An author friend of mine may be brilliant at writing
but when it comes to public speaking,
she’s a mess.
She’s shy and can’t think on her feet
and…
She gives her first workshop next year.
Why?
Because she was told that could be a great way
to build her readership.
Doesn’t make sense… for her.
There are plenty of different ways
to market any product.
Why use a route she hates?
Why associate that negativity
with her feel good novels?
Mike Santoro has a great post on
when to use direct mail and when to use email.
Email, he points out, is permission based marketing.
We get so much email that
if we don’t know the sender,
we delete the message in seconds
without opening it.
With direct mail, however,
we have to touch the message
(even if it is to move it from mailbox to garbage can).
And there is less of it.
We’re more likely to read direct mail from strangers.
It is that busy time of year again and
in order to find spare minutes to spend with family,
many of us are pushing off less critical projects.
Marketing is NOT a less critical project.
Marketing helps with sales and
sales are priority one in a business.
So how to find time?
Colleen Wainwright, aka The Communicatrix,
posts about her top five
including my personal favorite, the postcard.
Postcards can be hand written quickly,
make a visual impact, and
cost less to mail.
Everyone has time to send at least one postcard a day.
Have you sent yours?
Leo Babauta of Zen Habits has signed
up 21,000 plus subscribers in 6 months.
By writing good content and guest posting.
Yes, using only these two strategies.
How is this possible?
Guest posting is extremely powerful.
Not only is the blogger reaching new readers but,
by guest posting, the host gives the guest blogger
her seal of approval,
setting him up as an expert.
Using the guest strategy is not limited to online.
Print media is always on the look out for
solid guest quotes also.
Although spam may irritate customers
in the long run,
in the short run, it is effective.
And it is inexpensive to use.
However, according to The Guerrilla Marketing Association,
personalizing the emails works even better.
“Personalized emails generated 42.7%
more click-throughs on average
to the web copy than non-personalized email.
Personalized emails generated 403%
more sales on average than
non-personalized emails.
Personalized emails generated 42.8%
fewer unsubscribes on average than
non-personalized emails.”
Take the extra step and
personalize.
This applies to traditional emails also.
Want action?
Add a name.
It cost $135,000 to create
the Dove Evolution ad,
a 74 second video spot tranforming
a normal woman into a model.
It was launched on YouTube,
picked up by talkshows, and
ended up granting Dove an estimated
$150 million in free advertising.
The secret behind the success?
Nancy Vonk,
half of the creative team at Ogilvy & Mather
responsible for the ad
(Janet Kestin being the other co-chief creative officer),
said
(in the September issue of Financial Post Business),
it was to “find people who give a shit
and let them tell others.”
You want a successful product.
Find people who give a shit.
If you can’t find them,
your product isn’t going to be a success.
The biggest lesson I learned this Halloween
was that teens still appreciate the power of free.
Knocking on doors,
dressed in a costume, and
asking for candy is embarrassing
for the average teen boy.
The power of free,
even a small free item
(30 cents worth of candy),
overcame this embarrassment,
making this demographic
over 50% of my trick or treaters.
The first group commented on the quality of candy
and after that (likely due to the cellphones each boy had)
the waves of teens came.
So don’t think of this group as spoiled
and unwilling to appreciate free.
The chain Just Pizza
is an example of how NOT
to name a business venture.
The intention was good.
Capture a niche and hold on.
Except that tastes evolved.
Or the company needed to grow faster
than the category.
Or…
Just Pizza is now not just pizza.
Its salads and subs and wings.
And the name is a constant reminder
of the short sightedness of the founders.
Build flexibility into your business name.
What interested me about the Madrid Masters
using models as ball girls
wasn’t the debate over whether or not
that was the right image for professional tennis.
It was the idea of turning something
that was usually invisible to the customer
into a WOW.
How many of us notice the ball girls or boys
during tennis games?
Not many.
But at the Madrid Masters,
we do.
What aspects of your product
are customers not seeing?
How can you turn them into a WOW?
Saw a great spot promoting California last night.
The playful commercial “Work”
grabbed my interest, entertained,
educated, and
left me with a deep desire to re-visit the State.
There is only one thing holding me back…
That is one of the issues with marketing.
You can come up with a great promotion,
implement it at the perfect time
to the perfect target, and
have an incident undermine all that planning.
Luck does play a factor.