Get real (Seth Godin part 1)

Seth Godin’s name keeps popping up. It was maybe 18 months ago the first time I heard his name in an email newsletter from someone. A few months ago, I listened to a podcast he did on the evolution of broadcasting. A few weeks ago, my wife and I were perusing a bookstore/coffee shop on a Saturday night and I read about 1/2 of one of his books. 10 days ago I went to the library to read the rest of the book, and while it wasn’t available, I checked out another of Seth’s books.

Well, over the weekend I stumbled across the website TED.com, and found the following video. Either now, or sometime in the very near future when you have 18 minutes, come back here and watch the video:

The Big Picture

The following article talks about marketing as “The Big Picture” and how the various elements need to work together. An interesting read. And you’re welcome.

How to Be a More Creative Marketer in Four Easy Steps
It’s Less About Advertising and More About Whole-Brand Identity

By Teressa Iezzi

Published: October 22, 2007
Once a year, Creativity goes for a power walk in Ad Age’s wingtips for the making of our creative-marketers issue. The marketers report showcases the ideas and opinions of brand leaders who have demonstrated, in our estimation, a grasp of creativity in some form or other. So what’s a creative marketer? Our list over the past few years has included communications success stories, certainly, but more and more the companies that land on the list seem to be less about advertising and more about whole-brand identity. The report is lousy this year with companies born from a singular idea, those for whom marketing approach and brand identity are inextricably linked.

Trust is cited up and down as key to client-agency relationships and great work. But the fundamental unit of trust in that equation, it seems, is a marketer’s trust in the identity of its own brand and the ability of the whole company to foster meaningful expressions thereof.

Here, four tips from those who put at least as much effort into what their brands are as what they say.

1. Mean what you say. But first, mean something.
Eric Ryan, co-founder of design-forward, environmentally considerate household-products maker Method, says the company “started from a brand point of view. Then we built a company around that.”

The founders of Threadless, the tee success story whose audience is also its design force, cite the importance of authenticity and people onboard who believe and participate in the brand. “There isn’t a secret to making things appear that way,” says Creative Director Jeffrey Kalmikoff, evoking other fairly creative marketers. “You just do it or you don’t.”

2. Ideally, have some ideals beyond your brand.
The founder of Howies (now part of Timberland), the Welsh clothing company that was world-conscious before you could dine out on such a trait, says: “The thing that has not changed from day one is the desire to make people think about the world we live in. This is, and always will be, why we are in business.” The new Howies store in London will feature “30 to 40% other stuff” such as a lending library and a water fountain to refill bottles; the company leads a brand camp (in the wilds of Wales … in yurts); its skateboarding team has traveled in a chalkboard-paint-covered van soliciting opinions on nuclear energy. Not from Cardigan, Wales, and don’t have a skateboard team, you say? So what? Anyone can take some inspiration from the company’s efforts to cleave to a big mission and to bring a bigger-picture sensibility to a brand.

3. Learn to let go (and for God’s sake loosen up).
On the subject of assaying new forms of communications, eBay Senior Director of Brand Marketing Kevin McSpadden’s embrace of experimentation is what launched the company in the first place. “It’s the micromanaging of your brand that prevents it from flourishing. … Innovating, trying new things and engaging people in new ways — for me it doesn’t feel risky. It feels good.” He also notes that the company isn’t afraid to “take the piss out of ourselves” in its entertainment efforts.

4. You’re a leader — act like one!
Says Method’s Ryan: “Consumer research tends to be a trailing indicator, not a leading indicator, and we can’t follow the trend. We’ve got to set the trend and be visionaries — it’s our only chance of success. When you take that comfort of consumer research away, it forces you to actually think.”

~ ~ ~
Teressa Iezzi is the editor of Creativity magazine and Creativity-Online.com. E-mail her at tiezzi@crain.com.

The Secret

The secret is that it really does not matter which media you use to get the word out, as long as you do it correctly.

And the correct way, is the way that appeals to our human emotions.

If you want to know how to get a customer, think about dating and the process you go through.

If you were to ask your spouse to marry you the very first time you met, odds are against you. But after a few dates, your chances grow.

One ad, if successful is lucky. The odds are against you. That’s why The Secret is to do a campaign that allows multiple ad exposures to the same, targeted potential customers.

A massive direct mail campaign was launched to a targeted group of business people to attend a special meeting this morning. The results were disappointing, I was told. But I say, that perhaps the emphasis was backwards. Instead of inviting 500 people 1 time, it would have been more effective to invite 100 people 5 times.

Contact me if you want more information.

Voice Mail Tips

Here’s another bit of wisdom that was in my email today. I have coached my staff and others to use the “idea” approach over the years. The “help” approach also works well here in the midwest. However I have some additional words of advice and warning that I’ll give you at the end of this post.

USING INTRIGUE TO GET VOICE MAIL
MESSAGES RETURNED
By Jim Domanski

Have you read any novels by John Grisham,
Tom Clancy, Anne Perry, Nelson DeMille
or perhaps Patricia Cornell?

They have the uncanny ability to draw
you in, to get you to read the next
paragraph, the next page and the chapter
beyond even though it is well past midnight.

Why?

Because they are masters at intrigue.

Intrigue is defined as “mystery, suspense;
to arose interest or curiosity.”

At the end of every chapter, these authors
leave you with an unanswered question, a
moment of suspense, a sense of expectation.
You can’t help but read on.

When prospects pick up/access their
voice mail, they are, in effect, picking
up a book and leafing through the pages.
Something must catch their eye…er…ear.

In a way, you must become a master of
intrigue when it comes to leaving a voice
mail. You must become the Grisham or
Cornell of voice mail! You must leave
your prospect hungry for more. He or
she must want to pick up that phone
in the telephony equivalent of turning
to the next page.

How do you do this?

Writing a good novel is essential a
matter of technique. So too is leaving
a voice mail. After leaving your name
and your company here are some techniques
or statements that leave your prospect
curious for more.

“I NEED YOUR HELP.”
This statement has proven to be very
effective in getting prospects to call
back. It looks like this:

“Mr. Gandara, I need your help with some
research I am doing on safety issues
and I am told you are the resident expert…”

There are three things that work with
this statement. The first is that the
word ‘help’ appeals to the average
individual. It is not threatening and
it certainly doesn’t sound like a
sales pitch.

Secondly, intrigue is created by
forcing the recipient to ask:
“What kind of help?” “Why?”
“What’s this all about?”

Finally, the phrase flatters. By
stating that the prospect is the
resident expert, the prospect
feels important.

“I HAVE AN IDEA.”
I have used the “idea” opener
in other scenarios in telesales and
it works extremely well because it
leaves the recipient asking the question
“what idea?”

For instance:
“Ms. Ackerman, I have an idea that I
would like to run by you that might
significantly impact your quality
control program…”

It creates intrigue in much the same
manner as the “I need your help.”

The prospect is forced to wonder the
precise nature of the idea. That it
significantly impacts quality control
makes it all the more interesting.

“A QUESTION…”
This is a new one for me. I like it
and wish that I had developed it but
the credit goes to Tom Freese, author
of “The Secrets of Questions Based
Selling”:

“Dr. Tuori, I have a question that
I believe only you can answer concerning
carpal tunnel syndrome…”

The fact that only the recipient can
answer the question is intrigue enough.
The prospect thinks: “What question?
Why me?”

“THE INSIDER”
Here’s another one I have seen used in
various forms. The insider referral
leverages the expertise, title or
position of someone within your company
and creates a unique sense of intrigue.

“Mr. Jackson, Dr. Carrigan, the head
of our Marketing Development Division,
suggested I give you a call concerning
employee productivity…”

The intrigue here is twofold. First,
the reference to “Doctor” Carrigan is
powerful. A doctor? What kind of doctor?
What is this about? Why did should a
doctor want me to call?

Second, the reference to productivity
is an implied benefit. But it is not
precisely clear and it nags like a
persistent itch. To scratch it you
have to call.

Not every company has a doctor on staff.
Another variation of this voice mail
statement is,

“Mr. Edgerton, our president, suggested
I give you a call…”

The “president” is a powerful title and
generally gets the attention of the
listener.

SUMMARY
Learn to be a master of intrigue. Craft
your messages and try them. Test variations
and see what works best for you. Maybe you’ll
create your own “best seller.”

(Jim Domanski is President of Teleconcepts
Consulting http://www.teleconceptsconsulting.com/,
a telesales consulting and training firm. Contact
him at jim@teleconceptsconsulting.com and
613-591-1998. He’s also author of the bookS,
“Add-On Selling,”
http://www.businessbyphone.com/add-on.htm
and “Profiting By Phone,”
http://businessbyphone.com/PBP.htm )

Here’s the additional advice:

1. Be prepared for what you are going to say if you get a live person, and if you get voice mail. You are in control since you are the one placing the call!!

2. You must be honest! Do not ask for help and then turn into a pushy salesperson! Use the appropriate words. If say you have an idea, then you better have an idea. If you need help, then be sure to ask for specific help.

3. Do not sell over the phone. Use the phone to schedule a meeting. Face to face meeting if possible.

4. Now if you are doing sales over the phone, you better be good at it. Otherwise you are going to struggle and fumble and quite frankly, it is not the way I would want to make a living.

5. Now, to every rule there is almost an exception, since I do sell over the phone and with email to out of town clients. But these are special situations, and most of the clients I work with, we have met face to face.

Email tips

A few years ago I bought a domain name that was based on my e-mail identity: ScLoHo. (Ask me if you want to know the origin of ScLoHo). This was the first step of moving away from a semi-professional to a full fledged professional. If you are still using Yahoo, Hotmail, G-mail or those types of email addresses for your professional business, you are hurting your image.

Next though, came the problem of spam. Although my Scloho.net account goes through Yahoo, and I have become very comfortable using Yahoo’s services, their spam filtering was terrible.

After some research, I decided to add another step and that involves forwarding my e-mail to a G-mail account and let their spam filters do their stuff. It has been amazing. On October 17th, 200 Spam messages that were NOT caught by Yahoo, but were filtered by G-mail. And best of all, the G-mail account cost nothing and the more I use it, the more I get used to it.

One more tip. Do not mistakenly spam folks that you haven’t met. Let me explain. There are a couple of local networking groups that I attend. One of them I had not been to in at least 4 months. Once a week, I get a reminder about the meeting time and place, which is fine. However, I got an email from a new member of this group that I had not met yet and he copied and pasted all the email addresses that were in the weekly reminder email and then sent an email to all of us that was inappropriate.

The e-mail came off as a sale pitch,

Good Evening!

It was such a pleasure meeting with you at the XXX XXX Leads Group! I had a great time, and being my first time at this networking meeting, etc.

Since I had never met this person, due to my not being at this Leads Group the last 4 months, it was an inappropriate email for me, and sounded like spam. I wrote him back and told him how to do follow up, using the business cards from the people he actually met, and to personalize his emails. There is a way to send emails to those on the list that he had not yet met, and it is so important to make the right impression from the beginning, than to try and repair a tarnished reputation.

Happy e-mailing!

A Better Way to talk to Unhappy Customers

The following advice and article came in my e-mail today and is written by Bill Lampton, Ph.D.

No matter how much customer care training we conduct, some customers will dislike our service. They may become so irate that they confront us face-to-face, venting their frustrations–at times rather loudly and accusingly:

“You double-charged me this month, and you can be sure I’m looking for another company that will be honest in its billing.”

“Your service man said he would show up at noon, so I went home on my lunch hour. He didn’t get there until 2:00, and I had to take the rest of the day off. Seems to me you owe me for the income I lost because of that.”

“Your telephone service is terrible. Yesterday somebody put me on hold and forgot about me. Well, I’m ready to forget about your company, and find somebody who will be courteous and efficient when I call.”

“You know that my wife and I have eaten here every Friday night for a year. We won’t be back though. Our waitress last week talked to her customers so long that she got way behind on delivering orders. We don’t like having our time wasted.”

How are we likely to respond? By habit, we become defensive. We talk plenty. We contradict them, and tension rises. Far from gaining satisfaction, the disgruntled buyers become more upset.

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However, there’s a better way to deal with complaining clients. I heard about “noncommittal agreement” when I spoke at the Virginia Pest Management Association’s State Technical Meeting. Here’s what Brian Delaney, the association’s president, told me in a phone conversation several weeks before the event.

Our inclination, he said, is to “make a decision before the customer gets to give the whole story.” We “jump to a conclusion” too quickly.

Through experience, Brian has discovered a more productive approach. He listens, without making judgmental comments like “that’s where you’re wrong” or “our agreement doesn’t include that service.” In a quiet voice, he just agrees: “I see. . .Hmmmm. . .Tell me more.”

Brian reports that the results are often amazing. Because he doesn’t challenge the customer, the customer becomes friendlier as the story unfolds. In fact, Brian says that “sometimes the customer even apologizes for taking up so much of my time, and for getting upset over something so trivial.” Certainly that doesn’t happen in every case, yet the “noncommittal agreement” nearly always defuses a tense situation.

Throughout the customer conversation, Brian prompts the customer with questions. This underscores Brian’s willingness to hear what the customer feels and thinks.

When I gave my keynote speech on customer care, I called on Brian to share his noncommittal agreement concept with the audience. After he described his customer conversation style, I linked his statement with Stephen Covey’s five levels of listening, and noted that empathic listening, Covey’s highest level–as explained in chapter five of Covey’s bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — mirrored Brian’s noncommittal agreement.

So the next time you face a dissatisfied customer, try Brian’s method. Both you and the customer will experience an unusual calmness. Instead of escalating into a verbal brawl, your dialogue will resolve the issue faster. As Stephen Covey advised, “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.”

Speaking of Stephen Covey, use this link to access my four minute video–“What’s Your Listening Level?”–that discusses Covey’s five levels of listening: http://tinyurl.com/2ran6d

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Bill Lampton, Ph.D., helps organizations improve their communication, motivation, sales and customer service. His speeches, seminars, consulting and coaching share the advice included in his book, The Complete Communicator: Change Your Communication-change Your Life! Visit his Web site and sign up for his complimentary monthly newsletter: http://www.ChampionshipCommunication.com. Call Dr. Lampton at 770-534-3425.

Repetition with direct mail story

Some clients say direct mail is the heart of their business advertising, others say it is worthless. Read the following for some clues on why:

Can Mailing to the Same List Twice, Double Your Response Rate?
By Alan Sharpe

Mailing the same direct mail offer to the same consumer list a second time typically generates a response rate that’s 65 percent smaller than the initial response. Mailing a third time usually generates a response that’s more than 50 percent smaller than the initial mailing. But if you mail businesses or institutions with the same offer more than once, your results sometimes run the other way.

Some business-to-business direct marketers have discovered that the same offer mailed to the same list a second time produces double the response of the initial mailing.

Hard to believe, I know. But this just proves that business buyers and consumers are different.

The business executive you tried to reach with your first mailing may have been lying on a beach in the Seychelles when your offer arrived. Or her secretary may have pitched it.

Or the guy in the mailroom may have had a bad day and routed your direct mail offer to Bangladesh.

Or your prospect may have suffered a financial setback that resolved itself by the time your second offer arrived in his inbox.

Or the timing may have been off. Your prospect was not ready to buy last quarter but is ready this quarter.

Or your business buyer may not have recognized your company name the first time around, but recognizes it now that she has come across your name in the trade press, online, and from the lips of peers at a recent trade show.

These reasons, and many more, should encourage you to test mailing your direct mail sales letters to the same prospects more than once. Keep everything the same (list, offer, creative). Just vary the timing. Measure your response between mailing one and mailing two, and even mailing one
and mailing three.

— Alan Sharpe is a direct mail copywriter who helps businesses attract new clients using direct mail and email marketing. His website is sharpecopy.com.

Media X: Simmer Down

The following came to my email box today and is from MediaDailyNews. Click on the headline to go to their website.

by Jack Feuer, Wednesday, Oct 10, 2007 8:00 AM ET
HEY, ADVERTISERS, AGENCY TYPES AND network promotion executives! This is America calling. We have a request.

Shut up.

Really. Just. Shut. Up.

No disrespect, but you’re killing us here. We’re willing to hear what you have to say–at least some of us older ones are. But we can’t, because you’re all yelling at once.

Everywhere.

Please explain to us–one of you at a time, if you would–which one of you geniuses first got the idea that the best way to avoid clutter is to create more of it?

This is particularly true of television show marketing–which is so over the top, it’s already landed at the bottom, but is too stunned to notice.

Forget the endless and thoroughly unpersuasive promotions. There’s the billboards. The coasters. The posters. The displays at K-Mart. And ads for your shows all over the goddamn supermarket–on the floor, on the dividers at the checkout counter, on the produce, on the receipt.

I just came in for eggs and a carton of milk. Leave me the hell alone.

I’m not just talking spots. I’m talking stories as well. We got the show. Then we got the interstitials. Then we got the wraps. And the online comic books. And the blogs, the message boards, the diaries of the characters and the actors who play the characters. The cross-overs and the spin-offs and the contests and the YouTube crap and the MySpace nonsense.

Tell you what–we’ll wait for the 30-second version on AOL tomorrow, okay?

In fact, we’re too dazed by our social networking obligations to worry about what anybody wants to sell us. Like my former Adweek colleague, who is a Facebook friend, and who inexplicably believes that the rest of us in her network care about her concern for her “foster dog,” which has a “URI.” Which is either respiratory distress or a pissing problem, I’m not sure which.

But I digress. Point is, TV numbers stink and marketing campaigns are imploding all over this great consumptive country of ours, and I don’t think it’s because TV shows are bad or marketers’ ad campaigns suck. I actually like a lot of what television is shilling this season–especially broadcast TV, and I’m impressed with the imagination behind much of modern advertising, if not its intelligence.

Then again, we are America, so maybe intelligence needn’t be a requirement. Look at our government. Enough said.

But I digress again. What I’m saying is that you’re following us everywhere we go, sticking stuff on our eggs, getting in our face and making our heads turn all the way around our necks like Linda Blair. (For you younger mavens: look it up, kids.)

The Long Tail is a whip, apparently, and you really need to stop cracking it. Find something that works a little more quietly, will you? We’d sure be grateful.

We might even go shopping or watch some TV once the ringing in our ears stops.

Hey, it’s me again. It has taken me awhile, but I have learned that every passionate critic, has some kernel of truth in their arguments. Also perception is as good as reality in some cases.

Advertising and marketing will never go away. We must, however continue to strive to persuade, influence and help buyers buy, not just try and sell with screaming irritating drivel.

Measuring results

Just how do you measure the results of your marketing efforts? It depends on the circumstances.

About two weeks ago, a new McDonald’s opened in town. They are one of my clients. They had a soft opening on September 27th, and then they will have their official Grand Opening Celebration this coming Saturday complete with Marching Bands, a radio remote broadcast, a ribbon cutting ceremony and the like.

Whatever happens this Saturday will be fine, we already had a successful opening. The owner gave away a years worth of Quarter Pounders to the first 50 people that showed up on September 27th. We promoted it on the radio.

I stopped by at 7:15 that morning to see how things went when I was told what happened while I was sleeping: 4:15am, the owner-operator comes in and there are a dozen people waiting for them to open the doors at 5am! By 4:45am there are 70 people in line!

Let’s measure the results: 50 1/4 pounders retail at 3 bucks each. That’s 150 dollars times 52 weeks = $7800. Actual food cost is about $2500 or less. Let’s say that the only customers they get from the promotion is the 70 that showed up before they opened their doors. Lunch customers are likely to visit an average of twice a week. Let’s presume they spend $5.00 each trip. The cost of food to McDonalds is about $2.00. So do the math and there is 6 dollars profit times 52 weeks times 70 people = $21,840 profit for an investment of $2500. Even 1/2 that amount is quadrupling his investment!

Note that this investment is over the course of a year, and that the buying cycle repeats itself every 3 or 4 days.

This afternoon, I spoke with a friend of mine that asked me what a commercial cost on my radio stations. I called him up and we met and discussed the real issues. He had run a newspaper ad that cost him between $700 and $800 each time he aired it. He thought it was expensive. As we talked, we discovered that the paper gave him a deal where it ran the ad Saturday (free), Sunday (paid), and in a weekly employment supplement (free) and posted it on their website for 30 days each time he paid.

The first time it ran he got about 30 inquiries, from which looks like he will get 2 new employees. The second time he ran, he got about 10 inquiries, from which looks like he will get 2 more new employees. What’s the bottom line here? So far, his experience with the paper is it costs about $375 to find a new employee using their method. Is this a reasonable cost? Don’t know yet. But at least we know how to measure the results. And why did the first 30 inquiries only net 2 employees, while the next 10 inquiries also produced 2 employees? Which was more effective? I believe the second, because while the end results were the same, the second was more efficient, saving time and expense of screening out those that did not qualify.

I am in the process of consulting with others in the advertising world in my town to see what they might have to offer that could produce better net results for the dollars he has available to spend, and I also have a proposal that I believe can work, using my radio resources too.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome…

When they say "marketing isn’t working"….

Got a phone call today from a company that we sold block programming to. This type of block programming is actually an infomercial. They wanted to know if we could cut our price in half because they are not getting the results they want. What would you say?

I was in the middle of a meeting and decided to let them know in the morning. Actually, I already knew what the short answer was. No. However I wanted time to compose my long answer.

See, you have to know what the real question is. Are they really not getting results, or do they just want to improve their margin by lowering their marketing costs? It doesn’t hurt to ask. But who is the real buyer and seller here? I have air time and I get to decide how much to charge. I know that if they want to pay less, then they get less. Like a different time slot, that will have less listeners. While all this makes sense, there is another whole side to this that isn’t being addressed.

Is the message effective? What do we mean by effective? Just what results do you need to make your marketing worthwhile? Is there a piece to the marketing plan that is missing or weak? And how much of this is in my power to control?

Maybe the marketing is effective, if you use the right measuring device.