Marketing: The Exact Right Product to the Exact Right Target Market Using the Exact Right Media at the Exact Right Time.
Steve Miller's thoughts, ideas, and Ramblings.
Since I always want to ride on the coattails of my successful friends, I called Bob and interviewed him about his new book. He shared some awesome tips for salespeople, marketers, and general business people alike. You can listen to my interview or download the MP3 files below.
And be sure to go to Bob's website for his new book and download his first chapter for free by clicking this link: Go-Givers Sell More.
Left-click to listen now. Right-click to download:
Hey, Steve Miller, better known as "Kelly's Dad,"
back once again talking with you about marketing, and coming up with hopefully
some good marketing tips and ideas and strategies that are going to help you be
more successful. This particular blog this week is actually a result of last
week's blog. There were two things that happened from last week's blog.
The
first one was that I talked about Umpqua Bank and how they took over bank, my
old bank of many years. It was closed down by the FDIC and I talked about how
impressed I was when I did some research into them to find out how different
they try to be as a bank, you know. That's very cool and as a marketer, I
appreciate that very much.
Afterwards,
I received a tweet from the vice‑president of marketing... Senior vice‑president
of marketing? I'm not sure. And he asked me if it was OK if they could share
that video with their employees and so they put it on their intranet and all of
the Umpqua employees in all of their stores have been watching this thing.
And
it's really cool because I've been getting lots of nice comments from them and
especially from the employees at the store that is now my local store. They got
a big kick out of seeing one of their customers on the Umpqua intranet. So that
was pretty cool.
The
second thing that came out of this was that if you go back and look at the blog
from last week, you'll see that I received two comments from people and they
start out by saying that... they're very complimentary about the information that
I provide in my blogs and they really like to get that.
However,
they backed it up by saying that they do prefer to receive the information as
copy that it only takes them a couple of minutes to go through and they can get
the tips that I've got and then they can move on. Last week's tip was almost
ten minutes long and they had to wait till the end of the video to receive the
tip.
They
said, "You know, we really prefer to get this." And I thought,
"You know what? They have a very legitimate argument there, see."
But
the flipside is, I received over a dozen emails and separate comments from
people who said, "We loved the video. We love it when you do videos
because they're fun to watch, they're very entertaining, and you tell great
stories." OK?
So,
I'm left with a dilemma, aren't I? Who do I need to listen to? Should I listen
to the people who prefer the video, OK, and don't mind the stories, especially
if they're a little bit longer? Or do I listen to the people who say "No,
I want this in a short verse, OK? Bullet points are even better, OK?"
Here's
the deal ‑ I have to listen to them both. We all have to listen to our
customers.
Remember,
the name of my blog is Two Hat Marketing and the reason why
I call it Two Hat Marketing is because I'm trying to get you to
understand is you don't communicate with your customers and your prospects and
your target market in the way that YOU want to communicate with them. See, that
is the heuristic bias trap that we all fall into.
Now,
if you don't know what I'm talking about when I say "heuristic bias,"
then I recommend you go get my Marketing Stimulus Package. If you already have
it, go back and watch that particular video. If you don't have it, I recommend
you go subscribe to that, it's a heck of a deal.
A
lot of people have subscribed to that and I talk about heuristic bias, which is
a very powerful marketing tool and concept.
And
heuristic bias basically means that we don't see things as they are, we see
things as we are. And then what we tend to do, and especially in this
particular situation, what I'm talking about here, is that we tend to
communicate with people in the way that WE
prefer to be communicated with. Follow what I'm saying? OK?
So,
see, for example, if I preferred to do video, if I preferred to receive video
as the way I like to gather information or receive information, then it would
stand to reason that I would probably just do videos, OK?
Or
if I preferred to receive information in just short, two‑minute or two‑ or
three‑bullet point blurbs, then it would stand to reason that that's probably
how I would communicate with most of my marketplace. And both of those would be
a mistake.
I'm
going to say it again. I'm a broken record. The worst thing you can do is think
like a marketer. We have to take our marketer's hat off; we have to wear our
customer's hat or our prospect's hat. We have to talk to them in the way they
want us to talk to them.
And
so what that means is that if we're going to... Basically a couple of lessons
here. Lesson Number One is that if
we want to do a broad communication, like I'm doing in my blogs, OK, then I
have to vary the format. Because some of you prefer this, the video. Some of
you prefer to read the copy. And some of you actually also prefer to hear, you
prefer audio.
So
you'll notice that what I did this week was I've got the video in here, I've
also got the audio that some of you have downloaded as an MP3, as a podcast,
and you're listening to it as an audio. Some of you wanted to read this, and so
you are reading this because I had it transcribed and included that in there,
and I offered all three formats to you this week.
I'm
not going to do that every single week, but it's an example that we all need to
learn, is don't just communicate the way you want to communicate and be
communicated with. Communicate with the way your customers want to be
communicated with.
And
that leads to Lesson Number Two. When
you start to develop a personal relationship with people, you start making
personal contact with people, whether they are still prospects or they have
become customers, find out how they prefer to get information and then
communicate with them in that way, OK?
Our
job as marketers is to make it as easy for people to do business with us as
possible, all right? And one of the ways that we can do that is by
communicating with them in the way that they prefer to be communicated with.
That's what that's all about.
Now,
do you have comments about that? Do you agree or disagree with that? Well, then
go write down below in the comments section and pop in your comment.
And
again, if you didn't pick up that Marketing Stimulus Package, well, I'm putting
a pitch in for it right now. Heuristics is a huge deal. Go get it right now,
OK?
This
is Steve Miller, better known as "Kelly's Dad," and I'll see you on
the Internet.
My bank was shut down by the FDIC last week
and taken over by Umpqua Bank. Imagine my surprise when I went to their
website and learned a great marketing lesson!
An interesting discussion has popped up on Twitter. Dharmesh Shah started the whole thing on his excellent blog, HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog, when he posted Marketing Tips In Exactly Three Words (MktgTriplets). In his own words:
For some reason, I’ve been obsessed with trying to condense ideas into
as few words as possible. I find the wordsmithing oddly enjoyable... So, I thought I’d take a stab at distilling down some advice into
“marketing triplets” (marketing advice in exactly three words).
Shah listed 47 "triplets" of his own, including:
1) Spark a conversation.
2) Dissect your data.
3) Hire a writer.
4) Don’t spam people.
5) Say something useful.
6) Try something new.
Shah's followers on Twitter have added many, many more three-word phrases, so I started thinking about what I would add to the conversation. And instead of coming up with a list, I challenged myself to come up with just one triplet. What would be the one three-word phrase that I think would distill down as the essence of marketing? Here's what I came up with:
Fill The Funnel.
Why so important? Simple. Your list of customers and prospects is your most valuable asset. Without that list, nothing else happens or can happen. We all know the age-old adage, "Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door" is bogus. You can have the most amazing mouse trap ever designed, but if nobody knows about it, nothing happens. Your success is in the list.
Fill The Funnel.
Customers die. Customers go out of business (even long-time important customers, as so many of us, including me, experienced in 2009). Customers find a new supplier. Our bucket is always leaking and if we aren't regularly filling the funnel with new prospects, then we eventually get to experience that oh so positive word spin of Negative Growth (what idiot came up with THAT one?).
Fill The Funnel.
New start-ups scratch and claw to find customers. They pull out all the stops to get people to notice them; breaking the rules of the game so people will give them a chance to present their new product or service. Old, fat companies often don't. They ride the momentum of current customers keeping them alive and not taking the same risks that got them there in the first place.
Fill The Funnel.
Continually chasing new prospects forces you to stay fresh, interesting, and valuable to your marketplace. Every year brings new marketing and communication tools, so you must stay on top of learning. The same marketing strategy that brought you success five years ago is dull, boring, irrelevant, and worst of all, IGNORED today. In order to even be able to fill the funnel today, you've got to be none of those things.
This is going to be my new mantra for 2010 and a phrase that my clients and readers are going to hear from me over and over.
I
know it's been quite a while since my last post and I apologize. I let
myself get distracted by the holidays and totally dropped the ball on
my blog. I promise not to do that again. In fact, one of my 2010 goals
is to post on my blog a minimum of once a week. And now I've made that
goal a public promise, so I'd better keep it!
Enough groveling. Let's get into my first post of 2010.
My golf-stud daughter, Kelly,
and I just spent a day visiting Oregon State University. For those of
you who don't know, Kelly is rapidly climbing the ranks of top junior
golfers in the world. She's a junior in high school, but right now,
college coaches are starting to look at her class of 2011, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
During our visit, we met with Clete McLeod, the Assistant Sports Performance Coordinator for the Oregon
State athletic teams. Clete walked us through the massive workout
facility and explained the fitness program and philosophy for the
women's golf team. During the tour we dodged around a group of football
players pumping iron. The barbells sagged from the giant weights they
attached.
As we walked by one player curling what looked like about 1,000
pounds, Clete laughed. "This isn't an official workout for those guys,
so they're just pumping to impress the girls and bulk up their muscles.
The official workout programs aren't designed to build bulk. They're
designed to build strength - two different things."
Clete's comment made me think of a lot of marketers I've seen over the years. Many marketers get into a rut of creating marketing programs that look
impressive, but in the end, don't produce results. For example, it's
all too common for companies to think that a crowded booth and a fish
bowl filled with business cards at a trade show mean they've been effective. Six months later, management scratches their heads and wonders why they didn't get any measurable results. But then next year at the same trade show, they once again try to pack the booth and fill the fish bowl.
This doesn't happen just at trade shows. Marketers, who insist on
thinking like marketers, create gimmicky direct mail campaigns, "viral"
online videos, and email campaigns all designed to create awareness and
generate brand impressions. They "fill the fish bowl" and proudly pat
themselves on the back for a job well done. Then six months later,
everybody's wondering where the new business is.
As we rocket headlong into 2010, let's stop this nonsense of
"bulking up" and focus on "building strength," as Clete pointed out in
our visit:
Stop thinking quantity. Marketing's job is to fill the funnel
with quality leads that turn into sales. Period. The higher the quality
the easier the sale.
Stop thinking that awareness equates with sales. I've never heard
of a company who was able to cash a check on awareness. The goal is not
Brand Awareness. It's Brand Persuasion. There's a difference.
Stop thinking like a marketer. Too often marketers think abstractly and forget the ultimate objective of their work is to create sales. Period. Here's a novel idea - start thinking like the customer you're looking for.
Which brings me to what I think is bad advice from MarketingSherpa. I
have great respect for MarketingSherpa and think they do a good job
sharing marketing advice and tips. But not this time. In a recent post about social media
on their blog page, I was disappointed to read the following quote by Eric Erwin, EVP Marketing & Product Development, Wilton:
“The hardest thing for marketers is to turn over the brand experience to the community and let them define it.”
IMNSHO, this is a classic example of a marketer thinking like a marketer. The fact is marketers never have had control of the definition. The customer has always had 100% control.
The only thing we marketers have control over is our branding proposition. We don't control the experience nor the definition. We can develop a strategy of communicating a promise to our marketplace...a promise of what we will deliver to them...a promise of the type of experience they will have. If the prospect believes us, he/she might give us an opportunity to deliver on that promise. Then AFTER we deliver, the prospect will then decide whether we lived up to our promise or not. And this is not just a discussion of semantics.
The new customer, the market, and the community are constantly evaluating us based on the promises we made. Does the deliverable MATCH the expectations they've developed from hearing our promises? Does it EXCEED their expectations? Does it fall BENEATH expectations?
It makes no difference whether we communicate with our marketplace through traditional media or new media, we must understand this -- we've never had control over the definition of our brand experience.
Write in corporate-speak...feature a photo of your building...display a huge logo...talk to me like I'm a business, not a person. I've read pharmaceutical disclaimers more interesting.
2. It's not targeted
You think EVERYBODY needs your product/service? I'll have some of what you're smoking!
3. You get it.
You thought of it. You designed it. You built it. You live with it every day. I have no idea what it is.
4. You're inconsistent
Hey, I got your big mass-mailing today. Didn't I hear from you about six months ago, too?
5. You gave up too soon.
Man, I could really use your help on this new project. Why did you stop marketing to me six months ago?
6. It's not about you.
Yes, I can see by YOUR ads, website, emails, and letters that YOU are awesome. YOUR products and services are way cool. YOU'VE been in business for 193 years. I hear about YOU, YOU, YOU. But what about MY problems? MY challenges? MY business?
7. It's just like everybody else's.
You're different? Really? Then why are you using the same marketing tools that look exactly the same as all your competition? I guess I'll just go with the lowest price.
8. You're not asking me to do anything.
Yes, I'm aware of you. Is that it or is there something you want me to do?
9. Your evidence is weak or nonexistent.
Look, you're SUPPOSED to tell me how great you, your product, and your service are. Besides you, though, is there someone else who will tell me the same thing?
Have you ever noticed that every time you buy a new box of Tide, there's something NEW and DIFFERENT about it?
I don't remember where I first heard about this, but it's true. One time I buy it, it has 50% MORE DETERGENT (and MOUNTAIN SPRING FRESH SMELL!). The next time it's back to its original scent, but now has DAWN STAIN SCRUBBERS PLUS EXTRA PRE-TREATING ACTION. Other times it might include green specks for some type of SPECIAL CLEANING POWER, I'm sure.
And also notice how the box design changes. Colors are solid and vibrant on one, while the other has a sunburst effect.
The thinking behind this centers around a very common human behavior.
We get bored.
Imagine if Tide never changed. The box stays exactly the same. The detergent stays exactly the same. It cleans just fine, as well as any other detergent out there. But after you've bought the exact same box with the exact same detergent month after month for a couple of years, your eyes start to wander the next time you walk through the detergent aisle. And, just for a change of pace, you select Cheer.
Tide realized they could counteract that behavior by slightly changing box design and what we perceive to be inside. Now when we look at Tide, it's subtly different from all the other times we've bought it. It's still NEW!
