Category: Marketing

The Difference Between Cars and Marketing Departments

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Cars:
In order to keep it running smoothly you should perform regular maintenance and look for potential problems.

Marketing:
In order to keep it running smoothly you should perform regular maintenance and look for potential problems.

Cars:
You can buy a flashy car but it won’t necessarily get you to  your destination faster.

Marketing:
You can spend a ton of money and not sell any more units or create any more awareness.

The difference?

A car that’s neglected and mistreated will eventually stop working. Not only that, but the manner in which it stops working will point to what is wrong with the car. This isn’t the case with marketing departments. A department that neglects to reflect can still function, plowing ahead for years on bald tires and a rusty frame without even a hint that things could be better. Digital marketing has provided many ways to measure performance of campaigns and tools. There are also still great ways to track print and video campaigns too (hint: steal from direct marketers). ROI is proof you are really great at what  you do, or that you need to refine your process. It’s hard to know how far you’ve gone (and to prove how far you’ve come) when you’re odometer hasn’t moved since day one.

Gift Wrap

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Preparing for the upcoming holiday, I realized how poor my wrapping skills are. For a moment I thought that maybe I should take my gifts to the mall and have them wrapped by a pro. Then I thought about how my friends and family would react to me telling them that. I think they would have been disappointed.

Here’s why: Giving a gift isn’t just about the material transaction. It’s about the emotional transaction.

A gift says that you took the time out of your day to focus on that one person. The gift wrap shows that not only did you spend money, but you spent more time and more effort (to at least try) to make the present look nice.Taking the easy way out and having someone else wrap the present, shows an unwillingness to spend that extra time and effort.

In a competitive market where the product life cycle is shortening by the minute, the only thing you have to offer is gift wrap.

What can you do to let your customers know that you’re focused on them?

Lessons From the Sock Drawer

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You start out with the best intentions. Everything is in order. Everything has a reason for being there. But somewhere down the road, it happens. You stop getting the same results. Sometimes you take out more than you put in. Sometimes you add new things in to the mix without taking out the old.

At some point, things start getting a little out of line. No worries though, you always seem to find what you’re looking for, it just takes a little more time. Fast forward a little bit. Soon, you can only find one pair that matches and one of them has a hole in it. But it’s 6:58 and you have to be out the door by 7 so you take what you can find and rush out the door. Everything was so orderly at one time and now it’s a wreck. How did this happen?

Sound familiar? Is your sock drawer a mess? Don’t keep adding to an already cluttered agenda. If something needs added, see how it fits in with earlier plans. Does it replace something you already do? Are you (or somebody else)  already doing it and don’t know it?Are you doing some things just because you’ve always done them?

Often this is the case. If we keep adding responsibilities and initiatives without regard for prior objectives, it’s easy to get off track. If this new initiative truly is more useful than the old one, figure out how to effectively combine them. Or, better yet, get rid of the old one. If you  keep your agenda focused, it’s easier to focus on your agenda.

Four Ways to Keep Projects in Motion

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As Newton’s first law states:

An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Ever feel like you are continually being acted upon by unbalanced forces? While trying to overcome the unbalanced forces is probably another (series) of blog posts. I would recommend that each of us do our best to keep the project rolling. How do we do so?

  • Sum it up:
    Projects often get bogged down when people aren’t sure what they are expected to deliver in the next phase. End each meeting or call with a wrap up that details specifically what was decided and who is responsible for handling each deliverable. This is often relegated to the meeting minutes but it’s important to reinforce what’s been decided before the meeting ends. This gives everyone involved the chance to clarify the goals one last time, something we may be unwilling to do if we are simply e-mailed a meeting summary.
  • Check up:
    If you’re worried about a project and haven’t heard anything on it, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Just make sure to come across as helpful, not as a dictator. This can also be achieved by building a project time line with regular update intervals. Don’t forget to give credit where it’s due!
  • Keep it moving:
    We’ve all been stuck behind the car driving a little too slow and it’s always amazing to see the trail of cars that piles up in the rear view mirror. Don’t be the project roadblock. Respond to inquiries in a timely, organized manner. Alan Weiss, adheres to a two hour rule.
  • Keep it moving (forward):
    Keep the project moving forward, don’t get bogged down with endless details  and re-dos. Once something is done, put a stake in the ground and move forward while keeping your goals, quality, and the customer in mind. This gives the project momentum and gives those involved a sense of accomplishment.  Motion is good, but direction is a key component, otherwise you’ll end up where you started, just more tired.

Does It Make Sense?

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So you’ve just finished planning a brand new direct mail (or e-mail, facebook, twitter) campaign. The files are on your desktop, ready to be shipped to the printer along with the carefully (or in most cases – not-so-carefully) crafted list of addresses. All you have to do is hit Send. But wait. Before you do that, take a last look at what’s been created. If you’re in a large company, chances are it went through the ringer more than once and changed more than a lot. “But Matt, everybody signed off on this. It took us a long time to get it approved. We need to get this done yesterday.”

For everybody out there that has ever received a piece of marketing collateral they didn’t need, want, or understand; for every marketing professional out there striving to build respected and dignified brands.  I beg you to take one last look at that campaign. Sure it (might still) make sense to you and your colleagues but does it speak to your audience? Does it make them thankful they took the time to pick it up? Can you fulfill the promises made? If not, maybe the most important thing isn’t getting it done. No, what’s really important is what you do right now. *Hint it doesn’t involve the Send button.

A Quick Way to Improve Your Reputation

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I’m reading a book called Getting Started in Consulting right now and Alan Weiss brings up a simple way to improve your standing with clients. When people call or email you, get back to them within 3 hours. Don’t just make this a guideline, make it a foundational rule and promote it as such.

Think about how nice it feels when you leave someone a message (or email) and they get back to you with an answer very quickly. You feel like this person/firm is well-informed and capable of producing results. Surely, there will come times when an answer can’t be given right away but you can still keep your promise by acknowledging the request, restating what you believe they need, and stating what you will be doing to meet that need.

Lose What You Know (or at least give it a long leash)

MattLeave a Comment on Lose What You Know (or at least give it a long leash)

As we progress through our lives and careers it’s easy to get stuck in the same thought patterns and procedures. I encourage you to stop every once in a while. The next time you find yourself in a meeting and someone brings up a weird idea, give it a chance. It may not work on the whole but there may be pieces in there that can help you improve some aspect of your game. At the very least, you’re showing your co-workers that you appreciate and respect their contributions.

The bottom line is that things change. Ideas become outdated. And with technology driving change every day, process can quickly become obsolete. Take the time to examine new ideas or your competition will.

 

Just Be Better

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Just got done reading Adobe’s clever new ad re: Apple. How much energy does your company spend trying to keep others from copying you? How much time do you spend trying to let good leads in while keeping the bad (competitors) from peaking in?

My advice is to take that time and invest in making your product better. Talk to your existing customers. Talk to potential customers. Talk to people who’ve never heard of you. Explore promising solutions in other industries and find new ideas. Don’t engage in a feature war. Features can be copied. That’s how the game is played. The trick is to change the game with innovation.

in an open market, the best products will win in the end – and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.

Chuck Geschke and John Warnock Adobe Founders

Don’t worry about what your competition might do. Just be better than it.

It’s Not About What You Want

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As marketers it can be relatively easy to get sucked out of reality into the dream world where our company offers everything WE could ever want it to. Everything WE offer is cutting edge, revolutionary, and safer than ever, even if that’s not necessarily true. Problem is, WE don’t matter. What matters is providing, to quote McCann Erickson’s enduring slogan, ‘Truth well told’.

The moment marketing collateral begins to edge away from truth,  brand equity begins to chip away. And when people can’t believe what you say, whatever you do say starts to matter less. In the age of social media, brands can’t afford to be disingenuous.

So the next time you’re thinking about rounding the corners to make your brand look good. Think about the last time you bought a product that was grossly overstating its potential and how you felt about that brand.

You don’t have to exaggerate to be successful. You just have to concentrate on finding real benefits. Real benefits beat unmet expectations every time.