2009 June | Wendistry

America’s Entrepreneurial Future

2009

I attended the Dallas WordCamp 2009 conference this weekend at University of Texas at Dallas campus. WordCamp is the annual get-together for bloggers, developers and social media types who all use and love WordPress (the system Wendistry.com and all client sites are built on).

While several of the speakers were simply amazing, like Giovanni Gallucci and DB Ferguson, I have to admit I was completely blown away by the KIDS in attendance AND SPEAKING at WordCamp. Dave Moyer, a podcaster, blogger, and digital media personality who is 16 years old, was one of the best speakers of the weekend talking about using WordPress as a tool for multimedia distribution. (His words, “Text blogging is SO 1999.” Wow! Be looking for some updates and changes to Wendistry.com VERY soon!!) Then, there was Jackson Fall… who introduced himself by just walking up to me and saying, “Hey, what’s the best iPhone app for Flickr?” We then proceeded to have a 15 minute real conversation about iPhone apps and the ease of ColorSplash. Finally agreeing that ColorSplash was the best one to buy, we both downloaded and ended the conversation with a “Cool, dude.” Wow… If I was only 12 years old again.

Somehow, we’ve all got to turn off the stupid CNN and realize the future of America is really going to be just fine. These kids are extremely bright, curious, and have a burning desire to make something of themselves. A final note to all junior high and high school girls. Get yourself a geek… jocks are SO 1999!

Filed Under: Sidebar Thoughts

Marketing Voice

2009

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In marketing, voice is meant to connect with your audience and offer relevance. To do that, voice requires several elements: image, vision, and positioning. When you get started defining your voice, ask yourself these questions:

Why does this company exist?
What image or personality has it formed or is it trying to form?
What is the company point-of-view in terms of the product, the market, and the world?
Where is the industry going?
Where is the company going?
Where is it taking its customers?

IMAGE: Image isn’t just for Hollywood celebrities and luxury automobiles. Your customers (and prospects) have a perception of your company (right or wrong), and each move the company makes helps to define that image (whether planned or unplanned). Making choices that support and illustrate the image you want the company to have is the key to managing customer perceptions. First you have to know what image you want the company to project. Is the company visionary, creative, cool, edgy, pragmatic, safe, for the price-sensitive, for the masses or for the elite?

Managing your image is a daily activity. Image is created by the choices made across the company, not by advertising agencies through the campaigns they create. If you choose not to define your image, your customers, competitors, or partners will do it for you. Who do you want in charge?

VISION: You don’t have to develop an image as a visionary to express a vision for your company, products, or industry. Vision is the ability to define business, product, industry trends, or the future in terms of customers or the marketplace, before they have taken shape. Further, it is easier for customers to follow you, if you give them some sense that you know where you and your industry are going. There is also a much stronger trust between the company and the customer, if the customer believes you are the company that can take them forward.

Many people feel that vision is reserved for high tech companies who have to show that they understand industry trends, have deep technical chops, and can take their products forward, leapfrogging the competition. Vision is about more than technology, though. Does a clothing designer have vision? (Tom Ford for Gucci) How about high-performance cooking equipment? (Viking) What about snowboarding? (Volcom) Each of these companies’ vision not only acquires new customers every day it keeps their current customers coming back for more.

POSITIONING: Your image and your vision define your company and its position in the industry in which it lives, and relative to competitors or alternatives. Positioning has an even more influential role. It allows you to define the market on YOUR terms. There are several paths you can take to definite your market. You can name the market by creating a new term (personal digital assistant), or segment the market to create a new niche (nighttime medicine). You can reposition your competitors, defining their offering more narrowly. You can pour so much focus and passion into differentiating value that it appears there are no competitors in your space, or that your competitors will be unable to catch up.

If you choose not to define the market on your terms, then you are forced to work within some other company’s framework. The market will see you as a follower. Not only will it be difficult to break out and be heard, it will be even more difficult to ever lead with an intriguing voice, vision, or image.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: image, Marketing, positioning, vision, voice

The Danger of Other-ISM

2009

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and the joys of Capitalism. We need to get back here.

Filed Under: Sidebar Thoughts

Know Your Brand Barriers

2009

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When creating your brand strategy for a product or service it is important to perform a careful analysis to determine principal barriers that you may come in contact with. These barriers are also known as market conditions that can keep your product or service from achieving success.

For example they could include the following:

Competition
Timing
Financing
Location
Lack of Demand

In order to be prepared to face these obstacles or barriers, it’s important to spend time doing a careful analysis of your product or service. This analysis will assist you not only in the development of your brand, but also in the positioning of your product or service.

A careful and thorough analysis will assist you in answering the following questions:

Do you have a niche market?
What problem does your product or service solve or need?
How should you determine the price of your product or service?
Who are your potential customers and where can you find them?
Who are your biggest competitors? What can you do better than them?
How should you advertise?
Where will you find your target market?
Will you use new media or traditional media?

Now that you have your questions, where do you start your market analysis research? Starting your research is actually easier than you think, but it will take time. You will need to dedicate hours to this research in order for it to be useful and effective.

Keep informed on current market conditions and trends in your vertical market by subscribing to trade publications, news alerts, and electronic newsletters. There are several directories available, but you can get started with the few listed below:

EzineLocator
NewsDirectory
KnowThis Publication Directory
Google News Alerts

Who makes up your target market? What are their statistics and economic position? Where are they located? You can find this information by viewing industry surveys and research documents. Get started by using the following resources:

Annual Survey of Small and Medium Size Business
Forrester Research
National Association for the Self Employed
National Foundation of Women Business Owners
Fortune Small Business
National Federation of Independent Business

Use the resources and questions above to analyze your market and discover any brand barriers you may come up against. I have no doubt that you will find at least one barrier. When you’ve located that barrier develop a plan to crush it and move it out of your way so that you can move forward towards success in marketing your business.

Filed Under: Branding Tagged With: brand barriers, competition, market conditions

Branded Social Media

2009

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Given the tangled web of branded social media channels and usage, it’s not surprising that only a fraction of CMOs list social media as a top capability they need for the future. But, smart CMOs and business owners must understand that social media’s role goes beyond tactical initiatives and requires a comprehensive strategy to connect with passionate customers. Forrester Research has developed a step-by-step approach to help senior management teams make a considered jump into social media in a way that sets expectations and metrics accordingly.

Step 1: Take Off the Reach and Frequency Blinders

Repeat this mantra as often as you need: “Branded social media is not about reach and frequency.” Too often C-levels expect scale from social media only to be disappointed by a small number of participants. But truly effective social media:

Focuses on the end of the marketing funnel… not the front
Gives brand advocates the tools to evangelize
Gives brand enthusiasts reasons to get more involved

Step 2: Map Who Uses Social Technologies, When and Where

Given social media’s smaller target, the POST (People, Objectives, Strategies, Technologies) Methodology remains key components to any C-level leader who wants to create successful social media. Combining these tools with a detailed channel plan enhances the likelihood of success by:

Examining the overall social savviness of your target
Creating objectives up front
Prioritizing channels by those objectives

Step 3: Link Initiatives to Measure Success for Your Brand

In an era of shrinking budgets and short-term focus, leaders need to show results in all channels quickly. To begin to understand the true impact of social media on the company’s brand, senior management should:

Create social media programs that incent but do not require opting in
Use analytics to size your brand advocacy potential
Tie loyalty programs to social initiatives

So… recommendations? Build your social media strategy to meet the needs of your target audience. Given the complexity of who uses branded social media, when they use it, and how, it’s clear that a “one-size-fits-all” approach won’t generate the engagement or loyalty that CMOs are looking for. Intelligent social media strategists will:

Prioritize channels that generate interest and influence across a broad user base. Online videos and reviews are the most universally accepted and influential channels and are therefore likely to have the strongest short-term ROI. Marketers should promote these channels through search and email and provide users ways to link to and share videos and reviews on their peer sites as well.
Tailor more niche channels to the needs of your brand advocates. Channels like blogs and discussion forums shine as a place to reinforce loyalty and engage and involve best customers. Use these vehicles as well as private communities for market research and innovation to tap the customers who love you.
Pay attention to gender and demographics. Consider the makeup of your target: women will much more likely rate or review a product or participate in a discussion forum than download a podcast. Plan your channels with this gender imbalance in mind.

Filed Under: Branding, Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: Brand, marketing channel, Social Media, targeted marketing

5 P’s of Social Media & Your Brand

2009

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So, now that you’re getting a better idea of what social media is, the question becomes “How do I actually apply it? Where do I start? How do I not screw it up and blast away all my customers?” Start here… the 5 P’s of Social Media: Profiles, Propagate, Produce, Participate, and Progress

1. Profiles: There are basically two types of user Profiles, your personal one or your company one and a group profile. Personal/business profiles can be: Jane Doe in LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube. A group profile can be: Social Media Marketers, Investment Bankers Online, or Innovative Thinking.

You should immediately secure your names before someone else gets them. Already, cyber-squatters are piling in to Twitter. With the last Friday (06/12/2009) night opening up of personalized Facebook URLs, over 1/2 million people secured their names in the first 15 minutes. Don’t be behind.

2. Propagate: After you’ve created your accounts and filled in your profiles, you need to begin to propogate those accounts with content. Photos, company pdfs, product slicks, video, audio files, etc. Get out there and get all your digital files collected and uploaded to these web sites so that when your customers and prospects are looking for you and/or information on you, it’s easy to find.

3. Produce: If you don’t have a lot of content, or if you want to add new content, get to creating! Your computer, more than likely, has a built in microphone and free sound editing software (if not, get Audacity, a free audio recording and editing software). The best part of all is there is no cost but your time. However, you must always keep in mind to send a strong “What’s in it for me?” message to your listeners. Give them a reason to keep watching, listening, or reading your content.

4. Participate: Yes, you have to have conversations with other people’s content and in their blogs and profiles. Begin by commenting, but LISTEN first… don’t just jump in. This medium really is a cocktail party… use the same skills. You don’t just walk over to a group across the room and start pontificating. You listen in on the fringes first; you look interested; you nod your head; then, once one of the group glances at you expectantly, you ask a relevant question or give an interesting statement. That’s manners.

5. Progress: Said it before… say it again, “What gets measured, gets managed.” So, be sure you’re measuring your progress. I.E. how many views has your video received on YouTube? How many people have “liked” or commented on your Facebook status? How many people request to be linked to you on LinkedIn? How often do people follow you back on Twitter? I recommend Google alerts for seeing when your name/ your company name is mentioned on the web. Also, I cannot recommend Woopra highly enough!!! John Pozadzides is the CEO and he and his team have created an amazing product. I track both Wendistry and CityCrush with Woopra.

Some portions excerpted from FastCompany.com and Lon Safko

Filed Under: Branding, Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: Brand, brand building, connection, participate, Social Media

The Killer App for Local Businesses

2009

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With the launch of CityCrush, a joint venture between Wendistry and BlackBox Technologies, four weeks ago, naturally I’m drawn to articles and information about hyper-local media and the businesses that they highlight and promote. So, in my May 18 edition of Advertising Age, an article by Abbey Klaassen caught my eye.

“New Orleans pizza joint, Chicago yogurt chain see results from promos on microblogging service, Twitter”

Naked Pizza, a New Orleans healthful-pizza shop that’s hoping to go national (Mark Cuban is a backer) has been marketing itself via the micro-blogging service. Recently it has started tracking Twitter-spurred sales at the register. In a test run on April 23, an exclusive-to-Twitter promotion brought in 15% of the day’s business. “Sure, there’s the brand marketing and getting-to-know-you stuff… But we wanted to know: Can it make the cash register ring?” says Jeff Leach, the restaurant’s co-founder.

Mr. Leach is one of many small local businesses using Twitter as a marketing tool, and his group could turn out to be a very lucrative market for the fast-growing site if other local entrepreneurs have similar experiences. Twitter’s real-time messaging service is a boon to local establishments, who are starting to get on-board, mostly because the message pops into users’ Twitter feeds and they are close enough in proximity to act on it. For Mr. Leach, who is targeting people within a three-mile radius of his store, that’s key. He’s gone so far as to erect a billboard outside his store publicizing Naked Pizza’s Twitter ID (which got him written up in TechCrunch). After that, Twitter contacted him; he’s going to be working with the company to beta test some applications for small businesses.

Twitter has a golden trait that appeals to small business… it’s easy. Simpler than a blog, setting up a Facebook or MySpace page, it’s a lot like email which has been one of the most effective marketing tools for small companies to date. The social nature is also very appealing. Consumers are already using Twitter as a question-and-answer recommendation service and to forward (“retweet”) messages they receive from brands they like.

Michael Farah, founder and CEO of Berry Chill, a yogurt shop with three Chicago locations, has been using Twitter to send out “Sweet Tweets”… promos that require users to show they’re Twitter followers of the store. In a month, he’s logged 700 followers and, he said, “sweet tweets” haven’t diminished his daily sales totals.

“Our last big promotion we gave away 1,100 yogurts ($5,500 worth of product) but sales were the same as the day before,” he said. “The people who were existing customers standing in line attracted people who hadn’t tried it.” Add the location-based technology nearly every mobile device will have soon, and many say it will really earn its keep as a killer local app.

Meanwhile, Naked Pizza’s wish list includes analytics tools that help it understand the most effective times of the day or week to deliver promotional messages, much like an e-mail marketing services provider would. Mr. Leach, who spends up to $60,000 a year on direct mail and almost $2,500 a year on e-mail marketing, said he would gladly pay a monthly fee for services like those.

In the next 90 days, he said, he’s aiming to sign up 5,000 followers that have city of New Orleans as their location. As he puts it: “That’s 5,000 people I don’t have to mail a postcard to.”

Filed Under: Branding, Online Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: attraction, Brand, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

Everything’s Social

2009

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You may not know what you’re doing, but your customers do! If the time to act is now, does that mean it’s too late to plan how your brand will “play well with others?” What happens if/when you blow it?

Have you heard about Motrin? Johnson & Johnson’s well-known brand of over-the-counter pain reliever had offended mothers with a marketing campaign centered around moms who “wear their babies”… a tongue-in-cheek reference to neck and/or back pain caused by baby-carrying devices. Immediately after the campaign launched, in mid-November 2008, the brand took a major beating. Motrin was accused of spreading derogatory messages and, in a crime many marketers may deem far worse, of not understanding its target audience. AHHHHHHH!!!!

Moms (and their readers) twittered, blogged and emailed their frustrations. “A baby will never be a fashion statement,” read one angry tweet. Perhaps, even more on the minds of moms was the lack of immediate response from Motrin. By the time the company did respond, hundreds of moms had voiced opinions, thousands had commented, and millions had seen the newest campaign now framed in an unseemly light. Where was the voice of Motrin?

If Johnson & Johnson had been listening, the company could have been on top of the furor within the first hour. Instead, conversations continued on, chipping away at the brand. Eventually, 24 hours later, J & J yanked all forms of the campaign and publicly apologized.

Consumers are conversing about your brands whether or not you are tuned in to the chatter. The social wave is upstaging traditional customer relationships as we’ve known them. From ratings to social bookmarking to blogs to collaborative computing, social technology has become a mainstay not only on the consumer side, but on the business side, as well.

I realize that asking senior management of major established firms to loosen its grip on customers is not the easiest sell to make. The concept of owning customers does seem to be fading, though. Companies barely own their products anymore, let alone their customers.

With the social web, peer-to-peer conversations about products and services outweigh marketing efforts. In the past, it was easier for organizations to dictate their reputations and content on the Web. Until 10 years ago, web-based content had limited value to customers… all they could do was look at it. Now, they’re able to access it, contribute to it, edit it, and share it. Often with whomever they please.

And, it’s all so new! As consumers tweet, poke, rate, nudge, throw sheep, and vote their way to “social media expert” status, companies have a lot to look forward to. You never want a bad thing to happen to a brand, but, as with anything else, there’s nothing like bad news to spring you into action. It is a leap of faith for a lot of businesses, but the risk of not diving into this pool headfirst would be the biggest mistake.

Excerpted from “Strategy and Social Media” by Lauren McKay in June issue of Customer Relationship Management magazine.

Filed Under: Branding, Online Marketing, Social Media, Strategy

Trend Spotting

2009

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According to Marian Salzman, ten trends that will be changing everything from consumerism to the business landscape throughout the modern world.

Total conversion: Old familiar boundaries and categories are dissolving, blurring black and white into shades of gray- private with public, fact with fiction, news with entertainment, young with old, home wiht office, off-line with online.
Local is now global: Today, home is the safest yet most exotic destination of all. You’re always just a click away from anywhere in the world, and just down the road, you can find people and cuisine from every continent.
Arm’s-length intimacy: Is going online like lying on the coach in the psychiatrist’s office, where the doctor sits out of sight? We feel more comfortable opening up personally with people online than face-to-face. Less familiar but more intimate is the new social, thanks to social-networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Stretching and molding time: Everything happens faster now, so we’re living life in rapid bursts. The ultimate luxury act is the slow dance, the slow meal, the slow seduction.
Value and values: What’s it really worth and how is it really important to me? These are the questions that rein in our impulse purchases during times of recessionary living. They’re followed by: Which stores or brands will supply what I need?
Media is the great escape: When the mood is depressed, distraction is great. Media is the true third place, where we can program our own relaxation and create a more perfect environment.
Looking back to learn: Check out the countless recent references to past events and people: the 1930s, Lincoln, Darwin. With so much history instantly available and the path ahead muddied with doubt and uncertainty, we’re looking to the past for reassurance that this, too, shall pass and for lessons about how that might happen.
Not without technology: Whatever else may disappear in the “creative destruction” of the current crisis, technology is here to stay. Some may yearn for simpler times and the satisfaction of hand tools, but the plain truth is that the future lies in mastering new technologies.
Embracing maturity: It may be a while before companies and economies start growing again. In the meantime, we’ll be squaring the urge to hold on to eternal youth with the need to grow up and sober up.
Wellness messaging: “Globesity” may be the death of companies associated with extra-large indulgences. Watch for “h” themes: health, holistic, hydrate. Should water be free and accessible to all or still peddled as a gourmet side dish? (The great debate on water will upstage oil in some circles.)

Filed Under: Ideation, Sidebar Thoughts Tagged With: trend spotting, trends

Now That’s a Great Question!

2009

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How to use questions to strengthen your brand image.

As an outsider-insider to my clients, my role is often “questioner-in-chief” (to use a borrowed term from management expert Tom Peters). Recently, I was conducting a brain-/brand-storming session with an energy company client when one of the employees pulled me aside during a break and said, “I didn’t want to ask this question in front of the group because I was afraid it would seem silly…” and then proceeded to ask me a very important and profound question pertinent to our strategic planning work. I encouraged her to ask the team that question when we regrouped, as I wanted her to experience the collective “aha!” that would arise as it did for me with her provocative question.

Which makes me wonder about the importance of questions and the cultural dynamics that enable some companies to encourage healthy questioning behaviors while other companies seem to squash them without saying a word. Questioning is often the precursor to innovation, and after almost two decades of questioning, I have come to believe that there really are no silly questions.

For example, Jerry Greenfield’s (of Ben & Jerry’s fame) lighthearted question “If it’s not fun, why do it?” is one of utmost importance to its brand. Fun is a key brand attribute of Ben & Jerry’s. It’s even a tab on their web site. To Ben & Jerry’s fun is something taken seriously and that this question frames its decision making.

Author James Thurber wrote, “It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.” What other questions is your brand grappling with, or perhaps should be grappling with, these days?

First, do you cultivate a question-asking environment? Without the freedom to raise questions or question decisions appropriately, your brand may have a blind spot.

Secondly, can you handle the answers to tough questions? Many brands have solid customer loyalty programs in place. These are indeed important parts of retention strategies, but take a moment to turn that question around for your brand… Just how loyal is your brand to your customers? What have you done for them lately?

Thirdly, as a “questioner-in-chief,” I like to encourage my clients to uncover their customers’ pain points. What makes them mad, frustrated or just plain tired in relation to your product, service, category or overall brand experience? If you spend time uncovering these issues and then creatively addressing them, both your customers and your competitors will take note.

So, take time to question your culture, your customers and your results. And then, ask Dr. Phil’s favorite question: “How’s that working for you?”

Excerpted from June 2009 edition of TargetMarketing magazine.

Filed Under: Branding