When putting together Marketing content, the brass ring we all reach for is the real connection.  Something that grabs the reader/watcher/consumer, and sucks them in.  One of the hardest parts of trying to do this can be realizing what you are really selling.

That may sound odd, but think for a moment.  What do Mountain Dew commercials sell?  If your answer was soda pop you would be wrong.  The commercials are selling hip, and young, and edgy.  They are selling risk taking.  you will never see a Mountain Dew commercial do a taste test against another soda because they are not selling great taste.  They know that their consumer wants to feel a little cooler, a little freer, and when they grab a Dew instead of a Sprite they do.

Similarly, if your product is high quality pasta dinners in freezer bags that you can pull out and warm up in minutes you have to ask yourself what you are really selling.  It’s not pasta, peas or baby carrots.  The real reasons people buy, the real deliverable is a happy family, a happy spouse, the appearance of being on top of things.  That is the message your adds and pictures should convey.

Don’t be too wordy in your message.  Make the pictures, the colors, the flow, and the mood of your add invoke an empathic response from the consumer as much as you can.

Ask yourself the normal marketing questions: What are my key value propositions; what differentiates me from my competitors; but also ask yourself:  What does the consumer of this content like to believe about them self.  If you have a product for sales and marketing people make it look professional if appropriate, but also make it look aggressive, edgy, hip, energetic.  Sales and Marketing people love to believe this about themselves.  It’s what they want to feel, what they want to convey.

Who is your market?  What are you really selling?  What should your customers feel like after they benefit from you and what you have to offer?

So I just got back from vacation in Norway for two weeks (wonderful experience BTW), and was completely slammed with stuff that needed to be done. Once I spent a week mowing through the backlog, I am now three weeks out from when I last wrote anything for this blog. It got me to thinking…

Have you ever noticed that the things that are never really a fire, never really urgent, seem to be the ones that sneak up later and bite you in the butt? Things like exercise, spending time with you kids, telling your spouse how much they mean to you.

I think marketing can often fall into this same trap. Sure, you market when you have a new product release, or some new flashy doodad that you want to make sure everyone knows about. But if you have not laid a consistent groundwork, you can find yourself stepping out onto your balcony to cry your exciting news out to…
no one… no one is there, because no one knows or cares who you are.

As I’m sure you can tell from my blog, I tend to think a fair amount about communicating.  But really, communication is a means to an end, and then end is: relationships.  I really think that our relationships are what ground us.

In this vein, a dear friend of mine is taking an opportunity at another company at the end of this week.  Though I’m very sad for myself, I wish him this best of luck, and know that it will be a wonderful growing experience for him.

It has really made me reflect back however, on situations like this.  Wherever I have worked, there have always been times when either through my moving on, or through other changes, that I have had to part ways with talented people.  Almost always however, this has brought new color, and new life to the friendship.  As they and I both continue to learn more, we continue to interact, and bring even broader insight to each other.

There have also been many situations like this with customer.  I cannot tell you how many times we have panicked to find out that a key point of contact is leaving one of our customers.  There is often some initial pain, as new people have filled those roles, and have either needed to be brought up to speed, or sometimes have initially questioned the relationship between the two companies (it seems that many people like to be seen as decisive, and change making as soon as they are put into a position.)  But fast forward a year down the road, and almost without fail we have found ourselves working very closely and happily with these new people, and converting them from skeptics to advocates.  Additionally, we very often find that the previous advocate who has moved on is calling us from a new capacity in their new employer, and wanting to leverage us again.

It seems like so much of business is this way.  It is so often the biggest challenges that truly make us rise to the occasion.

Never burn a bridge, and don’t despair… there is no such thing as an end… just changes and new beginnings.

The forest that never suffers fire becomes weak and old.   Capitalize on the change.

Your brand is your livelihood.  As such, we all strive so hard to ensure that our messaging supports our brand, and that our brand inspires at an emotional level.  Are we using the right colors?  The right pictures?  What does our website convey?  How do people feel when they read it?  It seems that to really stay consistent to our brand, we need to evaluate every aspect of our company and ask ourselves how it relates to our marketing, to the message we are trying to send.

As such, what could possibly be more important than who we employ?

Every interaction with customers is reinforcement of your brand.  What image are you trying to convey  about your company?  Guru’s?  Cutting edge?  Savvy and seasoned?  Or just barely good enough not to get fired, inexpensive, and quite frankly not very pleased to be dealing with you?

With unemployment as low as it is it takes an extra effort to find the right people.  No longer will an ad in the paper yield hundreds of resumes, any one of which would be a great fit.  But don’t give in to the temptation to hire “good enough”, or to save a few bucks, since the person you really wanted is more expensive than they were a few years ago.  If the people on your team have a fire in their belly your customers will see it when they meet them, and hear it when they deal with them.

Make your brand infectious.  It’s the smartest marketing you can do.

There are lots of ways to market your products and services, but one that I want to touch on today is Mobile. When does it make sense to use mobile devices form marketing, and when is it too much hassle, and too much money for little return?

A while back we wrote up a White Paper on SMS and some of its applications. But for those in the mood for a more “bite-sized” read, let me sum up my thoughts here.

The real value of Mobile (other than being hip and cool), come down to TLR:

Time
Location
Relevance

Mobile allows you to leverage the ability to deliver content right now, regardless of location (or more often times, due to location) and thus be more relevant. Let’s look at a few examples:

Retail Stores

As a large retailer, I can have a sign at the entrance to my store that states “To get info on great deals today, text the department number to 12345″ followed by a list of department numbers. Now, as I walk into my favorite store, I can send a text, and get back info, or even coupons to my phone that tell me of great deals in the electronics department, or whatever department I am interested in. This allows a store to leverage location, and deliver content right now, which is the appropriate time, in order to make in relevant. Sure an emailed coupon during the weekend is nice, but will I remember it when I go to the store next?

Stadiums

Okay, so imagine you own a stadium (or maybe you do, in which case, give me a call )
At one of the game you run a contest on the Jumbotron that allows people to text in to a number for a chance to win an ipod during the game. You reply to all local numbers, and ask them if they would like to receive discounts to future games. For those that agree, you record the numbers.
Next game, if ticket sales are slow, you send a text out to the local fans, who want to hear from you, and offer them 20% a ticket for the next three hours until the game starts. This allows you to leverage the time factor of a game starting in three hours, and location of local residents to deliver very relevant data, and fill up your stadium, or your show, or your event.

Resorts

Ski resorts. By leveraging real-time data, and pushing it to people first thing in the morning, regardless of location (but targeting locals), you can tell everyone that you just had three feet of fresh powder. Then you can ask them if the want a 10% of coupon for a lift pass. Furthermore, ask them if they plan to ski today. If so, then you can further use their phones throughout the day to drive traffic into the clubhouse when it’s slow with discounts on drinks and food.

Mobile is definitely a much more specialized marketing medium, and doesn’t work for everything. But if you can leverage the TLR of your consumers, the payoff can be worth it.

I have heard a lot of different people give ideas on what a web site needs to look like. Often times this advice comes in the form of “If I can’t tell what you do in 6 seconds”, or “If I can’t tell what you do from six feet away form the screen” when I look at the site, then it is wrong. I would put forth however that these types of generalizations stem form the same mindset that asks “who is your target?”

It is important to remember that the way the web is consumed gives you the ability to do two things that may seem contradictory: 1- To reach a broader audience, and 2- to have a more intimate relationship with them. This is due tot he fact that traditional communications, on the phone, through printed collateral, etc. Is a one-size-fits-all. If a web presence is managed correctly it allows it to be consumed in a variety of ways… which can feel more intimate to a variety of audiences.

There are at least four key consumption types to consider when you are working on your web site:

Company Researcher

Many people want to find out about your company quickly. The internet has allowed many small, or smoke-and-mirrors companies to seem bigger than they are. Many people who are considering doing business with you will hit your site and quickly go to two key areas:

1- Press releases / news. You better have new content here at least every few months or it looks like you are not doing anything. Don’t wait six months to put it up either. If you had lots of activity, and then have alull, it looks like your company has fallen on hard times.

2- Management team. People want to see good people with experience.

Product / Service Researcher

Make sure these people can quickly find product details on your site. Don’t overwhelm them initially with data, but have a way for them to get to more information. Give the an overview, but give them a way to get some real meat. To many companies force you to call to really understand what their products and services do.

Snackers

Some of the best ways to get traffic to your site will also product the least patient viewers. Someone who came to you through adwords, Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, or similar high traffic social mechanisms have little patience. Hook them instantly, give them a quick call to action or you will lose them. This can be accomplished with landing pages that then lead people into other parts of your site as needed.

Bloggers

Rather you choose to blog or not, you cannot ignore that there is a growing community out there that really wants to get to “know” the company and products they deal with. They want to see that there are real people involved, and see what other real people are saying. You may choose as a company not to blog, but know that you will not be connecting at the intimate level for some of your potential consumers.

So who is your target? If the answer to that is “My targets are…” you will find yourself able to leverage the reach, the realtime feedback, the low costs, and the ability to quickly react that the Web brings. But you also be able to build a more intimate relationship that makes so many of the Web’s social aspects so powerful.

Many of you may not know, but Twelve Horses has a few locations. One of which, our Reno location (about 28 35 folks (oops, I blinked)), just knocked the ball out of the park at their local ADDY’s, taking home 3 Gold and 3 Silvers, they then advanced to the District competition. District 14 is comprised of the:

Ad Club of Silicon Valley
AdMark, the Bay Area Advertising & Marketing Association
Advertising Association of Northern Nevada
Fresno Advertising Federation
Sacramento Ad Club

As you can see from this list of groups, there was some stiff competition coming out of California.

In the Interactive Media category our Nevadan Cohorts took home 4 ADDY Silver Awards ”For Excellence in Creativity and Execution” for the following entries:

1. Heavenly Mountain Resort
2. Madrone Empire Ranch, Pacific West Companies
3. Mountain Sports International
4. Tanamera

So needless to say we’re a bit excited.

When people think about marketing they tend to think about getting out the good word, about telling the world how good they’ve done, or what neat stuff they cna bring to bear.

So what about when things are not going so well. What about the angry customer that feels you haven’t delivered?

Jet Blue did a great job of this earlier this year after stranding passengers for several days. So much so, that when Business Week dropped them from the list of “Customer Service Champs” due to the event, the reader comments consisted of statements like:

• “Perhaps I should cancel my subscription for BusinessWeek for being so shortsided.”

• “Everyone makes mistakes — hopefully Jet Blue has learned — and the other airlines as well. If it happens again — then consider moving them. Geez–give them a chance!”

The feedback goes on and on. Why? Two reasons: 1- Because Jet Blue had put sufficient “money in the bank” with clients in the past, which is to say that they had provided such good service that people were willing to cut them some slack. 2- Because they came clean. No spin. No justification. They apologized, offered to try to make things right, and laid out what they would do different in the future.

I have to tell you, this rings true in my experience as well. I can recall two specific customers that I have worked with (at different times). Both of them escalated up to me, and went into the meetings looking for their pound of flesh. When we went into the meetings we did not get defensive, or deny the situations. Quite the contrary, we laid out exactly what the issue was, and why. We set realistic expectations for where things could go from here, and how we would help to get them there. Furthermore, we let them know that they were important enough to us that if what we had laid out was not a sufficient resolution, that we would work closely with them to find a vendor who could fulfill those needs.

Both companies are still customers of our, and we have very strong relationships with them both.

A number of years ago, I invited Steve Spencer to a lunch with former co-workers. At lunch we proceeded to do the usual catching up, talking about old times, and general talking about things that Steve had no connection with.

During the course of the lunch, a former co-worker and friend of mine made a genuine effort to get to know Steve, who was the odd person out in this environment. This co-worker wasn’t looking for a job, and didn’t know Steve from anyone else on the street; but she “advertised” that she was a nice person, and that she cared. A year later, when we had an opening for her skillset, not only did Steve ask her to interview, but she was hired for the position.

A few weeks ago, I was getting in an elevator with two co-workers, and there were two people already waiting for the elevator. These two people looked at the three of us, at each-other, and immediately turned to walk for the stairs. The elevator in question isn’t small. What were they accidentally advertising?

What I believe this all boils down to is that personally, professionally, and for the companies we work for, we are always advertising.

The person you shake hands with at the next Utah Tech Spotlight may be the next person you’re asking for information. They may be the person you’re suddenly asking for a deal on a new website you’d need built. They may be your next employer, or your next employee. Outside of a business setting the next acquaintance who asks you what you do may be looking to contract with just the sort of company you work for.

The fact of the matter is that people everywhere are looking for a personal connection. These connections lead to which businesses people spend money with, who is interviewed for the job opening at their work, or which family owned restaurant down the street they visit. One local tech company jumps to mind that values these connections so highly, that they only hire by referral.

Each of these connections is formed from the personal advertising between individuals. Would you recommend the person who treated you poorly at a previous job? The restaurant with the server that dumped water on you and didn’t care? The business with the account rep that dropped your project on the floor and stomped on it?

When these personal connections are tapped, what will others remember about you?

Okay, so you have a product. You have a brand you want to convey, and you want to make sure you do it in a way that people will respond to. When looking at your long term strategy for enforcing your brand, it is important to look at all three of the C’s and make sure they are in line:

1- Content. Is it enforcing the brand and message you want?
2- Consumption. How are you going to get people to see it?
3- Credibility. Do people believe that they will get what they are looking for.

For this post we will focus specifically on Credibility. The first step to getting people to trust that you or your products can deliver what they are looking for is to understand who your target customers are (and are not), and what you want them to expect from you. This will obviously be very different if you are clothing or a soda that want its customers to believe it will make them seem younger and cooler than it is if you are trying to convince people that your router is more secure than anyone else’s. But there are similarities.

Look to who or what your customer base already listens to and trusts. This is known as the “guru method.” Find someone or something that is already trusted in regards to the message you are sending. Then find ways to leverage them to get your message out. This is actually easier than it might sound. There are a few items to look for:

1- Customers. The lowest hanging fruit could be your current customers. If they are recognized as being very hip, or very security conscious, or in any way synergistic with the brand you are trying to convey, then you should ask them if you can get quotes from them for your web site and other materials. Perhaps they will let you put their logo on your site. They may even be willing to help with a white paper, or even a commercial.

2- People already trusted. If there are individuals who are trusted in your space, then find ways to opt them into your message. This might mean hiring someone for a quote or a commercial, but not necessarily. Perhaps you can get quotes from articles written by the person which enforce your message. Try to get permission to quote these, and use them in your messaging to support what you are saying.

If your product is truly innovative in your space, try to opt in same of the more vocal, visible guru’s. Offer them incentives such as advisory board seats and compensation if needed. Go to them humbly, ask their adivce, and follow up with them often to build a relationship. That way they feel opted into what you are doing, and they will want to tell others about it.

3- Blogs. Find out who is trusted in the space. Comment on their blogs. this will make you visible in the space, and create links to your site and blogs in turn which brings you credibility (and SEO.) Link to Blogs of trusted people. If they see your name keep popping up they will get curious who you are. If they write about you or link to you this can be a huge asset.

4- Speak. Try to get on panels at events for the space you are in. Simply being part of a panel implies your credibility (assuming you don’t make an idiot of yourself.) Be vocal in breakout sessions.

5- Stumble. If you’re not aware of StumbleUpon you should be.

6- Deliver. I cannot tell you how may times I have displaced competitors due to missed timelines. Many times it’s not even because the new timelines are unreasonable. It’s because they did not deliver what they promised. This breaks down trust and credibility. Ask yourself this: would you hire an applicant if you knew they had lied to you? I wouldn’t.