forces the recipient to look at you differently. It forces them to make a decision on what to do next.

Let them make a decision with their response. Now that they have an informed perception of you, they know what to say next. They may need your services personally; or they may know someone that needs your services. But either way, they’re taking the next step with you.

Let’s look a few examples:

In a room full of doctors, “I work with women in their 40’s who struggle getting pregnant.”

Advertising/branding, “I work with Fortune 500 companies that are currently “Challenger Brands” and want to become household names.”

Legal, “I help someone of the verge of divorce ensure that he/she gets her fair share of the assets.

HR consultant, “My company works with executives from the world’s largest hospitals who are pulling their hair out because they cannot keep good nurses.”

Financial consultant, “I help people with six figure incomes put their children through university without paying through the nose in taxes or eating up their savings.”

You can see the difference (and power) in the formula. If you’re at all interested in what that person is offering, you perk right up. Now you’re viewed as a problem solver, not just a label. No one needs another label working with them.

Like I said before, this does require that you have and understand your target audience. For most business owners, this is the hardest part. I just wrote a blog post on Fast Company’s site about the benefits of niche marketing that’s right in line with this.

Wrap Up:

Ultimately, a strong elevator pitch or 30 second commercial is what separates you from the pack. Like all effective marketing touch points, if it’s focused on your client & their issues – instead of you and your offerings – you’ll be in good shape.

Coming soon… Age of Conversation Book

Published on July 10, 2007 in branding, marketing and social marketing. 0 Comments

A few weeks back, I mentioned that I’d been asked to contribute a chapter to an upcoming book, The Age of Conversation, dedicated to conversation as a marketing strategy. As anyone active in the blogosphere (or modern marketing circles) knows, conversations are the cornerstone of social marketing.

I’m proud to have been a part of this book project.

As ordering information becomes available, I’ll let you know.

Here are some of the details…

age_conversation_cover.jpg

Launch date: Monday, July 16th

Formats/Prices:
Hardbacks $29.99
Paperbacks $16.95
E-book $9.99

All proceeds from all book sales will be donated to Variety, the Children’s Charity. We’ll also be setting up a way for people to donate more than the of the book price, if they choose to. We’ll be designating the funds to the native countries of our authors.

Here’s a list of the contributing authors:

Gavin Heaton
Drew McLellan
CK
Valeria Maltoni
Emily Reed
Katie Chatfield
Greg Verdino
Mack Collier
Lewis Green
Sacrum
Ann Handley
Mike Sansone
Paul McEnany
Roger von Oech
Anna Farmery
David Armano
Bob Glaza
Mark Goren
Matt Dickman
Scott Monty
Richard Huntington
Cam Beck
David Reich
Mindblob (Luc)
Sean Howard
Tim Jackson
Patrick Schaber
Roberta Rosenberg
Uwe Hook
Tony D. Clark
Todd Andrlik
Toby Bloomberg
Steve Woodruff
Steve Bannister
Steve Roesler
Stanley Johnson
Spike Jones
Nathan Snell
Simon Payn
Ryan Rasmussen
Ron Shevlin
Roger Anderson
Bob Hruzek
Rishi Desai
Phil Gerbyshak
Peter Corbett
Pete Deutschman
Nick Rice
Nick Wright
Mitch Joel
Michael Morton
Mark Earls
Mark Blair
Mario Vellandi
Lori Magno
Kristin Gorski
Krishna De
Kris Hoet
Kofl Annan
Kimberly Dawn Wells
Karl Long
Julie Fleischer
Jordan Behan
John La Grou
Joe Raasch
Jim Kukral
Jessica Hagy
Janet Green
Jamey Shiels
Dr. Graham Hill
Gia Facchini
Geert Desager
Gaurav Mishra
Gary Schoeniger
Gareth Kay
Faris Yakob
Emily Clasper
Ed Cotton
Dustin Jacobsen
Tom Clifford
David Pollinchock
David Koopmans
David Brazeal
David Berkowitz
Carolyn Manning
Craig Wilson
Cord Silverstein
Connie Reece
Colin McKay
Chris Corrigan
Cedric Giorgi
Becky Carroll
Arun Rajagopal
Andy Nulman
Amy Jussel
Kim Klaver
Sandy Renshaw
Susan Bird
Ryan Barrett
Troy Worman

Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’shea is on his way

Published on July 6, 2007 in architecture, design, marketing and misc. 1 Comment

Well, today is my last day at Cre8tive Group. 18 months ago I was presented w/ an opportunity to choose between staying in big business Corporate America or jumping to a small business and now I know I made the right decision.

Not only do small businesses dominate the economy and the job market, there is almost unlimited room for growth and professional development opportunities that are simply not available to most employees in a Fortune 500 organization. That said, I also learned a tremendous amount during my days in Corporate America, but I believe I’ve found my heart in small business. And that comes in no small part from Cre8tive Group. It is with both anticipation and sadness that I move into the next phase of my career. I will truly miss the people (and clients) of Cre8tive Group. They are a wonderful, caring group that has meant a lot to me over the years. The growth over the last few quarters is only one indication of the great things to come for Cre8tive.

So, it is with great joy that I announce that I’m joining EOP Architects as their Director of Marketing. This firm is widely considered to be the best design-focused firm in the area. They design and build some of the most inspiring structures around and I’m proud to bring my marketing and branding expertise to bear on their behalf. I honestly believe that once more people are aware and turned on to what EOP is capable of, explosive growth is will be inevitable. The partners are great and I cannot wait to meet and learn more about the staff.

This blog will remain the same. I have not been able to devote as much time to it as I’d like recently. But I do hope to be able to continue to provide practical results-oriented marketing commentary. Blogging has developed into one of my passions and I’ve met some wonderful people online. I hope to to use this as a platform to document and transfer practical marketing knowledge as I apply it w/ EOP.

So, I’ll probably add an “Architecture” category as I learn more about the space. Like most design people, I’m intrigued by architecture and I believe that it is one of the few design disciplines that truly has the ability to shape culture and make a direct impact on society.

I’m excited about this new opportunity and hope you are as well. And lastly, I have to thank Dr. Seuss for one of the best motivational and inspiring books I’ve ever read (note the title of this post). “Oh the Place You’ll Go” has always been a guiding force for me – and I’m reading it to my daughter almost nightly hoping that that the positivity and reality will set deeply within her.

So with that, I’m off to EOP. Talk to you soon.

5 Ways to Join the Conversation Economy

Published on April 27, 2007 in marketing, social media and strategy. 3 Comments

It’s no secret that the web is moving to a conversation platform. That’s one of the major check boxes for all “Web 2.0” apps online. You can have a 2.0 look (big fonts, clean simple design, and gradient color buttons), but to truly be 2.0 you have to build your site around information sharing and user contribution.

Well that’s easy to do if you’re a start-up. But what’s the benefit to Fortune 500 companies that are decades or centuries old? It’s hard to wrap your head around this paradigm shift if you’ve been pushing information out to your customers for the last 20+ years. In the old model, a company would buy enough airtime and/or print advertising to throw their message out in the market. It was a shotgun approach in the purest sense. Even as media-scarcity began to evaporate (think cable TV versus network or niche magazines versus the NY Times), new targeting models came about to direct budget dollars to more appropriate mediums. But it’s was still a one way conversation. Focus groups and the occasional talk to a sales person became the primary method of hearing what was going on with customers.

Today, we understand the world has changed. The TV industrial complex is all but gone. That’s not to say that no one will ever advertise on TV again; but we now understand that the expense to do so rarely generates a worthwhile return on budget dollars. There’s only one true mass market TV event – the SuperBowl – and that has pretty much sucked from an advertising point of view for the last few years.

The music industry is falling apart. Why would a band sell their souls to a record label when they can get online distribution on their own? When was the last time you walked into a CD or record store and bought something? The world has changed.

Ten years ago we had no idea what Amazon and eBay would do the marketplace. They built systems around trust – not to mention the innovations around warehousing, shipping and distribution. Trust comes from real people giving recommendations, ratings, comments and reviews. That’s not a new concept. The difference is that today, it’s enabled by high speed web technology.

So where do you start? How do you get on the bus? Whoa, slow down a sec. You don’t think you need to be on that bus? Well, if you don’t you’ll continue to see your profit slip. You’ll continue to get bashed on Technorati (didn’t know that was happening did you?). You’ll continue to look for ways to cut costs instead of grow revenue. And you’ll continue to feel the seismic shift underfoot until you fall in the crack. The world has changed. Consumers want, and sometimes demand, to participate in your brand – your half of the conversation.

So, here are my five ways you can start to revamp your business around the conversational economy/web:

  1. Make it easy for consumers to talk about you – good and bad.
    If you sell products or services, let users submit testimonials, reviews and ratings on your site. If you’re making good products or selling valuable services, you shouldn’t have to worry because you’ll see glowing reviews. If not, you’ve most likely found the source of your profitability or market share issues.
  2. Customers are always right.
    Even when they’re wrong, in their heads, they’re right. You have an opportunity to educate them; but at the end of the day, they choose whether to stay with you or leave. You cannot control that. How you handle the education part makes a big difference in their decision.
  3. Stop trying to please everyone.
    Make an awesome product for one segment. Dominate that group of users. Turn them into your biggest advocates. When you try to make something for everyone, you end up with mush. Think Apple. The only way to survive the conversational web or economy is to have people talking about you. They can either love you or hate you, but if you’re stuck in the middle, you’re toast.
  4. Understand that each and every customer counts.
    Like Chris Anderson said, “the ants have megaphones.” You have to recognize vocal supporters and address vocal critics. One bad review by an influential blogger and you’ve lost a lot of opportunities and credibility in the marketplace. People don’t trust mass media. They trust people like themselves. If you feel like addressing individual users is too much hassle, you now see how far you have to come to truly participate in the new marketplace.
  5. Do something worth conversation.
    I’m not talking about a press stunt. I’m talking about developing offerings that people love. I’m talking about delivering customers service that is delightfully unexpected. Simply meeting expectations doesn’t count anymore. There are too many options to pick from. That mentality comes from a scarcity mindset and we live in an abundant world. Create joy. Make a difference. Get people talking.

Customers have always talked about brands, products and services. Today, through web technology, they can influence 100X the number of people with very little time and effort. It’s just a few keystrokes after all. Consumers have always owned the brand of businesses they interact with. Today they control the brand. Conversation is the key – true two-way conversation. Stop pushing content out. Starting interacting and engaging with your audience. Your eyes and ears will be opened and you’ll benefit and create loyalty if you do it right.

(adapted from my Fast Company blog post earlier this week)

Giving college grads a fighting chance

Published on March 13, 2007 in marketing and misc. 1 Comment

Drew McLellan of the marketing minute asked me to submit a few words to college grads reading his blog. He has a long fruitful list of advice from bloggers on what to expect in the real world. I submitted my thoughts, and hope you do the same.

Keep up the good work Drew!

Who cares about plain text emails?

Published on March 3, 2007 in business, marketing and strategy. 0 Comments

Found this great post at AWeber Communications on HTML versus text only emails.

There are some good comments (including my own, if I might add) on the benefits and disadvantages of both email formats. At Cre8tive, we typically will send both versions automatically and let the recipient’s server decide which version is appropriate. With Microsoft Outlook 2007 coming, the rules around HTML email coding have changed a bit. With the new version, Outlook will use MS Word as it’s HTML rendering engine instead of Internet Explorer. It does affect how you need to program and layout your HTML emails. You need to be aware of the new rules and issues. Here are the reasons behind the change.

The good thing about text only versions is that they are super stable. You don’t have to worry about horizontal or vertical viewing panes or images being disabled or your CSS/table layout being screwed up. It just works. Unfortunately, it’s not as trackable as the HTML version – but you can track all external links to your mini-site or landing page. And once on your website, you have the full benefits of your installed analytics engine to take care of the tracking details.

I recommend sending both. And in each version, include a full link to a web version as well. And like all good marketing efforts; test, evaluate, tweak, rinse and repeat. The beauty of email marketing is the immediate feedback and the cost effective nature. It allows very easy A/B testing, personalization and ROI tracking. It’s a great way to stay in front of your customers while offering a lot of value in a small package.