Monthly Archives: April 2012

The Naked Truth About Brands

April 25, 2012 – 6:08 pm

This week, I’m going to get all lazy and slothful and point you to an article of mine that was posted earlier this week on Tory Johnson’s Spark & Hustle site. Click on over and enjoy–I’ll be right back here next week with a fresh one for ya!

The Naked Truth About Brands

When is the last time you took a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror—naked?

Not an activity you schedule on a weekly basis, I bet. Let’s face it: Nobody really wants to have to scrutinize and think about every bump and curve over and over again. Other than the quickly abandoned New Year’s Day resolutions we all make each year, we pretty much figure out what our bodies are up to, and let it go at that.

Oddly enough, the same often goes for our branding. >>Read more at http://sparkandhustle.com/takeaway-tips/the-naked-truth-about-brands/

 

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Tick, Tick, Tick. . .BOOM

April 19, 2012 – 11:05 pm

You may be a startup, or an established business of any size. You have a healthy pool of competitors, but you’re holding your own. You may be in a niche wherein some or all of the income you’re generating is steady, but somewhat passive in nature.

Your web site isn’t really much better or worse than your competition; in fact, just about every player on the field has a pretty weak online presence, so you’re OK for now. . .right?

Nope.

Have you seen anyone under the age of 80 flipping through the Yellow Pages lately? Of course not, because that thang we call the interwebz has superseded it as the go-to place for information on products, services, and who Kim Kardashian is (or is not) dating this week.

A web redesign is a big undertaking, yeah; it’s no mystery why companies don’t get excited over the thought of re-tooling and re–launching their web presences. But, like giving it up to the IRS for payroll taxes every year, it’s just a part of doing business—and one that can come back to bite you in the heinie if you’re not careful.

Web content strategies today have shifted dramatically, no longer focusing just on basic product and service information. Today, a corporate web presence does much more heavy lifting, developing deep-dive relationships, delivering business value, and driving repeat traffic.

How long do you think it will be before one of your equally complacent competitors wakes up and smells the opportunity? If you don’t step up and take the lead with your web presence, someone else will do it―and it can happen literally overnight. And if someone else makes a move before you do, you can kiss much of that comfortable market share of yours goodbye, right on the lips.

That ticking sound you hear? That’s the alarm clock that will soon be going off next to your competitor’s head. So at the moment, the opportunity is yours: Dust off your web site and the standard now. If you aren’t first-to-market with what your customer really needs, you’ll have to play catch-up to your competition. And nobody remembers the company that was second-to-market, do they?

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Girls! Girls! Girls!

April 11, 2012 – 11:27 pm

Take a look at your marketing copy. Read over your web site, your social media posts, your case studies, and your customer newsletter. Better yet, have someone else read them out loud to you—preferably a woman.

Do those words sound weird coming out of her mouth? Hmm.

Some things die hard, and one of last great hangers-on of the Old-Boy Network years seems to be marketing copy that’s clearly written for those who pee standing up. With the number of women in the C-suite growing every day, maybe it’s time to think about how to talk to the female BDM.

Marketing to women isn’t new; for generations, legions of (largely male) marketers have targeted women with specific types of campaigns. Prior to the women’s movement of the 1970s, major corporations worked to persuade housewives to buy certain brands of floor wax, detergent, and breakfast cereal. When women began emerging in the workforce, cigarettes, panty hose, and designer clothing began popping up.

Today, we have women at the helm of organizations like Yahoo, PepsiCo, and Xerox, with more just like them on their way up. Take a look in your customer database; how many women are you (or SHOULD you be) marketing to?

Need to get started marketing to the women in your (work) life? Here are some tips:

  1. Forget about marketing to women. Instead market to your woman. That’s right: incorporate a targeted female decision maker into your audience mix. She’s not just any woman; she’s the specific type of woman you want to reach.
  2. Don’t just water down your message and call it good. Your target women do not just want the “lite” version of the messaging you serve up to their male counterparts. If you don’t “get” them, they will know it—and they’ll move on.
  3. Quality and value make an impression. When women become engaged with a quality brand, they are willing to pay for it, and they remain loyal.
  4. Pastels are passé. Women don’t respond to campaigns splashed with colors and images suitable for a 1974 feminine hygiene ad. Give them a look and feel of strength, confidence, and capability that they can relate to.

Women are a market force today, and if you’re smart, you’ll make sure you’re marketing to all of your customers, not just the boys’ club.

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No Solicitors

April 6, 2012 – 11:50 pm

I just had the lovely experience of dealing with a very aggressive door-to-door window salesperson. She completely disregarded the very prominent “No Solicitors” sign next to the front door, and banged on it repeatedly. By the time I came up the stairs from my office, crated the large, wildly barking dog, and got the door open, I was really in no mood to hear what she wanted to say.

Words were exchanged.

So after I got back to my office and finished being irritated (well, sort of) at the obnoxious window woman, I started thinking about her marketing technique. If she goes all around the neighborhood, insisting on knocking at doors with “No Solicitors” signs near them, how much is she realistically gonna sell?

If you’re selling to people who don’t want to buy, you’re doomed.

The issue here, as it is for many companies, is target market. So many organizations, in their rush to market, completely forget to think strategically. Not about to whom they wish to sell (note classy and correct  use of “to whom.” Thanks, Mr. Georges!), but rather about who actually wants to buy their offering.

Messaging 101: Discover who wants what you’re selling, and determine which of their problems your product or service will solve. Figure out what they need to know about it.

Then speak specifically to those people, in places they congregate (Twitter, Facebook, industry conferences—or in the case of the hot-tub industry, the county fair). Sales are easy, if you’re selling to someone who wants to buy—and there are more of those folks out there than many realize. Big, broad campaigns can waste time and money, and completely overlook the highly targeted group of people standing by with their wallets open.

I just hope she’s not on straight commission.

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