The most Common Marketing Myth… (and how to avoid it)
November 26, 2007
There’s a myth out there that is growing like a cancer. Even more viral than the "Bill Gates wants to send you money, just send this email to 30 people" chain email….. however, unlike other "harmless" urban myths, this one can KILL your business if left unchecked.
The term "branding" is thrown around like it’s an ACTION VERB. By "branding" your marketing or advertising messages, the thinking goes that these messages will do a better job of conveying what you do in your business to the casual observer. Frequently it’s portrayed as the act of applying the same graphics/color scheme to your marketing materials. The thinking goes that if you effectively "brand" your messages, that consumers will be better able to recognize your ads as belonging to you and will then be more likely to do business with you.
Oh, if only it were that easy!
It’s easy to see WHY business owners would want to think that branding is an action verb. After all, branding is very, very important in the success of your company. But if you think for a moment that the consistent use of a color scheme is all there is to "creating a brand" for your business…. think again!!!
Branding is not something you choose to do to your business. It’s something that your CUSTOMERS do to you. It’s the compilation of ALL the activities that go on inside your business. Just as the unsuspecting calf is branded by searing metal pressed into it’s flesh, so is your business branded by your customers.
That’s right. Branding is a lot more than a consistent use of graphic design elements. Instead, it is a process that begins deep within your company. Branding is the process through which you imprint what it is your company is about upon the minds of your target audience.
Because branding is an ongoing activity, it occurs constantly. Every interaction between your business and your customer (or potential customer) is building your brand, whether you like it or not. With that perspective on branding, it’s easy to see that the task at hand is to control your customer’s perceptions of your company as much as is possible.
With this perspective, you may suddenly realize that the angst ridden teen who is running your cash register after school is helping to building your brand. Nancy, in accounts receivable is also building your brand as are your technicians who go out into the field.
Some "experts" want you to believe that branding is something you can buy. Can you blame them? It’s much easier to say, "Run your ads here and be sure to use use the right colors and font faces in those ads," than to look beyond the ads at the business behind the ads.
Advertisements are simply invitations to your business. Think of them as invitations to strangers asking them to do business with you. Implementing a methodical identity program (a.k.a. branding program) will allow you to determine exactly how you want to portray your company or product to the outside world. However, what happens once those customers do business with you will, in the end, determine your company’s "brand."
In the end, your brand is merely the way you are perceived by your customers. Branding is merely identifying the image you want to portray to outsiders. Your goal should be to make certain that brand accurately reflects what your business does. Once you’ve done that, then you can determine what promises you should make for your business to deliver.
In the end, your attention to the graphic design elements of your campaign will indeed help to link your "identity" with the graphic design elements. Coca Cola’s distinctive red/white color scheme and logo font all help to build the connection between the bubbly brown beverage and the company that makes it. However, when Coca Cola made that infamous mis-step with "new Coke"…. no amount of "graphic design unity" could save that horrendously poor choice of direction.
Launching a new venture? Read this before you choose a name!
November 16, 2007
A rose by another name might still smell as sweet, but whether it’s the name of your business the name of your book or the name of your blog, choosing the right name is a KEY ingredient for success.
Guy Kawasaki (author of Art of the Start) calls it "The Name Game." Martin Jelsema in his The Branding Blog has a GREAT post on Naming Tips about some great web sites he’s found to help you in naming your new venture. If you need more help, Posipeople blog offers a step by step way to narrow down your choices in the post Naming your Business.
Remember, a great name is only the beginning but it’s an important element in building your business!
Sharpen your marketing focus to increase your profits
November 12, 2007
Kim Gordon in her article in MSNBC/Entrepreneur.com says:
You’ll rarely see a company that’s risen to the top using a shotgun approach–targeting a mass audience indiscriminately–yet this is where many entrepreneurs trip up. Failure to isolate the most-qualified niche can waste marketing funds, time and energy.
I get e-mails and phone calls from entrepreneurs who tell me "everybody" can use their product or service. The trouble is, even the most well-financed business can’t afford to reach everybody at once. And even if they somehow could, their message would have to be so generic that many different types of prospects wouldn’t feel motivated to take action.
Trying to reach everyone is a recipe for marketing failure. For many business owners, targeting their market is scary. The biggest fear is that by creating a tightly targeted marketing message, they’ll "alienate" everyone else. However, if you look at how the "big guys" target their marketing messages, you can see that targeting doesn’t ALIENATE anyone. Truth be told, those who aren’t being targeted probably won’t even take notice of the "targeted" message.
Take for example computers manufacturers’ advertising. It’s easy to say that "everyone" needs a computer, but if you look at computer manufacturers advertising, you’ll see that they tightly target their advertising message. In August, the computer manufacturers target students while at Christmas the message is definitely targeting families and gaming. Meanwhile, there’s still another market for the exact same product: businesses. Some marketing messages target larger businesses and promote servers while other messages target small business owners.
Each audience (a.k.a.niche market) needs its own marketing message and tactics. The small business owner isn’t "offended" that the manufacturer of the computer on his desk has created a message designed to speak to college student. Again, it’s very likely that said business owner is even AWARE of the message targeted to someone other than himself. Unless he’s the parent of a student in need of a computer, he probably won’t even notice the ads.
THAT is the key. When you tightly target an audience, you don’t alienate others outside that audience.
Niche Marketing 2.0 takes marketing from “push” to “pull”
November 9, 2007
Mariana Wagner is a realtor in Colorado Springs with an incredible eye for marketing, specifically marketing 2.0. In her post, "Shall I be trendy?" she writes:
How does Web 2.0 fit into your life? : I know plenty of agents who run screaming from anything remotely “new fangled” like that pesky “internet”. Okay. Fine. I know that (just like their fashion sense and Glamour Shots) they are stuck in the day where door knocking and cold calling reined king. Well, they can HAVE their gold embroidery blouses and PUSH their advertising into everyone’s lap. I would rather answer the phone call of a new client that has researched me, like what I say and do and wants to do business with me, than cold call a “lead” that doesn’t know me from Adam.
Remember the old days, when marketing meant standing on a corner in a costume handing out single page flyers? Ten years ago, people thought the internet would function in the same way. Put up a web site and people will automatically walk by and passively accept the information as they go on their merry way. Time and experience have shown on thing for certain: The web doesn’t work like that.
Web 2.0 is the result of people wanting more INTERACTION. When you’re looking for a realtor, you need to know more than just what appears on the "single page flyer" handed out by the guy in the hot dog suit. Marian writes on her Active Rain blog entry "Secret Life of Gen X’er"
I don’t mind advertising and marketing efforts. I just don’t like charades. Why do you think my generation loves the “making of” and “behind the scenes” stuff so much? We are sick of what’s being offered- it’s all the same. Call me cynical, but I would rather know WHY it is being offered, made, etc. Give me the “meat” of what you are offering- no flowers, no sleek marketing ploys, no fine print (I will read it…). Give me what I want and I will respect that more than fancy-pantsy Hello Kitty lip gloss flavored postcards and webpages.
Customers like her are much more likely to read your blog for WEEKS before contacting you, checking you out to see if you’re "for real". For consumers like Mariana, if you fill your blog entries with hard sell tactics pushing your product hard sell style… well, I think it’s obvious how that will be received.
My mantra has always been "see your business through your customer’s eyes". "PUSH" marketing is also seen as "THE HARD SELL". If you’re just thinking about you and your business, then it’s going to come across as "HARD SELL." If, on the other hand, you’re thinking of your potential CUSTOMER/CLIENT, then you begin to move to "PULL" marketing. Whether you call it "SOFT SELL" or "consultative selling"…. there’s one thing for certain… most consumers today prefer the latter to the former.
Web 1.0 was more suited towards HARD SELL while Web 2.0 is PERFECT for pull marketing. However, pull marketing is virtually impossible without first targeting your audience. After all, Web 2.0 is all about INTERACTION.
Proof you don’t have to think small when you target a niche market
November 1, 2007
When you think of a "niche" market, you tend to think "small". After all, targeting a niche market is really the process of breaking down or segmenting a larger group of individuals. A niche market is really just a tightly targeted market… and it’s possible to be targeting a niche market even if the size of that market is over 50 MILLION strong!
Take for example the new start up Disaboom.com. a new web site that has chosen to target the potentially lucrative market of people with disabilities. Disaboom is offering a diverse set of offerings ranging from social networking and dating to medical advice, career advice and product reviews.
According to an article in the New York Times:
People with mobility challenges are active consumers. A 2005 Harris Interactive study commissioned by Open Doors found that 69 percent of adults with disabilities — more than 21 million people — had traveled for either business or pleasure at least once in the preceding two years. In that same period, more than half had stayed in hotels, while 31 percent had booked at least one flight and 20 percent had rented a car. More than 75 percent of people with disabilities dine out at least once a week.
Needless to say, targeting savvy advertisers are lining up for an opportunity to deliver their message to this tightly targeted audience. Creating ads featuring people with disabilities is nothing new. Advertisers who have already featured people with disabilities in their advertising include such heavy hitters as McDonald’s, Verizon Wireless, Sears and Target. However, until now reaching this segment of the population is difficult.
Again, from the NY Times article:
“We’re a very difficult group to reach,” said Eric Lipp, founder of the Open Doors Organization, a nonprofit group that consults with companies about the disability market. “People in the marketing world will say, ‘I can reach out to them,’ and I’m just telling you it’s not easy. We’re just spread out over all kinds of walks of life — from different races to different religions to different income levels and education.”
For advertisers like Bioness and MagicWheels, Disaboom is the perfect place to deliver their message. However, it’s not just the companies who create products for this market who are lining up to become a part of this community. Mainstream companies like Ford are also on board.
“I didn’t have to think real long and hard about it,” said Kathy LaPointe, mobility motoring manager at the Ford Motor Company, about the automaker’s decision to advertise prominently on the site. Click-throughs from the ads to Ford’s Web site “have performed well above the benchmark,” Ms. LaPointe said. “This has been a huge success for us so far.”
By the way, if you visit the site, you’ll notice that this site really does have it’s target market in mind. In the upper right hand corner is the ability to change the size of the display text. The content also displays the provider’s in depth understanding of their target market. By knowing their market, Disaboom is delivering tightly targeted content to a tightly targeted audience.
