The NFL has announced
that it wants football fans
not to record, blog
or post on twitter about games.
Yeah, good luck with that.
You can’t stop progress.
There’s a reason why
that phrase is a cliché.
It is because it is true.
If your plan for success
means changing customer behavior,
you’re going to fail.
Work with customer behavior.
Figure out how to profit from it.
Change your product
rather than your customer.
I unintentionally posted
a controversial piece of writing
to a non-business blog yesterday.
I spent the entire day
managing the fallout from this post.
I didn’t do much else
and because I posted it for fun,
I didn’t benefit from it.
One of my loved ones is a drama queen.
She spends her whole day
in crisis mode,
either creating one
or managing one.
She barely does the job
she is paid to do.
She seldom finishes a project.
Drama intentionally created
and funneled into constructive areas
(promoting a cause
or launching a product
or creating entertainment people want to see)
is wonderful.
It can be powerful.
It can change the world.
Drama created simply
for the drama
is work.
It is distracting.
It can prevent you
from changing the world
the way you want it to.
Manage the drama.
Everyone is an expert in something
so when I hear someone is an expert
with no qualifier behind it,
I ignore the statement.
When I hear someone is an expert
in a large field,
I ignore the statement
because an expert in a large field
is pretty darn close to being a generalist.
When I hear someone is an expert
in a teeny, tiny field,
I sit up and take notice,
especially if it is a field
I need an expert in.
THAT means something.
Another designation that means
something
is, as Scott Ginsberg states,
a leader.
Again, the tighter the niche,
the more powerful that statement is.
Be a leader, be an expert
but be specific.
Pricing is part of the customer promise.
For X dollars,
the customer is promised to received
Y product.
Pricing errors happen.
Normally, the company tries to wiggle out
of honoring the incorrectly advertised pricing.
They break their promise.
This has the customer doubting
all other promises.
It erodes trust.
The rare time, however,
a company will stand by their promise,
even if it,
as was the case with
the Crowne Plaza’s one cent rooms in Venice,
costs them $127,000 (U.S.).
This does the opposite.
It builds trust.
I know if I book with the Crowne Plaza,
they won’t give my room away
(as happens with other hotels)
or switch rates at the last minute.
They keep their word.
This is rare.
So rare that when a company does it,
it makes international news.
Should you use current events in marketing?
Yes and no.
Yes, if the medium has a quick turn around
for changes.
Grounding a marketing message
with an appropriate current event
makes the message more relevant,
more emotional.
No, if it costs too much money
or time
to change the marketing message.
What is popular today
might not be popular or even positive
three months from now.
For example…
I write my novels so they should still be relevant
five years from now.
It takes me three years for my novels to be published
and then I have at least two years to sell them.
I don’t use current references.
I keep technology vague.
If my hero and heroine see a movie,
it is usually a classic.
My short stories on my blog are different.
I write them a day or two ahead of the post date.
I expect them to be read immediately
and then forgotten.
I can refer to current events.
I can make the stories timely.
In my current story,
the hero and heroine make a date to see
The Time Traveler’s Wife.
There are references to Twilight
and current fashions.
Use current events carefully.
I’ve entered the Eppies
(eBook awards)
and they’ve posted the list of entries online.
I see the entries are a little light.
Yikes.
So what I’ve been doing
is promoting the heck out of the award,
recruiting new entries.
A buddy asked why I would want more competition.
My reply was…
an award everyone has heard of
is worth more
than an award no one has heard of.
Plus I truly believe that Invisible, my novel,
is a great enough book
that it will final
regardless of the competition.
I want the books I final with
to be so damn good,
my novel gets extra press because of it.
If you have the best product out there
(and if you don’t, why are you in business?)
then you shouldn’t worry
how much competition you have.
I’ve blogged here
(well, first on Road To Forbes)
every day for the past four years.
Some days, frankly,
I don’t feel like posting.
I’ll be knee deep in another project
and find it challenging
to focus on anything else
including a 100 word blog post.
But I do post.
Why?
Because I want to be your early morning habit.
Something you can count on.
Something that is a constant
in a changing world.
Which leads me to Twitter.
Twitter was down for a couple days
(I couldn’t post to Twitter
though some other people could).
Twitter, for me, was a habit.
I’d log onto it
when I needed to check the latest news
or send out a quick note to readers
or chat with a friend.
After only two days down,
it was no longer a habit.
I had other sources for news.
I emailed friends.
I asked a question on one of my blogs
to get reader feedback.
Think of that
the next time you…
…take your blog offline for maintenance
…renovate your restaurant
…go on vacation
An author
complained to me
that she never wins any awards
even though her books are wonderful.
She’s right.
Her books ARE wonderful.
Unfortunately she is not.
Or at least she isn’t perceived as wonderful.
Awards,
especially those that
can be traced to the manufacturer,
are popularity contests.
And they should be.
By choosing the product (book),
the committee/judges/whoever
are choosing the manufacturer (author) to represent that award.
Until the next recipient is chosen,
they will be working closely with that manufacturer.
I don’t enter any awards
the judges don’t want me to win.
I don’t enter an award
that, in the past,
has only been given to large press authors
no matter how good my small press book is.
I campaign during awards season
to prove to judges
that I CAN represent them properly.
And when I’m given an award
or even a nomination,
I represent that award.
I was once on a development team
for a product
targeting men in their early 20’s.
I was the only woman.
I knew I was at a disadvantage
so I researched my ass off,
ensuring that I was locked down
on that demographic.
Turns out,
that disadvantage was an advantage.
My male coworkers approached the launch
with a
‘I’m male, if I like it then our target will like it’
attitude.
The thing is…
they weren’t the demographic.
They were older.
They were better educated.
They weren’t ‘average.’
I ended up challenging their perceptions.
That’s why when I hear
‘only women should market to women’,
I groan.
A man with no personal bias,
relying on research and study,
can out market a lazy female marketer any day.
Don’t assume you know all about your target market
just because you’re the same gender.
Rapper Wale is very vocal
about ensuring his name is pronounced correctly.
It is Wahh-lay, not Whale.
Good luck with that.
Brands today grow by word of mouth.
That means fans need to remember the word
AND get it out of their mouths.
No one is going to risk
looking like an idiot
by repeating a name or brand
they may be mispronouncing.
Wale is a made up name.
The rapper has a choice.
He can accept the average person’s pronunciation
of his made up name
or
he can fight it
and slow the spread of his brand.
Looks like he is choosing the latter.
BTW…
Kimber Chin is also a made up name.
It is a part of my very complicated
and often mispronounced real name.
Readers remember my brand name.
I have uncles who can’t remember my real name.